22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE FINE ARTS.
The whole world of Saratoga congratulated Mrs. Dinks
upon her beautiful niece, Miss Wayne. Even old Mrs. Dagon
said to every body:
“How lovely she is! And to think she comes from Boston!
Where did she get her style? Fanny dear, I saw you
hugging — I beg your pardon, I mean waltzing with Mr.
Dinks.”
But when Hope Wayne danced there seemed to be nobody
else moving. She filled the hall with grace, and the heart of
the spectator with an indefinable longing. She carried strings
of bouquets. She made men happy by asking them to hold
some of her flowers while she danced; and then, when she returned
to take them, the gentlemen were steeped in such a
gush of sunny smiling that they stood bowing and grinning—
even the wisest—but felt as if the soft gush pushed them back
a little; for the beauty which allured them defended her like
a fiery halo.
It was understood that she was engaged to Mr. Alfred
Dinks, her cousin, who was already, or was to be, very rich.
But there was apparently nothing very marked in his devotion.
“It is so much better taste for young people who are engaged
not to make love in public,” said Mrs. Dinks, as she sat
in grand conclave of mammas and elderly ladies, who all understood
her to mean her son and niece, and entirely agreed
with her.
Meanwhile all the gentlemen who could find one of her
moments disengaged were walking, bowling, driving, riding,
chatting, sitting, with Miss Wayne. She smiled upon all, and
sat apart in her smiling. Some foolish young fellows tried to
flirt with her. When they had fully developed their intentions
she smiled full in their faces, not insultingly nor familiarly,
but with a soft superiority. The foolish young fellows
went down to light their cigars and drink their brandy and
water, feeling as if their faces had been rubbed upon an iceberg,
for not less lofty and pure were their thoughts of her,
and not less burning was their sense of her superb scorn.
But Arthur Merlin, the painter, who had come to pass a
few days at Saratoga on his way to Lake George, and whose
few days had expanded into the few weeks that Miss Wayne
had been there—Arthur Merlin, the painter, whose eyes were
accustomed not only to look, but to see, observed that Miss
Wayne was constantly doing something. It was dance, drive,
bowl, ride, walk incessantly. From the earliest hour to the
latest she was in the midst of people and excitement. She
gave herself scarcely time to sleep.
The painter was introduced to her, and became one of her
habitual attendants. Every morning after breakfast Hope
Wayne held a kind of court upon the piazza. All the young
men surrounded her and worshipped.
Arthur Merlin was intelligent and ingenuous. His imagination
gave a kind of airy grace to his conversation and manner.
Passionately interested in his art, he deserted its pursuit a
little only when the observation of life around him seemed to
him a study as interesting. He and Miss Wayne were sometimes
alone together; but although she was conscious of a
peculiar sympathy with his tastes and character, she avoided
him more than any of the other young men. Mrs. Dagon said
it was a pity Miss Wayne was so cold and haughty to the
poor painter. She thought that people might be taught their
places without cruelty.
Arthur Merlin constantly said to himself in a friendly way
that if he had been less in love with his art, or had not perceived
that Miss Wayne had a continual reserved thought, he
might have fallen in love with her. As it was, he liked her so
much that he cared for the society of no other lady. He read
Byron with her sometimes when they went in little parties to
the lake, and somehow he and Hope found themselves alone
under the trees in a secluded spot, and the book open in his
hand.
He also read to her one day a poem upon a cloud, so beautiful
that Hope Wayne's cheek flushed, and she asked, eagerly,
“Whose is that?”
“It is one of Shelley's, a friend of Byron's.”
“But how different!”
“Yes, they were different men. Listen to this.”
And the young man read the ode to a Sky-lark.
“How joyous it is!” said Hope; “but I feel the sadness.”
“Yes, I often feel that in people as well as in poems,” replied
Arthur, looking at her closely.
She colored a little—said that it was warm—and rose to go.
The cold black eyes of Miss Fanny Newt suddenly glittered
upon them.
“Will you go home with us, Miss Wayne?”
“Thank you, I am just coming;” and Hope passed into the
wood.
When Arthur Merlin was left alone he quietly lighted a cigar,
opened his port-folio and spread it before him, then sharpened
a pencil and began to sketch. But while he looked at the
[ILLUSTRATION]
The Artist In A Reverie.
[Description: 538EAF. Page 127. In-line Illustration. Image of a man sitting on a little stool under some trees. He holds a ciggarette in one hand and a paintbrush in the other. There is an open sketchbook in his lap.]
tree before him, and mechanically transferred it to the paper,
he puffed and meditated.
He saw that Hope Wayne was constantly with other people,
and yet he felt that she was a woman who would naturally
like her own society. He also saw that there was no person
then at Saratoga in whom she had such an interest that
she would prefer him to her own society.
And yet she was always seeking the distraction of other
people.
Puff—puff—puff.
Then there was something that made the society of her own
thoughts unpleasant—almost intolerable.
Mr. Arthur Merlin vigorously rubbed out with a piece of
stale bread a false line he had drawn.
What is that something—or some-bod-y?
He stopped sketching, and puffed for a long time.
As he returned at sunset Hope Wayne was standing upon
the piazza of the hotel.
“Have you been successful?” asked she, dawning upon him.
“You shall judge.”
He showed her his sketch of a tree-stump.
“Good; but a little careless,” she said.
“Do you draw, Miss Wayne?”
A curious light glimmered across her face, for she remembered
where she had last heard those words. She shrank a
little, almost imperceptibly, as if her eyes had been suddenly
dazzled. Then a little more distantly—not much more, but
Arthur had remarked every thing—she said:
“Yes, I draw a little. Good-evening.”
“Stop, please, Miss Wayne!” exclaimed Arthur, as he saw
that she was going. She turned and smiled — a smile that
seemed to him like starlight, it was so clear and cool and
dim.
“I have drawn this for you, Miss Wayne.”
She bent and took the sketch which he drew from his port-folio.
“It is Manfred in the Coliseum,” said he.
She glanced at it; but the smile faded entirely. Arthur
stared at her in astonishment as the blood slowly ebbed from
her cheeks, then streamed back again. The head of Manfred
was the head of Abel Newt. Hope Wayne looked from the
sketch to the artist, searching him with her eye to discover if
he knew what he was doing. Arthur was sincerely unconscious.
Hope Wayne dropped the paper almost involuntarily. It
floated into the road.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Merlin,” said she, making a step
to recover it.
He was before her, and handed it to her again.
“Thank you,” said she, quietly, and went in.
It was still twilight, and Arthur lighted a cigar and sat
down to a meditation. The result of it was clear enough.
“That head looks like somebody, and that somebody is
Hope Wayne's secret.” Puff—puff—puff.
“Where did I get that head?” He could not remember.
“Tut!” cried he, suddenly bringing his chair down upon its
legs with a force that knocked his cigar out of his mouth, “I
copied it from a head which Jim Greenidge has, and which he
says was one of his school-fellows.”
Meanwhile Hope Wayne had carefully locked the door of
her room. Then she hurriedly tore the sketch into the smallest
possible pieces, laid them in her hand, opened the window,
and whiffed them away into the dark.
