31. CHAPTER XXXI.
AT DELMONICO'S.
Lawrence Newt had watched with the warmest sympathy
the rapid development of the friendship between Amy Waring
and Hope Wayne. He aided it in every way. He called
in the assistance of Arthur Merlin, who was in some doubt
whether his devotion to his art would allow him to desert it
for a moment. But as the doubt only lasted while Lawrence
Newt was unfolding a plan he had of reading books aloud
with the ladies—and—in fact, a great many other praiseworthy
plans which all implied a constant meeting with Miss
Waring and Miss Wayne, Mr. Merlin did not delay his co-operation
in all Mr. Newt's efforts.
And so they met at Amy Waring's house very often and
pretended to read, and really did read, several books together
aloud. Ostensibly poetry was pursued at the meetings of
what Lawrence Newt called the Round Table.
“Why not? We have our King Arthur, and our Merlin
the Enchanter,” he said.
“A speech from Mr. Merlin,” cried Amy, gayly, while Hope
looked up from her work with encouraging, queenly eyes.
Arthur looked at them eagerly.
“Oh, Diana! Diana!” he thought, but did not say. That
was the only speech he made, and nobody heard it.
The meetings of the Round Table were devoted to poetry,
but of a very practical kind. It was pure romance, but without
any thing technically romantic. Mrs. Waring often sat
with the little party, and, as she worked, talked with Lawrence
Newt of earlier days—“days when you were not born,
dears,” she said, cheerfully, as if to appropriate Mr. Newt.
And whenever she made this kind of allusion Amy's work became
very intricate indeed, demanding her closest attention.
But Hope Wayne, remembering her first evening in his society,
raised her eyes again with curiosity, and as she did so
Lawrence smiled kindly and gravely, and his eyes hung upon
hers as if he saw again what he had thought never to see;
while Hope resolved that she would ask him under what circumstances
he had known Pinewood. But the opportunity
had not yet arrived. She did not wish to ask before the others.
There are some secrets that we involuntarily respect,
while we only know that they are secrets.
The more Arthur Merlin saw of Hope Wayne the more delighted
he was to think how impossible it was for him, in view
of his profound devotion to his art, to think of beautiful women
in any other light than that of picturesque subjects.
“Really, Mr. Newt,” Arthur said to him one evening as
they were dining together at Delmonico's—which was then in
William Street—“if I were to paint a picture of Diana when
she loved Endymion—a picture, by-the-by, which I intend to
paint—I should want to ask Miss Wayne to sit to me for the
principal figure. It is really remarkable what a subdued
splendor there is about her—Diana blushing, you know, as it
were—the moon delicately veiled in cloud. It would be superb,
I assure you.”
Lawrence Newt smiled—he often smiled—as he wiped his
mouth, and asked,
“Who would you ask to sit for Endymion?”
“Well, let me see,” replied Arthur, cheerfully, and pondering
as if to determine who was exactly the man. It was really
beautiful to see his exclusive enthusiasm for his art. “Let
me see. How would it do to paint an ideal figure for Endymion?”
“No, no,” said Lawrence Newt, laughing; “art must get
its ideal out of the real. I demand a good, solid, flesh-and-blood
Endymion.”
“I can't just think of any body,” replied Arthur Merlin,
musingly, looking upon the floor, and thinking so intently of
Hope, in order to image to himself a proper Endymion, that he
quite forgot to think of the candidates for that figure.
“How would my young friend Hal Battlebury answer?”
asked Lawrence Newt.
“Oh, not at all,” replied Arthur, promptly; “he's too light,
you know.”
“Well, let me see,” continued the other, “what do you
think of that young Southerner, Sligo Moultrie, who was at
Saratoga? I used to think he had some of the feeling for
Hope Wayne that Diana wanted in Endymion, and he has the
face for a picture.”
“Oh, he's not at all the person. He's much too dark, you
see,” answered Arthur, at once, with remarkable readiness.
“There's Alfred Dinks,” said Lawrence Newt, smiling.
“Pish!” said Arthur, conclusively.
“Really, I can not think of any body,” returned his companion,
with a mock gravity that Arthur probably did not
perceive. The young artist was evidently very closely occupied
with the composition of his picture. He half-closed his
eyes, as if he saw the canvas distinctly, and said,
“I should represent her just lighting upon the hill, you see,
with a rich, moist flush upon her face, a cold splendor just
melting into passion, half floating, as she comes, so softly superior,
so queenly scornful of all the world but him. Jove!
it would make a splendid picture!”
Lawrence Newt looked at his friend as he imagined the
condescending Diana. The artist's face was a little raised as
he spoke, as if he saw a stately vision. It was rapt in the intensity
of fancy, and Lawrence knew perfectly well that he
saw Hope Wayne's Endymion before him. But at the same
moment his eye fell upon his nephew Abel sitting with a
choice company of gay youths at another table. There was
instantly a mischievous twinkle in Lawrence Newt's eye.
“Eureka! I have Endymion.”
Arthur started and felt a half pang, as if Lawrence Newt
had suddenly told him of Miss Wayne's engagement. He
came instantly out of the clouds on Latmos, where he was
dreaming.
“What did you say?” asked he.
“Why, of course, how dull I am! Abel will be your Endymion,
if you can get him.”
“Who is Abel?” inquired Arthur.
“Why, my nephew, Abel Don Juan Pelham Newt, of Grand
Street, and Boniface Newt, Son, & Company, Dry Goods on
Commission, Esquire,” replied Lawrence Newt, with perfect
gravity.
Arthur looked at him bewildered.
“Don't you know my nephew, Abel Newt?”
“No, not personally. I've heard of him, of course.”
“Well, he's a very handsome young man; and though he be
dark, he may also be Endymion. Why not? Look at him;
there he sits. 'Tis the one just raising the glass to his lips.”
Lawrence Newt bent his head as he spoke toward the gay
revelers, who sat, half a dozen in number, and the oldest not
more than twenty-five, all dandies, all men of pleasure, at a
neighboring table spread with a profuse and costly feast. Abel
was the leader, and at the moment Arthur Merlin and Lawrence
Newt turned to look he was telling some anecdote to
which they all listened eagerly, while they sipped the red wine
of France, poured carefully from a bottle reclining in a basket,
and delicately coated with dust. Abel, with his glass in his
hand and the glittering smile in his eye, told the story with
careless grace, as if he were more amused with the listeners'
eagerness than with the anecdote itself. The extreme gayety
of his life was already rubbing the boyish bloom from his face,
[ILLUSTRATION]
A Search For Endymion.
[Description: 538EAF. Page 187. In-line Illustration. Image of two men seated at a table. There are drinks on the table. The men are looking at the crowd of people seated at other tables in the room.]
but it developed his peculiar beauty more strikingly by removing
that incongruous innocence which belongs to every boyish
countenance.
As he looked at him, Arthur Merlin was exceedingly impressed
by the air of reckless grace in his whole appearance,
which harmonized so entirely with his face. Lawrence Newt
watched his friend as the latter gazed at Abel. Lawrence always
saw a great deal whenever he looked any where. Perhaps
he perceived the secret dissatisfaction and feeling of sudden
alarm which, without any apparent reason, Arthur felt as
he looked at Abel.
But the longer Arthur Merlin looked at Abel the more curiously
perplexed he was. The feeling which, if he had not
been a painter so utterly devoted to his profession that all distractions
were impossible, might have been called a nascent
jealousy, was gradually merged in a half-consciousness that he
had somewhere seen Abel Newt before, but where, and under
what circumstances, he could not possibly remember. He
watched him steadily, puzzling himself to recall that face.
Suddenly he clapped his hand upon the table. Lawrence
Newt, who was looking at him, saw the perplexity of his expression
smooth itself away; while Arthur Merlin, with an
“oh!” of surprise, satisfaction, and alarm, exclaimed—and his
color changed—
“Why, it's Manfred in the Coliseum!”
Lawrence Newt was confounded. Was Arthur, then, not
deceiving himself, after all? Did he really take an interest
in all these people only as a painter, and think of them merely
as subjects for pictures?
Lawrence Newt was troubled. He had seen in Arthur with
delight what he supposed the unconscious beginnings of affection
for Hope Wayne. He had pleased himself in bringing
them together—of course Amy Waring must be present too
when he himself was, that any tête-à-tête which arose might
not be interrupted—and he had dreamed the most agreeable
dreams. He knew Hope—he knew Arthur—it was evidently
the hand of Heaven. He had even mentioned it confidentially
to Amy Waring, who was profoundly interested, and who
charitably did the same offices for Arthur with Hope Wayne
that Lawrence Newt did for the young candidates with her.
The conversation about the picture of Diana had only confirmed
Lawrence Newt in his conviction that Arthur Merlin
really loved Hope Wayne, whether he himself knew it or not.
And now was he all wrong, after all? Ridiculous! How
could he be?
He tried to persuade himself that he was not. But he could
not forget how persistently Arthur had spoken of Hope only
as a fine Diana; and how, after evidently being struck with
Abel Newt, he had merely exclaimed, with a kind of suppressed
excitement, as if he saw what a striking picture he
would make, “Manfred in the Coliseum!”
Lawrence Newt drank a glass of wine, thoughtfully. Then
he smiled inwardly.
“It is not the first time I have been mistaken,” thought he.
“I shall have to take Amy Waring's advice about it.”
As he and his friend passed the other table, on their way
out, Abel nodded to his uncle; and as Arthur Merlin looked
at him carefully, he was very sure that he saw the person
whose face so singularly resembled that of Manfred's in the
picture he had given Hope Wayne.
“I am all wrong,” thought Lawrence Newt, ruefully, as they
passed out into the street.
“Abel Newt, then, is Hope Wayne's somebody,” thought
Arthur Merlin, as he took his friend's arm.
