77. CHAPTER LXXVII.
FACE TO FACE.
“Signor Pittore! what brings a bird into the barn-yard?”
said Lawrence Newt as Arthur Merlin entered his office.
“The hope of some crumb of comfort.”
“Do you dip from your empyrean to the cold earth—from
the studio to a counting-room—to find comfort?” asked Lawrence
Newt, cheerfully.
Arthur Merlin looked only half sympathetic with his friend's
gayety. There was a wan air on his face, a piteous look in
his eyes, which touched Lawrence.
“Why, Arthur, what is it?”
“Do you remember what Diana said?” replied the painter.
“She said, `I am sure that that silly shepherd will not sleep
there forever. Never fear, he will wake up. Diana never
looks or loves for nothing.”'
Lawrence Newt gazed at him without speaking.
“Come,” said Arthur, with a feeble effort at fun, “you have
correspondence all over the world. What is the news from
Latmos? Has the silly shepherd waked up?”
“My dear Arthur,” said Mr. Newt, gravely, “I told you
long ago that he was dead to all that heavenly splendor.”
The two men gazed steadfastly at each other without speaking.
At length Arthur said, in a low voice,
“Dead?”
“Dead.”
As Lawrence Newt spoke the word the air far off and near
seemed to him to ring again with that pervasive murmur, sad,
soft, infinitely tender, “Good-by, Mr. Newt, good-by!”
But his eye was calm and his face cheerful.
“Arthur, sit down.”
The young man seated himself, and the older one drawing a
chair to the window, they sat with their backs to the outer
office and looked upon the ships.
“I am older than you, Arthur, and I am your friend. What
I am going to say to you I have no right to say, except in
your entire friendship.”
The young man's eyes glistened.
“Go on,” he said.
“When I first knew you I knew that you loved Hope
Wayne.”
A flush deepened upon Arthur's face, and his fingers played
idly upon the arm of the chair.
“I hoped that Hope Wayne would love you. I was sure
that she would. It never occurred to me that she could—
could—”
Arthur turned and looked at him.
“Could love any body else,” said Lawrence Newt, as his
eyes wandered dreamily among the vessels, as if the canvas
were the wings of his memory sailing far away.
“Suddenly, without the least suspicion on my part, I discovered
that she did love somebody else.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “so did I.”
“What could I do?” said the other, still abstractedly gazing;
“for I loved her.”
“You loved her?” cried Arthur Merlin, so suddenly and
loud that Thomas Tray looked up from his great red Russia
book and turned his head toward the inner office.
“Certainly I loved her,” replied Lawrence Newt, calmly,
and with tender sweetness; “and I had a right to, for I loved
her mother. Could I have had my way Hope Wayne's mother
would have been my wife.”
Arthur Merlin stole a glance at the face of his companion.
“I was a child and she was a child—a boy and a girl. It
was not to be. She married another man and died; but her
memory is forever sacred to me, and so is her daughter.”
To this astonishing revelation Arthur Merlin said nothing.
His fingers still played idly on the chair, and his eyes, like the
eyes of Lawrence, looked out upon the river. Every thing in
Lawrence Newt's conduct was at once explained; and the
poor artist was ready to curse his absurd folly in making his
friend involuntarily sit for Endymion. Lawrence Newt knew
his friend's thoughts.
“Arthur,” he said, in a low voice, “did I not say that, if
Endymion were not dead, it would be impossible not to awake
and love her? Do you not see that I was dead to her?”
“But does she know it?” asked the painter.
“I believe she does now,” was the slow answer. “But she
has not known it long.”
“Does Amy Waring know it?”
“No,” replied Lawrence Newt, quietly, “but she will to-night.”
The two men sat silently together for some time. The junior
partner came in, spoke to Arthur, wrote a little, and went
out again. Thomas Tray glanced up occasionally from his
great volume, and the melancholy eyes of Little Malacca
scarcely turned from the two figures which he watched from
his desk through the office windows. Venables was promoted
to be second to Thomas Tray on the very day that Gabriel
was admitted a junior partner. They were all aware that the
head of the house was engaged in some deeply interesting
conversation, and they learned from Little Malacca who the
stranger was.
The two men sat silently together, Lawrence Newt evidently
tranquilly waiting, Arthur Merlin vainly trying to say something
further.
“I wonder—” he began, at length, and stopped. A painful
expression of doubt clouded his face; but Lawrence
turned to him cheerfully, and said, in a frank, assuring tone,
“Arthur, speak out.”
“Well,” said the artist, with almost a girl's shyness in his
whole manner, “before you, at least, I can speak, and am not
ashamed. I want to know whether—you—think—”
He spoke very slowly, and stopped again. Before he resumed
he saw Lawrence Newt shake his head negatively.
“Why, what?” asked Arthur, quickly.
“I do not believe she ever will,” replied the other, as if the
artist had asked a question with his eyes. He spoke in a very
low, serious tone.
“Will what?” asked Arthur, his face burning with a bright
crimson flush.
Lawrence Newt waited a moment, to give his friend time
to recover, before he said,
“Shall I say what?”
Arthur also waited for a little while; then he said, sadly,
“No, it's no matter.”
He seemed to have grown older as he sat looking from the
window. His hands idly played no longer, but rested quietly
upon the chair. He shook his head slowly, and repeated, in
a tone that touched his friend to the heart,
“No—no—it's no matter.”
“But, Arthur, it's only my opinion,” said the other, kindly.
“And mine too,” replied the artist, with an inexpressible
sadness.
Lawrence Newt was silent. After a few moments Arthur
Merlin rose and shook his hand.
“Good-by!” he said. “We shall meet to-night.”
