The Tiger Lily

“You must be tired now,” he said hurriedly. “Rest for a while.”

“I’m not tired now,” she replied coldly, “if monsieur will continue.”

“I cannot paint to-day,” he said hoarsely. “You trouble me. What I have done is valueless.”

“I trouble monsieur?” she said coldly. “Am I not patient? – can I be more still?”

He made a mighty effort over self, and for the moment conquered. Seizing his brushes and palette, he began to paint once more, but in a reckless way, as if merely to keep himself occupied, but as he turned his eyes from his canvas from time to time to study the beautiful model, standing there in that imperious attitude, strange, mysterious, and weird, with the black enmasking above the graceful voluptuous figure, he lost more and more the self-command he had maintained.

For a few minutes he told himself that he was mistaken, that her eyes must be closed; but it was, he knew too well, a mere mental subterfuge: they were gleaming through that black network, and piercing him to the very soul.

He could bear it no longer, and again throwing down brushes and palette, he paced the room for a minute or two before turning to the marble figure standing so motionless before him.

“I tell you I cannot paint,” he cried angrily. “It is as if you were casting some spell over me. I must see your face. Why do you persist in this fancy? Your masked countenance takes off my attention. I beg – I insist – remove that veil.”

“I do not quite understand monsieur,” she said coldly. “He speaks in a language that is not mine, neither is it his. He confuses me. I am trying to be a patient model, but everything is wrong to-day. Will he tell me what I should do to give him satisfaction?”

“Take off that veil!” cried Dale.

The model caught up the cloak and flung it around her shoulders.

“Now, quick!” cried Dale excitedly, “that veil!”

“Monsieur is ill. Shall I call for help?”

“No, no, I am not ill. Once more I beg, I pray of you – take off that veil.”

“But monsieur is so strange – so unlike himself,” she cried, as, taking another step forward, Dale caught the hand which held the cloak in his.

“Now!” he cried wildly, with his eyes flashing, and trying to pierce the woollen mask – “that veil!” For a moment the warm soft hand clung to his convulsively, and the other rose with the arm in a graceful movement towards the shrouded face; but, as if angry with herself for being about to yield to his mad importunity, she snatched away the hand he held, and with the other thrust him back violently.

“It is infamous!” she cried, with her eyes flashing through the veil. “It is an insult. Monsieur, it is to the woman you love that you should speak those words;” and, with an imperious gesture, she stepped down from the dais as if it had been her throne, and with her face turned toward Dale, she walked with calm dignity, her head thrown back, and the folds of the cloak gathered round her, to the inner door, passed through, and for the first time, when it was closed, he heard the lock give a sharp snap as it was shot into the socket Dale stood motionless in the middle of the studio, his eyes bloodshot and his pulses throbbing heavily, unable for some little time either to think or move.

“Yes,” he muttered, as he grew calmer; “it was an insult, and she revenges herself upon me. An hour ago I was to her a chivalrous man in whose honour she could have faith. Now I am degraded in her eyes to the level of the brute, and – she trusts me no longer. Do I love this woman whose face I have never seen, or am I going mad?”

But he was alone now, and he grew more calm as the minutes glided by; and once more making a tremendous effort to command himself, he waited as patiently as he could for the opening of the door.

In a few minutes there was the sharp snap again of the lock being turned, the door was thrown open, and the tall dark figure swept out into the great studio with head erect and indignant mien.

She had to pass close by him to reach the farther door, but she looked straight before her, completely ignoring his presence till in excited tones he said – “One moment – pray stop.”

She had passed him, but she arrested her steps and half turned her head as a queen might, to listen to some suppliant who was about to offer his petition.

“Forgive me,” he panted. “I was not myself. You will forget all this. Do not let my madness drive you away.”

He was standing with his hands extended as if to seize her again, but she gathered her cloak tightly round her, so that he could see once more the curves and contour of the form he had transferred to canvas, as she passed on to the door, where she stopped and waited for him, according to his custom, to turn the key.

Her mute action and gesture dragged him to the door as if he were completely under her influence; and, throwing it open, he once more said pleadingly, and in a low deep voice which trembled from the emotion by which he was overcome —

“Forgive me: I was half mad.”

But she made no sign. Walking swiftly now, she passed out on to the landing, descended the staircase, and as he stood listening, he heard the light step and the rustling of her garments, till she reached the heavy front door, which was opened and closed with a heavy, dull, echoing sound.

But still Dale did not move. He stood as if bound there by the spell of which he had spoken, till all at once he uttered a faint cry, snatched his hat, and followed her out into the street.

Too late. There was no sign of the black cloaked figure, and, after hurrying in different directions for several minutes, he returned to his studio utterly crushed.

“Gone!” he muttered, as he threw himself into a chair. “I shall never see her more. Great heavens! Do I love this woman? Am I so vile?”

“Please, sir, may I come in?”

Dale started up and tried to look composed, as little Keren-Happuch entered with a note in her hand.

“One o’ them scented ones, sir,” said the girl. “It was in the letter-box. I found it two hours ago, but I did not like to bring it in.”

As soon as Dale was alone, his eyes fell upon the Contessa’s well-known hand, and, without opening the letter, he gazed at it, and recalled the past.

At last his lips parted, and he said thoughtfully —

“Loved me with an unholy love. It is retribution! She must have felt as I do now.”

Chapter Sixteen.

Job Pacey at Home

Pacey sat back in a shabby old chair, in a shabby room. The surroundings were poor and yet rich – the former applying to the furniture, the latter to the many clever little gems presented to him by his artist friends, many of whom were still poor as he, others high up on the steps leading to the temple of fame.

Joseph Pacey’s hair needed cutting, and his beard looked tangled and wild; and as he sat back in his slippers, he looked the very opposite of his vis-à-vis, the exquisitely neat, waxed-moustached, closely clipped young Frenchman who assisted briskly in the formation of the cloud of smoke which floated overhead by making and consuming cigarettes, what time the tenant of the shabby rooms nursed a huge meerschaum pipe, which he kept in a glow and replenished, as he would an ordinary fire, by putting a pinch of fresh fuel on the top from time to time.

“Humph!” he ejaculated, frowning. “And so you think he has got the feminine fever badly?”

“But you do say it funny, my friend,” said Leronde. “Why, of course. Toujours – always the same. As we say – ‘cherchez la femme.’ Vive la femme! But helas! How she do prove our ruin, and turn us as you say round your turn.”

There was silence for a few moments, during which, as he sat shaggy and frowning in the smoke, Pacey looked as if some magician were gradually turning his head into that of a lion.

“Seen him the last day or two?”

“Yes,” said Leronde, putting out his tongue and running the edge of a newly rolled cigarette paper along the moist tip. “I go to see him yesterday.”

“Well. What did he say?”

“And I ask him to come for an hour to the Vivarium to see the new ballet.”

“I asked you what he said.”

“He say – ‘Go to the devil.’”

“Well, did you go?”

“Yes. I come on here at once.”

Pacey glowered at him, but his French friend was innocent of any double entendre; and at that moment there was a sharp knock at the outer door – the well-worn oak on the staircase of Number 9 Bolt Inn.

“Aha! Vive la compagnie!” cried Leronde.

“Humph! Some one for money,” muttered Pacey. “Who can it be? Well, it doesn’t matter: I’ve got none. – Here, dandy,” he said aloud, “open the door. Shut the other first, and tell whoever it is that I cannot see him. Engaged – ill – anything you like.”

“Yes, I see. I am a fly,” said the young Frenchman, and, passing through the inner door, he closed it after him and opened the outer, to return in a minute with two cards.

“Who was it?” growled Pacey.

“A lady and gentleman. I told them you could not see any one, and they are gone.”

Pacey snatched the cards, glanced at them, uttered an ejaculation, and springing up, he threw down his pipe, and nearly did the same by his companion as he rushed to the door, passed out on to the landing, and began to run down the stairs.

“My faith, but he is a droll of a man,” muttered Leronde, pointing his moustache; “but I love him. Aha! always the woman. How he run as soon as he read the name. We are all alike, we men. What was it? Mees Torpe and – faith of a man – she was pretty. Mees! I thought it was her husband at first. H’m! The lover perhaps.”

The door flew open again and Pacey returned, showing in Cornel Thorpe and her brother.

“Here, Leronde,” cried Pacey excitedly. “Excuse me – very particular business, old fellow.”

“You wish me to go?” said Leronde stiffly, as he waited for an introduction.

“If you wouldn’t mind, and – look here,” continued Pacey, drawing him outside. “Don’t be hurt, old fellow – this is very particular. You saw the names on the cards?”

“Oh yes.”

“Not a word then to Armstrong.”

“I do not tiddle-taddle,” said Leronde stiffly. “That’s right. I trust you, old fellow. Come back at six, and we’ll go and dine in Soho.”

“But – the lady?”

“Bah! Nonsense, man! This is business. Au revoir – till six.”

Pacey hurried back and closed both doors, to find his visitors standing in the middle of the room, Cornel pale and anxious, and her brother stern, distant, and angry of eye.

“I did not expect you, Miss Thorpe,” cried Pacey warmly. “Pray sit down.”

“I think my sister and I can finish our interview without sitting down, sir. You are Mr Joseph Pacey?”

“I am,” said the artist, as coldly now as the speaker.

“And you wrote to my sister – ”

“Michael, dear, I will speak to Mr Pacey, please,” said Cornel, and she turned to the artist and held out her hand. “Thank you for writing to me, Mr Pacey,” she continued. “I thought it better, as my brother was coming to England, to accompany him and see you myself.”

She sank into the chair Pacey had placed for her, and after a contemptuous look round at the shabby surroundings, the doctor followed her example.

“My brother is angry, Mr Pacey; he is indignant on my behalf. He thinks me foolish and obstinate in coming here to see you, and that I am lowering myself, and not displaying proper pride.”

“I do,” said the doctor firmly.

“Out of his tender love for me, Mr Pacey,” Cornel continued, with her sweet pathetic voice seeming to ring and find an echo in the old artist’s heart; “but I felt it to be my duty to come to know the truth.”

“You have done wisely, madam,” said Pacey. “When I wrote you it was in the hope that you would come and save a man whom I have liked – there, call it sentimentality if you please – loved as a brother – I ought to say, I suppose, as a son.”

“Your letter, sir, suggested that my old schoolfellow – the man who was betrothed to my sister – has in some way gone wrong.”

Pacey bowed his head.

“Cornel, dear, you hear this. It is sufficient. We do not wish to pry into Armstrong Dale’s affairs. We know enough. Now, are you satisfied?”

“No. – Mr Pacey, your words have formed a bond between us greater than existed before. I have heard of you so often from Armstrong, and come to you as our friend, in obedience to your letter. I ask you then to keep nothing back, but to speak to me plainly. Please remember that I am an American girl. I think we are different from your ladies here. Not bolder, but firm, plain-spoken, honest and true. We feel a true shame as keenly as the proudest of your patrician maidens; but we crush down false, and that is why I come to you instead of writing to and making appeals to the man whom I have known from childhood – the man who was betrothed to me, and who loved me dearly, as I loved him, only so short a time ago. There, you see how simply and plainly I speak, the more so that I know you have Armstrong Dale’s welfare at heart.”

“God knows I have,” said Pacey fervently.

“Then tell me plainly, Mr Pacey.”

“Cornel!”

“I will speak, Michael,” she said gently. “His happiness and mine depend upon my knowing the truth. – Mr Pacey, I am waiting.”

Pacey gazed at her with his face full of reverence for the woman before whom he stood, but no words left his lips.

“You are silent,” she said calmly. “You fear to tell me the worst. He is not ill: you said so. He cannot be in want of money. Then it is as I gathered from your letter: he has been led into some terrible temptation.”

Pacey bowed his head gravely.

“Now, are you satisfied?” said Thorpe earnestly. “I knew that it was so.”

“And I clung so fondly to the hope that it was not,” said Cornel, gazing straight before her, and as if she were thinking aloud. Then, turning to Pacey – “He was becoming famous, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“Succeeding wonderfully with his art?”

“Grandly.”

“And now this has all come like a cloud,” sighed Cornel dreamily. Then again to Pacey, in spite of her brother’s frown, “Is she very beautiful?”

Pacey paused for a moment, and then said sadly – “Very beautiful.”

“And does she love him as he does her?”

“I fear so,” said Pacey at last.

Cornel drew a long and piteous sigh, and they saw the tears brimming in her eyes, run over, and trickle down her cheeks.

“Let us go, dear,” she said softly. “I was too happy for it to last. Forgive me: I felt that I must know – all. Good-bye, Mr Pacey,” she continued, holding out her hand, while her face was of a deadly white. “I am glad you wrote. You thought it would be best, but he must love her better than ever he loved me, and perhaps it is for his advancement.”

“It is for his ruin, I tell you,” cried Pacey fiercely.

“But you said she loved him. Is she not true and good?”

“Girl!” cried Pacey, with his brows knotted by the swelling veins, “can the devil who tempts a man in woman’s form be true and good?”

“Ah!”

Ejaculation as much as sigh, and accompanied by a wild look of horror. Then, with her manner completely changed, Cornel laid her hand upon Pacey’s arm.

“Who is this woman?” she said firmly.

Pacey compressed his lips, but the beautiful eyes fixed upon him forced the words to come, and in a low voice he muttered the Contessa’s name.

Then he stood looking at his visitor wonderingly, as, with her lips now white as if all the blood within them had fled to her heart, she said firmly —

“And the Conte?”

“Is a man of fashion – a dog – a scoundrel whom I could crush beneath my heel.”

“Cornel,” cried her brother firmly, “you have heard enough: you shall not degrade yourself by listening to these wretched details.”

“Yes, I have heard enough,” she said firmly; but she did not stir, only stood with her brows knit, gazing straight before her.

“Then now you will come back to the hotel,” cried the doctor eagerly.

“No: not yet,” she said, drawing herself up.

“Not yet?” cried Thorpe, in wonder at the firmness and determination she displayed.

“Not yet: I am going to see Armstrong Dale.”

“No,” cried Pacey excitedly. “You must not do that. I will see him and tell him you are here. It may bring him to his senses, and he will come to you.”

Cornel turned to him, smiling sadly.

“You tell me that he is slipping away into the gulf, and when I would go to hold out my hands to save him, you say, ‘Wait, and he will come to you!’”

“At any rate you cannot go,” cried Thorpe.

“Armstrong Dale is my affianced husband, and at heart, in his weakness and despair, he calls to me for help. I am going to him now.”

“And God speed your work!” cried Pacey excitedly, “for if ever angel came to help man in his sorest need, it is now.”

The next minute, without a word, Cornel Thorpe was walking alone down the old staircase to the street, while Pacey and her brother followed, as if they were in a dream.

Chapter Seventeen.

Another’s Love

Four days had passed, and Armstrong had not left his place, but waited, hoping against hope, and at last sinking into a wild state of despair.

“I must have been mad,” he said again and again. “One false step leads to another, and I am going downward rapidly enough now.”

He smiled bitterly as he sat with his head resting upon his hand, feeling that he had driven his beautiful model away for ever, and vainly asking himself how it could be that so mad a passion had sprung up within him for a woman whose face he had never seen.

Then all at once he sprang to his feet, with his eyes flashing as he listened eagerly, and then a strange look of triumph began to glow in his countenance. “I must be more guarded,” he said to himself, “or she will take flight again:” and catching up palette and brush, he made a pretence of painting as he waited with his back to the door for the entrance of her whose step was heard ascending the stairs in company with Keren-Happuch. Then he heard the girl’s voice, and his heart sank like lead in doubt, for he felt that the model would have come up without being shown.

But the next moment he was full of hope as the door was opened, closed, and he heard the familiar rustle of the drapery, and the step across the floor.

He did not turn, but stood there with his heart beating violently, and a wild desire bidding him turn round quickly and snatch the veil from his models face. He was a coward, he told himself, not to have done so before. What did her anger matter? Had she not come back – penitent – friendly —

His heart gave a great leap.

– Loving, for she laid her hand upon his shoulder, and he turned round with a smile of triumph, to drop palette and brushes and turn white as ashes.

“Cornel!”

“Yes, Armstrong. The world grows very small now. You wanted me, and I am here.”

“I – I wanted you?” he faltered, as she took a step or two back, and then stood gazing at him wistfully, with her hands clasped before her, and a look of love, pity, and despair in her eyes that stung him through and through.

“Yes, Armstrong, I heard that you were in great peril. We were children together. Armstrong – you wanted help – and – I have come.”

He sank into the nearest chair with a groan, and she advanced slowly and stood close to him.

“I have felt for weeks that there was something: your letters were so different. Then they became fewer; then they ceased. But I said you were busy, and I waited so patiently, Armstrong, till that message came.”

“What message?” he cried hoarsely.

“That which told me I ought to join Michael, and help you in this time of need.”

“Who – who wrote to you?” he cried.

“There is no need to hide his name. Your dearest friend, Mr Pacey.”

“The wretched meddler!”

“The true, honest gentleman you have always said he was, Armstrong. I have come from him now.”

“The cowardly hound!” muttered Dale.

“No; your truest and best friend. He wrote to me for your sake and mine, Armstrong, and I have come.”

“What for? – to treat me with scorn and contempt?” he cried angrily, snatching at a chance to speak; “to tell me that all is over between us? Why have you not brought your brother with you, to horsewhip me and add his insults to your upbraidings?”

“Michael is here,” – Dale started, and looked with a coward’s glance at the door – “he is in London, but it was not his duty to come to the man who is my betrothed. I came alone to ask you – if it is all true?”

He drew a hoarse breath, and then forced himself to speak brutally, to hide the shame and agony he felt.

“Yes,” he said roughly; “it is all true.”

She winced as if he had struck her, and there was silence for a few moments before she spoke again, and then in a curiously changed voice, from her agony of heart.

“No, no,” she whispered at last; “it cannot be true. It is a strange dream. I cannot – I will not believe it.”

He strove again and again to speak, but no words would come. He tried to speak gently and ask her to forgive him, but in vain; and at last, even more brutally than before, he cried —

“I tell you it is true! If you knew all this, how could you come?”

There was a pause before Cornel spoke again, and then she drew herself up with an imperious gesture, and her words came firmly and full of defiance of the world.

“I came because I heard the man I loved was beaten down and wounded in the fight of life, and I said – ‘What is it to me? – he loved me very dearly, and if he has been met by a strange temptation, and has fallen, my place is there. I will go to him, and remind him of the past, and point out again the forward way.’ Armstrong, that is why I have come.”

He groaned, and his voice was softened now, and half-choked by the agony and despair at his heart.

“Go back,” he said, “and forget me, Cornel; I am not the man you thought. I left you strong in my belief in self, ready for the fight, but your knight of truth and honour has turned out to be only a sorry pawn. I don’t ask you to forgive me: I only say, for your own sake, go, and forget that such a villain ever lived.”

“Then it is all true?” she said sternly.

“I don’t know what Joe Pacey has said,” he cried bitterly, as he gazed in the sweet womanly face before him, “but I make the only reparation that I can. I speak frankly, Cornel dear, and tell you that the worst he could say of me would not exceed the truth. Utterly unworthy – utterly base – I am not fit to touch your hand.”

As he spoke now in his excitement, he took a step toward her, and she drew back.

“Yes!” he cried bitterly; “you are right. Shrink from me and go.”

“No,” she said, after another pause, “I will not shrink from you; I will not upbraid; I will only say to you, Tear these scales from your eyes, and see, as Armstrong Dale, my old playfellow – brother – lover – used to see. Break from the entanglement, like the man you always were, and be yourself again.”

“No!” he groaned, “I am no longer master of myself. For God’s sake, go!”

“And leave you to this – caught in these toils, to struggle wildly for a time, and for what? – a life of misery and repentance? It is not true; you are too strong for this. Armstrong, for your own sake – for all at home – one brave effort. Pluck her from your heart.”

He looked at her sadly for a few moments, and then shook his head.

“Impossible!” he groaned. “It is too late.”

“No!” she cried excitedly; “even on the very edge there is time to drag you away. Armstrong – I cannot bear it – come with me, dearest. You loved me once; you made me care for you and think of you as all the world to me. This woman – she cannot love you as I do, dear. For I do love you with all my poor heart. Don’t quite break it, dear, for I forgive you everything, only come back with me now. Do you not hear me? I forgive you everything, and you will come.”

She staggered toward him with her arms open to clasp him to her breast, but he shrank away with a groan of despair.

“No,” he said; “it is too late – too late!”

She heaved a piteous sigh, and her hands fell to her sides. Then, with her head bent, she walked slowly to the door, passed out, and he heard her steps descending. A few moments later there were voices in the hall, followed by the heavy closing of the door, which seemed to shut him for ever from all that was good and true, alone with his despair as he turned to his canvas, where he gazed upon the form he had created, apparently the only memory of a mad passion which had crushed him to the earth.