Part 10 (1/2)

Rowland frowned. ”For heaven's sake,” he said, ”don't play such dangerous games with your facility. If you have got facility, revere it, respect it, adore it, treasure it--don't speculate on it.” And he wondered what his companion, up to his knees in debt, would have done if there had been no good-natured Rowland Mallet to lend a helping hand.

But he did not formulate his curiosity audibly, and the contingency seemed not to have presented itself to Roderick's imagination. The young sculptor reverted to his late adventures again in the evening, and this time talked of them more objectively, as the phrase is; more as if they had been the adventures of another person. He related half a dozen droll things that had happened to him, and, as if his responsibility had been disengaged by all this free discussion, he laughed extravagantly at the memory of them. Rowland sat perfectly grave, on principle. Then Roderick began to talk of half a dozen statues that he had in his head, and set forth his design, with his usual vividness. Suddenly, as it was relevant, he declared that his Baden doings had not been altogether fruitless, for that the lady who had reminded Rowland of Madame de Crucheca.s.see was tremendously statuesque. Rowland at last said that it all might pa.s.s if he felt that he was really the wiser for it. ”By the wiser,” he added, ”I mean the stronger in purpose, in will.”

”Oh, don't talk about will!” Roderick answered, throwing back his head and looking at the stars. This conversation also took place in the open air, on the little island in the shooting Rhone where Jean-Jacques has a monument. ”The will, I believe, is the mystery of mysteries. Who can answer for his will? who can say beforehand that it 's strong? There are all kinds of indefinable currents moving to and fro between one's will and one's inclinations. People talk as if the two things were essentially distinct; on different sides of one's organism, like the heart and the liver. Mine, I know, are much nearer together. It all depends upon circ.u.mstances. I believe there is a certain group of circ.u.mstances possible for every man, in which his will is destined to snap like a dry twig.”

”My dear boy,” said Rowland, ”don't talk about the will being 'destined.' The will is destiny itself. That 's the way to look at it.”

”Look at it, my dear Rowland,” Roderick answered, ”as you find most comfortable. One conviction I have gathered from my summer's experience,” he went on--”it 's as well to look it frankly in the face--is that I possess an almost unlimited susceptibility to the influence of a beautiful woman.”

Rowland stared, then strolled away, softly whistling to himself. He was unwilling to admit even to himself that this speech had really the sinister meaning it seemed to have. In a few days the two young men made their way back to Italy, and lingered a while in Florence before going on to Rome. In Florence Roderick seemed to have won back his old innocence and his preference for the pleasures of study over any others.

Rowland began to think of the Baden episode as a bad dream, or at the worst as a mere sporadic piece of disorder, without roots in his companion's character. They pa.s.sed a fortnight looking at pictures and exploring for out the way bits of fresco and carving, and Roderick recovered all his earlier fervor of appreciation and comment. In Rome he went eagerly to work again, and finished in a month two or three small things he had left standing on his departure. He talked the most joyous nonsense about finding himself back in his old quarters. On the first Sunday afternoon following their return, on their going together to Saint Peter's, he delivered himself of a lyrical greeting to the great church and to the city in general, in a tone of voice so irrepressibly elevated that it rang through the nave in rather a scandalous fas.h.i.+on, and almost arrested a procession of canons who were marching across to the choir. He began to model a new statue--a female figure, of which he had said nothing to Rowland. It represented a woman, leaning lazily back in her chair, with her head drooping as if she were listening, a vague smile on her lips, and a pair of remarkably beautiful arms folded in her lap. With rather less softness of contour, it would have resembled the n.o.ble statue of Agrippina in the Capitol. Rowland looked at it and was not sure he liked it. ”Who is it? what does it mean?” he asked.

”Anything you please!” said Roderick, with a certain petulance. ”I call it A Reminiscence.”

Rowland then remembered that one of the Baden ladies had been ”statuesque,” and asked no more questions. This, after all, was a way of profiting by experience. A few days later he took his first ride of the season on the Campagna, and as, on his homeward way, he was pa.s.sing across the long shadow of a ruined tower, he perceived a small figure at a short distance, bent over a sketch-book. As he drew near, he recognized his friend Singleton. The honest little painter's face was scorched to flame-color by the light of southern suns, and borrowed an even deeper crimson from his gleeful greeting of his most appreciative patron. He was making a careful and charming little sketch. On Rowland's asking him how he had spent his summer, he gave an account of his wanderings which made poor Mallet sigh with a sense of more contrasts than one. He had not been out of Italy, but he had been delving deep into the picturesque heart of the lovely land, and gathering a wonderful store of subjects. He had rambled about among the unvisited villages of the Apennines, pencil in hand and knapsack on back, sleeping on straw and eating black bread and beans, but feasting on local color, rioting, as it were, on chiaroscuro, and laying up a treasure of pictorial observations. He took a devout satisfaction in his hard-earned wisdom and his happy frugality. Rowland went the next day, by appointment, to look at his sketches, and spent a whole morning turning them over.

Singleton talked more than he had ever done before, explained them all, and told some quaintly humorous anecdote about the production of each.

”Dear me, how I have chattered!” he said at last. ”I am afraid you had rather have looked at the things in peace and quiet. I did n't know I could talk so much. But somehow, I feel very happy; I feel as if I had improved.”

”That you have,” said Rowland. ”I doubt whether an artist ever pa.s.sed a more profitable three months. You must feel much more sure of yourself.”

Singleton looked for a long time with great intentness at a knot in the floor. ”Yes,” he said at last, in a fluttered tone, ”I feel much more sure of myself. I have got more facility!” And he lowered his voice as if he were communicating a secret which it took some courage to impart.

”I hardly like to say it, for fear I should after all be mistaken. But since it strikes you, perhaps it 's true. It 's a great happiness; I would not exchange it for a great deal of money.”

”Yes, I suppose it 's a great happiness,” said Rowland. ”I shall really think of you as living here in a state of scandalous bliss. I don't believe it 's good for an artist to be in such brutally high spirits.”

Singleton stared for a moment, as if he thought Rowland was in earnest; then suddenly fathoming the kindly jest, he walked about the room, scratching his head and laughing intensely to himself. ”And Mr. Hudson?”

he said, as Rowland was going; ”I hope he is well and happy.”

”He is very well,” said Rowland. ”He is back at work again.”

”Ah, there 's a man,” cried Singleton, ”who has taken his start once for all, and does n't need to stop and ask himself in fear and trembling every month or two whether he is advancing or not. When he stops, it 's to rest! And where did he spend his summer?”

”The greater part of it at Baden-Baden.”

”Ah, that 's in the Black Forest,” cried Singleton, with profound simplicity. ”They say you can make capital studies of trees there.”

”No doubt,” said Rowland, with a smile, laying an almost paternal hand on the little painter's yellow head. ”Unfortunately trees are not Roderick's line. Nevertheless, he tells me that at Baden he made some studies. Come when you can, by the way,” he added after a moment, ”to his studio, and tell me what you think of something he has lately begun.” Singleton declared that he would come delightedly, and Rowland left him to his work.

He met a number of his last winter's friends again, and called upon Madame Grandoni, upon Miss Blanchard, and upon Gloriani, shortly after their return. The ladies gave an excellent account of themselves.

Madame Grandoni had been taking sea-baths at Rimini, and Miss Blanchard painting wild flowers in the Tyrol. Her complexion was somewhat browned, which was very becoming, and her flowers were uncommonly pretty.

Gloriani had been in Paris and had come away in high good-humor, finding no one there, in the artist-world, cleverer than himself. He came in a few days to Roderick's studio, one afternoon when Rowland was present.

He examined the new statue with great deference, said it was very promising, and abstained, considerately, from irritating prophecies. But Rowland fancied he observed certain signs of inward jubilation on the clever sculptor's part, and walked away with him to learn his private opinion.

”Certainly; I liked it as well as I said,” Gloriani declared in answer to Rowland's anxious query; ”or rather I liked it a great deal better. I did n't say how much, for fear of making your friend angry. But one can leave him alone now, for he 's coming round. I told you he could n't keep up the transcendental style, and he has already broken down. Don't you see it yourself, man?”

”I don't particularly like this new statue,” said Rowland.

”That 's because you 're a purist. It 's deuced clever, it 's deuced knowing, it 's deuced pretty, but it is n't the topping high art of three months ago. He has taken his turn sooner than I supposed. What has happened to him? Has he been disappointed in love? But that 's none of my business. I congratulate him on having become a practical man.”