Part 31 (1/2)

”Ah, they don't understand,” cried the other quickly, acridly. ”They don't understand.”

He had drawn his chair beside Rainham, and sat with his large, uncouth head propped on one hand, and the latter could perceive that his mouth was twisted with vague irony and some subtile emotion which eluded him.

”You are the great paradox!” he sighed at last. ”For Heaven's sake, be reasonable! It is a chance, whoever makes it, and you mustn't miss it, for the sake of a few--the just, the pure, the discreet, who do know good work--as well as for your own. After all, we are not all gross, and fatuous, and vulgar; there are some of us who know, who care, who make fine distinctions. Consider us!”

”Consider you?” cried the other quickly. ”Ah, _mon gros_, don't I--more than anything?”

Then he continued in a lighter key:

”However, I don't refuse; you take me too literally. It was the last bitter cry of my spleen. I have put myself in Mosenthal's hands; I've sold him two pictures.”

”In that case, then, why am I not to be glad?”

”Oh, it's success!” said Oswyn. He glanced contemptuously at his frayed s.h.i.+rt-cuff, with the broad stains of paint upon it. ”Be glad, if you like; I am glad in a way. G.o.d knows, I have arrears to make up with the flesh-pots of Egypt. And I have paid my price for it.

Oh, I have d.a.m.nably paid my price!”

Rainham shrugged his shoulders absently.

”Yes, one pays,” he agreed--”one pays, some time or other, to the last penny.”

His friend rose, pushed his chair back impatiently: he had the air of suppressing some fierce emotion, of anxiously seeking self-control. At last he moved over to the black square of window, and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking out at nothing, at the frosty fantasies which had collected on the gla.s.s.

”If it had come ten years ago,” he said in a low, constrained voice, ”ten years ago, in Paris.... Oh, man, man!” he went on bitterly, ”if you could know, if you could dimly imagine the horrors, the mad, furious horrors, the things I have seen and suffered, since then.”

He pulled himself up sharply, and concluded with a little mirthless laugh, as though he were ashamed of his outburst.

”You would consume a great deal of raw spirit, to take the taste out of your mouth. And my 'Medusa' is to hang for the future in Mr.

Mosenthal's dining-room! Will he understand her, do you think?”

Rainham was silent, wondering at his friend's departure from his wonted reticence, which, however, scarcely surprised him. He had never sought to penetrate the dark background, against which the painter's solitary figure stood. He was content to accept him as he was, asking no questions, and hardly forming, even in his own mind, conjectures as to what his previous history and relations might have been. He was not ignorant, indeed, that he was a man who had been in dark places; it had always seemed possible to account for him on the theory that he lived on the memory of an inextinguishable sorrow.

And now this possibility had received corroboration from his own words, shedding a new light, in which both his character and his genius became more intelligible. He had only stood out of the shadows which obscured him for one instant; but that instant had been enough.

And Rainham did not find the occasion less valuable, nor the impression which he had received less pitiful, because he believed it to be ultimate and unique; his friend would make no vain, elaborate confidences; he would simply step back into his old obscurity, leaving Rainham with the memory of that instructive cry which had been wrung from him by the irony of tardy recognition, when he had seen him luridly standing over the wreck of his honour and of his life. And with his pity there came to him a fresh sense of the greatness of the painter's work. His genius, so full of suffering, and of the sense of an almost fiendish cruelty in things, was, simply, his life, his experience, his remorse.

With the hand of a master, with the finest technique, which made his work admirable even to persons who misinterpreted or were revolted by its conception, he rendered the things he had known, so that his art was nothing so much as an expression of his personal pain in life.

In the light of this vision into the bottom of Oswyn's soul, Rainham's own pain seemed suddenly shallow and remote; he had gazed for a moment upon a blacker desolation than any which he could know.

He felt a new, a tolerant sympathy towards his friend, and it struck him, not for the first time, but with an increased force, as he reminded himself how his days were bounded, that they had many things which they had still to say, things which must certainly be said.

CHAPTER XXIX

In the same room one afternoon a fortnight later, Oswyn sat, absently correcting the draft catalogue of his exhibition, when he received an intimation, which for some days he had expected--his friend felt strong enough to see him. He put down his pen, glancing up inquiringly at the bearer of this message, a young woman in the neat, depressing garb of a professional nurse; but for answer she slightly shook her head with the disinterested complacency of the woman used to sickness, who would encourage no false notions.

”It is only temporary,” she said with deliberation. ”I fear there has been no real improvement; the patient is steadily losing strength. Only he insists on seeing you; and when they are like that, one must give them what they want. I must beg you to excite him as little as possible.”

Oswyn bowed a dreary a.s.sent, and followed her up the obscure staircase, which creaked sullenly beneath his tread. And he stood for a few moments in silence, until his eyes were accustomed to the darkened room, when the nurse had gently closed the door behind him, leaving him alone with his friend.