"The evidence doesn't seem to me conclusive," remarked Fenton, "and simply as a matter of family unity I am bound to believe in my wife's _proteges_."

Even the faint sense of humor which he felt at the situation could not prevent him from experiencing the sting of self-shame. Had it been an equal who was unjustly accused of a fault he had committed he would have felt less humiliated. To the degradation of having betrayed Hubbard, the addition of this last touch of having also unconsciously injured an inferior came to him like the exquisite irony of fate. He wondered in an abstract and dispa.s.sionate way whether the ghost of all his misdeeds were continually to rise before him. "Really," he said to himself with a smile that curled his lips "in that case I shall become a perfect Macbeth." And at that instant the ghost most dreadful of all rose at the feast like that of Banquo as Rangely said,--

"I knocked at your studio this morning but couldn't get in."

There flashed through Fenton's mind all the possibilities of discovery and disaster that might lie behind this remark, and his one strong feeling was that it would be unsafe to venture on a definite statement; he took refuge in the vaguest of general remarks.

"I am sorry not to have seen you," he said.

He tried to reflect, while Edith said something further in defence of Melissa. He joked with Ethel about the probable appearance of the statue young Stanton would make, which was to be set up directly opposite her father's house. He noticed that Helen was very silent, and he even reflected how handsome a man was Thayer Kent; but through it all he seemed to hear the echo of that knock upon his studio door and a foreboding which he could not shake off made him reflect gloomily how utterly defenceless he should be in case of discovery.

A brief silence suddenly recalled him to his duties as host, and he caught quickly at the first topic which presented itself to his mind, going back to the question of the _America_, which had been much discussed because the funds to pay for it had been bequeathed to the city by a woman of prominent social position.

"I suppose," he observed, turning to Hubbard, "that with two such lights of the art world as Peter Calvin and Alfred Irons on the committee, the new statue will be regarded as the flower of Boston culture. Of all droll things," he added, "nothing could be funnier than coupling those two men. It is more striking than the lion and the lamb of Scriptural prophecy."

"Who is the lion and who the lamb?" asked Candish.

"It is your place to apply Scripture, not mine," retorted Fenton.

"I represent the minority of the committee," was Hubbard's reply to his host's question. "There is no other position so safe in matters of art as that of an objector."

"That is because art appeals to the most sensitive of human characteristics," Arthur retorted smiling,--"human vanity."

"Vanity?" echoed Mrs. Hubbard.

"That from you?" exclaimed Miss Mott.

"Really, Mr. Fenton," protested Miss Penwick, in accents of real concern, "you shouldn't say such a thing; there are so many people who would suppose you meant it."

The simple old creature knew no more of the real meaning of art than she did of that of the hieroglyphics on an Egyptian obelisk, but she had lectured on it, and she felt for it the deep reverence common to those who label their superst.i.tion with the name "culture."

"But I do mean it," returned Fenton, becoming more animated from the pleasure of defending an extravagant position. "What is the object of art but to perpetuate and idealize the emotions of the race; and how does it touch men, except by flattering their vanity with the a.s.sumption that they individually share the grand pa.s.sions of mankind."

A chorus of protests arose; but Arthur went on, laughingly over-riding it.

"Really," he said, "we all care for the Apollo Belvidere and the Venus of Milo because it tickles our vanity to view the physical perfection of the race to which we belong; it is our own possibilities of anguish that we pity in the Laoc.o.o.n and the Niobe; it is"--

"Oh, come, Fenton," interrupted Rangely; "we all know that you can be more deliciously wrongheaded than any other live man, but you can't expect us to sit quietly by while you abuse art."

"That is more absolute Philistinism," put in Hubbard, "than anything I have heard from Mr. Irons even."

"Oh; Philistinism," was Fenton's rejoinder, "is not nearly so bad as the inanities that are talked about it."

"That sounds like a personal thrust at Mr. Hubbard," Kent observed; and as Arthur disclaimed any intention of making it so, Mrs. Fenton gave the signal for rising.

XXVI

O, WICKED WIT AND GIFT.

Hamlet; i.--5.

It was fortunate for Fenton's plans that most of his guests had early engagements that evening, and by nine o'clock he was able to leave the house with Rangely to take his way to the meeting of the Club. As they came out of the house, Thayer Kent was just saying good-by to Miss Mott after putting her into her carriage. Fenton's fear lest he should be too late for the business meeting had made him follow rather closely in the steps of his departing guests, and he and Rangely were just in time to hear Ethel say,--

"But I am going that way and I will drop you at the club."

Kent hesitated an instant, and then followed her into the carriage.

Fenton laughed as they drove away.

"With Ethel Mott," he said, "that is equivalent to announcing an engagement."

"Nonsense!" protested Fred, incredulously.

Fenton laughed again, a little maliciously.

"Oh, I've been looking for it all winter," he said. "Ever since you devoted yourself to Mrs. Staggchase, and gave Thayer his innings. Well, since you didn't want her, I don't know that she could have done better."

Fenton pretty well understood the truth of the matter in regard to Rangely's relations to Ethel, and this little thrust was simply an instalment toward the paying of sundry old scores. He had never forgiven Fred for having taunted him, long ago, with going over to Philistinism; especially, as he inwardly a.s.sured himself, that the difference between their cases was that he had had the frankness openly to renounce Paganism, while his companion would not acknowledge his apostasy even to himself. In Fenton's creed, self-deception was put down as the greatest of crimes, and he had fallen into the way of half unconsciously regarding his inner frankness as a sort of expiation for whatever faults he might commit.

He chuckled inwardly at the discomfort which he knew his remark brought to Fred, humorously acknowledging himself to be a brute for thus taking advantage of circ.u.mstances with a man who had just eaten his salt. The excitement of the thing he was about to do had mounted into his head like wine, and he hastened toward the club with a feeling of buoyancy and exhilaration such as he had not known for months. He laughed and joked, ignoring Rangely's unresponsiveness; and when he entered the club parlors his cheeks were flushed and his eyes shone as in the old Pagan days.

He was just in season. The monthly business meeting was about being completed, and Fenton had scarcely time to recover his breath before the President said,--

"If there is no other business to come before this meeting we will now adjourn."

Then Fenton stepped forward.

"Mr. President," he said, in his smooth, clear voice, only a trifle heightened in pitch by excitement.

The President put up his eyegla.s.ses and recognized him.

"Mr. Fenton."

There was an instant hush in the room. Every member of the club knew of the vote of censure, which had excited much talk, and of which the propriety had been violently discussed. A few were aware that the censure had been withdrawn, and all were sufficiently well acquainted with Fenton's high-spirited temperament to feel that something exciting was coming.

Fenton was too keenly alive to what he would have called the stage effect to fail of appreciating to the utmost the striking situation. He threw up his head with a delicious sense of excitement, the pleasing consciousness of a vain man who is producing a strong and satisfactory impression, and who feels in himself the ability to carry through the thing he has undertaken. With a sort of tingling double consciousness he felt at once the enthusiasm of injured virtue at last triumphant, and the mocking scorn of a Mephistopheles who bejuggles dupes too dull to withstand him. He looked around the meeting, and in a swift instant noted who of friends or foes were present; and even tried to calculate in that brief instant what would be the effect upon one and another of what he was going to say.

"Mr. President," he began, deliberately, "if I may be pardoned a word of personal explanation, I wish to say that the motion I am about to make is not presented from personal motives. I might make this motion as one who has the right, having suffered; but I do make it as one who believes in justice so strongly that I should still speak had my own case been that of my worst enemy. I move you, sir, that the St. Filipe Club pa.s.s a vote of unqualified censure upon its Executive Committee for admitting in the investigation of an alleged violation of its rules the testimony of a servant, thereby a.s.suming that the word of a gentleman could not be taken in answer to any question the committee had a right to ask."

He had grown pale with excitement as he went on, and his voice gained in force until the last words were clear and ringing to the farthest corners of the room.

A universal stir succeeded the silence with which he had been heard.

Half a dozen men were on their feet at once amid a babble of comment, protestation, and approval. The Secretary managed to get the floor.

"Mr. President," he said, his round face flushed with anger, and his fat hands so shaking with excitement that the papers on the table before him rustled audibly, "since it must be evident that the gentleman's remarks are instigated by anger at the committee's treatment of himself, it is only justice to the committee to state what many of the members may not know, that a letter of ample apology has been sent by them to Mr. Fenton."

The men who had been eager to speak paused at this, and everybody looked at the artist.