The Nabob, Volume 2 | Page 4

and the delicacy of the dishes, which were highly seasoned to an unusual degree, everything disclosed the importance of the expected guest and the pains that had been taken to please him. There was no mistaking the fact that it was an artist's establishment. Little silverware, but superb china, perfect harmony without the slightest attempt at arrangement. Old Rouen, pink Sèvres, Dutch glass mounted in old finely-wrought pewter met on that table as on a stand of rare objects collected by a connoisseur simply to gratify his taste. The result was some slight confusion in the household, dependent as it was upon the chance of a lucky find. The exquisite oil-cruet had no stopper. The broken salt-cellar overflowed on the cloth, and every moment it was: "What has become of the mustard-pot? What has happened to that fork?" All of which troubled de Géry a little on account of the young mistress of the house, who, for her part, was not in the least disturbed.
But something that made him even more ill at ease was his anxiety to know who the privileged guest was whose place he had taken at that table, whom they could entertain with such magnificence and at the same time such utter lack of ceremony. In spite of everything he felt as if that countermanded guest were present, a constant affront to his own dignity. In vain did he try to forget him; everything reminded him of him, even to the holiday attire of the kindly Fairy, who sat opposite him and who still retained some of the grand manners which she had assumed in anticipation of the solemn occasion. The thought disturbed him, poisoned his joy in being there.
On the other hand, as is always the case in parties of two, where harmony of mood is very rare, he had never seen Felicia so affectionate, in such merry humor. She was in a state of effervescent, almost childlike gayety, one of those fervent outbursts of emotion which one experiences when some danger has passed, the reaction of a clear, blazing fire after the excitement of a shipwreck. She laughed heartily, teased Paul about his accent and what she called his bourgeois ideas. "For you are shockingly bourgeois, you know. But that is just what I like in you. It's on account of the contrast, I have no doubt, because I was born under a bridge, in a gust of wind, that I have always been fond of sedate, logical natures."
"Oh! my dear, what do you suppose Monsieur Paul will think, when you say you were born under a bridge?" exclaimed the excellent Crenmitz, who could not accustom herself to the exaggeration of metaphors, and always took everything literally.
"Let him think what he pleases, my Fairy. We haven't our eye on him for a husband. I am sure he would have none of that monster known as an artist wife. He would think he had married the devil. You are quite right, Minerva. Art is a despot. One must give oneself to it unreservedly. You put into your work all the imagination, energy, honesty, conscience that you possess, so that you have no more of any of them as long as you live, and the completion of the work tosses you adrift, helpless and without a compass, like a dismasted hulk, at the mercy of every wave. Such a wife would be a melancholy acquisition."
"And yet," the young man ventured timidly to observe, "it seems to me that art, however exacting it may be, cannot take entire possession of the woman. What would she do with her affections, with the craving for love, for self-sacrifice, which is in her, far more than in man, the motive for every act?"
She mused a moment before replying.
"You may be right, O wise Minerva! It is the truth that there are days when my life rings terribly hollow. I am conscious of holes in it, unfathomable depths. Everything disappears that I throw in to fill them up. My noblest artistic enthusiasms are swallowed up in them and die every time in a sigh. At such times I think of marriage. A husband, children, a lot of children, tumbling about the studio, all their nests to look after, the satisfaction of the physical activity which is lacking in our artistic lives, regular occupations, constant movement, innocent fun, which would compel one to play instead of always thinking in the dark and the great void, to laugh at a blow to one's self-esteem, to be simply a happy mother on the day when the public casts one aside as a used-up, played-out artist."
And in presence of that vision of domestic happiness the girl's lovely features assumed an expression which Paul had never before seen upon them, and which took entire possession of