The Pagans | Page 6

was her expression. He straightened himself
with an impetuous movement, and came a step nearer.
"How can you be so careless?" he demanded, almost with irritation. "It
might have killed you."
"I did not remember that it was so heavy," she returned, a little pale and
panting. "Do you think I was trying to pull it on my head? I am very
much obliged, though. You have saved me a heavy blow at least. There
is not much left of that unlucky vase. It was always ill-starred."
"All's well that ends well," returned the sculptor, sufficiently recovering

his self-control to speak lightly; "only don't run such a risk another
time."
"Oh, I assure you," she replied, "I do not make my vases either to break
my head or to be broken themselves. I shall take better care of this one,
you may be confident."
"I was more concerned for yourself than for the vase."
"For myself it really does not so much matter."
"It is scarcely kind to your friends to say so."
"Oh,--my friends!"
Over her face came an inexplicable expression, which might be gloom
or exultation, and the tone in which she spoke was equally difficult of
interpretation. She seemed determined, however, to fall into no snares
of speech; she smiled upon the sculptor with a glance at once radiant
and perplexing.
She turned towards the new vase and began slowly to whirl the
modeling-stand upon which Herman had placed it. A thousand
reflections danced and flickered about the little room as it revolved in
the sunlight, glowing and glittering like the sparkles from a carcanet of
jewels. The fiery monsters seemed to twine and coil in living motion as
the light shone upon their emerald and golden scales and bristling
spines.
"I wonder if Eve's serpent was so splendid," Mrs. Greyson laughed,
twirling the stand yet faster upon its pivot. "Would I do for Mother Eve,
do you think?"
"If the power to tempt a man be the test," he retorted with an odd
brusqueness quite disproportionate to the apparent lightness of the
occasion, the dark blood mantling his face, "there can be no doubt of
it."
A swift change came over her at his words. She left the vase and stand
abruptly. She flushed crimson then grew pale and looked about her
with a half frightened glance, as if uncertain which way to turn. The
movement touched her companion as no words could have done.
"I beg your pardon," he muttered.
And with a still deeper flush on his swarthy cheek he turned abruptly
and quitted the room.

IV.

AFTER SUCH A PAGAN CUT. Henry VIII.; i.--3.
"In the first place," said Edith Caldwell brightly, "you know, Arthur,
that I ought not to be in Boston at all, when I have so much to see to at
home; and in the second place Aunt Calvin is shocked at the
unconventionality of my being seen any where in public after the
wedding cards are out; but I was determined to see this picture. I saw it
when he had just begun it in Paris, you know, three years ago."
"As for being seen," Arthur Fenton returned, "we certainly shall never
be seen here. The Art Museum is the most solitary place in the city; and
as for conventionalities, why, the wedding is so quiet and so far off that
I think nobody here even realizes that the stupendous event is imminent
at all."
"Oh, but I do," Edith said, laughing and clasping her hands with a
pretty gesture of mock despair. "I feel that the day of my bondage is
advancing with unfaltering tread, like the day of doom."
"Then you should do as I do by the day of doom, disbelieve in it
altogether until it comes."
"It is of no use. Even disbelief will not alter the almanac, as you'll find
when the day of doom swoops down on you."
They were sitting upon one of the hard benches in the picture-gallery of
the Art Museum before an important work just sent over from Europe
by its American purchaser. The afternoon light was beginning to be a
little dim, and Edith was troubled with the consciousness that the
errands which had brought her for the day to Boston were far from
being accomplished. It was pleasant to linger, however, especially as
this might be the last tranquil day she should pass with Arthur before
their marriage.
She rose from her seat and crossed to the picture of Millet representing
a peasant girl with a distaff of flax in her hand. Fenton sat a moment
looking after his betrothed, critically though fondly, then with a
deliberate movement he left his seat and followed her.
"Think of the distance between this country and that picture," he
remarked, regarding