The Pagans | Page 8

that need be added to Fenton's account of the Pagans. The society had no organization beyond a rule to meet each month and to limit its membership to seven; no especial principles beyond an unformulated although by no means unexpressed antagonism against Philistinism. Fenton had suggested Pasht as a sort of dea mater, and had furnished the seal bearing the image of that goddess which it was customary to use upon the notifications of meetings; and for the rest there was nothing definite to distinguish this group of earnest and sometimes fiery young men from any other. They doubtless said a great many foolish things, but they did so many wise ones that it seemed but reasonable to assume that there must be some grains of wisdom mingled with whatever dross was to be found in their speech.
Their views were extreme enough. Fenton was fond of maintaining astounding propositions, using the club much as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes once privately said Wendell Phillips does the community, "to try the strength of extravagant theories;" and none of the Pagans were restrained by any conventionality from a free expression of opinion.
It was on the afternoon of the day fixed for the Pagan meeting when Helen Greyson took her way across the Common and through the business portion of the city to the building down by the wharves where were the studios of Herman and his pupils. It was feebly raining, the weather having been decidedly whimsical all that week, and the clouds rolled in ragged, sullen masses overhead. Helen felt the gloom of the day as a vague depression which she endeavored in vain to shake off, and hastened towards her studio, hoping to be able to lose herself in her work.
Picking her steps among the piles of fire-brick and terra-cotta which lumbered the yard and the long shed skirting the building, which was a terra-cotta manufactory, she let herself in at a side door and went directly to her studio.
Removing the wet cloths from her bas-relief, she stood for a moment studying it, and then investing herself in a great apron, set busily to work upon one of the fleeting figures in the composition.
She had scarcely begun when as often before a heavy step was heard upon the stair without, a tap sounded lightly upon her door, and, in answer to her invitation, Grant Herman entered.
He, too, had evidently been working in clay, of which his loose blouse bore abundant marks. A paper cap, not unlike that of a pastry-cook in an English picture, was stuck a little aslant over his iron gray locks, giving him a certain roguish air, with which the occasional twinkle in his eye harmonized well.
"Good morning, Mrs. Greyson," he said in his hearty voice, and then stood for a moment looking over her shoulder at her work in silence.
"Do you think the movement of that figure too violent?" his pupil asked, turning to look up at him, and noticing for the first time that despite the saucy pose of his cap, the sculptor was evidently not in the best of spirits.
"No," returned he, rather absently. "But you must have less agitation in the robe; it is merely hurried now, not swift. Lengthen and simplify those folds--so."
As he indicated the desired curves with his nervous fingers, Mrs. Greyson's quick eye caught sight of a striking ring upon his hand, and without thought she said, involuntarily:
"You have a new ring!"
"Yes," returned Herman, flushing; "or rather a very old one. It is an intaglio that the artist Hoffmeir--I have told you of our friendship in Rome--gave me one Christmas. I returned it to him when I left Rome, and at his death he in turn sent it back to me."
"But Hoffmeir has been dead several years."
"More than six; but the ring has just come into my hands."
The intaglio was a dark sard beautifully cut with the head of Minerva, and Mrs. Greyson's artistic instincts were keenly alive to the exquisite delicacy of its workmanship. She inquired something of its origin and probable age, and then dropped it from her attention, save that, being a woman, she wondered a little what was the personal bearing of this token, and whether the sculptor's sadness arose from the awakening of memories connected with it.
"It must seem like a token from the grave," she said, "coming as it does, so long after Hoffmeir's death."
"It does," the other replied, soberly; "but it brought a message with it. Oh, the wretchedness of hearing a voice from the dead, to whom you can send no answer!"
The burst of emotion with which he said this was very unusual, and Mrs. Greyson regarded him with perhaps as much surprise as sympathy, having never before seen him so deeply moved.
"I am afraid," she ventured, hesitatingly, "that what I said