CHAPTER XVIII. TIMELY WARNING.
Robert sat in his studio, when presently the door opened.
“My dear Latham,” cried the artist.
“Well, Milburn, how are you?”
They were, at last, alone together. Involuntarily, and as if by an irresistible impulse, Marrion began at once:
“Robert, I must speak to you on a delicate subject. You are my friend, a man for whose interests I would all but give up my life,” and his mission flashed across the other’s mind.
“What are you driving at?”
“At the question whether or not you will stop to think.”
“I most frequently stop and forget,” was the good-natured reply.
“That is too true; you surely do not realize how you have behaved the past few months.”
“Well, and what of it? I should like to know whom I have hurt besides myself.”
“Everyone who cares for you.”
“But, look here, Latham, I am able to take care of myself.”
“It is a little remarkable you do not prove that statement.” Here he assumed a more dignified manner.
“You mean my drinking; well, I pay for it, and——”
“If the matter ended with the price, there would not be so much harm done,” retorted Latham.
“Very few know I ever touch a drop.”
“But those who know are your nearest and best friends, or should be.”
“Oh, well! the best of us are moulded out of faults;” the other eyed him fixedly.
“And these faults have a tendency to produce blindness. I believe you fail to see that your morbid cravings for drink and fame are making your domestic life trite and dull—more than that, miserable. You are losing sight of home-life in this false fever of ambition, and,” he added gravely, “grieved, ashamed I am to say it.”
“This is startling, to say the least of it,” Robert exclaimed, as he nervously thrummed the desk by his side. “Here I have been imagining myself the model husband. True, I drink occasionally.”
“You mean, occasionally you do not drink,” Marrion interrupted.
“Look here, Latham; if this came from another than you, I should say it is none of your —— business.”
“Say it to me, if you feel so disposed. I only speak the truth.”
“But I must be walked with, not driven; bear that in mind, old boy.”
“I want to ask you, Robert, if you ever observed that the desire for distinction grows upon us like a disease?”
“I believe it does, since you speak of it.”
“You know it, for you have been gradually growing weaker in everything else, since your ambition has been set stark mad over that contest.”
“Why should not I let everything else go? Think of it; who ever paints the acceptable ‘Athlete’ is to be acknowledged famous, even more famous than he ever dreamed.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do I know it? By the fact that it gets the mention honorable in the palace of art, which is a great step—a veritable leap I would say—towards fame.”
“What good are words of applause echoing through the empty walls of a ruined home?”
“Ruined home,” Robert repeated, “preposterous! My wife has all the money she wants; dresses second to none in the set in which she moves. What more could a woman want?”
“A husband and his love,” said Marrion, emphatically. “Would you say you had a wife and that wife’s love, if half the time she was in no condition to care for your home?”
“That is not a parallel case. Drinking in a man is not so bad, it is a popular evil; more men drink than sin in any other way.”
“And all the other sins follow in its train.”
“You know, Latham, I am moral in the main. I need a stimulant; it is something a brain worker must have. Besides——”
“Besides what?”
“I am not happy since I became so ambitious,” said Robert, gloomily, and, continuing—“I cannot stand the bitterness of self-reproach. When reason is wide awake, remorse fastens its fangs upon it. I—” His head fell heavily upon the table, and he lay there in silent suffering.
“It is your yielding to temptation, more than your ambition, that hurts a refined nature like yours; but as long as you can feel sorrow you are not wholly bad.”
“I don’t know, Marrion, for brooding over this unfortunate habit I have all unconsciously drifted into, sometimes drives me almost mad; it is then that the tempter gets in his work. Something tells me there is but one way to get swift relief—drink and forget.”
“But what of the wife? Does it speak to you of the wearing ache of her waking—of the lonely hours of her watching alone, while your conscience rests in soothing sleep?”
“Yes, I think of her love, her patience, but the best of us have our faults, and a woman should not demand from the busy, anxious spirit of man all that romance promises and life but rarely yields.”
“You have been blessed with one who demands nothing; she suffers in silence. Her very gentleness, her patient womanliness should win you to right. But, my friend, she pines for your attention—those little things that would tell her she was appreciated. She is like a tendril, accustomed to cling, which must have something to twine around, and make wholly its own.”
“I never give her a cross word; I leave her to do as it best pleases her.”
“There, that is the mistake. The secret of the danger lies in that one act of yours. How many have I known, lovely and pure like your wife, who have suffered their unguarded affections—the very beauty of their nature—to destroy them.”
“That is true; I have known many such cases,” admitted Robert.
“Then, in the name of God, pull yourself together, man; brace up, I will help you all I can.”
Robert raised his head:
“Marrion, I have never esteemed you half so much as I do now; your interest is unselfish and sincere, I know that.”
“It is, Milburn, and I am glad you take it as I meant it. It has been said, the loves and friendships of life are its sweetest resources. All else—special achievements, creative genius in any form of manifestation—ministers to them. To live in an atmosphere of sympathy is to live in an atmosphere of heaven, and often it is true that a man must hold his friends unjudged, accepted, trusted to the end.”
The artist reached out his hand, and the other quit speaking.
“There is my hand and promise to leave drink alone when I have finished my picture. Even now, I would give the world to look straight into God’s good face and smile with the glad lips my mother used to kiss.”