I.

Bartlett and Cummings.

Bartlett.—"Six weeks since you were here? I shouldn't have thought that." Bartlett's easel stands before the window, in the hotel parlour; he has laid a tint upon the canvas, and has retired a few paces for the effect, his palette and mahl-stick in hand, and his head carried at a critical angle. Cummings, who has been doing the duty of art-culture by the picture, regards it with renewed interest. Bartlett resumes his work: "Pretty good, Cummings?"

Cummings.—"Capital! The blue of that distance"—

Bartlett, with a burlesque sigh.—"Ah, I looked into my heart and painted for that! Well, you find me still here, Cummings, and apparently more at home than ever. The landlord has devoted this parlour to the cause of art,—makes the transients use the lower parlour, now,—and we have this all to ourselves: Miss Wyatt sketches, you know. Her mother brings her sewing, and the General his bruises; he hasn't quite scrambled up, yet, from that little knock-down of his; a man doesn't, at his time of life, I believe; and we make this our family-room; and a very queer family we are! Fine old fellow, the General; he's behaved himself since his accident like a disabled angel, and hasn't sworn,—well, anything worth speaking of. Yes, here I am. I suppose it's all right, but for all I know it may be all wrong." Bartlett sighs in unguarded sincerity. "I don't know what I'm here for. Nature began shutting up shop a fortnight ago at a pretty lively rate, and edging loafers to the door, with every sign of impatience; and yet here I am, hanging round still. I suppose this glimpse of Indian Summer is some excuse just now; it's a perfect blessing to the landlord, and he's making hay—rowen crop[1]—while the sun shines; I've been with him so long now, I take quite an interest in his prosperity, if eight dollars a week of it do come out of me! What is talked of in 'art-circles' down in Boston, brother Cummings?"

Cummings.—"Your picture."

Bartlett, inattentively, while he comes up to his canvas, and bestows an infinitesimal portion of paint upon a destitute spot in the canvas.—"Don't be sarcastic, Cummings."

Cummings.—"I'm not, I assure you."

Bartlett, turning toward him incredulously.—"Do you mean to say that The First Grey Hair is liked?"

Cummings.—"I do. There hasn't been any picture so much talked of this season."

Bartlett.—"Then it's the shameless slop of the name. I should think you'd blush for your part in that swindle. But clergymen have no conscience, where they've a chance to do a fellow a kindness, I've observed." He goes up to Cummings with his brush in his mouth, his palette on one hand, and his mahl-stick in the other, and contrives to lay hold of his shoulders with a few disengaged fingers. As Cummings shrinks a little from his embrace: "Oh, don't be afraid; I shan't get any paint on you. You need a whole coat of whitewash, though, you unscrupulous saint!" He returns to his easel. "So The Old Girl—that's what I shall call the picture—is a success, is she? The admiring public ought to see the original elm-tree now; she hasn't got a hair, grey or green, on her head; she's perfectly bald. I say, Cummings, how would it do for me to paint a pendant, The Last Grey Hair? I might look up a leaf or two on the elm, somewhere: stick it on to the point of twig; they wouldn't know any better."

Cummings.—"The leafless elm would make a good picture, whatever you called it." Bartlett throws back his shaggy head and laughs up at the ceiling. "The fact is, Bartlett, I've got a little surprise for you."

Bartlett, looking at him askance.—"Somebody wanting to chromo The Old Girl? No, no; it isn't quite so bad as that!"

Cummings, in a burst.—"They did want to chromo it. But it's sold. They've got you two hundred dollars for it." Bartlett lays down his brush, palette, and mahl-stick, dusts his fingers, puts them in his pockets, and comes and stands before Cummings, on whom, seated, he bends a curious look.

Bartlett.—"And do you mean to tell me, you hardened atheist, that you don't believe in the doctrine of future punishments? What are they going to do with you in the next world? And that picture-dealer? And me? Two hun— It's an outrage! It's—the picture wasn't worth fifty, by a stretch of the most charitable imagination! Two hundred, d— Why, Cummings, I'll paint no end of Old Girls, First and Last Grey Hairs—I'll flood the market! Two— Good Lord!" Bartlett goes back to his easel, and silently resumes his work. After a while: "Who's been offered up?"

Cummings.—"What?"

Bartlett.—"Who's the victim? My patron? The noble and discriminating and munificent purchaser of The Old Girl?"

Cummings.—"Oh! Mrs. Bellingham. She's going to send it out to her daughter in Omaha."

Bartlett.—"Ah! Mrs. Blake wishes to found an art museum with that curiosity out there? Sorry for the Omaha-has." Cummings makes a gesture of impatience. "Well, well; I won't then, old fellow! I'm truly obliged to you. I accept my good fortune with compunction, but with all the gratitude imaginable. I say, Cummings!"

Cummings.—"Well?"

Bartlett.—"What do you think of my taking to high art,—mountains twelve hundred feet above the sea, like this portrait of Ponkwasset?"

Cummings.—"I've always told you that you had only to give yourself scope,—attempt something worthy of your powers"—

Bartlett.—"Ah, I thought so. Then you believe that a good big canvas and a good big subject would be the making of me? Well, I've come round to that idea myself. I used to think that if there was any greatness in me, I could get it into a small picture, like Meissonier or Corot. But I can't. I must have room, like the Yellowstone and Yo-Semite fellows. Don't you think Miss Wyatt is looking wonderfully improved?"

Cummings.—"Wonderfully! And how beautiful she is! She looked lovely that first day, in spite of her ghostliness; but now"—

Bartlett.—"Yes; a phantom of delight is good enough in its way, but a well woman is the prettiest, after all. Miss Wyatt sketches, I think I told you."

Cummings.—"Yes, you mentioned it."

Bartlett.—"Of course. Otherwise, I couldn't possibly have thought of her while I was at work on a great picture like this. She sketches"— Bartlett puts his nose almost on the canvas in the process of bestowing a delicate touch—"she sketches about as badly as any woman I ever saw, and that's saying a good deal. But she looks uncommonly well while she's at it. The fact is, Cummings,"—Bartlett retires some feet from the canvas and squints at it,—"this very picture which you approve of so highly is—Miss Wyatt's. I couldn't attempt anything of the size of Ponkwasset! But she allows me to paint at it a little when she's away." Bartlett steals a look of joy at his friend's vexation, and then continues seriously: "I've been having a curious time, Cummings." The other remains silent. "Don't you want to ask me about it?"

Cummings.—"I don't know that I do."

Bartlett.—"Why, my dear old fellow, you're hurt! It was a silly joke, and I honestly ask your pardon." He lays down his brush and palette and leaves the easel. "Cummings, I don't know what to do. I'm in a perfect deuce of a state. I'm hit—awfully hard; and I don't know what to do about it. I wish I had gone at once—the first day. But I had to stay,—I had to stay." He turns and walks away from Cummings, whose eyes follow him in pardon and sympathy.

Cummings.—"Do you really mean it, Bartlett? I didn't dream of such a thing. I thought you were still brooding over that affair with Miss Harlan."

Bartlett.—"Oh, child's-play! A prehistoric illusion! A solar myth! The thing never was." He rejects the obsolete superstition with a wave of his left hand. "I'm in love with this girl, and I feel like a sneak and a brute about it. At the very best it would be preposterous. Who am I, a poor devil of a painter, the particular pet of Poverty, to think of a young lady whose family and position could command her the best? But putting that aside,—putting that insuperable obstacle lightly aside, as a mere trifle,—the thing remains an atrocity. It's enormously indelicate to think of loving a woman who would never have looked twice at me if I hadn't resembled an infernal scoundrel who tried to break her heart; and I've nothing else to commend me. I've the perfect certainty that she doesn't and can't care anything for me in myself; and it grinds me into the dust to realise on what terms she tolerates me. I could carry it off as a joke at first; but when it became serious, I had to look it in the face; and that's what it amounts to, and if you know of any more hopeless and humiliating tangle, I don't." Bartlett, who has approached his friend during this speech, walks away again; and there is an interval of silence.

Cummings, at last, musingly.—"You in love with Miss Wyatt; I can't imagine it!"

Bartlett, fiercely.—"You can't imagine it? What's the reason you can't imagine it? Don't be offensive, Cummings!" He stops in his walk and lowers upon his friend. "Why shouldn't I be in love with Miss Wyatt?"

Cummings.—"Oh, nothing. Only you were saying"—

Bartlett.—"I was saying! Don't tell me what I was saying. Say something yourself."

Cummings.—"Really, Bartlett, you can't expect me to stand this sort of thing. You're preposterous."

Bartlett.—"I know it! But don't blame me. I beg your pardon. Is it because of the circumstances that you can't imagine my being in love with her?"

Cummings.—"Oh, no; I wasn't thinking of the circumstances; but it seemed so out of character for you"—

Bartlett, impatiently.—"Oh, love's always out of character, just as it's always out of reason. I admit freely that I'm an ass. And then?"

Cummings.—"Well, then, I don't believe you have any more reason to be in despair than you have to be in love. If she tolerates you, as you say, it can't be because you look like the man who jilted her."

Bartlett.—"Ah! But if she still loves him?"

Cummings.—"You don't know that. That strikes me as a craze of jealousy. What makes you think she tolerates you for that reason or no-reason?"

Bartlett.—"What makes me think it? From the very first she interpreted me by what she knew of him. She expected me to be this and not to be that; to have one habit and not another; and I could see that every time the fact was different, it was a miserable disappointment to her, a sort of shock. Every little difference between me and that other rascal gave her a start; and whenever I looked up I found her wistful eyes on me as if they were trying to puzzle me out; they used to follow me round the room like the eyes of a family portrait. You wouldn't have liked it yourself, Cummings. For the first three weeks I simply existed on false pretences,—involuntary false pretences, at that. I wanted to explode; I wanted to roar out. If you think I'm at all like that abandoned scoundrel of yours in anything but looks, I'm not! But I was bound by everything that was decent, to hold my tongue, and let my soul be rasped out of me in silence and apparent unconsciousness. That was your fault. If you hadn't told me all about the thing, I could have done something outrageous and stopped it. But I was tied hand and foot by what I knew. I had to let it go on."

Cummings.—"I'm very sorry, Bartlett, but"—

Bartlett.—"Oh, I dare say you wouldn't have done it if you hadn't had a wild ass of the desert to deal with. Well, the old people got used to some little individuality in me, by-and-by, and beyond a suppressed whoop or two from the mother when I came suddenly into the room, they didn't do anything to annoy me directly. But they were anxious every minute for the effect on her; and it worried me as much to have them watching her as to have her watching me. Of course I knew that she talked this confounded resemblance over with her mother every time I left them, and avoided talking it over with the father."

Cummings.—"But you say the trouble's over now."

Bartlett.—"Oh—over! No, it isn't over. When she's with me a while she comes to see that I am not a mere doppelgänger. She respites me to that extent. But I have still some small rags of self-esteem dangling about me; and now suppose I should presume to set up for somebody on my own account; the first hint of my caring for her as I do, if she could conceive of anything so atrocious, would tear open all the old sorrows. Ah! I can't think of it. Besides, I tell you, it isn't all over. It's only not so bad as it was. She's subject to relapses, when it's much worse than ever. Why"—Bartlett stands facing his friend, with a half-whimsical, half-desperate smile, as if about to illustrate his point, when Constance and her mother enter the parlour.

[1] Aftermath.