XIII
THIS "WOULD" CHANGES.
Hamlet; iv.—7.
Melissa Blake was growing paler in these days, worn with the ache of a hurt love. Since the night on which he had parted from her in anger, John had been to see her only on brief errands which he could not well avoid, and while he had made no allusion to the difference which separated them, it was evident that he still brooded over his fancied grievance.
This phase of John's character, its least amiable characteristic, which marred it amid many excellent qualities, was not wholly unknown to Melissa. She was by far the more clear-headed of the two, and she understood her lover with much greater acuteness than he was able to bring to the task of comprehending her. It was from intelligent perception and not merely from the feminine instinct for making excuses, that she said to herself that John was worn out with the strain of burdens long and uncomplainingly borne; and she was, it might be added, near enough to the primitive savagery of the rustic New Englanders of the last generation, to find it perfectly a matter of course that a man should make of his womenfolk a sort of scapegoat upon whom to visit his wrath against the sins alike of fate and of his fellows.
She waited for John to relent from his unjust anger, but she did not protest, and when he chose once more to be gracious unto his handmaiden he would be met only with faithful affection and with no reproaches. From the abstract standpoint, nothing could be farther astray than the fulness and freedom of Milly's forgivenesses; practically, this illogical feminine weakness made life easier and happier, not alone for everybody about her, but for herself as well. Doubtless such a yielding disposition tempted her lover to injustices he would never have ventured with a more spirited woman, but after all her forgiveness was so divine as almost to turn the transgression into a virtue for causing it.
When the account of Milly's life was made up, there must be put into the record long, wordless stretches of uncomplaining and prayerful patience, hidden from the eyes of all mankind. The capabilities of women of this sort for quiet suffering are as infinitely pathetic as they are measureless; and, although she was silent, the dark rings under her eyes and the lagging step told how her sorrow was wearing upon her. She went on faithfully with her work; she held still to the faith that somehow help was sure to come; and as only such women can be, she was patient with the patience of a god.
Milly was surprised one afternoon by a visit from Orin Stanton, the half brother of John. The sculptor had never before come to see her, and, although Milly was little given to censoriousness, she could not avoid the too-obvious reflection that, in one known to be so consistently self-seeking as was Orin, the probability was that some selfish motive lay behind the call. Orin had never been especially fond of Milly, and since his return from Europe, where he had been maintained by the liberality of an old lady, who, in a summer visit to Feltonville, had been attracted by his talent for modelling in clay, he had avoided as far as possible all intercourse with his townspeople. The old lady, who took much innocent pleasure in imagining herself the patroness of a future Phidias, died suddenly one day, leaving the will by which provision was made for young Stanton's future unhappily without signature; a fact which ever after furnished him with definite grounds upon which to found his accusations against society and fate.
It was largely in virtue of this interesting and pathetic story that Mrs. Frostwinch and Mrs. Bodewin Ranger had taken it upon themselves to better the fortunes of Stanton. Large-hearted ladies in Boston, as elsewhere in the world, find no difficulty in discovering signs of genius in a work of art where they deliberately look for it; and being moved by the sculptor's history,—in which, to say sooth, there was nothing remarkable, and, save the disappointment in regard to the will, little that was even striking—his patronesses were not slow in coming to regard his productions with admiration curiously resembling momentary veneration. They in a mild way instituted a Stanton cult, as a minor interest in lives already richly full, and when more weighty matters did not interfere, Mrs. Frostwinch, in varying degrees of enthusiasm, could be charming in her praises of the sculptor, whom she designated as "adorably ursine," and of his work, which in turn, she termed "irresistibly insistent," whatever that might mean.
Bearish, Orin Stanton certainly was, whether one did or did not find the quality adorable. He was heavy in mould, with a face marked by none of the delicacy one expects in an artist and to which his small eyes and thick lips lent a sensual cast. Milly had always found his countenance repulsive, strongly as she strove not to be affected by mere outward appearances. He wore his hair long, its coarse, reddish masses showing conspicuously in a crowd, when he got to going about among such people as hunt lions in Boston.
Mrs. Bodewin Ranger patronized him from afar, and could not be brought to invite him to her house.