“I will do what you wish, for you see more clearly than I. You shall be happy, and I will be proud of doing it, even if no one else sees any good in my work.”
“They will! they must! It may not be the grandest thing you will ever do, but it is so human, it cannot fail to touch and charm; and to me that is as great an act as to astonish or dazzle by splendid learning or wonderful wit. Make it noble as well as beautiful, then people will love as well as praise you.”
“I will try, Gladys. I see now what I should have written, and—if I can—it shall be done.”
“I promised you inspiration, you remember: have I not kept my word?” asked Helwyze, forgotten, and content to be forgotten, until now.
Canaris looked up quickly; but there was no gratitude in his face, as he answered, with his hand on the head he pressed against his shoulder, and a certain subdued passion in his voice,—
“You have: not the highest inspiration; but, if she is happy, it will atone for much.”
XI.
And Gladys was happy for a little while. Canaris labored doggedly till all was finished as she wished. Helwyze lent the aid which commands celerity; and early in the new year the book came out, to win for itself and its author the admiration and regard she had prophesied. But while the outside world, with which she had little to do except through her husband, rejoiced over him and his work, she, in her own small world, where he was all in all, was finding cause to wonder and grieve at the change which took place in him.
“I have done my task, now let me play,” he said; and play he did, quite as energetically as he had worked, though to far less purpose. Praise seemed to intoxicate him, for he appeared to forget every thing else, and bask in its sunshine, as if he never could have enough of it. His satisfaction would have been called egregious vanity, had it not been so gracefully expressed, and the work done so excellent that all agreed the young man had a right to be proud of it, and enjoy his reward as he pleased. He went out much, being again caressed and fêted to his heart’s content, leaving Gladys to amuse Helwyze; for a very little of this sort of gayety satisfied her, and there was something painful to her in the almost feverish eagerness with which her husband sought and enjoyed excitement of all kinds. Glad and proud though she was, it troubled her to see him as utterly engrossed as if existence had no higher aim than the most refined and varied pleasure; and she began to feel that, though the task was done, she had not got him back again from that other mistress, who seemed to have bewitched him with her dazzling charms.