Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel

by Marie Van Vorst

to think of her as he had not let himself do during the weeks when she had sat for him. He found that he could not go on with his work now and think of her. He had voluntarily denied himself this day at Versailles where he might have enjoyed her for hours. When she had told him that she had written to Cedersholm about him he had smiled.

"He will not recall my name. I was an obscure pupil with others. He will not remember Tom Rainsford."

Evidently Cedersholm had not remembered him. The subject was never mentioned between them again. Except as he heard it in general conversation, Cedersholm's name was no longer frequently on Mrs. Faversham's lips. He stopped working, wrapped his plaster carefully and pushed the stool back into the corner. Near it was a pile of books which he had carefully done up to return to Mrs. Faversham. She had obtained orders for him from her friends, none of which he had accepted. Why should he be so churlish? Why should he refuse to take advantage of her kindness and generosity? Why should not her influence help him on his stony way? What part did his pride play in it? Was it on account of Cedersholm, or was it something else?

At noon he went out to eat his luncheon in a little café where he was known and popular. The little room was across a court-yard filled with potted plants on which the winter had laid icy fingers, but which to-day in the sunshine seemed to have garbed themselves with something like spring. The little restaurant was low, noisy, filled with the clatter and bustle of the noon meal served to hungry students and artists. The walls were painted by the brush of different skilful craftsmen, young artists who could not pay their accounts and had settled their scores by leaving paintings on the walls, and one could read distinguished names. When Fairfax came here, as he sometimes did, he always took a little table in the second and darker room by another window which gave on a quiet court on whose stones were heaped up the statues and remains of an old Louis XV palace. This room was reserved for the older and quieter clients, and here, at another table in the corner, a pretty girl with a

shock of curly hair under a soft hat and an old cape and an old portfolio, always ate, and she sometimes smiled at him. He would catch her eye, and she was, as Fairfax, always alone.

Girl-students and grisettes, and others less respectable, had eyed him and elbowed him, but not one had tempted him. There was no merit in his celibacy, but to-day, as he glanced over at the English girl-student, something about her caught his attention as never before. She was half turned to him; her portfolio lay on the table at her side with the remains of a scanty lunch. Her head was bowed on her hands. She looked dejected, forlorn, bringing her little unhappiness to the small restaurant where so many strugglers and aspirants brought their hopes and their inspirations. This little bit of humanity seemed on this day uninspired, cast down, and he had remarked her generally before because of her gaiety, her eagerness, and he had avoided her because he knew that she would be sympathetic with him.

In a sort of revenge possible on himself, and feeling his own loneliness, he permitted himself to look long at her and saw how miserably poor her dress was, how rusty and dusty her cape, how trodden down were her little shoes. She was all in brown, from the old beaver hat to her boots, in a soft, old-faded note of colour, and her hair was gloriously golden like a chrysanthemum. As Antony looked at her she took out her handkerchief and wiped something off her cheek and from her eyes. His luncheon of steak and potatoes had been served him. He took up his napkin and his dinner and limped over to the table where the English girl sat bowed over.

"Would you like a comrade for luncheon? Say so, if you don't want me." He saw her start, wipe her eyes and look up with a sob on her lips.

"Oh, yes, I don't mind." Her voice was stifled. "Sit down, it is good of you."

The girl covered her face with her hands for a second and then wiped her eyes determinedly, as if she fetched herself out of stony depths. She smiled tremulously and her lips were as red and full and sweet as a rose.