Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel

by Marie Van Vorst

Then the vision of the woman rose more poignant than anything else, and he saw her as she had stood under his hands, the tears in her eyes, and the fire and pallor of passion on her face.

What should he do now? Marry her, of course. He would be married, then, twice at thirty. He shook his broad shoulders as though instinctively he chafed under the sudden adjusting to them of a burden. He limped

out into the Champs Elysées, under the rows of light where the lamps were like illumined oranges. The vehicles twinkled by like fire-flies in the mist. Before him was the Palais de l'Industrie and back of it stretched the Champ de Mars and Napoleon's tomb. The freedom of the night and the hour was sweet to him; and he dreamed as he limped slowly down the Avenue under the leafless trees. Probably wisdom would tell him that, if he married now, it would be the end of his career. Love was an inspiration, a sharp impelling power to art, but marriage, a home, another household, another hearth and family, beautiful as the picture was, seemed to him, even bright and keen as was his passion, to be captivity. And the memory of Albany came back to him, the cold winter months, the days on the engine, the blizzards against the tenement panes, household cares, small and petty, the buying of coal and food, and the constant duties which no man can shrink from and be a man, and which fret the free spirit of the creator. Moreover, the anguish of those days returned, biting his very entrails at the remembrance of his griefs, his remorse, his regrets. Molly by the study light, patient and wifely, rose before his eyes. There was his wife, and she seemed holy and stainless, set apart for that position and very perfect. He saw her lying pale and cold, beautiful as marble, with the little swathed form on her bosom, which had given and never nourished. He saw them both—his wife and child. Can a man begin over again? Can he create anew, perfectly anew, the same vision? He saw her go through the open door, holding it wide for him. So she should hold it at the last. He could give her this. He had defrauded her of so much. He could give to her to eternity a certain faithfulness.

He was exalted. He walked freely, with his head uplifted. It was a misty evening and the mists blew about him as he limped along in his student's cape, his spirit communing with his ideals and with his dead. Before, his visions took form and floated down the Avenue. Now they seemed unearthly, without any stain of human desire, without any worldly tarnish. He must be free. The latitude of his life must be unbounded by any human law, otherwise he would never attain. The flying forms were sexless and his eyes pursued them like a worshipper.

They were angelic. For the moment he had emancipated himself from passion.

He reached the Place de la Concorde. It was ten o'clock. He could not go home to be questioned by Dearborn—indeed, he could not have stood a companion. He called a cab and told the man to drive him up to the Bois de Boulogne, and they rolled slowly up the Avenue down which he had just come. But in what position did he stand toward Mary Faversham? She had refused Cedersholm because she loved him and he loved her—more than he ever could love, more than he ever had loved. A cab passed him in which two forms were enlaced. The figures of two lovers blotted in the darkness. Along the alleys, under the winter trees, every now and then he saw other lovers walking arm-in-arm, even in winter warmed by the eternal fire. He touched his pocket where her note lay and his emotions stirred afresh.

He dreamed of her.

He had been tortured day by day, these weeks, by jealousy of Cedersholm, and this helped him on in his sentimental progress. They passed the street, which a moment before he had taken from her house, to come out upon the Champs Elysées. They rolled into the Bois, under the damp darkness and the night, and the forest odours came to him through the window of the cab. She would have to wait until he was rich and famous. As far as her fortune was concerned, if she loved him she could give it to the poor. He could tell her how to use it. She should never spend a cent of it on herself. He must be able to suffice for her and for him. Rich or poor, the woman who married him would have to take him as he was. On the lake the mists blew over the water. They lay white as spirits among the trees. Everything about the dark and silent night was beautiful to him, made beautiful by the sacred warfare in his own mind. Above all came the human eagerness to see her again, to touch her again, to tell his love, to hear her say what Dearborn's coming had prevented. And he would see her to-morrow morning. It was profanity to walk in these woods without her.

"Go back," he called to the coachman, "go back quietly to the Quais."