The bewitching charm of her clothes, her great expenditures on herself, made him open his blue eyes. Once he held her exquisitely shod foot in his hand, admiring its beauty and its slenderness. On the polished leather was the sparkle of her paste buckles; he admired the ephemeral web of her silk stocking, and was ashamed that the thought should cross his mind as to what this lovely foot represented of extravagance. But he had been with her when she bought the buckles on the Rue de la Paix; he knew the price they cost. Was the money making him sordid—hypercritical, unkind?
Life for six months whirled round him. Mary
Faversham dazzled and bewitched him, charmed and flattered him. Their engagement had not been made public. He ceased to work; he was at her beck and call; he went with her everywhere. At her house, in her box at the opera, he met all Paris. She was hardly ever alone with him; he made one of a group. Nevertheless, they were talked about. Several orders for busts were the outcome of his meeting fashionable Paris; but he did not work. Toward March he received word from America that his bas-relief under the name of Thomas Rainsford had won the ten thousand dollar prize. He felt like a prince. For some singular reason he told no one, not even Dearborn. In writing to him the committee had told him that according to the contracts the money would not be forthcoming until July. He had gone through so many bitter disappointments in his life that he did not want in the minds of his friends to anticipate this payment and be disappointed anew.
Among his fellow-workers in the Barye studio was the son of a millionaire pork-packer from Chicago. The young man took a tremendous liking to Antony. With a certain perspicacity, the rich young fellow divined much of his new friend's needs. He came to the studio, to their different reunions, and chummed heartily with Dearborn and Fairfax. Peterson was singularly lacking in talent and tremendously over-furnished with heart. One day, as they worked side by side in the studio of the big man, Peterson watched Antony's handling of a tiger's head.
"By Jove!" cried the Chicagoan, "you are simply great—you are simply great! I wonder if you would be furious with me if I said something to you that is on my mind?"
The something on the simple young man's mind was that he wanted to lend Fairfax a sum of money, to be paid back when the sculptor saw fit. After a moment's hesitation Antony accepted the loan, making it one-third as much as the big-hearted chap had suggested. Fairfax set July as the date of payment, when his competitive money should come in. He borrowed just enough to keep him in food and clothes for the following months.
There were no motors in Paris then. In the mornings he drove with Mrs. Faversham to the Bois and limped by her side in the allées, whilst the worldly people stared at the distinguished, conspicuous couple. One day Barye himself stopped them, and to the big man Antony presented Mrs. Faversham who did not happen to know her fiancé's chief.
Fairfax looked at her critically as she laughed and was sweet and gracious. Carriages filed past them; shining equipages, the froth and wine of life flowed around them under the trees, whose chestnut torches were lit with spring.
Barye said to Antony, "Not working, are you, Rainsford? C'est dommage", and turning to Mrs. Faversham he added, nodding, "C'est dommage."