CHAPTER XIX
He went upstairs to his atelier with a strange eager hammering at his heart. For several weeks the studio had been, for him, little more than an ante-chamber—a dressing-room where he had made careful toilettes before going to Mrs. Faversham. His constant attendance upon a beautiful woman had turned him into something of a dandy, and the purchase of fine clothes and linen had eaten well into his borrowed money, which had been frankly used by Dearborn when in need.
"Dearborn, wear any of my things you like, only don't get ink spots on them, for God's sake!"
And Dearborn had responded, "I don't need to go courting in four-hundred-franc suits, Tony; Nora is my kind, you know."
And when Antony had flashed out, "What the devil do you mean?" Dearborn explained—
"Only that Nora and I are poor together. I didn't intend to be rude, old man."
Dearborn had gone to London third-class with his play under his arm and hope in his heart. Antony had not been sorry to find himself alone. When he was not with Mary he paced the floor, his idle hands in his pockets. At night he was restless, and he did not disturb any one when at two o'clock he would rise to smoke, and, leaning out of the window, watch the dawn come up over the Louvre, over the river and the quays. His easels, his tools, his covered busts mocked him as the dust settled down upon them. His part of the big room had fallen into disuse. In the salons of Mary Faversham nothing seemed important but the possession of riches; they talked of art there, but they discussed it easily, and no one ever spoke of work. They talked of books there,
but the makers of them seemed men of another sphere. His aunt and the Comte Potowski sang there indeed, but to Antony their voices were only echoes. He had grown accustomed to objects whose possession meant small fortunes. His own few belongings seemed pitiful and sordid. Poverty at Albany had appalled him, but as yet his soul had been untarnished. Life seemed then a beautiful struggle. Here in Paris, too, as he worked with Dearborn in his studio, the lack of money had been unimportant, and privation only a step on which men of talent poised before going on. Lessons had been precious to him, and in his meagre existence all his untrammelled senses had been keen. Now his lack of material resource was terrible, degrading, sickening.