The Adventures of a Modest Man

by Robert W. Chambers

He was amusingly wrong. Waking, she remembered him; during the long day she thought of him; at night, when she returned from business, the radiance from his studio lamp streaming through the transom had for her all the thrilling fascination that a lighted shop window, at Christmas, has for a lonesome child passing in darkness.

From the dim monotony of her own life she had, at times, caught glimpses through his open door of splendours scarcely guessed. In her eyes an enchanted world lay just beyond his studio's threshold; a bright, warm, mellow wonderland, indistinct in the golden lamplight, where only a detail here and there half revealed a figured tapestry or carved foliation—perhaps some soft miracle of ancient Eastern weaving on the floor, perhaps a mysterious marble shape veiled in ruddy shadow—enough to set her youthful imagination on fire, enough to check her breath and start the pulses racing as she turned the key in her own door and reëntered the white dusk of her own life once more.

The three most important events of her brief career had occurred within the twelvemonth—her mother's death, her coming here to live—and love. That also had happened. But she did not call it love; it did not occur to her to consider him in any possible, tangible relation to herself.

She never even expected to know him, to speak to him, or that he could possibly care to speak to her. As far as the east is from the west, so far apart were their two worlds. For them the gusty corridor was wider than interstellar voids; she had not even a thought that a miracle might bridge the infinite from her tiny world to his, which seemed to her so bright and splendid; she had never advanced farther than the happiness of lying still after the day's work, and thinking, innocently, of what she knew about him and what she timidly divined.

At such times, stretched across her bed, the backs of her hands resting on her closed lids, she pondered on that alluring wonderland, his studio—of the mystery that so fittingly surrounded his artist's life. She saw him always amid the tints and hues of ancient textiles, sometimes dreaming, sometimes achieving with fiery inspiration—but precisely how or what he achieved remained to her part of his mystery. She cherished only the confused vision of the youth of him, and its glorious energy and wisdom.

He could be very human, too, she thought; and often the smile curved her lips and cheeks at the recollection of the noisy gayety coming in gusts through his transom on those nights when his friends were gathered there—laughter and song—the incense of tobacco drifting into her own white room from the corridor. She loved it; the odor seemed spicy with a delicate hint of sweet-brier, and she opened her transom wider to let it in.

Usually she fell asleep, the distant uproar of gayety lulling her into happier slumbers. And for days and nights afterward its recollection made life easier and pleasanter, as though she lived with amusing memories of events in which she herself had participated.

All day long, in a fashionable dry-goods shop, she sold cobweb finery and frail, intimate, lacy stuffs to very fine ladies, who usually drew a surprised breath at her beauty, and sometimes dealt with her as though they were dealing with one of their own caste.

At night, tired, she looked forward to her return, when, behind her own closed door, she could rest or read a little, or lie still and think of Landon. But even in the daring magic of waking dreams she had scarcely ventured any acquaintance with him; in dreamland they were as yet only just aware of one another. He had lately—oh, breathless and audacious imagination of hers!—smiled at her in the corridors of dreamland; and she had been a good many days trying to decide what she was going to do about it. In her phantom world matters were going well with her.

Meanwhile, except for the stupefying heat, the actual world was also going well with her. She had saved a little money, enough to give her ten days of luxury and fresh air when the time came. She needed it; the city had been hard on her. Yet the pleasure of going was not unmixed; for, as the day of her release drew nearer, she realized how, within the year, he had, in her dreams, insensibly become to her a part of her real life, and that she would miss him sorely. Which gave her courage to hasten their acquaintance in dreamland; and so it came about that he spoke to her one night as she lay dreaming, awake on her pillow; and she felt her cheeks burn in the dark as though it had all been real.