Chapter 3

“Then, my cousin, I will give him to you, for I have fancied of late that you rather coveted him. You could not manage him now,—the savage in him is not quite civilized yet,—but wait a little, and I will make a charming plaything for you. I know you will treat him kindly, since it is truly said, Those who have served, best know how to rule.”

The sneer stung her deeply, for there was no humiliation this proud woman had not suffered at the hands of a brutal and unfaithful husband. Pity was as bitter a draught to her as to the man who thus cruelly reminded her of the long bondage which had left an ineffaceable blight upon her life. The wound bled inwardly, but she retaliated, as only such a woman could.

“Love is the one master who can rule and bind without danger or disgrace. I shall remember that, and when you give me Felix he will find me a gentler mistress than I was ten years ago—to you.”

The last words dropped from her lips as softly as if full of tender reminiscence, but they pricked pride, since they could not touch a relentless heart. Helwyze betrayed it by the sombre fire of his eye, the tone in which he answered.

“And I will ask of you the only gift I care to accept,—your new _protégée_, Gladys. Tell me where you found her; the child interests me much.”

“I know it;” and, stifling a pang of jealous pain, Olivia obeyed with the docility of one in whom will was conquered by a stronger power.

“A freak took me to the hills in March. My winter had been a vain chase after happiness, and I wanted solitude. I found it where chance led me,—in this girl’s home. A poor, bleak place enough; but it suited me, for there were only the father and daughter, and they left me to myself. The man died suddenly, and no one mourned, for he was a selfish tyrant. The girl was left quite alone, and nearly penniless, but so happy in her freedom that she had no fears. I liked the courage of the creature; I knew how she felt; I saw great capacity for something fine in her. I said, ‘Come with me for a little, and time will show you the next step.’ She came; time has shown her, and the next step will take her from my house to yours, unless I much mistake your purpose.”

Leaning in the low, lounging chair, Helwyze had listened motionless, except that the fingers of one thin hand moved fitfully, as if he played upon some instrument inaudible to all ears but his own. A frequent gesture of his, and most significant, to any one who knew that his favorite pastime was touching human heart-strings with marvellous success in producing discords by his uncanny skill.

As Olivia paused, he asked in a voice as suave as cold,—

“My purpose? Have I any?”

“You say she interests you, and you watch her in a way that proves it. Have you not already resolved to win her for your amusement, by some bribe as cunning as that you gave Canaris for his liberty?”

“I have. You are a shrewd woman, Olivia.”

“Yet she is not beautiful;” and her eye vainly searched the inscrutable countenance, that showed so passionless and pale against the purple cushion where it leaned.

“Pardon me, the loveliest woman I have seen for years. A beautiful, fresh soul is most attractive when one is weary of more material charms. This girl seems made of spirit, fire, and dew; a mixture rare as it is exquisite, and the spell is all the greater because of its fine and elusive quality. I promise myself much satisfaction in observing how this young creature meets the trials and temptations life and love will bring her; and to do this she must be near at hand.”

“Happy Gladys!”

Olivia smiled a scornful smile, but folded her arms to curb the rebellious swelling of her heart at the thought of another woman nearer than herself. She turned away as she spoke; but Helwyze saw the quiver of her lips, and read the meaning of the piercing glance she shot into the garden, as if to find and annihilate that unconscious rival.

Content for the moment with the touch of daily torture which was the atonement exacted for past disloyalty, he lifted the poor soul from despair to delight by the utterance of three words, accompanied by a laugh as mirthless as musical,—

“Happy Felix, rather.”

“Is _he_ to marry her?” and Olivia fronted him, glowing with a sudden joy which made her lovely as well as brilliant.

“Who else?”

“Yourself.”

“I!” and the word was full of a bitterness which thrilled every nerve the woman had, for an irrepressible regret wrung it from lips sternly shut on all complaint, except to her.

“Why not?” she cried, daring to answer with impetuous warmth and candor. “What woman would not be glad to serve you for the sake of the luxury with which you would surround her, if not for the love you might win and give, if you chose?”

“Bah! what have I to do with love? Thank Heaven my passions are all dead, else life would be a hell, not the purgatory it is,” he said, glancing at his wasted limbs, with an expression which would have been pathetic, had it not been defiant; for that long discipline of pain had failed to conquer the spirit of the man, and it seemed to sit aloof, viewing with a curious mixture of compassion and contempt the slow ruin of the body which imprisoned it.

With an impulse womanly as winning, Olivia plucked a wine-dark rose from the trellis nearest her, and, bending towards him, laid it in his hand, with a look and gesture of one glad to give all she possessed, if that were possible.

“Your love of beauty still survives, and is a solace to you. Let me minister to it when I can; and be assured I offer my little friend as freely as I do my choicest rose.”

“Thanks; the flower for me, the friend for Felix. Young as he is, he knows how to woo, and she will listen to his love-tale as willingly as she did to the highly colored romance he was telling her just now. You would soon find her a burden, Olivia, and so should I, unless she came in this way. We need do nothing but leave the young pair to summer and seclusion; they will make the match better and more quickly than we could. Then a month for the honeymoon business, and all can be comfortably settled before October frosts set in.”

“You often say, where women are is discord; yet you are planning to bring one into your house in the most dangerous way. Have you no fears, Jasper?”

“Not of Gladys; she is so young, I can mould her as I please, and that suits me. She will become my house well, this tender, transparent little creature, with her tranquil eyes, and the sincere voice which makes truth sweeter than falsehood. You must come and see her there; but never try to alter her, or the charm will be destroyed.”

“You may be satisfied: but how will it be with Felix? Hitherto your sway has been undivided, now you must share it; for with all her gentleness she is strong, and will rule him.”

“And I, Gladys. Felix suits me excellently, and it will only add another charm to the relation if I control him through the medium of another. My young lion is discovering his power rapidly, and I must give him a Una before he breaks loose and chooses for himself. If matters must be complicated, I choose to do it, and it will occupy my winter pleasantly to watch the success of this new combination.”

While he talked, Helwyze had been absently stripping leaf after leaf from the great rose, till nothing but the golden heart remained trembling on the thorny stem.

Olivia had watched the velvet petals fall one by one, feeling a sad sympathy with the ill-used gift; yet, as the last leaf fluttered to the ground, she involuntarily lifted up her hand to break another, glad if even in the destruction of so frail a thing he could find a moment’s pleasure.

“No, let them hang; their rich color pleases best among the green; their cloying perfume is too heavy for the house. A snowdrop, leaning from its dainty sheath undaunted by March winds, is more to my taste now,” he said, dropping the relics of the rose, with the slow smile which often lent such significance to a careless word.

“I cannot give you that: spring flowers are all gone long ago,” began Olivia, regretfully.

“Nay, you give me one in Gladys; no spring flower could be more delicate than she, gathered by your own hand from the bleak nook where you found her. It is the faint, vernal fragrance of natures, coyly hidden from common eye and touch, which satisfies and soothes senses refined by suffering.”

“Yet you will destroy it, like the rose, in finding out the secret of its life. I wondered why this pale, cold innocence was so attractive to a man like you. There was a time when you would have laughed at such a fancy, and craved something with more warmth and brilliancy.”

“I am wiser now, and live here, not here,” he answered, touching first his forehead then his breast, with melancholy meaning. “While my brain is spared me I can survive the ossification of all the heart I ever had, since, at best, it is an unruly member. Almost as inconvenient as a conscience; that, thank fortune, I never had. Yes; to study the mysterious mechanism of human nature is a most absorbing pastime, when books weary, and other sources of enjoyment are forbidden. Try it, and see what an exciting game it becomes, when men and women are the pawns you learn to move at will. Goethe’s boyish puppet-show was but a symbol of the skill and power which made the man the magician he became.”

“An impious pastime, a dearly purchased fame, built on the broken hearts of women!” exclaimed Olivia, walking to and fro with the noiseless step and restless grace of a leopardess pacing its cage.

Helwyze neither seemed to see nor hear her, for his gloomy eyes stared at a little bird tilting on a spray that swung in the freshening wind, and his thoughts followed their own path.

“‘Pale, cold innocence.’ It _is_ curious that it should charm me. A good sign, perhaps; for poets tell us that fallen angels sigh for the heaven they have lost, and try to rise again on the wings of spirits stronger and purer than themselves. Would they not find virtue insipid after a fiery draught of sin? Did not Paradise seem a little dull to Dante, in spite of Beatrice? I wish I knew.”

“Is it for this that you want the girl’s help?” asked Olivia, pausing in her march to look at him. “I shall wait with interest to see if she lifts you up to sainthood, or you drag her down to your level, where intellect is God, conscience ignored, and love despised. Unhappy Gladys! I should have said, because I cannot keep her from you, if I would; and in your hands she will be as helpless as the dumb creatures surgeons torture, that they may watch a living nerve, count the throbbing of an artery, or see how long the poor things will live bereft of some vital part. Let the child alone, Jasper, or you will repent of it.”

“Upon my word, Olivia, you are in an ominously prophetic mood. I hear a carriage; and, as I am invisible to all eyes but your gifted ones, pardon me if I unceremoniously leave the priestess on her tripod.”

And the curtain dropped between them as suddenly as it had been lifted, depriving the woman of the one troubled joy of her life,—companionship with him.

IV.

“Felix, are you asleep?”

“No, sir, only resting.”

“Have you been at work?”

“Decidedly; I rowed across the lake and back.”

“Alone?”

“Gladys went with me, singing like a mermaid all the way.”

“Ah!”

Both men were lounging in the twilight; but there was a striking difference in their way Of doing it. Canaris lay motionless on a couch, his head pillowed on his arms, enjoying the luxury of repose, with the _dolce far niente_ only possible to those in whose veins runs Southern blood. Helwyze leaned in a great chair, which looked a miracle of comfort; but its occupant stirred restlessly, as if he found no ease among its swelling cushions; and there was an alert expression in his face, betraying that the brain was at work on some thought or purpose which both absorbed and excited.

A pause followed the brief dialogue, during which Canaris seemed to relapse into his delicious drowse, while Helwyze sat looking at him with the critical regard one bestows on a fine work of art. Yet something in the spectacle of rest he could not share seemed to annoy him; for, suddenly turning up the shaded lamp upon his table, he dispelled the soft gloom, and broke the silence.

“I have a request to make. May I trouble you to listen?”

There was a tone of command in the courteously worded speech, which made Canaris sit erect, with a respectful—

“At your service, sir.”

“I wish you to marry,” continued Helwyze, with such startling abruptness that the young man gazed at him in mute amazement for a moment. Then, veiling his surprise by a laugh, he asked lightly,—

“Isn’t it rather soon for that, sir? I am hardly of age.”

“Geniuses are privileged; and I am not aware of any obstacle, if _I_ am satisfied,” answered Helwyze, with an imperious gesture, which seemed to put aside all objections.

“Do you seriously mean it, sir?”

“I do.”

“But why such haste?”

“Because it is my pleasure.”

“I will not give up my liberty so soon,” cried the young man, with a mutinous flash of the eye.

“I thought you had already given it up. If you choose to annul the agreement, do it, and go. You know the forfeit.”

“I forgot this possibility. Did I agree to obey in all things?”

“It was so set down in the bond. Entire obedience in return for the success you coveted. Have I failed in my part of the bargain?”

“No, sir; no.”

“Then do yours, or let us cancel the bond, and part.”

“How can we? What can I do without you? Is there no way but this?”

“None.”

Canaris looked dismayed,—and well he might, for it seemed impossible to put away the cup he had thirsted for, when its first intoxicating draught was at his lips.

Helwyze had spoken with peculiar emphasis, and his words were full of ominous suggestion to the listener’s ear; for he alone knew how much rebellion would cost him, since luxury and fame were still dearer than liberty or honor. He sprung up, and paced the room, feeling like some wild creature caught in a snare.

Helwyze, regardless of his chafing, went on calmly, as if to a willing hearer, eying him vigilantly the while, though now his own manner was as persuasive as it had been imperative before.

“I ask no more than many parents do, and will give you my reasons for the demand, though that was not among the stipulations.”

“A starving man does not stop to weigh words, or haggle about promises. I was desperate, and you offered me salvation; can you wonder that I clutched the only hand held out to me?” demanded Canaris, with a world of conflicting emotions in his expressive face, as he paused before his master.

“I am not speaking of the first agreement, that was brief as simple. The second bargain was a more complicated matter. You were not desperate then; you freely entered into it, reaped the benefits of it, and now wish to escape the consequences of your own act. Is that fair?”

“How could I dream that you would exact such obedience as this? I am too young; it is a step that may change my whole life; I must have time,” murmured Canaris, while a sudden change passed over his whole face, his eye fell before the glance bent on him, as the other spoke.

“It need not change your life, except to make it freer, perhaps happier. Hitherto you have had all the pleasure, now I desire my share. You often speak of gratitude; prove it by granting my request, and, in adding a new solace to my existence, you will find you have likewise added a new charm to your own.”

“It is so sudden,—I do desire to show my gratitude,—I have tried to do my part faithfully so far,” began Canaris, as if a look, a word, had tamed his high spirit, and enforced docility sorely against his will.

“So far, I grant that, and I thank you for the service which I desire to lessen by the step you decline to take. I have spoilt you for use, but not for ornament. I still like to see you flourish; I enjoy your success; I cannot free you; but I _can_ give you a mate, who will take your place and amuse me at home, while you sing and soar abroad. Is that sufficiently poetical for a poet’s comprehension?” and Helwyze smiled, that satiric smile of his, still watching the young man’s agitated countenance.

“But why need _I_ marry? Why cannot”—there Canaris hesitated, for he lacked the courage to make the very natural suggestion Olivia had done.

Helwyze divined the question on his lips, and answered it with stern brevity.

“That is impossible;” then added, with the sudden softening of tone which made his voice irresistibly seductive, “I have given one reason for my whim: there are others, which affect you more nearly and pleasantly, perhaps. Little more than a year ago, your first book came out, making you famous for a time. You have enjoyed your laurels for a twelvemonth, and begin to sigh for more. The world has petted you, as it does any novelty, and expects to be paid for its petting, else it will soon forget you.”

“No fear of that!” exclaimed the other, with the artless arrogance of youth.

“If I thought you would survive the experiment, I would leave you to discover what a fickle mistress you serve. But frost would soon blight your budding talent, so we will keep on the world’s sunny side, and tempt the Muse, not terrify her.”