CHAPTER V.
Herewas a man who had lost the romance of life. Not a shred of sentiment was left.
Richmond Briarley strode about his den, pulling his smoking jacket from a pair of vicious-looking antlers above the door, his slippers from the wings of Cupid poised above the glorious Psyche.
There was a princely abandon in the luxurious den he called “home.” Looking about it, one would conceive him to be a man quite beyond the ordinary—if the trophies, pictures, statuary, bespoke his individuality.
“Don’t wait for me, Andrews, go ahead,” he called out from an alcove.
If his heart was not open to his friends, hisfinest wines were, and the one is often mistaken for the other.
Richmond Briarley had ample, irregular features, hair and eyes the blackest black, and an olive gray complexion. There was something stoic in the closing of his lips, set around with circular wrinkles, revealing the traits peculiar to his type. He hadn’t the least regard for the past, nor fault to find with the future.
Coming out, he poured a glass of wine and drank with Glenn Andrews.
“Have a smoke,” glancing towards a tabourette, strewn with pipes, some of them disreputable enough to the eye.
“Take any of them, you won’t be smoking any old, dry, dead memories—these are all ‘bought’ ones.”
“I’ll help myself. I was just reading my mail. The boy handed it to me as I was leaving the office.”
Folding a sheet of paper on which was writtenonly a name and address, he took up one of the pipes and began filling it.
So Esther Powel was in town. It was a daring entrance upon life for this little hard-headed, soft-hearted Southerner. He looked thoughtful; the soberness of his youth, rather than the labor of his manhood, had lightly marked his face. A sudden apprehension seized him for the pure, sweet life he knew so well. It was almost as much as her life was worth to come here so pretty and so friendless. She needed protection.
This thought took possession of his mind to the exclusion of all else. In the old days he had been the only one who could bend her wayward will. Her faith in him was the blind unquestioning faith of a child. Her own feeling for him she did not reason with. She accepted it as a fact which was beyond her analysis. Under its spell she had grown and flourished against great odds. Why should she not continue to do so?
“Briarley,” Glenn went on, filling his pipe, andpacking it down with his thumb. “Suppose you knew a girl who was coming here alone, to study art, what would you consider the very best way to shield her?”
“By keeping away from her.”
“But, suppose she needed some one to look to—suppose she were young and knew no one. City life is a fiercely hardening process, you know.”
“I’d get some woman friend to show her all there was to see, and that might cure her. So-called sin charms because it’s unknown.”
“Don’t you think a girl’s love, if not unappreciated, is a shield and an inspiration?”
Briarley shook his head.
“Oh! of course, I forgot. You don’t believe in love.”
“I do, as much as I believe in any other hell.”
Andrews was silent.
“Have your fun out, then we’ll be serious.”
Their views were directly opposite, yet the enthusiasmof each made ground for respect, if not agreement.
“While you now admit such a phantasy, Andrews, you get the credit of living by the head. It is generally understood that you never let scruples of the heart stand in the way.”
“I am not a woman; besides, it is a matter of self-denial, and not unbelief. My love is my profession—long ago I made my choice between woman and art—if I had chosen woman that love would have ruled my life. I have given over much for my work; it has demanded sacrifice. I am just now beginning to prove myself equal to its despotic sovereignty. Briarley, unless you have tried for one thing all your life, you can’t conceive how bewildering and sweet a burst of it is for the first time. Under no conditions whatever would I sacrifice my best aims, my highest ambitions. It is better to be than to have. That’s my philosophy.”
“Go on. Every man has the right to work out his own destiny.”
Briarley filled his glass again. “The way he can get the most satisfaction is the way he generally chooses.”
“Satisfaction hurts the soul. There is nothing worse than satiety of the senses. I would never let myself become thoroughly satisfied.”
“You couldn’t ask for more than the success of that last book. The critics rendered you distinguished services,” said Briarley. “I understand the sale was enormous.”
“It has sold very well, but that only forces me to wrestle the harder to keep up the standard of that reputation. If I cared for a woman, my heart and soul could be loyal to her, but my time and vitality belong entirely to my art. ‘Women are born to live and love. They only really live after they love.’”
Andrews went on as though the other had endorsed his doctrine. “Love is an uplifting force to genius. A man would be doing a chivalrous act to win and hold the devotion of a girl in such an instance as I have cited.”
“It would be a risk.”
“Yes, but in my judgment the advantage is much greater than the risk.”
“It would be a responsibility.”
“I like responsibility; it braces a man to bear it.”
“Well, the fellow who carries out your mad project will settle for his folly.”
“If he did, I’d stand by him in it.”
“He couldn’t stand by himself. There’d be the trouble—he’d fall.”
Glenn Andrews knocked the ashes from his pipe and got up, straightening his shoulders and smoothing his hair with his hands. His mind was made up. He did not expect to fall.
Knowing himself to be his own master, he felt that to lend himself to anything that would hurt her ideal of him would be impossible.
“Where now?”
“To find somebody looking for trouble,” Glenn said, with a smile.
“Don’t forget the Sunday night concert, Andrews. I’m counting on you. Here are half the box tickets. Do what you please with them.”
“I shall be there. Thank you.”