The doctor made a negative gesture. “Florida be hanged! What he wants is to sell his group. That would set him up quicker than sitting on the equator.”
“Sell his group?” Stanwell echoed. “But he’s so indifferent to recognition—he believes in himself so thoroughly. I thought at first he would be hard hit when the Exhibition Committee refused it, but he seems to regard that as another proof of its superiority.”
His visitor turned on him the penetrating eye of the confessor. “Indifferent to recognition? He’s eating his heart out for it. Can’t you see that all that talk is just so much whistling to keep his courage up? The name of his disease is failure—and I can’t write the prescription that will cure that complaint. But if somebody would come along and take a fancy to those two naked parties who are breaking each other’s heads, we’d have Mr. Caspar putting on a pound a day.”
The truth of this diagnosis became suddenly vivid to Stanwell. How dull of him not to have seen before that it was not cold or privation which was killing Caspar—not anxiety for his sister’s future, nor the ache of watching her daily struggle—but simply the cankering thought that he might die before he had made himself known! It was his vanity that was starving to death, and all Mungold’s hampers could not appease that hunger. Stanwell was not shocked by the discovery—he was only the more sorry for the little man, who was, after all, denied that solace of self-sufficiency which his talk so noisily proclaimed. His lot seemed hard enough when Stanwell had pictured him as buoyed up by the scorn of public opinion—it became tragic if he was denied that support. The artist wondered if Kate had guessed her brother’s secret, or if she were still the dupe of his stoicism. Stanwell was sure that the sculptor would take no one into his confidence, and least of all his sister, whose faith in his artistic independence was the chief prop of that tottering pose. Kate’s penetration was not great, and Stanwell recalled the incredulous smile with which she had heard him defend poor Mungold’s “sincerity” against Caspar’s assaults; but she had the insight of the heart, and where her brother’s happiness was concerned she might have seen deeper than any of them. It was this last consideration which took the strongest hold on Stanwell—he felt Caspar’s sufferings chiefly through the thought of his sister’s possible disillusionment.
IV
WITHIN three months two events had set the studio building talking. Stanwell had painted a full-length portrait of Mrs. Archer Millington, and Caspar Arran had received an order to execute his group in marble.
The name of the sculptor’s patron had not been divulged. The order came through Shepson, who explained that an American customer living abroad, having seen a photograph of the group in one of the papers, had at once cabled home to secure it. He intended to bestow it on a public building in America, and not wishing to advertise his munificence, had preferred that even the sculptor should remain ignorant of his name. The group bought by an enlightened compatriot for the adornment of a civic building in his native land! There could hardly be a more complete vindication of unappreciated genius, and Caspar made the most of the argument. He was not exultant, he was sublimely magnanimous. He had always said that he could afford to await the Verdict of Posterity, and his unknown patron’s act clearly shadowed forth that impressive decision. Happily it also found expression in a cheque which it would have taken more philosophy to await. The group was paid for in advance, and Kate’s joy in her brother’s recognition was deliciously mingled with the thrill of ordering him some new clothes, and coaxing him out to dine succulently at a neighbouring restaurant. Caspar flourished insufferably on this regime: he began to strike the attitude of the recognized Great Master, who gives advice and encouragement to the struggling neophyte. He held himself up as an example of the reward of disinterestedness, of the triumph of the artist who clings obstinately to his convictions.
“A man must believe in his star—look at Napoleon! It’s the dogged trust in one’s convictions that tells—it always ends by forcing the public into line. Only be sure you make no concessions—don’t give in to any of their humbug! An artist who listens to the critics is ruined—they never have any use for the poor devils who do what they tell them to. Run after fame and she’ll keep you running, but stay in your own corner and do your own work, and by George, sir, she’ll come crawling up to you and ask to have her likeness done!”
These exhortations were chiefly directed to Stanwell, partly because the inmates of the other studios were apt to elude them, partly also because the rumours concerning Stanwell’s portrait of Mrs. Millington had begun to disquiet the sculptor. At first he had taken a condescending interest in the fact of his friend’s receiving an order, and had admonished him not to lose the chance of “showing up” his sitter and her environment. It was a splendid opportunity for a fellow with a “message” to be introduced into the tents of the Philistine, and Stanwell was charged to drive a long sharp nail into the enemy’s skull. But presently Arran began to suspect that the portrait was not as comminatory as he could have wished. Mungold, the most kindly of rivals, let drop a word of injudicious praise: the picture, he said, promised to be delightfully “in keeping” with the decorations of the ballroom, and the lady’s gown harmonized exquisitely with the window-curtains. Stanwell, called to account by his monitor, reminded the latter that he himself had been selected by Mungold to do the Cupids for Mrs. Millington’s ballroom, and that the friendly artist’s praise could, therefore, not be taken as positive evidence of incapacity.
“Ah, but I didn’t do them—I kicked him out!” Caspar rejoined; and Stanwell could only plead that, even in the cause of art, one could hardly kick a lady.
“Ah, that’s the worst of it. If the women get at you you’re lost. You’re young, you’re impressionable, you won’t mind my saying that you’re not built for a stoic, and hang it, they’ll coddle you, they’ll enervate you, they’ll sentimentalize you, they’ll make a Mungold of you!”
“Ah, poor Mungold,” Stanwell laughed. “If he lived the life of an anchorite he couldn’t help painting pictures that would please Mrs. Millington.”
“Whereas you could,” Kate interjected, raising her head from the ironing-board where, Sphinx-like, magnificent, she swung a splendid arm above her brother’s shirts.
“Oh, well, perhaps I shan’t please her; perhaps I shall elevate her taste.”
Caspar directed a groan to his sister. “That’s what they all think at first—Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came. But inside the Dark Tower there’s the Venusberg. Oh, I don’t mean that you’ll be taken with truffles and plush footmen, like Mungold. But praise, my poor Ned—praise is a deadly drug! It’s the absinthe of the artist—and they’ll stupefy you with it. You’ll wallow in the mire of success.”
Stanwell raised a protesting hand. “Really, for one order, you’re a little lurid!”
“One? Haven’t you already had a dozen others?”
“Only one other, so far—and I’m not sure I shall do that.”
“Not sure—wavering already! That’s the way the mischief begins. If the women get a fad for you they’ll work you like a galley-slave. You’ll have to do your round of ‘copy’ every morning. What becomes of inspiration then? How are you going to loaf and invite the soul? Don’t barter your birthright for a mess of pottage! Oh, I understand the temptation—I know the taste of money and success. But look at me, Stanwell. You know how long I had to wait for recognition. Well, now it’s come to me I don’t mean to let it knock me off my feet. I don’t mean to let myself be overworked; I have already made it known that I will not be bullied into taking more orders than I can do full justice to. And my sister is with me, God bless her; Kate would rather go on ironing my shirts in a garret than see me
