The San Rosario Ranch
all wise enough to feel that in Graham's genius lay the brightest hope
for a new school of art which should combine the knowledge of the Old
World with the fresh vigor and hope of the New. They looked up to him
as a leader, and he earnestly wrought and thought for their advancement.
It was for this that he had left Europe and his many agreeable
associates there, and returned to his own country, that whatever power
for good there in him lay should redound to her glory. His fellow
artists all revered him, and they would gladly have loved him; but the
sensitive man shrank from that familiarity which popularity entails. In
their work he was always interested; and in whatever touched the art
they all served, he was active and ready to labor endlessly without
recompense or recognition. But in their lives and personalities he felt
no wish to mix; and so it was that he who labored most for them as an
artist was farthest removed from them as a man.
There was but one verdict rendered by the men who stood grouped about
the easel. It was a masterly picture, they all said. For an hour or
more, one or another of them discussed certain technical points with
Graham, who with kindled face listened and talked with his associates,
more himself than he had been since the night when he had first dreamed
of the picture. The young sculptor was less loud in his praise than
were the others; in his eyes the classic subject was a trifle labored
and cold. After having praised, the men felt at liberty to criticise;
and if Graham had followed one half the advice offered to him, there
would have been little suggestion of the original picture left.
Standing in a corner, with its face to the wall, was a panel which, as
the little circle was about to break up, Northcote asked Graham's
permission to show. The new picture was taken from the easel, and the
neglected canvas put in its place. Its surface was dusty, and the young
man wiped it with his silk handkerchief. There was a minute's silence,
broken by the oldest of the party, a disappointed painter whose life had
been one long series of calamities.
"My boy, this is worth a dozen of the other. It is the biggest thing you
have done yet."
The younger men all chimed in, echoing the opinion of their senior.
Graham looked incredulously from one to the other; there was no doubting
their sincerity. Like many another before him, he knew not how to
distinguish his successes from his failures. The old artist, who had
all his life been on the eve of painting his great picture, underrated
the value of the new picture, but he was not mistaken in placing The
Lovers far above it. Graham looked at it for the first time in many
weeks, with that impersonal criticism of his own work which is only
possible to an artist when a certain period has elapsed after its
creation, and the mind has been occupied with other interests.
It was late that night when the artist returned to his room, after
dining with his sculptor friend at a restaurant near by. The moonlight
flooded the studio, lighting its farthest corner. It showed him the
vases of rose-bloom and the dark-browed Circe on the wall; it showed him
the blackened hearth, where the embers still smouldered. And what was
that in the fireplace? A charred wooden frame with a heap of ashes
lying 'twixt its sides. Graham sprang forward with a cry of
apprehension, and lifted the blistered frame. His fear had not been
groundless: this bit of wood and that handful of cinders were all that
remained of his great new picture! He gave a deep groan and staggered
back against the wall. Before him, on the easel, gleaming through the
pure silver light, was the picture of The Lovers. Millicent's dreamy
face, radiant with hope and love, smiled at him from the arms of the
lover who now stood, half crazed with grief, gazing at the ruin before
him.
The young sculptor stood beside him, full of a sympathy he knew not how
to express. At last he spoke:--
"Graham, look up, and do not grieve for what is past help. I tell you,
man, that your greatest picture stands before you. The Lovers has the
one quality which your work has heretofore missed. It is human, it is
full of natural sentiment. It does not appeal to an aristocracy of
thought, but to all men and all women, learned and untaught. I know not
what influence swayed you in this picture, but I know that it lifted you
to a higher plane than you had before attained. I care not for the loss
of your Poet; it told me nothing of you that I did not know before; it
was a step backwards to the time when you made that wondrous wicked
Circe with her herd of swine. Let it go, and submit to the influence
which inspired this picture, for which the world is richer to-day than
for a score of such works as the other."
Graham looked at the speaker with doubting eyes. The words seemed to
rouse an echo in his soul. They told him that he had served the altar
of Art with Moloch sacrifices. Instead of the peaceful offerings of
love, he had brought the anguish of two strong hearts to desecrate her
temple. A dim perception of the truth entered his mind, and his grief
for the lost picture was for a moment forgotten in a doubt which rose
before him, never to be dismissed again until it was fully solved. A
doubt of self, of his own judgment, of his own inflexible will.
Millicent was gone! The six straight redwoods whispered the news one to
another, and shook their tall tops sadly, while the sweet south wind
sighed through their branches. Millicent was gone! and the roses that
clasped and clung about her lattice died on the night she left them, and
the vine bloomed no more, and bore for that season nothing but leaves.
Millicent was gone! She had set wide the door of the golden prison where
her love-birds had lived and sung so merrily through the long summer.
But the little white creatures, prison-born, prison-bred, were too timid
to venture out into the roomy forest, and had clung to the only home
they had ever known; and so Barbara, gentle, sweet-souled Barbara, took
them into her sunny room; and cared for them as Millicent had done. For
a day they were silent, and then they sang as merrily as before. There
was still sunshine; and crispy groundsel and clear cool water were given
them by hands as gentle, if not so fair, as those which had tended them
before.
The New Year was at hand, and the _chatelaine_ of the San Rosario Ranch
had summoned a group of friends to her hospitable home to pass the
holiday time. So Barbara was full of household cares, and Hal was busy
with shooting and riding expeditions. Ferrara was there, just back from
Alaska, with a tribute of rare furs to lay at Barbara's pretty feet.
Maurice Galbraith and John Graham were missing, and that other whose
absence was still keenly felt. Mr. and Mrs. Shallop, O'Neil, and Hartley
were come, with a half dozen other old friends, all bound together by
the magnetic influence which radiated from their hostess, in whom all
their various interests were concentrated. Each was friend to other for
her sake, whom they all loved. In the existence of every one of the
group her pure and unselfish nature was a real factor. When faith in
human nature, in one's self, is faint and wavering, then is the time
when the remembrance of such a spotless life, so pure a heart, steadies
the wavering belief in truth, and strengthens us to fight the good
fight. By loving help and by high example, Marianne Deering had
succored and befriended each of the friends who on that New Year's eve
assembled about her dining table. With a face bright with that beauty
of the soul which knows not the marring of time, she presided over the
gay festivity. Three pretty cousins from San Francisco added their
bright faces to the charming scene. The apartment and the board were
garlanded with flowers. Banks of heavy ferns panelled the walls, and
bunches of white, heavy-scented magnolias were outlined against their
dark green. Through the open windows were seen the gay lanterns hung
about the veranda, illuminating the festoons of fresh creepers, and
giving glimpses of the soft velvet turf outside. The merriment was at
its height as Barbara lifted the loving-cup, filled with a sweet, strong
wine, and, calling out the toast, "To absent friends," set her rosy lips
to the brim, and drank from the cup in which each of the joyful company
was to pledge some distant dear one. It was a custom at the San Rosario
Ranch which had become time-honored. The girl smiled gayly as she passed
the crystal beaker to Juan Ferrara, who sat upon her right; but her eyes
were dark with unshed tears, and the man sighed as he drank, omitting to
repeat the toast. What were absent friends to him beside this woman who
smiled in his face, but whose tears fell for one who was far from her!
Round went the cup from hand to hand, and to every heart came a thrill
of joy or sorrow at the thought of the absent one, toward whom it turned
in this loving communion. O'Neil, sitting by his hostess, was the last
to take the cup. The warm-blooded Irishman was in high spirits. The
glances of the dark-eyed "girling" at his side, and the general
good-fellowship of the occasion, had brought out in him the
irrepressible good-humor of his nation. The ceremony of passing the
loving-cup, and the invocation to absent friends, had carried something
a little serious with it, which, to the jolly Irishman, was thoroughly
antagonistic.
"Dear hostess," said he, placing the cup before him on the table, "I do
not like the sentiment of your toast; 't is ungallant. How can I,
sitting between two such lovely ladies, find time or power to salute an
absent one, howsoever fair? May I give you my toast for the loving-cup?
Have I your permission to sing a stave from one of my national songs on
the subject?"
He was answered by a general acclamation of assent. Rising to his feet,
the blond, burly giant held up the cup with its low ebb of crimson wine,
and sang in a clear, strong voice the following couplet:--
"Oh! 't is sweet to think that where'er we rove
We are sure to find something blissful and dear,
And that, when we 're far from the lips that we love,
We 've but to make love to the lips that are near.
The heart, like a tendril accustomed to cling,
Let it grow where it will, cannot flourish alone,
But will lean to the nearest and loveliest thing
It can twine with itself, and make closely its own.
Then oh! what pleasure where'er we rove
To be sure to find something still that is dear;
And to know, when far from the lips that we love,
We have but to make love to the lips that are near."
Amidst the general laughter and applause which followed O'Neil's song,
Madame Marianne's gentle word of disapproval was lost. The song had
restored the jollity which, for a moment, seemed to have left the party.
O'Neil now drained the cup to the last drop, turning the crystal vessel
upside down to show that it was empty, and whispered a saucy compliment
to the bright-eyed girl beside him. At that moment, when the merriment
was at its height, when O'Neil stood with the empty cup in his hand, the
door opened, and, as if in answer to the toast, John Graham entered the
room. He was greeted by a dozen voices as he made his way to Mrs.
Deering's side. Taking her outstretched hand in his own, he dropped
upon one knee, and kissed it respectfully.
"Dear my lady, I have come to wish you the happiest New Year, and to
join in your loving-cup, in your toast to absent friends--"
"Always welcome, dear Graham," said the lady, laying her hand upon his
head for an instant; "there is always a place for you at our table, but
alas--"
"You are too late--too late!"