His man, Evans, came from out an inner room to ask if he wanted anything.Corthell got out of his evening coat, and Evans brought him his smoking-jacket and set the little table with its long tin box of cigarettes and ash trays at his elbow.Then he lit the tall lamp of corroded bronze, with its heavy silk shade, that stood on a table in the angle of the room, drew the curtains, put a fresh log upon the fire, held the tiny silver alcohol burner to Corthell while the latter lighted a fresh cigarette, and then with a murmured "Good-night, sir," went out, closing the door with the precaution of a depredator.
This suite of rooms, facing the Lake Front, was what Corthell called "home," Whenever he went away, he left it exactly as it was, in the charge of the faithful Evans; and no mater how long he was absent, he never returned thither without a sense of welcome and relief.
Even now, perplexed as he was, he was conscious of a feeling of comfort and pleasure as he settled himself in his chair.
The lamp threw a dull illumination about the room.It was a picturesque apartment, carefully planned.Not an object that had not been chosen with care and the utmost discrimination.The walls had been treated with copper leaf till they produced a sombre, iridescent effect of green and faint gold, that suggested the depth of a forest glade shot through with the sunset.
Shelves bearing eighteenth-century books in seal brown tree calf--Addison, the "Spectator," Junius and Racine, Rochefoucauld and Pascal hung against it here and there.On every hand the eye rested upon some small masterpiece of art or workmanship.Now it was an antique portrait bust of the days of decadent Rome, black marble with a bronze tiara; now a framed page of a fourteenth-century version of "Li Quatres Filz d'Aymon," with an illuminated letter of miraculous workmanship; or a Renaissance gonfalon of silk once white but now brown with age, yet in the centre blazing with the escutcheon and quarterings of a dead queen.
Between the windows stood an ivory statuette of the "Venus of the Heel," done in the days of the magnificent Lorenzo.An original Cazin, and a chalk drawing by Baudry hung against the wall close by together with a bronze tablet by Saint Gaudens; while across the entire end of the room opposite the fireplace, worked in the tapestry of the best period of the northern French school, Halcyone, her arms already blossoming into wings, hovered over the dead body of Ceyx, his long hair streaming like seaweed in the blue waters of the AEgean.
For a long time Corthell sat motionless, looking into the fire.In an adjoining room a clock chimed the half hour of one, and the artist stirred, passing his long fingers across his eyes.
After a long while he rose, and going to the fireplace, leaned an arm against the overhanging shelf, and resting his forehead against it, remained in that position, looking down at the smouldering logs.
"She is unhappy," he murmured at length."It is not difficult to see that....Unhappy and lonely.Oh, fool, fool to have left her when you might have stayed!
Oh, fool, fool, not to find the strength to leave her now when you should not remain!"The following evening Corthell called upon Mrs.Jadwin.
She was alone, as he usually found her.He had brought a book of poems with him, and instead of passing the evening in the art gallery, as they had planned, he read aloud to her from Rossetti.Nothing could have been more conventional than their conversation, nothing more impersonal.But on his way home one feature of their talk suddenly occurred to him.It struck him as significant; but of what he did not care to put into words.Neither he nor Laura had once spoken of Jadwin throughout the entire evening.
Little by little the companionship grew.Corthell shut his eyes, his ears.The thought of Laura, the recollection of their last evening together, the anticipation of the next meeting filled all his waking hours.He refused to think; he resigned himself to the drift of the current.Jadwin he rarely saw.But on those few occasions when he and Laura's husband met, he could detect no lack of cordiality in the other's greeting.Once even Jadwin had remarked:
"I'm very glad you have come to see Mrs.Jadwin, Corthell.I have to be away so much these days, I'm afraid she would be lonesome if it wasn't for some one like you to drop in now and then and talk art to her."By slow degrees the companionship trended toward intimacy.At the various theatres and concerts he was her escort.He called upon her two or three times each week.At his studio entertainments Laura was always present.How--Corthell asked himself--did she regard the affair? She gave him no sign; she never intimated that his presence was otherwise than agreeable.Was this tacit acquiescence of hers an encouragement? Was she willing to _afficher_ herself, as a married woman, with a cavalier? Her married life was intolerable, he was sure of that; her husband uncongenial.He told himself that she detested him.
Once, however, this belief was rather shocked by an unexpected and (to him) an inconsistent reaction on Laura's part.She had made an engagement with him to spend an afternoon in the Art Institute, looking over certain newly acquired canvases.But upon calling for her an hour after luncheon he was informed that Mrs.
Jadwin was not at home.When next she saw him she told him that she had spent the entire day with her husband.
