Stolen Souls

Chapter Three.

The Masked Circe

The success of “The Masked Circe” in last year’s Royal Academy was incontestable, not only for the intrinsic beauty of the picture, but from the fact that the personal charms of a handsome woman were perpetuated without compromising her features. Woman’s vanity often outruns her natural diffidence, and the consciousness of her great beauty stifles the conscience of modesty.

Visitors to the Academy know the picture. Circe, seated on a throne, with her back to a great circular mirror, presents a half-draped figure of marvellous delicate colouring and beauty of outline. One hand holds aloft a golden wine-goblet, and the other a tapering wand, while upon the tesselated pavement before the daïs purple grapes and yellow roses have been strewn. The black hair of the daughter of Perseis falls in profusion about her bare shoulders, and strays over her breast, but her features are hidden by a half-mask of black silk. The lips, with their arc de cupidon, are slightly parted, disclosing an even row of pearly teeth, and giving an expression of reckless diablerie.

Of the thousands who have gazed upon it in admiration, none knows the somewhat remarkable story connected with it. As I have been closely associated with it, from the day it was outlined in charcoal, until the evening it was packed in a crate and sent for the inspection of the hanging committee, it is perhaps àpropos that I should relate the narrative.

The studio of my old friend, Dick Carruthers, the man who painted it, is on Campden Hill, Kensington, within a few hundred yards of where I reside, and in the centre of an aesthetic artistic colony. We have been chums for years, for on many occasions he has displayed his talent as a black and white artist in illustrating my articles and stories in various magazines. He is a popular painter, and as handsome a man as ever had a picture “on the line.”

Three years ago, when the prologue of this secret drama was enacted, he was in the habit of coming over when the light had faded, to smoke a cigarette and discuss art and literature with me. I was glad of a chat after a hard day’s work at my writing-table, but his companionship had one drawback. He drivelled over a girl he loved, and was forever suggesting that I might take her as a character and drag her into the novel upon which I was engaged.

One day he drew a cabinet photograph carefully from his pocket, and placed it upon the blotting-pad before me.

The girl he loved! Bah! I knew her, though I did not tell him so. She was a dark-haired, pink-and-white beauty that flitted through artistic Bohemia like a butterfly in a hothouse. The sight of the pictured face brought back to me the memory of days long past – of a closed chapter in my life’s history. I remembered the first time I saw Ethel Broughton, fully five years before. She wore a soiled pink wrapper, her satin slippers were trodden down at heel, and she had a bottle of champagne at her elbow. At that time her lover, grandiloquent and impecunious Mr Harry Oranmore, a bad but handsome actor, had been untrue to her, and she, a third-rate actress, who had an ingénue part at a Strand theatre, was reviling him. I had been taken to her house and introduced by a mutual friend, but she scarcely heeded me. Probably she was thinking of Oranmore, for she clasped her slim fingers round her suffering throat, and offered up an occasional sob, following it with a silent but protracted draught from her glass.

The result of this interview was but natural. Dazzled by her beauty, I sympathised with her, endeavoured to cheer her, and concluded by falling violently in love with her. At that time I was writing numbers of dramatic criticisms, and I confess I used what weight my opinions possessed for the purpose of her advancement. It is needless to refer to the smooth and uninterrupted course of our love. Suffice it to say that we were both Bohemians, and that within a year I had the satisfaction of sitting before the footlights, watching her make her début as “leading lady” at a West End theatre, and a few days later of observing her photograph exhibited in shop windows among those of other stage beauties.

But, alas! those halcyon days were all too brief. Suddenly the scales fell from my eyes. A scene occurred between us – and we parted.

To think that sin should lie for years in the blood, just as arsenic does in a corpse!

When I discovered that Dick Carruthers was wasting the very honest and ardent emotions of his heart at this feverish fairy’s shrine, I resolved to take him aside, and, without admitting that I knew her, give him a verbal drubbing. I did so, but he bit his moustache fiercely, and turned upon me.

“She is charming,” he said, “and I love her.”

“Ah! I know the type – ”

“You know nothing, old fellow!” he exclaimed, flushing angrily. “But” – he shrugged his shoulders – “the prejudices of the world count for – what? Nothing at all. The curse of the Philistine is his Philistinism.”

“Very well, Dick, old chap, forget my words,” I said. “I approach your idol in the properly reverential spirit.”

“You shall see her before long.” His gaze grew bright, soft, and vague, as one who catches glimpses of the floating garments of supernatural mysteries. “Ah, she is lovely! Only an artist can appreciate her beauty.”

I saw that words were of no avail. Like Ulysses, he was living in the paradise of Aeaea, heedless of everything under the spell she had cast about him.

One night, not long after I had expressed my sentiments to him regarding his infatuation, I entered his studio, and found his goddess seated by the fire, with her shapely feet upon the fender, sipping kümmel from a tiny glass, and holding a lighted cigarette between her dainty fingers.

Dick flung down his palette, and came forward to introduce me. Her dark eyes met mine, and we tacitly agreed not to recognise each other, therefore we bowed as perfect strangers. As I seated myself, and she poured me out a liqueur, I caught her glancing furtively at me under her long lashes. She had grown even handsomer than when last I had seen her, and was the picture of the romantic Bohemienne. Her dress was of black gauze, through which the milky whiteness of her figure seemed to shine. Yet, as she turned her beautiful face towards me, I was struck by the complete effect of physical and moral frailty that she presented.

She expressed pleasure at meeting me, remarking that she had read my last novel, and had been keenly interested in it.

When I had briefly acknowledged the compliment she paid me, she said —

“One thing always strikes me in reading your stories. Your women are inevitably false and fickle. Perhaps, however, you write from personal experience of the failings of my sex,” she laughed.

Glancing sharply at her, I saw that her eyes did not waver.

“It is true I once knew a woman who proved false and infamous,” I replied, with some emphasis.

“And you avenge yourself by reviling all of us. It is really too bad!” she said, pouting like a spoiled child.

“By Jove, old fellow,” Dick chimed in, “do tell us about your romance! It would be interesting to know the reason you set your face against all the fair ones.”

But I succeeded in turning the conversation into another channel. I saw I had intruded upon them, so, making an excuse, I bade them au revoir, and returned to my own book-lined den.

Unlocking a drawer in my writing-table, I took out a packet of letters that still emitted a stale odour of violets. Then I lit my pipe, and one by one read them through, pausing and pondering over the declarations of passionate love they contained. Far into the night I sat reviewing the romance of bygone days, until I came to the last letter. It was a cold, formal note, merely a few lines of hurried scrawl, and read: “You are right. I have been false to you. Think no more of me. By the time you receive this I shall be on my way to New York; nevertheless, you will be always remembered by yours unworthily – Ethel.” Bitter memories of the past overwhelmed me; but at last, growing impatient, and tossing the letters back into the drawer, I strove to forget. The clock had struck two, and my reading-lamp was burning low and sputtering when I rose to retire for the night. I confess that my frame of mind surprised me, inasmuch as I actually found myself still loving her.

“Good afternoon. I hope I don’t disturb you.”

Looking up from my work, I saw Ethel.

“Not at all. Pray sit down,” I said coldly, motioning her to an armchair. “To what do I owe the honour of this visit?”

She pulled off her long gloves, and let her sealskin cape fall at her feet, while I put down my pen, and, rising, stood with my back to the fire.

With her she had brought the odour of violets, the same that I remembered years ago; the same perfume that always stirred sad memories within me.

“You don’t welcome me very warmly,” she said in a disappointed tone, as she grasped my hand, and looked steadily into my eyes.

“No,” I said sternly. “Last night I told you that a woman had embittered my life. The woman I referred to was yourself.”

“Ah,” she said, striving to suppress a sob, “Forgive me! I – I was mad then. I loved you; but I did not apprehend the consequence.”

“Love? What nonsense to speak of it, when through your baseness I have been almost ruined. Think of your actions on the day before you left me; how you took from that drawer a signed blank cheque, with which you drew six hundred pounds, – nearly all the money I possessed, – and then fled with your lover. Is that the way a woman shows her affection?”

Her head was bowed in humiliation.

“Forgive me, Harold,” she said, with intense earnestness. “I admit that I wronged you cruelly, that I discarded the honest love you gave me; but you – you do not know how weak we women are when temptation is in our path. Cannot I now make amends?”

I shook my head sadly.

“Don’t say that you will not forgive,” she implored tearfully. “At least I am honest. My object in coming this afternoon was to repay the money I – I borrowed.” And she drew forth an envelope from her pocket and handed it to me.

“There are notes for six hundred pounds,” she added, as I took it and felt the crisp paper inside.

“How did you obtain it?” I asked, hesitating to receive it.

“I have earned it honestly, every penny,” she replied. “Since we parted, I have become popular in America, and played ‘lead’ in nearly all the great cities. During the years that have gone I have many, many times wondered what had become of you, for in your writings I read plainly how soured and embittered you had become.”

“And where is Oranmore?”

“Dead. He contracted typhoid while we were playing in San Francisco, and it terminated fatally.”

“Ethel,” I said gravely, taking her hand in mine, “you have fascinated Dick Carruthers, my friend; and you will treat him as you treated me.”

“No, no. I love him,” she said in a fierce half-whisper, adding, “Keep secret the fact that we loved one another, and I swear before Heaven I will be true to him. If he marries me, he shall never have cause for regret – never!”

“Suppose I told him? What would he think of you?”

“You will not!” she cried, clinging to me. “You are too honourable for that. Promise to keep my secret!”

“For the present I will preserve silence,” I answered, my heart softening towards her. “But I cannot promise that I will never tell him.”

“I am going to sit to him as model,” she said, after a brief silence. “What character do you think would best suit me?”

“Well, I should suggest that of Circe – the woman who broke men’s hearts,” I replied, mischievously.

“Excellent! I shall be able to assume that character well,” she said, with a grim smile. “I will tell him.”

Spring came and went, but I saw very little of Dick. He had received a commission from one of the illustrated papers to make a series of sketches of scenery in Scotland, and consequently he was away a good deal. Whenever he paid flying visits to London, however, he always looked me up, but, strangely enough, never mentioned Ethel. Nevertheless, I ascertained that they frequently met.

At the close of a blue summer’s day, when the dreamy, golden haze wrapped the city in a mystic charm, I called at the studio, having heard that he had returned, and was settling down to work.

When I entered, Dick was standing before his easel, pipe in mouth and crayon in hand, busily sketching; while on the raised “throne” before him sat Ethel, radiant and beautiful. A tender smile played about her lips. It seemed as though a happiness – full, complete, perfectly satisfying – had taken possession of her, and lifted her out of herself – out of the world even.

“Welcome, old fellow!” Dick cried, turning to shake hands with me. “Behold my Circe!” and he waved his hand in the direction of his model. “Ethel will not sit for any other subject. It hardly does her justice – does it?”

“It is a strange fancy of mine,” she explained, when I had greeted her. “I’m sure the dress is very becoming – isn’t it?” And she waved the goblet she was holding above her head.

“Your pose is perfect, dear. Please don’t alter it,” urged the artist; who, advancing to his easel again, continued the free, rapid outline.

We chatted and laughed together for nearly an hour, until the tints of pearl and rose had melted imperceptibly into the deep night sky; then Dick lit the lamps, while Ethel retired into the model’s sanctum to resume her nineteenth century attire.

Presently she reappeared, and we went to dine together at a restaurant in Piccadilly, afterwards visiting a theatre, and spending a very pleasant evening.

Poor Dick! I was sorry that he was so infatuated. He was such a large-hearted, honest fellow, that I felt quite pained when I anticipated the awakening that must inevitably come sooner or later. He knew absolutely nothing of her past, and was quite ignorant that she had been a popular actress.

In the months that followed, I visited the studio almost daily, and watched the growth of the picture. Dick was putting his whole soul into the composition, and my knowledge of art – acquired by years of idling in the ateliers of the Quartier Latin, and dabbling with the colours a little myself – told me that he was engaged upon what promised to be his finest work.

The face was a lifelike portrait. The delicate tints of the neck and arms were reproduced with a skill that betrayed the master hand, and the reflection in the mirror behind had a wonderfully natural appearance, while the bright colours enhanced the general effect of gay, reckless abandon.

The fair model herself was charmed with it. Woman’s vanity always betrays itself over her picture.

One evening, at the time the canvas was receiving its finishing touches, I returned home from a stroll across Kensington Gardens, and, on going in, heard some one playing upon my piano, and a sweet soprano voice singing Trotere’s “In Old Madrid.” I recognised the clear tones as those of Ethel.

“Ah, Harold!” she cried, jumping up as I entered the room. “I was amusing myself until your return. I – I have something to tell you.”

“Well, what is it?” I asked, rather surprised.

“Cannot you guess? Dick has asked me to become his wife,” she said in a low tone.

“The thing’s impossible!” I cried warmly. “I will not allow it. You may be friends, but he shall never marry you.”

“How cruel you are!” she said, with a touch of sadness. “But, after all, your apprehensions are groundless. I have refused.”

“Refused? Why?”

“For reasons of my own,” she replied in a harsh, strained voice. “If – if he speaks to you, urge him to abandon thoughts of love, and regard me as a friend only.”

“You are at least sensible, Ethel,” I said. “It is gratifying to know that you recognise the impossibility of such an union.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She nodded, but did not reply.

A dry, grey day in March. It was “Show Sunday,” that institution in the art world, when the painter opens his studio to his friends and the public, to show them the picture he is about to send to the Academy. The exhibition is in many instances but the showing beforehand of the garlands of victory in a battle which is doomed to be lost, for when the opening day comes, many of the anxious artists do not have the luck to see their pictures hung at all. Then insincere admirers smile in their sleeves at the painter’s chagrin. I have always been thankful that the happy writer of books has no such ordeal to face. He never reads his new romance to his friends, nor do his well-wishers applaud in advance. Reviewers have first tilt at “advance copies,” and very properly.

From morn till eve on “Show Sunday,” Campden Hill is always blocked by the carriages of the curious, and studios are besieged by fashionable crowds, whose chatter and laughter mingles pleasantly with the clinking of tea-cups. On this occasion, as on previous ones, I assisted Dick to receive his visitors, but unfortunately Ethel had been taken suddenly unwell, and could not attend.

My anticipations proved correct. “Circe” was voted an unqualified success. The opinions of critics who dropped in were unanimous that it was the artist’s masterpiece, and that the expression and general conception were marvellous – a verdict endorsed by gushing society women, bored club men, and the inane jeunesse dorée.

A scrap of conversation I overheard in the course of the afternoon, however, caused me to ponder.

An elderly man, evidently a foreigner, wearing the violet ribbon of the French Academy in his buttonhole, was standing with a young girl in the crowd around the easel.

“Why, look, papa! That face!” the girl cried, when her eyes fell upon the canvas. “It is her portrait! Surely the Signore cannot know!”

“Dio!” exclaimed the old man, evidently recognising the features. “The picture is indeed magnificent; but to think that she should allow herself to appear in that character! Come away, Zélie; let us go.”

I heard no more, for they turned and left. Having acted as eavesdropper, I could hardly question them. Nevertheless, I was sorely puzzled.

“Look! Read that!”

In surprise I glanced up from my work of romance-weaving on the following morning, and saw Dick, pale and agitated, standing at my elbow.

The letter he placed before me was in a woman’s hand, and emitted the faintest breath of violets. A glance was sufficient to recognise that the sprawly writing was Ethel’s.

Taking it up, I eagerly read the following lines it contained: —

“Dear Dick, —I regret to tell you that circumstances preclude me from ever meeting you again. I am going far away, where you cannot find me. It was foolish for us to have loved, therefore forget me. That you may meet some one far worthier than myself, and that ‘Circe’ may bring you fame and fortune, is the most sincere hope of your models.

“I warned you against your infatuation, old fellow,” I said seriously.

“But I couldn’t help it. I – I loved her,” he answered in a hoarse, trembling voice.

“Forget her,” I argued. “She is worthless and vain; why make yourself miserable?”

“Ah, you are right!” he said, as if suddenly impressed by the force of my arguments, while his face assumed a hard, determined expression. “She is Circe indeed, and she had her foot upon my neck. But it is all over,” he added bitterly. “I shall think no more of her.”

Then he wished me an abrupt farewell, and left, apparently in order to conceal his emotion.

That evening I called at Dick’s house, but was informed by his housekeeper that he had packed his bag and departed, stating that he would not return for at least a month, perhaps longer. When I entered the studio, gloomy in the twilight, I was astonished to find that the “Circe” had been removed from the easel, and that it was standing in a corner with its face to the wall.

Something prompted me to turn it, and when I did so, I discovered to my dismay that in his frenzy of mad despair he had taken a brushful of black paint and drawn it across the face, making a great, ugly, disfiguring daub over the forehead and eyebrows, utterly ruining the features, and producing a curiously forbidding effect.

The colour was not dry, therefore I was enabled to remove the greater portion of it with a silk handkerchief, but I saw with regret that the tints of the forehead had been irretrievably ruined, rendering the picture valueless.

The days went by. The limit for sending in to the Academy was approaching; but Dick did not write, and I could only wonder vaguely where he was wandering. It was a great pity, I thought, that such a fine work should not be exhibited. Yet the wilful obliteration had utterly spoiled it.

While sitting in his studio musing one day, it suddenly occurred to me that if the flaw upon the forehead could be hidden, it might, after all, be sent for the inspection of the hanging committee.

Taking it up, I examined it minutely in the light. The idea of placing a half-mask upon the face suggested itself, and without delay I proceeded to carry it into effect. The little skill with the brush that I possess enabled me to paint in the half-lights upon the black silk, and the laughing eyes being fortunately intact, I allowed them to peer through the apertures.

The effect produced was startling, and none could have been more astonished at the result of my daubing than myself. The mask seemed to increase the reckless diablerie of its wearer, and enhance the fairness of the complexion, while it added an air of mystery not at all unpleasing to the eye.

A few days later, I dispatched it to the Academy, and waited patiently for the opening day, when I experienced the mingled surprise and satisfaction of seeing it hung “upon the line.”

The “Masked Circe” was pronounced one of the pictures of the year. Thousands admired it. The papers were full of laudatory notices; but the man who painted it, unaware of the fame he had suddenly achieved, was hiding his sorrow somewhere in the Vosges. A stray copy of an English newspaper containing a notice of his work, which Dick picked up in a hotel, however, caused him to return.

He burst into my room unceremoniously one morning, still attired in his travelling ulster. I saw that he was haggard-eyed and wild-looking. From his conversation, I knew that time had not healed the wound in his heart.

“I shall never be able to thank you sufficiently, old chap, for touching up my daub. It seems that the public admire her as much as I have done. I – I shall find her some day; then she will return to me.”

“Still thinking of her?” I observed reproachfully.

“Yes; always, always,” he replied, shaking his head sorrowfully. “I – I cannot forget.”

Dick’s popularity steadily increased; lucrative commissions poured in upon him, and he settled down to such hard, methodical work, that I began to think he had forgotten the woman who had enmeshed him.

With beaming face he came to me one summer’s morning and announced that, although the committee of the Chantrey Bequest had offered to purchase the “Masked Circe,” he had just received a letter from the Count di Sestri, the well-known Anglo-Italian millionaire and art patron, saying that he desired to buy it, and asking him to go down to Oxted Park, his seat in Surrey, to arrange the price.

“I am going to-day,” he said. “You masked her, and it is only fair that you should have a word in the bargain. You must come too.”

At first I hesitated, but at length acquiesced.

That evening the Count received us in the library of his country mansion, and congratulated Dick warmly upon his masterpiece. It was evident that he meant to secure it at any cost, therefore the price was soon arranged; and before we had been there half an hour, my companion had a cheque for four figures in his pocket.

We were about to make our adieux, but the Count would not hear of it.

“Dinner will be ready almost immediately,” he said. “You must stay. We are quite en famille, you know. Only my wife and I.”

A few moments later the door opened, and there was the rustle of a silken train.

“Ah, here’s the Countess!” exclaimed the millionaire, stepping forward to introduce us.

We turned, and saw a pale, beautiful woman, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.