Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/226

 or amused. It is only Denslow who is capped and antlered, and the shafts aimed at his foolish brow glance and wound us."

We were left alone in the gallery. Dalton paced back and forth, in his slow, erect, and graceful manner; there was no hurry or agitation.

"How quickly," said he, as his moist eyes met mine, "how like a dream, this glorious vision, this beautiful work, will fade and be forgotten! Nevertheless, I made it," he added, musingly. "It was I who moulded and expanded the sluggish millions."

"You will still be what you are, Dalton,--an artist, more than a man of society. You work with a soft and perishable material."

"A distinction without a difference. Every _man_ is a politician, but only every artist is a gentleman."

"Denslow, then, is ruined."

"Yes and no;--there is nothing in him to ruin. It is I who am the sufferer."

"And Honoria?"

"It was I who formed her manners, and guided her perceptions of the beautiful. It was I who married her to a mass of money, De Vere."

"Did you never love Honoria?"

He laughed.

"Loved? Yes; as Praxiteles may have loved the clay he moulded,--for its smoothness and ductility under the hand."

"The day has not come for such men as you, Dalton."

"Come, and gone, and coming. It has come in dream-land. Let us follow your fools."

The larger gallery was crowded. The pyramids of glowing fruit had disappeared; there was a confused murmur of pairs and parties, chatting and taking wine. The master of the house, his wife, and guest were nowhere to be seen. Lethal and Adonaïs stood apart, conversing. As we approached them unobserved, Dalton checked me. "Hear what these people are saying," said he.

"My opinion is," said Lethal, holding out his crooked forefinger like a claw, "that this _soi-disant_ duke--what the deuse is his name?"

"Rosecouleur," interposed Adonaïs, in a tone of society.

"Right,--Couleur de Rose is an impostor,--an impostor, a sharper. Everything tends that way. What an utter sell it would be!"

"You were with us at the picture scene?" murmured Adonaïs.

"Yes. Dalton looked wretchedly cut up, when that devil of a valet, who must be an accomplice, scraped the new paint off. The picture must have been got up in New York by Dalton and the Denslows."

"Perhaps the Duke, too, was got up in New York, on the same principle," suggested Adonaïs. "Such things are possible. Society is intrinsically rotten, you know, and Dalton"

"Is a fellow of considerable talent," sneered Lethal,--"but has enemies, who may have planned a duke."

Adonaïs coughed in his cravat, and hinted,--"How would it do to call him 'Barnum Dalton'?"

Adonaïs appeared shocked at himself, and swallowed a minim of wine to cleanse his vocal apparatus from the stain of so coarse an illustration.

"Do you hear those creatures?" whispered Dalton. "They are arranging scandalous paragraphs for the 'Illustration.'"

A moment after, he was gone. I spoke to Lethal and Adonaïs.

"Gentlemen, you are in error about the picture and the Duke; they are as they now appear;--the one, an excellent copy, purchased as an original,-- no uncommon mistake; the other, a genuine highness. How does he strike you?"

Lethal cast his eyes around to see who listened.

"The person," said he, "who is announced here to-night as an English duke seemed to me, of all men I could select, least like one."

"Pray, what is your ideal of an English duke, Mr. Lethal?" asked Ad