My trepidations, however, were delightful; they were just what I had hoped for, and their only fault was that they passed away too quickly; since I found that for the main points I was essentially, Iwas quite constitutionally, on Mark Ambient's "side." This was the taken stand of the artist to whom every manifestation of human energy was a thrilling spectacle and who felt for ever the desire to resolve his experience of life into a literary form.On that high head of the passion for form the attempt at perfection, the quest for which was to his mind the real search for the holy grail--he said the most interesting, the most inspiring things.He mixed with them a thousand illustrations from his own life, from other lives he had known, from history and fiction, and above all from the annals of the time that was dear to him beyond all periods, the Italian cinque-cento.It came to me thus that in his books he had uttered but half his thought, and that what he had kept back from motives I deplored when I made them out later--was the finer and braver part.It was his fate to make a great many still more "prepared" people than me not inconsiderably wince; but there was no grain of bravado in his ripest things (I've always maintained it, though often contradicted), and at bottom the poor fellow, disinterested to his finger-tips and regarding imperfection not only as an aesthetic but quite also as a social crime, had an extreme dread of scandal.There are critics who regret that having gone so far he didn't go further; but I regret nothing--putting aside two or three of the motives I just mentioned--since he arrived at a noble rarity and I don't see how you can go beyond that.The hours I spent in his study--this first one and the few that followed it; they were not, after all, so numerous--seem to glow, as I look back on them, with a tone that is partly that of the brown old room, rich, under the shaded candle-light where we sat and smoked, with the dusky delicate bindings of valuable books; partly that of his voice, of which I still catch the echo, charged with the fancies and figures that came at his command.When we went back to the drawing-room we found Miss Ambient alone in possession and prompt to mention that her sister-in-law had a quarter of an hour before been called by the nurse to see the child, who appeared rather unwell--a little feverish.
"Feverish! how in the world comes he to be feverish?" Ambient asked.
"He was perfectly right this afternoon."
"Beatrice says you walked him about too much--you almost killed him.""Beatrice must be very happy--she has an opportunity to triumph!"said my friend with a bright bitterness which was all I could have wished it.
"Surely not if the child's ill," I ventured to remark by way of pleading for Mrs.Ambient.
"My dear fellow, you aren't married--you don't know the nature of wives!" my host returned with spirit.
I tried to match it."Possibly not; but I know the nature of mothers.""Beatrice is perfect as a mother," sighed Miss Ambient quite tremendously and with her fingers interlaced on her embroidered knees.
"I shall go up and see my boy," her brother went on." Do you suppose he's asleep?""Beatrice won't let you see him, dear"--as to which our young lady looked at me, though addressing our companion.
"Do you call that being perfect as a mother?" Ambient asked.
"Yes, from her point of view."
"Damn her point of view!" cried the author of "Beltraffio." And he left the room; after which we heard him ascend the stairs.
I sat there for some ten minutes with Miss Ambient, and we naturally had some exchange of remarks, which began, I think, by my asking her what the point of view of her sister-in-law could be.
"Oh it's so very odd.But we're so very odd altogether.Don't you find us awfully unlike others of our class?--which indeed mostly, in England, is awful.We've lived so much abroad.I adore 'abroad.'
Have you people like us in America?"
"You're not all alike, you interesting three--or, counting Dolcino, four--surely, surely; so that I don't think I understand your question.We've no one like your brother--I may go so far as that.""You've probably more persons like his wife," Miss Ambient desolately smiled.
"I can tell you that better when you've told me about her point of view.""Oh yes--oh yes.Well," said my entertainer, "she doesn't like his ideas.She doesn't like them for the child.She thinks them undesirable."Being quite fresh from the contemplation of some of Mark Ambient's arcana I was particularly in a position to appreciate this announcement.But the effect of it was to make me, after staring a moment, burst into laughter which I instantly checked when Iremembered the indisposed child above and the possibility of parents nervously or fussily anxious.