ANNA'S SECRET

I saw very little of Anna during the first few days of my stay at the Pater's. Cleon had drawn a bad number and was therefore drafted on a detachment of workmen engaged in mending roads—a work all disliked, and as no one volunteered for it, it had to be apportioned by lot. Anna of Ann felt the absence of Cleon because, although he was young, he had attached himself to her and she had learned somewhat to depend on his companionship. In the absence of Cleon, therefore, I often joined Anna in her walks and became more and more charmed by her singleness of purpose. She seemed indifferent to everything except her art, cared nothing for Chairo and his principles, had little conviction as regards the Demetrian cult, and absorbed herself altogether in the joy to be derived from beauty, whether in nature or in man. The idea that there was something in man different from nature had become so familiar to this century that the confusion between them from which the philosophy of our time was only just emerging seemed to her altogether impossible, and it was a hope of hers one day to compose a group or monument in which man with his faculty of subjugating the forces of nature to his use would be contrasted with these forces, typified either by animals or undeveloped human races. She had shown me several models upon which she was at work to typify these forces; among them I remember one of a negro kneeling, with wonder on his thick lips and a superb strength about his loins; she had modelled also a lion crouching at the bidding of an unseen hand; but I had seen no model of Conquering Man. In an abandoned sugar house which she had arranged as a studio, however, were many unfinished busts hidden away which she did not show to me or to others, and there was a good deal of curiosity and some little chaff as to the secret so carefully thus concealed by her.

One morning, however, that I had risen early, tempted by the bright sun of an Indian summer, I started for a short stroll, and passing Anna's studio was surprised to find a window open. Looking inside the window, I saw Anna so absorbed on a clay bust that she had not heard my approach. I watched her work in silence without appreciating that I had surprised a secret, until moving a little I saw clearly that the bust on which she was working was a portrait of Ariston. Even then I was not clear that Anna had been hiding this portrait from us; it seemed perfectly natural that she should be engaged upon it. But when she at last perceived me she blushed scarlet and threw a cloth over it.

"You have seen it," she said reproachfully.

"Why not?" asked I. "It was only a portrait of Ariston."

"Was it so like him that you saw it at once?"

"Did you not mean it to be so?"

"No!" she exclaimed, almost with temper, "and I did not mean you to see it."

I apologized to her and suggested that she should join me in my walk; but she did not answer me at once; she moved about the studio as though agitated by my discovery, moving things aimlessly, taking things up and putting them down again. I stood at the window waiting for an answer, for I did not wish to leave her in this disturbed condition. At last she looked me full in the face and her mobile lips twitched with ill-suppressed emotion. Had she known how little I suspected the cause of her trouble she need not have been so moved; but she had been so long fighting against her love for Ariston that she imagined the discovery by me of the portrait had betrayed her secret.

"You won't tell any one you have seen it, will you?" she said at last appealingly.

"Certainly not," answered I. "But why are you so anxious to keep it a secret?"

She opened her eyes at this question and then burst out, with a sob in her voice:

"I would not have them guess it for the world."

At last I understood: this bust was not a portrait of Ariston; it was a study for her Conquering Man, and she could not keep out of it the features of the one she loved.

"See," she said, pointing to the corner where the uncompleted busts were hidden, "they all look like him; even when I tried to model a face without a beard, expressly to escape this haunting thought, you can see it—somewhere in the brow," and she moved her hand over the brow. "At every attempt I make, something betrays me," and she sat down on a low chair and buried her face in her hands.

I stood by her, not daring to intrude; and presently she got up sadly and said:

"Yes, I shall go with you—anything to get away from it all"; and taking her cap from a peg, closed the window, locked the door, and joined me.

"I had half an idea," said I, as we moved toward the wood, "that you had a fancy for Cleon."

Anna smiled. "Cleon is a sweet boy and I am very fond of him; I suppose he thinks he is in love with me; but we are accustomed to these 'green and salad' loves; indeed, we are taught not to discourage them. It is good for a boy like Cleon to be in love with some one much older than himself that he can never marry; it keeps him out of mischief and does no one harm. One day he will reproach me and tell me I have encouraged him; I have not, you know, not the slightest; but he will say I have, and honestly think it for a few days; a little later he will get over it and be a good friend of mine to the end of my days."

We had a walk in the wood that has remained in my memory as one of the sweetest hours I spent at Tyringham. She soon accustomed herself to my knowledge of her secret, and this created an intimacy between us that was rare and pleasant.

At that early hour the woods were dark and fresh, and the light upon a meadow we were approaching reminded me of a forgotten poet:

I quoted them to her and she responded to them; wanted to know the poet's name and more of his work; and as the autumn mist lay heavy on the lower pastures and the heavy fragrance of the autumn woods filled the air, I repeated to her those other lines of his:

She put a hand on my arm and stopped me:

"What is that again, 'Me only, cruel——'"

I repeated the line to her.

"What a subject," she said; "not for a Tithonus—no; what a thought to work into my group!"

I saw her meaning: Man might subdue Nature to his use; what then? Was he to be nevertheless forever consumed by immortality? Here was the limit to his triumph; its shadow and reverse.

"What is the meaning of it all!" she said. "We are unhappy, do what we may, and it is out of our very unhappiness that we find something that replaces happiness—a sort of divine sorrow."

We had by this time traversed the wood and stood on a height which commanded the now deserted colony buildings. The sun was well up on the horizon; the birds hopping silently in the boughs, their spring and summer songs over; but the torrent filled the air with its noisy music as it dashed down the hillside, and beyond we saw it meandering in peaceful curves among the meadows.

"It is very beautiful," she said. "After all, there is joy enough in beauty, and it is no small thing"—she was looking absently over the meadows as she repeated—"it is no small thing that we can by art add to it."

"It is a mission of which you can well be proud," said I.

She looked at me and smiled gratefully.

As we returned I felt that she had shaken off some of the sorrow with which she had started.