He had talked to her of the
picture he was painting for a national competitive exhibition, it is
true, and dwelt upon the difficulty of procuring a proper model; he had
met her on the street one day and taken her into his studio to see it;
he had regretted that it was impossible to ask her; and of a hundred
apparently blameless and trivial things, the result was that this
morning, while Helen and Herman were walking across the Common to find
her, Ninitta was lying amid a heap of gorgeous stuffs and cushions in
Fenton's studio, while he painted and talked after his fashion.
It is as impossible to trace the beginnings of any chain of events as
it is to find the mystery of the growth of a seed. Whatever Arthur
Fenton's faults, he certainly believed himself to be one who could not
betray a friend. The ideal which he vaguely called honor, and which
served him as that ultimate ethical standard which in one shape or
another is necessary to every human being, forbade his taking advantage
of any one whose friendship he admitted. His instinct of self-
indulgence had, however, made him so expert a casuist that he was able
to silence all inner misgivings by arguing that the demands of art were
above all other laws. He reasoned that Ninitta's posing could do no
possible harm to Grant Herman, while the success of his _Fatima_
depended upon it; and since art was his religion, he came at last to
feel as if he were nobly sacrificing his prejudices to his highest
convictions in violating for the sake of art his principle which
forbade his deceiving her husband.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68