-

"I am so glad, Miss Scarlet. Dearborn has told me of his good fortune.
He is the best fellow in the world, and I know how lucky he is," and
Nora Scarlet murmured something, with her eyes turned away from him.

Tony turned to Madame Potowski and said ardently, "You must let me come
to see you to-morrow. I want to thank you for this wonderful treat."

And when Potowski and his Aunt Caroline had gone, and when Dearborn had
taken Nora Scarlet home, Antony stood in the studio, which still
vibrated with the tones of the lovely voice. He had lived once again a
part of his old life. This was his mother's sister, and she had made
havoc of her home. He thought of little Bella's visit to him in Albany.

"Mother has done something perfectly terrible, Cousin Antony--something
a daughter is not supposed to know."

Well, the something perfectly terrible was, she had set herself free
from a man she did not love; that she was making Potowski happy; that
she had found her sphere and soared into it.

Fairfax tried in vain to think of himself now and Mary Faversham, but he
could not. The past rushed on him with its palpitating wings. He groaned
and stretched out his arms into the shadows of the room.

"There is something that chains me, holds me prisoner. I am wedded to
something--is it death and a tomb?"

CHAPTER XVIII

During the following weeks it seemed to him he was chasing his soul and
her own. In their daily intercourse--sweet, of course, tender, of
course--there was a constant sense of limitation. He wanted her to share
with him his love of the beautiful, but Mary Faversham was conventional.
He would have spent hours with her in the Louvre, hanging over
treasures, musing before pictures whose art he felt he could never
sufficiently make his own. Mrs. Faversham followed him closely, but
after a time watched the people. Whilst her lover--in love with all
beauty--remained transfixed over the contemplation of a petrified rose
found in the ruins of Pompeii, or intoxicated himself with the beauty of
an urn, she would interrupt his meditation by speaking to him of
unimportant things. She found resemblances in the little Grecian statues
to her friends in society. Tony sighed and relinquished seeing museums
with Mary. She patronized art with _largesse_ and generosity but he
discovered it was one way to her of spending money, an agreeable,
satisfying way to a woman of breeding and refinement.

The bewitching charm of he