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This is the calamity of men whose spiritual part dies out of them and leaves the grosser understanding to assimilate them more and more to the things of which alone it can take cognizance; but in Owen Warland the spirit was not dead nor passed away; it only slept. How it awoke again is not recorded. Perhaps the torpid slumber was broken by a convulsive pain.
But come, will you mend this poor thimble of mine?" "Anything for your sake, Annie," said Owen Warland, "anything, even were it to work at Robert Danforth's forge." "And that would be a pretty sight!" retorted Annie, glancing with imperceptible slightness at the artist's small and slender frame. "Well; here is the thimble."
It's hard on Marian, for she lives the farthest away; but she has come to an understanding with the housekeeper, who always telegraphs her first, so that she gets a start of several hours. She will be at Newburgh to-night at ten, and she has calculated that the others can't possibly arrive before midnight. Warland. You have a delightful way of putting things. I suppose you'd talk of me like that.
Warland. What difference? What difference? Don't look at me as if you didn't understand English! Isabel. Very well yes. Warland. I thought so of course I remember now; I heard all about it before I met you. Let me see didn't you and your mother spend a winter in Washington when he was Under-secretary of State? Isabel. That was before the deluge. Warland. I remember it all comes back to me.
There was a story, too, of a duck that waddled, and quacked, and ate; though, had any honest citizen purchased it for dinner, he would have found himself cheated with the mere mechanical apparition of a duck. "But all these accounts," said Owen Warland, "I am now satisfied are mere impositions." Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thought differently.
Owen Warland might have told them that this butterfly, this plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith's wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have purchased with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the jewels of his kingdom as the most unique and wondrous of them all. But the artist smiled and kept the secret to himself.
You're going? Warland. By the five train. Fagott has just wired me that the Ambassador will be in Washington on Monday. He hasn't named his secretaries yet, but there isn't much hope for me. He has a nephew Isabel. They always have. Like the Popes. Warland. Well, I'm going all the same. You'll explain to Mrs. Raynor if she gets back before I do? Are there to be people at dinner?
There was a married woman who had what is the correct expression? made sacrifices for him. There was only one sacrifice she objected to making and he didn't consider himself free. It sounds rather rococo, doesn't it? It was odd that she died the year after we were married. Warland. Whew! I've never seen him since; it must be ten years ago. I'm certainly thirty-two, and I was just twenty-two then.
I wonder how he'll feel about seeing you. Oh, I don't mean any sentimental rot, of course... but you're an uncommonly agreeable woman. I daresay he'll be pleased to see you again; you're fifty times more attractive than when I married you. Isabel. I wish your other investments had appreciated at the same rate. Unfortunately my charms won't pay the butcher. Warland. Damn the butcher! Isabel.
For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable test. He spent a few sluggish weeks with his head so continually resting in his hands that the towns-people had scarcely an opportunity to see his countenance. When at last it was again uplifted to the light of day, a cold, dull, nameless change was perceptible upon it.
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