The Inner Flame

"Oh, it's so darned pretty!" he explained. "I thought all those pictures were in the fire."

"Mrs. Ballard set great store by that," said Eliza coldly, "and by the sketches, too," she added.

She was sitting up stiffly in her chair, now, and her gaze fixed on Phil, as, her cat on his shoulder singing loud praise of his fondling hand, he came and stood before her.

"I wish you'd let me see some of Aunt Mary's pictures," he said.

The dead woman's letter was against his heart. He felt that they were standing together, opposed to the hard, grudging face confronting him.

But this was Eliza's crucial moment. In spite of herself she feared in the depths of her heart that that which Mrs. Ballard had said was true; that this restless, careless boy had an artistic ability which her dear one had never attained. She shrank with actual nausea from his comments on her mistress's work. He might not say anything unkind, but she should see the lines of his mouth, the quiver of an eyelash.

She felt unable to rise.

"She left 'em all to me," she said mechanically, pale eyes meeting dark ones.

Phil brushed Pluto's ears and the cat sang through the indignity.

"Talk about the bark on a tree!" he thought. "I believe I'll paint her as a miser, after all! She'd be a wonder, with Pluto standing guard, green eyes peering out of the shadow."

He smiled down at Eliza, the curves of his lips stretching over the teeth she had admired.

"All right," he said. "I'm not going to take them away from you."

Eliza forced herself to her feet, and without another word slowly left the room.

Phil met the cat's blinking eyes where the pupils were dilating and contracting. "Katze, this place gives me the horrors!" he confided.

More than once on the train he had read over his aunt's letter, and each time her words smote an answering chord in his heart and set it to aching.

The present visit accentuated the perception of what her life had been. For a moment his eyes glistened wet against the cat's indolent contentment.

"I wish she hadn't saved any money, the poor little thing," he muttered. "No friends, no sympathy – nothing but that avaricious piece of humanity, calculating every day, probably, on how soon she would get it all. I'll paint her as a harpy. That's what I'll do. Talons of steel! That's all she needs." He heard a sound and dashed a hand across his eyes.

Eliza, heavy of heart, stony of face, entered, a number of pictures bound together, in her hands. The visitor darted forward to relieve her, and Pluto drove claws into his suddenly unsteady resting-place.

Eliza yielded up her treasures like victims, and stood motionless while Phil received them. Never had she looked so gaunt and grey and old; but the visitor did not give her a glance. Aunt Mary's letter was beating against his heart. Here was the work her longing hands had wrought, here the thwarting of her hopes.

His fingers were not quite steady as he untied the strings, and moving the easel into a good light placed a canvas upon it.

Eliza did not wish to look at him, but she could not help it. Her pale gaze fixed on his face in a torture of expectation, as he backed away from the easel, his eyes on the picture.

Pluto rubbed against his ear as a hint that caressing be renewed.

He stood in silence, and Eliza could detect nothing like a smile on his face.

Presently he removed the canvas, and took up another. It was the portrait of Pluto.

"Hello, Katze. Got your picture took, did you? Aunt Mary saw your green shadows all right."

He set the canvas aside, and took up another. Eliza's muscles ached with tension. Her bony hands clasped as she recognized the picture. To the kittens over the table in the kitchen she had once confided that this landscape, which the artist had called "Autumn," looked to her eyes like nothing on earth but a prairie fire! It had been a terrible moment of heresy. She was punished for it now.

Phil backed away from the canvas, and elbow in his hand, rested his finger on his lips for what seemed to Eliza an age. Her heart thumped, but she could not remove her gaze from him.

Pluto, finding squirming and rubbing of no avail, leaped to the floor and blinked reflectively at his mistress. A flagpole would have offered equal facilities for cuddling.

He therefore made deliberate selection of the least unsatisfactory chair, and with noiseless grace took possession.

Phil nodded. "Yes, sir," he murmured; "yes, sir."

Eliza's teeth bit tighter on her suffering under lip. What did "Yes, sir" mean? At least he was not smiling.

He went on, slightly nodding, and thinking aloud; "Aunt Mary was ahead of her time. She knew what she was after."

Eliza tried to speak, and couldn't. Something clicked in her throat.

Phil went on regarding the autumnal tangle, and with a superhuman effort Eliza commanded her tongue.

"What was that you said, Mr. Sidney?"

Phil, again becoming conscious of the stony presence, smiled a little.

"Aunt Mary would have found sympathizers in Munich," he said.

"That's Germany, ain't it?" said Eliza, words and breath interlocking.

"Yes. Most of Uncle Sam's relatives want to see plainer what's doing; at least those who are able to buy pictures."

"Ahead of her time!" gasped Eliza, her blood racing through her veins. "Ought to 'a' been in Germany!"

And then the most amazing occurrence of Philip Sidney's life took place. There was a rush toward him, and suddenly his Medusa, his witch, his miser, his harpy was on her knees on the floor beside him, covering his hand with tears and kisses, and pouring out a torrent of words.

"I've nearly died with dread of you, Mr. Sidney. Oh, why isn't she here to hear you say those words of her pictures! Nobody was ever kind to her. Her relations paid no more attention to her, or her work, than if she'd been a – a – I don't know what. She was poor, and too modest, and the best and sweetest creature on earth; and when your sketches came she admired 'em so that I began to hate you then. Yes, Mr. Sidney, you was a relative, and goin' to be a success, and the look in her eyes when she saw your work killed me. It killed me!"

"Do, do get up," said Philip, trying to raise her. "Don't weep so, Eliza. I understand."

But the torrent could not yet be stemmed.

"I've looked forward to your comin' like to an operation. I've thought you might laugh at her pictures, 'cause young folks are so cruel, and they don't know! Let me cry, Mr. Sidney. Don't mind! You've given me the first happy moment I've known since she left me. I was the only one she had, even to go to picture galleries with her, and my bones ached 'cause I was a stupid thing, and she had wings just like a little spirit o' light."

Philip's lashes were moist again.

"I wish I had been here to go with her," he said.

Eliza lifted her streaming eyes. "Would you 'a' gone?" she asked, and allowed Phil to raise her gently to her feet.

"Indeed, I would," he answered gravely, "and we should have lived together, and worked together."

"Oh, why couldn't it 'a' been! Why couldn't it 'a' been! What it would 'a' meant to her to have heard what you said just now about her pictures!"