The gipsy woman wouldn't go without her
little baby, would she?" "No, she wouldn't do that." "Then has she _lent_ it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toys
sometimes?" The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered the
night-gowned figure more closely. "The darling's only half awake," she murmured.... "Poor Aunt Rachel's
sleepy too...."

Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about some
shape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with that
sweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair. HIC JACET

A TALE OF ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE

INTRODUCTION


As I lighted my guests down the stairs of my Chelsea lodgings, turned up
the hall gas that they might see the steps at the front door, and shook
hands with them, I bade them good night the more heartily that I was glad
to see their backs. Lest this should seem but an inhospitable confession,
let me state, first, that they had invited themselves, dropping in in
ones and twos until seven or eight of them had assembled in my garret,
and, secondly, that I was rather extraordinarily curious to know why, at
close on midnight, the one I knew least well of all had seen fit to
remain after the others had taken their departure. To these two
considerations I must add a third, namely, that I had become tardily
conscious that, if Andriaovsky had not lingered of himself, I should
certainly have asked him to do so. It was to nothing more than a glance, swift and momentary, directed by
Andriaovsky to myself while the others had talked, that I traced this
desire to see more of the little Polish painter; but a glance derives its
import from the circumstance under which it is given. That rapid turning
of his eyes in my direction an hour before had held a hundred questions,
implications, criticisms, incredulities, condemnations. It had been one
of those uncovenanted gestures that hold the promise of the treasures of
an eternal friendship. I wondered as I turned down the gas again and
remounted the stairs what personal message and reproach in it had lumped
me in with the others; and by the time I had reached my own door again a
phrase had fitted itself in my mind to that quick, ironical turning of
Andriaovsky's eyes: _"Et tu, Brute!... "_

He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in the
attitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the
recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still
continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The
same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chair
to chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatingly
smiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied,
suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released from
a strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point of
sitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another. "That's right," said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he had
picked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; you
might profane it." I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, not
replying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyes
humorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I had
mentally associated with that glance of his. _"Et tu, Brute! "_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lenses
of his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table. I too smiled as I felt for a match. "It _was_ rather much, wasn't it?" I said. But he suddenly stopped his wagging, and held up a not very clean
forefinger. His whole face was altogether too confoundedly intelligent. "Oh no, you don't!" he said peremptorily. "No getting out of it like
that the moment they've turned their backs! No running--what is it?--no
running with the hare and hunting with the hounds! _You_ helped, you
know!" I confess I fidgeted a little. "But hang it all, what could I do? They were in my place," I broke out. He chuckled, enjoying my discomfiture. Then his eyes fell on those absurd
and solemn chairs again. "Look at 'em--the Art Shades in conference!" he chuckled. "That
rush-seated one, it was talking half an hour ago about 'Scherzos in
Silver and Grey!' ... Nice, fresh green stuff!" To shut him up I told him that he would find cigarettes and tobacco on
the table. "'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'!" he chuckled again as he took a
cigarette....

All this, perhaps, needs some explanation. It had been the usual thing,
usual in those days, twenty years ago--smarming about Art and the Arts
and so forth. They--"we," as apparently Andriaovsky had lingered behind
for the purpose of reminding me--had perhaps talked a little more
soaringly than the ordinary, that was all. There had been Jamison in the
wicker chair, full to the lips and running over with the Colour
Suggestions of the late Edward Calvert; Gibbs, in a pulpy state of
adoration of the less legitimate side of the painting of Watts; and
Magnani, who had advanced that an Essential Oneness underlies all the
Arts, and had triumphantly proved his thesis by analogy with the Law of
the Co-relation of Forces. A book called Music and Morals had appeared
about that time, and on it they--we--had risen to regions of kite-high
lunacy about Colour Symphonies, orgies of formless colour thrown on a
magic-lantern screen--vieux jeu enough at this time of day. A young
newspaper man, too, had made mental notes of our adjectives, for use in
his weekly (I nearly spelt it "weakly") half-column of Art Criticism;
and--and here was Andriaovsky, grinning at the chairs, and mimicking
it all with diabolical glee. "'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'--'Word Pastels'--' Lyrics in Stone!'" he chuckled. "And what was it the fat fellow said?' A Siren Song in
Marble!' Phew!... Well, I'll get along. I shall just be in time to get
a pint of bitter to wash it all down if I'm quick... Bah!" he broke out
suddenly. "Good men build up Form and Forms--keep the Arts each after
its kind--raise up the dikes so that we shan't all be swept away by night
and nothingness--and these rats come nosing and burrowing and undermining
it all!... _Et tu, Brute!_"

"Well, when you've finished rubbing it in--" I grunted. "As if _you_ didn't know better!... Is that your way of getting back on
'em, now that you've chucked drawing and gone in for writing books? Phew I... Well, I'll go and get my pint of beer--"

But he didn't go for his pint of beer. Instead, he began to prowl about
my room, pryingly, nosingly, touching things here and there. I watched
him as he passed from one thing to another. He was very little, and very,
very shabby. His trousers were frayed, and the sole of one of his boots
flapped distressingly.