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diff --git a/old/68941-0.txt b/old/68941-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 69e46c4..0000000 --- a/old/68941-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8430 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The book of Evelyn, by Geraldine -Bonner - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The book of Evelyn - -Author: Geraldine Bonner - -Illustrator: Arthur William Brown - -Release Date: September 8, 2022 [eBook #68941] - -Language: English - -Produced by: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by University of California - libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF EVELYN *** - - - - - -THE BOOK OF EVELYN - - - - -[Illustration: The star of the occasion was calm and confident] - - - - - THE - BOOK OF EVELYN - - _By_ - GERALDINE BONNER - _Author of_ - TOMORROW’S TANGLE, THE PIONEER - RICH MEN’S CHILDREN, ETC. - - WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY - ARTHUR WILLIAM BROWN - - INDIANAPOLIS - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - PUBLISHERS - - - - - COPYRIGHT 1913 - THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY - - - PRESS OF - BRAUNWORTH & CO. - BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS - BROOKLYN, N. Y. - - - - -THE BOOK OF EVELYN - - - - -I - - -I HAVE moved. I am in. - -The household gods that have lain four years in storage are grouped -round me, showing familiar faces. It’s nice of them not to have -changed more, grown up as children do or got older like one’s friends. -They don’t harmonize with the furniture--this is an _appartement -meublé_--but I can melt them in with cushions and hangings. - -It’s going to be very snug and cozy when I get settled. This room--the -parlor--is a good shape, an oblong ending in a bulge of bay window. -Plenty of sun in the morning--I can have plants. Outside the window is -a small tin roof with a list to starboard where rain-water lodges and -sparrows come to take fussy excited baths. Across the street stands a -row of brownstone fronts, blank-visaged houses with a white curtain -in every window. The faces of such houses are like the faces of the -people who live in them. They tell you nothing about what’s going on -inside. It’s a peculiarity of New York--after living in a house with an -expressionless front wall you get an expressionless front wall yourself. - -From the windows of the back room I look out on the flank of the big -apartment-house that stands on the corner, and little slips of yard, -side by side, with fences between. Among them ours has a lost or -strayed appearance. Never did an unaspiring, city-bred yard look more -homesick and out of place. It has a sun-dial in the middle, circled -by a flagged path, and in its corners, sheltered by a few discouraged -shrubs, several weather-worn stone ornaments. It suggests a cemetery -of small things that had to have correspondingly small tombstones. I -hear from Mrs. Bushey, the landlady, that a sculptress once lived on -the lower floor and spent three hundred dollars lifting it out of the -sphere in which it was born. - -I am going to like it here. I am going to make myself like it, get out -of the negative habit into the positive. That’s why I came back from -Europe, that a sudden longing for home, for Broadway, and the lights -along the Battery, and dear little Diana poised against the sky. -Four years of pension tables and third-class railway carriages do not -develop the positive habit. I was becoming negative to the point of -annihilation. I wanted to be braced by the savage energies of my native -city. And also I did want some other society than that of American -spinsters and widows. The Europeans must wonder how the land of the -free and the home of the brave keeps up its birth-rate-- But I digress. - -When you have an income of one hundred and sixty-five dollars a month -and no way of adding to it, are thirty-three and a widow of creditable -antecedents, the difficulties of living in New York are almost -insurmountable. If you were a pauper or a millionaire it would be an -easy matter. They represent the upper and the nether millstones between -which people like me are crushed. - -And then your friends insist on being considered. I had a dream of six -rooms on the upper West Side. “But the upper West Side, my dear! You -might as well be in Chicago.” Then I had revolutionary longings for a -tiny old house with no heat and a sloping roof in Greenwich Village-- -“I could never go to see you there. They would stone the motor,” ended -that. There is just one slice in the center of the city in which a -poor but honest widow can live to the satisfaction of everybody but -herself. So here I am in the decorous Seventies, between Park Avenue -and Lexington, in an eighteen-foot dwelling with floors for light -housekeeping. - -To enter you go down three steps to a little front door that tries to -keep up to the neighborhood by hiding its decrepitude behind an iron -grill. That lets you into the smallest vestibule in the world, where -four bells are ranged along the door-post and four letter-boxes cling -to the wall. Out of this open two more doors, one that gives egress -to a narrow flight of stairs without a hand-rail, and the other to -the ground-floor apartment, inhabited, so Mrs. Bushey tells me, by a -trained nurse and her aunt. There was a tailor there once, but Mrs. -Bushey got him out-- “Cockroaches, water bugs, and then the sign! It -lowered the tone of the house. A person like you,” Mrs. Bushey eyed me -approvingly, “would never have stood for a tradesman’s sign.” - -I murmured an assent. I always do when credited with exclusive tastes -I ought to have and haven’t. It was the day I came to look the place -over, and I was nervously anxious to make a good impression on Mrs. -Bushey. Then we mounted a narrow stair that rose through a well to -upper stories. As it approached the landing it took a spirited curve, -as if in the hope of finding something better above. The stairway was -dark and a faint thin scent of many things (I know it now to be a -composite of cooking, gas leakage and cigars) remained suspended in the -airless shaft. - -“On this floor,” said Mrs. Bushey, turning on the curve, as if in the -hope of finding something better up behind her, “the gas is never put -out.” - -I took that floor. I don’t know whether the gas decided it, or Mrs. -Bushey’s persuasive manners, or an exhaustion that led me to look with -favor upon anything that had a chair to sit on and a bed to sleep in. -Anyway, I took it, and the next day burst in upon Betty Ferguson, -trying to carry it off with a debonair nonchalance: “Well, I’ve got an -apartment at last.” - -Betty looked serious and asked questions: Was it clean? Did the -landlady seem a proper person? Had I seen any of the other lodgers? -Then dwelt on the brighter side: It’s not quite a block from Park -Avenue. If you don’t like it you can find some excuse to break your -lease. There _is_ a servant on the premises who will come in, clean up -and cook you one good meal so you won’t starve. Well, it doesn’t sound -so bad. - -And now I’m in I think it’s even less bad than it sounded. The front -room is going to make the impression. It is already getting an -atmosphere, the individuality of a lady of uncultivated literary tastes -is imposing itself upon the department-store background. The center -table--mission style--is beginning to have an air, with Bergson in -yellow paper covers and two volumes of Strindberg. No more of him for -me after _Miss Juliet_, but he has his uses thrown carelessly on a -table with other gentlemen of the moment. If I am ever written up in -the papers I feel sure the reporters will say, “Mrs. Drake’s parlor -gave every evidence of being the abode of a woman of culture and -refinement.” - -The back room (there are only two) is more intimate. I am going to -eat there and also sleep. Friends may come in, however; for the -bed, during the day, masquerades as a divan. A little group of my -ancestors--miniatures and photographs of portraits--hangs on the wall -and chaperons me. Between the two rooms stretches a narrow connecting -neck of bathroom and kitchenette. - -There is only one word that describes the kitchenette--it is cute. -When I look at it with a gas stove on one side and tiers of shelves on -the other, “cute” instinctively rises to my lips, and I feel that my -country has enriched the language with that untranslatable adjective. -No one has ever been able to give it a satisfactory definition, but if -you got into my kitchenette, which just holds one fair-sized person, -and found yourself able to cook with one hand and reach the dishes off -the shelves with the other, you would get its full meaning. - -Before the house was cut into floors the kitchenette must have been a -cupboard. I wonder if a lady’s clothes hung in it or the best china -was stored there. There is a delightful mystery about old houses and -their former occupants. Haven’t I read somewhere that walls absorb -impressions from the lives they have looked on and exhale them to the -pleasure or detriment of later comers? - -Last night, as I was reading in bed--a habit acquired at the age of -twelve and adhered to ever since--I remembered this and wondered what -the walls would exhale on me. The paper has a trailing design of roses -on it, very ugly and evidently old. I wondered if the roses had bloomed -round tragedy or comedy, or just that fluctuation between the two -which makes up the lives of most of us--an alternate rise and fall, -soaring upward to a height, dropping downward to a hollow. - -Five years ago mine dropped to its hollow, and ever since has been -struggling up to the dead level where it is now--the place where things -come without joy or pain, the edge off everything. Thirty-three and -the high throb of expectancy over, the big possibilities left behind. -The hiring of two rooms, the hanging of a curtain, the placing of a -vase--these are the things that for me must take the place that love -and home and children take in other women’s lives. - -I got this far and stopped. No, I wouldn’t. I came back from Europe -to get away from that. I put out the light and cuddled down in the -new bed. Quite a good bed if it is a divan, and the room is going -to be fairly quiet. Muffled by walls I could hear the clanging -passage of cars. And then far away it seemed, though it couldn’t have -been, a gramophone, the Caruso record of _La Donna e Mobile_. What -a fine swaggering song and what an outrageous falsehood! Woman is -changeable--is she? That’s the man’s privilege. We, poor fools, haven’t -the sense to do anything but cling, if not to actualities to memories. -I felt tears coming--_that_ hasn’t happened for years. My memories -don’t bring them, they only bring a sort of weary bitterness. It was -the new surroundings, the loneliness, that did it. I stopped them and -listened to the gramophone, and the wretched thing had begun on a new -record, _Una Lagrima Furtiva_--a furtive tear! - -With my own furtive tears, wet on the pillow, I couldn’t help laughing. - - - - -II - - -THERE is one thing in the front room I must get rid of--the rug. It is -a nightmare with a crimson ground on which are displayed broken white -particles that look like animalcula in a magnified drop of water. I -had just made up my mind that it must be removed when Mrs. Bushey -opportunely came in. - -Mrs. Bushey lives next door (she has two houses under her wing) and -when not landladying, teaches physical culture. I believe there is no -Mr. Bushey, though whether death or divorce has snatched him from her I -haven’t heard. She is a stout dark person somewhere from twenty-eight -to forty-eight--I can’t tell age. I am thirty-three and have wrinkles -round my eyes. She has none. It may be temperament, or fat, or the bony -structure of the skull, or an absence of furtive tears. - -She talks much and rapidly which ought to tend to a good combination -between us, as listening is one of the things I do best. From our -conversation, or perhaps I ought to say our monologue, I got an -impressionistic effect of my fellow lodgers past and present. The -lady who lived here before me was a writer and very close about money. -It was difficult to collect her rent, also she showed symptoms of -inebriety. I gathered from Mrs. Bushey’s remarks and expression that -she expected me to be shocked, and I tried not to disappoint her, but I -couldn’t do much with a monosyllable, which was all she allowed me. - -A series of rapid sketches of the present inmates followed. Something -like this: - -“Mrs. Phillips, the trained nurse, and her aunt, in the basement are -terrible cranks, always complaining about the plumbing and the little -boys who will stop on their way home from school and write bad words -on the flags. They think they own the back garden, but they don’t. We -all do, but what’s the use of fighting? I never do, I’ll stand anything -rather than have words with anybody.” - -I edged in an exclamation, a single formless syllable. - -“Of course, I knew you would. Then on the floor below you are two young -Westerners in the back room, Mr. Hazard, who’s an artist, and Mr. -Weatherby, who’s something on the press. The most delightful fellows, -never a day late with their rent. And in the front room is Miss Bliss, -a model--artist not cloak. She isn’t always on time with her money, but -I’m very lenient with her.” - -I tried to insert a sentence, but it was nipped at the second word. - -“Yes, exactly. You see just how it is. On the floor above you, in the -back, is Mr. Hamilton, such a nice man and so unfortunate. Lost every -cent he had in Wall Street and is beginning all over again. Fine, -isn’t it? Yes, I feel it and don’t say anything when he’s behind with -his rent. How could I?” Though I hadn’t said a word she looked at me -reprovingly as if I had suggested sending the delinquent Mr. Hamilton -to jail. “That’s not my way. I know it’s foolish of me. You needn’t -tell me so, but that’s how I’m made.” - -I began to feel that I ought to offer my next month’s rent at once. I -have a bad memory and might be a day or two late. - -“The room in front, over your parlor, is vacant. Terrible, isn’t it? -I tried to make Mr. Hamilton take the whole floor through. Even if he -isn’t good pay--” - -I broke in, determined to hear no more of Mr. Hamilton’s financial -deficiencies. - -“Who’s on the top floor?” - -There was a slight abatement of Mrs. Bushey’s buoyancy. She looked at -me with an eye that expressed both curiosity and question. - -“Miss Harris lives there,” she answered. “Have you seen her?” - -I hadn’t. - -“Perhaps you’ve heard her?” - -I had heard a rustle on the stairs, was that Miss Harris? - -“Yes. She’s the only woman above you.” - -“Does she leave a trail of perfume?” - -I was going to add that it didn’t mix well with the gas leakage, the -cigars and last year’s cooking but refrained for fear of Mrs. Bushey’s -feelings. - -“Yes, that’s Miss Harris. She’s a singer--professional. But you won’t -hear her much, there’s a floor in between. That is, unless you leave -the register open.” - -I said I’d shut the register. - -“I don’t take singers as a rule,” Mrs. Bushey went on, “but Mr. -Hamilton being away all day and the top floor being hard to rent, I -made an exception. One must live, mustn’t one?” - -I could agree to that. - -“She’s a Californian and rather good-looking. But I don’t think she’s -had much success.” - -A deprecating look came into her face and she tilted her head to one -side. I felt coming revelations about Miss Harris’ rent and said -hastily: - -“What does she sing, concert, opera, musical comedy?” - -“She’s hardly sung in public at all yet. She’s studying, and I’m afraid -that it’s very uncertain. Last month--” - -I interrupted desperately. - -“Is she a contralto or soprano?” - -“Dramatic mezzo,” said Mrs. Bushey. “She’s trying to get an opening, -but,” she compressed her lips and shook her head gloomily, “there are -so many of them and her voice is nothing wonderful. But she evidently -has some money, for she pays her rent regularly.” - -I felt immensely relieved. As Mrs. Bushey rose to her feet I too rose -lightly, encouragingly smiling. Mrs. Bushey did not exhibit the cheer -fitting to the possession of so satisfactory a lodger. She buttoned her -jacket, murmuring: - -“I don’t like taking singers, people complain so. But when one is -working for one’s living--” Her fingers struggled with a button. - -“Of course,” I filled in, “I understand. And I for one won’t object to -the music.” - -Mrs. Bushey seemed appeased. As she finished the buttoning she looked -about the room, her glance roaming over my possessions. For some -obscure reason I flinched before that inspection. Some of them are -sacred, relics of my mother and of the years when I was a wife--only -a few of these. Mrs. Bushey’s look was like an auctioneer’s hand -fingering them, appraising their value. - -Finally it fell to the rug. I had forgotten it; now was my chance. -Suddenly it seemed a painful subject to broach and I sought for a -tactful opening. Mrs. Bushey pressed its crimson surface with her foot. - -“Isn’t this a beautiful rug?” she said. “It’s a real Samarcand.” - -I smothered a start. I had had a real Samarcand once. - -Mrs. Bushey, eying the magnified insects with solicitude, continued: - -“I wouldn’t like to tell you how much I paid for this. It was a -ridiculous sum for me to give. But I love pretty things, and when you -took the apartment I put it in here because I saw at once _you_ were -used to only the best.” - -I murmured faintly. - -“So I was generous and gave you my treasure. You will be careful of it, -won’t you? Not drop anything on it or let people come in with muddy -boots.” - -I said I would. I found myself engaging with ardor to love and cherish -a thing I abhorred. It’s happened before, it’s the kind of thing I’ve -been doing all my life. - -Mrs. Bushey gave it a loving stroke with her foot. - -“I knew you’d appreciate it. You don’t often find a real Samarcand in a -furnished apartment.” - -After she had gone I sat looking dejectedly at it. Of course I would -have to keep it now. I might buy some small rugs and partly cover it -up, but I suppose, when she saw them, she would be mortally hurt. And I -can’t do that. I’d rather have those awful magnified insects staring up -at me for the rest of my life than wound her pride so. - -As to its being a Samarcand--I took up one corner and lo! attached to -it by a string was a price-tag bearing the legend, Scotch wool rug, -$12.75. - -It _was_ somewhat of a shock. Suppose I had found it while she was -there! The thought of such a contretemps made me cold. To avoid all -possibilities of it ever happening I stealthily detached the tag and -tore it into tiny pieces. As I dropped them in the waste-basket I had a -fancy that had I made the discovery while she was present, I would have -been the more embarrassed of the two. - -All afternoon I have been putting things in order, trying them and -standing back to get the effect. It’s a long time since I’ve had -belongings of my own to play with. I hung my mother’s two Kriegolf’s -(Kriegolf was a Canadian artist who painted pictures of habitan life) -in four different places. They finally came to anchor on the parlor -wall on either side of a brass-framed mirror with candle branches that -belongs to Mrs. Bushey. Opposite, flanking the fireplace, are _Kitty -O’Brien_ and _The Wax Head of Lille_. I love her best of all, the -dreaming maiden. I like to try and guess what she’s thinking of. Is it -just the purposeless reverie of youth, or is she musing on the coming -lover? It can’t be that, because, while he’s still a dream lover, a -girl is happy, and she looks so sad. - -I was trying to pierce the secret of that mysterious face when the -telephone rang. It was Roger Clements, a kind voice humming along the -line--“Well, how’s everything?” Roger wanted to come up and see me and -the kitchenette, and I told him Madame would receive to-morrow evening. - -He would be my first visitor and I was fluttered. I spent at least an -hour trying to decide whether I’d better bring the Morris chair from -the back room for him. When the dread of starvation is lifted from you -by one hundred and sixty-five dollars a month and life offers nothing, -you find your mental forces expending themselves on questions like -that. I once knew a man who told me he sat on the edge of his bed every -morning struggling to decide whether he’d put on a turned-down or a -stand-up collar. He said it was nerves. In my case it’s just plain lack -of interests. - -It’s natural for me to try and make Roger comfortable. He’s one of -the best friends I have in the world. I’m not using the word to cover -sentiment, I do really mean a friend. He knew me before I was married, -was one of the reliable older men in those glowing days when I was -Evelyn Carr, before I met Harmon Drake. He has been kind to me in ways -I never can forget. In those dark last years of my married life (there -were only five of them altogether) when my little world was urging -divorce and I stood distracted amid falling ruins, he never said one -word to me about my husband, never forced on me consolation or advice. -I don’t forget that, or the letter he wrote me when Harmon died--the -one honest letter I got. - -Everybody exclaimed when I said I was going alone to Europe. Roger was -the only one who understood and told me to go. I’ll carry to my grave -the memory of his face as he stood on the dock waving me good-by. He -was smiling, but under the smile I could see the sympathy he wanted -me to know and didn’t dare to put in words. That’s one of the ties -between us--we’re the silent kind who keep our feelings hidden away in -a Bluebeard’s chamber of which we keep the key. - -I used to hear from him off and on in Europe, and I followed him in the -American papers. I remember one sun-soaked morning in Venice, when I -picked up an English review in the pension and read a glowing criticism -of his book of essays, _Readjustments_. How proud I was of him! He’s -become quite famous in these last few years, not vulgarly famous but -known among scholars as a scholar and recognized as one of the few -stylists we have over here. I can’t imagine him on the news-stalls, or -bound in paper for the masses. I think he secretly detests the masses -though he won’t admit it. The mob, with its easily swayed passions, -is the sort of thing that it’s in his blood to hate. If he had to sue -for its support like Coriolanus he would act exactly as Coriolanus -did. Fortunately he doesn’t need it. The Clements have had money for -generations, not according to Pittsburgh standards, but the way the -Clements reckon money. He has an apartment on Gramercy Park, lined with -books to the ceilings, with a pair of old servants to fuss over him and -keep the newspaper people away. - -There he leads the intellectual life, the only one that attracts him. -He rarely goes into society. The recent invasion of multi-millionaires -have spoiled it, his sister, Mrs. Ashworth, says, and on these points -he and she think alike. And he doesn’t care for women, at least to fall -in love with them. When he was a young man, twenty-four to be accurate, -he was engaged to a girl who died. Since then his interest in the other -sex has taken the form of a detached impersonal admiration. He thinks -they furnish the color and poetry of life and in that way have an -esthetic value in a too sober world. - -But what’s the sense of analyzing your friend? He’s a dear kind -anchorite of a man, just a bit set, just a bit inclined to think that -the Clements’ way of doing things is the only way, just a bit too -contemptuous of cheapness and bad taste and bounce, but with all his -imperfections on his head, the finest gentleman I know. I _will_ move -the Morris chair. - - - - -III - - -LOVE of flowers is one of the gifts the fairies gave me in my cradle. -It’s a great possession, fills so many blanks. You can forget you’ve -got no baby of your own when you watch the flowers’ babies lifting -their little faces to the sun. - -I bought four plants at Bloomingdales and put them in the front window, -a juniper bush, a Boston fern, a carrot fern and a rubber plant. I -like the ferns best, the new shoots are so lovely, pushing up little -green curly tops in the shelter of the old strong ones. I remind -myself of Miss Lucretia Tox in _Dombey and Son_, with a watering can -and a pair of scissors to snip off dead leaves. There’s one great -difference between us--Miss Tox had a Mr. Dombey across the way. I’ve -nothing across the way. The only male being that that discreet and -expressionless row of houses has given up to my eyes is the young -doctor opposite. He does the same thing every morning, runs down the -steps with a bag and a busy air, walks rapidly to Lexington Avenue, -then, when he thinks he’s out of sight, stands on the corner not -knowing which way to go. - -I feel that, in a purely neighborly spirit, I ought to have an illness. -I would like to help all young people starting in business, take all -the hansoms that go drearily trailing along Fifth Avenue, especially -if the driver looks drunken and despondent, and give money to every -beggar who accosts me. They say it is a bad principle and one is always -swindled. Personally I don’t think that matters at all. Your impulse is -all right and that’s all that counts. But I digress again--I must get -over the habit. - -This morning I was doing my Miss Lucretia Tox act when Betty Ferguson -came in. Betty is one of my rich friends; we were at school together -and have kept close ever since. She married Harry Ferguson the same -year that I married Harmon Drake. Now she has three children, and a -house on Fifth Avenue, not to mention Harry. Her crumpled rose leaf -is that she is getting fat. Every time I see her she says resolutely, -“I am going to walk twice round the reservoir to-morrow morning,” and -never does it. - -She came in blooming, with a purple orchid among her furs, and the -rich rosy color in her face deepened by the first nip of winter. She -has a sharp eye, and I expected she would immediately see the rug and -demand an explanation. I was slightly flustered, for I have no excuse -ready and I never can confess my weaknesses to Betty. She is one of the -sensible people who don’t see why you can’t be sensible, too. - -She did not, however, notice the rug, but clasping my hand fixed -me with a solemn glance that made me uneasy. Betty oblivious to -externals--what had I done? - -“Who was the woman I met coming out of here just now?” she said -abruptly. - -“Mrs. Bushey,” I hazarded, and then remembered Mrs. Bushey was off -somewhere imparting physical culture. - -“Is Mrs. Bushey very tall and thin with black hair and a velvet dress, -and a hat as big as a tea tray?” - -“No, she’s short and stout and--” - -“Evie,” interrupted Mrs. Ferguson, sounding a deep note, “that woman -wasn’t Mrs. Bushey. Nobody who looked like that ever leased an -eighteen-foot house and rented out floors.” - -I had a sudden surge of memory-- - -“It must have been Miss Harris.” - -Betty loosed my hand and sank upon the sofa, that is, she subsided -carefully upon the sofa, as erect as a statue from the waist up. She -threw back her furs with a disregard for the orchid that made me wince. - -“Who’s Miss Harris?” she said sternly. - -I told her all I knew. - -“That’s just what she looked like--the stage. Are there any more of -them here?” - -I assured her there were not. She gazed out of the window with a -pondering air. - -“After all, there _are_ respectable people on the stage,” she said, -following some subterranean course of thought. - -I knew my Betty and hastened to reassure her-- - -“She’s on the top floor. Her contaminating influence, if she has one, -would have to percolate through another apartment before it got to me.” - -She did not smile and I did not expect it. Mrs. Ferguson has no -sense of humor, and that’s one of the reasons I love her. There is -an obsession in the public mind just now about the sense of humor. -People ask anxiously if other people have it as Napoleon used to ask -if attractive ladies he had wooed in vain “were still virtuous.” It’s -like being a bromide-- Give me a bromide, a humorless, soft, cushiony -bromide, rather than those exhausting people who have established a -reputation for wit and are living up to it. Betty is not soft and -cushiony, but she is always herself. - -“I wish you could live in a house of your own like a Christian,” she -said. - -We have talked over this before. This subject has an embarrassing -side--I’ll explain it later--so I hastened to divert her. - -“Why should you be wrought up over Miss Harris? I’m sure from what Mrs. -Bushey tells me she’s a very nice person,” and then I remembered and -added brightly: “She always pays her rent.” - -Betty gave me a somber side glance. - -“She’s very handsome.” - -“There _are_ handsome people who are perfectly _convenable_. You’re -handsome, Betty.” - -Betty was unmoved. - -“At any rate you needn’t know her,” she said. - -“Don’t you think I ought to say ‘Howd’ye do’ if I meet her on the -stairs?” - -“No, why should you? The next thing would be she’d be coming into your -rooms and then, some day, she’d come when somebody you liked was there.” - -She clasped her hands in her lap and drew herself up, her head so erect -the double chin she fears was visible. In this attitude she kept a cold -eye on me. - -“And all because she’s handsome and wears a hat as big as a tea tray,” -I said, trying to treat the subject lightly, but inwardly conscious of -a perverse desire to champion Miss Harris. - -Betty, wreathing her neck about in the tight grip of her collar, -removed her glance to the window, out of which she stared haughtily -as though Miss Harris was standing on the tin roof supplicating an -entrance. - -“We can’t be too careful in this town,” she murmured, shaking her head -as if refusing Miss Harris’ hopes. Then she looked down at the floor. I -saw her expression changing as her eye ranged over the rug. - -“Where did you get this rug, Evie?” she asked in a quiet tone. - -I grew nervous. - -“It came with the apartment.” - -“Get rid of it, dear, at once. I can send you up one from the library. -Harry’s going to give me a new Aubusson.” - -I became more nervous and faltered: - -“But I ought to keep this.” - -“Why? Is there a clause in your lease that you’ve got to use it?” - -When Betty gets me against the wall this way I become frightened. Timid -animals, thus cornered, are seized with the courage of despair and fly -at their assailant. Timid human beings show much less spirit--I always -think animals behave with more dignity than people--they tell lies. - -“But--but--I like it,” I stammered. - -“Oh,” said Betty with a falling note, “if that’s the case--” She -stopped and rose to her feet, too polite to say what she thought. “Put -on your things and come out with me. I’m shopping, and afterward we’ll -lunch somewhere.” - -I went out with Betty in the car, a limousine with two men and a chow -dog. We went to shops where obsequious salesladies listened to Mrs. -Ferguson’s needs and sought to satisfy them. They had a conciliating -way of turning to me and asking my opinion which, such is the poverty -of my spirit, pleased me greatly. I get a faint reflex feeling of what -it is to be the wife of one of New York’s rising men. Then we lunched -richly and clambered back into the limousine, each dropping languidly -into her corner while the footman tucked us in. - -We were rolling luxuriously down Fifth Avenue when Betty rallied -sufficiently from the torpor of digestion to murmur. - -“To-morrow morning, after breakfast, I’ll walk three times round the -reservoir.” - -Roger came at eight. It was the first cold night of the season and the -furnace was not broken in. In spite of lamps the room was chilly. It -was good to see him again--in my parlor, in my Morris chair. He isn’t -handsome, a long thin man, with a long thin face, smooth shaven and -lined, and thick, sleek, iron-gray hair. Some one has said all that -a man should have in the way of beauty is good teeth. Roger has that -necessary asset and another one, well-shaped, gentlemanly hands, very -supple and a trifle dry to the touch. And, yes, he has a charming smile. - -He is forty-two and hasn’t changed a particle in the last fifteen -years. Why can’t a woman manage that? When I was dressing to-night I -looked in the glass and tried to reconstruct my face as it was fifteen -years ago. I promised to be a pretty girl then, but it was just the -fleeting beauty that nature gives us in our mating time, lends us for -her own purposes. Now I see a pale mild person with flat-lying brown -hair and that beaten expression peculiar to females whom life conquers. -I don’t know whether it’s the mouth or the eyes, but I see it often in -faces I pass on the street. - -It was a funny evening--conversation varied by chamber music. We began -it sitting in the middle of the room on either side of the table like -the family lawyer and the heroine in the opening scene of a play. Then, -as the temperature dropped, we slowly gravitated toward the register, -till we finally brought up against it. A faint warm breath came through -the iron grill and we leaned forward and basked in it. We were talking -about women. We often do, it’s one of our subjects. Of course Roger is -of the old school. He’s got an early Victorian point of view; I know he -would value me more highly if I swooned now and then. He doesn’t call -women “the weaker vessel,” but he thinks of them that way. - -“I don’t see why you can’t be content with things as they are,” he -said, spreading his hands to the register’s meager warmth. “Why should -you want to go into politics and have professions? Why aren’t you -willing to leave all that to us and stay where you belong?” - -“But we may not have anything to do where we belong. Roger, if you move -nearer the corner you’ll get a little more heat.” - -Roger moved. - -“Every woman has work in her own sphere,” he said, while moving. - -“I haven’t.” - -“You, dear Evie,” he looked at me with a fond indulgent smile. “You -have plenty of work and it’s always well done--to bring romance and -sweetness into life.” - -There is something quite maddening about Roger when he talks this -way. I could find it in me to call him an ass. All the superiority of -countless generations of men who have ordered women’s lives lies behind -it. And he is impregnable, shut up with his idea. It is built round him -and cemented with a thousand years of prejudice and tradition. - -“I don’t _want_ to bring romance and sweetness into life,” I said -crossly, “I want to get something out of it.” - -“You can’t help it. It’s what you were put in the world for. We men -don’t want you in the struggle. That’s for us. It’s our business to go -down into the arena and fight for you, make a place for you, keep you -out of it all.”-- He moved his foot across the register and turned it -off. - -“You’ve turned off the heat,” I cried. - -He turned it on. - ---“Keep you out of it all. Sheltered from the noise and glare of the -world by our own firesides.” - -“Some of us would rather have a little more noise and glare by our own -register.” - -“All wrong, Evie, all wrong. You’re in a niche up there with a lamp -burning before it. If you come down from your niche you’re going to -lose the thing that’s made you worshipful--your femininity, your charm.” - -“What does our charm matter to us? What good is our femininity to us?” - -He looked surprised. - -“What good?” - -“Look here, Roger, I feel certain that Shem, Ham and Japheth talked -this way to their wives on those rainy days in the Ark. It’s not only -a pre-glacial point of view, but it’s the most colossally selfish -one. All you men are worried about is that we’re not going to be so -attractive to make love to. The chase is going to lose its zest--” - -I stopped short, cut off by a flood of sound that suddenly burst upon -us from the register. - -It was a woman’s voice singing Musetta’s song, and by its clearness and -volume seemed to be the breath of the register become vocal. We started -back simultaneously and looked about the room, while Musetta’s song -poured over us, a rich jubilant torrent of melody. - -“What is it?” said Roger, rising as if to defend me. - -“Miss Harris,” I answered, jumping up. - -“Who’s Miss Harris?” - -“A singer. She lives here.” - -“Does she live in there?” He pointed to the register. - -“No, on the top floor, but it connects with her room.” - -We stood still and listened, and as the song rose to its brilliant -climax, Roger looked at me smiling, and nodded approvingly. In his -heart he thinks he is something of a musician, has season seats at the -opera and goes dutifully to the Symphony. I don’t think he is any -more musical than I am. I don’t think literary people ever are. They -like it with their imaginations, feel its sensuous appeal, but as to -experiencing those esoteric raptures that the initiated know--it’s a -joy denied. - -The song came to an end. - -“Not a bad voice,” said Roger. “Who is she?” - -“A lady who is studying to be a professional.” And then I added -spitefully: “Do you think she ought to give up her singing to be -sheltered by somebody’s fireside?” - -Roger had turned to get his coat. He stopped and looked at me over his -shoulder, smiling--he really has a delightful smile. - -“I except ladies with voices.” - -“Because they add to the pleasure of gentlemen with musical tastes?” - -He picked up his coat. - -“Evie, one of the things that strengthens me in my belief is that when -you get on that subject you become absolutely acid.” - -I helped him on with his coat. - -My sitting-room door opens close to the head of the stairs. If my -visitors back out politely they run a risk of stepping over the edge -and falling down-stairs on their backs. The one gas-jet that burns -all the time is a safeguard against this catastrophe, but, as it is an -uncertain and timid flicker, I speed the parting guest with caution. - -Roger was backing out with his hat held to his breast when I gave a -warning cry. It went echoing up the stairway and mingled with the sound -of heavy descending feet. A head looked over the upper banister, a -dark masculine head, and seeing nothing more alarming than a lady and -gentleman in an open doorway, withdrew itself. The steps descended, a -hand glided down the rail, and a large overcoated shape came into view. -The frightened gas-jet shot up as if caught in a dereliction of duty, -and the man, advancing toward us, was clearly revealed. - -I am a person of sudden attractions and antipathies and I had one, -sharp and poignant, as I looked at him. It was an antipathy, the -“I-do-not-like-you-Doctor-Fell” feeling in its most acute form. It was -evidently not reciprocal, for, as he drew near, he smiled, an easy -natural smile that disclosed singularly large white teeth. He gave me -an impression of size and breadth, his shoulders seemed to fill the -narrow passage and he carried them with an arrogant swagger. That and -the stare he fixed on us probably caused the “Doctor Fell” feeling. -The stare was bold and hard, a combination of inspection and curiosity. - -He added a nod to his smile, passed us and went down the stairs. We -looked down on his wide descending shoulders and the top of his head, -with the hair thin in the middle. - -“Who’s that bounder?” said Roger. - -“I haven’t the least idea.” - -“Didn’t he bow to you?” - -“Yes, but that doesn’t make me know him. He must be some one living in -the house.” - -Roger looked after him. - -“I’m coming up here to see you often,” he said after a moment’s pause. - -After he had gone I went into the back room and lit lights and -peeled off the outer skins of my divan bed. I felt quite gay and -light-hearted. I _am_ going to like it here. With the student lamp -lighted the back room is very cozy. I lay in bed and surveyed it -admiringly while my ancestors looked soberly down on me. They are a -very solemn lot, all but the French Huguenot lady with her frivolous -curls and the black velvet round her neck. She has a human look. I’m -sure her blood is strong in me. None of the others would ever have -lived in an eighteen-foot house with a prima donna singing through the -register, and a queer-looking man, with large white teeth, smiling at -one in the passage. - - - - -IV - - -I HAVE seen her--and I don’t wonder! - -It was on Tuesday evening just as the dusk was falling. I had come home -from a walk, and as I climbed the first narrow stair I saw in the hall -above me, a woman standing under the gas, reading a letter. I caught -her in silhouette, a black form, very tall and broadening out into a -wide hat, but even that way, without feature or detail, arresting. -Then, as she heard me, she stepped back so that the light fell on her. -I knew at once it was Miss Harris, tried not to stare, and couldn’t -help it. - -She is really remarkably good-looking--an oval-faced, dark-eyed woman, -with black hair growing low on her forehead and waving backward over -her ears. Either the size of the hat, or her earrings (they were -long and green), or a collarless effect about the neck, gave her a -picturesque, unconventional air. The stage was written large all over -her. When I got close I saw details, that she had beautifully curly -lips--most people’s come together in a straight line like a box and -its lid--and a fine nose, just in the right proportion to the rest of -her face. Also she wore a gray fur coat, unfastened, and something in -her appearance suggested a hurried dressing, things flung on. - -She looked up from the letter and eyed me with frank interest. I -approached embarrassed. A secret desire to have all people like me -is one of my besetting weaknesses. I am slavish to servants and feel -grateful when salesladies condescend to address me while waiting -for change. The fear that Betty would find it out could not make me -pass Miss Harris without a word. So I timidly smiled--a deprecating, -apologetic smile, a smile held in bondage by the memory of Mrs. -Ferguson. - -Miss Harris returned it brilliantly. Her face suddenly bore the -expression of one who greets a cherished friend. She moved toward me -radiating welcome. - -“You’re on the third floor,” she said in a rich voice, “Mrs. Harmon -Drake.” - -I saw a hand extended and felt mine enclosed in a grasp that matched -the smile and manner. Miss Harris towered over me--she must be nearly -six feet high--and I felt myself growing smaller and paler than the -Lord intended me to be before that exuberantly beaming presence. My -hand was like a little bundle of cold sticks in her enfolding grip. I -backed against the banisters and tried to pull it away, but Miss Harris -held it and beamed. - -“I’ve read your name on your door every time I’ve passed,” she said, -“and I’ve hoped you’d some day open the door and find me standing there -and ask me to come in.” - -I could see Betty’s head nodding at me, I could hear her grim “I told -you so.” - -I made polite murmurs and pressed closer to the banister. - -“But the door was never opened,” said Miss Harris, bending to look into -my face with an almost tender reproach. I felt I was visibly shrinking, -and that the upward gaze I fastened on her was one of pleading. Unless -she let go my hand and ceased to be so oppressively gracious I would -diminish to a heap upon the floor. - -“Never mind,” she went on, “now I know you I’ll not stand outside any -more.” - -I jerked my hand away and made a flank movement for the stairs. Five -minutes more and she would be coming up and taking supper with me. She -did not appear to notice my desire for flight, but continued talking to -me as I ascended. - -“We’re the only two women in the upper part of this house. Do I -chaperon you, or do you chaperon me?” - -I spoke over the banisters and my tone was cold. - -“Being a married woman, I suppose I’m the natural chaperon.” - -The coldness glanced off her imperturbable good humor: - -“You never can tell. These little quiet married women--” - -I frowned. The changed expression stopped her and then she laughed. - -“Don’t be offended. You must never mind what I say. I’m not half so -interesting if I stop and think.” - -I looked down at her and was weak enough to smile. Her face was so -unlike her words, so serenely fine, almost noble. - -“That’s right, smile,” she cried gaily. “You’ll get used to me when you -know me better. And you’re going to do that, Mrs. Drake, for I warn you -now, we’ll soon be friends.” - -Before I could answer she had turned and run down the stairs to the -street. - -I let myself into the sitting-room and took off my things. I have neat -old-maidish ways, cultivated by years of small quarters. Before I can -sit with an easy conscience I have to put away wraps, take off shoes, -pull down blinds and light lamps. When I had done this I sat before the -register and thought of Miss Harris. - -There was something very unusual about her--something more than her -looks. She has a challenging quality; maybe it’s magnetism, but -whatever it is that’s what makes people notice her and speak of her. -Nevertheless, she was not _de notre monde_--I apologize for the phrase -which has always seemed to me the summit of snobbery, but I can’t think -of a better one. It was not that she was common--that didn’t fit her -at all--unsensitive would be a fairer word. I felt that very strongly, -and I felt that it might be a concomitant of a sort of crude power. She -didn’t notice my reluctance at all, or I had a fancy that she might -have noticed it and didn’t care. - -I was sitting thus when Mrs. Bushey came bounding ebulliently in. Mrs. -Bushey bounds in quite often, after physical culture, or when the -evenings in the other house pall. She wore a red dress under a long -fur-lined coat and stopped in pained amaze when she saw me crouched -over the register. - -“Cold!” she cried aghast, “don’t tell me you haven’t enough heat?” - -It was just what I intended telling her, but when I saw her -consternation I weakened. - -“It _is_ a little chilly this evening,” I faltered, “but perhaps--” - -Mrs. Bushey cut me short by falling into the Morris chair as one become -limp from an unexpected blow. - -“What am I to do?” she wailed, looking up at the chandelier as though -she expected an answer to drop on her from the globes. “I’ve just got -four tons of the best coal and a new furnace man. I pay him double what -any one else on the block pays--_double_--and here you are _cold_.” - -I felt as if I was doing Mrs. Bushey a personal wrong--insulting her as -a landlady and a woman--and exclaimed earnestly, quite forgetting the -night Roger and I had frozen in concert. - -“Only this evening, Mrs. Bushey, I assure you.” - -But she was too perturbed to listen: - -“And I try so hard--I don’t make a cent and don’t expect to. I want -you all to be comfortable, no matter how far behind I get. That’s my -way--but I’ve always been a fool. Oh, dear!” She let her troubled gaze -wander over the room-- “Isn’t that a beautiful mirror? It came from the -Trianon, belonged to Marie Antoinette. I took it out of my room and put -it in here for you. What _shall_ I do with that furnace man?” - -I found myself telling her that an arctic temperature was exactly to -my taste, and making a mental resolution that next time Roger came he -could keep on his overcoat, and after all, spring was only six months -off. - -“No,” said Mrs. Bushey firmly, “I’ll have it right if I go to the -poorhouse, and that’s where I’m headed. I had a carpenter’s bill -to-day--twenty-six dollars and fourteen cents--and I’ve only eleven in -the bank. It was for your floor”--she looked over it--“I really didn’t -need to have it fixed, it’s not customary, but I was determined I’d -give you a good floor no matter what it cost.” - -I was just about suggesting that the carpenter’s bill be added to my -next month’s rent when she brightened up and said an Italian count had -taken the front room on the floor above. - -“Count Mario Delcati, one of the very finest families of Milan. A -charming young fellow, charming, with those gallant foreign manners. -He’s coming here to learn business, American methods. I’m asking him -nothing--a young man in a strange country. How could I? And though -his family’s wealthy they’re giving him a mere pittance to live on. -Of course I won’t make anything by it, I don’t expect to. His room’s -got hardly any chairs in it, and I can’t buy any new ones with that -carpenter’s bill hanging over me.” She smoothed the arm of the Morris -chair and then looked at the floor. “It’s really made your floor look -like parquet.” - -I agreed, though I hadn’t thought of it before. - -“You have a good many chairs in this room,” she went on, “more than -usually go in a furnished apartment, even in the most expensive hotels.” - -I had two chairs and a sofa. Mrs. Bushey rose and drew together her -fur-lined coat. - -“It’s horrible to think of that boy with only one chair,” she murmured, -“far from his home, too. Of course I’d give him any I had, but mine are -all gone. I’d give the teeth out of my head if anybody wanted them. -It’s not in my nature to keep things for myself when other people ought -to have them.” - -I gave up the Morris chair. Mrs. Bushey was gushingly grateful. - -“I’ll tell him it was yours and how willingly you gave it up,” she -said, moving toward the door. Then she stopped suddenly and looked -at the center-table lamp. “He’s a great reader, he tells me--French -fiction. He ought to have a lamp and there’s not one to spare in either -house.” - -She looked encouragingly at me. I wanted the lamp. - -“Can’t he read by the gas?” I pleaded. - -“My dear,” said Mrs. Bushey, with a reproving look, “can _you_ read by -the gas?” - -Conquered by her irrefutable argument, I surrendered the lamp. She was -again grateful. - -“It’s so agreeable, dealing with the right sort of people,” she said, -fastening the last button of her coat. “All the others in the house are -so selfish--wouldn’t give up anything. But one doesn’t have to ask you. -You offer it at once.” - -The count arrived yesterday afternoon, and we are now fast friends. Our -meeting fell out thus:-- I was reading and heard a sound of footsteps -on the stairs, footsteps going up and down, prowling restless footsteps -to which I paid no attention, as they go on most of the time. -Presently there was a knock at my door and that, too, was a common -happening, as most things and people destined for our house find refuge -at my portal--intending lodgers for Mrs. Bushey, the seedy man who has -a bill for Mr. Hamilton, the laundress with Mr. Hazard’s wash, the -artist who is searching for Miss Bliss and has forgotten the address, -the telegraph boy with everybody’s telegrams, the postman with the -special deliveries, and Miss Harris’ purchases at the department stores. - -I called, “Come in,” and the door opened, displaying a thin, brown, -dapper young man in a fur-lined overcoat and a silk hat worn back from -his forehead. He had a smooth dark skin, a dash of hair on his upper -lip, and eyes so black in the pupil and white in the eyeball that they -looked as if made of enamel. - -At the sight of a lady the young man took off his hat and made a deep -bow. When he rose from this obeisance he was smiling pleasantly. - -“I am Count Delcati,” he said. - -“How do you do?” I responded, rising. - -“Very well,” said the count in careful English with an accent. “I come -to live here.” - -“It’s a very nice place,” I answered. - -“That is why I took the room,” said the count. “But now I am here I -can’t get into it or find any one who will open the door.” - -He was locked out. Mrs. Bushey was absent imparting the mysteries of -physical culture and Emma, the maid, was not to be found. In the lower -hall was a pile of luggage that might have belonged to an actress -touring in repertoire, and the count could think of nothing better to -do than sit on it till some one came by and rescued him. Not at all -sure that he might not be a novel form of burglar, I invited him into -my parlor and set him by the register to thaw out. He accepted my -hospitality serenely, pushing an armchair to the heat, and asking me if -I objected to his wrapping himself in my Navajo blanket. - -“How fortunate that I knocked at your door,” he said, arranging the -blanket. “Otherwise I should surely be froze.” - -I had an engagement at the dentist’s and disappeared to put on my -things. When I came back he rose quickly to his feet, the blanket -draped around his shoulders. - -“I am going out,” I said. “I have to--it’s the dentist’s.” - -“Poor lady,” he murmured politely. - -“But--but you,” I stammered; “what will you do while I’m gone?” - -Holding the blanket together with one hand he made a sweeping gesture -round the room with the other. - -“Stay here till you come back.” - -I thought of Roger or Betty chancing to drop in and looked on the -ground hesitant. There was a slight pause; I raised my eyes. The count, -clasping the two ends of the blanket together over his breast, was -regarding me with mild attention. - -“But if any of my friends come in to see me?” - -“I will receive them--_varri_ nicely,” said the count. - -We looked at each other for a solemn second and then burst out laughing. - -“All right,” I said. “There are the books and magazines, there are the -cigarettes, the matches are in that Japanese box and that cut glass -bowl is full of chocolates.” - -I left him and was gone till dark. At six I came back to find the room -illuminated by every gas-jet and lamp and the count still there. He had -quite a glad welcoming air, as if I might have been his mother or his -maiden aunt. - -“You here still,” I cried in the open doorway. - -He gave one of his deep deliberate bows. - -“I have been varri comfortable and warm,” he designated the center -table with an expressive gesture, “I read magazines, I eat candy and -I smoke--yes”--he looked with a proud air into the empty box--“yes, I -smoke _all_ the cigarettes.” - -Then we went into the next house to find Mrs. Bushey. - -My supper--eggs and cocoa--is cooked by me in the kitchenette. It is -eaten in the dining-room or bedroom (the name of the apartment varies -with the hour of the day) on one end of the table. The effect is prim -and spinsterly--a tray cloth set with china and silver, a student lamp, -and in the middle of the table, a small bunch of flowers. People send -them sometimes and in the gaps when no one “bunches” me I buy them. To -keep human every woman should have one extravagance. - -I was breaking the first egg when a knock came on the door, and Miss -Harris entered. She came in quickly, the gray fur coat over her arm, a -bare hand clasping gloves, purse and a theater bag, all of which she -cast on the divan-bed, revealing herself gowned in black velvet. - -“Good evening, dearie,” she said, patting at her skirt with a -preoccupied air, “would you mind doing me a service?” - -I rose uneasily expectant. I should not have been surprised if she had -asked for anything from one of my eggs to all my savings. - -“Don’t look so frightened,” she said, and wheeled round disclosing the -back of her dress gaping over lingerie effects: “Hook me up, that’s -all.” - -As I began the service Miss Harris stood gracefully at ease, throwing -remarks over her shoulder: - -“It’s a great blessing having you here, not alone for your sweet little -self,” she turned her head and tried to look at me, pulling the dress -out of my hands, “but because before you came I had such a tragic time -with the three middle hooks.” - -“What did you do?” - -“Went unhooked sometimes and at others walked up and down the stairs -hoping I’d find one of the inhabitants here, or a tramp, or the -postman. He’s done it twice for me--a very obliging man.” - -I did not approve, but did not like to say so. - -“There’s an eye gone here.” - -“Only one,” said Miss Harris in a tone of surprise, “I thought there -were two.” - -“Shall I pin it?” - -“Please don’t. How could I get out a pin by myself, and I won’t wake -you up at midnight.” - -“But it gaps and shows your neck.” - -“Then if the play’s dull, the person behind me will have something -interesting to look at.” - -“But really, Miss Harris--” - -“My dear, good, kind friend, don’t be so proper, or do be proper about -yourself if it’s your nature and you can’t help it, but don’t be about -me. When I’m on the stage I’ll have to show much more than my neck, so -I may as well get used to it.” - -“Miss Harris!” I said in a firm cold tone, and stopped the hooking. - -I caught the gleam of a humorous gray eye. - -“Mrs. Drake!” She whirled round and put her hands on my shoulders and -looked into my face with a sweetness that was quite bewitching. “You -dear little mouse, don’t you know you’re one kind and I’m another. Both -are nice kinds in their way, so don’t let’s try to mix them up.” - -There is something disarmingly winning about this woman. I think for -the first time in my life I have met a siren. I pulled my shoulders -from the grasp of her hands, as I felt myself pulling my spirit from -the grasp of her attraction. - -“I’ve not finished your dress,” I said. - -She turned her back to me and gave a sigh. - -“Go on, Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi,” she said, and then added: -“Are you the mother of anything?” - -“No,” I answered. - -“Too bad,” she murmured, “you ought to be.” - -I didn’t reply to that. In the moment of silence the sound of feet on -the stairs was audible. They came up the passage and began the ascent -of the next flight. Miss Harris started. - -“That’s my man, I guess,” she said quickly and tore herself from my -hands. - -She ran to the door and flung it open. I could see the man’s feet and -legs half-way up the stairs. - -“Jack,” she cried in a joyous voice, “I’m here, in Mrs. Drake’s room. -Come down;” then to me: “It’s Mr. Masters. I’m going to the theater -with him.” - -The feet descended and Mr. Masters came into view. He was the man Roger -and I had seen in the passage. - -He took Miss Harris’ proffered hand, then sent a look at me and my -room that contained a subtle suggestion of rudeness, of bold and -insolent intrusion. Before she could introduce us he bowed and said -easily: - -“Good evening, Mrs. Drake. Saw you the other night in the hall.” - -I inclined my head very slightly. His manner and voice increased my -original dislike. I felt that I could not talk to him and turned to -Miss Harris. Something in her face struck me unpleasantly. Her look -was bent upon him and her air of beaming upon the world in general was -intensified by a sort of special beam--an enveloping, deeply glowing -beam, such as mothers direct upon beloved children and women upon their -lovers. - -The door was open and Mr. Masters leaned upon the door-post. - -“Nice little place you’ve got here,” he said. “Better than yours, -Lizzie.” - -Miss Harris withdrew her glance from him, it seemed to me with an -effort, as if it clung upon him and she had to pluck it away. - -“Finish me,” she said, turning abruptly to me, “I must go.” - -All the especial glow for me was gone. Her eyes lit on mine vacant and -unseeing. I suddenly seemed to have receded to a point on her horizon -where I had no more personality than a dot on a map. I was not even a -servant, simply a pair of hands that prepared her for her flight into -the night with the vulgar and repulsive man. This made me hesitate, -also I didn’t want to go on with the hooking while Mr. Masters leaned -against the door-post with that impudently familiar air. - -“If Mr. Masters will go into the passage,” I said. - -He laughed good-humoredly, but did not budge. Miss Harris made a -movement that might easily have degenerated into an angry stamp. - -“Oh, don’t be such an old maid,” she said petulantly. “Do the collar -and let me go.” - -I couldn’t refuse, but I went on with the hooking with a flushed face. -What a fool I had been not to take Betty’s advice. Charming as she -could be when she wanted, Miss Harris was evidently not a person whose -manners remained at an even level. - -“Have you heard Miss Harris sing?” asked Mr. Masters. - -“Yes, through the register.” - -“That’s a bad conductor. You must come up and hear her in her own rooms -some evening.” - -“If Miss Harris wants me to.” - -“Mrs. Drake will some day hear me sing in the Metropolitan,” said the -lady. - -“Some day,” responded Mr. Masters. - -There was something in his enunciation of this single word, so acid, so -impregnated with a sneering quality that I stopped my work and cast a -surprised glance at him. - -He met it with a slight smile. - -“Our friend Lizzie here,” he said, “has dreams--what I’m beginning to -think are pipe dreams.” - -“Jack,” she cried with a sudden note of pleading, “you know that’s not -true. You _know_ I’ll some day sing there.” - -“I know you want to,” he replied, then with the air of ignoring her and -addressing himself exclusively to me: “Miss Harris has a good voice, I -might say a fine voice. But--all here,” he spread his fingers fan-wise -across his forehead and tapped on that broad expanse, “the soul, the -thing that sees and feels--absent, nil,” he fluttered the spread -fingers in the air. - -I was astounded at his cruel frankness--all the more so as I saw it had -completely dashed her spirits. - -“Rubbish, I don’t believe a word of it,” I answered hotly, entirely -forgetting that I was angry with her. - -“Not a bit,” he returned coolly, “I’ve told her so often. A great -presence, a fine mechanism,” he swept her with a gesture as if she had -been a statue, “but the big thing, the heart of it all--not there. -No imagination, no temperament, just a well regulated, handsomely -decorated musical box. Isn’t that so, Lizzie?” - -He turned from me and directly addressed her, his eyes narrowed, his -face showing a faint sardonic amusement. I wondered what she was going -to say--whether she would fly at him, or whether, like the woman I -knew, she would hide her mortification and refuse him the satisfaction -of seeing how he hurt her. - -She did neither. Moving to the divan, she picked up her coat, showing -me a face as dejected as that of a disappointed child. His words seemed -to have stricken all the buoyancy out of her and she shrugged herself -into the coat with slow fatigued movements. Bending to pick up her -gloves and glasses she said somberly: - -“I’ll get a soul some day.” - -“We hope so,” he returned. - -“He doesn’t know anything about it,” I said in an effort to console. - -“Oh, doesn’t he!” she answered bitterly. “It’s his business.” - -“I’m a speculator in voices,” he said, “and our handsome friend Lizzie -here has been an investment that, I’m beginning to fear, won’t pay any -dividends.” - -He laughed and looked at her with what seemed to me a quite satanic -pleasure in his tormenting. - -I could think of nothing to say, bewildered by the strange pair. Miss -Harris had gathered up her belongings and moved to the door with a -spiritless step. - -“Good night,” she said, glancing at me as if I was a chair that had -temporarily supported her weight in a trying moment. - -“Good night,” said Mr. Masters cheerfully. “Some day go up and hear -Lizzie sing and see if you can find the soul in the sound.” - -He gave a wave with his hat and followed her down the hall. - -I shut the door, and am not ashamed to confess, leaned upon it -listening. I wanted to hear her attack him on the lower flight. But -their footsteps died away in silence. - -I cleared away my supper, sunk in deep reflections. What an -extraordinary woman! One moment treating you like her bosom friend, -the next oblivious of your existence, and most extraordinary of all, -meekly enduring the taunts of that unspeakable man. I couldn’t account -for it in any way except that she must be going to marry him--and that -was a hateful thought. For if she _was_ rude, and had the manners of a -spoiled child, there was something about her that drew you close, as if -her hands had hold of yours and were pulling you softly and surely into -her embrace. - - - - -V - - -ROGER and I went out to dinner last night, down-town to our favorite -haunt in University Place. - -I put on my best, a brown velveteen princesse gown (one of Betty’s -made over), my brown hat with the gold rose and my amber beads. I even -powdered my nose, which I was brought up to think an act of depravity -only perpetrated by the lost and fallen. When I am dressed up I really -do not look thirty-three. But I’ll have to buy two little rats to puff -out my hair at the sides. It’s too flat under that hat. Roger was -pleased when he saw me--that’s why I did it. What’s the fun of dressing -for yourself? Some one must look at you admiringly and say, well, -whatever it’s his nature to say. I suppose Mr. Masters would exclaim, -“Gee, you’re a peach!” Roger said, “I like you in brown.” - -I love going down Fifth Avenue in the dark of a winter evening. The -traffic of business is over. Motors and carriages go spinning by, -carrying people to dinners. The big glistening street is like an -artery with the joyous blood of the city racing through it, coursing -along with the throb, throb, throb of a deathless vitality. And the -lights--the wonderful, glowing, golden lights! Two long lines of them -on either side that go undulating away into the distance, and broken -ones that flash by in a yellow streak, and round glaring ones like the -alarmed eyes of animals rushing toward you in terror. - -And I love the noise, the near-by rumble and clatter, and outside it -the low continuous roar, the voice of the city booming out into the -quiet of the fields and up into the silence of the skies. One great, -unbroken sound made up of millions of little separate sounds, one great -consolidated life made up of millions of little separate life, each of -such vital importance to the one who’s living it. - -We had lots to talk about, Roger and I. We always do. We might be -wrecked on a desert island and go on talking for ten years without -coming to the end. There are endless subjects--the books we read, the -plays we see, pictures over which we argue, music of which I know -nothing, and people, the most absorbing of all, probably because -gossiping is a reprehensible practise. There is nothing I enjoy more. -If I hadn’t been so well brought up I would be like the women in -the first act of _The School for Scandal_. Sometimes we make little -retrospective journeys into the past. But we do this cautiously. There -are five years we neither of us care to touch on, so we talk forward by -preference. - -Of course I had to tell Roger of Miss Harris and Mr. Masters. It lasted -through two courses. - -“What a dog!” was Roger’s comment. - -“Roger,” I said earnestly, “do you think she could be in love with such -a man?” - -Roger shrugged. - -“How can _I_ tell?” - -“But could any woman--any possible kind of a woman? And she’s a very -possible kind. Something comes from her and finds your heart and draws -it right out toward her. She couldn’t.” - -“Perhaps you don’t understand this enigmatical lady.” - -“Maybe I don’t understand everything about her, I’ve only known her a -few days. But I can feel--it’s an instinct--that underneath where the -real things are she’s true and sound.” - -I can see into Roger more clearly than he knows, and I saw that he -wasn’t at all interested in Miss Harris. He looked round the room and -said indifferently: - -“Why does she have a cad like that hanging about?” - -“Perhaps underneath there’s something fine in him.” - -“Very far underneath, buried so deep nobody but Miss Harris can find -it.” - -“Roger, don’t be disagreeable. You’ve never seen either of them.” - -“Evie, dear, your descriptions are very graphic. Do you know what I -think?” He looked at me, smiling a little, but with grave eyes. “I -think that you’re seeing Miss Harris through yourself. You’re putting -your brain into her head and your heart into her body and then trying -to explain her. That’s what’s making her such a puzzle.” - -The waiter here produced a casserole with two squabs in it and -presented it to Roger’s gaze as if it were a gift he was humbly -offering. Roger looked at it and waved him away as if the gift was not -satisfactory. - -“They look lovely,” I called, and Roger smiled. - -The squabs occupied him and my thoughts occupied me finally to find -expression in a question: - -“Roger, what is a gentleman?” - -He looked surprised. - -“A gentleman? What do you mean?” - -“Just what I say--what is it?” - -“You know.” - -“No, I don’t. That’s just the point. There are lots of things that -everybody--young people and fools--seem to understand and I don’t. One -is the theory of vicarious atonement, one is why girls are educated to -know nothing about marriage and children, which are the things that -most concern them, and one is what makes a man a gentleman.” - -Roger considered: - -“Let’s see--at a blow. A gentleman is a man who observes certain rules -of behavior founded on consideration for the welfare and comfort of -others.” - -“It sounds like the polite letter writer. Can a gentleman tell lies?” - -“To benefit himself, no. To shield others, yes.” - -“If he was noble inside--in his character--and uncouth outside, would -he be a gentleman?” - -“What do you mean by uncouth?” - -“Well--wore a watch chain made of nuggets like a man I met in Dresden, -and ate peas with his knife?” - -“No.” - -“Then, if he had beautiful manners and a bad heart, would he be one?” - -“If his bad heart didn’t obtrude too much on his dealings with society, -he might.” - -“Is it all a question of clothes and manners?” - -“No.” - -“You’ve got to have besides the clothes and manners an inner instinct?” - -“That’s it.” - -I mused for a moment, then, looking up, caught Roger’s eye fixed on me -with a quizzical gleam. - -“Why this catechism?” - -“I was thinking of Mr. Masters.” - -“Good heavens!” said Roger crossly, his gleam suddenly extinguished. -“Can’t you get away from the riff-raff in that house? I wish you’d -never gone there.” - -“No, I can’t. I was wondering if Mr. Masters, under that awful exterior -had a fine nature, could he possibly be a gentleman?” - -“Evie,” said Roger, putting down his knife and fork and looking -serious, “if under that awful exterior Mr. Masters had the noble -qualities of George Washington, Sir Philip Sidney and the Chevalier -Bayard he could no more be a gentleman than I could be king of Spain.” - -“I was afraid that’s what you’d say.” I sighed and returned to my squab. - -I said no more about it, but when I got home my thoughts went back to -it. I hated to think of Lizzie Harris in the company of such a man. -If she was lacking in judgment and worldly knowledge some one ought -to supply them for her. She was alone and a stranger. Mrs. Bushey had -told me she came from California, and from what I’d heard, California’s -golden lads and lassies scorned the craven deference to public opinion -that obtains in the effete East. But she was in the effete East, and -she must conform to its standards. She probably had never given them -a thought and had no initiated guide to draw them to her attention. -Whatever Betty might say, I was free to be friendly with whomever -I pleased. That was one of the few advantages of being a widow, -_déracinée_ by four years in Europe. By the morning I had decided -to put my age and experience at her service and this afternoon went -up-stairs to begin doing it. - -She was in her front room, sitting at a desk writing. A kimono of -a bright blue crêpe enwrapped her, her dark hair, cloudy about -the brows, was knotted loosely on the nape of her neck. She rose -impulsively when she saw me, kissed me as if I was her dearest friend, -then motioned me to the sofa, and went back to her place at the desk. - -The room is like mine, only being in the mansard, the windows are -smaller and have shelf-like sills. It was an odd place, handsome things -and tawdry things side by side. In one corner stood a really beautiful -cabinet of red Japanese lacquer, and beside it a three-legged wooden -stool, painted white with bows of ribbon tied round each leg as if -it was some kind of deformed household pet. Portions of Miss Harris’ -wardrobe lay over the chairs, and the big black hat crowned the piano -tool. On the window-sill, drooping and withered, stood a clump of -cyclamen in a pot, wrapped in crimped green paper. Beside it was a -plate of crackers and a paper bag, from whose yawning mouth a stream -of oranges had run out, lodging in corners. The upright piano, its top -covered with stacked music, the wintry light gleaming on its keys, -stood across a rear angle of the room and gave the unkempt place an air -of purpose, lent it a meaning. - -It must be confessed Miss Harris did not look as if she needed -assistance or advice. She was serene and debonair and the blue kimono -was extravagantly becoming. I sat down upon the sofa against a pile -of cushions. The bottom ones were of an astonishing hardness which -obtruded through the softness of the top ones as if an eider-down quilt -had been spread over a pile of bricks. I tried to look as if I hadn’t -felt the bricks and smiled at Miss Harris. - -“See what I’ve been doing,” she said, and handed me a sheet of note -paper upon which were inscribed a list of names. - -I looked over them and they recalled to my mind the heroines of G. P. -R. James’ novels of which, in my teens, I had been fond. - -“Suggestions for my stage name,” she explained. “How does number three -strike you?” - -Number three was Leonora Bronzino. - -“That’s an Italian painter,” I answered. - -“Is it? What a bother. Would he make a fuss?” - -“He’s been dead for several hundred years.” - -“Then he doesn’t matter. What do you think of number five?” - -I looked up number five--Liza Bonaventura. - -I murmured it, testing the sound. Miss Harris eyed me with attention, -rapping gently on her teeth with the pen handle. - -“Is it too long?” - -I wasn’t sure. - -“Of course when I got to be famous it would be just Bonaventura. And -that’s a good word--might bring me luck.” - -“Why don’t you use your own name?” - -She laughed, throwing back her head so that I could see the inside of -her mouth, pink and fresh like a healthy kitten’s. - -“Lizzie Harris on a program--never!” Then suddenly serious, “I -like Bonaventura--‘Did you _hear_ Bonaventura last night in -_Tannhäuser_’--strong accent on the hear. ‘How superb Bonaventura was -in _Carmen_.’ It has a good ring. And then I’ve got a little dribble of -Spanish blood in me.” - -“You look Spanish.” - -She nodded: - -“My grandmother. She was a Spanish Californian--Estradilla. They owned -the Santa Caterina Rancho near San Luis Obispo. My grandfather was a -sailor on a Yankee ship that used to touch there and get hides and -tallow. He deserted and married her and got with her a strip of the -rancho as big as Long Island. And their illustrious descendant lives in -two rooms and a kitchenette.” - -She laughed and jumped up. - -“I’m going to sing for you and you’ll see if Bonaventura doesn’t go -well with my style.” - -She swept the hat off the piano stool and seated herself. The walls of -the room are covered with an umber brown burlap which made an admirable -background for her long body clothed in the rich sinuous crêpe and her -pale profile uplifted on an outstretched white neck. - -“I’ll sing you something that I do rather well--Elizabeth’s going to be -one of my great rôles,” she said, and struck a chord. - -It was _Dich Theure Halle_ and she sang it badly. I don’t mean that she -flatted or breathed in the wrong place, but she sang without feeling, -or even intelligence. Also her voice was not especially remarkable. -It was full, but coarse and hard, and rolled round in the small room -with the effect of some large unwieldly thing, trying to find its way -out. What struck me as most curious was that the rich and noble quality -one felt in her was completely lacking in her performance. It was -commonplace, undistinguished. No matter how objectionable Mr. Masters -might be I could not but feel he was right. - -When she had finished she wheeled suddenly round on the stool and said -quickly: - -“Let me see your face.” - -“It’s--it’s a fine voice,” I faltered, “so full and--er--rich.” - -She paid no attention to my words, but sent a piercing look over my -embarrassed countenance. Her own clouded and she drew back as if I had -hurt her. - -“You don’t like it,” she said in a low voice. - -“Why do you say that--what nonsense. Haven’t I just said--” - -“Oh, keep quiet,” she interrupted roughly, and giving the piano stool -a jerk was twirled away from me into a profile position. She looked so -gloomy that I was afraid to speak. - -There was a moment’s pause, during which I felt exceedingly -uncomfortable and she sat with her head bowed, staring at the floor. -Then she gave a deep sigh and murmured. - -“It’s so crushing--you all look the same.” - -“Who?” - -“Everybody who knows. And I’ve worked so hard and I’m eaten up,” she -struck her breast with her clenched fist, “eaten up in here with the -longing to succeed.” - -The gesture was magnificent, and with the frowning brows and somber -expression she was the Tragic Muse. If she could only get _that_ into -her voice! - -“I’ve been at it two years, with Vignorol--you know him? I’ve learnt -Italian and German, and nearly all the great mezzo rôles. And the -polite ones say what you say, and the ones who don’t care about your -feelings say ‘A good enough voice, but no temperament.’” She gave her -body a vicious jerk and the stool twirled her round to me. “How in -heaven’s name can I get temperament?” - -“Well--er--time--and--er--experience and sorrow--” I had come up-stairs -to give advice, but not on the best manner of acquiring temperament. - -She cut me short. - -“I’ve had experience, barrels of it. And time? I’m twenty-six now--am -I to wait till I’m seventy? And sorrow? All my relations are dead--not -that I care much, most of them I didn’t know and those I did I didn’t -like. Shall I go and stand on the corner of Forty-second Street and -Broadway and clamor for sorrow?” - -[Illustration: “How in heaven’s name can I get temperament?”] - -“It’ll come without clamoring,” I said. Upon that subject I can speak -with some authority. - -“I wish it would hurry up. I want to arrive, I want to be a great prima -donna. I _will_ be a great prima donna. I _will_ sing into that big -dark auditorium and see those thousands of faces staring up at me and -make those thousands of dull fat pigs of people sit up and come to -life.” - -She rose and walked to the window, pushed it up and picking up one of -the oranges, threw it out. - -“I hope that’ll hit some one on the head,” she said, banging the window -down. - -“Have you had the public’s opinion on your singing?” I asked, feeling -it best to ignore her eccentricities of temper. - -“Yes. I was in a concert in Philadelphia a year ago, with some others.” - -“And what was the verdict?” - -She gave a bitter smile. - -“The critics who knew something and took themselves seriously, said -‘A large coarse voice and no temperament.’ The critics who were just -men said nothing about the singing and a good deal about the singer’s -looks--” She paused, then added with sulky passion, “Damn my looks.” - -She was going to the window again and I hastily interposed. - -“Don’t throw out any more oranges. You might hit a baby lying in its -carriage and break its nose.” - -Though she did not give any evidence of having heard, she wheeled from -the window and turned back to me. - -“It’s been nothing but disappointments--sickening disappointments. -I wish I’d been left where I was. Three years ago in California I -was living in a little town on the line between Los Angeles and San -Francisco. I sang in the church and got ambitious and went up to San -Francisco. They made a good deal of fuss over me--said another big -singer was going to come out of California. I was just beginning to -wonder if I really _was_ some one, when one of those scratch little -opera companies that tour South America and Mexico came up. Masters, -Jack--the man you met here the other night--was managing it. I got an -introduction and sang for him, and you ought to have heard him go up in -the air. Bang--pouf!--like dynamite! Not the way he is now--oh, no--” - -She stopped. The memory of those days of encouragement and promise -seemed to shut off her voice. She stared out of the window as if she -were looking back at them, her face set in an expression of brooding -pain. I thought she was going to cry, but when she spoke her voice -showed an angry petulance far from the mood of tears. - -“I’d never have got such big ideas if he hadn’t given them to me. I -must come on here and study, not waste myself on little towns and -little people. Go for the big prize--that was what _I_ was made for.” -She suddenly turned on me and flung out what seemed the bitterest of -her grievance, “He made me do it. _He_ insisted on my coming--got -Vignorol to take me, paid for my lessons. It’s his doing, all this.” - -So _that_ was the situation. That explained it all. I was immensely -relieved. She might be in love with him, but if he was not in love with -her (and he certainly gave no evidences of it), it would be easy to get -rid of him. He was frankly discouraged about her, would probably hail -with relief any means of escaping the continued expense of her lessons. -The instinct that had brought me up-stairs _was_ a good one after all. - -“Couldn’t you”--I felt my way carefully for the ground was -delicate--“couldn’t you put yourself in some one else’s hands. Get some -one else to--I don’t know what the word is--” - -She eyed me with an intent watching look that was disconcerting. - -“Be my backer?” she suggested. - -I nodded. - -“No, I could not,” she said, in a loud violent tone. “Go back on the -man who tried to make me, dragged me out of obscurity and gave me my -chance? Umph!” She turned away with a scornful movement: “That would be -a great thing to do.” - -The change was so quick that it bewildered me. The cudgel with which -she had been beating Masters was now wielded in his defense. The ground -was even more delicate than I had thought, and silence was wisdom till -I saw what was coming next. I rose from the rocky cushions and moved to -the window. - -The light in the little room had grown dim, the keys of the piano -gleaming whitely from their dusky corner. With a deep sigh Miss Harris -walked to the sofa, threw herself full length on it and lay still, a -tall dark shape looking up at the ceiling. - -I did not know what to say and yet I did not like to leave her so -obviously wretched. - -“Shall I light the gas?” I asked. - -“No,” came the answer, “I like the dark.” - -“Do you mind if I water the cyclamen? They’re dying.” - -“I do. I want them to die.” - -She clasped her hands under her head and continued to gaze at the -ceiling. I moved to the door and then paused. - -“Can I do anything for you?” - -“Yes--” she shifted her glance and looked at me from beneath lowered -lids. I again received the impression I had had the evening when -I hooked her dress--that I was suddenly removed to an illimitable -distance from her, had diminished to an undecipherable speck on her -horizon. Never before had I met anybody who could so suddenly and so -effectively strike from me my sense of value and importance. - -“You can do something I’d like very much--go,” the voice was like a -breath from the arctic. - -I went, more amazed than angry. On the landing I stood wondering. What -had I done to her? If I hadn’t been so filled up with astonishment I -might have laughed at the contrast between my recent satisfaction in my -mission and my inglorious dismissal. - -My thoughts were dispersed by voices from below, resounding up through -the cleft of the stairs. From a background of concerted sound, a series -of short staccato phrases detached themselves:-- - -“My ’at! Look at it! Ruined! Smashed!” - -I looked over the banister. On the floor below stood the count -addressing Miss Bliss, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Hazard and Mr. Weatherby, who -stood ranged in their hallway in a single line, staring up at him. In -one extended arm he held out a silk hat in a condition of collapse. -Their four upturned faces were solemn and intent. Miss Bliss’ mouth was -slightly open, Mr. Hamilton’s glasses glittered. - -“What’s the matter?” I called, beginning to descend. - -The count lifted a wrathful visage and shook the hat at me. - -“Look at my ’at.” - -A chorus rose from the floor below: - -“Some one smashed his hat.” - -“Threw an orange on it.” - -“He says it came from here.” - -“I think he’s wrong. It must have been the next house.” - -“It was not,” cried the count, furious. “It was ’ere--_this_ ’ouse. I -am about to enter and crash--it falls on me! From there--above,” he -waved the hat menacingly at the top floor. - -The quartet below chorused with rising hope. - -“Who’s up there, Mrs. Drake?” - -“Did any one throw an orange?” - -“Is Miss Harris at home?” - -I approached the count, alarmed at his hysterical Latin rage. - -“Who has throw the orange?” he demanded, forgetting his English in his -excitement. - -“You can have it reblocked,” I said comfortingly. - -The count looked as if I had insulted him. - -“’Ere?” he cried, pointing to the ground at his feet as if a hatter and -his block were sitting there. “Never. I brought it from Italy.” - -From below the voices persisted: - -“Were you with Miss Harris?” This from Mr. Hamilton. - -“Yes, I was.” - -“Did she throw an orange?” This from Mr. Hazard. - -“Why should any one throw an orange out of a front window?” - -Miss Bliss answered that. - -“She might. She’s a singer and they do queer things. I knew a singer -once and she threw a clock that wouldn’t go into a bathtub full of -water.” - -This seemed to convince the count of Miss Harris’ guilt. - -“She did it. I must see ’er,” he cried, and tried to get past me. I -spread my arms across the passage. If he and Miss Harris met in their -several fiery states of mind, there would be a riot on the top floor. - -I don’t like to tell lies, but I remembered Roger had said that a -gentleman could lie to shield another. Why not a lady? Besides, in this -case, I would shield two others, for I had no doubt if Count Delcati -intruded on Miss Harris he would be worsted. She was quite capable of -throwing the other oranges at him and the three-legged stool. - -“Don’t be silly,” I said. “She didn’t throw it.” - -The male portion of the lower floor chorused: - -“I knew she didn’t.” - -“She couldn’t have.” - -“Why should she?” - -The count, with maledictions on the country, the city, the street and -the house, entered his room, the Westerners entered theirs and Mr. -Hamilton ascended to his. He puffed by me on the stairs:-- - -“Ridiculous to accuse a lovely woman like Miss Harris of such a thing. -We ought to deport these Italians. They’re a menace to the country.” - -Miss Bliss alone lingered. She is a pretty, frowsy little thing who -looks cold and half fed, and always wears a kimono jacket fastened at -the neck with a safety pin. She waited till all the doors had banged, -then looking up, hissed softly: - -“She did it. I was looking out of my window and saw it coming down and -it couldn’t have come from anywhere but her room.” - -“Hush,” I said, leaning over the banister. “She did. It’s the artistic -temperament.” - -Miss Bliss, as a model--artist not cloak--needed no further -explanation. With a low comprehending murmur she stole into her room. - - - - -VI - - -THE count and Miss Harris have met and all fear of battle is over. -At the first encounter, which took place in my sitting-room, it was -obvious that the young man was stricken. Since then he has seen her -twice and has fallen in love--at least he says he has. - -As soon as he felt sure of it he came in to tell me. So he said the -other evening, sitting in the steamer chair Betty gave me to replace -the one Mrs. Bushey took. - -“You are a woman of sympathy,” he said, lighting his third cigarette, -“and I knew you would understand.” - -Numberless young men have told me of their love-affairs and always were -sure I would understand. I think it’s because I listen so well. - -I have a fire now. It was easier to buy coal than argue with Mrs. -Bushey. The count stretched his legs toward it and smoked dreamily and -I counted the cigarettes in the box. He smokes ten in an evening. - -“She is most beautiful. I can find only one defect,” he murmured, “she -is not thin enough.” - -“Isn’t she?” I said, in my character of sympathetic woman, “I thought -she was rather too thin.” - -“Not for me,” answered the lover pensively; “no one could be too thin -for me.” - -He resumed his cigarette. It was nine and there were seven left. I -calculated that they would last him till eleven. - -“There was a lady in Rome I once knew,” he began in a tone of -reminiscence, “thin like a match and so beautiful,” he extended his -hand in the air, the first finger and thumb pressed together as if he -might have been holding the match-like lady between them, “a blonde -with brown eyes, immense eyes. Oh, _Dio mio!_” His voice trailed away -into silence, swamped by a flood of memory. - -“Were you in love with her, too?” I have noticed that the confiding -young men expect the sympathetic woman to ask leading questions. - -“Yes,” said the count gravely, “four years ago.” - -“You must have been very young.” - -Such remarks as this are out of character. They take me unawares and -come from the American part of me--not the human universal part, but -that which is individual and local. - -“Oh, no, I was nineteen.” He went back to his memories. “She was all -bones, but such beautiful bones. One winter she had a dress made of fur -and she looked like an umbrella in it. This way,” he extended his hands -and described two straight perpendicular lines in the air, “the same -size all the way up. Wonderful!” - -“Our young men don’t fall in love so early,” I said. - -“They don’t fall in love at all,” replied the count, “neither do the -women. They only flirt, all of them, except Miss Harris.” - -“Doesn’t she flirt?” - -I was stretching my sympathetic privileges a little too far. My excuse -is curiosity, vulgar but natural. I had never before seen any one like -Miss Harris and I wanted to get at the heart of her mystery. - -“Flirt!” exclaimed the count. “Does a goddess flirt? That’s what -she is. Think of it--in this new shiny country, in this city with -telephones and policemen, in this sad street with the houses all built -the same.” He sat upright and shook his cigarette at me. “She belongs -where it is all sunshine and joy, and they dance and laugh and there is -no business and nobody has a conscience.” - -“Do you mean Ancient Greece or Modern Naples?” - -The count made a vague sweeping gesture that left a little trail of -smoke in the air. - -“_N’importe!_ But not here. She is a pagan, a natural being, a nymph, a -dryad. I don’t know what in your language--but oh, something beautiful -that isn’t bothered with a soul.” - -I started, Masters and the count, raw America and sophisticated Italy, -converging toward the same point. - -Before I could answer her voice sounded startlingly loud through the -register. For the first moment I didn’t recognize the strain, then I -knew it--“_Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore_”--I have lived for art, I have -lived for love. We looked at each other in surprised question as the -impassioned song poured from the grating. It was as if she had heard us -and this was her answer. - -My knowledge of nymphs and dryads is small, but I feel confident if one -of them had ever sung a modern Italian aria through a modern American -register she could not have rendered it with less heart and soul than -Miss Harris did. - -Yesterday morning Betty telephoned me to come and lunch with her. -Betty’s summons are not casual outbreaks of hospitality. There is -always an underlying purpose in them, what a man I know who writes -plays would call “a basic idea”. She is one of the few people who never -troubles about meaningless formalities or superfluous small talk. It’s -her way, and then she hasn’t time. That’s not just a phrase but a fact. -Every hour of her day has its work, good work, well done. Only the poor -know Betty’s private charities, only her friends the number of her -businesslike benefactions. - -Walking briskly down the avenue I wondered what was her basic idea this -time. Sometimes it’s clothes: “There are some dresses on the bed. Look -them over and take what you like. The gray’s rather good, but I think -the pink would be more becoming. I can have it done over for you by -my woman.” Sometimes it’s a reinvestment of part of my little capital -suggested by Harry, a high interest and very safe. Once it was an -attempt to marry me off. That was last autumn when I had just got back -from Europe, to a man with mines from Idaho. When I grew tearful and -reluctant she gave it up and shifted him--for he was too valuable to -lose--to a poor relation of Harry’s. - -We were at lunch when the basic idea began to rise to the surface, -Betty at the head of the table, very tight and upright in purple cloth -and chiffon, and little Constance, her eldest born, opposite me. Little -Constance is an adorable child with a face like a flower and the manner -of a timid mouse. She loves clothes and when I come leans against me -looking me over and gently fingering my jewelry. She won’t speak until -she has examined it to her satisfaction. At the table her steadfast -gaze was diverted from me to a dish of glazed cherries just in front of -her. - -The entrée was being passed when Betty, helping herself, said: - -“Harry’s just met a man from Georgia who is in cotton--not done up in -it, his business.” She looked into the dish then accusingly up at the -butler: “I said fried, not boiled, and I didn’t want cream sauce.” - -The butler muttered explanations. - -“Tell her it mustn’t happen again, no more cream sauce for lunch.” She -helped herself, murmuring, “Really the most fattening thing one can -eat.” - -“Why do you eat it?” said little Constance, withdrawing her eyes from -the cherries. - -“Because I like to. Keep quiet, Constance. Mr. Albertson, that’s his -name, is well-off, perfectly presentable and a widower.” - -So it was matrimonial again. - -“That’s very nice,” I replied meekly. - -“We’ll have him to dinner some night next week and you to meet him.” - -“Why do you ask me? He’d surely rather have some one younger and -prettier.” - -“It doesn’t matter what he’d rather have. I’ll telephone you when the -day’s fixed.” - -“Betty,” I murmured, looking at her pleadingly. - -“Evie,” she returned firmly, “don’t be silly. The present situation’s -got to come to an end some time.” - -“It’ll never end.” - -“Rubbish. There’s no sense in you scraping along this way in two -rooms--” - -“Remember the kitchenette.” - -“In two rooms,” she went on, ignoring the kitchenette. “Of course I -don’t want you to live in Georgia, but--” - -Little Constance showed a dismayed face. - -“Is Evie going to live in Georgia?” - -Betty turned a stern glance on her. - -“Constance, you’ll lunch up-stairs if you keep on interrupting.” - -Constance was unaffected by the threat. - -“When is she going?” she asked. - -“Never,” I answered. - -“I’m glad,” said little Constance, and seeing her mother’s glance -averted, stole a cherry from the dish and hid it in her lap. - -“From what Harry says, and he’s heard all about Mr. Albertson, he -seems a perfectly fitting person, forty-five, of very good family and -connections, and with an income of thirty thousand a year.” - -“He’ll probably not like me,” I said hopefully. - -“Oh, he will,” answered Betty with grim meaning, “I’ll see to that.” - -I could hear her retailing my perfections to Mr. Albertson and my heart -sank. Masterful, managing people crush me. If the man from Georgia -liked me, as the man from Idaho did, I foresaw a struggle and I seem -to have exhausted all my combative force in the year before my husband -died. I looked at little Constance and caught her in the act of popping -the cherry into her mouth. It was large and she had to force it into -her cheek and keep it there like a squirrel with a nut. An expression -of alarm was in her face, there was evidently less room for it than she -had expected. - -Betty went ruthlessly on. - -“Your present way of living is absurd--you, made for marriage.” - -I saw little Constance’s eyes grow round with curiosity, but she did -not dare to speak. - -“Made for companionship. If you were a suffragette or a writer, or -trimmed hats or ran a tea-room, it would be different, but you’re a -thoroughly domestic woman and ought to have a home.” - -Little Constance bit the cherry with a sharp crunching sound. Betty -looked at her. - -“Constance, are you eating your lunch?” - -Little Constance lifted her bib, held it to her mouth, and nodded over -it. - -The danger was averted. Betty turned to me. - -“Marriage is the only life for a normal woman. Judkins, I’ll have some -more of those sweetbreads.” - -She helped herself, and under the rattle of the spoon and fork, little -Constance crunched again, very carefully. - -“And what is the good of living in the past. That’s over, thank heaven.” - -“I’m not living in the past any more. Betty, I’m--I’m--raising my head.” - -Betty looked sharply up from the sweetbreads, and I flinched under her -glance. She cast an eye on Judkins, who was receding into the pantry, -waited till he was gone, then said, in an eager hushed voice: - -“Evie, don’t tell me there’s some one?” - -Never have I been more discomfited by the directness of my Betty. I -felt myself growing red to my new rat and was painfully aware that -little Constance, now crunching rapidly, had fixed upon me the deadly -stare of an interested child. - -“Of course there isn’t. What nonsense. But time has passed and one -doesn’t stay broken-hearted forever. I’m not _old_ exactly, and -I’m--that is--it’s just as I said, I’m beginning to come alive again.” - -“Oh!” Betty breathed out and leaned against her chair-back, with a -slight creaking of tight drawn fabrics. But she kept her eye on me, in -a sidelong glance, that contained an element of inspecting inquiry. -Little Constance swallowed the cherry at a gulp and the question it had -bottled up burst out: - -“Evie, are you going to get married?” - -“No,” I almost shouted. - -Little Constance said no more, but her gaze remained glued to my face -in an absorption so intense that she leaned forward, pressing her chest -against the edge of the table. Betty played with her knife and fork -with an air of deep thought. Judkins reentered to my relief. - -He was passing the next dish when little Constance broke the silence. - -“Evie, why did you get all red just now?” - -“Constance,” said her mother, “if you’re a good girl and stop talking -you can have a cherry when lunch is over.” - -“Thanks, mama,” said little Constance, in her most mouse-like manner. - -After lunch we drove about in the auto and shopped, and as the -afternoon began to darken Betty haled me to a reception. - -“Madge Knowlton’s daughter’s coming out,” she said. “And as you used to -know her before you went to Europe, it’s your duty to come.” - -“Why is it my duty? I was never an intimate of hers.” - -I’m shy about going to parties now; I feel like Rip Van Winkle when he -comes back. - -“To swell the crowd. It’s a social service you owe to a fellow woman in -distress.” - -We entered the house through a canvassed tunnel and inserted ourselves -into a room packed with women and reverberating with a clamor of -voices. We had a word and a hurried handclasp with Madge Knowlton and -her daughter, and then were caught in a surging mass of humanity and -carried into a room beyond. The jam was even closer here. I dodged -a long hatpin, and was borne back against a mantelpiece banked with -flowers whose delicate dying breath mingled with the scents of food and -French perfumery. When the mass broke apart I had momentary glimpses of -a glittering table with a woman at either end who was pouring liquid -into cups. - -At intervals the crowd, governed by some unknown law, was seized by -migratory impulses. Segments of it separated from the rest, and drove -toward the door. Here they met other entering segments with a resultant -congestion. When thus solidified the only humans who seemed to have the -key of breaking us loose were waiters. They found their way along the -line of least resistance, making tortuous passages like the cracks in -an ice pack. - -From them we snatched food. I had a glass of punch, a cup of coffee, -a chocolate cake, two marrons and a plate of lobster Neuberg, in the -order named. I haven’t the slightest idea why I ate them--suggestion I -suppose. All the other women were similarly endangering their lives, -and the one possible explanation is that we communicated to one another -the same suicidal impulse. It was like the early Christians going to -the lions, the bold ones swept the weaker along by the contagion of -example. - -I met several old acquaintances who cried as if in rapturous delight. - -“Why, Evelyn Drake, is this really you?” - -“Evie--I can’t believe my eyes! I thought you had gone to Europe and -died there.” - -“How delightful to see you again. Living out of town, I suppose. We -must arrange a meeting when I get time.” - -And so forth and so on. - -It made me feel like a resurrected ghost who had come to revisit the -glimpses of the moon. My old place was not vacant, it was filled up -and the grass was growing over it. I was glad when one of those blind -stampeding impulses seized the crowd and carried me near enough to -Betty to cry, as I was borne along, “I’m going home and I’d rather -walk,” and was swept like a chip on a stream to the door. - -It was raining, a thin icy drizzle. Beyond the thronging line of -limousines, the streets were dark with patches of gilding where the -lamplight struck along the wet asphalt. They looked like streets in -dreams, mysteriously black gullies down which hurried mysteriously -black figures. I walked toward Lexington Avenue, drooping and -depressed, in accord with the chill night and the small sad noises of -the rain. I was in that mood when you walk slowly, knowing your best -dress is getting damp and feeling the moisture through your best shoes -and neither matters. Nothing matters. - -Once I used to enjoy teas, found entertainment in those brief shouted -conversations, those perilous feasts. Perhaps I was sad because I -was so out of it all. And what was I in--what took its place? I was -going back to emptiness and silence. To greet me would be a voiceless -darkness, my evening companion a book. - -I got on a car full of damp passengers. As if beaten down by the -relentless glare of the electric lights, all the faces drooped forward, -hollows under the eyes, lines round the mouths. They sat in listless -poses, exhaling the smell of wet woolen and rubber and I sat among -them, also exhaling damp smells--also with hollows under my eyes and -lines round my mouth. That, too, didn’t matter. What difference if I -was hollowed and lined when there was no one to care? - -My room was unlighted and cold. I lighted the gas and stood with -uplifted hand surveying it. It was like a hollow shell, an empty -echoing shell, that waited for a living presence to brighten it. Just -then it seemed to me as if I never could do this--its loneliness would -be as poignant and pervasive when I was there, would steal upon me from -the corners, surround and overwhelm me like a rising sea. My little -possessions, my treasures, that were wont to welcome me, had lost their -friendly air. I suddenly saw them as they really were, inanimate things -grasped and held close because associated with the memory of a home. -In the stillness the rain drummed on the tin roof and the line in a -forgotten poem rose to my mind, “In the dead unhappy night and when the -rain is on the roof.” - -I snatched a match and hurried to the fire. Thrusting the flame between -the bars of the grate, I said to myself: - -“I must get some kind of a pet--a dog or a Persian cat. I’ve not enough -money to adopt a child.” - -The fire sputtered and I crouched before it. I didn’t want any supper, -I didn’t want to move. I think a long time passed, several hours, -during which I heard the clock ticking on the mantel over my head, and -the rain drumming on the roof. Now and then the rumbling passage of a -car swept across the distance. - -I have often sat this way and my thoughts have always gone back to -the past like homing pigeons to the place where they once had a nest. -To-night they went forward. My married life seemed a great way off, -and the Evelyn Drake in it looked on by the Evelyn Drake by the fire, -a stranger long left behind. The memories of it had lost their sting, -even the pang of disillusion was only a remembrance. With my eyes on -the leaping flames I looked over the years that stretched away in -front, diminishing to a point like a railway track. My grandmother had -lived to eighty-two and I was supposed to be like her. Would I, at -eighty-two, be still a pair of ears for young men’s love stories and -young women’s dreams of conquest? - -Oh, those years, that file of marching years, coming so slowly and so -inevitably, and empty, all empty! - -The rain drummed on the roof, the clock ticked and the smell of my best -skirt singeing, came delicately to my nostrils. Even _that_ didn’t -matter. From thirty-three to eighty-two--forty-nine years of it. I -looked down at my feet, side by side, smoking on the fender. Wasn’t it -Oliver Wendell Holmes, when asked to define happiness, answered, “four -feet on the fender”? - -There was a knock on the door, probably the count to continue the -recital of his love’s young dream. My “Come in” was not warm. - -The door opened and Roger entered in a long wet raincoat. - -I jumped up crying “Roger,” and ran to him with my hand out. - -He took it and held it, and for a moment we stood looking at each other -quite still and not speaking. I was too glad to say anything, too glad -to think. It was an astonishing gladness, a sort of reaction I suppose. -It welled through me like a warm current, must have shone in my face, -and spoken from my eyes. I’ve not often in my life been completely -outside myself, broken free of my consciousness and soared, but I was -then just for one minute, while I looked into Roger’s face, and felt -his hand round mine. - -“You’re glad to see me, Evie,” he said and his voice sounded as if he -had a cold. - -That broke the spell. I came back to my eighteen-foot parlor, but it -was so different, cozy and pretty and intimate, full of the things I -care for and that are friends to me. The rain on the roof had lost its -forlornness, or perhaps, by its forlornness accentuated the comfort and -cheer of my little room. - -We sat by the fire. Roger’s feet were wet and he put them upon the -fender. - -“Now, if you’d been plodding about in the rain with me you’d put yours -up, too. Hullo, what have I said? Your face is as red as a peony.” - -“It’s the fire. I’ve been sitting over it for a long time,” I stammered. - -Just then the register became vocal, with the habanera from _Carmen_. - -Roger got up and shut it. - -“Don’t you want to hear her sing?” I asked. - -“No, I want to hear you talk,” said he. - - - - -VII - - -MISS HARRIS is going to appear in a concert. She came glowing and -beaming into my room to tell me. Vignorol, her teacher, had arranged -it--with a violinist and a baritone--in Brooklyn. - -“Why not New York?” I asked. - -“Not _yet_,” said Miss Harris, moving about the room with a jubilant -dancing step, “but after this is over--wait and see!” - -Great things are expected to come of it. The public’s attention is -to be caught, then another concert, maybe an engagement in one of -the American opera companies--just for experience. It is to be the -opening of a career which will carry her to the Metropolitan Opera -House. The baritone is another of Vignorol’s pupils, Berwick, a New -Englander--nothing much, just to fill up. The violinist is a Mrs. -Stregazzi, who also fills up, and little Miss Gorringe accompanies. I -was shown a pencil draft of the program with Liza Bonaventura written -large at the top--“Yes, it’s to be Bonaventura; I had a superstition -about it,” and the dress is to be white, or, with a sudden bright air: - -“I might borrow your green satin--but of course I couldn’t. You’re too -small.” - -Since then the house has resounded with practising from the top floor. -Heavy steps and light feminine rustlings have gone up and down the -stairs. Once the strains of a violin came with a thin whine through the -register as if some melancholy animal was imprisoned behind the grill. -In the dusk of the lower hall I bumped into a young man with tousled -hair and frogs on his coat, whom I have since met as Mr. Berwick. - -The star is in a state of joyful excitement which has communicated -itself to the rest of us. When in the evening she goes over her -repertoire, the Westerners and Miss Bliss sit on the bottom steps of -their stairs, Mr. Hamilton and the count on the banisters of theirs and -I on the top step of mine. A Niagara of sound pours over us, billowing -and rushing down through the well, buffeted between the close confining -walls. When each piece is ended Miss Harris comes out on her landing, -leans over the railing and calls down: - -“How was that?” - -Then our six faces are upturned and we express our approbation, -according to our six different natures. - -Our mutual hopes for her success have drawn us together and we have -suddenly become very friendly. Mr. Hazard drops in upon me in a -paint-stiffened linen blouse and Mr. Weatherby has confided to me the -money to pay for his laundry. Mr. Hamilton has smoked a large black -cigar in my dining-room, and Miss Bliss has come shivering with hunched -shoulders and clasped red arms to “borrow a warm” (her own expression) -at my fire. - -In my excursions to the top floor I have met Mrs. Stregazzi and Miss -Gorringe. Mrs. Stregazzi is a large blond lady with an ample figure -and a confidential habit. On our first meeting she called me “dearie” -and told me all about her divorce from Mr. Stregazzi, who, I gathered, -was her inferior, both in station and the domestic virtues. In his -profession--the stage--he was something called “a headliner”, and -appeared to be involved mysteriously with trained animals. Since his -divorce he has married another “headliner”. It’s like that story of the -Frenchman in Philadelphia: “He _is_ a Biddle, she _was_ a Biddle, they -are _both_ Biddles.” I must ask Lizzie Harris what it is. Miss Gorringe -is a thin sallow girl with an intelligent face, and Mr. Berwick a -bulky silent New Englander, in the early twenties, who bears a strong -resemblance to the bust of Beethoven over Schirmer’s music store. - -They are strange people, artless as children, and completely absorbed -in themselves and their work. They appear to have no points of -contact with any other world, and the real part of their world is the -professional part. They don’t say much about their homes or their lives -away from it. - -A few days ago they took tea with me, and as they talked I had a series -of glimpses, like quickly shifted magic lantern slides, of their life -on trains, in hotels, behind the scenes and on the stage. It seemed -to me a sort of nightmare of hurry and scramble, snatched meals, lost -trunks, cold dressing-rooms. Maybe the excitement makes up for the -rest. It must be exciting--at least that’s the impression I got as I -sat behind the teacups listening. - -Lizzie Harris seemed to find it enthralling, everything they said -interested her. Mrs. Stregazzi told some anecdotes that I didn’t -like--I don’t want to be a prig, but they really were _too_ sordid and -scandalous--and our prima donna hung on the words of that fat made-up -woman as if she spoke with the tongues of men and of angels. The more -I know of her the less able I am to get at the core of her being, to -place her definitely in my gallery of “women I have known.” I had -finally decided that in spite of her tempests, her egotism and her -weather-cock moods, there was something rare and noble in her, and here -she was drinking in cheap gossip about a set of people she didn’t know, -and who seem to be a mixture of artist, mountebank and badly brought-up -child. - -As I sat pouring the tea I felt again that curious aloofness in her. -But before it was more a withdrawal of her spirit into herself, a -retreating into an inner citadel and closing all the doors. This time -it was the spirit reaching toward others and shutting me out, like a -child who forgets its playmate when a circus passes by. She listened -hungrily, now and then commenting or questioning with a longing, almost -a homesick note. When they rose to go, with a scraping of chair-legs -and a concerted clamor of farewells, she was reluctant to lose them, -followed them to the hall and leaned over the banister watching their -departing heads. - -She made me feel an outsider, almost an intruder. I was willing to -efface myself for the moment and stood by the table waiting for her to -come back and reestablish me in her regard. She said nothing, however, -but brushed by the door and went up-stairs. In a few minutes Musetta’s -song filled the house. The next morning she came in while I was at -breakfast and asked me to lend my green satin dress to Miss Gorringe, -and when I agreed kissed me with glowing affection. - -That all happened early in the week. Yesterday afternoon I was witness -to a scene, the effect of which is with me still, at midnight, -scratching this down in my rose-wreathed back room. It was a hateful -scene, a horrible scene--but let me describe it: - -Calls of my name descending from the top floor in Miss Harris’ voice, -took me out to my door. - -“I am going over some of my things,” the voice cried. “Come up and -listen.” Then, as I ascended, “It’s the scene between Brunhilda and -Siegmund in _Die Walkuere_, the _piéce de résistance_ of the evening.” - -I didn’t find Miss Gorringe as I expected, but Mr. Masters, sitting -on the piano stool and looking glum. He rose, nodded to me, and -sinking back on the stool, laid his hands on the keys and broke into a -desultory playing. With all my ignorance I have heard enough to know -that he played uncommonly well. - -The future Signorita Bonaventura was looking her best, a slight color -in her cheeks, confidence shining in her eyes. - -“We’ve been trying it over. Did you hear?” - -The weather had been warm, the register closed, so I had only heard -faintly. - -“Well, it’s going to be something great,” said the prima donna. - -“Is it?” said Mr. Masters with his back to us. - -The sneering quality was strong in his tone and I began to wish I -hadn’t come. - -“Go across the room, Mrs. Drake,” he said curtly. “Sit where you can -see her.” - -I obeyed, sitting in the corner by the window. She faced me and Mr. -Masters was in profile. - -My friends tell me I am completely devoid of the musical sense. It must -be true, for I can not sit through _Meistersinger_, and there are long -reaches of _Tristan and Isolde_ that get on my nerves like a toothache. -But I _have_ some kind of appreciation, do derive an intense pleasure -from certain scenes in certain operas. It was one of these scenes they -were now giving, that one in the second act of _Die Walkuere_ when -Brunhilda appears before Siegmund. - -It has always seemed to me that the drama rose above the music, -overpowered it. I supposed this to be the fancy of my own ignorance and -never had the courage to say it. But the other day I read somewhere -the opinion of Dujardin, the French critic, and he expressed just what -I mean--“It is not the music, no, it is not the music, that counts in -the scene, but the words. The music is beautiful--of course it is, it -couldn’t be otherwise--but Wagner was aware of the beauty of the poetry -and allowed it to transpire.” - -That is exactly what I should have said if I had dared. - -Masters struck the opening notes and she began to sing. - - “Siegmund sieh’ auf mich! Ich bin’s der bald du folgst-- - Siegmund, look on me. I come to call thee hence.” - -What a greeting! - -A stir of irritation passed through me. She looked at Masters with a -friendly air and sang the lines with an absence of understanding and -emotion that would have robbed them of all meaning if anything could. I -wanted to shake her. - -Then I forgot--Masters began. - -If I was surprised at his playing his singing amazed me. He had almost -no voice, but he had all the rest--the wonderful thing, imagination, -the response to beauty, power of representing a state of mind. I don’t -explain well, I am out of my province, perhaps it’s better if I simply -say he became Siegmund. - -As he played he turned and looked at her. His whole face had changed, -transformed by the shadow of tragedy. To him Lizzie was no longer -Lizzie, she was the helmed and armored daughter of Wotan delivering his -death summons. I can pay no higher tribute to him than to say I forgot -him, the burlap walls, the thin tones of the piano and saw a vision of -despairing demigods. - - “Wer bist du, sag’ - Die so schön und ernst mir erscheint?” - -Then Lizzie:-- - - “Nur Todgeweihten - Taugt mein Anblick: - Wer mich erschaut, - Der scheidet vom Lebenslicht.” - -My vision was dispelled. No one could have kept it listening to her and -watching her. As they went on what he created she destroyed; it was the -most one-sided, maddening performance. I found myself eager to have her -stop that I might hear him. Before they had reached the end I knew that -Mr. Masters was an artist and she was not. That is all there was to it. - -She turned to me, proudly smiling, with a questioning “Well”. - -Mr. Masters, his head drooped, heaved a sigh. - -I could not be untruthful. I had been too deeply moved. - -“Your voice is very fine,” I said in the flattest of voices and looked -at her beseechingly. - -She met my eyes steadily and her smile died away. - -“Only a voice,” she said. - -“Miss Harris,” I cried imploringly. “You are young, you have beauty--” -She cut short my bromides with an angry exclamation. - -“And no more temperament than a tomato can,” Mr. Masters finished for -me. - -He ran his fingers over the keyboard in a glittering flow of notes. - -“You’re a liar,” she cried, turning furiously on him. - -Now, for the first time, I saw her really angry, not childishly -petulant as in her orange-throwing mood, but shaken to her depth with -rage. She was rather terrible, glaring at Masters with a grim face. - -“Am I?” he said, coolly striking a chord. “We’ll see Tuesday night in -Brooklyn.” - -I had expected him to answer her in kind, but he only seemed weary and -dispirited. Her chest rose with a deep breath and I saw to my alarm -that she had grown paler. - -“You didn’t always think that,” she said in a muffled voice. - -“No,” he answered quietly, “I believed in you at first.” - -He spread his hands in a long clutching movement and struck another -chord. It fell deep into the momentary silence as if his powerful -fingers were driving it down like a clencher on his words. - -“And you don’t any more?” - -“No, I’ve about done believing,” he responded. - -She ran at him and seized him by the shoulder. He jerked it roughly out -of her grasp and twirling round on the stool faced her, exasperated, -defiant, a man at the end of his patience. But his eyes said more, -full of a steely dislike. She met them and panted: - -“You can’t, you don’t. Even you couldn’t be so mean--” then she -stopped, it seemed to me as if for the first time conscious of the -hostility of his gaze. There was the pause of the realizing moment and -when she burst out her voice was strangled with passion: - -“Go--get out--go away from me. I’m sick of it all. I’ll stand no -more--go--go.” - -She ran to the door and threw it open. I got up to make my escape. -Neither of them appeared to remember I was there. - -“All right,” he said, calmly rising. “That suits me perfectly.” - -He picked up his hat and coat and moved to the door. I tried to get -there before him, dodging about behind their backs for an exit, then, -like a frightened chicken, made a nervous dive and got between them. -Her hand on my arm flung me back as if I had been a chair in the way. -I had a glimpse of her full face, white and with burning eyes. She -frightened me. - -Mr. Masters walked into the hall and there came to a standstill. After -looking at the back and front of his hat he settled it comfortably on -his head and moved toward the stairs. - -Suddenly she rushed after him and caught him by the arm. - -“No--no--” she cried. “Don’t go.” - -I couldn’t see her face, but his was in plain view and it looked -exceedingly bored. - -“What is it now?” he said. - -“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m so discouraged--you take the heart -out of me. I don’t know what I’m saying and I’ve tried so hard--oh, -Jack--” - -Her voice broke, her head sank. Mr. Master’s expression of boredom -deepened into one of endurance. - -“What do you want me to do?” he asked with weary patience. - -“Come back. Don’t be angry. Forget what I said.” - -She began to cry, shielding her face with one hand, the other still -holding him by the sleeve. - -He sighed, and glancing up, saw me. I expected him to drive me forth -with one fierce look. Instead he made a slight grimace and reentered -the room, she holding to his sleeve. He dropped heavily on the piano -stool and she on the chair opposite, her hands in her lap, two lines -of tears on her cheeks. Neither said a word. - -The way was clear and I flew out with the wild rush of a bird escaping -from a snare. As I ran down the stairs the silence of that room, four -walls enclosing a tumult of warring passions, followed me. - -It’s midnight and I haven’t got over the ugliness of it. What am I to -think? The thing many people would think, I won’t believe, I can’t -believe. No one who knew her could. That the unfortunate creature loves -him is past a doubt--but how can she? How can she humiliate herself -so? Where is the pride that the rest of us have for a shield and -buckler. Where is the self-respect? To cry--to let him see her cry, and -then--that’s the _comble_, as the Paris art students say--to call him -back! - -I feel sick, for I love her. If she hasn’t got a soul or temperament -or any of the rest of it that they do so much talking about, she’s got -something tucked away somewhere that’s good, that’s true. It looks at -you out of her eyes, it speaks to you in her voice--and then Masters -comes along and it’s gone. - -I stopped here, and biting the end of my pen, looked gloomily at -the wall and met the cold stare of my ancestors. I wonder what the -men would have said if they had been there this afternoon. I’m not -sure--men are men and Lizzie is beautiful. But about you ladies, I -can make a guess. You would purse your mouths a little tighter and -say, “Evelyn, you’re keeping queer company. Whatever you may think -in your heart, drop her. That’s the wise course.” All but the French -Huguenot lady, she’s got an understanding eye. She feels something that -the others never felt, probably saw a little deeper into life and it -softened the central spot. - -No, my dears, you’re all wrong. You’re judging by appearances and fixed -standards, which is something your descendant refuses to do. Go to -sleep and try and wake up more humble and humane. Good night. - - - - -VIII - - -BETTY had the dinner for Mr. Albertson last night and of course I went, -for Betty is like royalty, she doesn’t invite, she commands. In a brief -telephone message she instructed me to wear my blue crêpe and I wore -it. Before dinner, in her room, she eyed me critically and put a blue -aigrette in my hair. - -Mr. Albertson was a gallant Southerner with courtly manners and a -large bald spot. We got on very nicely, though he did not exhibit that -appreciation of my charms that marked the Idaho man from the moment of -our meeting. If, however, he should develop it I have resolved to crush -it by strategy. I don’t know just how yet--the only thing I can think -of at present is to ask him to call and pretend I’m drunk like David -Garrick. I’ll get a better idea if the necessity arises. I haven’t the -courage to defy Betty twice. - -Betty sent me home in the limousine, without the footman and the -chow dog. It was a cold still night, the kind when the sky is a deep -Prussian blue and all the lights have a fixed steady shine. As the -car wheeled into Fifth Avenue and I sat looking out of the window, -revolving schemes for the disenchanting of Mr. Albertson, I saw Roger -walking by. Before I thought I had beckoned to him and struck on the -front window for the chauffeur to stop. The car glided to the curb and -Roger’s long black figure came running across the street. - -“You!” he cried, “like a fairy princess with a feather in your hair. -What ball are you coming from, Cinderella?” - -As soon as he spoke I grew shy. Do the women who have ready tongues and -the courage of their moods, realize the value of their gifts? - -“I--I--it’s not a ball, it’s Betty Ferguson’s and she’s sending me -home.” - -“All right.” He said something to the chauffeur, stepped in and the car -started. “What a piece of luck. I was coming from a deadly dinner and -going to a deadly club. What inspired you to hail me?” - -Nothing did, or something did that I couldn’t explain. I felt round for -an answer and produced the first that came. - -“I wanted to talk to you about something.” - -“Go ahead.” He pulled the rug over me. “It’s a nipping cold night -abroad. Let’s hear what it was you wanted to talk about.” - -For a moment I thought of telling him of Lizzie Harris and Mr. Masters, -then I knew that wouldn’t do. Lizzie’s secrets were my secrets. I had -to tell him something and in my embarrassment I told him the first -thing that came into my head. - -“Betty asked me to dinner to meet a man from Georgia.” - -As soon as I had said it I had a sick feeling that he might be -wondering why I should stop him on Fifth Avenue at eleven o’clock of a -winter’s night, to impart this piece of intelligence. - -He received it with the dignity of a valuable communication. - -“Did she? And what was he like?” - -“Very charming. His name’s Albertson and he has cotton mills down -there.” - -“Must be a man of means.” - -“I believe he is.” - -It was very nice of Roger to take it so simply and naturally, but you -can always rely on his manners. My embarrassment passed away. The auto -sped out into the concentrated sparklings of Plaza Square, then swerved -to the left, sweeping round the statue of Sherman led to victory by a -long-limbed and resolute angel. - -“We’re going the wrong way. What’s Nelson doing?” I raised a hand to -rap on the window. - -“I told him to take us through the park. Put your hand in your muff. -Why did Betty ask you to meet Mr. What’s-his-name from Georgia?” - -I know every tone of Roger’s voice, and the one he used to ask that -question was chilly. Betty’s plans involved no secrecy, so I said, -laughing: - -“I think she’s trying to make a match.” - -“Oh,” said Roger. - -I had thought he would laugh with me, but in that brief monosyllable -there was no amusement. It came with a falling note, and it seemed to -be a sort of extinguisher on the conversation, a full stop at the end -of it, for we both fell silent. - -The auto swept up the drive, gray and smooth between gray trees. I -could see a reach of deep blue sky with the stars looking big and -close, as if they had come down a few billion miles and were looking -us over with an impartial curiosity. Across the park the fronts of -apartment-houses showed in gleaming tiers, far up into the night, their -lights yellower than the stars. It was lovely to glide on, swiftly and -smoothly, with the frost gripping the world in an icy clasp while we -were warm and snug and so friendly that we could be silent. - -“Isn’t this beautiful, Roger?” I said, looking out of the window. “Look -on the other side of the park, hundreds of lights in hundreds of homes.” - -Roger gave a sound that if I were a writer of realistic tendencies, I -should call a grunt. - -We met a hansom with the glass down, and on an ascending curve another -auto swooping by with two great glaring lamps. I felt quite oddly -happy; the menacing figure of Mr. Albertson became no more than a bogy. -After all even Betty couldn’t drag me struggling to the altar. - -“Why is Betty so anxious to marry you off?” came suddenly from the -corner beside me. - -Mr. Albertson assumed his original shape as a marriageable male with a -bald spot and a cotton mill, and Betty slipped back into position. I -wasn’t sure she couldn’t drag any one to the altar if she made up her -mind to it. My voice showed the oppression of this thought. - -“She thinks all women should be married.” - -“You have been married.” - -Something was the matter with Roger to say that. - -“Well, she thinks I’m poor and lonely.” - -“Are you?” - -I began to have an uncomfortable, complicated feeling. Fear was in it, -also exhilaration. It made me sit up stiffly, suddenly conscious of a -sensation of trembling somewhere inside. - -“I am poor,” I said, “that is, poor compared to people like Betty.” - -“And lonely, too?” - -The disturbance grew. It made me draw away from Roger, pressed close -into my corner, as if no scrap or edge of my clothing must touch him. I -was afraid that my voice would show it and determined that it mustn’t. - -“I’m lonely sometimes. That rainy night when you came in unexpectedly I -was.” - -My voice _wasn’t_ all right. I cleared my throat and pretended to look -at the stars. - -Roger said nothing, but the secret subways of emotion that connect -the spirits of those who are in close communion, told me he, too, -was moved. The air in the closed scented car did not seem enough for -natural breathing. It was like a pressure, something that put your -heart-beats out of tune, and made your lips open with a noiseless gasp. -I stood it as long as I could and then words burst out of me. They -came anyway, ridiculous words when I write them down: - -“But I’ll never marry any of them. No matter what they are, or what -Betty wants, or how many of them she has up to dinner.” - -The pressure was lifted and I sank back trembling. It was as if I -had been under water and come up again into the air. The spiritual -telegraph told me that Roger felt as I did, and that suddenly he or -I or both of us, had broken down a barrier. It was swept away and we -were close together--closer than the night when we had held hands and -forgotten where we were, closer than we’d ever been in all the years -we’d known each other. It was not necessary to say anything. In our -several corners we sat silent, understanding for the first time, I and -the man I loved. - -The sharp landscape slid by us, naked trees, spotted lines of light, -stretches of lawn grizzled with frost, woodland depths with the shine -of ice about the tree roots, and then the flash of glassy ponds. - -We sat as still as if we were dead, as if our souls had come out of our -bodies and were whispering. It was a wonderful moment of time, one of -the unforgetable moments that dot the long material years. All that’s -gone before and all that’s going to come dies away and there’s only the -present--the beautiful exquisite present. We only have a few like that -in our lives. - -It lasted till the auto drew up at my door. We said good night and -parted. - -Up in my room I sat a long time by the fire thinking of the hundreds -of women like myself, the disillusioned ones, in the dark dens of -tenements and in the splendid homes near by. I tried to send them -messages through the night, telling them we could rise out of the -depths. I saw life as it really is, hills and valleys, patches of -blackness and then light, but always with an unresting force flowing -beneath, the immortal thing that urges and upholds and makes it all -possible. I remembered words I used to work on bits of perforated board -when I was a little girl, “God is Love.” I never understood what it -meant, even when I stopped working it on perforated board and grew to -the reasoning stage. To-night I knew--got at last what a happy child -might understand--love in the heart was God with us, come back to us -again. - - - - -IX - - -YESTERDAY was the concert day and I couldn’t go--a bad cold. The house -lamented from all its floors, for it was going en masse, even the -trained nurse with a usurped right to the sun-dial. - -The only way I could add to the festivity of the occasion was to -distribute my possessions among that section of the audience drawn -from Mrs. Bushey’s light housekeeping apartments. It began with the -Signorita Bonaventura, who wore my mother’s diamond pendant, then -went down the line:-- Miss Gorringe my green satin (she said it -would be horribly unbecoming, but the audience wouldn’t notice her), -Miss Bliss my black lynx furs, Mrs. Phillips, the nurse, my evening -cloak, Mr. Hazard my opera glasses, Mr. Weatherby my umbrella--his -had a broken rib and it looked like snow. We were afraid the count -couldn’t find anything suitable to his age and sex, but he emptied my -bottle of Coty’s Jacqueminot on his handkerchief and left, scented -like a florist’s. Mrs. Bushey came last and gleaned the field, a -gold bracelet, a marabou stole and a lace handkerchief she swore she -wouldn’t use. - -Much noise accompanied the passage of the day and some threatening -mishaps. At eleven we heard Berwick was hoarse, but at one (by -telephone through my room) that raw eggs and massage were restoring -him. At midday Miss Gorringe sent a frantic message that the sash of -the green satin wasn’t in the box. Gloom settled at two with a bulletin -that Mrs. Stregazzi’s second child had croup. It was better at five. -Mr. Hazard’s dress suit smelled so of moth balls that the prima donna -said it would taint the air, and Emma, the maid, hung it out on the -sacred sun-dial. There was a battle over this. For fifteen minutes -it raged up two flights of stairs, then Mr. Hazard conquered and the -sun-dial was draped in black broadcloth. - -At intervals Lizzie came down to see me and use the telephone. She -was in her most aloof mood, forbidding, self-absorbed. On one of her -appearances she found a group of us congregated about my steam kettle. -Our chatter died away before her rapt and unresponsive eye. Even I, who -was used to it, felt myself fading like a photographic proof in a too -brilliant sun. As for the others they looked small and frightened, -like mice in the presence of a well-fed lioness, who, though she might -not want to eat them, was still a lioness. They breathed deep and -unlimbered when the door shut on her. - -In the late afternoon Roger came to see me. He brought a bunch of -violets and a breath of winter into my bright little room. The -threatening snow had begun to fall, lodging delicately on eaves and -ledges, a scurry of tiny particles against the light of street-lamps. -We stood in the window and watched it, trimming the house-fronts with -white, carpeting the steps, spreading a blanket ever so softly and -deftly over the tin roof. How different to the rain, the insistent -ruthless rain. The night when the rain fell came back to me. How -different that was from to-night! - -There was a hubbub of voices from the hall and then a knock. They -were coming to see me before they left. They entered, streaming in, -grubs turned to butterflies. The house was going cheaply in cars over -the bridge; only the prima donna and Miss Gorringe were to travel -aristocratically in a cab. - -Strong scents from the count’s Jacqueminot mingled with the faint -odor of moth balls that Mr. Hazard’s dress suit still harbored. Miss -Gorringe had rouged a little and the green satin was quite becoming. -Miss Bliss had rouged a good deal and had had her hair marcelled. In -the doorway the trained nurse hung back, sniffing contemptuously at -Mr. Hazard’s back. Mrs. Bushey, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Weatherby grouped -themselves by the fireplace. - -“Where’s the prima donna?” I asked. - -“Coming,” cried a voice from the stairs, and the air was filled with -silken rustlings. - -It was like an entrance on the stage, up the passage and between the -watching people, and I don’t think any actress could have done it with -more aplomb. In her evening dress she was truly superb--a goddess -of a woman with her black hair in lusterless coils and her neck and -shoulders as white as curds. Upon that satiny bosom my mother’s pendant -rose and fell to even breathings. Whatever anybody else may have felt, -the star of the occasion was calm and confident. - -Her appearance had so much of the theatrical that it must have made -us suddenly see her as the professional, the legitimate object of -glances and comments. Nothing else could explain why I--a person of -restrained enthusiasms--should have broken into bald compliments. She -took them with no more self-consciousness than a performing animal -takes the gallery’s applause, smiled slightly, then looked at Roger, -the stranger. I did so, too, childishly anxious to see if he admired my -protégée. He evidently did, for he was staring with the rest of them, -intent, astonished. - -Her glance appeared to gather up his tribute as her hands might have -gathered flowers thrown to her. He was one of the watching thousands -that it was her business to enthrall, his face one of the countless -faces that were to gaze up at her from tier upon tier of seats. - -When the door shut on the last of them, laughter and good nights -diminishing down the stairs, he turned to me with an air that was at -once bewildered and accusing. - -“Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me she was so good-looking?” - -“I did and you wouldn’t believe me,” I answered gaily, for I was -greatly pleased. It was a little triumph over Roger with his -hypercritical taste and his rare approvals. - -The next morning I waited anxiously for news. I thought Lizzie would -be down early, but the others came before her, dropping in as the -morning wore away. With each entrance I grew more uneasy. - -Mr. Hazard was first, in a gray sweater. - -“Well, she looked great. I wish I could have painted her that way. -But--” he tilted his head, his expression grown dubious. “You know, -Mrs. Drake, I don’t know one tune from another--but--” - -“But what?” I said sharply. - -“Well, it seemed to me Berwick got away with it.” - -“Do you mean the audience liked him better?” - -He nodded, a grave agreeing eye on me. - -“He got them when he sang that thing about _The Three Grenadiers_. It -made your heart swell up.” - -He leaned nearer, lowering his voice. “And he got them in that German -duet, too.” - -He drew back and nodded again darkly, as if wishing me to catch a -meaning too direful for words. - -An hour later Miss Bliss blew in in a blue flannel jacket and the -remnants of her marcelle wave. By contrast with her flushed and -blooming appearance of the evening before, she looked pinched and -pallid. She cowered over the fire, stretching her little chapped hands -to the blaze and presenting a narrow humped back to my gaze. - -“She didn’t seem to catch on some way or other. I don’t know why but--” - -She stopped and leaned forward for the poker. - -“But what?” - -“Well--” She poked the fire, the edge of the flannel jacket hitched -up by the movement, showing a section of corset laced with the golden -string that confines candy boxes. “She doesn’t give you any thrill. -I’ve heard people without half so much voice who could make the tears -come into your eyes. I tell you what, Mrs. Drake,” she turned round -with the poker uplifted in emphasis, “_I_ wouldn’t spend _my_ good -money to hear a woman sing that way. If I shell out one-fifty I want to -get a thrill.” - -She was still there when the count came in. He sat between us gently -rocking and eying her with a pensive stare. She pulled down her jacket -and patted solicitously at the remains of her marcelle. - -“She looked,” said the count, pausing in his rocking, “she looked like -a queen.” - -“Good gracious,” I cried crossly, “_do_ drop her looks. I saw her.” - -The count, unmoved by my irritation, answered mildly: - -“One can’t drop them so easily.” - -“But her singing, her performance?” - -“Her performance,” murmured the young man, and appeared to look through -Miss Bliss at a distant prospect. “It was good, but--” - -I had to restrain myself from screaming, “But what?” - -“It was not so good as she is, had none of the--what shall I say--_air -noble_ that she has.” He screwed up his eyes as if projecting his -vision not only through Miss Bliss, but through all intervening -objects to a realm of pure criticism. “It has a bourgeois quality, no -distinction, no imagination, and she--” Words were inadequate and he -finished the sentence with a shrug. - -Miss Bliss leaned forward and poked the fire, once more revealing the -golden string. The count looked at it with a faint arrested interest. I -was depressed, but conventions are instinctive, and I said sternly: - -“Miss Bliss, let the count poke the fire.” - -The count poked and Miss Bliss slipped to the floor, and sitting -cross-legged, comfortably warmed her back. - -The count was gone when Mrs. Bushey entered. Mrs. Bushey says she -understands music even as she does physical culture. - -“It was a frost,” she explained, dropping on the end of the sofa. - -“I know that,” I answered, “the paper this morning said the thermometer -was twenty-two degrees.” - -“Not that kind of a frost, a theatrical frost for her. She hasn’t got -the quality.” - -“No thrill,” murmured Miss Bliss, and no men being present, stretched -out her feet and legs in worn slippers and threadbare stockings to the -blaze. - -I fought against my depression--Mrs. Bushey did not like Bonaventura. - -“She hasn’t got the equipment,” said Mrs. Bushey with a sagacious air. -Her eye roamed about the room and lighted on Miss Bliss’ legs. “_Are_ -you cold?” she asked, as if amazed. - -“Frozen,” answered Miss Bliss crossly. - -“How can that be possible when I’ve done everything to make your room -warm, spent all my winter earnings on coal?” - -Miss Bliss cocked up her chin and replied: - -“You must have had very poor business this winter.” Then to me very -pointedly: “I wanted to ask you, Mrs. Drake, if you’d lend me your -Navajo blanket, just for a few nights. It would look so bad for the -house if I was found frozen to death in bed some morning.” - -I agreed with alarmed haste, but Mrs. Bushey did not seem inclined for -war. She smiled, murmuring, “Poor girl, you’re anemic,” and then, her -eye lighting on Marie Antoinette’s mirror: - -“Yes, Miss Harris’ll never get anywhere till she gets some color into -her voice. It’s the coldest organ I ever heard. Would you mind if I -took that mirror away? I have a new lodger, a delightful woman from -Philadelphia, and I’ve no mirror for her--I can’t, I literally _can’t_, -buy one with my finances the way they are. I suppose after this failure -Miss Harris’ll be late with her rent.” - -Thus Mrs. Bushey. When she had gone--taking the mirror--Miss Bliss lay -flat before the fire and reviled her. - -Miss Gorringe came next with the green satin dress. It was upon Miss -Gorringe I was pinning my hopes. None of the others knew anything. Miss -Gorringe, lifting out the dress with cold and careful hands, looked -solemn: - -“No, I can’t say it was a success. I’d like to because she’s certainly -one of the most lovely people I’ve ever played for, but--” She -depressed the corners of her mouth and slowly shook her head. - -I sat up in my shawls and did scream: - -“But what?” - -Miss Gorringe, used to the eccentricities of artists, was unmoved by my -violence. She placed the dress carefully over the back of a chair. - -“She doesn’t get over,” she said. - -“Get over what?” - -I had heard this cryptic phrase before, but didn’t know what it meant. - -“The footlights--across, into the audience. And she ought to, but -they were as cold as frogs till Berwick woke them up with _The Three -Grenadiers_. _He_ can do it. He hasn’t got any better voice or method -but,” she gave a little ecstatic gesture, “temperament--oh, my!” - -“Has she got no temperament at all?” I asked. - -“I’ve never played for anybody who had less.” Miss Gorringe held up the -green scarf. “Here’s the sash.” - -“Not a bit of thrill,” Miss Bliss chanted, prone before the fire. - -“Can’t a person get temperament, learn it in some way?” - -Miss Gorringe pondered: - -“They can teach them rôles, hammer it into them. When a person’s got -the looks she has they sometimes do it. But I guess they’ve done all -they can for her. She’s been with Vignorol for two years. He wouldn’t -have taken her unless he thought there was something in it. And John -Masters has been training her besides, and I’ve heard people say -there’s no one better than Masters for that. You see they can teach her -how to walk and stand and make gestures, but they can’t put the thing -into her head or her voice. She doesn’t seem to understand, she doesn’t -feel.” - -I was silent. She did feel, I knew it, I’d seen it. There was some -queer lack of coordination between her power to feel and her power to -express. - -Miss Gorringe administered the coup de grâce. - -“She sang the duet from _The Valkyrie_ as if she was telling Siegmund -to put on his hat and come to supper.” - -“It’s imagination,” I said. - -“It’s temperament,” Miss Gorringe corrected. “And without it, the way -she is, she’d better go in for church singing, or oratorio, or even -teaching.” - -The dusk was gathering and I was alone when she came down. She threw -herself into the wicker chair beside my sofa. Her face looked thinner -and two slight lines showed round her mouth. - -“Well?” I said, investing my voice with a fictitious lightness. “Where -have you been all day?” - -“I’m tired or I’d have been down earlier. Have you seen the others?” - -With her deadly directness she had gone straight to the point I dreaded. - -“Yes, they’ve been in.” - -“Did they like it?” - -One of the most formidable things about this woman is the way she -keeps placing you in positions where you must either lie and lose your -self-respect or tell the truth and incur her sudden and alarming anger. -I was not afraid of that now, but I couldn’t hurt her. I tried to find -a sentence that would be as truthful and painless as the circumstances -permitted. The search took a moment. - -“They didn’t,” she answered for me. - -She turned her face to the window and drummed on the chair-arm with her -fingers, then said defiantly: - -“They don’t know anything.” - -“Of course they don’t,” I cried. “An Italian count, an artist, a model, -a woman who rents floors.” - -Her eye fell on the green dress. - -“Miss Gorringe has been here.” - -I nodded. - -“What did _she_ say?” - -I got cold under my wrappings. Had I the courage to tell her? She -looked at me and gave a slight wry smile. - -“Did she tell you that Berwick got away with it?” - -“Some one did. I think it was Mr. Hazard, but he’s a painter and--” - -She interrupted roughly. - -“That’s nothing--a big bawling voice singing popular songs. If they’d -let me sing _Oh, Promise Me_ I’d have had the whole house.” - -For the first time in my experience of her I saw she was not open with -herself. I knew that she had realized her failure and refused to admit -it. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, frowning, haggard and -miserable. - -“I’ll get the notices to-morrow,” she said in a low voice. - -It was horribly pitiful. There would be no friendly deception about the -notices. - -“Vignorol’s arranged for several good men to go. He wanted their -opinions. They’ll give me a fine notice on _The Valkyrie_ duet.” - -“Did that go well?” I asked just for something to say. - -“Oh, splendidly,” she answered, without looking up. “It’s one of the -things I do best.” - -The room was getting dim and I was thankful for it. The dusk hid the -drooping and discouraged face, but it could not shut out the voice with -its desperate pretense. It was worse than the face. - -“Well,” she said suddenly, straightening up, “I’ll see Masters -to-morrow. He’s coming to bring me the notices.” - -There was fear in the voice. I knew what the interview with Masters -would be, and she knew, too. In a moment of insight I saw that she -had been fighting against her dread all day, had come down to me -for courage, was trying now to draw it from my chill and depressing -presence. It was like a child afraid of the dark, hanging about in -terror and unwilling to voice its alarm. - -I sat up, throwing off my wraps and laid my hand on hers. - -“Lizzie, don’t mind what he says.” - -Her hand was cold under mine. - -“He knows,” she answered almost in a whisper, “he _knows_.” - -“I can get backers for you”--it was rash, but I know how to manage -Betty--“better than he ever was, the best kind of backers.” - -She jerked her hand away and glared at me. - -“What do you mean by that? Do you think he’s going to give me up? Why, -you must be crazy.” She jumped to her feet looking down at me with a -face of savage anger. “Do you think I haven’t made good? Have they,” -with a violent gesture to the door, “told you so? They’re fools, -idiots, imbeciles. Masters give me up--ah--” She turned away and then -back. “Why he’s never had any one with such promise as I have. He’s -banking on me. I’m going to bring him to the top. He borrowed the money -to send me to Vignorol. Throw me down now, just when I’m getting there, -just when I’m proving he was right? Oh, I can’t talk to you. You’ve no -sense. You’re as big a fool as all the rest.” - -And she rushed out of the room, banging the door till the whole -apartment shook. - -I lay thinking about it till Emma came to get me my supper. She was -right in one thing--I _was_ a fool. In my blundering attempt at -encouragement I had gone straight to the heart of her fear, dragged it -out into the light, held up in front of her the thing she was trying -not to see--that Masters would give her up. Fool--it was a mild name -for me. And _poor_ Lizzie--tragic Bonaventura! - -It’s night again and I am dressed in my best with a fur cloak on to -keep off the chill. I’ve got to write, not a sudden visitation of the -Muse, but to ease my mind. If you haven’t got a sympathetic pair of -ears to pour your troubles into, pouring them out on paper is the next -best thing. - -It’s two days since I have seen Lizzie. Yesterday I was in my room all -day nursing my cold and expecting her, but she didn’t come. Neither did -she to-day, and all I could surmise was that she was angry with me for -being a fool. As I feel I was one and yet don’t like to hear it from -other people, I made no effort to get into communication with her. - -This evening I was well enough to go out in a cab with all my furs and -a foot warmer, to dine with Roger’s widowed sister, Mrs. Ashworth. I -was a good deal fluttered over the dinner, guessed why it had been -arranged. It was a small affair, the Fergusons, Roger and I. Preceded -by a call from Mrs. Ashworth, it had a meaningful aspect, a delicate -suggestion of welcoming me into the family. I blush as I write it. -I don’t know why I should, or why love and marriage are matters -surrounded by self-consciousness and shame. Who was it explained the -embarrassment of lovers, their tendency to hide themselves in corners, -as an instinctive sense of guilt at the prospect of bringing children -into a miserable world? I think it was Schopenhauer. Sounds like -him--cross-grained old misanthrope. - -Mrs. Ashworth is Roger’s only near relation and he regards her as -the choicest flower of womanhood. I don’t wonder. In her way she -is a finished product, no raw edges, no loose ends. Everything is -in harmony--her thin faintly-lined face, her silky white hair, her -pale hands with slightly prominent veins, her voice with its gentle -modulations. Nothing cheap or second rate could exist near her. She -wouldn’t stamp them out--I can’t imagine her stamping--they would -simply wither in the rarified atmosphere. Her friends are like herself, -her house is like herself. When I go there I feel strident and coarse. -As I enter the portal I instinctively tune my key lower, feel my high -lights fading, undergo a refining and subduing process as if a chromo -were being transmuted into a Bartolozzi engraving. - -As my cab crawled down-town--I need hardly say Mrs. Ashworth lives in a -house on lower Fifth Avenue, built by her father--I uneasily wondered -if the Bohemian atmosphere in which I dwelt had left any marks upon me. -I tried to obliterate them and made mental notes of things I mustn’t -mention. Memories of Miss Bliss’ golden corset string rose uneasily, -and Lizzie Harris, and oh, Mr. Masters! I ended by achieving a sense of -grievance against Mrs. Ashworth. No one had any right to be so refined. -It was all very well if you inherited a social circle and large -means, but-- The cab drew up with a jolt and I alighted. All unseemly -exuberance died as the light from the door fell on me. I spoke so -softly the driver had difficulty in hearing my order and when I walked -up the steps I minced daintily. - -But it was a delightful dinner. Harry and I were on one side, Betty -and Roger on the other. At the foot of the table was Mrs. Ashworth’s -son, Roger Clements Ashworth, a charming boy still at college. It was -all perfectly done, nothing showy, nothing in the fashion. Betty’s -pearls looked a good deal too large beside the modest string that Mrs. -Ashworth wore, which was given to her great, great grandmother by -Admiral Rochambeau. The dining-room walls were lined with portraits, -with over the fireplace, that foundation stone of the family’s glory, -Roger Clements, “The Signer.” - -I thought of my apartment and my late associates and felt that I was -leading a double life. - -When I came home the house was very silent. Mounting the dim dirty -stairs with the smell of dead dinners caught in the corners, I wondered -how Mrs. Ashworth could countenance me. But after all, it was part of -her fineness that she had no quarrel with the obscure and lowly. If she -could not broaden the walls of her world--and you had only to talk to -her ten minutes to see that she couldn’t--within those walls all was -choice and lovely. I would have to live up to it, that was all. - -I had got that far when I heard a heavy step and Mr. Masters loomed -up on the flight above. The stairs are very narrow and I looked up -smiling, expecting him to retreat. He came on, however, not returning -my smile, staring straight before him with an immovable, brooding -glance. I can’t say he didn’t see me, but he had the air of being so -preoccupied that what his eye lighted on did not penetrate to his -brain. As at our first meeting I received an impression of brutal -strength, his broad shoulders seeming to push the walls back, his -flat-topped head upheld on a neck like a gladiator. I intended asking -him about the concert and the notices, but his look froze me, and I -backed against the wall for him to pass. - -As he brushed by he growled a word of greeting. He was in the hall -below when I broke out of the consternation created by his manner, -leaned over the rail and called down: - -“Mr. Masters, how is Miss Harris?” - -“All right,” he muttered without stopping or looking up and went on -down the lower flight to the street. - -They had had the interview. - -The house was as silent as a tomb. I stole to the foot of the upper -flight, looked up and listened. Not a sound. The rustling of my dress -as I moved startled me. What _had_ he said to her? I couldn’t read his -face--but his manner! I wavered and waited, the street noises coming -muffled through the intense stillness. Then I decided I’d not intrude -upon her, and came in here. Whatever happened she’ll tell me in her own -good time, and the quietness up there is reassuring. Her anger is apt -to take noisy forms. If she had been throwing oranges out of the window -I would have heard her. But I do wish I might have seen her to-night. - - - - -X - - -I DIDN’T sleep well that night. The memory of Mr. Masters’ set sullen -face kept me wakeful. At four I got up, lit the light and tried to -read Kidd’s _Social Evolution_. Through the ceiling I could hear Mr. -Hamilton’s subdued snoring on the floor above. It seemed like the deep -and labored breathing of that submerged world whose upward struggle I -was following through Mr. Kidd’s illuminating page. - -After breakfast, when no sign or word had come from Lizzie, I decided -to stay in till I heard from her. I dawdled through the morning and -when Emma was cleaning up went out on the landing and listened. The -upper floors were wrapt in quiet. I stole up a flight and a half and -looked at her door--tight shut and not a sound. I went down again -worried, though it was possible she had gone out and I not heard her. -After lunch I opened the register and listened--complete silence. -During the rest of the afternoon I sat waiting for her footfall. Dusk -came and no woman had mounted the stairs. At seven a tap came at my -door and Count Delcati pushed it open. - -The count brought letters from the Italian aristocracy to its New York -imitation and goes to entertainments that the rest of us read of in -the papers. He was arrayed for festival and looked like an up-to-date -French poster, a high-shouldered black figure with slender arms -slightly bowed out at the elbows. His collar was very stiff, his shirt -bosom a clear expanse of thick smooth white. He wore his silk hat back -from his forehead, and his youthful yet sophisticated face, with its -intense black eyes and dash of dark mustache, might have been looking -at me from the walls of the Salon Independent. - -He removed his hat, and standing in the doorway, said: - -“Have you seen her to-day?” - -“No,” I answered. “Have you?” - -He shook his head. - -“I think she must be away. When I came home at six I went up there and -knocked, but there was no answer.” - -There was nothing in this to increase my uneasiness. She came and -went at all hours, often taking her dinner at what she called “little -joints” in the lower reaches of the city. Nevertheless my uneasiness -did increase, gripped hold of me as I looked at the young man’s gravely -attentive face. - -“Have you seen her since the concert?” he asked. - -“Yes, the day after, when you were all in here.” - -“She hadn’t seen the notices?” - -I shook my head. - -He leaned against the door-post and gazed at his patent leather shoes. -As if with reluctance he said slowly: - -“I have.” - -“What were they like?” - -“Rotten.” - -He pronounced the word with the “r” strangled yet protesting, as if he -had rolled his tongue round it, torn it from its place and put it away -somewhere in the recesses of his throat. - -“Oh, poor girl!” I moaned. - -“That’s why I went up there. She must have seen them and I wished to -assure her they were lies.” - -“Did they say anything very awful?” - -He shrugged. - -“They spoke of her beauty--one said she had a good mezzo voice. But -they were not kind to her, to Mr. Berwick, _very_.” - -I said nothing, sunk in gloom. - -The count picked up his fur-lined coat from the stair rail, and shook -himself into it. - -“I should wait to go to her when she comes in, but this _meeserable_ -dinner, where I sit beside young girls who know nothing and married -ladies who know too much--no mystery, no allure. But I must go--perhaps -you?--” He looked at me tentatively over his fur collar. - -“I’ll go up as soon as she comes in,” I answered. “If there’s anything -I can do for her be assured I’ll do it.” - -“You are a sweet lady,” said the count and departed. - -After that I sat with the door open a crack waiting and listening. The -hours ticked by. I heard Mr. Hamilton’s step on the street stairs, a -knock at the Westerner’s door, and as it opened to him, a joyous clamor -of greeting in which Miss Bliss’ little treble piped shrilly. Hazard -was painting her and she spent most of her evenings in there with -them. It was a good thing, they were decent fellows and their room was -properly heated. - -At intervals the sounds of their mirth came from below. The rest of the -house was dumb. At eleven I could stand it no more and went up. If she -wasn’t there I could light up the place for her--she rarely locked her -door--and have it bright and warm. - -It was dimly lighted and very still on the top floor, the gas-jet -tipping the burner in a small pale point of light. I knocked and got -no answer, then opened the door and went in. The room was dark, the -window opposite a faint blue square. In the draft made by the opening -door the gas shot up as if frightened, then sunk down, sending its thin -gleam over the threshold. As I moved I bumped into the table and heard -a thumping of something falling on the floor. I saw afterward it was -oranges. I groped for matches, lighted the gas and looked about, then -gave a jump and a startled exclamation. Lizzie Harris was lying on the -sofa. - -“Lizzie,” I cried sharply, angry from my fright, “why didn’t you say -you were there?” - -She made no sound or movement and seized by a wild fear, I ran to her. -At the first glance I thought she was dead. She was as white as a china -plate, lying flat on her back with her eyes shut, her hands clasped -over her waist. I touched one of them and knew by the warmth she was -alive. I clutched it, shaking it and crying: - -“Lizzie, what’s the matter? Are you ill?” - -She tried to withdraw it and turned her face away. The movement was -feeble, suggesting an ebbing vitality. I thought of suicide, and in -a panic looked about for glasses and vials. There was nothing of the -kind near her. In my lightning survey I saw a scattering of newspaper -cuttings on the table among the rest of the oranges. - -“Have you taken anything, medicine, poison?” I cried in my terror. - -“No,” she whispered. “Go away. Let me alone.” - -I was sorry for her, but I was also angry. She had given me a horrible -fright. Failure and criticism were hard to bear, but there was no sense -taking them this way. - -“What _is_ the matter then? What’s happened to make you like this?” - -“Let me alone,” she repeated, and lifting one hand, held it palm upward -over her face. - -That something was wrong was indisputable, but I couldn’t do anything -till I knew what it was. I put my fingers on the hand over her face and -felt for her pulse. I don’t know why, for I haven’t the least idea how -a pulse ought to beat. As it was I couldn’t find any beat at all and -dropped her hand. - -“I’ll have to get a doctor, I’ll call the man in the boarding house -opposite.” - -“Don’t,” she said in a voice which, for the first time, showed a note -of life. “If you bring a doctor here I’ll go out in the street as I am.” - -She was in the blue kimono. I didn’t know whether she had strength -enough to move, but if she had I knew that she would do as she said and -the night was freezing. - -“I won’t call the doctor if you’ll tell me what’s happened to you?” - -“I’ll tell you,” she said, and raising the hand from her face caught at -my skirt. I bent down for her voice was very low, hardly more than a -whisper. - -“Masters has left me.” - -“Left you,” I echoed, bewildered. “He was here last night. I saw him.” - -Her eyes held mine. - -“Left me for good,” she whispered, “forever.” - -Any words that I might have had ready to brace up a discouraged spirit -died away. - -“What--what do you mean?” I faltered. - -“He and I were lovers--lived together--you must have known it. He got -tired of me--sick of me--he told me so himself--those very words. He -said he was done with it all, the singing and me.” She turned her -head away and looked at the wall. “I’ve been here ever since. I don’t -know how long.” - -[Illustration: “Masters has left me”] - -I stood without moving, looking at her, and she seemed as dead to my -presence as if she had really been the corpse I at first thought her. -Presently I found myself putting a rug over her, settling it with -careful hands as if it occupied my entire thoughts. - -I do not exactly know what did occupy them. A sort of sick disgust -permeated me, a deep overwhelming disgust of life. Everything was vile, -the world, the people in it, the sordid dirt of their lives. I almost -wished that I might die to be out of it all. - -Then I sat down beside her. She lay turned to the wall, with the light -of the one burner making long shadows in the folds of the rug. Her neck -and cheek had the hard whiteness of marble, her hair, like a piece -of black cloth, laid along them. The sickening feeling of repugnance -persisted, stronger than any pity for her. I suppose it was the long -reach of tradition, an inherited point of view, transmitted by those -prim and buckramed ladies on my dining-room wall, and also perhaps that -I had never known a woman, well, as a friend, who had done what Lizzie -Harris had done. It was the first time in my life, which had moved so -precisely in its prescribed groove, that I had ever taken to my heart, -believed in, grieved over, loved and trusted a woman thus stained and -fallen. - -I will also add, for I am truthful with myself, that when I got up and -went to her, all inclination to touch her, to console and comfort her, -was gone. For those first few moments she was physically objectionable -to me, as if she might have been covered with dirt. Yet I felt that -I must look after her, had what I suppose you would call a sense of -duty where she was concerned. I have always hated the phrase; to me it -signifies a dry sterile thing, and it held me there because I would -have been uncomfortable if I had gone. Is it the training women get in -their youth that makes them like this, makes them only give their best -when the object is worthy, as we ask only the people to dinner who can -give us a good dinner back? I heard the sense of duty chill in my voice -as I spoke to her. - -“Have you had anything to eat since--that is, to-day?” - -She did not answer. I bent farther over and looked at the profile with -the eyes closed. They were sunken, as if by days of pain. I have seen -a good many sick people in my life, but I had never seen any one so -changed in so short a time. I gazed down at her and the appeal of that -marred and anguished face suddenly broke through everything, stabbed -down through the world’s armor into the human core. I tried to seize -hold of her, to make my hands tell her, and cried out in the poor words -that are our best: - -“Oh, Lizzie, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry for you.” - -It was like taking hold of a dead body. Her arm fell from my hand an -inert weight. Condemnation or condonement were all the same to her. - -What was I to do? The clock marked midnight. The joyful sounds from -below had ceased. I did not like to rouse the others, for, as far as -I could see, she was in no immediate danger. She appeared to be in a -condition of collapse, and I had never heard of any one dying of that. -It was twenty-four hours since I had seen Masters on the stairs. She -had had nothing to eat since then. Food was the best thing and I went -into the kitchen to get some. - -The top floor has what Miss Bliss calls “the bulge” on all others -by having a small but complete kitchen. The gaslight showed it in a -state of chaos, piles of plates waiting to be washed, the ice-box with -opened door and a milk bottle overturned, some linen lying swathed -and sodden over the edge of the laundry tub. I made a brew of tea and -brought it to her, but one might as well have tried to make a statue -drink. In answer to my pleadings she turned completely to the wall, -moving one hand to the top of her head where it lay outstretched with -spread fingers. In the faintly lighted room, in the creeping cold of a -December midnight, that speechless woman with her open hand resting on -her head, was the most tragic figure I have ever seen. - -I took the tea back to the kitchen and washed the plates. Also I -hunted over the place for any means of self-destruction that might be -there. There were vials in the medicine closet that I stood in a row -and inspected, emptying those I wasn’t sure about into the sink. As I -worked I thought, sometimes pursuing a consecutive series of ideas, -sometimes in disconnected jumps. It was revolutionary thinking, casting -out old ideals, installing new ones. I was outside the limits within -which I had heretofore ranged, was looking beyond the familiar horizon. -In that untidy kitchen, sniffing at medicine bottles, I had glimpses -far beyond the paths where I had left my little trail of footprints. - -I didn’t know why she had given herself to Masters. Strange as it may -sound, it did not then seem to me to matter. It was her affair, concern -for her conscience, not mine. What was my concern was that I could not -give my love and take it back. It went deeper than her passions and her -weaknesses. It went below the surface of life, underlay the complicated -web of conduct and action. It was the one thing that was sure amid the -welter of shock and amaze. - -And I understood Masters, was suddenly shifted into his place and saw -his side. He had tried to make her understand and she wouldn’t, then -on the straining tie that held them had dealt a savage blow, brought -an impossible situation to the only possible end. I hated him, if -she had been nothing to me I would have hated him. Shaking a bottle -of collodion over the sink I muttered execrations on him, and as I -muttered knew that I admired the brutal courage that had set them both -free. - -The dawn found me sitting by her frozen in mind and body. I had had -time to think of what I should say to all inquiries: the failure of the -concert, the blow to her hopes, had prostrated her. It was half true -and quite plausible. - -When the light was bright and the street awake I went out into the hall -and waited. Miss Bliss was the first person I caught, coming up from -the street door with a milk bottle. Her little face was full of sleep -that dispersed under my urgent murmurings. She stepped inside the door -and hailed tentatively: - -“Hullo, Miss Harris.” - -There was no answer and she ventured less buoyantly: - -“Don’t you feel good, Miss Harris?” - -The lack of response scared her, yet she stood fascinated like the -street gamin eying the victim of an accident. She had seen enough to do -what I wanted, and I took her by the arm and pulled her into the hall. - -“She looks like she was dead,” she whispered, awed. “Would you think a -big husky woman like that would take things so hard?” - -I had prepared my lesson in the small hours and answered glibly: - -“She’s not half so strong as you think and very sensitive, morbidly -sensitive.” - -“Um,” said Miss Bliss, “poor thing! I don’t see how if she was so -sensitive, she could have stood that man Masters around so much.” - -She went down to dress and presently the news percolated through the -house. There was an opening and shutting of doors and whisperings on -the top flight. Everybody stole up and offered help except the count, -who rose late to the summons of an alarm clock. Mr. Hazard went across -the street for the doctor, met Mrs. Bushey on her way to physical -culture and sent her in. - -I met her in the third-floor hall and we talked, sitting on the -banister. The count’s alarm clock had evidently done its work, for he -eyed us through the crack of his door. - -“How dreadful--terribly unfortunate,” Mrs. Bushey muttered, then, -looking about, caught the count’s eye at the crack: “Good morning, -Count Delcati. You’re up early.” - -The count responded, the gleaming eye large and unwinking as if made of -glass. - -Mrs. Bushey’s glance returned to me. The smile called forth by the -greeting of the star lodger died away. - -“If her concert was such a failure and she’s sick, how is she going to -live?” - -I hadn’t thought of that. It added a complication to the already -complex situation. - -“Oh, she must have something,” I said with a vaguely reassuringly air. -“She hasn’t been making money but--” - -“Do you know anything positive of her financial position?” interrupted -Mrs. Bushey. - -It was hard to be vague on any subject with Mrs. Bushey, on the subject -of finances impossible. She listened to a few soothing sentences then -said grimly: - -“I see you don’t really know anything about it. Please try and find -out. Of course I’m one of the most kind-hearted people in the world, -but”--she held her physical culture manuals in the grip of one elbow -and extended her hands--“one must live. I can’t be late with my rent -whatever my lodgers can be.” - -The count’s voice issued unexpectedly through the crack: - -“I am late two times now and I still stay.” - -Mrs. Bushey smiled at the eye. - -“Of course, Count Delcati, but you’re different. I know all about you. -But Miss Harris--a singer who can’t make good. They’re notoriously bad -pay.” She turned sharply on me. “What seems to be the matter with her?” - -“Collapse,” I said promptly. “Complete collapse and prostration.” - -Mrs. Bushey hitched the books into her armpit and patted them in with -her muff. - -“Those are only words. I’m glad Mr. Hazard’s gone for the doctor.” -She turned and moved toward the stair-head. “And if it’s anything -contagious she must go at once. Don’t keep her here five minutes. The -doctor’ll know where to send her.” She began the descent. “If I’d only -myself to think of I’d let her stay if it was the bubonic plague. -But I won’t expose the rest of you to any danger.” She descended the -next flight and her voice grew fainter: “I’m only thinking of you, my -lodgers are always my first consideration. If any of you got anything -I’d never forgive myself.” She reached the last flight. “I wouldn’t -expose one of you to contagion if I never made a dollar or rented a -room. That’s the way I am. I know it’s foolish--you needn’t tell me so, -but--” The street door shut on her. - -The doctor came with speed and an air of purpose. At last he had -somewhere to go when he ran down the stairs with his bag, and it was -difficult for him to conceal his exhilaration. He was young, firm -and businesslike, examined Lizzie, asked questions and said it was -“shock”. He was very anxious to find out what had “precipitated the -condition,” even read the notices, and then sat with his chin in his -hand looking at the patient and frowning. - -Out in the hall I enlarged on her high-strung organization and he -listened, fixing me with a searching gaze that did not conceal the fact -that he was puzzled. We whispered on the landing over nursing, food and -the etceteras of illness, then branched into shocks and their causes -till he suddenly remembered he had to be in a hurry, snatched up his -bag and darted away. - -That was yesterday. To-night I have brought up my writing things and -while I watch am scratching this off at the desk where, not so long -ago, I found her choosing her stage name. Poor Lizzie--is there a woman -who would refuse her pity? - -I can run over the names of all those I know and I don’t think -there’s one, who, if she could look through the sin at the sinner, -would entirely condemn. The worst of it is they all stop short at the -sin. It hides the personality behind it. I know if I talked to Betty -this way she’d say I was a silly sentimentalist with no knowledge of -life, for even my generous Betty wouldn’t see over the sin. There’s -something wrong with the way women appraise “the values” in these -matters; actions don’t stand in the proper relations to character and -intentions. We’re all either sheep or goats. Everything that makes our -view-point, books, plays, precedent, public opinion, will have it that -we’re sheep or goats, and though we can do a good many bad things and -remain pure spotless sheep, there’s just one thing that if we do do, -puts us forever in the corral with the goats. - -But, oh--I groan as I write it--if it only hadn’t been Masters! That -brute, that brigand! A hateful thing some one once told me keeps -surging up in my memory--Rousseau said it I think--that one of the -best tests of character was the type of person selected for love and -friendship. I can’t get it out of my head. What fool ever told it to -me? Oh--all of a sudden I remember--it was Roger--Roger! I feel quite -frightened when I think of him. He would be so angry with me for being -mixed up in such an affair, or--as he’s never angry with me--angry -with fate for leading me into this _galère_. He is one of the people -who adhere to the sheep and goat theory. To him women are black or -white, and the white ones must have the same relation to the black that -Voltaire had to _Le bon Dieu_--know them by sight but not speak. - - - - -XI - - -IT IS three weeks since I have written a word. There’s been too much -to do, and sleeping about in chairs and on the foot of beds is not -stimulating to the brain. We have had an anxious time, for Lizzie -Harris has been desperately ill. Doctor Vanderhoff--that’s the young -man’s name--has had no necessity to run to the corner of Lexington -Avenue and then wonder which way to go, for he has been in here a good -deal of the time. He is a dear, and a clever dear, too, for he has -pulled Lizzie back from dreadful dangers. For a while we didn’t think -she would ever be herself again. Her heart--but what’s the sense of -recapitulating past perils. She’s better, that’s enough, and to-night -I’m down in my apartment leaving Miss Bliss in charge. - -She’s another dear, poor little half-fed thing, running back from her -sittings to post up-stairs, panting and frost nipped, and take her -place in that still front room. How still it’s been, with the long -motionless body on the bed, that wouldn’t speak and wouldn’t eat, and -hardly seemed to breathe. Sometimes the men came up and took a turn at -the nursing. The count was no use. The sight of her frightened him and -he had to be taken into the kitchen and given whisky. But young Hazard -was as good as a hospital graduate, soft-handed and footed, better than -Mrs. Phillips, who came up once or twice between her own cases, was -very superior and nagged about the sun-dial. - -When he could, Mr. Hazard watched for the first half of the night and -Dolly Bliss and I went into the kitchen and had supper of tea and eggs. -We’ve grown very intimate over these midnight meals. I don’t see how -she lives--ten dollars a week the most she has made this winter, and -often gaps without work. One night I asked her if she had ever posed -for the altogether. Under normal circumstances I would no more have -put such a question than I’d have inquired of Mrs. Bushey what she had -done with her husband. But with the specter of death at our side, the -reticences of every day have dropped away. - -She nodded, looking at me with large pathetic eyes. - -“Often in the past, but now, unfortunately, I’m not in demand for that. -I’m getting too thin.” - -In this close companionship I have found her generous, unselfish and -honest to the core. Is our modesty an artificial attribute, grafted on -us like a bud to render us more alluring? This girl, struggling against -ferocious poverty, is as instinctively, as rigorously virtuous as I am, -as Betty, as Mrs. Ashworth, yet she does a thing for her livelihood, -the thought of which would fill us with horror. I’m going to put it to -Betty, but I wouldn’t dare tell her what I really think--that of the -two points of view Miss Bliss’ is the more modest. - -When we were sure Lizzie was on the up-grade, a new worry intruded--had -she any independent means? Nobody knew. Mrs. Bushey was urgent and -to keep her quiet I offered to pay the top-floor rent for a month -and found that the count had already done it. I, who knew her best, -feared she had nothing, and it was “up to me” to get money for her from -somewhere. - -Of course Betty was my natural prey and yesterday afternoon fate -rendered her into my hands. She came to take me for a drive in a -hansom, bringing with her her youngest born, Henry Ferguson, Junior, -known familiarly as Wuzzy. Wuzzy is three, fat, not talkative and -spoiled. He wore a white bunny-skin coat, a hat with rosettes on -his ears, leather leggings and kid mitts tied round his wrists with -ribbons. He had so many clothes on that he moved with difficulty, -breathing audibly through his nose. When he attempted to seat himself -on the prie-dieu, the only chair low enough to accommodate him, he had -to be bent in the middle like a jointed doll. - -I can not say that I love Wuzzy as much as I do Constance. He is the -heir of the Fergusons and the conquering male is already apparent. It -is plain to be seen that he thinks women were made to administer to his -comfort and amuse him in his dull moments. I have memories of taking -care of Wuzzy last autumn at Betty’s country place when his nurse -was off duty. I never worked so hard in my life. Half the energy and -imagination expended in what the newspapers call a “gainful occupation” -would have made me one of those women of whom _The Ladies’ Home -Journal_ prints biographies. - -I carried him down-stairs. It was not necessary, for dangling from the -maternal hand he could have been dragged along, but there is something -so nice about hugging a healthy, warm, little bundle of a boy. As I -bent for him he held up his arms with a bored expression, then stiff -and upright against my shoulder, looked down the staircase and yawned. -It’s the utter confidence of a child that makes it so charming. Wuzzy -relinquished himself to my care as if, when it came to carrying a baby -down-stairs, I was the expert of the western world. - -As we descended I rubbed my cheek against his, satin-smooth, cold and -firm. He drew back and gazed at me, a curiously deep look, impersonal, -profound. The human being soon loses the capacity for that look. It -only belongs to the state when we are still “trailing clouds of glory.” - -We squeezed him between us and tooled away toward Fifth Avenue. It was -a glorious afternoon and it was glorious to be out again, to breathe -the keen sharp air, to see the park trees in a thin purplish mist -of branch on branch. Wuzzy, seeing little boys and girls on roller -skates, suddenly pounded on us with his heels and had to be lifted to -a prominent position on our knees, whence he leaned over the door and -beat gently on the air with his kid mitts. - -“What a bother this child is,” sighed Betty, boosting him up, “I only -brought him because I had to. Some relation of his nurse is sick and -she went out to see them.” - -Her only son is the object of Mrs. Ferguson’s passionate adoration, yet -she always speaks of him as if he was her greatest cross. - -Wuzzy comfortable, his attention concentrated on the moving show, I -brought my subject on the carpet. - -“Dear me, how dreadful,” Betty murmured, much moved by the expurgated -version of Lizzie Harris’ troubles. “Wuzzy, if you don’t stop kicking -me with your heels I’ll take you home.” - -Wuzzy stopped kicking, throwing himself far over the door to follow the -flight of a golden-locked fairy in brown velvet. We held him by his -rear draperies and talked across his back. - -“It’s a cruel situation,” I answered. “Everything has failed the poor -creature.” - -“She has no means of livelihood at all?” - -“I’m not sure yet, but I don’t think so. As soon as she’s well enough -I’ll find out. Meantime there’s this illness, the doctor--” - -“Yes, yes,” Betty interrupted, “I know all that. But it needn’t bother -you. I’ll attend to it.” - -“Dear Betty!” I let go of Wuzzy to stretch a hand across to her. - -“Now, _don’t_ be sentimental, Evie. This is the sort of thing I like -doing. If I could find some one--” - -The prospects suddenly palled on Wuzzy and he threw himself violently -back and lay supine between us, gazing up at the trap. - -“Good heavens, why did I bring him,” groaned his mother. “I wouldn’t -take care of a child like this for millions of dollars. Why _do_ nurses -have sick relations? There ought to be a special breed raised without a -single human tie. Get up, Wuzzy.” - -She tugged at his arm, but he continued to stare upward, inert as a -flour sack. - -“What does he see up there?” I said, bending my head back to try and -locate the object. “Perhaps it’s something we can take down and give -him.” - -“You can’t unless you break the hansom to pieces. It’s the trap.” - -I felt of it. Wuzzy’s eyes followed my hand with a trance-like -intentness and he emitted a low sound of approval. - -At that moment, as though fate pitied our helplessness, the trap flew -back and a section of red face filled the aperture. - -“Is it straight down the avenue I’m to go, Mrs. Ferguson?” came a -cheerful bass. “You ain’t told me.” - -Wuzzy looked, flinched, his pink face puckered and a cry of mortal fear -burst from him. He clutched us with his mitts and wrenched himself to -a sitting posture, then, determined to shut out the horrible vision, -leaned as far over the door as he could and forgot all about it. -Betty gave directions and we sped along into the line of carriages -by Sherman’s statue. We had to wait there, and a policeman with -gesticulating arms and a whistle caught Wuzzy’s attention. He waved a -friendly mitt at him, muttering low comments to himself. His mother -patted his little hunched-up back and took up the broken thread: - -“What was I saying? Oh, yes--if I could get some one who would hunt up -such cases as Miss Harris’ and report them to me I’d pay them a good -salary. Those are the people one never hears about, unless in some -accidental way like this.” - -The policeman whistled and we moved forward. I began to feel -uncomfortable. I’d never before told Betty half a story. She went on: - -“Of course there’s charity on a large scale, organized and all that. -But the hundreds of decent people who get into dreadful positions and -are too proud to ask for aid, are the ones I’d like to help. Especially -girls, good, hard-working, honest girls.” - -In my embarrassment I fingered Wuzzy’s ear-rosette. He resented the -familiarity and angrily brushed my hand away. - -“Oh, do let him alone,” said his mother. “You can’t tell how he’ll -break out if he gets cross--and I know Miss Harris is all that, in -spite of her hat and her looks, or you wouldn’t be so friendly with -her.” - -“Charity given to her is charity given where it’s needed,” I muttered -with a red face. - -I felt wretchedly underhanded and mean, and that’s one of the most -unbearable feelings for a self-respecting woman to endure. For one -reckless moment I thought of telling Betty the whole story. And then I -knew I mustn’t. I couldn’t make her understand. I couldn’t translate -Lizzie into the terms with which Mrs. Ferguson was familiar. I saw that -broken woman emerging from my narrative a smirched and bespattered -pariah of the kind that, from time immemorial, ladies have regarded as -their hereditary foe. - -It would have been indulging my conscience at her expense, and my -conscience--well, it had to resign its job for the present. It was odd -that with a worthy intention and in connection with one of the best of -women, I felt my only course was to deceive. All may have been well -with Pippa’s world, but certainly all was not well with mine. I don’t -know what was wrong, only that something was. I know I should have been -able to tell the truth, I _know_ I ought not to have been made to feel -a coward and a sneak. - -Betty enlarged upon her scheme of benefaction and we drove down the -avenue, full from curb to curb and glittering in its afternoon prime. -Wuzzy was much entertained, leaning forward to eye passing horses and -call greetings to dogs on the front seats of motors. Once when he -needed feminine attention he turned to me, remarking commandingly, -“Wipe my nose.” As I performed this humble service he remained -motionless, his eyes raised in abstraction to a church clock. I have -heard many people envy the care-free condition of childhood and wish -they were babes again. I never could agree with them; the very youthful -state has always seemed to me a much overrated period. But as I obeyed -Wuzzy’s command it suddenly came upon me how delightful it would be -to be so utterly free of responsibility, so unperplexed by ethical -problems, so completely dependent, that even the wiping of one’s nose -was left to other hands. - -I left Lizzie early that evening. Miss Bliss and Mr. Hazard were with -her and I had a fancy they liked being together without me sitting -about and overhearing. I pulled a chair up in front of the fire and -mused over that question of taking Betty’s money. My discharged -conscience was homesick and wanted to come back. In the midst of my -musing Roger came in, and presently, he and I sitting one on either -side of the grate, it occurred to me that he would be a good person -to put in the place of my conscience--get his opinion on the vexed -question and not let him know it. I would do it so cleverly he’d never -guess and I could abide in his decision. Excellent idea! - -“Roger,” I began in a simple earnest tone, “I want to ask you about a -question of ethics, and I want you to give me your full attention.” - -“Go ahead,” said Roger, putting a foot on the fender. “I’m not an -authority, but I’ll do my best.” - -“Suppose I knew a woman--no, a man’s better--who was, well, we’ll -say a thief, not a habitual thief but one who had thieved once, got -into bad company and been led away. And I happened to know he wanted -help--financial--to tide him over a period of want. Would I be doing -something underhanded if I asked some one--let’s say you--to give him -the money and didn’t tell you about the thieving?” - -I thought I had done it rather well. Roger was interested. - -“Are you supposed to know for certain he’d only committed the one -offense?” - -“Quite sure,” with conviction. - -“What made him do it?” - -It wasn’t so easy as I thought. Theft didn’t seem to fit the case. - -“Well--he was tempted, and--er--didn’t seem to have as strict a moral -standard as most people.” - -“Um,” Roger considered, then: “This seems to be a complicated case. Was -he completely without will, no force, no character?” - -“Not at all,” I said sharply. “He had a great deal of will and any -amount of character.” - -“He sounds like a dangerous criminal--plenty of force and will and no -moral standard.” - -I felt irritated and raised my voice in a combative note: - -“Now, Roger, don’t be narrow-minded. Can’t you imagine quite a fine -person who mightn’t think stealing as wrong as you or I think it?” - -Roger did not look irritated, but he looked determined and spoke with -an argumentative firmness: - -“Evie, I’ve always regarded you as an unusually intelligent woman. -As such I’d like you to explain to me how a fine person of will and -character can steal and not think it as wrong as you or I would think -it.” - -It wasn’t working out as I expected and because it wasn’t and because -Roger was giving it his full attention, I felt more irritated. - -“Didn’t I tell you he’d fallen into bad company?” - -“You did and I’ve taken it into consideration, but--” - -“Roger, this isn’t a legal investigation. You’re not trying to break -up the beef trust or impose a fine on Standard Oil. It’s just a simple -question of right and wrong.” - -“I’m glad you think it’s simple. This person with any amount of -character fell under a bad influence?” - -“That’s it--he was undermined, and though he was, as I said, a fine -person, quite noble in some respects, he didn’t think stealing was so -wicked as the average respectable citizen does.” - -Roger put the other foot on the fender and looked at me with increasing -concentration. - -“I don’t understand at all. Let me try and get to the bottom of it. -What did he steal?” - -For a moment I stared at him blankly without answering. - -He went on. There was no doubt about his giving me his full attention, -it was getting fuller every moment. - -“If you’ll tell me the nature of his theft and under what provocation -and circumstances it was committed maybe I’ll be able to get a better -idea of the kind of person he was. What did he steal?” - -“But, Roger, this is a hypothetical case.” - -“I know it is, but that doesn’t make any difference in the answer. What -was the nature of the theft--money, jewels, grafting on a large scale, -or taking an apple from the grocer’s barrel?” - -I looked around the room in desperation, saw the blank left on the wall -by the Marie Antoinette mirror, and said doggedly: - -“He stole a mirror.” - -[Illustration: “Let me try and get at the bottom of it”] - -“A mirror,” said Roger with the air of having extracted an important -bit of evidence. “Umph-- Why did he take it?” - -“Roger, what’s the sense of going into all these details?” - -“Evie,” with maddening obstinacy, all the more maddening because it was -so mild, “if I’m to give an answer I must know. Did he intend to sell -it?” - -“Yes, he did.” - -I was so angry that I felt ready to defend any one who stole anything -from anybody. - -“My dear girl,” said Roger, still mild but also reproachful, “how can -you sit there and tell me that a man who steals a mirror intending to -sell it is a fine person, quite noble in some respects?” - -“I can’t tell you. I won’t. I asked you a simple question about a -man--a man I just made up--and you cross-examine me as if I was being -tried for murder and you were the lawyer on the other side.” - -“But, Evie, I only was trying to do what you asked.” - -“Well, stop trying. Let that man and his mirror drop or I’ll lose my -temper.” I snatched up the poker and began to poke the fire. “I’ve -lost it now.” I poked furiously in illustration. “It’s too aggravating. -I did so want your opinion about it.” - -“Well, then, here it is--” - -I stopped poking and leaned forward, so far forward that to keep my -balance I had to put a foot on the fender. - -“Has one a right to accept pecuniary aid for a person who has committed -an offense--the first--without telling the benefactor of that offense? -Is that it?” - -“Yes.” - -“I think one has.” - -“You’re sure they needn’t tell the benefactor?” - -“I wouldn’t. If you want to give a man a hand-up why rake up his past?” - -I got it at last. My bad temper vanished. I was wreathed in smiles-- - -“Oh, Roger,” I cried joyously, “that’s just what I wanted you to say. -It’s such a relief that we’ve worked it out at last,” and I heaved a -sigh and put the other foot on the fender. - -I sat for a moment, absently looking down, then I became conscious -of my feet, side by side on the brass rail--two small patent leather -points. I looked along the rail and there on the other side were -Roger’s--two large patent leather points. They looked like four small -black animals, perched in couples, sociably warming themselves by the -blaze. - -“What are you smiling at?” said Roger. - -“How near we came to quarreling over an imaginary man stealing an -imaginary mirror,” said I. - - - - -XII - - -LIZZIE is coming to life, hesitatingly and as if with reluctance. I -suppose it’s natural for her to be extraordinarily weak, but I never -would have believed she could be conscious enough to talk and so -utterly indifferent to everything that should concern her. When I -told her about the money, saying it came from a friend, she murmured, -“That’s all right,” and never asked who the friend was. She seemed to -have no interest in the subject, or in any subject, for that matter. -She makes me think of a brilliant, highly colored plant that a large -stone has fallen on. - -One afternoon last week, when I was sitting by the table in her room -reading, she suddenly spoke. - -“Evie, how long is it that I’ve been sick here?” - -“Nearly a month. You’ve been very ill, but you’re getting better now -every day.” - -She said no more and I got up and began moving about the room, -arranging it for the evening. I was pulling down the blinds when I -heard her stirring, and looking back, saw that she had twisted about -in the bed and was watching me. In the dusk, her face, framed in elf -locks of black hair, looked like a white mask. I thought she was going -to ask me something--there was a question in her eyes--but she made -no sound. I lighted the lamp and shifted into place the paper rose -that hung from the shade. She continued to follow my movements with -the intent observation of an animal. I have seen dogs watch their -masters just that way. The feeling that something was on her mind grew -stronger. I went to her and sat on the side of the bed. - -“Do you want to ask me anything?” I said. - -She shook her head, but her eyes were unquiet. Suddenly I thought I -guessed. I put my hand on hers and spoke very low. - -“Lizzie, the thing you told me that night when I came up and found you -here”--I looked into her face to see if she understood--“I’ve never -told to anybody.” - -She stared at me without answering. - -“Do you know what I mean?” - -She gave a slight affirmative nod. - -“And I never will tell it to any one unless you ask me to.” - -“_I_ don’t care if you tell it,” she said with weak indifference. - -It was the first gleam of her old self. Whatever she had wanted to say -to me it was not that. Other women--the women of my world--would have -been fearful of their secret lightly guarded. I don’t believe she had -given it a thought. Either her trust in me was implicit or she didn’t -care who knew it. I like to think it was the first. - -She settled back against the pillow and made feeble smoothings of the -sheet. Still persuaded of her inward disquiet I sat silent waiting for -her to speak. After a moment or two she did. - -“Have any letters come for me?” - -I knew _this_ was the question. I got up and gave her the pile of -letters stacked on the desk. She looked over the addresses, then pushed -them back to me. - -“I was afraid he might write to me,” she said. “But it’s all right, he -hasn’t.” - -I got a shock of displeased surprise. - -“You didn’t expect him to _write_ to you, Lizzie?” - -“He might have.” - -“But after--after what you told me, surely, oh, surely, you don’t want -to hear from him?” - -I was fearful of her answer. If she was waiting, hungering for a letter -from him, it would have been too much even for me. - -“That’s just it--I _don’t_ want to. It’s all in the past, as if it had -happened a hundred years ago. I want it to stay there--to be dead.” - -She looked into my eyes, a deep look, that for some inexplicable reason -reminded me of Wuzzy’s. I have long realized that my point of view, my -mental processes, are too remote from hers for me ever to see into her -mind or understand its workings. But I was certain that she meant what -she said. My poor Lizzie, coming up out of the Valley of the Shadow, -with her feeble feet planted on the past. - -A few days after this she was well enough to sit up in bed with her -hair brushed and braided, and read her letters. One was from Vignorol -asking her why she had not come for her lessons. - -She gave it to me, remarking: - -“I wish you’d answer that. Tell him I’ve been sick, and that I’ll never -come for any more lessons.” - -I dropped my sewing, making the round eyes of astonishment with which I -greet her unexpected decisions. - -“You’re not thinking of giving up your singing?” - -“Yes, forever.” - -“But why? Surely you’re not going to let one failure discourage you.” - -I was disturbed. From a few recent remarks, I am satisfied that she has -no means whatever. She _must_ go on with her singing; as Mrs. Bushey -would say, “One must live.” She could curb her ambitions, make her -living on a less brilliant plane. - -“I’ll never sing again,” she answered. - -“You might give up attempting the opera, or even concerts. But there -are so many other things you could do. Church singing--you began that -way.” - -“Yes, that’s it. I began, and I’m not going back to where I began. I’m -going on or I’m going to stop. And I can’t go on.” - -I thought she alluded to her lack of means and said: - -“Lizzie, I can get the money for you to go back to Vignorol--I can get -people who will stand behind you and give you every chance.” - -She looked listlessly at the wall and shook her head. - -“It’s no use. I don’t want it. Masters was right. I know it now.” - -“You mean--” I stopped; it seemed too cruel. - -But she was minded now to be as ruthlessly clear-sighted about herself -as she had once been obstinately blind. - -“The whole equipment--I haven’t got it. He banked too much on my -looks, thought they were going to go farther than they did. If I’d had -a great voice--one of the wonderful voices of the world, like Patti -or Melba--it wouldn’t have mattered about not having the rest. But -there are hundreds with voices as good as mine. He thought beauty and -dramatic instinct were going to carry me through. He knew I had the one -and he thought he could give me the other--train it into me. Nobody -knows how hard he tried. He used to make me stand up and go over every -gesture after him, he even made marks on the floor where I was to put -my feet. And then he’d sit down and hold his head and groan. Poor -Jack”--she gave a little dry laugh--“he had an awful time!” - -I could realize something of Masters’ desperation. To have discovered a -song-bird in the western wilds, hoped to retrieve his fortunes with it -and then found a defect in its mechanism that neither work nor brains -nor patience could supply--it _was_ bitter luck. - -“He was an artist,” she went on. “He could have gone straight to the -top but he lost his voice after the first few years, while he was still -touring the small European towns.” - -I noticed that she spoke in the past tense, her tone one of melancholy -reminiscence as if he really _was_ dead. She might have been delivering -his funeral sermon and placing flowers of memory on his tomb. - -“Why couldn’t you have got from him what he tried to teach you? I can’t -understand, you’re so intelligent.” - -She mused for a moment, then said: - -“I’ve been thinking of that myself while I’ve been lying here. Looking -back I don’t seem to have given it my full mind and I’ve been wondering -if perhaps I wasn’t too taken up with him. I couldn’t get away from -the real romance, the love-making and the quarrels, first one and then -the other. There wasn’t anything else in my life. I hadn’t time to be -interested in those women I had to pretend to be. My affairs and me -were the only things that counted.” - -“But you were so much in earnest, so desperately anxious to succeed.” - -She gave me a side look, sharp and full of meaning. - -“Because, though I wouldn’t acknowledge it, I knew he wanted to break -with me and the only way I could keep him was to make good.” - -“Good heavens, how horrible!” I winced under her pitiless plain -speaking. - -“Yes, it was,” she said gently. - -There was a pause. The little palliatives I had to offer, the timid -consolations, were shriveled up by that fierce and uncompromising -candor. Her voice broke the silence, quietly questioning: - -“I suppose you think I did a very bad thing?” - -“Oh, Lizzie, don’t ask me that. I can’t sit in judgment. That’s for -you, not for me.” - -She looked at her hands, long and thin on the quilt. Thus down-drooped, -her face was shockingly haggard and wasted. Yet of the storm which had -caused this ruin she was now speaking with a cold impersonal calm, as -if it had all happened to somebody else. My own emotions that swelled -to passionate expression died away before that inscrutable and baffling -indifference. - -“He was a very fine man,” she said suddenly. - -“_Fine?_” I gasped. - -“Yes, in lots of ways. About his art and work for one thing--he had -great ideals. And he was very good to me.” - -That was the coping stone. I heard myself saying in a faint voice: - -“How?” - -“Well, for one thing, he never lied to me. He told the truth about the -singing, about me, about everything. He wasn’t a coward, either. He -didn’t run away and send me a letter. He came and had it out with me, -made me understand.” - -This time I couldn’t speak. Her next words were like the laying of the -final wreath on the bier of the loved and respected dead: - -“It had to end and he ended it. He didn’t care how much it hurt me, or -what I felt, or what anybody thought. That’s the right way to be--not -to let other people’s feelings make you afraid, not to be considerate -because it’s easier than fighting it out. He was a fine man.” - -That was John Masters’ obituary as delivered by his discarded mistress. - -The thing I couldn’t get over was that she showed no signs of -penitence. As far as I could see she was in no way inclined to admit -her fault, to bow her head and say, “I have sinned.” Her own conduct -in the affair seemed to be the last thing that troubled her. Yet I -can say that I, a woman with the traditional moral views, could not -think her either abandoned or base. I don’t know to what world or creed -she belonged, or to what ethical code she adhered, except that it was -not mine or anybody else’s that I have ever known. Whatever it was it -seemed to uphold her in her course. What was done was done and that -was the end of it. No strugglings of inner irresolution, no attempt to -exonerate or exculpate, disturbed her somberly steadfast poise. What -would have been admirable to any one was her acceptance of the blow, -and her recognition of her lover’s right to deliver it. - -As she improved, moved about the room and took her place against -accustomed backgrounds, I began to realize that the change in her -was more than skin deep. Her wild-fire was quenched, her moods, her -beamings, her flashes of anger were gone. A wistful passivity had -taken their place, lovely but alien to her who was once Lizzie Harris. -Whatever Masters had said in that last interview had acted like an -extinguisher on a bright and dancing flame. It made me think of Dean -Swift and Vanessa. Nobody knows what the dean said to Esther Vanhomrigh -in the arbor among the little trees--only she had returned from it a -broken thing to die soon after. Her lover had killed her; Lizzie’s had -not quite, but he had certainly put out the light in that wayward and -rebellious spirit. - -It has its good points, for those people who are to help her find her -more comprehensible, much more to their liking than they would the old -Lizzie. Roger, for example, has met her again and is quite impressed. -It was the other afternoon when I was sitting with her in her front -room. The door was open and as I talked I listened for steps that would -stop two flights below at _my_ door. I had had no word that steps might -be expected, but one doesn’t always need the word. There are mornings -when a woman wakes and says to herself, “He’ll come to-day.” It had -been one of these mornings. - -At five, when the lights were lit and I had put on the tea water to -boil, I heard the ascending feet. If it was some one for me could I -bring them up? Lizzie would be delighted. I ran down and found him -standing at my door preparing to knock with the head of his cane. Would -he mind coming up--I didn’t like to leave her too much alone? No, he -wouldn’t, and up he came. - -Lizzie, long and limp in the easy chair, was sheltered from the lamp -glow by the paper rose. She smiled and held out her hand and I saw he -was shocked by the change in her, as well he might be. The only other -time he had seen her was the night of the concert, the climax of that -little day to which every dog of us is entitled. - -All things that are frail and feeble appeal to Roger. Both he and Mrs. -Ashworth get stiff and ice-bound before bumptious, full-fed, prosperous -people. He sat down beside her and made himself very agreeable. And -I was pleased, immensely pleased; could better endure the thought of -Lizzie like a smashed flower if by her smashing she was to win his -approval and interest. - -As I made the tea I could hear their voices rising and falling. Coming -up the passage with the tray the doorway framed them like a picture and -I stopped and gazed admiringly. It was like the cover of a ten-cent -magazine--a graceful woman and a personable man conversing elegantly -in a gush of lamplight. The lamplight was necessary to the illusion, -for it hid Roger’s wrinkles and made his gray hair look fair. He could -easily have passed for the smooth-shaven, high-collared wooer, and -Lizzie, languidly reclining with listening eyes, quite fittingly filled -the rôle of wooee. - -An hour afterward, as we went down-stairs, Roger was silent till we got -to my door. Then he said: - -“She seems very different from what she was that night when I saw her -in your room.” - -“She is different. You don’t seem to realize she’s been very sick.” - -“Yes--but--” - -I pushed open the door. - -“Roger, aren’t you coming in?” - -“Sorry, but I can’t. I’m going out to dinner and I have to go home and -change.” - -I was disappointed, but I wouldn’t have shown it for the world. I -couldn’t help thinking it was rather stupid of him not to have made a -move to get away sooner, to have a moment’s talk in my parlor by my -lamplight. - -“From what you told me of her I thought she was rather high-pitched and -western.” - -“I _never_ said that.” - -“Maybe you didn’t, but somehow I got the impression. She’s anything but -that--delicate, fine.” - -“Um,” I responded. These positive opinions on a person I knew so much -better than he did rasped me a little. - -Roger shifted his hat to his left hand and moved to the stair-head. - -“There’s something very unusual about her, a sort of fragile simplicity -like a dogrose. Good-by, Evie. Good night.” - -I went into my room. It was cold and the chill of it struck -uncomfortably on me. I had a queer feeling of being suddenly -flat--spiritually--as a flourishing lawn might feel when a new roller -goes over it. It improves the looks of the lawn. That it didn’t -have the same effect on me I noticed when I caught myself in the -chimneypiece glass. What a dim little colorless dib of a woman I was! -And how particularly dim and colorless a dib I must look beside Lizzie. - -I got my supper, feeling aggrieved. I had never before accused fate -of being unfair when it forgot to make me pretty. But now I felt -hurt, meanly discriminated against. It wasn’t just to give one woman -shining soulful eyes, set deep under classic brows, and another small -gray-green ones that said nothing and grew red in a high wind. It -wasn’t a square deal. - -Yesterday afternoon Betty turned up and found the invalid sitting in -my steamer chair looking at the juniper bush. Betty had never spoken -to her before and they talked amicably, Mrs. Ferguson visibly thawing. -I left them, for I want Betty to know her and help her of her own free -will, want to eliminate myself as the middleman. - -I was in the kitchenette, getting tea again, when Betty came to the -door and hissed her impressions in a stage whisper. - -“Why didn’t you tell me she was so charming?” - -Business with the kettle. - -“She’s one of the sweetest creatures I ever met.” - -Business with the hot water. - -“I don’t know why I ever thought she looked theatrical. She must have -had on somebody else’s clothes. She’s a Madonna--those eyes and that -sad far-away look.” - -Business with the toast. - -Betty was so interested that she got into the kitchenette with me. The -congestion was extreme, especially as she takes up so much room and is -so hard. You can’t squeeze by her or flatten her against walls--you -might as well try to flatten a Corinthian column. I had to feel round -her for cups and plates, engirdle her glistening and prosperous bulk -and grope about on the shelves behind her. - -“It’s absurd of her fooling about with this music. She ought to marry. -Has she any serious admirer?” - -“Wouldn’t any woman who looked like that have serious admirers? Betty, -I can’t find the cups. Would you mind moving an inch or two?” - -“I wouldn’t mind at all if there was an inch or two to move in to. When -you have a kitchen like this you’re evidently expected to hire your -maid by measure. Who’s her admirer?” - -“Oh, every man in the house.” - -“Are any of them possible?” - -I pried her back from the stove and inserted myself between her and it, -feeling like a flower being pressed in the leaves of a book. - -“No, not very possible.” - -“I’ll have to see what I can do.” - -As I poured the water on the tea I couldn’t help saying over my -shoulder: - -“There’s Mr. Albertson. He’s still unclaimed in the ‘Found’ Department.” - -Mr. Albertson hadn’t loved me at first sight and Betty feels rather -sore about it. She drew a deep breath, thereby crushing me against the -front of the stove. - -“No,” she said consideringly. “He won’t do. He’s too old and too -matter-of-fact. Besides, I want him for one of the Geary girls, my -second cousins, who live up in the Bronx and make shoe bags. I’m not -sure which he’ll like best, so to-morrow night I’m having them both to -dine with him.” - -Then we had tea and Betty’s good impression increased. She went away -whispering to me on the stairs that she was quite ready to tide Miss -Harris over her difficulties and help her when she had decided what she -wanted to do. - - - - -XIII - - -THE weather is fine and we are all recuperating. I must confess the -physical and spiritual storm of the last six weeks has rather laid me -waste. I haven’t felt so much in so many ways since--well, my high -water mark was the last year of my married life and that’s getting -to be a faded canvas. The metaphor is somewhat mixed, but if I draw -attention to it it can pass. I’m like that letter-writing English woman -who couldn’t spell, and when she was doubtful about a word always -underlined it and if it was wrong it passed for a joke. - -We sit about a good deal in my front room and late in the afternoon -Lizzie’s admirers drop in. The doctor, by the way, is one of them. He -says he’s still interested in “the case,” poor young man. Lizzie greets -them with wistful softness and seems as indifferent to their homage as -if they were pictures hanging on the wall. I talk to them, and while -we talk we are acutely conscious of her, singularly dominated by her -compelling presence. - -In all the change in her that quality is as strong as ever. I do not -yet know what it is that makes her the focusing point of everybody’s -attention, but that she is, nobody who has lived in this house could -deny. I believe actresses are trained to “take the stage and hold it,” -but Lizzie has the faculty as a birthright. It is not her looks; I have -seen hundreds of women who were as handsome as she and had no such -ascendency. It is not the high-handed way she imposes her personality -upon every one, because she doesn’t do that any more. It is not her -serene self-absorption, her unconscious ignoring of _your_ little -claims to be a person of importance. It’s something so powerful no -one can escape it, and so subtle no one can define it--some sort of -magnetic force that puts her always in the center, makes her presence -felt like an unescapable sound or a penetrating light. Wherever she is -she is “it.” “Where the MacGregor sits there is the head of the table.” - -Wednesday afternoon in the slack hours--the rush hours are from five to -seven, when the men come home from business--Mrs. Stregazzi, the eldest -small Stregazzi and Mr. Berwick dropped in. They had just heard of her -illness and came to make inquiries. Berwick explained this because -Mrs. Stregazzi couldn’t. In a large, black lynx turban that looked like -Robinson Crusoe’s hat, and a long plush coat, she dropped on the end of -the sofa tapping her chest in explanatory pantomime and fetching loud -breaths from the bottom of her lungs. - -Berwick looked morosely at her, then explained: - -“It’s cigarettes--cuts her wind.” - -“It’s my new corset,” Mrs. Stregazzi shot out between gasps, “and your -stairs.” - -The small Stregazzi, a little pale girl of ten, eyed her mother for a -considering moment, then apparently satisfied with her symptoms, sat -down on the prie-dieu and heaving a deep sigh, folded her hands in her -lap and assumed a patient expression. - -Lizzie’s illness disposed of, the conversation turned--no, jumped, -leaped, sprang--into that world of plays and concerts in which they -had their beings. Mrs. Stregazzi, though still having trouble with her -“wind,” launched forth into a description of the concert tour she and -Berwick were to take through New England. Berwick had made a hit at -Lizzie’s concert and he’d “got his chance at last.” - -I sat aside and marveled at her. She must have been forty years -old and she looked as weather-beaten as if, for twenty of the forty -years, she had been the figurehead of a ship. But vigor and enthusiasm -breathed from her. With the Robinson Crusoe hat slipped to one side of -her head and the new corsets emitting protesting creaks as she swayed -toward me, she gasped out the route, the terms, the programs, then -dabbing at the little girl with her muff, exclaimed: - -“And the kids are going to stay with mommer in the Bronx. Mrs. Drake, -I’ve got the cutest little flat at One Hundred and Sixty-ninth Street. -Wish you’d go up there some day and you’ll see the best pair of -children and the grandest old lady in Manhattan.” - -Berwick growled an assent and Miss Stregazzi, with her air of polite -patience, filled in while her mother caught her breath. - -“Grandma’s seventy-two. She used to sing in the opera chorus, but she’s -got too old.” - -Mrs. Stregazzi nodded confirmation, her eyes full of pride. - -“That’s the way she pulled me along and got my education. Didn’t let -go of the rudder till I could take hold. Now I do it. It’s been a -struggle, took me into vaudeville, where I met Stregazzi and had my -troubles, but they’re over now. I’m back where I belong and mommer can -rest, blessed old soul. I keep them pretty snug, don’t I, Dan?” - -Berwick gave a second growl and then the conversation swung back to the -inevitable topic. I felt as if I were on a scenic railway on a large -scale, being rushed perilously along with wild drivings through space, -varied by breathless stoppages in strange towns. I never heard so much -geography since my school-days or so much scandal since I came to the -age when I could listen to my elders. Names I knew well and names I’d -never heard jostled one another in those flying sentences, and the -quarrels! _and_ the divorces! AND the love-affairs! I looked uneasily -at the little girl and caught her in the act of yawning. In proof of -her grandmother’s good training she concealed her mouth with a very -small hand in a very dirty white glove. Her mother ended a graphic -account of the trials of a tertium quid on the road: - -“And he pulled a kodak from under his coat and snapped them just in the -middle of the kiss. _That_ divorce wasn’t contested.” - -The little girl, having accomplished her yawn, dropped her hand and -said without interest, but as one who feels good manners demand some -sort of comment: - -“Whose divorce?” - -“No one you know, honey. A lady I toured with two seasons ago.” - -Lizzie and Berwick listened. I had never heard him do anything else. -Before I came to live here if I had been told of the excellence of his -vocal performance and then seen him I would have shaken my head and -said: “That’s not the man.” A winter at Mrs. Bushey’s has taught me -that the artist does not have a brand upon his brow like Cain. - -His listening was of a glowering unresponsive kind; Lizzie’s was all -avid attention. It was the first time since her illness that she had -shown any animation. A faint color came into her face, now and then -she halted Mrs. Stregazzi’s flow of words with a sharp question. The -projected tour was the thing that absorbed her. She kept pulling -Mrs. Stregazzi out of the scandals back to it. There was no envy in -her interest. It was to me extremely pathetic, she, the failure, -speeding Berwick on his way to success. As might have been expected -he was stolidly indifferent to it, but I was amazed to see that Mrs. -Stregazzi, whom I was beginning to like, was untouched or was too -engrossed in her own affairs to notice anything else. - -Outside at the head of the staircase she paused, and giving a glance at -the closed door, said in a lowered voice: - -“Where’s Masters?” - -Berwick had gone on ahead, the little girl with her arm hooked over the -banister was slowly descending. Mrs. Stregazzi’s eye, holding mine, -was intelligent and questioning. I saw that she knew and took it for -granted that I did. - -“He doesn’t come any more. They’ve had a difference--a quarrel, I -think.” - -“Left her!” She raised her painted eyebrows, and compressing her lips, -looked down the stairs and emitted a low “Umph!” - -A world of meaning was in that sound, a deep understanding pity. - -“I thought he’d do it,” she said, as if speaking to herself. “She -couldn’t hold him the way things were going.” - -She stood musing, her head slightly drooped. The Robinson Crusoe -hat changed its angle and slid down over her forehead. When the fur -interfered with her vision she arrested its progress, ramming it -violently back. - -“I guess she feels pretty bad,” she ruminated, still with the effect of -thinking aloud. “That man’s got a terribly taking way with women.” - -I felt very uncomfortable. If it was unnecessary to contradict her it -was also unnecessary to admit her charges by receiving them in silence. -I changed the subject: - -“She says she’ll never sing again. It’s very unfortunate.” - -Mrs. Stregazzi harpooned the hat with an enormously long pin, tipped by -a diamond cluster. - -“Never sing again--oh, rats!” - -She grimaced as she charged with the pin through a series of -obstructions. - -“Don’t you be afraid, dearie. She’ll sing--she can’t help it.” - -“But she’s positive about it. She insists.” - -“Does she?” She shook her head, testing the solidity of the anchorage. -“She’ll be back singing before the spring. _You_ don’t know, but it’s -in her blood. We can’t keep off, none of us. And _she!_ Just wait. -That’s all she’s made for.” - -The little Stregazzi had come to an end of her adventure against the -newel post. She lolled upon it, wiping the crevices with her fingers, -then looking at her gloves to see how much dirtier they were. - -Her mother descended a step, paused, cogitated, then turned to me, -frowning. - -“I suppose he’s done nothing for her?” - -I saw she meant money. The astonishing rawness of it made me redden to -my hair. She waited for my answer, blind apparently to the expression -of anger which must have been as plain as my outraged blush. - -“As to that--” I began haughtily. - -“He hasn’t. Well, I’ll send her round fifty dollars to-morrow and if -that’s not enough drop me a line at mother’s and I’ll forward some -more. This is the best contract I’ve ever had.” - -When I explained and tried to thank her for Lizzie she laughed. - -“Oh, don’t bother to tell her about it. It’s all in the day’s work. If -you’ve got some rich woman interested in her so much the better. But, -dearie,” she laid her hand on mine resting on the banister, “don’t you -fret about her. _She’ll_ go back to the old stamping ground.” - -When I went back into the room Lizzie was sitting in the wicker chair -gazing out of the window. She spoke without looking at me. - -“Do you know what I feel like? As if it was night and I was on a ship -going out to sea, and as if the land was getting smaller and smaller. I -can just see the lights of houses and little towns twinkling in a line -along the edge of the shore.” - -“Where’s the ship going?” I asked. - -“I don’t know and I don’t care,” came her answer through the dusk. - -A knock cut off my reply. It was Roger, dropped in for an hour before -dinner. Lizzie rose and was for going, but I urged her to stay and she -sank back in her chair, glad, poor soul, to be with us and escape the -dreariness of her own thoughts. I lit the student lamp and he and I sat -down by it with Lizzie near the window, the light falling across her -skirts, the upper part of her dimly blocked out in shadows and the pale -patches of her face and hands. - -As usual, she said almost nothing and a selfish fear stirred in me that -she was going to spoil our hour. It’s hard for two people on intimate -confidential terms, to have a gay spontaneous interview while a third -sits dumb in a corner. I think Roger felt the irk of it at first. He -did most of the talking and he did it to me. But as the time wore on -I noticed that he began to address himself more and more to her. He -seemed unconscious of it and it set me wondering. Was he--a man not -susceptible to personal influences--going to feel that queer magnetic -draw? It interested me so much that I forgot to follow what he said and -watched him, and there was no doubt about it--he _did_ keep turning -toward the window, where he could see nothing but a motionless shape -and the indistinct oval of a face. - -The conversation resolved itself into a monologue, two mute ladies and -a talking man. - -Roger really did feel it; Roger, who would hardly listen to me when -I told him about her in the restaurant. It showed what a force she -possessed, and my fancy dwelt on it till I began to see it as a visible -thing stretching from her and reaching out toward him. It was an -uncanny idea, but it obsessed me, and Roger’s voice sunk to a rumbling -bass murmur as I tried to picture what it might look like--a thin -steady ray like a search-light, or a quivering thread of vibrating air, -or long clutching tentacles such as an octopus has, or a spectral arm -of gigantic size like the one Eusapia Pallidino conjured out of shape -when “the conditions were favorable.” The cessation of his voice broke -my imaginings and I was rather glad of it. Next time I see him I’m -going to tell him about them and ask him which of the collection it -felt most like. - -I wrote all this a week ago, and reading it over to-night it seems -strange that I was only amused, strange by contrast with the way I feel -about the same thing now. It’s not that there’s any difference, or that -anything has gone wrong, but--well, it was a joke then and it doesn’t -seem to be a joke any more. - -What’s made the change was something that happened here this afternoon. -It’s nothing at all, but it disturbed me. I hate to think it did. I -hate to write it did. I hate to have the suspicious petty side of me -come up and look at me and say: “I’m still here. You can’t get rid of -me. I’m bound up with the rest of you and every now and then I break -loose.” - -If I wasn’t a foreboding simpleton who had had her nerve shaken by bad -luck I’d simply laugh. And instead of doing that I feel like a cat -on the edge of a pond with a stone tied around its neck, and I can’t -sleep. I put out the light and went to bed and here I am up again, -wrappered and slippered, writing it out. If I put it down in black and -white, see it staring up at me in plain words, it will fall back into -its proper place. An insignificant thing--a nonsensical thing--the -kind of thing you tell to your friends at a lunch as a good story on -yourself. - -I was out with Betty and didn’t get home till five. As I came up the -stairs I heard voices on the top floor, just a low rise and fall, -nothing distinguishing. Since her illness Lizzie keeps her sitting-room -door open and I knew the voices were from there. I supposed one of the -admirers was with her and went into my rooms and took off my things. -Then I thought it would be nice to go up and make them tea. And I went -up and it was Roger. - -That’s all. - -Why should _that_ keep me awake? Why all evening should it have kept -coming up between me and the pages I tried to read? Aren’t they both my -friends? Why can’t they laugh and talk together and I be contented? And -it was all so natural and explicable. Roger had come to _my_ door and, -finding me out, had gone up there to wait for me. - -But--oh! Why should one woman be beautiful and one plain? Why should -one charm without an effort, be lovely with a flower’s unstudied grace, -and another stand awkward, chained in a stupid reserve, caught in -a web of self-consciousness, afraid of being herself? Why is Lizzie -Harris as she is and I as I am? I can’t write any more, I don’t get -anywhere. I know it’s all right. I _know_ it, but--something keeps me -awake. - - - - -XIV - - -IT’S two weeks to-day since that night when I couldn’t sleep. It’s -been a horrible two weeks--a sickening, disintegrating two weeks. My -existence has been dislocated, thrown wide of its bearings, as if the -world had taken a sudden wild revolution, whirled me through space, and -I had come up dizzy and bewildered, still in the old setting, but with -everything broken and upside down. - -It began with that visit of Roger to Lizzie’s sitting-room. The -morning after I felt humiliated, utterly ashamed of myself. It’s no -new thing for me to be a fool. I permit myself that luxury. But to be -a mean-spirited, suspicious fool was indulging myself too far. I saw -Lizzie and she spoke about Roger, simply and sweetly, and my folly grew -to a monumental size, beneath which I was crushed. And my dread faded -as the horror of a nightmare fades when the morning comes, with the sun -and the sounds of every day. - -I have heard people say that these moments of relief in a period of -anxiety are all that enable one to bear the strain. I don’t think -that’s true. Alterations of stress and serenity tear one to pieces. If -you’re going to be put on the rack it’s better to have no reprieve. -Then your mind accepts it, gets accustomed to it and you tune up your -nerves, screw your courage to the sticking place and march forward with -the calm of the hopeless. - -On Sunday afternoon--that was yesterday--Roger and I were to have tea -with Mrs. Ashworth. He came earlier than I expected, wanting to take -a walk with me before we went there. Lizzie was in my sitting-room, -also Miss Bliss, picking over the last box of chocolates contributed -by the count. Miss Bliss was not dressed for receiving--instead of the -kimono and the safety pin she wore the Navajo blanket, and when she -saw him she gave a cry that would have done credit to Susanna when she -discovered the elders. I would have seen the humor of it--the model -who had posed for the altogether in abject confusion at being caught -huddled to the chin in a blanket as thick as a carpet--had I not had -all humor stricken from me by the sight of Roger in the doorway. The -cry had halted him. He evidently had no idea what had caused it. His -eyes swerved from Miss Bliss to sweep the room in a quick questioning -glance. When it touched Lizzie something shot up in it--the question -was answered. Miss Bliss made her escape without anybody noticing -her, and I heard about the walk and went into the back room to get my -outdoor things. - -I have explained how the kitchenette and bathroom are a connecting -passage between the two larger rooms of the suite. I came back through -them, and having left the sitting-room door open, could see at the end -of the little vista Roger and Lizzie by the table. As once before I -had stopped to watch them, I stopped now, not smilingly this time, but -furtively, guiltily. - -They were talking together. To watch wasn’t enough--I had to hear -and I stole forward, stepping lightly over the bathroom rug and half -closed the door. Standing against it, I listened. Heaven knows the -conversation was innocent enough. She was telling him about a bracelet -she wore that belonged to some of those Spanish people she was -descended from. I suddenly felt as if I was looking through a keyhole, -and had stretched out my hand to shut the door when a silence fell. -Then all the acquired decencies of race and breeding left me. I pushed -the door open a crack and peered in. She had taken the bracelet off -and given it to him and he was turning it about, studying it while she -watched him. - -“I’ve been told it’s quite valuable as an antique,” she said. “Do you -suppose it really is?” - -“I don’t know about the antique, but I should think it might have some -value. The design’s very unusual,” he answered, and handed it back to -her. - -She clasped it on her arm, and as she did so, her head down-bent, they -were silent, his eyes on her face. - -I had never seen him look at any woman that way, but I had seen other -men. It is an unmistakable look, the mute confession of that passion -which makes the proudest man a slave. - -I closed the door and leaned against it. For a moment I felt sick and -frightened--frightened at what I’d seen and frightened of myself. - -Presently I came into the room and found them still talking of the -bracelet. And then Roger and I started for our walk, leaving Lizzie -alone. - -He suggested that we go round the reservoir and I agreed, stepping -along silently beside him. It was a raw bleak afternoon, no sun, -everything gray. The streets were sprinkled with sauntering Sunday -people who had a detached dark aspect against the toneless monochrome. -They looked as if they were moving in front of painted scenery. The -park was wintry, sear boughs patterned against the sky, blurs of -denuded bushes, expanses of hoary grass. Along the roadway the ruts -were growing crumbly with the frost, and little spears and splinters of -ice edged the puddles. - -The reservoir shone a smooth steely lake, with broken groups of figures -moving about it. Some of them walked briskly, others loitered, red and -chilled. All kinds of people were making the circuit of that body of -confined and conquered water--Jews and Gentiles, simple and gentle, -couples of lovers, companies of young men, family parties with the -children getting in the way and being shoved to one side, stiff stout -women like Betty trying to lose a few pounds. On the west side vast -apartment-houses made a rampart, pierced with windows like a line of -forts. - -We commented on the cold and Roger quickened the pace, sweeping me -along the path’s outer edge. Presently he began to talk of Lizzie, -leaning down to catch my answers, keen, impatient, straining to hear -me and not lose a word. He is a tall man and I am a small woman and -I bobbed along at his shoulder trying to keep up with him, trying to -sound bright and interested, and feeling myself a meager unlovely body -carrying a sick and shriveled heart. - -“No, she’ll never sing again,” I said, in answer to a question. “She -seems to have made up her mind to that.” - -He swung his cane, cutting at the head of a dry weed. - -“That’s a good thing.” - -“Why is it a good thing?” - -“Oh, because,” he dropped a pace behind me to let a straggling, -red-nosed family pass and I craned my head back to hear him. “She’s not -fitted for that kind of life. It’s not for women like her.” - -“Why?” - -He was beside me again. - -“She’s too--er--too fine, too delicately organized.” - -I didn’t answer. Knowing what I did, what was there for me to say? - -“The women to succeed in that have got to be aggressive, fight their -way like men. She never could do it.” - -I again had no response and we fared on, I trying to keep up, hungry -for his next word and fearful of what it might be. It came in a voice -that had an artificial note of carelessness. - -“What’s become of that man you told me about, that man we saw in the -hall one night when you first went up there?” - -“I don’t know what’s become of him.” - -“You haven’t seen him lately?” - -“No, not for some weeks.” - -There was another pause. I wasn’t going to help him. It was part of -my torment to wait and see how he was going to get the information he -wanted, to see Roger, uneasy and jealous, feeling round a subject, not -daring to be frank. When he could wait no longer his voice showed a -leashed and guarded impatience. - -“You led me to believe he was a great friend of hers.” - -“He _was_.” - -“_Was?_ Is he so no longer?” - -“No, they’ve had a quarrel of some sort.” - -“Umph.” - -Again a silence. We passed a trio of Jewish girls in long coats who -looked me over solemnly with large languorous eyes. - -“He was a horrible-looking bounder,” he said. - -“He was what he looked,” I answered. - -“Then how,” he exclaimed, unable to restrain the question, “_could_ he -have been a friend of hers?” - -He was embarrassed and ashamed, and to hide it cut vigorously at the -dead weeds with his cane. Through this childish ruse his desire to know -was as plain as if he had expressed it in words of one syllable. - -“He was her sponsor. She was a sort of speculation of his; he was -training her for the operatic stage. I’ve told you all this before.” - -“Yes, I know, but--well, it’s a reasonable explanation.” - -He had been speaking with his face turned from me, his eyes following -the slashings of the cane. Now he lifted his head and looked across to -the apartment-houses. The movement, the brightened expression, the tone -of his voice, told of a lifted weight. He had heard it all before, but -then he hadn’t cared. Now, caring, he wanted to hear it again, to be -assured, to have all uncertainty appeased. - -“It was a business arrangement,” he said. “Yes, I remember, you told me -some time ago.” - -This time I didn’t answer because a thought had surged up in my mind -that had put everything else out--I ought to tell him! He was under -Lizzie’s spell and Lizzie was as unknown to him as if she had been an -inhabitant of Mars. He was charmed by a creature of his own creating, -an ideal built up on her beauty and her weakness. Did he know her as -she really was he would have recoiled from her as if she had been -one of the sirens from whom Ulysses fled. She was the opposite of -everything he imagined her to be, of everything he held sacred in -woman. John Masters had been her lover. It was appalling, monstrous. I -_must_ tell him. - -And then I thought of her and how she had confessed her secret and I -had said I wouldn’t tell. - -The impulse to reveal it for his sake and the impulse to keep silent -for hers, began to struggle in me. I became a battle-ground of two -contending forces. The desire to tell was strongest; it was like a live -thing fighting to get out. It filled me, crushed every other thought -and impulse, swelled up through my throat and pressed on my lips. I -bit them and walked on with fixed eyes. As if from a distance I heard -Roger’s voice: - -“From what you said he must be an impossible cad. I knew she couldn’t -have had him for a friend. Poor girl, having to associate with a man -like that because business demanded it. What a rotten existence.” - -I had to tell. - -“Roger,” I said, hearing my voice sound hoarse. - -“Yes.” - -I felt suddenly dizzy and halted. Like a vision I saw Lizzie lying on -the sofa, whispering to me that Masters had left her. The inside of my -mouth was so dry I had difficulty in articulating. I stammered: - -“Wait. I can’t walk so fast.” - -He was very apologetic. - -“Oh, Evie, dear, I beg your pardon. You should have told me before. I -am so used to walking alone that I forgot.” - -We moved at a slower pace. The view that had receded from my vision -came back. My face was damp and the icy air blowing on it was good. -The spiritual fight went on, with my heart beating and beating like a -terrible warlike drum urging me on. Now was the time for him to know, -before it was too late. We were half-way round--I could get it over -before we’d made the full circuit. And then I’d be at peace, would have -done a hideous thing that I ought to do. Now--now! I fetched up a -breath from the bottom of my lungs. He spoke: - -“That’s why she oughtn’t to go on with this singing. It brings a woman -into contact with people that she shouldn’t meet.” - -Each sentence seemed to point my way clearer. If he’d had any doubts, -hadn’t been so completely without suspicion. But to hear him talk this -way! I tried to make a beginning with Lizzie’s whispering voice getting -in the way. I couldn’t find a phrase, nothing came but blunt brutal -words. There was a moment when I thought I was going to cry these out, -scream at him, “Roger, she was that man’s mistress!” Then everything -blurred and I caught hold of the fence. - -I was pulled back to reality by the quick concern of his voice. - -“Evie, are you ill?” - -I suppose I looked awful. His face told me so; he was evidently scared. -I realized I couldn’t go on with it, must wait till a better time. The -thought quieted me and my voice was almost natural, though my lips felt -loose and shaky. - -“I’m tired, I think.” - -“You’re as white as death. Why didn’t you tell me? Good heavens, what -an idiot I am not to have noticed before.” - -Two men and a child stopped. The intent and glassy interest of their -eyes helped to pull me together. I let go of the fence and put my -hands, trembling as if with an ague, into my muff. Roger gave the trio -a savage look, before which they quailed and slunk reluctantly away, -watching us over their shoulders. - -“Come,” he said commandingly, and pulled my hand through his arm. -“We’ll go to the Eighty-sixth Street entrance and get a cab.” - -We walked forward, arm in arm, and I gradually revived. I couldn’t come -to any decision now. I wasn’t fit. I must think it over by myself. My -forces began to come back and the feeling of my insides falling down -into my shoes went away. Roger was in a state of deep contrition and -concern, bending down to look into my face, while I held close to his -arm. People stared at us. I think they took us for lovers. They must -have thought the gentleman had singular taste to be in love with such a -sorry specimen of a woman. - -When we reached the Eighty-sixth Street entrance he wanted to take me -home, but I insisted on going to Mrs. Ashworth’s. I couldn’t bear the -thought of my own rooms. Alone there, I would go back to that appalling -subject and I couldn’t stand any more of it now. We got into a taxi and -sped away through the Sunday quietness of the city, sweeping through -Columbus Circle and then down to Fifth Avenue. I leaned against the -window watching the long line of vehicles. I was empty of sensation, -gutted like a burned-out house, and that purposeful procession caught -and carried my attention, exercising on my spent being a hypnotic -attraction. Roger, finding me inclined for silence, sat back in his -corner and lighted a cigarette. He had accepted my explanations in -perturbed good faith. We sped on this way, with the glittering rush -that swept by my window, lulling me into a sort of exhausted torpor. - -The usual adjusting of myself to Mrs. Ashworth’s environment was not -necessary. I harmonized better than I had ever done before. I am sure -every red corpuscle in my blood was pale, and if, on my former visits I -had instinctively moved softly, now I did so because I was too limp to -move any other way. If refinement, as some people think, is merely an -evidence of depleted vitality, I ought to have appeared one of the most -refined females of my day and generation. - -Betty was there and Harry Ferguson, Harry obviously ill at ease. I -know just how he felt--as if he was too big for the chairs, and when -he spoke it sounded like a stevedore. I used to feel that my manner of -speech oscillated between that of the cowgirl in a western melodrama -and the heroine of one of my favorite G. P. R. James’ romances, who, -when she went out riding, described herself as “ascending her palfrey.” -Betty, I noticed, escaped the general blight. She is too nervelessly -unconscious; wouldn’t be bothered trying to correspond with anybody’s -environment. - -I sat in a Sheraton chair and watched Mrs. Ashworth’s hands as she -made tea. The prominent veins interested me. I have heard that they -are an indication of blue blood, and though they are not pretty, they -suit Mrs. Ashworth as everything about her does. Her hands move deftly -and without hurry and she never interrupts conversation with queries -about sugar and cream. A maid, who was neither young nor old, pretty -nor ugly, an unobtrusive, perfectly articulated piece of household -machinery, made noiseless flittings with plates. Mrs. Ashworth does not -like men servants. I suppose they are clumsy and by their large bulky -shapes and gruff voices, disturb the rhythm of that beautiful, mellow, -subdued room. - -Presently I was sipping my tea and looking at Harry Ferguson trying to -sip his in a perfect way. I knew that he didn’t like tea, would have -preferred a Scotch highball, but didn’t dare to ask for it. He spilled -some on the saucer, then dropped the spoon and had to grovel for it, -coming up red and guilty, looking as if he had been caught in some -shameful act. I could hear him telling Betty on the way home that it -was nonsense taking him to tea--why the devil hadn’t she dropped him at -the club. And Betty, making vague consoling sounds while she studied -the appointments of passing motors. - -Then suddenly they began to talk of Lizzie Harris and I forgot Mrs. -Ashworth’s veins and Harry’s embarrassments. Betty explained her to -our hostess, and I sat looking into my cup and listening. It was -what might have been called the popularized version of a complicated -subject--Lizzie as a sad and chastened neophyte who had failed in -a great undertaking and been shattered. Mrs. Ashworth was softly -sympathetic. She turned to me. - -“Roger tells me that she is a charming person and very handsome.” - -I agreed. - -“Pretty tough,” Harry growled. Then abashed by the rudeness of his -tone, cleared his throat and stared at Roger Clements the Signer as if -he had never noticed him before. - -“I was wondering,” said Betty, “if she could teach singing. You know -she has nothing.” - -I became aware that Betty had not come for nothing to sit on a Sheraton -chair and drink tea. As usual she had “a basic idea”. So had Mrs. -Ashworth--two entirely dissimilar minds had converged to the same point. - -“Roger and I were talking about her the other evening,” said Roger’s -sister, “and I suggested that there are a great many women teachers and -their standing is good, I hear.” - -On the subject of the wage-earning woman Mrs. Ashworth is not well -informed. I fancy she has admitted the fact that there must be -wage-earning women with reluctance. It would be better for them all to -be in homes with worthy husbands. But it has penetrated even to Mrs. -Ashworth’s sheltered corner that these adjuncts are not always found. - -“We could get her pupils,” said Betty with determination--she felt Mrs. -Ashworth’s quality sufficiently to subdue it--“pupils among the right -sort of people. And you and I, and some others I know, could give her a -proper start.” - -They talked on outlining a career for Lizzie as a singing teacher of -the idle rich. They would put her on her feet, they would make her more -than self-supporting. Their combined social influence extended over -that narrow belt which passes up through Manhattan Island like a vein -of gold. Lizzie would be placed in a position to tap the vein. - -If I had suddenly hurled the truth into that benevolent conspiracy, -what a transformation! All the interest now centered round that -pitiful figure would dissolve like a morning mist and float away to -collect about something more deserving and understandable. If I should -represent her case as sufficiently desperate they would give her money, -but that much more valuable thing they were giving now--the hand -extended in fellowship--would be withdrawn as from the contact of a -leper. - -In _their_ case I felt no obligation to tell. What they were doing -would not hurt them and it was necessary for her. I came back to the -old starting point--to help her, to get her back to where she ought to -be, I must deceive and go on deceiving. Unquestionably something was -wrong with my world. If I could only have lived in Pippa’s or fitted -Pippa’s philosophy to mine! But could anybody? I wish Robert Browning -was in my place, sitting here to-night by the student lamp, half dead -trying to decide what is the right thing to do. - -Oh, I’m so tired--and I can’t get away from it, I can’t stop thinking -of it. Why did they ever meet? Why did I go down-stairs that afternoon -and bring him up? Why did a man--cold and indifferent--suddenly catch -fire as he had done? Why couldn’t I be left in peace? Why was it he, my -man, who had come to bring me back to life and joy? Why? why? why? - - - - -XV - - -THINGS have been in a state of quiescence for the last few days and -then, yesterday, there was a new development. - -When I say things have been quiescent, I mean on the outside. In the -inside I have been as far from quiescent as I ever was in my life. That -last year with Harmon wasn’t nearly so bad as this. It was just my own -affair then. When your heart is breaking you can sit quiet and listen -to it cracking and it doesn’t matter to anybody but yourself. It’s just -a chance of fate that you should be a little floating particle full of -pain. The world goes on the same and you don’t matter. - -But when other people’s destinies are tangled up in yours, when you -have to decide what’s best for _them_ with your reason and your -inclination pulling different ways--that’s having trouble for your -shadow in the daytime and your bedfellow at night. If I was an -indifferent spectator who could stand off and study the situation with -an impartial eye, I could come to a just decision. It’s trying to lift -myself out of it and be fair that’s so agonizing--it’s being afraid -that I may tell for my own sake, betray Lizzie to save myself. - -There are strong, clear-minded people who could think straight to a -conclusion, take the responsibility and act, then eat their dinner -and go peacefully to bed. I’m not one of them. I’ve always been the -kind who sees both sides and wavers, afraid if they champion one they -may be unjust to the other. Last night I was thinking of the girl in -_The Master Builder_ when she tells the hero that he hasn’t “a robust -conscience.” Then I thought of John Masters and how he broke the -fetters of his own forging. They were both right. I can see it and I -admit it but I never would have had the courage to do as they did. To -hurt and hurt for yourself--no, I couldn’t.--But I must get on to the -new development. - -Betty came yesterday afternoon and took me for a drive. Under normal -circumstances this is one of my greatest treats. To be with Betty is -always good, and to watch the glory of New York on parade while Betty -explains charitable schemes or gives advice on the best mode of life -for a widow of moderate means, has been one of the joys of the winter. -Then there were small individual pleasures that I silently savored -as we glided along: the springy softness of the cushions, the fine -feel of the fur rug, wonderful clothes in show-windows, and wonderful -clothes out of show-windows making beautiful ladies more beautiful. And -there was an experience that never lost its zest, full of a thrilling -significance: when we all stopped, a block of vehicles from curb to -curb, and let the foot passengers pass. It assured me we were still a -democracy. If we had lived in the days before the French Revolution -we’d have gone dashing along and the foot passengers would have had -to dodge our proud wheels at the peril of their lives. Now we wait -on their convenience. I have seen the whole traffic drawn up while a -tramp shuffled across, while we millionaires--I am always a millionaire -when I ride with Betty--sat back and were patient. I have always hoped -Thomas Jefferson was somewhere where he could look down and see. - -Yesterday all joy and interest were gone from it. Odd how our inward -vision gives the color to externals; how, when our spirit is darkened, -the sun gets dim and the sky less blue. We paint the world ourselves. -I remember after my mother died that for a long time all nature looked -gray and my close cozy intimacy with it was suddenly gone. But, that’s -another story. - -Betty lifted me out of a depressed silence by a suggestion; she said it -had been germinating in her mind since Sunday. Wouldn’t it be better, -instead of starting her as teacher, to send Lizzie Harris to Europe for -several years to go on with her studies? - -“She oughtn’t to give up all she’s done, and teaching singing when -you’ve expected to be a prima donna yourself, isn’t a very exhilarating -prospect.” - -It was so like Betty! Always thinking of something just a little bit -better. Mrs. Ashworth never would have got beyond the teaching and it -had taken Roger and Betty to get her that far. I straightened up and -felt that the afternoon was brightening. - -“It’s too early for her to throw it up,” Betty went on. “She hasn’t -given it a fair trial. She gets one setback and an illness and then -says it’s over. I don’t believe it is and I want to give her another -chance.” - -“But”--to keep square with myself I had to bring up difficulties--“she -declares she’ll never sing again.” - -“Oh, rubbish! We all declare we’ll never do things again. Harry and I -had a fight last autumn and _I_ declared I’d never speak to him again, -and I was speaking--and glad to do it--in two hours.” - -“Your husband’s not your profession.” - -“No, my dear,” said Betty with a smile, “but my marriage is, and being -a successful wife is not so very different from being a successful -prima donna. I tell you this is all nonsense about her refusing to go -on. She’s cut out for the stage. The opera bores me to death. I’d never -go if it wasn’t for my two strings of pearls and the prohibitive price -of the box. But I really think, if she was in it, I could stand even -_Tristan and Isolde_.” - -I looked out of the window--wonderful how the gay animation of the -street had come back. And it was Betty’s idea and Betty was generally -right. - -“I could suggest it to her,” I said. - -“That’s exactly what I intend you to do, and as soon as possible. I -hate things dangling on. Make it perfectly plain to her: I’ll undertake -the whole matter, give her as long a time as she needs with any teacher -she chooses. And don’t you see if she’s taken out of this place where -she’s had the failure and been so discouraged, she’ll take a fresh -hold? It’ll be a new start in new surroundings, and she’ll feel like a -new person.” - -The most sensitively self-questioning woman must have admitted the -force of the argument. If Betty’s previous efforts to play the god in -the machine had been ill-inspired, this time she redeemed herself. - -“Very well,” I said cheerfully. “As Mrs. Stregazzi would say, I’ll -‘take it up with her’ this evening.” - -Betty took me home and I ran up the stairs. I was like a child -hastening to impart joyful tidings. Lizzie was in her kitchen occupied -over household affairs. A glass lamp turned too high, stood on a shelf, -the delicate skein of smoke rising from its chimney, painting a dusky -circle on the ceiling. The gas, also too high, rushed from its burner -in a torn flame that leaped and hissed like a live thing caught and in -pain. Lizzie, being well enough to attend to her own needs, the place -was once more in chaos. I turned down the lamp and the gas, shut off -the sink faucet, which was noisily dribbling, and lifting a pie from -the one wooden chair, put it on the ice-box and sat down to impart my -news. - -She listened without interruption, leaning against the wash-tub. - -“Well?” I said, as she didn’t speak. My voice was sharp, her silence -got on my nerves. - -“To go to Europe and study,” she said dreamily, “that’s been the dream -of my life.” - -“Well, your dream’s come true, Lizzie!” I jumped up ready to take her -in my arms and hug her. “You can go as soon as your trunk’s packed.” - -She shook her head. - -“It’s too late now.” - -“Too late!” I fell back from her, unbelieving, aghast--“What do you -mean?” - -Her face bore an expression of sad renouncement. - -“The dream’s over, I’m awake.” - -“You don’t mean to say you’re going to refuse.” - -She gravely nodded. - -“But, Lizzie, think, listen. You don’t realize what a chance this is. -Any teacher you may choose, for as long as you like, all worry about -money over. I know Mrs. Ferguson, she’s never attempted anything that -she hasn’t carried through--” - -I launched forth into a eulogy of Betty, and branched from that into a -list of the advantages accruing to the object of her bounty, holding -them up, viewing them from all sides like choice articles I was -offering for sale. I was eloquent, I was persuasive, I introduced -irrefutable arguments. Any other woman standing with reluctant feet on -the verge of such an enterprise, would have ceased to be reluctant and -leaped toward the future I pictured. - -But Lizzie was immovable. I saw my words flying off her as if they were -bird-shot striking on an armored cruiser. She had only one reason for -refusing but that was beyond the power of words to shake--she had given -up her career as a singer; nothing would ever make her return to it. - -I sank down on the wooden chair, my head on my breast, despair claiming -me. She went about the kitchen in a vague incompetent way picking -things up and putting them down, then suddenly wanting them and -forgetting where they were. As she trailed about she drove home her -refusal with a series of disconnected sentences, bubbles of thought -rising to occasional speech. I didn’t answer her, sitting crumpled on -the chair--until she had refused, I hadn’t realized how much I had -hoped. - -Presently she swept into the back room, carrying a pile of plates with -the air of an empress bearing the royal insignia. I heard her setting -them on the dining-table and then a rattle of silver. She came back -and hunted about, feeling on shelves and opening cupboard doors, then -said, in the deep tones made for the great tragic rôles: - -“Evie, there was a lemon pie somewhere around here. You’re not sitting -on it by any chance?” - -Filled with misery I indicated the pie on the top of the ice-box. In -the pursuit of her domestic duties she had thrown a dish-cloth over -it. She removed the cloth, and picking up the pie, looked it over -solicitously. - -“You’re going to sup with me to-night and eat this.” - -The bitter appropriativeness of Lizzie feeding me on lemon pie pierced -through my anguish--I laughed. I laughed with a loud strident note, -leaning my head back against the wall and looking at the smoke mark -on the ceiling. Lizzie, pie in hand, stood looking at me in majestic -surprise. - -“What are you laughing at?” - -“My thoughts. They’re very funny--you and I, sitting up here alone and -carousing on lemon pie.” - -“We’re not going to be alone. Mr. Clements is coming. I asked him to -supper and when he looked uncertain tempted him by saying you’d be -here.” - -Roger and I eating lemon pie, dispensed by Lizzie--now the gods were -laughing, too. - -“I can’t come,” I said sulkily. - -She looked utterly dismayed, as if she had heard a piece of news too -direful to believe. If it had been any one but Lizzie Harris I should -have said she was going to cry. - -“Not come! Why not?” - -“Mightn’t I have an engagement?” - -“You haven’t. I asked you if you had this morning.” - -“I have a headache.” - -She put the pie on the wash-tub with a distracted gesture, and began -beseechingly, her head tilted toward her shoulder, eyes and mouth -pleading: - -“Ah, now, Evie, _don’t_ have a headache. The party was to be a surprise -for you. I’ve been getting it together all afternoon. And I ordered the -pie especially. _Please_ feel well. Mr. Clements has been so good to -me and I wanted to return his kindness and I knew he wouldn’t enjoy it -half so much if you weren’t here.” - -I know every word was genuine. I believe she is still ignorant of -Roger’s feeling for her. One of the things I have often noticed -about her is that she seems unconscious of, or indifferent to, her -attraction for men. I have never heard her speak of it or seen her show -any pleasure in it. Small coquettes and flirts, the women who make -a study of charming, can not hide their pride of conquest, love to -recount the havoc they have wrought. There is none of that in Lizzie. -Sometimes I have thought she is so used to admiration that she accepts -it as a part of her life, like the sunshine or the rain. Roger, as “a -kind man,” is just lumped in with the count and the doctor and Mr. -Hamilton. And with her blindness to other people’s claims she makes no -inquiry, takes no notice of the humbler romances of the rest of us. She -has never said a word to me about Roger as _my_ friend. If she has ever -given it a thought she has ticketed him as just “a kind man” to me also. - -I lay back in the wooden chair and stared at her with a haggard glance. - -“Do you like Mr. Clements, Lizzie,” I said solemnly. - -She nodded, then reached for the pie and began touching its surface -with the tip of a finger. - -“Immensely. I don’t see how any one could help it. He’s so kind.” - -Her attention was concentrated on what she held. She scrutinized it as -if it were a treasure in which she searched for a possible flaw. - -“He’s more than kind,” I answered. Even in my misery I felt a tinge of -irritation that she should accept Roger’s homage as if he was of no -more value than the count or the doctor. - -“Of course he is,” she replied. “He’s so intellectual. And then he has -such lovely manners. I think he’s more of a gentleman than any man I’ve -ever known.” - -I thought of Masters. Was she in her mind comparing them? If she was -there was no sign of it in her face. She murmured a commendatory phrase -of the pie, and holding it off on the palm of an outspread hand, -carried it into the back room. - -I sat on the wooden chair staring after her. Did she care for Roger? -Was she going to transfer her incomprehensible affections to him? It -was a hideous thought. She came back and swept about, collecting the -feast, and my dazed eyes followed her. How could she do such a thing -unless she was so lacking in a central core of character that she was -nothing but the shell of a woman? - -It was a queer scrappy meal, most of it sent round from the -delicatessen store on Lexington Avenue. Such as it was the hostess -offered it with as smiling an aplomb as if Delmonico’s head chef had -produced it in an inspired moment. No qualm that her chief guest might -not enjoy ham and beer disturbed her gracious serenity. Petronius -Arbiter treating his emperor to a gastronomic orgy, could not have -recommended the nightingale’s tongues more confidently than Lizzie did -the canned asparagus, bought at a discount. - -That Roger enjoyed it was evident. I don’t suppose he had ever been -at a supper where the ladies waited and sometimes, when the plates -ran short, washed them between courses. Lizzie’s inexpertness caused -continuous breaks in the progress of the feast--important items -overlooked, consultations as to the proper order of the viands, an -unexpected shortage of small silver. Before we had got to the canned -asparagus, I found myself assuming the management. Roger rising and -pursuing an aimless search for the beer opener, and Lizzie making -rapid futile gropings for it in the backs of drawers and the bottoms -of bowls, was distracting to my orderly sense. They couldn’t find it -anywhere. They had too much to say, got in each other’s way, forgot -to hunt and stood laughing, while I took up the search and ran it to -earth on a nail in the kitchen. - -After that the party shifted its base entirely and became mine. They -were glad to relinquish it to me, took their seats with the air of -those who know an uncongenial task has found the proper hands. I -directed it, grimly attentive, and it was not the least of my pain that -I saw they thought I was pleased to do so. If I had ever done any one a -deadly wrong he would have been avenged had he seen me--making things -pleasant for Roger and Lizzie, ministering to their creature comfort, -too engrossed in my labors to join in. I was the chaperon, I was the -maiden aunt, I was Mrs. Grundy. - -When we reached the last course I found that the coffee machine had not -been emptied of the morning’s dregs and took it into the kitchen, while -Lizzie put the pie on the table. From my place at the sink I could see -it, a foamy surface of beaten-egg, glistening against the white expanse -of cloth. Lizzie was proud of her pie and refused my offer to cut -it. She held the knife poised for a deliberating moment, then sliced -carefully, while Roger watched from across the table and I from beside -the sink. She cut a piece for me and put it at my place, then one for -Roger. Leaning from her seat she handed him the plate and he took it, -the circle of porcelain joining their hands. Over it he looked at her -with shining passion-lit eyes. - -To me, watching from that squalid kitchen, their outstretched arms -were symbolic of their attitude one to the other, the piece of pie, a -love potion she was offering. It was “Isolde” holding out the cup to -“Tristan”. Probably any one reading this will laugh. Believe me, in -that moment, I tasted the fulness of despair--that darkening of the -dear bright world, that concentrating of all the pain one can feel into -one consummate pang. - - - - -XVI - - -I AM convinced now. Roger loves her. Until that supper I had ups and -downs--times when I felt unsure, hours when I argued myself into the -belief that I was mistaken. But when I came down to my rooms that night -my uncertainties were ended. As I lay in the dark I saw everything as -clear as crystal. It seemed as if I was clairvoyant, caught up above -myself, the whole situation visualized before me like a picture. - -Since then there’s been only one question--what ought I to do? - -Apart from my own feeling for Roger--supposing he was only the friend -he used to be--should I let him give his heart and his name to a woman, -whom, if he knew the truth, he would put away from him like a leper? -Every ideal and instinct that make up the sum of his being would -revolt, if he knew about Lizzie and John Masters. I know this, I don’t -just think it because I want to. According to his code all women must -be chaste and all men honest, and if they’re not, he doesn’t want to -have anything to do with them. It may not be generous, but that’s not -to the point. He is so made and so will remain. He has been kinder to -me than any one in the world--kind and just, as far as he knew. Should -I, who could prevent it, stand by and watch him--the illustration isn’t -flattering but it’s apt--rushing toward the precipice like the Gadarene -swine? - -And then Lizzie is entirely unfitted to be the wife of such a man. -She belongs to another world that he doesn’t understand and couldn’t -tolerate. He would think the people she foregathers with were savages. -He hasn’t seen her with them, he doesn’t know how blind she is to -the niceties of manners and breeding that to him are essentials. I -try to fit her into his environment, put her up in a niche beside -Mrs. Ashworth--Lizzie, with her tempests, her careless insults, her -impossible friends! Suppose there had never been any John Masters, that -she was as pure as Diana, could she ever be tamed to the Clements’ -standard? - -Memories of her keep coming up, throwing oranges out of the window, -listening hungrily to Mrs. Stregazzi (fancy Mrs. Stregazzi at Mrs. -Ashworth’s tea table talking about her corsets and her cigarettes!) -facing Masters like an enraged lioness, weeping against his shoulder -and pleading with him to come back. Good heavens, if no man had even -touched her hand except in the clasp of friendship, she is not the -woman for Roger. And she lived, willingly, proudly, without a twinge of -conscience, with John Masters! - -That’s one side and here’s the other: - -Lizzie’s happiness, Lizzie placed beyond all need, Lizzie the wife of -a man so high-thinking and right-doing that everything in her that was -fine must answer to his call. Under his influence she might change, -become what he now imagines her to be. Women have done that often, -grown to love the man they marry and molded themselves to his ideal. -Have I the right to stand between her and such a future, bar the way to -Eden, an angel with a flaming sword? - -I can’t. - -In utter abandon she told me the story that I can now use against her. -She trusted me and I answered her trust with a promise that I would -never tell, unless she asked me to. It is true that she said she didn’t -care if I did tell. But does it matter what she said? Wouldn’t I, if -I used the permission given in sickness of heart and body, be meaner -than the meanest thing that crawls? Am I to buy my happiness at such a -price? - -I can’t. - -If she still had her career it would be different. I could see her -going forward in it, certain it was the best thing for her. But her -career is over. She is to settle down as a singing teacher, plod on -patiently, watch others making for the goal that was once to be hers. -She can’t do it any more than she can fly. - -If I thought that she was vicious, bad at heart, I would be certain -I ought to tell. But with all her faults she is generous, kindly and -honest. It’s her chance--the one chance that comes to all of us. Is -it my business to take it from her, to interfere, with my flaming -sword, and say, “No, this is not for you. You have committed the -woman’s unpardonable sin. If you don’t feel the proper remorse it will -be my place to punish you, to shut you out from the possibilities of -redemption. Whatever _you_ may think about it, _I_ think that you -belong in the corral with the goats and I’m going to do all in my power -to keep you there”? - -I can’t. - -And so I go on, round and round like a squirrel in a cage. I wonder if -the squirrel ever feels as I do. - -They come in to see me and say I look ill. Roger is particularly -solicitous, wants me to go south for a month with Mrs. Ashworth. I -could no more leave this place, and the spectacle of his infatuation, -than I could tell him what is making me hollow-eyed and wan. - -One of the bitterest of my thoughts is that I know--an instinct tells -me--he is really still fondest of me. I am and always will be the -better woman for him, the one that in the storm and stress of a life’s -companionship, is his true mate. His feeling for Lizzie is a temporary -aberration. He has been bewitched--La Belle Dame Sans Merci has him in -thrall. Some day he will wake from the dream--and then? He will find -Lizzie beside him, La Belle Dame Sans Merci directing the domestic -régime, tactfully accommodating herself to his moods, taking the place -of the undistinguished wife of a distinguished husband. - -Oh--why do I write like this! It’s low, contemptible, vile. I’m going -to stop. I’m going to bow my head and say it’s done and give up. - -I wrote that two days ago, pressed the blotter over it and said to -myself, “The squirrel has had enough. It’s going to lie down in its -cage.” - -To-night--it’s past midnight and a big moon is shining on the back -walls--I begin with a new pen on a fresh sheet to show how the squirrel -didn’t stop. Poor ridiculous, demented squirrel! - -There is a sort of grotesque humor about it, I can stand off and laugh -at myself. - -This afternoon the count came in to see me with news. His people have -sent for him to go back to Rome. - -“Have you already learned the banking business as conducted in -America?” I inquired. I’m not so sympathetic as I used to be but the -count doesn’t seem to notice it. - -He took a cigarette and answered with deliberation: - -“I have now, for four months, pasted letters in a book. It seems that I -am to go on forever pasting letters in a book. I wrote it to my father -and he sends me an answer saying, ‘My son, you can paste letters in a -book as well in Rome as in New York. Come back at once. I find this -pasting too expensive!’” - -I expressed fitting regrets at this paternal interference. - -“It is with great sorrow that I leave,” said the count sadly, “I have -made many charming friends here.” - -He removed his cigarette and bowed to me. I inclined my head. Our -mutual lack of spirits did not prevent us from being extremely polite. - -“You, dear madame, have been sweetly kind to the exile. I don’t know -what I should have done without your ever beautiful sympathy.” - -I made deprecating murmurs. - -“A young man like myself, a romantic, must have a confidante, one who -feels and understands, one who has lived.” I bowed again in melancholy -admission of the fact. “It will be hard to go.” - -He looked really troubled. His handsome warmly-tinted face wore an -expression of gravity that made him seem much older. His eyes, usually -alert and full of laughter, were wistfully dejected. - -“I have loved her,” he said quietly. - -For the first time in our acquaintance it seemed to me that the count -was speaking from that center of feeling that we call the heart. He -appeared no longer an irresponsible, almost elfish youth, but a man -who, as he himself expressed it, had lived. I was impressed. - -“Have you told her?” I asked. - -He shook his head murmuring: - -“I decide to and I put it off. It is too hard. I fear what I may say.” - -A sudden idea took possession of me. Writing it down in cold blood -it sounds like the deranged fancy of a lunatic. At the moment when -it came, I regarded it not only as a possible solution of all -our difficulties, but as an inspiration. My only excuse is that -self-preservation is the law of nature. I was drowning and I caught at -a straw. - -“Do you really love Lizzie Harris?” I asked in a voice tense to the -trembling point. - -“Very really.” - -“More than that other lady, the thin one who wore the fur dress?” - -“Much more.” - -“More than any woman you have ever known?” - -“A hundred times more.” - -We must have presented an absurdly solemn appearance, I planting my -questions like a detective administering the third degree, the count -nodding automatically as he jerked out his answers, his eyes fixed on -me with an almost fierce stare. - -“Why don’t you marry her?” - -That was my inspiration. It seems to me the most inexplicable -aberration that ever seized a sane woman--only for the moment I wasn’t -sane. One of the curious points about it was that I never thought of -Lizzie at all, whether she would want him or not. All I saw was the -count transformed into a genie, unexpectedly come to my aid. I make no -doubt if she had shown reluctance I would have counseled him to kidnap -her as his ancestors kidnaped the Sabine women. - -His expression brought me back to sense. He was looking at me with a -blank unbelieving surprise as if I had suggested something beyond the -limits of human endeavor. If I had urged him to inaugurate a conspiracy -against his king or an exploring party to the moon, he could not have -appeared more astonished. - -“Marry her!” he ejaculated. - -“Yes, marry her. You love her, you’ve just said so.” - -“Most assuredly I do, to distraction.” - -“Then why do you look so surprised?” - -“But marriage--me?” He laid a finger on his breast and tapped on the -top button of his waistcoat, regarding me from beneath raised brows. -His expression was that of an intelligent person who can not believe -that he has heard aright. It made me angry. - -“Yes, you. I could hardly be alluding to anybody else after what you’ve -just said.” - -“But, my dear lady--” he sent a roving glance round the room as if -hunting for some one who would explain, then came back to me. As he met -my eyes he smiled, deprecatingly, almost tenderly, the smile with which -maturity greets the preposterous antics of a child. “Is it a joke you -make?” - -“No, it is not,” I answered, “and I don’t see why you should think it -was. When you love a person you marry them, don’t you?” - -“Alas, not always. I could never marry Miss Harris. She is not of my -order.” - -“Order?” I was the one who ejaculated now. - -“Exactly. Whomever I may love I only marry in my order.” - -My inspiration collapsed, pierced by this unexpected and unfamiliar -word. For a moment we sat regarding each other. I don’t know how -I looked but I don’t think it could have been as abject as I felt -or the count, who is one of the most amiable of youths, would have -wanted to know what was the matter. If I had had my wits about me I -should have pretended it was a joke but I was too ashamed and crushed -to pretend anything. In the embarrassing pause I tried to smile, a -feeble propitiatory smile, which he answered in kind, brightly and -reassuringly. I saw he expected me to go on, and I didn’t know how to -go on except to argue it out with him. - -“What does your order matter if you love a person?” - -“But everything. It is, as you say here, what we’re there for.” - -“But you do marry out of your class. Italian nobles have married -American women who were without family.” - -He gave a gay smile, jerking his head with a little agreeing movement -toward his shoulder: - -“Ah, truly, yes, but with fortunes--large fortunes. We need them, we -have not got the huge moneys in Italy that you have here. But the -adorable Miss Harris has nothing. Figure to yourself, Mrs. Drake; she -must work for her living. If I come home to my father with a story -like that, what happens? He is enraged, he turns me out--and then _I_ -have to work for _my_ living.” He gave a delightful boyish laugh. “At -what?--pasting letters in a book? That is all I know.” - -“Foreigners are very hard for Americans to understand,” I muttered, -wondering if any foreigner of any race would ever have understood why -a respectable American widow should offer her friend in marriage to an -unwilling Italian count. - -He leaned from his chair, pointing the smoking cigarette at me. His -melancholy had vanished. He was a boy again, a light-hearted Latin boy, -intrigued and amused at the sentimental point of view obtaining under -the stars and stripes. - -“It is you who are hard for us to understand--so loving money and so -loving love. And which you like the best we can’t find out. For us -one is here and one is there.” He pointed with the cigarette to two -opposite corners of the room. “Miss Harris I adore but I do not marry -her.” He planted his romance in the left-hand corner with a jab of his -cigarette. “And I marry a lady whom I may not love, but who has fortune -and who is of my class.” He planted her in the opposite corner with a -second jab. “They are so far apart.” And he waved the cigarette between -the two, with a sweep wide enough to indicate the distance that severed -sentiment from obligation. - -That was the end of it. I pulled myself together and led the -conversation into a comparison of national characteristics. I don’t -know what he thought of me, probably that I was a horrible example of -what can be produced by a romance-ridden country. - -When I think of it now (if I cared a farthing what happened to me) I -would be quite scared. I wonder if I’ve inherited a queer strain from -any of my forebears. They don’t look like it, but you can’t tell from -portraits and miniatures. In their days it was the fashion to paint out -all discreditable characteristics as, in ours, it is the highest merit -to paint them in. Could it be possible that one of those pop-eyed, -tight-mouthed women ever swerved from “a sweet reasonableness” and -bequeathed the tendency to me? I’ve read somewhere that while the -inclination to wrong-doing may not be transmitted, the weakened will -can pass on. Is my lunacy of to-day, my distracted waverings, my -temptations to disloyalty, the result of some one else’s lapse from the -normal? (The lamp’s going out. With the room getting dim I can see -the moonlight in a clear wash of silver on the windows.) It wasn’t the -little Huguenot lady. But her husband opposite, the formidable Puritan -in the wig, was one of the jury who condemned the witches. That may be -it. His cruelty is coming back to be paid for by his descendant--the -poor old witches are getting even at last. Perhaps my descendants will -some day writhe in atonement for my faults. But I have no descendants! -I never will have. - -It’s the lamp’s last sputter--going out as I’m going out. In a minute -it will be dark, with the moonlight filling the gulfs of the backyards -and I, alone in the night, listening to the stillness, wondering if I -was only created to be an expiatory offering. - - - - -XVII - - -AS soon as Betty heard that the European offer was refused she turned -her attention to the lessons. Bustling about, making appointments, -talking over reluctant mothers, forcing people to study singing who -never thought of doing so, she is an inspiring sight to everybody but -the object of her campaign. - -Lizzie makes me uneasy. She has shown no enthusiasm, taking it all -for granted as though busy ladies could not better employ their time -than by helping her to fortune. Betty thinks it timidity, that she is -distrustful of herself. I know better. Her languor conceals a dreary -disinclination. She has never said a word of thanks to Betty or Mrs. -Ashworth. Once or twice I have suggested that they have taken a good -deal of trouble and she might--I have always stopped there and she has -never asked me to go on. What is the good of telling a person they -ought to have feelings which nature seems to have left out of them? - -Last night Roger came and after a few moments with me suggested that -we go up-stairs and talk over the new work with her. I wouldn’t, said -I was sleepy and wanted to go to bed. When he had gone I lowered the -lights and sat waiting to hear his footsteps coming down. I waited an -hour and a half, and then they came, descending the creaking staircase, -passing my door, and going on to the street. That wasn’t a good night -for sleeping. In the small hours I got up and tried to read. The -book was painfully appropriate, _The Love Letters of Mademoiselle de -Lespinasse_. I read them till I heard the milkman making his rounds. - -There is something horribly humiliating about women’s love-letters. -When the passion is unrequited, or half requited as it was with De -Lespinasse, they are so abject. She made a brave stand, poor soul, -tried to find Guibert a wife and pretend she didn’t mind. But when she -began to sicken to her death, all her bravery vanished. Those last -letters are like a shrill frenzied wail. And she was a very first-class -woman in love with a very second-class man. I suppose it’s a sort of -sex tradition that we should adore and adhere in this ignominious way. -We’ve had it hammered into us that to love and cling was our mission -till it’s grown to have a fictitious value, and we feel if we don’t -love and cling something is wrong with us. And what’s accomplished by -it--who is benefited by our useless suffering? - -The other evening down-town in the dusk I passed a girl waiting on the -corner by a show-window. The light fell full on her face and I knew by -her expression why she was there--a rendezvous with her young man who -was late. She was angry, close-lipped and sullen-eyed. I could read her -thoughts--she was going to tell him her opinion of him, be haughty and -frigid, give him a piece of her mind and leave him. Just then he came -slouching up, a lowering surly cub, and when she saw him she couldn’t -hide her joy. Her anger vanished at his first word. She’d have believed -anything he told her knowing in her heart it was a lie. She hardly -wanted his excuses, so glad he’d come, so pitifully slavishly glad. - -It’s shameful, crushing, revolting. Here am I, the heir of all the ages -in the foremost files of time, feeling just the same as that subjugated -shop-girl. Roger up-stairs with Lizzie, and I can’t sleep, and can’t -eat, and can’t stop caring, and worst of all, if he wanted to come -back to me I’d open my arms to him. Talk of the forward march of women! -When the cave man went forth to find a new wife, the old discarded -one left in the corner by the fire felt just the same as I do in the -opening of the twentieth century. - -But now, as Pepys says, to bed. I’ll sleep if I have to take a thumping -dose of trional which I was taught in my youth was even more wicked -than powdering your nose. - -This afternoon Lizzie went forth to give her first lesson and I stayed -in to wait for her. I was anxious about it. If the survival of the -fittest prevails among educators as it does in the animal kingdom I -felt sure that Lizzie as a teacher would not survive. Her pupil is the -spoiled child of fortune, sixteen, with a voice as small as her _dot_ -will be large. Betty had conjured me to make our protégée give up the -black tea-tray hat and I had tried and failed. Before her haughty -and uncomprehending surprise I had wilted. No one would have had the -courage to tell her why she should look meek and unassuming. As it -was she had dressed herself with unusual care, even to the long green -earrings which I hadn’t seen for months. She was more like the duchess -in an English comedy cast for Broadway, than a penniless music teacher -being pushed up the ladder. - -As I sat waiting Miss Bliss came in--wrapped in the Navajo blanket. She -threw it back and stood for me to admire, very dainty in a new pink -blouse with a Pierrot frill encircling her neck and a broad pink ribbon -tied round her head. Boyishly slender, her arms extended to hold out -the blanket, she had the fragile grace of a Tanagra figurine--a modern -Tanagra with a powdered nose and a dash of carmine on the lips. When I -told her she was pretty she blushed, dropped the blanket on the floor -and herself on the blanket, and said a girl owed it to herself always -to look her best. - -“You might meet a man in the hall,” she murmured, mechanically reaching -for the poker, “and what’s the sense of looking like a slob?” - -When she poked the fire a belt held down the back of the blouse. The -kimono jacket, the safety pin and the golden corset string were gone, -if not forever, at least till their owner was safely landed in her own -little flat with her own little husband. - -Our gossiping stopped when we heard Lizzie’s step on the stairs. She -entered without knocking, sweeping in and slamming the door. A brusk -nod was all Miss Bliss got and my greeting was a curt “Hello, Evie.” -She threw herself into a rocker, and extending her feet beyond the hem -of her skirt, sunk down in the chair and looked at her boots. In her -hand she held a bunch of unopened letters. - -I was keyed up for something unusual but I hadn’t seen her in this -state since her illness. We waited for her to speak, then as she showed -no inclination to do so I remarked, with labored lightness: - -“Well, Lizzie, how was it?” - -“Beastly,” she answered, without looking up. - -“Was your pupil a nice girl?” - -“No.” - -“Was she disagreeable?” - -“I don’t know, but I detested her. A little, simpering, affected idiot. -_Sing_--that fool!” - -She lifted her head and looked round the room with a wild and roving -eye. Her glance, raised high, avoided us as if the sight of her fellow -humans was disagreeable. Miss Bliss cleared her throat and stirred -cautiously on the blanket. She knew where Lizzie had been and was -exceedingly anxious to hear her adventures in the halls of wealth, but -didn’t dare to ask. - -“It really isn’t of any consequence what she’s like,” I soothed. “Just -take her as a matter of business.” - -“Matter of business!” She struck her hands on the arms of the chair -with a slapping sound and jumped up. “What have I to do with business?” -Then she walked to the window and stood drumming with her fingers on -the pane. - -The quick nervous tattoo fell ominously on my uneasiness. Miss Bliss -sent a furtive masonic look at me, and glanced away. With an elaborate -air of nonchalance she patted her frill and picked at her skirt, and -finally, unable to stand the combined pressure of our silence and her -own curiosity, said boldly: - -“What kind of a house was it?” - -Lizzie answered slowly, pronouncing each word with meticulous precision: - -“It was a large, shiny, expensive house. It was a hideous house. Nobody -who was anything, or ever expected to be anybody, ought to go into such -a house.” - -“You don’t say!” exclaimed Miss Bliss, artlessly amazed. “I read about -it in the papers and they said it cost millions and had things in it -out of kings’ palaces.” - -To this there was no response, and Dolly Bliss and I began to talk -together. We chose a safe topic--a bargain sale of stockings at -Macy’s. We tried to invest it with a careless sprightliness, which -was difficult, not so much because of the subject but by reason of -the tattoo on the pane. It was like an accompaniment out of tune. We -couldn’t seem to give our minds to the stockings while it went on, even -when we raised our voices and tried to drown it. Suddenly it stopped -and we stopped, too, dropping the stockings and eying each other with -fixed stares. Each of us was determined not to look at Lizzie and it -took all our will to refrain. - -She began moving about behind us, and we tried a new subject--the -count’s approaching departure. We said nice things about him, echoed -each other. I remarked that he was a charming person, and Miss Bliss -remarked that he was a _very_ charming person. We had to make a great -effort. It was almost impossible to keep it up with that woman padding -about behind your chair like an ill-tempered tiger. When a sudden -unexpected sound of tearing paper came from her, I jumped as if the -tiger had made a spring at me. She was opening one of her letters. It -loosened the tension. We suppressed gasps and took up the count again, -more as if he was a human being and less as if he was the center piece -at a dull dinner-party. Lizzie’s voice, loud and startled, stopped us. - -“What do you think of this--Mrs. Stregazzi’s married Berwick!” - -The count fled from our minds like an offended god. We ejaculated, -“Berwick!--Mrs. Stregazzi!” and sat stunned. - -Lizzie consulted the letter: - -“Last week in Portland, Maine. She says, ‘We’re as happy as clams and -everybody predicts a great future for Dan.’” - -“Well!” I breathed and looked at the other two. Lizzie’s temper was -gone, a shared sensation made her one with us. - -“Did you ever!” she murmured as any ordinary young woman might have -done. - -“Why she’s fifteen years older than he is.” - -“More like twenty. She’s not so young as she looks.” - -“Good gracious, how extraordinary!” I fell back in my chair aghast -before this evidence of a woman’s daring. “And those two children, -_and_ the grandmother!” Mrs. Stregazzi’s dauntless courage began to -pale when I compared it to the bridegroom’s. - -“Maybe he wanted a home,” Miss Bliss hazarded. - -“A man may want a home but he doesn’t want a ready-made family in it.” - -It was my place in the trio to voice the sentiments of that staid and -unadventurous middle class, which is described as “the backbone of the -country.” - -“Singers don’t want homes,” said Lizzie, “they’re in the way.” - -“It must have been love,” I said in an awed voice. “Nothing else could -explain it.” - -For a moment we were silent, each deflecting her glance from the other -to an adjacent object. I don’t know why it should have been, but Mrs. -Stregazzi’s reckless act seemed to have depressed us. Any one coming -into the room would have said we had had bad news. - -Miss Bliss broke the spell, emerging from depths of thought in which -she had been evolving a working hypothesis. - -“I don’t see why it is so strange,” she said ponderingly. - -“You don’t?”--the backbone of a country in which all men are free and -equal does not bend readily--“with that disparity and he just beginning -his career?” - -“No, I don’t.” She was sitting cross-legged, holding an ankle in each -hand and rocking gently. “I’ll tell you just what I think--I believe -they were lonely. Lots of people get married because they’re lonely.” - -“She had a mother and two children.” - -“She took care of them, they weren’t companions. Berwick’s a companion, -likes what she does and works at the same thing. It’s great to have a -person like that around.” She nodded, with shrewd eyes shifting from -one face to the other. “I’ve seen a lot and I’ve noticed. All sorts -of people get married, and it comes out right. It’s not just the -young ones and suitable ones that pull it off. It’ll be fine for Mrs. -Stregazzi to have him to go round with, and it’ll be fine for him to -have her to think about and talk things over with.” - -“They can help each other along in their work,” I admitted. - -“They can be fond of each other,” said Miss Bliss. - -She ceased rocking and looked out of the window, the shrewd eyes -growing dreamy. Our appearance of depression returned, a shade darker -than before. Mrs. Stregazzi and Berwick might have shown a dashing -disregard for public opinion, but there was no reason for us to look -as if we had heard of their mutual destruction in a railway accident. -If we had been waiting for their mutilated remains we couldn’t have -appeared more melancholy. Miss Bliss heaved a sigh and observed: - -“It’s a great thing to have some one fond of you.” - -Lizzie and I didn’t answer, but we gave ear as if the Delphic oracle -had spoken and we were trying to extract balm from its words. - -“And it’s a great thing to be fond of some one yourself.” - -Our silence gave assent, but the oracle’s wisdom did not seem to cheer -us. We sat sunk in our chairs, eying her morosely. Her imagination -roused, she ranged over the advantages of the married state: - -“Just think how lovely it would be to know there was some one who cared -whether you were sick or well, or happy or blue. Wouldn’t it be great -to have some one come home in the evening who was going to be awfully -glad to see you and who you were just crazy to have come? And when work -was slack and you were losing your sleep about money, wouldn’t it be -grand to know there was a feller who could chip in and pay the bills? -Oh, gee--” she dropped her eyelids with the ecstatic expression of one -who glimpses ineffable radiances. “Well, I guess yes.” - -An answering “yes” came faintly from me. The ecstatic expression -flashed away, and she turned, all brusk negation: - -“Oh, Mrs. Drake, _you_ don’t know what it is. _You’re_ well fixed with -money of your own. But girls like us”--she pointed to Lizzie, then -brought her finger back to her own knee upon which she tapped in bitter -emphasis--“_we’ve_ got only ourselves. We’ve _got_ to make good or go -under. And it’s fight, fight, fight. I’ve had to do something I hated -since I was sixteen and now she”--with a nod at Lizzie, “has got to do -something she hates.” - -[Illustration: “How lovely it would be to know there was some one who -cared!”] - -Lizzie, sunk in the chair, eyed her like a brooding sphinx. She met the -gaze with the boldness of the meek roused to passion: - -“You do hate it, Miss Harris. You’ve done as good as say so. And -it’s new now, you’re only beginning. Wait till you come home every -evening, disgusted with it all and everything and everybody; when it’s -bad weather and you feel sick and nobody cares. Wait till you have to -stand anything they hand out to you, and not say a word back or you’ll -lose your job. I know. I’ve tried it and it’s tough. It’s too much. -Any man that ’ud come along and offer to take you out of it would look -all right to you.” Her boldness began to weaken before that formidable -gaze. She became hurriedly apologetic. “I’m not saying there _is_ any -man. I’m only supposing. And I don’t mean now. I mean after you’ve been -up against it for years and years and the grind’s crushed the heart out -of you.” - -There was no answer, and the oracle, now openly scared at her temerity, -scrambled to her feet. In the momentary silence I heard the distant -bang of the street door. She heard it too and forgot her fear, wheeling -to the mirror for a quick touching up of her hair ribbon and frill. -When she turned back her color had risen to match her reddened lips and -her manner showed a flurried haste. - -“I got to go--several things to attend to--my supper and some sewing to -finish.” She didn’t bother to be careful of excuses. The man who hoped -to acquire the legal right to pay her bills was waiting below. She -went, trailing the Navajo blanket from a hanging hand. - -Lizzie drew a deep breath and said: - -“She’s right.” - -“About what?” - -“About me.” - -“You mean the teaching?” - -“I do. It’s a dog’s work.” - -She rose and faced me, sullen as a thunder-cloud. - -“But you’ve hardly tried it.” - -“I’ve tried it enough. There are plenty of women who can scratch along -that way and be thankful to Providence and pleasant to the pupils. Let -them do it. It’s their work, not mine.” - -She turned from me and went to the window, but not this time to drum on -the pane. Leaning against the frame she looked out on the tin roof. The -angry contempt of her face suggested that the millionaires Betty was -collecting were gathered there, unable to escape, and forced to hear -how low they stood in the opinion of their hireling. - -“I am an artist. Those people,” she made a grandiose gesture to the tin -roof, “don’t know what an artist is. They think they’re condescending, -doing a kindness. _I’m_ the one that’s condescending--I do them not -a kindness but an honor, when I enter their houses and listen to the -squawking of their barbarous children.” - -“You can’t expect them to think that.” - -“I don’t, they haven’t got sense enough. That woman, the mother, came -in while I was there. I’ve no doubt she thought she was being very -agreeable. She asked me questions about my method.” She gave me a -sidelong cast of her eye full of derision. “I sat and listened, and -when she was done I said I didn’t discuss my method with people who -knew nothing.” - -“Oh, Lizzie,” I groaned. “You didn’t say that?” - -“Certainly I did. Only that. I was polite and patient. If I hadn’t -felt so disgusted and out of spirits I’d have spoken to her freely and -fully. But it wasn’t worth while.” - -“But they won’t stand that sort of thing. They won’t have you again.” - -“I don’t intend to go again. I couldn’t endure it for five minutes. I’d -rather sweep a crossing on Lexington Avenue.” - -“There aren’t any crossings on Lexington Avenue, and if there were, -you don’t know how to sweep. What will you say to Mrs. Ferguson and -Mrs. Ashworth?” - -She shrugged with an almost insolent indifference. - -“I’ll say I don’t like it. That’s enough, isn’t it?” - -“Lizzie, I beg of you to be reasonable. They won’t go on helping you if -you disappoint them like this.” - -“Then they can stop helping me--I’m not so immensely charmed and -interested in them. They try and force me into things I don’t want to -do. They take it out of my hands and then come smiling at me and say -it’s all arranged. So it is--to their liking but not to mine.” - -“It’s your profession, the only thing you know. What else could they -do?” - -“Let me alone.” - -It was like beating yourself on a brick wall. I felt frantic. - -“But _what’s_ going to become of you? You’ve got no means of -livelihood.” - -She shrugged again. - -“I don’t know. But one thing I do know and that is that I won’t do -slave’s work for you, or Mrs. Ferguson, or any one else in the world.” - -I didn’t know what to say. I might go on talking all night and not make -a dent on her. Demosthenes would have turned away baffled before her -impossible unreasonableness. - -It was getting dark and I could see her as a tall black silhouette -against the blue dusk of the window. There was only one suggestion left. - -“Are you going to take Dolly Bliss’s advice and marry?” My voice -sounded unnatural, like somebody else’s. - -“Marry?” she echoed absently. “I suppose I _could_ do that.” - -“Is it that you can’t make up your mind, Lizzie?” - -“I don’t know,” she murmured again, this time as if she wasn’t thinking -of what she said. - -I rose with shaking knees. It was the critical moment of her fate and -mine. - -“Don’t you want to?” I almost whispered, drawing near her. - -Her answer made me stop short. It came with a tremor of fierce inner -feeling, revolt, rage and desperation, seething into expression: - -“Oh God, how I hate it all!” - -“Hate what--marriage?” - -“No, everything that’s around me. Those women, this damnable work--no -money--no hope! I’m crazy with the misery of it. It’s like being bound -down and smothered. I want to get out. I want to be free. I want to do -what I like and be myself. You’re trying to make me into some one else. -You’re crushing me and killing me. I’d rather be dead in my grave than -go on this way.” - -She burst into frantic tears, savage, racking, snatching the curtain -about her and sobbing and strangling behind it. The room was nearly -dark and I could see the long piece of drapery swaying as she clutched -it to her. I tried to pluck it away, and through its folds, felt her -body shaken and bent like a tree in a tempest. I had never heard such -weeping, moans and wails, with words coming in inarticulate bursts. I -was frightened, caught her hand and drew her out of the curtain which -hung askew from torn fastenings. She pushed me away and threw herself -on the sofa, where, under the vast circumference of her hat, she lay -prone, abandoned to the storm. - -I stood helplessly regarding her, then as broken sentences came from -under her hat, took out the pins and held it before me like a shield, -while she gasped in choked reiteration that we were killing her, that -she hated us all, that she’d rather die than give another lesson. If -her paroxysm hadn’t been so devastating I would have lost my temper at -the outrageous injustice of such sentences as I could catch. I tried -to say something of this in a tempered form, but she shut me off with -an extended hand, beating it at me, calling out strangled execrations -at Betty and Mrs. Ashworth and the mother of her pupil. If any one who -did not know the situation had heard her, they would have thought those -worthy and disinterested women had been plotting her ruin. - -There was nothing for me to do but wait till her passion spent itself, -which it began to do in sighs and quivering breaths that shook her from -head to foot. When I saw it was moderating I told her I would get her -some wine and went to the kitchenette, leaving her with drenched face -and tangled hair, a piteous spectacle. In a few moments I was back with -the wine-glass. The room was empty--she had gone leaving the black hat. - -I picked it up and sat down on the sofa. We certainly had got to the -climax. - -I didn’t count--with my hundred and sixty-five dollars a month. I -could retire into any corner, and live forgotten and love forlorn like -Mariana. But Lizzie--? She couldn’t sing, she wouldn’t teach, nobody -could help her. Marriage was the only way out. As I sat on the sofa, -absently staring at the hat, I had a memory of a corral I had seen at -a railway station in a trip I once took to the West. It was a pen for -the cattle that came off the range and had to be driven into the cars. -The entrance was wide, but the fenced enclosure narrowed and narrowed -until there was only one way of exit left, up a gangway to the car. The -comparison wasn’t elegant but it struck me as fitting--Lizzie was on -the gangway with the entrance to the car the only way to go. - -“I wish to heaven she’d hurry and get into it,” I groaned. - - - - -XVIII - - -I HAVEN’T seen her for two days. Yesterday morning I went up-stairs to -leave the hat, found her door open and her rooms empty. Emma says she -has been out most of the time. I waited in all afternoon, expecting to -hear Betty on the telephone in a state of wrath about the pupil. Also I -had my ear trained for the postman’s light ring. At any moment I might -get a letter now from Roger, announcing his engagement. Why should not -Lizzie’s absences abroad be spent in walks with him? - -As usual the anticipated didn’t happen. Betty did telephone but in -amiable ignorance of her protégée’s revolt. She had run to earth a -second pupil, who would be ready the following morning at eleven. Would -I please tell Lizzie and did I know how the first lesson had gone? I -prevaricated--I can do that at the telephone when Betty’s stern gaze -is not there to disconcert me. I was really afraid to tell her, and -besides, I, too, was getting rebellious. Let Lizzie manage her own -affairs and fight her own fights. I said cheerfully she would tell -Betty about it, and hung up the receiver wondering what would happen. -Then I wrote a note to Lizzie about the new pupil, went up-stairs, -knocked, and getting no response, pushed it under the door. - -For the rest of the day I sat waiting like a prisoner in the death cell. - -This morning, when I leaned out of the back window and looked down on -the damp soil and bare shrubs of the yard, I felt the first soft air -of spring. The sunlight slanted on the brick walls, the wet spots on -the walk around the sun-dial shrunk as I watched them. On the top of a -fence a scarred and seasoned old cat, at which Mr. Hamilton was wont -to throw beer bottles, stretched lazily, blinking at a warm inviting -world. I leaned farther out--tiny blunt points of green were pushing -through the mold along the walk. Mrs. Phillips, sure in her ownership -of the yard, had planted crocuses. Winter wasn’t lingering in the lap -of spring--he had jumped off it at a bound. - -I turned from the window and went into the front room, wondering -vaguely why winter should always be a male and spring a female. The tin -roof was dry, the hot bright sun had licked up the sparrow’s bath. -Across the street a line of women from the tenements were advancing on -the park, pushing baby carriages--buxom broad-hipped mothers with no -hats and wonderful coiffures of false hair. It was a glorious morning, -the air like a thin clear wine. I put on my things and went out. - -The street showed sunny and clear, fair bright avenues inviting the -wayfarer to wanderings. Children sped by in groups and scattering -throngs. Smart slim ladies strolled with dogs straining at leashes. -Friends met and stood in talkative knots, motors flashed by attended -by the fluttering of loosened veils. On the fringe of benches along -the park wall the idle sunned themselves, lax and lazy. Down-town, -where the women shop, men would be selling arbutus at the street -corners. Soon naughty boys with freckled noses would trail in hopeful -groups along the curb, holding up stolen lilacs to ladies in upper -windows--yes, spring had come. - -I bought a bunch of daffodils at the florist’s and went into the park. -The first hint of green was faint on the lawns, and points of emerald -were breaking out along the willow boughs. Through the crystal air the -sounds of children at play came musically--little yaps and squeals and -sudden sweet runs of laughter. The glass walls of the casino were -a-dazzle, and revolving wheels caught the sun and broke it on their -flying spokes. - -I was near the lake when I saw Lizzie. She was walking up a side path -that crossed mine, her head down, her step quick and decided. She -didn’t see me and I stood and waited. Then her eye, deep and absorbed, -shifted, caught me, and she came to an abrupt halt. For the first -startled moment there was an indecision about her poised body and -annoyed face that suggested flight. If I did not share her dismay, -I did her surprise. This was the hour set for the second lesson. Of -course she might have told Betty that she would give no more, also she -might have been hastening to the tryst with the new pupil. You never -could tell. In answer to my smiling hail she approached, not smiling -but looking darkly intent and purposeful. - -“Which way are you going?” she said, by way of greeting. - -I have been called a tactful person, and acquaintance with Lizzie has -developed what was an untrained instinct into a ripened art: - -“Nowhere in particular. I’m just strolling about in the sun.” - -Obviously relieved, she said: - -“I’m going over there--” pointing to the apartment-houses across the -park. “I have business on the west side.” - -The new pupil lived on the east side. So she really had given it up. - -“You’ve told Mrs. Ferguson that you won’t give that lesson--the one she -telephoned about?” - -A sudden blankness fell on her face. - -“Didn’t you get the letter I put under your door?” I cried in alarm. I -couldn’t bear just now, with everything failing me, to have Betty angry. - -She nodded, looking down and scraping on the ground with her foot. Then -slowly raised her eyes, and glimpsing at me under her lashes, broke -into a broad smile. - -“I forgot all about it.” - -“Oh, Lizzie! How could you? If you’ve made up your mind to end it the -least you could do was to let her know. That’s really _too_ bad.” - -“Yes, I suppose it is.” Her hasty contrition was far from convincing. -“Perfectly awful. I ought to be punished in some painful way. Look -here, Evie, dearest, I’m in a hurry. Why can’t you just pop into a taxi -and go down and explain it to her?” - -“I’ll tell you why I can’t, simply and clearly--because I won’t.” - -“Goodness, how provoking of you.” She didn’t seem at all provoked. Her -only concern was to get away from me and go to the mysterious business -on the west side. She bent sidewise to catch her skirt and moved away. -“Then I will, this evening, to-morrow morning--” - -I caught her by the arm. - -“Lizzie, listen. Mrs. Ferguson is my best friend. I made her do this -and I can’t have you treating her so rudely. I thought, of course, -you’d told her.” - -She laid her hand on my detaining fingers, and as she spoke in her most -coaxing manner smoothed them caressingly, detaching them from their -hold. - -“Dear girl, I know all that. Every word you say is true. And I’ll fix -it, I’ll straighten it all out. There won’t be the slightest trouble.” - -“Will you telephone those people?” I implored. - -My hand was dislodged. She drew away. - -“Indeed I will, the first moment I get.” She paused, arrested by a -thought. “What’s their name? I’ve forgotten.” Then backing off: “_You_ -telephone them. You see I can’t now and I don’t know when I’ll be near -a booth. Say I’m sick, or have left town, or anything you like. Just -any excuse until I can attend to it. Good-by. I’ll probably come in and -see you this afternoon.” - -She turned and made off as quickly as she could, a tall vigorous -figure, moving with a free swinging step. I stood and watched her -hastening down the path between the trunks of the bare trees. There -was not a trace upon her of the tempest of two nights before. It might -never have been. Her whole bearing suggested coursing blood and high -vitality. She was very like the irresponsible and endearing creature I -had known when I first went to Mrs. Bushey’s. - -I gave up my walk and went home to send the telephone. As I hurried -along I wondered where she could be going and why she seemed so light -in spirit. I was in that feverish state of foreboding when the simplest -events assume a sinister aspect. The thought crossed my mind that she -might be going to elope with Roger. It would be like her to elope, and -though it would be very unlike him (about the last thing in the world -one could conceive him doing), he might have become clay in the hands -of that self-willed and beguiling potter. - -“Well,” I thought, “so much the better. It’ll be over.” And I decided -the best thing for me to do would be to go back to Europe and join the -spinsters and widows in the pensions. - -I sent the telephone, trying to soothe an angry female voice that -complained of a morning “utterly ruined.” I sent another one to -Betty, who was also discomposed, having heard from the mother of “the -barbarous child.” Betty wouldn’t believe her, had evidently championed -the teacher with heat. Betty is a stalwart adherent, a partisan, and I -foresaw battles in high places. - -The afternoon drew to a golden mellow close and I lay on the sofa -waiting for Lizzie. I hadn’t relinquished the idea of the elopement but -it did not seem so probable as it had in the morning. Anyway, if she -hadn’t eloped--if she did come in to see me--I had made up my mind I -would ask her pointblank what she intended to do about Roger. It was -one word for Lizzie and two for myself. I really thought if things went -on the way they were, I should go mad. Not that it would matter if I -went mad, for nobody depends on me, nor am I necessary to the progress -or welfare of the state. But I don’t want to be an expense to my -friends. And I don’t know whether one hundred and sixty-five dollars -a month is enough for maintenance in an exclusive lunatic asylum and I -know they would never send me to any but the best. - -When a knock came I started and called a husky “Come in.” The door -opened--there had been no elopement. Roger stood on the threshold, -smiling and calm, which I knew he wouldn’t have been if he was a -bridegroom. Marriage would always be a portentous event with a -conscientious Clements. - -Whatever I might be with Lizzie I couldn’t be pointblank with Roger, -though I had known him for fifteen years and her for six months. I -explained my trepidation by a headache and settled back on the sofa. -He was properly grieved and wanted me to follow Mrs. Ashworth to the -south. I saw myself in a white dress on a hotel piazza being charming -to men in flannels and Panama hats, and the mere thought of it made -me querulous. He persisted with an amiable urgence. If my opinion of -him hadn’t been crystallized into an unchangeable form, I should have -thought him maddeningly stupid. I began to wonder, if the present state -of affairs lasted much longer, if I wouldn’t end by hating him. I was -thinking this when Lizzie came in. - -I had never seen her, not even in the gladdest days before her -illness, look as she did. The old Lizzie was back, but enriched and -glorified. She entered with a breathless inrush, shutting the door -with a blind blow, her glance leaping at me and drawing me up from -the cushions like the clutch of a powerful hand. It seemed as if some -deadening blight had been lifted from her and she had burst into life, -enhanced and intensified by the long period of hibernation. Her lips -were parted in a slight, almost rigid smile, her eyes, widely opened, -had lost their listless softness and shone with a deep brilliance. - -Roger gave a suppressed exclamation and rose to his feet. I think she -would have astonished any man, that Saint Anthony would have paused to -look, not tempted so much as held in a staring stillness of admiration. -She was less the alluring woman than the burning exultant spirit, -cased in a woman’s body and shining through it like a light through a -transparent shell. - -“Lizzie!” I exclaimed on a rising note of question. I had a sense of -momentous things, of a climax suddenly come upon us all. - -“I’ve been to Vignorol,” she said, and came to a halt in front of me, -her gaze unwavering, her breast rising to hurried breaths. - -“How do you do, Miss Harris,” said Roger, coming smilingly forward. He -had the air of the favored friend who shows a playful pique at being -overlooked. - -The conventional words, uttered in an urbane tone, fell between us like -an ax on a stretched thread. It can be said for him that he knew Lizzie -too little to realize what her manner portended. He evidently saw -nothing except that she was joyously exhilarated and looked unusually -handsome. - -She gave him a glance, bruskly quelling and containing no recognition -of him. It was her famous piece-of-furniture glance, to which I had -been so often treated. It was the first time Roger had ever experienced -its terrors and it staggered him. In bewilderment he looked at me for -an explanation. But she was not going to let any outside influence come -between us. I was important just then--a thing of value appropriated to -her uses. - -“I’ve been two days fighting it out, trying to make up my mind to do -it. And this morning, when you met me, I was going there.” - -“Well?” I was aware of that demanding look of Roger’s, which, getting -nothing from me, turned to her. That was useless, but how was he to -know? - -“I sang for him,” she said, the brilliant eyes holding mine as if to -grasp and focus upon herself every sense I had. - -“Lizzie!” - -The premonition of momentous things grew stronger. Underneath it, in -lower layers of consciousness, submerged habits of politeness made -themselves felt. I ought to get Roger into the conversation. - -“I sang better than I ever did before. And Vignorol, who used to scold -and be so discouraged, told me I’d got it!” - -“Lizzie!” - -For a moment we stared at each other, speechless, she giving the useful -pair of ears time to carry to the brain, the great news. - -Then the subconscious promptings grew too strong to be denied and I -said: - -“Mr. Clements will be as glad as we are to know that.” - -Thus encouraged, Roger emerged from his astonishment. He was not as -debonair as at the beginning, also he evidently wasn’t sure just what -it was all about, but he seized upon the most prominent fact, and said, -without enthusiasm, rather with apprehension: - -“This doesn’t mean, Miss Harris, that you’re thinking of returning to -your old profession?” - -Her look at him was flaming, as silencing as a blow. I don’t know -why she didn’t tell him to hold his tongue, except that she was too -preoccupied to waste a word. He flinched before it, drew himself up and -backed away, dazed, as he might have been if she really had struck him. - -Having brushed him aside she went on to me. The main fact imparted, her -exultation burst forth in a crowding rush of words: - -“It wasn’t my voice--but that’s better, he says it’s the long rest--it -was the other thing--the temperament, the soul. It’s got into me. I -knew it myself as soon as I began to sing. I felt as if something -that bound me was gone--ropes and chains broken and thrown away. It -was so much easier. Before I was always making efforts, listening to -what they told me, trying to work it out with my head. And to-day! -Oh, Evie, I knew it, I felt it--something outside myself that poured -into me and carried me along. I could just let myself go and be -wonderful--wonderful--wonderful!” - -She threw out her arms as if to illustrate the extent of her -wonderfulness, wide as she could stretch, then brought her hands -together on her bosom, and, with half-shut eyes, stood rapt in ravished -memory. - -We gazed mutely at her as if she were some remarkable spectacle upon -which we had unexpectedly chanced. - -“I sang and sang,” she said softly, “and each time it was better. -Vignorol wouldn’t let me go.” - -“What did he say?” I asked. - -“He kissed me,” she murmured dreamily. - -Roger in his corner moved and then was still. - -“But what did he suggest about you? What did he want you to do?” - -My mouth was dry. Sitting on the edge of the sofa I clutched the sides -of it as if it was a frail bark and I was floating in it over perilous -seas. - -“Go back to where I belong,” she said, and then came out of her ecstasy -and began to pace up and down, flinging sentences at me. - -“Try it again and do it this time. He says I can, and I know I can. -Oh, Evie, to get away from all this--those hateful pupils, those -hideous lessons--those women! To go back to my work, be among my -own people.” She brushed by Roger, her glance, imbued with its inward -vision, passing over him as if he was invisible. “It’s like coming out -of prison. It’s like coming to life again after you were dead.” - -[Illustration: “I could just let myself go and be wonderful!”] - -She had expressed it exactly. She _had_ been dead. The mild and wistful -woman of the last two months was a wraith. _This_ was Lizzie Harris -born again, renewed and revitalized, now almost terrible in her naked -and ruthless egotism. - -“What will you do?” - -“I don’t know. I haven’t thought yet. Vignorol wants me to study with -him for nothing, pay it back when I make good. But that doesn’t matter -now. I can’t think of anything but that I’m home, in my place, and -that I can do it. They were all disappointed in me, said I’d never get -there. I can. I will. Wait!--Watch me. You’ll see me on top yet, and it -won’t be so far off, either. I’ll show you all it’s in me. I’ll wake up -every clod in those boxes, I’ll make their dull fat faces shine, I’ll -hear them clap and stamp and shout, ‘Brava, Bonaventura!’” - -She cried out the two last words, staring before her with flashing -eyes that looked from the heights of achievement upon an applauding -multitude. In the moment of silence I had a queer clairvoyant feeling -that it was true, that it would happen, and I saw her as the queen of -song with her foot upon the public’s neck. Then the seeing passion left -her face and her lip curled in superb disdain. - -“And you wanted to make a _singing teacher_ out of me!” - -She swept us both with a contemptuous glance, as if we were the chief -offenders in a conspiracy for her undoing. I was used to it, but Roger, -the galled jade whose withers were yet unwrung, winced under her scorn. - -“But Miss Harris,” he protested, “we only--” - -“Oh, I’m not talking to you,” she said brutally. “You don’t know -anything about it.” - -“Certainly, if you say so,” he replied. - -There was a moment’s pause. I did not like to look at him. You can -bear being insulted if no one else sees it, but one old friend mustn’t -witness another’s humiliation, especially when that other is unable by -temperament and training to hit back. - -Lizzie, having crushed him like an annoying and persistent fly, wheeled -toward the door. - -“I must go. I can’t stay any longer.” Then in answer to a question -from me, “Oh, I don’t know where--out to breathe. I can’t stay still. I -want to walk and feel I’m free again, that I’m not cramped up in a dark -hole with no sunshine. I want to feel that I’m myself and say it over -and over.” - -She went out, seeming to draw after her all the stir and color that she -had brought in. It was as if a comet with a bright and glittering tail -had crowded itself into the room, and then, after trying to squeeze -into the contracted area, swishing and lashing about and flattening us -against the walls, had burst forth to continue on its flaming way. - -I fell back on the sofa feeling that every nerve in me had snapped and -I was filled with torn and quivering ends. Stupidly, with open mouth, I -looked at Roger, and he, also stupidly but with his mouth shut, looked -at me. I don’t know how long we looked. It probably was a few seconds -but it seemed an age--one of those artificially elongated moments -when, as some sage says, the measure of time becomes spiritual, not -mechanical. I saw Roger afar as if I was eying him through the big end -of an opera glass--a tiny familiar figure at the end of a great vista. -The space between us was filled with a whirling vortex of thoughts, -formless and immensely exciting. They surged and churned about trying -to find a definite expression, trying to force their way to my brain -and tell me thrilling and important news. Then the familiar figure -advanced, pressed them out of the way, and taking a chair by the sofa -sat down and demanded explanations. - -I couldn’t give them. I couldn’t explain Lizzie to him any more than -I could to Betty or Mrs. Ashworth. I remembered him, before he had -met her, telling me in the restaurant that I was seeing her through -my own personality, and now _he_ was doing it, and he’d never get -anywhere that way. I wanted desperately to make him understand. There -was something so pitiful in his dismay, his reiterated “But why should -she be offended with me. What have _I_ done?” And then hanging on -my words as if I was some kind of a magician who could wave a wand -and make it all clear. Nothing would have pleased me more than to be -able to advance some “first cause” from which he could have worked up -to a logical conclusion. But how could I? The lost traveler in the -Australian bush was faced by a task, simple and easy, compared to -Roger Clements’ trying to grasp the intricacies of Lizzie Harris’ -temperament. - -I was sorry for him. I was sorry (the way you’re sorry for some one -inadequately equipped to meet an unexpected crisis) to see how helpless -he was. I tried to be kind and also truthful--a difficult combination -under the circumstances--and make plain to him some of the less complex -aspects of the sphinx, only to leave him in dazed distress. - -He was alarmed at her evident intention to go back to the stage, -couldn’t believe it, wanted me to tell him why an abandoned resolution -should come back like a curse to roost. He couldn’t get away -from his original conception of her, had learned her one way and -couldn’t relearn her another. It was at once a pathetic sight and an -illuminating experience--the man of ability, the student, the scholar, -out of his depths and floundering foolishly. The mind trained to the -recognition of the obvious and established, accustomed to fit its own -standards to any and all forms of the human animal, coming up with a -dizzying impact against the mind that had no guide, no standard, no -code, but floats in the flux of its own emotions. - -I repeat I was sorry, immensely sorry. Such is the inconsistency of -human nature that I was filled up and overflowing with sympathy at the -spectacle of my own man, once my exclusive property, hurt, flouted and -outraged by the vagaries of my successful rival. - -A eight o’clock that evening I was in my sitting-room when I heard -her come in. She did not stop at my door but went up-stairs, a quick -rustling progress through the silence of the house. It was very still, -not a sound from any of the rooms, when I heard the notes of her piano, -and then her voice--“_Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix._” The register was -shut, and I stole to the door and opening it stood at the stair-head -listening. Before the aria was over I knew that what she had said was -true. Lizzie had found herself. - -After a pause she began again--_O Patria Mia_ from _Aïda_. I tiptoed -forward and let myself noiselessly down on the top step, breath held -to listen. As the song swelled, the cry of a bleeding and distracted -heart, the doors along the passages were softly opened. Up and down -the wall came the click of turned latches and stealthy footsteps. Mrs. -Bushey’s lodgers were not abroad, as I had thought. The stairs creaked -gently as they dropped upon them. When _Patria Mia_ was over we were -all there. I could see the legs of Mr. Hamilton and the count dangling -over the banisters above me. On the bottom of the flight Mr. Weatherby -sat, and Miss Bliss and Mr. Hazard leaned against the wall, looking up -with the gaslight gilding their faces. - -In the silence that fell on the last note no one spoke. There was no -rising chorus of praise as there once had been. I don’t think we were -aware of one another, each rapt in the memory of an ecstatic sadness. -The cautious foot of Mrs. Phillips stealing along the lower hall made -me look down and I saw her stationing herself beside young Hazard, and -that Dolly Bliss’ face shone with tears. - -She went on--_Vissi d’Arte, Vissi d’Amore_, Musetta’s song; the -habanera from _Carmen_, Brahm’s _Sapphische Ode_, sounding the depths -and heights. Between each piece we were dumb, only the creaking of the -banisters as Mr. Hamilton shifted, or the sniffing of Miss Bliss when -the song was sad, fell on our silence. We never saw her. She was at -last the diva, remote, august, a woman mysterious and unknown, singing -to us across an impassable gulf. - -As long as I live I shall never forget it--the narrow half-lit -passages, the long oval of the stair-well, on the bottom step of my -flight Mr. Weatherby’s back, broad and bent, as he rested his elbows on -his knees. Against the whitewashed wall below Mr. Hazard with his eyes -fixed in a trance of listening; Mrs. Phillips, her head pressed back -against the wall, her lids closed, and Dolly Bliss’ little face bright -with slow dropping tears. - -We were Liza Bonaventura’s first audience. - - - - -XIX - - -THE next morning, while I yet slept, she came knocking and rattling -at my door. When I let her in she upbraided me for having it locked, -unmindful of my sleepy excuses that as the street door was generally -open all night it was wisdom to keep one’s apartment firmly closed. - -She was in the blue kimono over her nightgown, and when I got back into -bed--for it was too early for breakfast--sat down on the edge of the -couch and told me that she had decided to accept Mrs. Ferguson’s offer -to send her to Europe. - -I had expected some move but hadn’t dared to hope for this. It was -impossible to hide my agitation, to wipe the expression of startled -excitement off my face. She paid no attention to me, would not have -noticed if I had fallen flat in a dead faint, so engrossed was she in -her plans. Staring out of the window with narrowed far-seeing eyes, she -developed her program, oblivious of the fact that I was not answering, -more like a person thinking aloud than one consulting another. When -she finally paused, I said hoarsely, afraid to believe it: - -“Mrs. Ferguson may have changed her mind. You wouldn’t hear of the -offer when she made it.” - -She treated the suggestion as preposterous. - -“What an idea! Who ever heard of any woman changing her mind on such a -subject.” - -“You’ve changed yours,” I answered faintly. - -“I’m different, and besides I’ve changed it for the better. She’ll be -only too glad to send me. Why think of what it means to her! She’ll -be known as the patron of one of the greatest living prima donnas. -That’s a thing that doesn’t happen to everybody. Is the morning paper -down-stairs? I want to see what steamers are leaving this week. I’ll -go as soon as I can get off. Oh, I won’t meet anybody, and it doesn’t -matter if I do.” - -The door closed on her and I fell back on the pillows like a marionette -whose wire has broken. Limp as a rag I lay looking up at the ceiling, -and out of my mouth issued a sigh that was almost a groan. It was all I -had power for. The tension snapped, I suddenly felt myself invaded by a -lassitude so deep, so vast that it went to the edges of the world and -lapped over. I would like to have been removed to a far distance and -lain under a tree and watched the leaves without moving or thinking or -speaking. I would like to have stayed in bed and looked at the dusty -circle of cement flowers from which the chandelier hung, for years and -years. - -She came hastening back with the paper, tore it apart, and spreading it -on the table read the shipping advertisements. Several steamers were -due to sail within the week. She decided on the best and throwing the -paper on the floor, said briskly: - -“I’ll see her about it this morning before she goes out. There’s no -need to bother about it before breakfast. I’ll just take a cup of -coffee down here with you and then go up and dress. Let’s get it now.” - -I rose, telling her to set the table while I dressed. She put on -two cups, each trip to the table impeded by the paper, over which -she trampled with loud cracklings, then she gave it up and followed -me, talking. My toilet, performed with mutilated rites owing to its -publicity, took me from room to room, with Lizzie at my heels. When I -shut the door on my bath, she leaned against it and through the crack -gave me her opinion on the rival merits of Paris and Berlin as centers -of musical study. - -While I was making the breakfast she stood in the entrance of the -kitchenette, then, squeezing by her with the coffee pot in one hand and -a plate of toast in the other, she did not give me enough room and the -toast slid off the plate and was strewed afar. She picked up a piece -and sat down eating it, her elbows on the table, while I gathered up -the rest. Hot and disheveled I took my place opposite while she watched -me, biting delicately at her toast, benignly beautiful and fresh as a -summer’s morn. - -She was stretching her hand for her cup when a disturbing thought made -her pause. She dropped the hand and looked at me in consternation:--her -big trunk was no good, it had been broken three years ago coming from -California. - -“Oh, well”--a happy solution occurred to her and she held out her hand -for the cup--“I can borrow one of yours. That large one with the Bagdad -portière over it. I’ll return it as soon as I get there. You don’t mind -loaning it to me, do you, dearest?” - -I gave it, warmly, generously, effusively. It wasn’t like giving Mrs. -Bushey the lamp. There was no necessity for diplomatic pressure. I -would have given her my jewels, my miniatures, my last cent in the -bank, my teeth like Fantine, each and all of my treasures, to have her -go. Nobody knows how I wanted her to go. It was not that I had ceased -to love her--I will do that till I die. It was not that I had hopes -Roger would forget her--he may be as faithful as Penelope for all I -know. I was unable to stand any more. I was down, done, ended. I wanted -to creep into my little hole, curl up and lie still. I wanted to look -at the wreath of cement flowers for years. I wanted immunity from the -solving of unsolvable questions, respite from trying to straighten -out what persisted in staying tangled, freedom to regain my poise, -reinstate my conscience, patch up the broken pieces of my heart. An -immovable body had encountered an irresistible force, and though the -immovable body was still in its old place, it had been so scarred -and torn and tattered by the irresistible force that only rest would -restore it. - -That was two days ago. In the interim there has been no rest--I have -spent most of the forty-eight hours in taxicabs and at telephones--but -relief is in sight. - -Lizzie is going. - -It is all arranged. Betty has dispersed the pupils and renewed her -European offer. Between taxicabs she caught me here yesterday and told -me that few women have the privilege of being the patron of one of -the greatest living prima donnas. The privilege sat soberly upon her -and she was going to make herself worthy of it by giving one of the -greatest living prima donnas every advantage that Europe offers. - -In the afternoon Lizzie and I went down to the steamship office -and bought her ticket, and then to the banker’s to draw the first -instalment on her letter of credit. It was a royally generous letter -and I said so. Lizzie didn’t think it was too much and went over a list -of expenses to prove it. She is to go to Berlin--Vignorol wanted Paris -but as a dramatic singer she preferred Berlin. I gathered from a casual -remark that Vignorol was hurt at her desertion of him and his country. -But this didn’t trouble her. - -“Vignorol! I don’t see that it was so kind of him to want to take me -for nothing. It would have made him. He’s only known here in New York -now and as my teacher he would have been known all over the world.” - -The steamer sails the day after to-morrow and this afternoon I sent -up the trunk. I had offered to come in the evening and help her pack -and then backed out. In an offhand manner, as she was sorting piles of -sheet music, she said Roger was coming in after dinner to say good-by. -She seemed engrossed by the music, gave an absent-minded assent when I -said I couldn’t help that night. I could not tell whether she had at -last guessed and was exhibiting unusual tact or whether she was still -unconscious. I knew that every minute of the next day was filled and -it would be Roger’s only chance to see her alone. It was difficult to -imagine him proposing in a room littered with his lady’s wardrobe. But -love is said to find out a way and if a man’s in earnest he can put the -question just as well in a fourth-floor parlor full of clothes, as he -can by moonlight in a bower. - -I had been waiting for this interview, braced and steeled for the -announcement. It was the final trial and I was going to go through with -it proudly and stoically if I died the day after. I did not feel quite -as if I should die. Hope springs eternal in the human breast, that’s -why we don’t all, sometime or other, commit suicide. Hope upheld me -now: with a career beckoning she might refuse him. It was but a sickly -gleam. No woman, comprehensible to me, would ever put the greatest -career the world offers before Roger Clements. The hope lay in the fact -that Lizzie was not a comprehensible woman. - -With great inward struggle I preserved my pride and stoicism through -the rest of the afternoon. They were still with me when, in the evening -I lay down on the divan bed, whence I can hear all ascending footsteps. -The wreath of cement flowers gradually faded, and the daylight sounds -of the house were absorbed in the evening quiet. Night had possession -of the city for what seemed an endless time when I heard him going up: -from the street, past my floor, up the next flight, and the next, then -the far faint closing of Lizzie’s door. Rigid in the dark I pictured -the meeting--the room with its high blaze of gas, the open trunks and -scattered garments, and Lizzie with her smile and the enveloping beam -of her glance. - -It was profoundly still in the back room, only the tiny ticking of -my watch on the table. The old tomcat, who at this hour was wont to -lift up his voice in a nuptial hymn, had gone afield for his wooing. -The parlors and bedrooms in the extensions were quiet, their lighted -windows throwing a soft yellow light into my darkened lair. Our little -bit of the city held its breath in sympathy with me, prone with fixed -eyes, seeing those two in the parlor. - -Would he work up to it in gentle gradations, gracefully and poetically -as men did in novels, or blurt it out in one great question which (for -me at least) would have made life blossom as the wood did when Siegmund -sung? They would probably stand--people didn’t sit when such matters -were afoot--and if she said yes would he take her in his arms then and -there? Under the same roof, just two floors above me, they might be -standing now, enfolded, cheek to cheek. Pride and stoicism fell from me -and I pressed my face into the pillow and moaned like a wounded animal. - -The watch ticked on. It was evidently not going to be short and -tempestuous. Roger was an unhurried person and he would probably -proffer his suit with dignified deliberation. I was certain, if he was -successful, he’d come in and tell me on the way down. I couldn’t see -him passing my door and not remembering. The place was dark, he might -think I was asleep and go by. I got up and lit the lights, thinking as -I stretched up with the match, that they were signals telling him I was -here, waiting, ready to wish him joy. - -Then I looked at the watch--only just nine. He might be hours longer. I -could spend the time in preparation, be ready to meet him with a frank -unforced smile. - -I went to the back window and looked up at the stars for courage. -The sky was sprinkled with them--big ones and bright pin points. For -centuries they had been gazing down at the puny agonies of discarded -lovers, unmoved and cynically curious, winking at them in derision. -The thought had a tonic effect. Under its stimulus I straightened my -ancestors, askew after a morning’s dusting, and touched up the bunch of -daffodils on the table. Then the effect began to wear off. I reached -for the watch--twenty minutes past nine. - -If she had refused him it would have been done by now. Lizzie wasn’t -one to spare or mince her words. I’d better get ready for him. I -went to the mirror and saw a ghost, and the stars’ stern message was -forgotten. That I should some day be dust was not a sustaining thought -now when I was so much a suffering sentient thing, sunk down in the -midmost of the moment. I brushed some rouge on my cheeks and smiled at -the reflection to see if I could do it naturally. It was ghastly, like -the grimace of a corpse that had expired in torment. - -Then suddenly I dropped my rouge and gave a smothered cry--I heard -Lizzie calling my name. For a moment power of movement seemed stricken -from me. I had not thought that she would be the one to tell me. She -called again and I opened the door and went into the hall. Her head was -visible over the banisters. - -“Have you got the key of that trunk?” she said. “It’s packed and I want -to lock it.” - -It was a ruse to get me up there. Even Lizzie wouldn’t announce an -engagement at the top of her voice down two flights of stairs. I found -the key and mounted, holding to the hand-rail. It seemed a long climb. -When I got to the top I had no breath, though I had gone slowly, and I -trembled so that I was afraid she would notice it, and laid the key on -the table. - -The trunk was packed, its lid down, and another, open, with garments -trailing over its sides, stood in the middle of the floor. Round it -lay the unpacked remains of Lizzie’s wardrobe, in mounds, in broken -scatterings, in confused interminglings. If a cyclone had descended on -neat closets and bureau drawers, scooped out their contents, carried it -with a whirling centripetal motion into the center of the room, took a -final churning rush through it and dashed out again, the place could -not have presented a more wildly disheveled appearance. - -In an unencumbered corner, an eddy untouched by the cyclone’s wrath, -Roger stood putting on his coat. We looked across the chaos, bowed -and smiled. I knew my smile by heart. Roger’s was something new, rose -no higher than his lips, leaving his eyes somber, I might say sullen. -Lizzie, without words, had snatched up the key and knelt by the trunk. -She looked untidy, hot and rather cross. They certainly had not the -appearance of lovers. - -I fell weakly into a chair and awaited revelations. None came. Roger -buttoned his coat, Lizzie made scratching noises with the key. There -was something strained and sultry in the silence. Could she have -refused him? One of the disappointing things about people in real life -is their failure to rise to the dramatic expression fitting to great -moments. Had I been in a play I would have used words vibrating with -the thud of my own heart-beats. What I did say was: - -“Have you had a nice evening?” - -“Very,” said Roger with a dry note. - -“Have we,” murmured Lizzie, busy with the key. “I’m sure I don’t know. -I’ve not had time to say a word to Mr. Clements.” - -“I’m afraid I’ve been rather in the way,” he remarked, the dry note a -trifle more astringent. - -“Well, the truth is you have,” she answered. “Are you sure this is the -right key, Evie?” - -The gleam of hope brightened into a ray. I sat forward on the edge -of the chair looking from Lizzie’s bent back to Roger’s face, which -had reddened slightly and had a tight look about the mouth. I am, by -nature, a shy and modest person, and under normal conditions the last -thing I would do would be to force another’s confidence. But I _had_ to -know. I had to drag the truth out of them if it came with a shriek like -the roots of the fabled mandrake. - -“Haven’t you talked _at all_?” I exclaimed, with an agonized emphasis -that might have betrayed me to a child of twelve. - -They did not appear to notice it. Roger moved from his corner, picking -his way round a clump of boots that had been whirled near the sofa. - -“Talk?” said Lizzie, still engaged with the key. “How can people talk -when they’re packing to go to Europe? There! It’s in and it turns. -Thank goodness the lock’s all right.” - -She rose and surveyed the room with an intent frowning glance. - -“That,” pointing to the other trunk, “I’ll begin on now and finish -to-morrow. This,” turning to the full one, “is done. I’d better lock it -at once and get it out of the way.” - -She turned back to it and gave a series of tentative pushes at the lid -which rose rebelliously over bulging contents. - -Nothing had happened! She hadn’t let him speak--he hadn’t dared--no -opportunity had offered? What did it matter how or why? The sickening -thudding of my heart began to grow less. I leaned my elbow on my knees -and my forehead on my hands, feeling at last as if I was going to be -Early Victorian and swoon. - -Under the shadow of my fingers I could see Roger’s feet stepping -carefully among the boots. Skirting tangled heaps of millinery, they -arrived at the trunk. I dropped my hands and watched while he addressed -himself to Lizzie’s back. - -“Good night.” He stretched out his hand. “Good-by.” - -She turned, saw the hand and put hers into it; then, for the first time -smiled, but not with her habitual rich glow. - -“Good-by. I’d ask you to stay but there’s really too much to do. I’ve -got to have to-morrow free to finish up in.” - -The hands separated and dropped. His back was toward me and I was glad -of it. - -“Perhaps we’ll meet again some day.” - -“Oh, surely.” The abstraction of her look vanished, her smile flashed -out brilliant and dazzling. “But not here, not this way. You’ll see me -soon in my right place--behind the footlights.” - -He murmured a response and moved toward the door. She turned back to -the trunk, pressing on it and then drawing back and pressing again. He -passed me with a low “Good night, Evie,” and I answered in the same -tone. - -He was at the door when she ceased her efforts, and drawing herself up -with a deep breath, called peremptorily: - -“Come here, Mr. Clements.” - -He stopped, the door-knob in his hand. - -“What is it, Miss Harris?” - -She stood back from the trunk, flushed and irritated. - -“Just sit on this trunk, please. It must be locked to-night.” - -Her eye on him was as the eye of a general or a subaltern, impersonal, -commanding, imperious. - -He met it and stood immovable. In the fifteen years I have known him I -had never seen him look so angry. - -“Hurry up,” she said sharply. “I’d ask Evie but she’s not heavy enough.” - -He answered with icy politeness: - -“Miss Harris, I am very sorry, but I’ve already stayed too long. There -are other men in the house, who will surely only be too happy to sit on -your trunk whenever you choose to command them,” and he opened the door. - -“Oh, very well, if you’re going to be so disobliging,” she answered, -angry now in her turn. Then to me: “Come over here, Evie, and help. If -we both press as hard as we can I think we can do it. I don’t care to -wait till the morning. I want this locked now.” - -I rose obediently and began to steer my way through the cyclone’s -track. Roger came in, shutting the door with a bang. - -“Mrs. Drake’s in no condition to make such exertions. She’s been ill -and oughtn’t to be asked to do such things. Evie, don’t touch that -trunk.” - -“That’s perfect rubbish. I’m not asking her to _lift_ it. Come on, -Evie.” - -I stopped, looking helplessly from one to the other. They glared at -each other, his face pale, hers red. They seemed on the verge of battle -and I knew what Lizzie was like when her temper was up. - -“Oh, don’t fight about a trunk,” I implored. - -“I’ve not the slightest intention of fighting about anything,” said -Roger, looking as if, had a suitable adversary been present, he would -have felled him to the ground. “But I won’t have you making efforts -that are unnecessary and that you’re unable to make.” - -“You talk like a perfect fool,” said Lizzie, with the flashing eye of -combat I knew so well. - -He bowed. - -“I’m quite ready to admit it. But as a perfect fool I absolutely refuse -to let you make Mrs. Drake help shut that trunk.” - -“Then do it yourself.” - -As usual she had the best of it. Roger knew it and bore upon his face -the look of the bear in the pit at whom small boys hurl gibes. When she -saw the symptoms of defeat she began to melt. - -“It’ll not take five minutes--just one good pressure on this corner. -There’s a hat box that sticks up and has to be squeezed down.” - -With a white face of wrath Roger strode over the clothes and sat on -the trunk. I have never believed that he could be ridiculous, my Roger -hedged round with the dignity that is the Clements’ heritage, but he -was then, boiling with rage, perched uncomfortably on the sloping lid. -A hysterical desire to laugh seized me and I backed off to my chair, -biting my under lip, afraid to speak for fear of exploding into a -screaming giggle. - -They were unconscious of anything funny in the situation, one too -angry, the other too engrossed. With a concentrated glance she surveyed -the trunk, directing the bestowal of his weight. When she had finally -got him in the right place, she knelt, key in hand, and in answer to -a curt demand he rose and flopped furiously down. To the protesting -crunching of the hat box, the lid settled and the click of the lock -sounded. - -“Done,” she cried triumphantly, falling back in a sitting posture on -the floor. - -Roger got up. - -“Have I your permission to go?” he asked with elaborate deference. - -“You have,” said his hostess, and from the floor looked up with a -bright and beaming face from which every vestige of bad temper had -fled. “Good-by--good luck. And remember, the first performance I give -in New York I expect to see you applauding in the bald-headed row.” - -As the door shut on him my laughter came like the burst of a geyser. -Lizzie, still on the floor, looking at me with annoyed surprise, made -it worse. When she asked me in a hostile voice kindly to tell her -what the joke was, it got beyond my control and I became hysterical. -It wasn’t very bad--I always do things in a meek subdued way--but I -laughed and cried when I tried to explain and laughed again. - -When she saw there was no use ordering me not to be an idiot, she -got up, grumbling to herself and began on the second trunk. She kept -stepping round me carrying armfuls of clothes, trailing skirts over my -knees, leaning forward from a kneeling posture to jerk blouses, cloaks -and petticoats from the back of my chair. I tried to retreat into -corners, but she worked in wide comprehensive sweeps, wherever I went -coming after me to find something that was under my chair or upon which -I was sitting. Finally she used me as a sort of stand, throwing things -on me and plucking them off, muttering abstractedly as she worked. - -I was recovering and she was inspecting a skirt outheld at arm’s length -when she said musingly: - -“I hadn’t the least idea Roger Clements was so bad-tempered. He’s just -a self-sufficient cross-grained prig. Gets into a rage when I ask him -to sit on a trunk. I can’t stand that kind of man.” - -I bade her good night and went down-stairs. - -The lights were burning high. I put them out and laid down on the -bed. My laughter and tears were over. Fatigue, anger and pain were -sensations that existed somewhere outside me, in a world I had left. I -seemed to have no body, to be a spirit loosened from fleshly trammels, -floating blissfully in prismatic clouds. - -I floated in them, motionless in ecstatic relief, savoring my joy, -knowing the perfection of peace, till the windows paled with the dawn. - - - - -XX - - -I WRITE to-night in a hushed house--a house that holds the emptiness -that follows the withdrawal of a dynamic presence. - -Lizzie is gone. - -As her ship bears her away to future glory, we, the hewers of wood and -drawers of water, sit here recuperating from the labors of getting her -off. In its hour of departure the magnet gave forth the full measure of -its power and we bent our backs and lent our hands in a last energy of -service. No votaries bowed before the shrine of a deity ever celebrated -their worship with more selfless acts of devotion than Mrs. Bushey’s -lodgers in speeding Lizzie on her way. - -What did Mr. Hazard’s unfinished order matter when Lizzie, having -forgotten to order the expressman, one had to be sought up and down -the reaches of Lexington Avenue? Of what consequence to Miss Bliss -were broken sittings, on the proceeds of which she could have lived -for a week, when Lizzie’s traveling dress was found to be in rags and -had to be mended by some one who knew how? When the count rendered -his tribute in fruit and flowers, did he stop to consider that the -money was part of the fund reserved for his passage home, and now he -would have to travel second cabin? No one thought of anything but the -departing goddess. They were proud and glad to deny themselves that she -might go, grandly serene, amid clouds of ascending incense. - -As for me, after that night of respite, I became a body again, a body -whose mission was the preparing of another for the great adventure. -She drew me after her as the fisherman draws the glittering bit -of tin that revolves from the end of his line. The simile is not -entirely satisfactory because I did not glitter, but I revolved, round -and round, as the fisherman’s hand pulled or eased on the line. I -sewed, I packed, I unpacked, searching for forgotten necessities. I -was down-town, executing overlooked errands, I was up-town, cooking -hurried meals in the kitchenette. My voice in the morning called her -to breakfast, my good night was the last sound on the stairs as I left -her room, grown bare and bleak, losing its character, as one by one the -signs of her occupancy vanished. I had no time to feel, to be glad or -sorry. Even the passion to have her go was overridden by the ruling -instinct that while she was there I must serve. And though the poet -tells us there are those who can do this while standing and waiting, I -evidently was not one of them. - -As we demonstrated her power by the zeal of our devotion, her arrogant -exactions increased in a corresponding ratio. She was never more aloof, -more regally indifferent, more imperiously demanding. The call of her -destiny had come to her and she heard nothing else. - -Her stay with us had been only the bivouac of a night, and we the -passers-by she had encountered in the moment of halt. With the goal in -sight we lost what small significance we had and assumed the aspect -of strangers, by whose fire she had rested, in whose tent she had -slept. Already, before she had gone, we had faded into the limbo of the -useless and outworn. Henceforward, from our humble corner, we would -watch her mounting on others as she had mounted on us--climbing higher -and higher with never a backward glance or a wave of her hand to the -little group who strained their eyes for a sign of remembrance. - -Some day the others would find her out and be angry, cite to their -friends proofs of her ingratitude, grow bitter at the memory of their -unappreciated efforts, add her to the list of forgetful great ones who -took all and rendered nothing back. From a deeper knowledge of her I -would never know their disillusion. The thought that she felt no love -for any of us had for me no sting. I even went farther, agreed that -it was not her place to feel it. Arrived at last at the heart of her -mystery, I could keep my memory of her fair and untarnished, untouched -by efforts to fit her into a frame where she didn’t belong. - -She was not, as they would think, a heartless and cruel fellow of -ours, but the creature of another species, thinking in a different -language, seeing life from a different angle. What we were trained to -accept as right and just, she had no power to recognize. Custom and -tradition had formed a groove in which we walked unquestionably onward. -She wandered at will in a world expressly created for her, peopled by -shades who had no meaning apart from their usefulness. Environment -that had molded and put its stamp upon us made no impression upon her -invulnerable self-concentration. We held a point of view in common, -responded automatically to established ideas and inherited impulses. -She saw no claims but her own and moved upon what she wanted with the -directness of an animal. The bogies with which we were frightened into -good behavior--public opinion, social position, loss of respect--she -snapped her fingers at. Her only law was the law of her own being, her -standard, a fierce and defiant determination to be true to herself. -Restraints and reticences, subtleties of breeding, delicacies of -conduct, imposed on us by the needs of communal life, were not for -her, selected and set apart to be that lonely figure in the crowded -companionable world--the people’s servant. - -That was what I at last knew her to be--an instrument for the joy, -the recreation, the enthrallment of that great, sluggish, full-fed -Minotaur, the public. For this purpose nature had fashioned her, -eliminating every characteristic that might render her unfit, -pruning away virtues that would hamper, uprooting instincts that -would interfere. As Wordsworth saw the All-Mother saying of a worthy -specimen, “I will make a lady of my own,” so, seeing Lizzie, she had -said, “I will make an artist of my own,” and had set about doing it -with thoroughness. - -From the beautiful outer case to “the hollows where a heart should -be” she was formed to be the one thing--a cunningly framed and -articulated mechanism for our entertainment. To us--whom she so lightly -regarded--she was foreordained to carry a message of beauty, call -us from our sordid cares, and base ambitions, catch us up from the -grayness of the every day to the heights where once more we caught a -glimpse of the vision and the dream. That we should work and sacrifice -to help her to her place, she, unconscious but impelled by her destiny, -felt, and made me feel. And having gathered up our tribute she had left -us, not ungratefully, not having taken all and given nothing, but in -her own time and in her own way to pay us back a hundredfold. - -I thought it all out in the cab coming back from the steamer, and I was -content to have it so. - -I had gone down to see her off--she wanted me and no one else. We -had passed up the dock amid throngs of passengers and presently -there were stewards and cabin-boys running for her luggage, and -officers discreetly staring. When we bought the ticket I had seen on -the list the name of a countess, and I learned that she was a royal -lady traveling incognita with a maid. Everybody thought Lizzie was -the countess and I the maid. I looked the part, trotting at her -heels, carrying a large bandbox covered with pink roses that had -been overlooked in the final scramble. She had a triumphal progress, -everything made easy, boys bearing the count’s flowers going before -her up the gangway, and I following with the bandbox that nobody had -offered to take. Before I left I saw the royal lady leaning on the -railing, a pale person with the curling fringe and prominent eyes of -the typical British princess. Nobody paid any attention to her, but -when we went exploring about the decks, looks followed us and whispers -buzzed. - -As the big ship churned the water and ponderously moved off, I stood on -the pier’s edge and waved to her. I was the tiny unit in the crowd--the -nameless, humdrum, earth-bound crowd--for whom she was to weave the -spell, and create the illusion. Through a glaze of tears I watched her, -tall and splendid beside the dowdy princess--my beautiful Lizzie, a -real princess, going imperially to claim her crown. - -The windows are open and the spring night comes in, soft as a caress. -In the basement of the apartment-house some one is playing _Annie -Laurie_ on the accordion, and in the back yards the servants are -chatting in the kitchen doors. From Mr. Hazard’s room, below me, I can -hear a low murmur of voices. The others are in there talking it over, -all, I know, singing the praises of Lizzie, voicing hopes for her -success as deep and sincere as prayers. I can fancy them, reclining on -chairs and sofas, worn out by their labors and feeling blankly that -something has gone out of their lives. A wild disturbing chord in the -day’s melody is hushed, a red thread in the tapestry has been withdrawn. - -I feel it, too. - -And so the tale is ended. I don’t think I shall ever write any more. -In the autumn, when I started this manuscript, I just intended to put -down the happenings of a lonely woman’s life, to read over on evenings -when looking back was pleasanter than looking forward. Now, without -intending to, I have written a story, which is not my fault, as the -story happened to intrude itself into the lonely woman’s life, greatly -to her surprise, and a good deal to her sorrow. But this is the finish -of it. There is no more to tell. The heroine has gone, if to come back -not the same heroine. The hero--you know as much about him as I do. -And the author--well, the author is just where she was, a widow of -thirty-three, doing light housekeeping in an eighteen-foot apartment. -It can’t be much of a story because it hasn’t got anywhere; nobody has -died, nobody has married. So to myself--for I am going to put this away -in a trunk and never let a soul see it--I make my bow as an author. - -Good night, Evelyn Drake. As a sadder and wiser woman I take my leave -of you. Good-by. - - - - -EPILOGUE - - -THIS has been a day of coincidences. They began in the afternoon and -ended an hour ago. And now, past midnight, in my sitting-room looking -out on the lights of the Rond Point, like Bret Harte’s heroine, “I am -sitting alone by the fire, dressed just as I came from the dance”--only -it wasn’t a dance, it was the opera. - -But to get to the coincidences: This afternoon I was unpacking an old -trunk full of odds and ends that I brought when we came to Paris last -autumn, and at the bottom of it I found the manuscript I had written -four years ago at Mrs. Bushey’s. I laid it on the top to read over in -some idle moment when Roger wouldn’t catch me. For though we’ve been -married three years and talked over everything that ever happened to -either of us, Roger doesn’t know the whole story of that winter. - -Of course I _have_ asked him if he wasn’t really in love with Lizzie, -and he always laughs and says he wasn’t, that he was attracted by her -and interested in her as a type. I don’t contradict him--it’s best to -let men rest peacefully in their innocent self-delusions. Besides, if I -pressed the subject we might have to go on to Lizzie and Masters, and -that’s the part of the story he doesn’t know. Sometimes I’ve thought -I’d tell him and then I’ve always stopped. Why should I? It’s all come -out right. Lizzie has traveled along the line of least resistance in -one direction and reached success, and Roger has done the same thing -in another and reached me. She _must_ be happy if fulfilled ambitions -can do it, and we _are_, with each other and last year--to crown it -all--our boy. - -Well, I won’t go into that--I get too garrulous. When a woman of -thirty-six has a baby she never gets over the pride and wonder of it. - -We came over to Paris last autumn for Roger to do some reading in the -Bibliothèque Nationale, and took this charming apartment near the Rond -Point. On bright mornings I can look into the little park and see Roger -Clements IX sitting out there in his perambulator studying Parisian -life. The day suddenly strikes me as unusually fine and I go out and -sit on the bench beside him and we study Parisian life together, while -his _nou-nou_ knits on a camp-chair near by. - -Bother--I keep losing sight of the coincidences which are the only -reason I began to write this. To resume: - -During these four years we have tried to keep track of Lizzie. It was -difficult because, of course, after the first few months, she stopped -writing. If it hadn’t been for Betty we should have lost her entirely, -but Betty, being the source of supplies, did know, at least, her -whereabouts. I may add, en passant, that Mrs. Ferguson stood by her -contract to the end and now is enjoying the fruits thereof. If she -isn’t known as the patron of the greatest living prima donna, she is -known as a lady who made a career possible to one of the rising singers -of Europe. - -It was two years before Liza Bonaventura made her first hit, as -Elizabeth in _Tannhäuser_ at Dresden. Then we could follow her course -in the papers. I was as proud as if I’d done it myself when I read of -the excitement her Tosca created in Berlin. After that there was a -series of triumphs in the smaller cities of Germany. She sang Carmen at -a special performance where the royal family of something or other (I -never can remember those German names, if I did I couldn’t spell them) -were present, and the kinglet or princeling of the palace gave her a -decoration. - -After that the papers began to print stories about her, which is the -forerunner of fame. Some of them were very funny, but most of them -sounded true. I don’t think her press-agent had to do much inventing. -All sorts of distinguished and wonderful men were in love with her, but -she would have none of them. There were some anecdotes of her temper -that I am sure were genuine: how she once slapped a rival prima donna -in the face, and threw her slipper at the head of a German Serene -Highness who must have lost his serenity for the moment. - -When we came over here we had first-hand accounts of her, from -Americans who had been traveling in Germany and were bursting with -pride and enthusiasm, and foreigners, who knew more and were more -temperate, but admitted that a new star had risen on the horizon. “The -handsomest woman on the operatic stage since Malibran,” an old French -marquis, who had heard her as Tosca, told me one night at dinner. -Then some Italians who had seen her Carmen were quite thrilled--such -temperament--such passion! Only Calve in her prime had given such a -dramatic portrayal of the fiery gipsy. Opinions were divided about -her Brunhilda. A man Roger and I met at the house of a French writer, -where we sometimes go, told us that in majesty and nobility she was -incomparable, but that her voice was inadequate. Still, she was young, -hardly in her full vigor, with care and study, aided by her magnificent -physique, she might yet rise to the vocal requirements and then--he -spread out his hands and rolled up his eyes. - -To-night I have come from the opera after hearing her in _Carmen_ and -the effect is with me still--the difficulty of shaking off the illusion -and getting back into life. - -When I looked round from my seat in the orchestra and saw that house, -tier upon tier of faces, hundreds of small pale ovals in ascending -ranks, all looking the same way, all waiting to hear Lizzie, I couldn’t -believe it. The great reverberating shell of building held them like -bees in a hive, buzzing as they found places whence they could see the -queen bee. Through my own quivering expectancy I could sense theirs, -quieter but keen, and hear, thrown back from the resonant walls and -hollow dome, the sounds of fluttered programs, rustling fabrics, seats -dropping and the fluctuant hum of voices--the exhilarating stir and -bustle of a great audience gradually settling into stillness. They -couldn’t have come to see Lizzie--so many people? I was dreaming, it -was somebody else. - -The curtain lifted, the illuminated stage was set in the gloom like a -glowing picture. Figures moved across it, voices sang, and then Carmen -came with the red flower in her mouth and it _was_ Lizzie. - -She was changed, matured, grown fuller and handsomer, much -handsomer--her beauty in full flower. Her voice, too, was immensely -improved; a fine voice, full, clear and large, not, as she had once -said to me, one of the world’s great voices, but enough for her, -sufficient for what she has to do with it. It is she, her personality, -her magnetic and compelling self, that is the potent thing. - -Just as she used to seize upon and subdue us at Mrs. Bushey’s, she -seized upon and subdued those close-packed silent ranks. From the -brilliant picture, cutting the darkness in front of us, she reached -out, groped for and grasped at every consciousness, waiting to receive -its impression. The other singers lost their identity, faded into a -colorless middle distance, as we used to fade when Lizzie came among -us. She held the house, not so much charmed as subjugated, more as -the conqueror than the enchantress. As the opera progressed I, with my -intimate knowledge of her, could see her gaining force, could feel her -fierce exhilaration, as she realized her dominance was growing secure. -Her voice grew richer, her performance more boldly confident. To me -she reached her highest point in the scene over the cards, her face -stiffened to a tragic mask, the cry of “_La Mort_” imbued with horror. -I can’t get it out of my mind--the Gitana, terrible with her lust of -life, suddenly looking into the eyes of death. - -I don’t know how to write about music, but it wasn’t all music. It was -the woman, the combination of her great endowment with her power of -vitalizing an illusion, of putting blood and fire into an imaginary -creation, that made it so remarkable. Her portrayal had not the vocal -beauty or sophisticated seduction of Calve’s. It was more primitive, -farther from the city and closer to the earth. It seemed to me more -Merimée’s Carmen than Bizet’s. Of its kind, I, anyway--and Roger agreed -with me--thought it superb. - -When it ended and she came before the curtain there were bursts upon -bursts of applause and “bravas” dropping from the galleries. I dare -say I will never again see a dream so completely realized. Then the -house began to empty itself down that splendid stairway, a packed, -slow-moving, voluble crowd, praise, criticism, comment, flung back and -forth in the excited French fashion. I was silent, holding Roger’s arm. -A short fat Frenchman behind me puffed almost into my ear, “_Quelle -femme, mais, quelle femme!_” A woman in front in a Chinese opera -cloak, leaned back to say over her shoulder to a man squeezing past -Roger, “_La voix est bonne, mais n’est pas grande chose, mais c’est -une vraie artiste._” And an angular girl at my elbow, steering an old -lady through cracks in the mass, murmured ecstatically to herself, -“_Mon Dieu, quelle_ temperament!” That was the word I heard oftenest, -temperament. - -So in a solid brilliant throng we descended the stairs, all engaged -with Lizzie, discussing her, lauding her, wondering at her--Lizzie, -whom I had seen in the making, learning to be the _vraie artiste_, -wounded, desperate and despairing that this might be. - -At the stair-foot--this is the last of the coincidences--the crowd -broke into lines and clumps, scattering for the exits, and through -a break I saw a man standing by a pillar. He was looking up at the -descending people, but not as if he was interested in them, in fact -by the expression of his face I don’t think he saw them. It was John -Masters. - -If he hadn’t been so absorbed he would have seen me for I was close to -him. But his eyes, set in that fixity of inner vision, never swerved. -He looked much older, more lined, his bald spot grown all over the top -of his head. Though the glimpse I had of him was fleeting, the crowd -closing on him almost directly, it was long enough for me to see that -the change was deeper than what the years might have wrought. It was -spiritual, diminished will power, self-reliance grown weak. Shabby, -thin, discouraged, he suggested just one word--failure. - -My hand involuntarily shut on Roger’s arm and I whispered to him to -hurry. I could not bear the thought of meeting Masters--not for my sake -but for his. I couldn’t bear to look into his face and see him try to -smile. - -It is nearly one. Roger is writing in his study and Roger Clements IX -is sleeping in his crib by my bed. How strange it all is. Four years -ago not one of us, except Lizzie, the impossible and irresponsible, -had the least idea that any of us would be where we are now. It was -Lizzie, fighting out her destiny, who crowded and elbowed us all into -our proper places, Lizzie, rapt in her vision, who brought us ours. - -This is the real end of my manuscript. It _has_ got somewhere after -all. I can write “finis” with a sense of its being the fitting word. -But before I do I want to just say that I made up my mind to-night, -while we were driving home in the taxi, that I’ll never tell Roger now. - -FINIS - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - -On page 66, déracincée has been changed to déracinée. - -All other spelling, hyphenation and non-English has been retained as -typeset. - -Some illustrations in this ebook have been moved to avoid occurring in -the middle of a paragraph. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOOK OF EVELYN *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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