"Amico carissimo!It is a delight to see you! Everywhere I hear of you as an authorpregiatissimo, but you go not out into the world where thousands are dying to know you! Aboutla signora! What shall I say! It was a day to be marked with a white stone when you brought her to me. We are giving back to the world a pearl of great price. She has the voice,amico mio, and she has the natural method! But more than all else her voice issimpatica, it throbs and thrills, it enlists love and affection and the desire to listen forever. At her feet the world will kneel some day. She will be mentioned in the same breath as our greatestprime donne. In three weeks I give my concert. Every one will be there. I have given hints to many, made much mystery. She will come out in all her beauty, dressed in a very fine gown, the last on the programme, so that she will be a revelation. People will go away and clamor at her greatness. I am Richetti! I know what I speak of!"
In his enthusiasm he slapped me severely on the back, and I hurried home.
"Frances!" I exclaimed, breathlessly. "Richetti is getting crazy about you. He bubbles over with enthusiasm. Moreover, Jamieson says he is a wise old guy. Themaestrosays you must have a very fine gown to wear at the concert. Where is the gown?"
She cast her eyes down at the floor.
"I—I suppose I will manage to——"
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," I told her, severely. "It is a most important matter which we have inexcusably neglected. Come out with me at once and we will buy one."
"Oh, no, Dave, I was thinking that I have a very nice white lace gown I brought from Paris when I first came over, which could——"
"You have no business to think such things. Who is that coming up the stairs? Hello, always on hand when you are most needed, Frieda. I want you to go at once with Frances to the most expensive shop on Fifth Avenue and buy her a concert gown. Here are a hundred dollars."
"That would buy two sleeves and maybe a few flounces," said Frieda, quietly.
"Here's a hundred more which you can leave on deposit. I will see to the balance. Not a word, Frances. Remember that it must be a very fine gown. Richetti says so, I didn't suggest it to him. He knows what's needed. You can pay me back when you are making thousands. Don't argue, but go at once!"
"You're a nasty tempered old bully," Frieda informed me, her eyes twinkling behind her spectacles.
"Good!" I exclaimed. "You're always saying that I don't assert myself enough. Thank goodness, I'm getting cured of that."
So, presently, they went away and I was left alone. Some letters were on my desk. One of them was from Gordon and I seized it eagerly. It read as follows:
"Dear old boy:"As you suggested in your last letters I've had enquiries made at the war department. Paul Dupont of the 30th dragoons, a violinist by profession and a reservist called from New York, aged 31, was killed at the battle of the Marne. I thought I'd find out about his old people, if I could. Just heard they abandoned their place before it was destroyed and are living with a daughter near Suresnes. I sent them a bit of money, telling them it came from their daughter-in-law. Thought it might please Madame Dupont, but don't tell her. Am still driving one of those gasolene wheelbarrows. We're seeing some hard times. I sometimes feel awfully sorry at what happened. S. was a fine girl, and I a fool. Glad to hear that 'Land o' Love' is making a killing."Ever your old pal,"Gordon."
"Dear old boy:
"As you suggested in your last letters I've had enquiries made at the war department. Paul Dupont of the 30th dragoons, a violinist by profession and a reservist called from New York, aged 31, was killed at the battle of the Marne. I thought I'd find out about his old people, if I could. Just heard they abandoned their place before it was destroyed and are living with a daughter near Suresnes. I sent them a bit of money, telling them it came from their daughter-in-law. Thought it might please Madame Dupont, but don't tell her. Am still driving one of those gasolene wheelbarrows. We're seeing some hard times. I sometimes feel awfully sorry at what happened. S. was a fine girl, and I a fool. Glad to hear that 'Land o' Love' is making a killing.
"Ever your old pal,
"Gordon."
I was glad enough, in a melancholy way, to receive this piece of news. Frances, while never doubting that her husband was dead, has never had any positive assurance of the fact. I'll not mention it just now, for it wouldn't do to awaken her memories before the concert. Time has reconciled her a little to her loss, I think, and it would be a shame to disturb her.
Well, there can be no doubt about it. She is entirely free. It is not possible that such beauty and sweetness as hers shall nevermore know love. This concert surely means the beginning of a separation which must come sooner or later. Madame Francesca, as she will be called, can no longer keep on living in this frittering brownstone relic of better days. Her singing will probably take her away from us. There may be concerts and even operatic engagements, who knows? And I shall be left here with the old calabash and my rickety typewriter. Ye Gods! What an outlook! I wonder whether it would not be wise for me to go to Fiji or Yokohama or the Aleutian Islands? I shall get the horrors here all alone. I'm too clumsy for them ever to take me as an ambulance driver in France, but, perhaps, they would let me serve as an orderly in the hospitals. I'll have to think of it!
And so the short weeks went by and the fateful evening came. Frieda had spent the whole afternoon with Frances. The gown, it appeared, had come in plenty of time. My formal orders had, of course, been disobeyed, for women, while they often bow gracefully to a mere man's edicts, always go off and do as they jolly well please. In a sidestreet, not more than a block and a half from the Avenue, our stout friend had unearthed a purveyor of feminine adornment who, she explained to me, was a positive worker of spells when it came to dressing a woman. Also, she was moderate in her prices. The gown cost one hundred and sixty-five dollars and the amount of change Frieda cascaded in my lap made me feel as if I owned a bank. I expressed disbelief in the miraculous dressmaker and made somber prophecies as to the outcome, all of which she treated with contempt. At six o'clock they went off to her flat, where she had prepared the light refection that would insure prompt digestion and easy breathing. I was instructed to dine where I pleased.
At seven thirty-five came a knock at my door. It was Frieda.
"Dave," she said, "if you're having trouble with that white tie, we'll fix it for you in a minute. Meanwhile, you're permitted to come in the other room. She's got the dress on, I hooked it myself and did her hair."
I followed her, eagerly. Both gaslights were flaming brightly. Eulalie was circling around Frances, totally incapacitated by admiration. The back was turned to me and the arms raised as she gave some mysterious touch to the waves above her temples, but she turned at once and stood before me, happily, with arms now held down and palms turned towards me, in an attitude of graceful abandonment.
"Here's your gown, Dave," she said. "From head to foot you are responsible, slippers and all."
I refuse to go to Frieda for a description of it. I care nothing about displaying my ignorance and will say at once that I have not the slightest idea of what the materials were. All I know is that she looked like beauty and grace incarnate. The lily might be no better for the gilding, but it displayed her charm to the full. The beautiful arms were bare and the fair neck modestly displayed.
"Let me rub my eyes," I said, "it is another dream come to me."
"Elle est belle comme un amour!" clamored Eulalie.
She was indeed beautiful as a love, as the most splendid, honest, faithful love ever born in a human heart.
And then she came to me and put up her hands and seized upon my recalcitrant tie and gave it a twist and a turn, smiling at me the while.
"You look ever so well, David," she told me. "You need take so little trouble to make yourself look as young in body as you are in heart. You'll be but forty-two next birthday and yet seem to delight in pretending you're such an old fellow. Please stay young, Dave, for the sake of all who love you."
Yes, there was a bit of moisture in her eyes as she spoke. She was so near me that I was conscious of her fragrance; I felt that I was within the aura of her sweetness, and my heart was thumping. But she turned away again, after one more reassured glance at my tie. She began to draw on a long pair of white gloves, as I went back to my room for a few sprays of lily of the valley I had procured for her, which she pinned to her waist. Then she sat down in a chair that looked poorly fitted to bear so charming a burden.
"I needn't be there before nine, David," she told me, "and so there isn't the slightest hurry. Frieda is going home to put on her best and we'll stop for her in the cab."
So the painter of goddesses and nymphs waddled off, hurriedly, and clattered down the stairs. Frances leaned over Baby Paul's crib, for the longest time, after which she gave Eulalie ever so many instructions as to her charge, while I contemplated her, my nerves all aquiver with thoughts of the coming ordeal.
"You—you look ever so calm, Frances," I told her. "Does—doesn't the idea of standing up there and singing to all those people make you nervous?"
"Not a bit, Dave," she answered, gaily. "But if a little bit of stage fright should come I shall look at you and pretend to myself that I'm just singing for you, and then everything will be all right. It will seem as if we were alone here, and the others won't matter. I feel like singing this very minute and giving you a tiny concert of your own, but it might waken Baby."
She was undeniably happy. With the poor, little, husky voice she had felt a cripple, but the restored organ had changed her in everything but beauty and kindness. She was confident now; the world was opening to her again. She would be able to keep Baby Paul from all suffering such as poverty might have brought, and it gave her an outlook upon the future, wider and more secure.
"I do hope I shall succeed," she said again. "I never had dreamed that a woman could accept all that I have taken from you, Dave. If this means that I shall have gained my independence, I shall be happy indeed, but I will always remember that the time I leaned upon you was made sweet and hopeful by your consideration and friendship. Come, David, it is time to go, I think. I feel that when I return, this evening, I may be able to express a little of what I owe you, and, then, thank God on my bended knees."
"I shall be so proud to watch the dawning of your success and happiness," I told her, with a catch in my throat.
"Yes, success would be splendid, Dave, but the happiness has been coming a long time. You brought me some of it in your pockets all last summer and gave it to me every week. Oh! Dave! God bless you!"
She put out her hand to me and looked deeply in my eyes. Her heart was very full, I know, but I felt that it was the gratitude a woman could give to a beloved brother.
And so we went away, with a last kiss blown at Baby Paul and a thousand good wishes from Eulalie. The taxi I had ordered was at the door and drove first to Dr. Porter's, and then to Frieda's, who was waiting for us, a very shapeless bundle done up in an ample and all-concealing cloak. I was thankful that her head was bare, having dreaded some abomination in the way of a hat.
"Oof!" she exclaimed. "My gown's horribly tight. Had to have the janitress come up to hook it in the back and I hope nothing gives way. We're an awfully swell lot this evening. First thing you know they'll be talking about us in the papers, under the heading of Society News."
She maintained an endless chatter, in which I discovered much method. It was evidently her purpose to keep Frances from getting nervous. Finally, we reached the concert hall, in which people were still crowding. Richetti's circle of acquaintances is a vast and distinguished one and his concerts, few and far between, are events in the musical world.
Frances and Frieda stood on the sidewalk, while I was paying the driver.
"We are going in by another entrance, David," she told me. "You go and find your seats and possess your souls in patience. You will hear some excellent music. When I come on, don't make too much noise because it might distract my attention."
I gave her my hand, which she pressed in a strong and nervous clasp that lasted for a fraction of a second, and then the two disappeared among the many people surging towards the doors.
For some minutes Porter and I stood at the back of the hall, as did many others, in order not to interrupt a duet between basso and soprano, most creditable to two young people, who retired with many bows and much approval from the audience. The young lady was quite collected and smiling, but the heavy-chested youth was blushing and evidently glad to have passed through the ordeal. Women, I think, average greater courage than men. In the interval before the next number we sought our places and I had but slipped my hat in the grooves beneath my seat when my nearest neighbor, a very charming young person, addressed me at once, and I recognized in her the little lady who had called me an old fogy at the Van Rossums.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Lambley," she said, and turned to a short and wide-shouldered youth who appeared to have taken the place of the six-footer. "Freddy dear, I want to introduce Professor Lambley, who has written a great essay on Dionysius the Areopagite."
The young man pushed an able hand towards me and grasped mine.
"How jolly!" he exclaimed. "Something to do with aviation, isn't it? I'm expecting to take it up soon."
"How silly you are, Freddy," the young woman reproved him, "it's an awfully scientific thing."
"Oh! Well, then, that lets me out," acknowledged Freddy, conscientiously, "but I think a lot of the fellows who work out those affairs. Knew a chap who was drowned at Montauk last summer, who was keen on bees and bugs. Queer Johnnie!"
Our scientific and literary symposium ceased abruptly. The accompanist came in and sat at the piano, being immediately followed by a young lady I remembered seeing in Richetti's rooms. My little neighbor applauded, frantically, as did most of the audience.
"Her father's worth two millions," she informed me, "and she thinks her voice is the biggest ever. Her hair doesn't naturally wave that way and she's got too much rouge on. Richetti didn't want her to go on yet, but she made her father insist."
My own knowledge of the divine art of singing, as I have confessed a thousand times, amounts to little or nothing, but I found something pleasurable in listening to the plutocratic contralto. She was by no means embarrassed and began the "Angelic Voice" fromGiocondain a most business-like fashion, finishing amid a salvo of applause.
"There! I've gone and split my glove," said the young lady beside me, "but I just had to do it. I'm going to their house-party next week and the place is perfectly gorgeous."
Next, as an encore, came "He shall feed His flocks" from theMessiah, which received similar encomiums and the singer retired, smothered in flowers and followed by uproarious approval.
"Funny she should have selected that," came the voice near me, "seeing that her father made all his money in wool."
In rapid succession came several other singers, all of whom appeared to impress the audience favorably. My heart was beginning to thump again in my breast, for the moment was approaching and I suffered from a vicarious stage-fright that could have been no greater had I myself been sentenced to appear upon the stage. It may be that the hall was overheated; at any rate I had to pass my handkerchief a number of times over my forehead, and my high collar began to choke me. I was grasping Porter's arm, convulsively, when, all of a sudden, before I could realize that the moment had come, she stood before the footlights, bowing before the moderate clapping of hands, and Richetti himself sat at the piano.
"Great Scott!" said the wide-shouldered young man, "ain't she a stunner!"
His companion replied something, but I did not listen. Richetti was playing a few preliminary bars of the melody. I saw her eyes moving confidently over the orchestra seats and thought she recognized us with a nearly imperceptible accentuation of her smile. She was holding the sheets of music before her, but in them I could not detect the slightest trace of tremor. Then, her gaze was uplifted a little and the song began, while all sense of fear left me and I breathed easily, leaning forward eagerly while each note entered my soul. It was Mendelssohn's "On Wings of Song." It seemed to me that the silence urbanely granted to the other singers became more profound. The audience was surely holding its breath. Not a stir of programmes sounded. Faces were no longer expressing tolerant civility, for they had become intent and fervent. Something like the awed respect of a great churchly crowd filled the hall and was maintained till the very last note, after which came a very storm of applause, delirious, impulsive, unrestrained for the longest time, while she bowed again and again, and Richetti stood up beside her for his share of the triumph.
And after this she gave us "Chantez, Riez" of Gounod, and the gorgeous swing of it was uplifting, and the wonderful tone lent it greatness and the lilt of it a true significance of the joy of living. As a further encore she sang Rossini's "Stabat Mater." Her voice broke into the passion of grief of the mother bereft, in the grandeur of the hope eternal, and the people were hushed, breathless, conquered.
At last she was allowed to leave the stage, with Richetti's hand held in her own. The man was beaming, delighted.
"Come with me," I cried to Porter. "We are to be allowed back of the stage. She's expecting us. Did you see Richetti's look of pride? You're far more responsible for this result than he, bless your heart! Come along."
And so we made our way to a large room at the back of the hall. It was much crowded with women in gorgeous dresses and men among whom I recognized Bartolo Cenci of the Metropolitan and Colonel Duff, the great impresario of con-certs and lecture tours, and the shrewd features of FitzMaurice the musical critic of theBanner, small, hawk-eyed and of bustling manner.
In a corner, with Frieda at her side, stood Frances, with a little court surrounding her. Richetti, a few paces away, was talking volubly with men, who were probably of the Press. We went to the new diva, who did not await our coming, but stepped towards us, with both hands extended.
"I'll tell you later all that I feel, Dave," she half whispered to me. "Oh! Dr. Porter, dear friend, I am so glad that you have been able to see the results of your work. Come with me!"
She took him by the arm and led him to Richetti.
"Professor, I want to present Dr. Porter. I could not sing a note, and he worked marvels upon me; gave me a new throat, I think, and a better one than ever."
Upon this, themaestronearly fell on Porter's neck and wept, calling him a savior and a performer of miracles, after which he insisted on introducing him to a number of the eager gatherers of information and to Bartolo Cenci, who wrote down his address on his cuff. Our good little Porter was nearly overwhelmed.
Finally a number of us were haled off to Richetti's rooms where a great table was set with flasks ofChiantiand a huge Milaneserisotto, and it was nearly two o'clock before we packed ourselves in a taxi, feeling as if such a superfluous thing as sleep could be put off till the Greek Kalends.
Frieda refused to be dropped off at her flat. Porter was also compelled to come to the top of the little brownstone house. We did our best to be quiet in going up, and I hope we awoke no honest sleepers. They crowded into my room, Frances leaving us to see that Baby Paul was thriving. She returned on tiptoe.
"Eulalie is snoring on the sofa," she announced, "and Baby is sleeping like an angel."
So we remained there for an hour, at least, and Frieda told us how Colonel Duff had rushed up to ask about Frances's plans for the rest of the winter, and Cenci had inquired, most pointedly, whether she already had an engagement for next season and what operas she had studied, to which she had replied that her arrangements were in Richetti's hands, whereupon they had assaulted themaestroand nearly torn him limb from limb in their eagerness to engage her.
"The proudest man in the world, some day," said Frieda, "will be Baby Paul. He will be going about boasting that Madame Francesca is his mother, and people will love him for her sake."
Then Frances clasped as much of Frieda's form as she could possibly hold in her arms, and kissed her, telling her that she was saying a lot of nonsense, and finally our stout friend went away under Porter's guidance, who had promised to see her home, and Frances and I were left alone on the landing.
Here, a little yellow gas-jet was flickering, very small and poor, and the balustrade upon which I leaned gave a crackling groan. We heard the closing of the front door and turned to one another. Again her hand was put forth and I took it and raised it to my lips. When I lifted my head I dimly saw a tear shining upon her cheek.
"Dear friend," she said, "I owe it all to you."
With this she clasped my shoulders in both hands and, for an instant, her lips touched the side of my face.
A second later she had closed her door behind her, and I feverishly changed my coat. Then, I put on my heavy ulster and made my way to the old square, where I sat down in the frosty air. That touch upon my cheek had left my temples throbbing, my heart on fire. The whole world seemed confused, the shining stars were dancing overhead, the noises of the sleeping city buzzed in my head, maddeningly.
Finally, I began to feel the cold, and the earth grew stiller and more peaceful. An instant later a great milk-dray rattled across the square, going up Fifth Avenue, the usual alarm warning me of bedtime. So I went home, collected again and tranquil. She had given me a tiny fragment of herself, a reward perhaps too great for the little I had been able to do for her. Peace had returned to me and I fell asleep.
And then, after a very short time, the parting came. I was the first to advise it. She could no longer remain in the little, decrepit boarding house. People would come to see her; she had to have a decent home, a place in which she could receive some of the members of this new world she had taken by storm. We had looked together over the accounts in the papers; it was nothing less than a triumph. Richetti was making all sorts of arrangements for her.
After a long dispute she consented to take my piano with her.
"I'm afraid she won't do it," Frieda had told me, when I broached the subject to her.
"I—I should be so glad to think it had belonged to—to the only two women I have—have ever——"
"Poor darling David," said the sweet old painter, wiping her glasses, "Why—why don't you speak?"
"Because—just because," I answered.
"I know, she is moving into another world now. I am glad she is taking Eulalie with her. But she can never forget you, Dave. You will always be the best and dearest of friends to her. You must go and see her often."
"I'm afraid it will never be quite the same, Frieda. She will have a little parlor now, and it won't be like the room she trusted me to enter, the place where Baby Paul first saw the light, the dingy quarters in which her new voice was born. Oh! Frieda! Have we ever fully realized how patient she was, how resigned? We surely never did because we could not know how great her loss had been. We merely had an idea that she had been deprived of a few golden notes, and all the time she knew that she had lost a treasure beyond compare. And yet how brave she was through it all! With what courage she went to work in that poor little shop to gain the pittance that might keep her and Baby Paul farther from want! We have never once heard her whimper, nor has she ever seemed really discouraged. Sometimes she showed great sadness, of course, but it was born of her misfortune and of her fears for the little one, because of the love for him that surged in her heart. God! Frieda, but you women are brave and strong!"
"Yes, David dear, especially when we find a good man to lean upon," she answered.
And so, as I have said, Frances went away to a very decent little apartment Frieda found for her, and Eulalie was installed in a kitchen of her own, and the latchstring was always out for us. I enjoyed some pleasant days of tacking a few photos on the walls and hanging portières. Some of the time I had to work alone, for she was much taken up. Three weeks after the concert she went away on a tour, having joined forces with Tsheretshewski, the great cellist, an obese and long haired artist with a wife and seven children, who became a thing of poetry and beauty when he played. I heard them in Carnegie Hall, and then they went off on a tour that took them as far as Chicago and St. Louis, and my agency for newspaper cuttings kept on sending me articles by real or alleged critics. Eulalie traveled with her, and the baby also went from town to town. Frances sent me many postals and, often, letters. The latter always began with "Dearest Dave."
Then came the spring again and a meeting that was positively dreadful, during which Frances pulled out little rags of paper full of her scribbling and covered over with numbers which represented her indebtedness to me. We fought like cats and dogs over the items, till, finally, she proudly pulled out a checkbook from a little desk and wrote out the amount, signing the thing boldly and declaring that she would never speak to me again unless I took it.
"You see, David dear," she explained, "everything is all right now and I am making lots of money, and you can't refuse, because you know I only accepted in the hope that I would be able to pay it all back some day, and it will leave me a debtor to you for a million things, and Baby Paul too!"
During the summer she went to Newport, where Richetti gave another concert and where he made her a flattering offer to help in his teaching of the infinitely rich and sometimes voiceless. Thank goodness that a press of work came to me, for Ceballo, the great manager, actually sought me out and insisted on collaborating with me in a dramatization of "Land o' Love," which had passed its second hundred thousand. He nearly drove me to insanity, while we toiled at it, and I would have cried mercy before the end, but for the furious energy with which he kept me a prisoner of his wiles.
Then I spent a few weeks in the Adirondacks, having found a small hotel where people never put on war-paint for dinner and no one was ashamed to wear flannel shirts, and I rowed and pretended to fish and lost myself in the woods to my heart's content, finally returning to my old typewriter with a mass of notes for a further novel. I took up once more my lonely vigils, when I could, because I began to feel the grasp of many cogwheels that were the penalty of success. Some magazines actually requested stories of me.
About the first of October I received a cablegram from Gordon, which appalled me with its suddenness.
"Home byRochambeau. Get old girl to clean up. Can't drive ambulance any more."Gordon."
"Home byRochambeau. Get old girl to clean up. Can't drive ambulance any more.
"Gordon."
It was simply maddening. Why couldn't he drive? Of course he had been hurt. Why didn't he tell me what was the matter? Poor old chap, in spite of some of his ways there is no man on earth I have ever been so fond of, because, at bottom, there is something very manly and genuine in him. When things got too hot for him he didn't go off somewhere and mope; no, he naturally went and gave the best that was in him to a service of noble charity and virile endeavor.
I ascertained over the phone the date of theRochambeau'sprobable arrival and walked up the Avenue to a meeting with Ceballo, who was worrying me to death over the ending of the fourth act. He's a most obstinate man. At a busy corner I stopped to allow the passage of a flood of autos. The crowd behind me pressed me forward, nearly against a powerful gray roadster.
"Jump in quick, Mr. Cole," came a woman's voice.
I looked up. It was Miss Sophia Van Rossum who had spoken. The chauffeur was in a little seat behind her and I swiftly obeyed, glad indeed to see her again.
"Are you in a hurry to go anywhere, Mr. Cole, because I'll be glad to take you wherever you want to go?"
"No," I replied, "I was killing time for about an hour. After that I have an appointment."
"Then we can take a little turn in the Park," she said, approvingly.
The carriages and motors were so numerous that for some time we said very little. I watched her self-reliant, skilful driving, and took an occasional glance at her profile. It was beautiful as ever, perhaps more so than ever, colored with health and a fair coat of tan. Once in the Park, however, we found more room and she drove with less preoccupation.
"I—I've heard from you but twice this summer, Mr. Cole. Thank you for letting me know that Gordon was still well. Have you any further news of him?"
"Yes, I have just heard," I replied. "He is on his way back and I wrote you this morning at Southampton."
I watched her closely. For a moment she drove on, looking neither to the right or left, but I saw that her lower lip was being pressed on by her teeth.
"He—he never let me know," she finally said. "I—I hope he will return well and happy."
"Pardon me. I am afraid that something has happened to him," I said, again. "Gordon is the sort of fellow who would see the thing through. He would go on to the end, you know, and—and he didn't write, this time. I have the cable here. You might stop a moment under these trees."
She brought the machine to a standstill, gently, with no undue pressure of brake, losing none of her expertness, and put her hand out for the paper I held.
"I see," she said, very simply and quietly, though the paper shook a little in her grasp. "He has been very badly hurt, Mr. Cole. Otherwise he would have remained, until he was well again, to take up the work once more. I—I would give anything on earth to meet that steamer!"
"The easiest thing in the world, Miss Van Rossum."
"No, the hardest, the most impossible," she retorted, quickly. "He—he might not be glad to see me, else he would have cabled me also, I think. You will be there, of course! Be very sure you meet him, Mr. Cole, and then, please—please let me know what has happened, and find out for me whether there is anything I can do. You promise, don't you?"
I put out my hand and she crushed it, nervously, with wonderful strength, and let it go at once.
"We will go on now, I think," she said, and pressed the selfstarter. Soon we were in the main driveway again, among a flooding and ebbing tide of carriages and motors. Some women bowed to her and she returned the salutations with a graceful move of her head. She drove as easily as usual, and the turn was completed. Finally, she dropped me off at the club and went on, after brief but very genuine thanks.
"Good Lord! David," said Ceballo, a moment later. "Just caught sight of you with Diana at the wheel. Splendid young lady, isn't she? I know her father quite well."
"Yes," I answered, "she is a very fine young woman."
"Doesn't much care for literature, does she?"
"I don't know, but she has a heart of gold, and that's what counts."
So we retired to a small private table and disputed and argued for a couple of hours, at the end of which my brains were addled and I told him to do as he pleased, whereat he beamed and I parted from him.
Then I began counting the days till theRochambeaushould arrive, and Frances came back to town and sent me word at once. She received me joyfully and told me how much good the sea-air on the Newport cliffs had done Baby Paul, who was beginning to talk like a little man and to say "God bless David" in the prayer he babbled after her each evening.
"I'm only back for a short time," she said, "because I'm to sing at a concert in Boston next week, and then we are going to Buffalo for a day, after which I shall return. And what do you think, David? I am to sign an engagement for the Metropolitan! Tsheretshewski is going abroad this winter to play in Spain and England, and so I shall be, for the whole winter, here in New York, and—and I hope you won't neglect me."
I assured her that I would call every day, and left her, after I had inspected Baby Paul, who deigned to let me kiss him and favored my moustache with a powerful tug. He is a stunning infant. She was standing at the outer door of her apartment, her dear sweet smile speaking of her friendship and regard. The temptation came on me again, the awful longing for a touch of those lips, but I held myself within bounds, as bravely as I could, and touched the elevator signal. She waited until the cage had shot up and waved her hand at me. Her "Good-by, Dave" held all the charm of her song and the tenderness of her heart, I thought, and I answered it with a catch in my throat.
"You will never be anything but a big over-grown kid, David," Frieda had told me, a few days before. Ay! I realized it! I would never cease crying for that radiant moon. Sometimes, in silly dreams, I have seen myself standing before her, with her two hands in mine, with her lips near, with her heart ready to come into my keeping. But, when I waken, I remember the words she said last year, when Gordon made her so unhappy. How could love be left in her heart? she had asked. Was there ever a night when she didn't kneel and pray for the poor soul of the man buried somewhere in France, in those dreadful fields, with, perhaps, never a cross over him nor a flower to bear to him a little of the love she had given? Let well enough alone, David, my boy! You can have her song whenever you care to beg for it, and her friendship and her smiles. Would you forfeit these things because you must come forth and beg for more, ay, for more than she can give you? Would you force her dear eyes to shed tears of sorrow for you, and hear her soft voice breaking with the pain it would give her to refuse?
A few days later she met me at her door, excitedly, and told me that Baby Paul had a slight cold and that Dr. Porter had advised her not to take him away with her.
"And, Dave, I just have to go! It would be too hard on some of the others, if I broke faith and didn't appear. I must leave to-night, and it just breaks my heart to be compelled to start when my Baby Paul isn't well. Dr. Porter has promised to call every day and see him during my absence. Dave dear, you are ever so fond of Baby too. Won't you come in every day, and you must telegraph, if you don't find him getting along as well as he should, or use the long distance telephone."
She was much agitated, and I saw how hard it was on her to leave the dear little man behind. But Frances is the sort of woman who keeps her promises. She has given her word and will go!
So we dined together, that evening, with Frieda, and we saw Frances away to the train and put her on board the sleeper and returned home, and Frieda spoke a great deal and told me about the sale of her latest picture and all that she expected from the one she was going to exhibit at the winter Salon. It was only after I had left her that I realized the dear soul had been trying to divert my thoughts.
In the morning came the telegram from the marine department of the cable company. TheRochambeauwould dock at eleven. I was at the waterside an hour earlier, devoured with impatience and anxiety, thinking of a thousand alarming possibilities. Finally, the big ship appeared, far down the stream, and slowly came up. I scanned the decks as soon as people could be distinguished, but could see no sign of my friend.
At last, the steamer was warped into the dock after three puffing tugs had pushed and shoved her for the longest time, and the passengers began to come off, and still he did not show up and the gang plank was nearly bare of people. I seized upon a steward bearing ashore a load of suitcases and bags and asked him whether there was not a Mr. McGrath on board.
"Certainement, Monsieur, there he is coming now," replied the man, hurrying away.
I might not have recognized him, so pale and thin did he look, but it was Gordon all right, at the head of the trussed gangway, and he waved a hand at me. A man preceded him, carrying some baggage.
"Hello, Gordon!" I shouted joyfully, in spite of the shock his sharp, worn features had given me.
"Hello, Dave!" he cried back.
A moment later he was down on the dock, stepping lightly, and I pushed my hand out towards him, eager for the strong grasp of former days.
"You'll have to take the left, old boy. The right one's behind, somewhere in Belgium. Wait a moment and I'll give you my keys, Dave. I have to keep everything in my lefthand pockets, so they're crowded. Yes, I have them. I suppose that my trunk is already ashore. Do try and get a customs' officer for me and hurry the thing through."
He was talking as calmly and coolly as if he had been gone but a few days and had suffered only from a cut finger. We were fortunate in being able to get through the formalities very soon, and, shortly after, we drove away in a taxi.
"Well, Dave, how've you been and how's everybody?" he asked, after lighting a cigarette from mine.
"Every one is all right," I answered impatiently. "Oh! Gordon, old man! How did it ever happen?"
"Just a piece of shell while I was picking some fellows up," he answered. "You have no idea of how surprising it is when you suddenly realize that something's missing. But what's a hand more or less after all that I've seen? How's Frieda?"
"Stouter than ever," I replied, "and her appetite's improving. Porter recommended a diet, but she won't follow it. Says her fat doesn't interfere with her sitting at the easel."
"Good old Frieda! I've heard about your book, Dave, it made a big stir, didn't it? And so—so Madame Dupont has become a great singer again; heard all about it from a fellow on board and, of course, your letters spoke of it; but you're such a crazy old duffer I supposed you were getting carried away with your enthusiasm. Never could take things quietly, could you? Any other news?"
"Nothing very special," I told him. "The Van Rossums came to town early, this year. I—I've seen Miss Sophia."
"Have you? Give me another cigarette. Yes, light a match for me. I'm clumsy as the devil with that left hand!"
He sat back, puffing at the thing and looking out of the window.
"Peanuts," he said. "Haven't seen a peanut cart for over a year. Colored women, too. Plenty of fighting niggers in France, but no darky ladies. Look at the big cop! Policemen are the only leisure class in this country, aren't they? Lord! What a big, ghastly brick monstrosity that is! We can lick the world when it comes to fetid commercial architecture, can't we? Are you going all the way up to the studio with me?"
"Of course I am," I asserted indignantly. "What did you suppose I'd do?"
"Thought you might laugh at the uselessness of a studio in my present condition," he replied negligently. "I've told you I'm clumsy as the deuce with that left hand. Tried to draw a face with it the other day, in pencil. Looked like a small boy's effort on a fence. So, of course, I'm through with painting. I've been rather saving, you know. Invested my money quite safely and haven't spent much on this jaunt. Of course a few thousands went where I thought they'd do most good. A fellow who'd keep his hands in his pockets when help is so badly needed would be a queer animal. But I've enough to live on and smoke decent tobacco. I think I'll take a small bachelor apartment in New York, to come to when I get the horrors. I'll spend the rest of the time in the country, a good way off. I'll read books, yes, even yours, and, perhaps, learn to sit around with a crowd, near a grocery stove, and discuss potatoes and truck. Hang it all! There's always something a fellow can do!"
"My dear Gordon," I began, "I don't see——"
"Oh, shut up, Dave, I know all the things one can say to a cripple. What's the use? Some fellows on board asked me to dine with them this evening at Delmonico's, and I damned them up and down. Sat for eight mortal days at the dining-table on the ship, with an infernal female on each side of me; they'd quarrel as to which of them would cut my meat for me. It's enough for a fellow to go dotty. Sometimes I wouldn't go and had things served in my cabin so the steward would do the cutting. Understand, I'm not kicking. Hang it all, man, I'm not even sorry I went! The chaps I helped out were probably worth it. Great old experience trying to make fifty miles an hour with a fellow inside bleeding to death, I can tell you. I've seen enough of it to have learned that a man's life doesn't amount to much. Any old thing will do for me now."
I was appalled. All this had but one meaning. He was eating his heart out, try as he might to conceal it. To him, his art had been chiefly a means to an end; he had made it the servant of his desires. And now it was getting back at him, it was revenging itself, appearing infinitely desirable for its own sake. He would miss it as a man misses the dead woman, who has held his heart in the hollow of her hand; he was raging at the helplessness that had come upon him. And all this he translated into his usual cynicism. I would have given anything to have seen him break down and weep, so that I might have put my arm around his shoulders and sought to comfort him with love and affection.
We got out at the big building, and he nodded to the colored boy who stood at the door of the elevator, as if he had been gone but a day. On the landing he sought again to pull out his keys, but I touched the electric button and the old woman's steps hurried to the door.
"How are you?" he said, and brushed past her, paying no heed to her salutations. "Glad everything's open. I was afraid it would be all closed up like a beastly morgue. Hello!"
He stopped before the easel. Upon it I had placed a rough study he had made for Miss Van Rossum's picture. It was a thing of a few effective and masterly strokes.
"Good Lord, Dave, but I was a painter for fair, once upon a time! How did I ever do it?"
He sat there, very still, for a long time, while I watched him. I think he had forgotten all about me, for, after a time, he rose and pulled out of a closet some unframed canvasses, which he scattered against the legs of furniture and contemplated.
"Think I'll make a bonfire of them," he suddenly said. "Won't be such an idiot as to keep on staring at those things and looking at my stump, I'll warrant," and he pushed the handless wrist towards me, tied up in a bit of black silk.
Then the telephone rang.
"Wonder who's the infernal idiot calling up now?" he said. "Go and answer, Dave. No, I'll go myself and tell him to go to the devil!"
Then came one of those fragmentary conversations. I could not help hearing it, of course. It surprised me that he spoke quietly, with a civility of tone and accent I had not expected.
"Yes, came back a few minutes ago——No, Dave ran up here with me, Dave Cole, you know——Oh! Nothing much——Well, I've lost my hand, the one I painted with——Yes, I shall be glad to have you do so——Right away? Yes, if you want to, I mean if you will be so kind. Thank you ever so much!"
He hung up the receiver and turned to me, his eyes looking rather haggard.
"It's—it's Sophia Van Rossum. How did she know I was coming?"
"I let her know, of course," I answered rather shortly.
"You think I've treated her pretty badly, don't you?"
"Rottenly, Gordon!"
"I daresay I did. It was a sort of madness that came over me, but—but there's no excuse. She'll be here in a few minutes. I don't know what I can say to her. Stay here, Dave, and help me out. I used to tell you that she was just a society doll, and that sort of thing. Well, she's pretty strong on society, but she was brought up in it, belonged to it. But she's a great deal more of a woman than I gave her credit for being; I've realized it a thousand times since I've been gone. I call it mighty decent of her to ring me up and offer to come around and see me, after the way I've behaved to her."
"So do I, Gordon," I approved. "She's got a great big heart, the sort it's a sorry thing for a man to play with."
He made no answer, looking out from his window into the Park and its yellowing foliage. Then he lifted his maimed arm and stared at it.
We sat there for some long minutes, in silence. Gordon was thinking deeply. His expression, the abandonment shown in the looseness of his limbs and the falling forward of his head, were instinct with something that represented to me a forgetting of pose and calculated conduct.
"I've seen so much suffering," he suddenly said. "That sort of thing either hardens a man into stone or softens his heart till he can cry out in hatred of the idea of inflicting pain that can be spared."
I made no answer. It was best to chance no interruption of his mood. My thoughts were of the meeting that would take place in a few minutes. Indeed, I felt that I ought not to be there, that my presence might hinder some cry of the heart, words a woman's soul might dictate. But I was compelled to remain, since Gordon wished me to. He was now like a child needing the comfort of a friendly hand before entering a place of darkness. But I would seize the first opportunity of leaving them alone. At any rate, I could cross the long studio and go into the next room, if needed.
Then the bell rang. I think it startled Gordon. The old woman went to the door, and we heard the girl asking for Mr. McGrath, in her pleasant and assured voice. I rose to meet her, lifting one of the portières to one side.
She looked at me, slightly surprised, but put out her hand, smiling rather vaguely, her eyes belying the calmness of her voice, her movements showing slight nervousness. Gordon was standing. I expected him to come forward, but he remained where he was, rather helplessly, and she stepped forward toward him, swiftly.
"Hello, Gordon!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad to see you again. What a bad boy you've been not to write to me! That—that only letter of yours implied that you gave me back my freedom, and so I suppose I am at liberty to consider myself as a little sister—or a pretty big one, and greet you as one."
With a swift motion of her hand she pushed up the tiny transparent veil she wore, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him, quickly, as if he really had been a brother she was delighted to see again. Then she sat down on the stool he had used to put his palette and tubes on and turned to me.
"It isn't very conventional, Mr. Cole," she said, with a little laugh that sounded forced. "Gordon and I have already kissed one another a few times. Once more will make no difference. I have done nothing to prevent him from at least continuing to consider me as a good friend, perhaps as the sister I've been playing at. Of course we'll have to give it up, now, because—because people can't keep on playing all the time and—and others wouldn't understand. I don't mind you, because you wrote that wonderful book and—and you seem to know so many things."
Then she turned to him again.
"Now tell me about yourself, Gordon," she said pleasantly, folding her hands upon her lap.
He had remained standing. An instinct of shyness, something like the humiliation of the man imperfectly clad or conscious of an ugly blemish, made him keep his right arm behind him.
"There—there's not much to tell," he began, rather haltingly, though he soon regained control. "I've come back because I could no longer be any good over there and—and because I became hungry for a sight of old things—and of old friends, I suppose. You—you're awfully kind, you—you've always been a splendid woman—a proud one, too, but now you come here and put out your hand in friendship to—to a fellow who has behaved rottenly to you. No, don't say anything! Dave used that word. He sometimes speaks to the point. I'll tell you everything. It will hurt you, I'm afraid, as it hurts me, but I've got to do it and I will beg your pardon afterwards. It was all a plan on my part, at first. You were a wonderful, gorgeous creature, one to whom any man would be attracted, and I thought you would make a grand wife and a great stepping-stone to the ambitions that filled my stupid head. And then, somehow, these all went by the board, and a passion came to me—yes, a passion like the week's or the month's insanity that comes to some, for another woman. She is a good woman and a very beautiful one also, the sort of woman who, like yourself, deserves the best and noblest in the man whose love she may return. And she refused me, quickly, sharply, with just a word or two. I think she also thought I was insane; I remember that she looked frightened. And then I wrote to you, a beastly letter. I tore up a score of them and sent the worst, I'm afraid. Then I took the steamer and went off to drive up and down those roads. It—it has, perhaps, been good for me, for I've seen how little a man himself amounts to, and how great and noble his heart and soul may be. And that passion passed away, so that I no longer thought of her, but always I grew hot and angry at myself, when I remembered you. I've seen you before me a good many times, yes, even in that hospital they took me to, a few weeks ago, during the nights when I couldn't sleep. It was a great vision of a fine woman, big-hearted and strong, too good for such a cad as I. No, don't interrupt! I felt that it was fortunate for you, the best thing that ever happened, that I had shown myself to you under my true colors and saved you—saved you from marrying me. That madness has gone long ago, and there's no trace of it left in me, I swear, but I'm the same impossible Gordon, I daresay, except for that missing hand."
He slowly brought the maimed limb forward, but she never looked at it. Her eyes were upon his, very shiny with unshed tears.
"Yes, the same old Gordon, with perhaps a little of his silly pose gone, with a realization of his uselessness and worthlessness. And now I humbly beg your pardon, Sophia—I mean Miss Van Rossum, for I have forfeited every title to your forbearance—I no longer deserve it. And—and now I stand before you with my soul naked and ashamed, and—and Dave will see you to the door, for—for he's a good man, fit to touch any woman's hand!"
His legs seemed to weaken under him. His left hand sought the window-ledge behind him, and he sank on the seat beneath. She rose from the stool and went to him, sitting down at his side, and put her hand on his right arm.
"You have been very unhappy, Gordon," she said gently. "I am not sure that you have the right perspective as yet, and I don't see in all this anything to prevent our remaining good friends. We've had so many of the good things of life, you and I, and, perhaps, it is good for one to pay for them with a little sorrow. It may prevent one from getting too conceited. And you're so much better off than if this—this hurt had come just in wrecking a motor, or in being stepped on by a polo pony, because you will always realize that it happened while you were giving the best of yourself towards helping others, towards doing big things. And perhaps, some day, you might be able to paint again. They—they make such wonderful artificial things, I have heard, with aluminum and—and stuff that's ever so light. It might take you a whole year of practice before you could do anything; but what is a year when one's heart isn't too sad and weary. Even if you can't draw as well as you used to, you could take to landscapes, done broadly and strongly. There is no one who can mass colors and produce such effects as you are able to find. When you get confidence, I know you will be able to draw also, ever so well, and, perhaps, for your first trial, you will let me come and sit here and we'll chat together as we used to, and you'll paint again."
"Never!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, yes, sometime, I'm sure, when you feel better, Gordon, because you will forgive yourself after a time. That's so much harder for a man to do than to obtain the pardon of a woman! If you really think you want mine, it is yours, with all my heart, and——"
But she stopped, looking at him wistfully, her long lashes wet, her voice faintly tremulous. I knew that she would have granted him not only the pardon he had sued for, but also her strong and noble self, if he had begged for it.
He probably forgot his missing hand, for he swept the silk-wrapped thing across his eyes.
"You must think again, Sophia," he said very slowly. "You can't really mean it. Do you indeed feel that you can forgive me? Is it true that in your heart there is such charity?"
"It—I don't think it's charity, Gordon. I—I'm afraid it's something more than that. Perhaps you don't know as much as you think about women's hearts. Ask our friend David, here, he has looked into them very wisely, or he couldn't have written 'Land o' Love.' And now I think I must be going away. You mustn't use that word charity again, it is one that hurts just the least little bit. It's so dreadfully inexpressive, you know! And—and you'll write to me when you want me, won't you?"
"I want you now!" he cried. "I'd give the last drop of my blood for a shred of hope, for the knowledge that things might again, some day——"
"One moment, Gordon dear," she said, smiling through her tears, and looked into a tiny gold-meshed bag from which she pulled out a ring with a glistening stone. "I have always kept it. Do you mean that you would like me to put it on again?"
"Do, for the love of God!" he cried.
"Yes, and of dear old Gordon," she consented gently.
So I rose, quickly, with something very big and uncomfortable in my throat, and looked at my watch.
"I must run," I said. "I am ever so late. I'll come in again to-morrow, Gordon! God bless you both!"
I only heard, confusedly, the word or two with which they sought to detain me, but I ran away.
She had said that I knew women's hearts. God forgive her! What man on earth can penetrate such things, can ever gauge the depths of them, see all the wondrous beauty that may hide in them and blossom forth, full of awe and wonder. Every one must worship something, if it be but an idea, and my reverence goes out to the woman who exalts, to the mother of men, to the consoler, for, when she is at her highest and best, she becomes an object of veneration among such earthly things as we may bend a knee to.
The man had remained strong in his abasement, and the woman had seen it. She had been unembarrassed by my presence. Hers was the strength that spurns all pettiness. She knew that I loved Gordon and was assured of my regard for herself. If in her words there had been renunciation and the casting away of wounded pride, if in them there had been the surging of the great love that had long filled her heart, the whole world was welcome to hear them and to behold her while she gave her troth again into the man's keeping. She had risen above the smallness of recrimination, and, with a gesture, had swept away the past since in it there was nothing really shameful, nothing that could soil her ermine coat of fair and clean womanhood. Her faith in the man had returned, and, with it, the confidence born of her instinctive knowledge of a pure woman's mastery over men. She knew that Gordon had beheld those visions of hell that strengthen a man's dire need of heaven, and so, in all simplicity and with the wondrous openhandedness of a Ceres sowing abroad a world's supply of germinating seed, she had cast the treasure of herself before him.
I jumped into a taxi and drove over to the little apartment where Baby Paul was to lie motherless for a few days. I rang the bell and heard Eulalie's heavy steps, hurrying to the door.
"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I am so glad you have come, but I was hoping it was Monsieur the doctor!"
Whereat I rushed in, filled with alarm.
Little Paul, as I immediately saw as soon as I looked at him, was very ill. He had, of late, always shown pleasure at my coming; he had babbled of simple things and of mysteries; his little arms spontaneously came to me and I would take him in my arms and get moist kisses from his tiny lips and dandle him and share in his ecstasies over woolly lambs.
Porter came in a few minutes later and declared the trouble to be a beginning of measles. Eulalie acknowledged that, a week or ten days before, Baby Paul had come in contact with a blotchy infant in the Park. She had snatched him up and carried him away, after which she had thought no more about it. We sent at once for a trained nurse, whom Eulalie at first considered as an intruder with evil intentions, but whose gentle ministrations soon won her heart.
"Am I to send immediately for Mrs. Dupont?" I asked the doctor.
"It doesn't look like a very severe case," he answered, "but it might be better to communicate with her."
A few minutes later I had Frances on the long-distance telephone, greatest of marvels. I stood in her little hallway in New York, and over in Buffalo, a half a thousand miles away or so, I heard her dear voice becoming excited and tremulous.
"I simply must sing to-night," she was saying, "but from the concert-hall I will rush to the station and take the train. No, don't take the trouble to meet me, David dear, for I'll jump in a taxi and come ever so quick, but you can be at the apartment, if you like. No, I can't tell you the exact time, but it will be the first train after eleven o'clock. You can look in the time table and find out when it reaches New York. Thank you a thousand times, David dear!"
When I announced my intention of remaining all night at the flat, Eulalie gave a clamorous sigh of relief. She proposed to make a bed for me on the sofa. She regretted that she had but a much worn pair of her slippers she could offer me, vast pedic recipients she brought me apologetically and which I felt compelled to decline. She insisted I should use a rug to wrap around my legs, because that woman in the cap persisted in leaving the window open. She wanted to know what she could prepare for my supper?
At last, she left me in peace and the long night began. Sleep! It was impossible to think of such a thing. The room was kept very dark because Miss Follansbee explained that children's eyes were very sensitive during the measles, and easily inflamed. For many hours, from the sofa on which I sat, I watched this stranger, gradually realizing how capable and attentive she was. Porter came in again at twelve and remained for a long time with me, uttering words of encouragement. Yes, he informed me, children sometimes died of the measles, generally when it became complicated with pneumonia, but, with good care, the great majority recovered. There was nothing alarming, so far. The fever would probably fall a little as soon as the eruption had come out in full force.
He drives a little car now and, I am glad to say, is prospering. I think he cast his bread upon the waters when he was so kind to Frances. At her words of advice, a number of singers have consulted him, and he is doing well. Of course she paid the very moderate fees he asked and told him, as she has told me, that she would ever be his debtor.
So he went away again, after putting a comforting hand on my shoulder, and the hours went slowly by in the dimly lighted room, my thoughts going constantly to the mother who was now speeding towards us. I remember hoping that she would be able to sleep a little on the train. To me the hours were long, but, at least, I was near and fairly reassured; to her, in deep anxiety, they must be agonizing.
It is possible that in the wee small hours I dozed a little, though I never reclined on the sofa. At any rate Miss Follansbee assured me that I had a few catnaps. At last the light began to return; carts and autos began to pass through the busy street; men and women were going by, hurriedly, seeking the day's work. Eulalie gave me some breakfast, with much strong and delicious coffee, and Miss Follansbee awaited the coming of Dr. Porter before retiring for a few hours of rest. He told me that he was quite satisfied, but I looked at him incredulously, for the baby's face was of an appalling hue. He insisted that it was all in the game and would last but for a few days. He promised to return early in the afternoon and, after he left, Miss Follansbee gave me many directions and strict injunctions, after which she went to the room that had been prepared for her, enjoining me to call her if there was the slightest need.
The shades were lowered and the room kept dark. I sat by the little crib, thinking and watching, and the baby's harsh little cough distressed me badly, for I dearly loved him.
So the morning wore on and I rose often and looked out of the window, as if, by some miracle, the train could have come in ahead of schedule time. Baby Paul began to moan, and I hastened back to him. He stretched his little arms out to me, being, perhaps, weary of the hot bed. At any rate he cried to have me take him up, so that I wrapped him in the little blanket and lifted him out. In my arms he rested quietly again and fell asleep, so that I dared not move.
Then I heard the key in the latch, in the hallway outside, and she rushed in, casting her hat upon the bed. A second later she was kneeling at my side, weeping and yet glad, glad that he was living, glad to be again near him. And I dared only whisper a word of welcome to her, lest he might awaken. But soon he opened his eyes, that were very red, and blinked in the faint light, and wanted her.
So he was taken from my arms into hers, and she sat with him in a rocking chair. For some minutes I stood up before her, in my clumsy way, looking at her. I could do so to my heart's content, for her eyes were only for Baby Paul. She rocked him, gently, and her wonderful voice came, sweet and low like the murmur of brooks, the distant song of birds, the sighing of aspens in a summer night's scented breeze. And so the baby slept again, secure and comforted in her dear arms.
Then she looked at me, and a smile came to her face. It is possible that her quick glance detected some slight rumpling of collar and tie, or some disorder of hair I had last brushed the day before.
"David dear, have you been up all night with him?" she asked.
"Yes, but Miss Follansbee took care of him. I knew I would be perfectly useless, but then, Baby Paul is Baby Paul, you see, and—and any one has the right to love a baby. You don't object to that, I'm sure, you—you like to have me love him, don't you?"
"I just love to see you so fond of him, Dave," she answered.
"Yes, I felt that you did. And that's why I stayed, because I knew you wouldn't mind. And now I'll go away and—and come back early this evening to find out how you both are and—and I won't bother you. You'll tell me if I do, won't you?"
"Of course, Dave, as soon as you grow troublesome, I'll let you know. I will tell you, when I become tired of you. Oh, Dave dear! You're the kindest and most lovable creature in the world, and—and it's a joy and a blessing to have you near!"
"I'm awfully glad," I told her, "because when I can't see you and Baby Paul, life isn't—it isn't much of a pleasure, you know. And so I'll go off now and have a bath and fix up a little and then——"
"Then you ought to lie down and have a good nap, because you need a rest, and don't come back too soon or I'll know you have been disobedient, Dave."
She was smiling at me, and yet there was a tear hanging on her long lashes. Surely, the emotion of that summoning and of the hurried anxious journey had been hard upon her.
So I went out, just as Frieda came bustling in, monstrously alarmed and immediately made happy by the knowledge that there was, as yet, no danger, and I went home where I met Mrs. Milliken on the doorstep.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Cole," she said. "You look a bit played out and your bed ain't been slept in. At your time o' life you want to take more care of your health. I wanted to say something as I ain't told any one yet. I'm goin' to give up the house soon. My uncle Ambrose he died and has left me a little money, so I'm going to be a lady of leisure now and live with my daughter."
"I wish you joy, Mrs. Milliken. You deserve a rest from your hard toiling."
I left her and climbed up to my room. It seems that I shall have to give it up soon. Yet it is the only little corner of the earth I am attached to. Where shall I go?
The room opposite is vacant still. I have been paying rent for it since Frances left, being unable to bear the idea of its being occupied by—by any one else. Besides, I can go in there when I want to and sit in the armchair and indulge in memories of the days when I saw her so often. I didn't know I was so happy then, but I realize it now, with no feelings of regret, because I know her life is so much fuller and happier now that she is in a world no longer of sadness and anxious care.
And so I saw Frances and Baby Paul every day for another week, and he got along so well that it was a joy to watch his constant improvement. Mrs. Gobbins, over by the little lake, answered a letter of mine, saying that she would be delighted to have Mrs. Dupont there, and the baby, for as long a time as she cared to stay. Porter had recommended a little country air.
It was heartbreaking to say good-by. I had meant to go with them, at least for a day, but at the last minute Ceballo insisted I must attend the first rehearsal of the "Land o' Love," a play in four acts. So I went to the theatre, but for the life of me could take little interest in what went on. I returned home with a dreadful headache, and the next morning my throat was sore and my limbs ached. When Mrs. Milliken came up to attend to the room, she found me still in bed and insisted on sending for Dr. Porter at once.
"Hello! I'm afraid you'll have to go to the babies' ward," he told me, after a glance.
"What the deuce do you mean?" I said. "I'm as sick as a dog."
"I know you are and I beg your pardon, old man."
"What is it?" I asked him.
"Baby Paul has given you the measles," he answered.
"Nonsense, grown people don't get that."
"They sometimes do," he assured me, after which he prescribed some medicine and spent several hours with me, that day, while I anathematized my luck and felt properly ashamed of my infantile complaint. After this a bad cough came, followed by a pain in my chest, and the medicine put me asleep, I think, for I woke up to find Frieda on one side of me and a nurse on the other. It was Miss Follansbee, who had looked after Baby Paul, and Frieda had gone off and haled her back, bodily. It was only afterwards that I knew my measles were complicated with pneumonia.
There was a week that was a sort of nightmare, I think, because for days I didn't know very much, and tossed about, and felt that pain in my side most of the time, and struggled unavailingly for a decent long breath that wouldn't hurt. One day a strange doctor came in with Dr. Porter.
Later, arrived a morning when I felt ever so well and Miss Follansbee was dozing a little in her chair, looking very weary, and the breathing was no longer painful and Porter came in and capered about the room and Frieda smeared her cheeks with the rubbing in of tears of joy. I suppose I must have been rather badly off during some of those days.
Then came the evening and with it a queer notion that visions and strange dreams were coming back to me, for through the open door there sounded a footfall I had been hearing vaguely and longing for. Suddenly, Frances rushed in and was kneeling by my bed.
"Oh, Dave dearest!" she cried, "You wicked, wicked man! They tell me that you forbade them to let me know for fear I would bring Baby back before he was all well! I'll never forgive you!"
As a proof of her anger, I suppose, she had taken up my thin bony hand and was kissing it.
"Please, please don't," I whispered hoarsely. "You—you'll get it too, first thing you know, and it's bad when it gets on one's lungs. You might lose that beautiful dear voice of yours again."
But she rose, shaking her head at me like a mother who feels that her boy is incorrigible, and dragged a chair by the bed and put her finger to her lips when I would have spoken again, and laid her soft hand on mine, whereupon sleep came, dreamless and beautiful.
During the night a hand gave me water, once or twice, and milk, I think, and I slept again and, when I awoke in the morning, I turned my head.
"Miss Follansbee," I said, "I rather think——"
"I told her that she must have a good night's sleep, Dave," came the beloved voice, "and I've been playing nurse, ever so poorly, I'm afraid. But Dr. Porter said that you would be all right now. And—and I've been so happy to be in the dear old room, and to see the old typewriter, and the calabash, and to know you are getting well again."
"I—I am thrice blessed," I said, "but it is too bad you took so much trouble. You must be dreadfully tired."
"I've been tired so long, Dave," she said, with tears coming to her eyes. "It—it has been such weary waiting."
"The nights are awfully long," I told her.
"The nights and the days, David dearest. I've been waiting such a long, long time."
She threw herself on her knees by the bed, and took up my hand, stroking it, and suddenly an amazing light seemed to flood the room, laden with knowledge, sweeping away fears, bringing a tremulous bliss to my heart.
"Dearest love!" I cried. "Is this true, or is it another dream? How could I speak of my love to you? How could old Dave cry out to the beautiful star that was so high up in the wonderful sky? I feared it would vanish and leave me in utter darkness. Do—do you mean that I may tell you of my heart's desire?"