“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
The old song was a kind of fulfilment for Bellair, and preciously wrung his heart. He had never been Maying; wasn’t sure what sort of holidays were pulled off in regular Mayings; but he liked the song, and for all he knew the familiar sentiment was evoked bewitchingly. Many others now caught the thrall. These things are infectious. From hatred, he came to loveBrandt’s—as if he had come home, and had been long awayhungering—as if this were life, indeed.... They sang the last verse again, and sat down for hurried refreshment. The four were very near. The young girl caught Bellair’s eye, regarded him shyly for an instant, and turned to whisper to the bass, who seemed in charge of the four.
“... Yes, but hurry back. We’ve got to pull out of here.”
Bellair wasn’t dangling. Never had he been more intent to be decent and helpful. No one knew this. Even the girl was far from expectant. ... She sat down beside him.
“Hello,” she said. “You don’t live in New York, do you?”
“Yes, why?”
“Oh, you looked so homesick—when we sang.”
Bellair’s heart sank.
“I think I was homesick. What may I order for you?”
“A little Rhine wine—it’s very good here—and a sandwich——”
The waiter was standing by. Bellair had to clear his voice before ordering. He was distressed—up to his eyes in gloom that was general and without name.
5
“Do you sing in other places to-night?”
“Oh, yes, we’re just beginning. We’re on Broadway at eleven.”
“Where?”
“First atPastern’s, then at theCastle.”
These places were just without the orbit of extravagance. She knew her answer was not exactly a stock-raiser, and added:
“But I expect to be on the road in the Spring——”
“Who with?”
She mentioned a light opera troupe that was just short of broad and unqualified approval—likeBrandt’sandPastern’s—an institution as yet without that mysterious toppiness which needs no props and meets sanction anywhere. These things are exactly ordered.
“But you are so good—you should be with people who would help you.”
She looked at him a little scornfully, something of weather and stress under the summer hat. She decided to be agreeable. “They all say that,” she said wearily.
“I’m sorry. I said just what I thought.”
“Study—a girl without a cent!” She lowered her voice: “Go with better people—before one is invited? Swing to the top of the opera before one is sufficiently urged?... Why, singing isn’t all. One must do more than sing——”
“I don’t believe that——”
“You should try. Singing won’t get you across. You’ve got to act, for one thing.”
He was relieved that she did not discuss theangel business, which is forgotten in so few stories of struggle and failure.
“I tell you, all that one has to do is to sing—when one sings as you do.”
“I have heard that many times,” she said bitterly, “from people not in the fight. They didn’t come to New York on their nerve—as I did. I made up my mind not to be afraid of wolves or bears or cars—to take what I could get, and wait until somebody beckoned me higher. MeanwhilePastern’sand theCastleand here——”
“I wish I could do something for you.”
Her eyes gleamed at him.
“You need money?” he asked.
“I need money so terribly—that it’s almost a joke—but what doyouwant?”
Bellair rubbed his eyes, and smiled a little. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me, but I want to do something for you. At least, I did want just that.”
“What happened?”
“It isn’t a thing to talk or think about, I’m afraid. One starts thinking, and ends by wanting something—and I didn’t at first. What I said at first I meant—nothing more nor less.”
Her lips tightened. “If you mean just that——”
It raked him within. He did not help her by speaking. Somehow he had expected her to see that he had meant well. It was always a mysteryto him how anything fine could be expected of men, if women were not so.
“Of course, I have to understand,” she added. “I can do with a poor room and poor food, but I can’t get anywhere without clothes.... I must go now.”
“I want you to excuse me if I’ve given you the idea of my being rich. I’m not, but I might help you some. How late do you work?”
“One o’clock.”
“Where are you last?”
“At theCastle.”
“And what time do you get there?”
“About eleven-thirty.”
“I’ll be there. Sing ‘Maying’ for an encore——”
She made believe that she trusted him.
“We’ll sing it at theCastlethe last thing,” she said, leaving hastily.
No ease had come to him. His thoughts now were not the same as those which had come during the singing. He tried to put them away. He didn’t like the idea of giving her money. He knew that she didn’t expect to see him again; also that if he did come she would accept the service of a stranger, and give in return as little as she could. How explicit she was, already touched with the cold stone of the world. He did want to help her, and it had been pure at first. Talk as usual had broken the beauty of that. Sophisticationand self-consciousness had come; her face changing more and more as the moments passed after the song. New York had taught them each their parts. It had been her thought from the first that he was looking for prey, but it had been very far from his.
Bellair was not without imagination. He saw himself following this girl in a future time, playing the part he had despised in other men—the dumb, slaving, enduring male; she continually expectant of his services, petulant, unreasonable without them. For the first time the question came to him: Is there not a queer sort of conquest in the lives of such men?... She was for herself; had it all planned out, the waiting, and what she would give on the way up, beside her song. It would not be much; as little as possible, in fact; but as much as was absolutely demanded. Bellair in the present state of mind seemed to object to all this less than what she wanted of the world—praise and fame.
“She’s just a little girl after all,” he muttered. “She ought to have her chance.”
He added (easing the conception a little for his own peace) that she was only franker and more outspoken than other women he had known; that they all wanted money and place, and wanted men who could furnish such things. Suddenly it occurred that the incident automatically supplied the final break with Lot & Company and NewYork. He laughed aloud.... He might borrow enough in time to make up the amount he gave her for morning, but that would certainly be a betrayal of the fiery urge that had whipped him all week to cross over into a new life and burn the last bridge.
He took his bags down to the station, arranging with the landlady to have his goods stored for the present. After that he rambled, a grateful freshness in the cool wind. His steps led through darker streets, where he startled the misery from the faces of the forbidden who took a chance on him. Their voiceswouldwhine; they couldn’t help it, and all they wanted in the world was money.... He was at theCastlebefore the quartette came.... They sang and Bellair dreamed.
He had never made pretence of other than the commonest lot; yet he conned now an early manhood that made later years utterly common. He followed the enticements of the sea, of the future, the singing-girl never far away, the rest shadows and sadness.... He must do something for her.... Rich natural tones winged forth from the breast of a maid, from shoulders so delicate and white. He would make and keep her great; here was something to do, to work for. It was like finding the ultimate secret. He knew now what had been the matter all the time—nothing to work for.... He would stand between her andall that he knew was rotten—the crowds like this at theCastle, the blurred face of the tenor which was both sharp and soft, the tired, tawdry soprano, the stupid animal of a bass. And Bellair, in the magnanimity of his heart’s effusion, included himself among the forces of destruction. He would keep her from the worst of himself, by all means.... She kept her promise, and arose with the tenor at last:
“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
“Oh, that we two were Maying——”
... New York and all the rest reversed again in his mind. It wasn’t rotten, but lavish to furnish everything for money—so much that men and women were lost in the offerings, and did not know what to choose. Yet it was man’s business to choose. Bellair listened as one across the world; as if he had been gone a year and was thirsting and starving to get back. He was literally longing for New York, with its ramifications all about him—yet the thing he wanted, he could not touch. It was like a sick stomach that infested his whole nature with desire, while everything was at hand but the exact nameless thing desired.... She was like a saint, as she stood there, her mouth so pure, her features so pretty, her voice so brave and tireless—starry to Bellair, a night-voice with depths and heights and dew-fragrance. She was coming to him.
“You look just the same. I wouldn’t take youfor a New Yorker.... Yes, I am through for to-night.”
“I should think you’d love to sing,” he said.
The remark was fatuous to her. She didn’t know that a year ago Bellair wouldn’t have dared to say anything so commonplace, but that he had come back to this simplicity from the complication of classics she had never heard of.
“Tell me, what do you want most?” he asked earnestly. “I don’t mean the need of clothes. We’ve covered that——”
“I want all that a voice will bring.”
“Great salaries, noise wherever you go, a continual performance of newspaper articles?”
“Yes.”
“A score of men praying for favours?”
She sipped warily.
“Don’t mind my question. It isn’t fair. But tell me, doesn’t it do something to you—to get even a man like me going, for instance,—to make him all different and full of pictures that haven’t anything to do with the case?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He stared at her. “You ought to. You do it. I’m not talking of art or soul, or any of that stuff. That isn’t it. I mean just what your singing amounts to in my case. It means New York, but not the routine New York—possibly the New York that might be. It meansMaying—whatever that is——”
“You must have been drinking a lot, since I leftBrandt’s,” she said merrily.
He didn’t let it hurt him, and was miserable anyway. “The fact is, I didn’t take a drink since Sixth avenue, until a moment ago.”
He saw that she was debating the vital matter of the evening—whether he was a piker who must be shaken presently, or whether he would really make good on his offer to help in the essentials of career.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Bessie Brealt.”
“And where could I find you, if I wanted to write?”
He noted her swift disappointment. There was positive pain in the air. He knew well what she was thinking, though her sweet face covered well: that he was about to promise to send the money to her, that ancient beau business. She took a last chance, and mentioned a booking agency that might answer for a permanent address.
“I’ll want to write—I feel that. And here, Bessie, if you don’t mind my saying ‘Bessie,’ I can spare a hundred for that wardrobe. I’d like to do some really big thing for you.”
He saw tears start to her eyes, but was not carried out of reason by them. She had wanted the money fiercely and it had come.
“How are you going to get home?” he asked, to relieve the embarrassment.
She glanced up quickly.
“I don’t mean that I want to take you home,” he said, shocked by the ugliness of the world that had called this explanation so hastily. “My train needs me.... Say, Bessie, men haven’t supplied you with altogether pleasant experiences so far, have they?”
“I’ll get a car home.”
He gave her his card.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Better let me get you a cab to-night. It’s late.”
She thanked him again.... At the curb, as the driver backed in, Bessie put up her lips to him.
“... Dear singing-girl—I didn’t ask that.”
“It’s because you didn’t, I think. Really that’s it. Oh, thank you. Good-night.”
Bellair beckoned another cab, and sank back into the dark. All the way to the station, and through to the Savannah-Pullman, he was wrenching himself clear from something like a passion to turn about to New York. At the last moment, before the train moved, he recalled the letter to Mr. Nathan, and hailed a station porter from the step.
“Please mail this for me,” he said, bringing up silver with the letter.