CHAPTER IXA LESSON IN IGNORANCE
Desirée was at the piano. Caleb Conover, whose knowledge of music embraced one Sousa march and “Summer Noon” (with a somewhat hazy idea as to which was which) lounged, sprawling, on a cushion by her feet; listening in ignorant admiration to the snatches of melody. That anyone could coax a tune out of so complex an instrument was to him a mystery to be greeted with silent respect.
He had come to her, in the long Spring twilight, to show with naive pride an invitation he had just received. An invitation to the musicale-dinner at the Standishes’, three nights hence. He volunteered no information as to how it had been obtained; but evaded the girl’s wondering queries with the guilty embarrassment that was always his when she chanced to corner him in a fault. From Conover’s manner Desirée gathered that the invitation was in a way an effort on Standish’s part to repay the courtesy of the various large loans she knew Caleb had made to the banker. Nor would she spoil the Fighter’s very evident delight by closer cross-questioning. Caleb had said, days ago, that he was going to be invited to the dinner. And, despite her invariable scoffs at hisboasts, she had long since learned that such vaunts had an odd way of coming true.
The June dusk lay velvet-like over the little music room. From the yard outside came the bitter-sweet breath of syringas. Far off sounded the yells of Billy Shevlin and some of his fellow street-boys; their racket mellowed by distance.
Talk had languished. At last Desirée had crossed to the piano. She sat, playing scraps of music, as was her wont; pausing now and then to speak; then letting her fingers run into a new air or a series of soft improvised chords. She had scant technique and played almost wholly by ear; using the piano only as the amateur music-worshipper’s medium for recalling and reproducing some cherished fragments of song.
But to Caleb, lolling at her side, the performance was sublime. That anyone could talk while playing the piano was to him nothing short of marvelous. He was firmly convinced it was a gift vouchsafed to Desirée alone. Music itself was wholly unintelligible to him. Except from Desirée’s lips or fingers, he found it actively distasteful. But all she did was perfect. And if her playing fell upon his ear as a meaningless jumble of sounds, he at least found the sounds sweet.
“What’s that thing you just did with one hand and then rumbled down on the low notes with the other?” he asked, after a spell of watching the busy white fingers shining through the dusk.
“That?” queried Desirée. “It’s just the Vanderdeckenmotive fromThe Flying Dutchman. And I used to be able to play the whole Spinning Song; but I’ve forgotten most of it.”
“H’m!” murmured Caleb, who found her words as unmeaning as her music. “IthoughtI remembered that one. ‘Spinning Song,’ hey?”
“Yes,” she said absently. “It starts out with lots of bizzy, purry little notes too fast for me to play. I never could learn the piano.”
“You bet you could!” cried Caleb, at once afire with contradiction. “I’ve heard a lot of crackajack piano players an’ never one of ’em could hold a candle to you. Why, there was Blink Snesham—the feller they called Ragtime King,—down to Kerrigan’s. You’ve got him beat a block.”
“You dear old loyal idiot!” laughed Desirée, lifting one hand from the keys to rumple his stiff red hair with a gesture as affectionate as it was discomfiting. “I believe you think I’m the wonderfullest person on earth.”
“Iknowyou are,” he answered simply, his big body a-thrill with half-holy joy at her touch. “What’s the one you’re playing now with your other hand. Ain’t so very long, but it’s kind of sprightly.”
“It’s Siegfried’s horn-call. See how it changes to four-time and loses all its buoyancy, in theGoetterdaemmerungfuneral march.”
Solemnly, hopelessly, the transformed, distorted horn-call crashed out.
“That ain’t the same thing you played just now, isit?” he asked in doubt. “Sounds sort of like the toons the bands play at Masonic fun’rals.”
“Same notes. Different tempo. One is the motive of the boy who starts out through the forest of life sounding a joy-challenge to everything and everybody. The other is woven into the dead hero’s mourning chant. InGoetterdaemmerung, you know.”
“Oh, yes. I remember now,” said Caleb, hastily. “It’d just slipped my mind for the minute. I’ve got so many things to think of, you know.”
“Caleb Conover!”
Down came both little hands with a reproving bang on the keyboard, as the girl started out of her rhapsody.
“Caleb Conover, you’re being that wayagain! And after all I’ve told you. How am I going to cure you of pretending?”
“But, Dey!” he declared. “Honest I—I thought—I did.”
“You know very well you were pretending. You don’t know whetherGoetterdaemmerungis a dog, a bird, or a patent medicine. Now confess.Doyou?”
“From the sound,” floundered Caleb, in all seriousness, “I’d put my money on the dog. But then, maybe—”
Desirée leaned back and laughed long and delightedly.
“Oh,Caleb!” she gasped. “Whatam I going to do with you? Are you never going to grow up?”
“Not so long as my making a fool of myself canget such a sweet-sounding laugh out of you,” he returned. “But, honest, Dey, how can you expect me to know them things about horns an’ Dutchmen an’ spinnin’, an’ all that, when you never tell me beforehand what it is you’re goin’ to play? When you’re doin’ those piano stunts, I always feel like you was travelin’ through places where the ‘No Thoroughfare’ sign’s hung out forme. Then when I make b’lieve I’m keepin’ up with you,—just so as I won’t get to feelin’ too lonesome,—you find it out somehow an’ call me down. What’s that thing you’re playin’now?”
Infinitely sweet, fraught with all the tender hopelessness of parting, the notes sobbed out into the little room; then stopped abruptly.
“That’s all I know of it,” she said. “I only heard it once. In New York, winter before last. It’s the third act duet between Mimi and Rodolfo in ‘Bohéme.’ Where they say goodbye in the snow, at the Paris barrier. I wish I remembered the rest of it.”
“Why, I thought those people was in theplayyou told me about. You see Idoremember some things like that. Weren’t they the ones that was in love an’ the feller said the girl was his ‘Youth,’ an’ when she died—”
“Yes. It’s an opera with the same sort of story. It’s queer you remember it. That’s the second time you’ve spoken to me about ‘La Vie de Bohéme’. How funny that a big, matter-of-fact business man like you should be interested in sentimental stories ofYouth and Love and Death! Come!” rising from the music stool and losing the unwonted dreaminess that had stolen over her, “I’m going to talk to you now about the Standishes’ dinner. Have youanyidea how to behave, or what to do?”
“Well,” drawled Caleb, “I guess it’s mor’n three years now since you loored me from the simple Jeffersonian joys of eatin’ with my knife. An’ I know ’bout not tuckin’ my napkin under my chin, an’ not makin’ noises like a swimmin’ pool while I’m eatin’ soup. An’—an I mustn’t touch the butter with my fork. You see I’ve learnt a lot by your lettin’ me come here to dinner so often. I guess there ain’t any more things to remember, are there? The part about the butter will be hardest, but—”
“There won’t be any butter,” said Desirée, “So there’s one less temptation for you to grapple with.”
“Then I’ll be all right about the eatin’,” replied Conover. “Knife, soup, napkin, butter. Anything else?”
“Only about fifty more things,” answered Desirée, pessimistically. “Oh, I do wish I were to be there to coach you!”
“Want an invitation?” asked Caleb, eagerly.
“How silly! At the eleventh hour? Of course I don’t. I hardly know them. Besides I’m going to the musicale afterward. But I’msoafraid you’ll do something you ought not to. You won’t,willyou?”
“Most likely I will,” confessed Caleb, ruefully. “But I bought a book to-day ’bout etiquette an’ I’mreading up a little. I’ve got one or two pointers already. Napkins are servy—serv—”
“Serviettes?” suggested Desirée. “But no one nowadays calls them—”
“An’ when you don’t want to get jagged, put your hand, ‘with a careless, debbynair movement,’” he quoted, “‘Over the top of whichever glass the serv’nt is offerin’ to fill.’ How’s that?” he ended with pride. “I’ll sit up with that measly book ev’ry night till Friday. By that time I’ll be—”
“You’ll be so tangled up you won’t know whether your soup-plate is for oysters or coffee,” she interrupted. “Now listen to me: I’m going to crowd into one inspired lecture all I can think of about dinner etiquette and other social chores, for you to use that evening. And when you go home, burn that book up.”
She forthwith launched upon a disquisition of such difficulties as lay before him on his debut as a diner, and how each might be bridged. After the first few sentences, Caleb’s attention strayed from her words to her voice. Its sweetness, its youth and a peculiar child-like quality in it always fascinated him. Now, with the added didactic touch, bred of the lesson she was seeking to teach, he found it altogether wonderful.
Listening with rapt, almost worshipping attention, yet noting no word, the giant sat huddled up in an awkward, happy bunch at the feet of the youthful Gamaliel. A bar of lamplight from the opposite side of the street filtered through the swaying windowcurtains, bringing her half-hidden head with its dusky crown of hair into vague relief. From under the shadowy brows, her great eyes glowed in the dim light. Her dainty, flower face was very earnest. Caleb felt an almost irresistible desire to pass his great, rough palm gently over her features; to catch and kiss one of those tiny, earnestly gesturing hands of hers. She was so little, so young, so pretty. And she wasting all that loveliness onhim, when she might be fascinating some eligible man. The thought reminded Caleb of his interview with Jack Hawarden. Curious to learn how the lad had availed himself of the permission to woo Desirée, Conover broke in at her next pause, with the abrupt question:
“Young Hawarden been here to-day?”
“Why, yes,” said Desirée in surprise, “This noon.”
“Ask you to marry him?”
“He told you?” she cried.
“Yes. Beforehand. Didn’t he say I’d gave him leave? No? Well, I s’pose he wouldn’t be likely to. But I did. Sent him on, to try his luck. With my blessin’.”
“What do you mean? Did that foolish boy—?”
“Came like a little man an’ asked my permission, as your guardian, to make a proposal to you.”
“And you told him he could?Whatbusiness was it of yours, I’d like to know.”
“I told him it wasn’t any business of mine. That’s why I let him come. If it wasmybusiness, I’d have you shut up in a big place with walls all aroundit; an’ kittens an’ canary birds an’ all sorts of fluffy things for you to play with. An’ no man but me should ever come within a hundred miles of you. Then there’d be no danger of your runnin’ off an’ gettin’ married to some geezer who’d teach you to think I was the sort of man that ought to be fed in the kitchen an’ never ’lowed in the parlor. Oh, I know.”
The girl was looking at him with big, inscrutable eyes, as he halted half-ashamed of his own words.
“I think,” she said slowly, after a little pause, “I think you must have inherited a great,greatdeal of ignorance, Caleb. For during the years while you were a baby, you were too young to acquireverymuch of it. And youcouldn’thave acquired all your present stock in the thirty short years since that time. Besides, I don’t think even Nature can make a manquitefoolish unless he helps her a little.”
“It sounds fine,” admitted Caleb, “But what does it mean? What break have I made now? If it was foolish to want you all to myself, always—”
“It wasn’t,” she interrupted, “And you ought to know it wasn’t. It—”
“Then what?”
“Mr. Caine,” said the girl, “told me once you were the cleverest man he knew. It made me very happy at the time. And I was nice to him all the rest of the afternoon. But I see now it only showed how few sensible men he knew. Let’s talk about something else.”
“But—hold on!” begged Caleb. “Honest, Dey, you ought to think twice before turnin’ down a chap like young Hawarden. His fam’ly—”
“I told you last week never to talk that way again,” said Desirée, with a stifled break in her voice, “Whydo you try to make me unhappy?”
“Me?” gurgled Caleb in an utter bewilderment of distress. “Why, little girl, I’d cut my head off for you. Please don’t get sore on me. I’m no sort of a feller to talk to a girl like you. I’m always sayin’ the wrong thing without even knowin’ afterward just what it was that hurt you. An’ then I wish I had a third foot, so’s I could kick myself. It’s queer that Nature built men so that they couldn’t kick themselves or pat themselves on the back.Pleasebe friends again. I—I wish there was some tea here I could drink, just to show you how sorry I am!”
The girl’s mood had changed. She laughed with such heartiness at his penitential attitude that he all at once felt full forgiveness was granted. If there was a forced note in her gaiety, his duller senses did not perceive it.
“Absolvo te!” she intoned. “I’m a little cat ever to scratch you; and I’m silly to let perfectly harmless things hurt me. I don’t know why I do it. Sometimes I don’t know my own self any more than if I was a Frisian market woman in a pink baize bonnet and number ten sabots. It’s just because you’re so good and sweet and gentle that I walk all over you. Because you let me do it I take out all my bad, horrid,nasty tempers on you. And then you look so surprised and unhappy when I say snippy, mean things to you; or when I tell you you make me feel badly and—ohwhereis my nominative case? Anyway, you’re my dear, old splendid chum. And I wouldn’t be so cranky to you if I didn’t care more for your little finger than for any other man’s head. And if you’d only hit me or swear at me now and then, I’d belotsnicer. Why don’t you?”
Caleb, agape, yet grinning in feeble delight, tried to understand part of this rapid-fire speech of penance. Almost wholly failing to grasp her meaning, he nevertheless gathered that he was pardoned for his unknown offence and that she was once more happy. Hence the weight was off his mind and he rejoiced.
“And just to punish myself,” Desirée was saying, “I’m going to tell you about Jack Hawarden. He came here and asked me to marry him. And I told him he was an awfully nice boy. And I felt I was unkind and cruel and a lot of other things because I had to tell him I wasn’t in love with him. But he behaved beautifully. He’s going to keep on coming to see me, just the same and we’re going to be just as good friends as ever. But he says he isn’t going to give up trying to make me change my mind. Then I changed the subject by making him listen to Siegfried-Mickey singing ‘The Death of Ase.’ And from that I got him to talking about the things he’s writing. He says he believes some day his stories will sell like wild-fire. If you’ve never tried to sellwild-fire you can’t appreciate what an eager market there is for it. I told him that and he didn’t like it very well. But altogether I steered him off from talking about marrying me. So the rest didn’t matter very much.Didit? Are yousureyou can remember all the things I explained to you about that dinner? At the musicale itself I shall try to get a chance to take you under my own wing, and keep you from burning your poor fingers. But—”
“If you think I’m goin’ to queer you, at the musicle, by taggin’ around after you, you’re dead wrong,” declared Caleb. “You get ’bout as much of me as you need, here at your own house; without havin’ me scarin’ better men away from you at parties. No, no. I’m goin’ to set in a corner an’ watch folks fallin’ over ’emselves to talk to you.”
“You big boy!” she scoffed, tenderly. “In the first place, people sit up stiffly, without talking, while the music is going on,—at least they’re supposed to. In the second, don’t think just becauseyou’refoolish enough to like being with me, that other people will. I don’t think there will be anyverytumultuous applause when I enter.”
“It’ll be the hit of the evenin’ as far asI’mconcerned,” stoutly averred Caleb. “I’m goin’ out to the Arareek Club in a few minutes,” he went on, glancing at his watch. “There’s a dinner given to the golf champion or middleweight tattin’-work-expert or some such c’lebrity. I’m going to drop in for the speeches. It’ll be my first appearance there sincethey didn’t kick me out. Caine’s goin’ too; for the speeches. Him an’ Miss Standish, I b’lieve. Won’t you come along?”
“I can’t,” lamented the girl. “Mrs. Cole and her sister from Denver are coming in to see Aunt Mary. They’ll want to play whist. They always do. And I promised Aunt Mary I’d stay and make out the four. Whist is such a jolly game, I think,—for people that like it.Ihate it. But I’d be a splendid player, Aunt Mary says, if I could ever remember what cards are out. So I’m in for a happy, happy evening. I wish they could ask the cook to play instead. Oh, dear! Why does one always feel so horrid when one is doing people a good turn?”
“I don’t know,” volunteered Caleb. “I never tried.”
“Never tried!” echoed Desirée. “Whywill you talk such nonsense? You know you’realwaysdoing things for people. Why, the paper said yesterday that you missed your train back from the Capital, just to take Mr. Blacarda to the hospital after he was so terribly hurt in the accident.”
“Oh,” said Caleb, magnanimously, “That was only because I felt kind of sorry for the poor feller.”