“How in heaven’s name can I get temperament?”
“How in heaven’s name can I get temperament?”
“How in heaven’s name can I get temperament?”
“It’ll come without clamoring,” I said. Upon that subject I can speak with some authority.
“I wish it would hurry up. I want to arrive, I want to be a great prima donna. Iwillbe a great prima donna. Iwillsing into that big dark auditorium and see those thousands of faces staring up at me and make those thousands of dull fat pigs of people sit up and come to life.”
She rose and walked to the window, pushed it up and picking up one of the oranges, threw it out.
“I hope that’ll hit some one on the head,” she said, banging the window down.
“Have you had the public’s opinion on your singing?” I asked, feeling it best to ignore her eccentricities of temper.
“Yes. I was in a concert in Philadelphia a year ago, with some others.”
“And what was the verdict?”
She gave a bitter smile.
“The critics who knew something and took themselves seriously, said ‘A large coarse voice and no temperament.’ The critics who were just men said nothing about the singing and a good deal about the singer’s looks—” She paused, then added with sulky passion, “Damn my looks.”
She was going to the window again and I hastily interposed.
“Don’t throw out any more oranges. You might hit a baby lying in its carriage and break its nose.”
Though she did not give any evidence of having heard, she wheeled from the window and turned back to me.
“It’s been nothing but disappointments—sickening disappointments. I wish I’d been left where I was. Three years ago in California I was living in a little town on the line between Los Angeles and San Francisco. I sang in the church and got ambitious and went up to San Francisco. They made a good deal of fuss over me—said another big singer was going to come out of California. I was just beginning to wonder if I reallywassome one, when one of those scratch little opera companies that tour South America and Mexico came up. Masters, Jack—the man you met here the other night—was managing it. I got an introduction and sang for him, and you ought to have heard him go up in the air. Bang—pouf!—like dynamite! Not the way he is now—oh, no—”
She stopped. The memory of those days of encouragementand promise seemed to shut off her voice. She stared out of the window as if she were looking back at them, her face set in an expression of brooding pain. I thought she was going to cry, but when she spoke her voice showed an angry petulance far from the mood of tears.
“I’d never have got such big ideas if he hadn’t given them to me. I must come on here and study, not waste myself on little towns and little people. Go for the big prize—that was whatIwas made for.” She suddenly turned on me and flung out what seemed the bitterest of her grievance, “He made me do it.Heinsisted on my coming—got Vignorol to take me, paid for my lessons. It’s his doing, all this.”
Sothatwas the situation. That explained it all. I was immensely relieved. She might be in love with him, but if he was not in love with her (and he certainly gave no evidences of it), it would be easy to get rid of him. He was frankly discouraged about her, would probably hail with relief any means of escaping the continued expense of her lessons. The instinct that had brought me up-stairswasa good one after all.
“Couldn’t you”—I felt my way carefully for theground was delicate—“couldn’t you put yourself in some one else’s hands. Get some one else to—I don’t know what the word is—”
She eyed me with an intent watching look that was disconcerting.
“Be my backer?” she suggested.
I nodded.
“No, I could not,” she said, in a loud violent tone. “Go back on the man who tried to make me, dragged me out of obscurity and gave me my chance? Umph!” She turned away with a scornful movement: “That would be a great thing to do.”
The change was so quick that it bewildered me. The cudgel with which she had been beating Masters was now wielded in his defense. The ground was even more delicate than I had thought, and silence was wisdom till I saw what was coming next. I rose from the rocky cushions and moved to the window.
The light in the little room had grown dim, the keys of the piano gleaming whitely from their dusky corner. With a deep sigh Miss Harris walked to the sofa, threw herself full length on it and lay still, a tall dark shape looking up at the ceiling.
I did not know what to say and yet I did not like to leave her so obviously wretched.
“Shall I light the gas?” I asked.
“No,” came the answer, “I like the dark.”
“Do you mind if I water the cyclamen? They’re dying.”
“I do. I want them to die.”
She clasped her hands under her head and continued to gaze at the ceiling. I moved to the door and then paused.
“Can I do anything for you?”
“Yes—” she shifted her glance and looked at me from beneath lowered lids. I again received the impression I had had the evening when I hooked her dress—that I was suddenly removed to an illimitable distance from her, had diminished to an undecipherable speck on her horizon. Never before had I met anybody who could so suddenly and so effectively strike from me my sense of value and importance.
“You can do something I’d like very much—go,” the voice was like a breath from the arctic.
I went, more amazed than angry. On the landing I stood wondering. What had I done to her? If I hadn’t been so filled up with astonishment I might have laughed at the contrast between my recent satisfaction in my mission and my inglorious dismissal.
My thoughts were dispersed by voices from below,resounding up through the cleft of the stairs. From a background of concerted sound, a series of short staccato phrases detached themselves:—
“My ’at! Look at it! Ruined! Smashed!”
I looked over the banister. On the floor below stood the count addressing Miss Bliss, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Hazard and Mr. Weatherby, who stood ranged in their hallway in a single line, staring up at him. In one extended arm he held out a silk hat in a condition of collapse. Their four upturned faces were solemn and intent. Miss Bliss’ mouth was slightly open, Mr. Hamilton’s glasses glittered.
“What’s the matter?” I called, beginning to descend.
The count lifted a wrathful visage and shook the hat at me.
“Look at my ’at.”
A chorus rose from the floor below:
“Some one smashed his hat.”
“Threw an orange on it.”
“He says it came from here.”
“I think he’s wrong. It must have been the next house.”
“It was not,” cried the count, furious. “It was ’ere—this’ouse. I am about to enter and crash—itfalls on me! From there—above,” he waved the hat menacingly at the top floor.
The quartet below chorused with rising hope.
“Who’s up there, Mrs. Drake?”
“Did any one throw an orange?”
“Is Miss Harris at home?”
I approached the count, alarmed at his hysterical Latin rage.
“Who has throw the orange?” he demanded, forgetting his English in his excitement.
“You can have it reblocked,” I said comfortingly.
The count looked as if I had insulted him.
“’Ere?” he cried, pointing to the ground at his feet as if a hatter and his block were sitting there. “Never. I brought it from Italy.”
From below the voices persisted:
“Were you with Miss Harris?” This from Mr. Hamilton.
“Yes, I was.”
“Did she throw an orange?” This from Mr. Hazard.
“Why should any one throw an orange out of a front window?”
Miss Bliss answered that.
“She might. She’s a singer and they do queerthings. I knew a singer once and she threw a clock that wouldn’t go into a bathtub full of water.”
This seemed to convince the count of Miss Harris’ guilt.
“She did it. I must see ’er,” he cried, and tried to get past me. I spread my arms across the passage. If he and Miss Harris met in their several fiery states of mind, there would be a riot on the top floor.
I don’t like to tell lies, but I remembered Roger had said that a gentleman could lie to shield another. Why not a lady? Besides, in this case, I would shield two others, for I had no doubt if Count Delcati intruded on Miss Harris he would be worsted. She was quite capable of throwing the other oranges at him and the three-legged stool.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “She didn’t throw it.”
The male portion of the lower floor chorused:
“I knew she didn’t.”
“She couldn’t have.”
“Why should she?”
The count, with maledictions on the country, the city, the street and the house, entered his room, the Westerners entered theirs and Mr. Hamilton ascended to his. He puffed by me on the stairs:—
“Ridiculous to accuse a lovely woman like MissHarris of such a thing. We ought to deport these Italians. They’re a menace to the country.”
Miss Bliss alone lingered. She is a pretty, frowsy little thing who looks cold and half fed, and always wears a kimono jacket fastened at the neck with a safety pin. She waited till all the doors had banged, then looking up, hissed softly:
“She did it. I was looking out of my window and saw it coming down and it couldn’t have come from anywhere but her room.”
“Hush,” I said, leaning over the banister. “She did. It’s the artistic temperament.”
Miss Bliss, as a model—artist not cloak—needed no further explanation. With a low comprehending murmur she stole into her room.