XIII
At the poet's third Franco-American Conference that afternoon the roomwas still vibrating with the echoes of Aphrodite's harp accompaniment toher own singing, and gushing approbation had scarcely ceased, when thepoet softly rose and stood with eyes half-closed as though concentratingall the sweetness within him upon the surface of his pursed lips.
A wan young man whose face figured only as a by-product of his hairwhispered "Hush!" and several people, who seemed to be more or less outof drawing, assumed attitudes which emphasized the faulty draftsmanship.
"La Poesie!" breathed the poet; "Kesker say la poesie?"
"La poesie--say la vee!" murmured a young woman with profuse teeth.
"Wee, wee, say la vee!" cried several people triumphantly.
"Nong!" sighed the poet, spraying the hushed air with sweetness, "nong!Say pas le vee; say l'Immortalitay!"
After which the poet resumed his seat, and the by-product read, inFrench verse, "An Appreciation" of the works of Wilhelmina GanderburyMcNutt.
And that was the limit of the Franco portion of the Conference; theremainder being plain American.
Aphrodite, resting on her tall gilded harp, looked sullenly straightbefore her. Somebody lighted a Chinese joss-stick, perhaps to kill thearoma of defunct cigarettes.
"Verse," said the poet, opening his heavy lids and gazing around himwith the lambent-eyed wonder of a newly-wakened ram, "verse is anecklace of tinted sounds strung idly, yet lovingly, upon stray tinseledthreads of thought.... Thank you for understanding; thank you."
The by-product in the corner of the studio gathered arms and legs into aseries of acute angles, and writhed; a lady ornamented with cheek-boneswell sketched in, covered her eyes with one hand as though locked injiu-jitsu with Richard Strauss.
Aphrodite's slender fingers, barely resting on the harp-strings,suddenly contracted in a nervous tremor; a low twang echoed theinvoluntary reflex with a discord.
A young man, whose neck was swathed in a stock a la d'Orsay, bent closeto her shoulder.
"I feel that our souls, blindfolded, are groping toward one another,"he whispered.
"Don't--don't talk like that!" she breathed almost fiercely; "I amtired--suffocated with sound, drugged with joss-sticks and sandal.I can't stand much more, I warn you."
"Are you not well, beloved."
"Perfectly well--physically. I don't know what it is--it has come sosuddenly--this overwhelming revulsion--this exasperation with scents andsounds.... I could rip out these harp-strings and--and kick that chairover! I--I think I need something--sunlight and the wind blowing my hairloose----"
Aphrodite's slender fingers, barely resting on the harp-strings, suddenly contracted in a nervous tremor.]
The young man with the stock nodded. "It is the exquisite pagan athirstin you, scorched by the fire of spring. Quench that sweet thirst at thefount beautiful----"
"What fount did you say?" she asked dangerously.
"The precious fount of verse, dear maid."
"No!" she whispered violently. "I'm half drowned already. Words, smells,sounds, attitudes, rocking-chairs--and candles profaning the sunshine--Iam suffocated, I need more air, more sense and less incense--less sound,less art----"
"Less--_what_?" he gasped.
"Less art!--what you call 'l'arr'!--yes, I've said it; I'm sick! sick ofart! I know what I require now." And as he remained agape in shockedsilence: "I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Frawley, but I also require lessof you.... So much less that father will scarcely expect me to play anymore accompaniments to your 'necklaces of precious tones'--so much lessthat the minimum of my interest in you vanishes to absolute negation....So I shall not marry you."
"Aphrodite--are--are you mad?"
Her sulky red mouth was mute.
Meanwhile the poet's rich, resonant voice filled the studio with anagreeable and rambling monotone:
"Verse is a vehicle for expression; expression is a vehicle for verse;sound, in itself, is so subtly saturated with meaning that it requiresnothing of added logic for its vindication. Sound, therefore, is sense,modified by the mysterious portent of tone. Thank you for understanding,thank you for a thought--very, very precious, a thought beautiful."
He smeared the air with inverted thumb and smiled at Mr. Frawley, whorose, somewhat agitated, and, crooking one lank arm behind his back,made a mechanical pinch at an atmospheric atom.
"If--if you do that again--if you dare to recite those verses about me,I shall go! I tell you I can't stand any more," breathed Aphroditebetween her clenched teeth.
The young man cast his large and rather sickly eyes upon her. For amoment he was in doubt, but belief in the witchery of sound prevailed,for he had yet to meet a being insensible to the "music of the soul,"and so with a fond and fatuous murmur he pinched the martyred atmosphereonce more, and began, mousily:
ALL
A tear a year My pale desire requires, And that is all. Enlacements weary, passion tires, Kisses are cinder-ghosts of fires Smothered at birth with mortal earth; And that is all.
A year of fear My pallid soul desires And that is all-- Terror of bliss and dread of happiness, A subtle need of sorrow and distress And you to weep one tear, no more, no less, And that is all I ask-- And that is all.
People were breathing thickly; the poet unaffectedly distilled thesuggested tear; it was a fat tear; it ran smoothly down his nose,twinkled, trembled, and fell.
Aphrodite's features had become tense; she half rose, hesitated. Then,as the young man in the stock turned his invalid's eyes in her directionand began:
Oh, sixteen tears In sixteen years----
she transfixed her hat with one nervous gesture sprang to her feet,turned, and vanished through the door.
"She is too young to endure it," sobbed the by-product to her of thesketchy face. And that was no idle epigram, either.