CHAPTER XIII.
RHAPSODIE HONGROISE, NO. 2.
"It was a whim, if you like," said Mirabelle, a little unevenly, as shestripped off her gloves. "I hadn't seen you for four whole days, exceptfor that little glimpse at St. Germain, and I was tired, cross, and alittle lonely. So I took the chance of your being back and of findingyou alone and disengaged. Perhaps, if you've nothing to do, you will letme stay to breakfast. I told Pierre that I would send down word if hewas not to wait. Will you ask your man to say so?"
"Certainly."
Andrew touched the bell, gave the message, and, when Jules had gone,stood for a moment by the table fingering his letters. Mirabelle hadremoved her veil and hat, but was still at the mirror, touching thetrifling disarrangement of her hair. Their eyes met in reflection, andsuddenly both laughed. Then he went over to her side.
"It's very good to see you again," he said, but with a slight trace ofembarrassment in his voice.
Mirabelle gave his shoulder a tiny pat.
"_L'ami!_" she said simply.
Abruptly her mood changed, and she wheeled upon him, all eageranimation.
"So this is your little house, great baby! You must show me everything.It's a picnic, this: we shall be two children. Paris? _Ca n'existe pas!Il n'y a que nous deux au monde!_"
She perched upon the tall fender, swinging her feet, and humming alittle tune.
"_Oh, la vie bourgeoise!_"
Subtly her gaiety infected him, and he laughed again, this time withouta hint of embarrassment. This was another Mirabelle, a Mirabelle he hadnot known. In some unaccountable fashion, her mood stripped her of adecade. She was, in very truth, a child, with a child's light-heartedmirth, a child's shiningly excited eyes, a child's imperious demand tobe amused.
They went over the apartment together, pausing for all manner ofcomment. She took an almost infantile delight in bringing into primorder the chaos of neckties thrown carelessly into an upper drawer;smoothed her golden-bronze hair with his silver-backed brushes; washedher hands at his basin, and flicked the shining drops of water at himfrom the tips of her slender fingers. She mocked the vanity indicated bya dozen pairs of patent-leathers; tested, with a feigned shudder, thekeenness of his razors; simulated a furious jealousy at the discovery ofa photograph of Rejane upon his dressing-table; rummaged through thecups and plates and glasses in the _vitrine_; called him, whimsically,_gran'pere_, _mon oncle_, and _vieux garcon_; laughed, frowned, scolded,teased, and petted; and was, in short, the incarnation of a gay,reckless, _toi-et-moi-et-vogue-la-galere_ femininity.
Little by little, the charm of her humour gained upon him. To the man inwhose life woman has never played a thoroughly intimate part there issomething indescribably alluring in her near association with the littledetails of commonplace existence. Andrew was conscious that, in thisindependence which he had so lately learned to value, there had beenlacking a something which was now, for the first time, supplied. Aphrase occurred to him--"the better half." Yes, that was it--the curiousinspiration with which an interested, intimately concerned woman infectssuch sordid items as neckties, cups and saucers. Until then, the maincharm of his new manner of life had lain in its sheer independence ofall save his personal inclination. Now he was suddenly aware that man'scompletest happiness relies upon a partial subordination; upon a certaindependence upon another, if still a kindred, point of view. As hewatched Mirabelle come and go, as he heard her comments, as he felt themagnetism of her presence, he was smitten with a vast sense ofloneliness--with a perception that, in reality, no man is sufficientunto himself. In this first flush of life, in this new enjoyment ofParis the alluring, he felt the need of something more. Was it Margery?Was it Mirabelle? At the moment he could not have told which, if indeedit was either. Once he risked a compliment.
"How pretty you are! It makes one want to kiss you!"
"Don't!" she said shortly. "Please don't talk like that. It spoilseverything."
He drew back to look at her, puzzled, but it seemed that she avoided hiseyes.
"Not--not just now," she added. "You don't understand."
Almost immediately, she was laughing and chattering again.
Then came breakfast, and--what is rare even in Paris--a breakfastperfect in its very simplicity. A bisque as smooth as velvet, _solecardinale_ worthy of Frederic himself, a _casserole_ of chicken, with asalad of celery and peppers, Burgundy tempered to an eighth of a degree,no sweets--but a compensating cup of coffee, _eau de vie de Dantzic_,with its flecks of shattered sunlight gleaming oddly in the clearliquid, and cigarettes, which Mirabelle refused with a _moue_ whichhinted at temptation. Andrew toasted her, across the table, with mockceremony, in the gold-shot _liqueur_.
"It's like your life, _l'amie_," he said, squinting at the last fewdrops, "smooth and sweet and all spangled with sunshine and gold."
"And soon done with!" added Mirabelle lightly, turning her glass upsidedown upon the cloth.
She would have him take the largest and most comfortable chair by thewindow, while she chose the broad, flat sill at his feet. The glare ofthe sunlight was cut off from them by an awning, but its warmth camepleasurably through. A window-box of narcissus in full bloom breathed aperfume, as deadening as the juice of poppies, on the air. Now and againa cab rattled sharply down the incline of cobbles to the Place d'Iena,and was blotted abruptly out of hearing on the muffling driveway of thesquare. For the rest, the world was very still, all distinct noises ofthe great and restless city being merged into one indeterminate blur ofsound.
The curious instinct of silence, which so often gave the hours theyspent together their especial character, fell upon them now. Once, as ifsome disturbing thought had startled her, Mirabelle turned suddenly andtouched Andrew's hand, but her own fell back before the gesture wasactually complete. The light wind stirred the hair at her temples, andthe long scarf of delicate Liberty gauze which she had thrown across hershoulders, and he took up a corner of this and pleated it between hisfingers for a time in silence. He was the first to speak.
"Would you care to go out--to the Exposition or the Bois? You'll besaying presently that you've had a stupid afternoon."
Mirabelle shook her head, with a faint smile, and then altered herposition, drawing up her feet and linking her fingers across her knees.The change brought her close to the arm of his chair, and she looked upat him long and steadily, and then shook her head again.
"No," she answered, "I shall not say that. The Exposition? The Bois? Isuppose there _are_ such things, but I'd forgotten them. I like it here.I am happy."
With that strange new understanding of his, it was not alone her smilewhich he noticed, but the slow, irregular fall of her eyelids, and thedeepening of a tiny shadow when the lashes rested on her cheek. Anatmosphere for which he was at a loss to account seemed always toenvelop him when he came into this girl's presence. He was conscious ofthe same not unpleasant languor which had come upon him on that firstafternoon in her _salon_, after the return from Auteuil, but now it wasnot due, as then, to drowsiness. Rather, it was a blotting out of everyconsideration save that he was with her. America, Poissy, even Paris,humming there below them, seemed to belong to another world, and that inwhich he was living for the moment, to be made up of sunlight, andsilence, and perfume.
"I'm almost sorry," he said presently, "that you came."
The girl made no reply. A singular change, which was not movement,seemed to stiffen and straighten her. Without actually altering, herposition lost its grace, its ease, its assurance. Staring straight awaybefore her, her eyes forgot to wink. Her whole bearing was that of ananimal warned by the crackle of a trodden twig of some peril imminentand vital.
"I'm sorry you felt that you _could_ come," continued Andrew. "I've nothad much experience of life, and it's not for me to question you. Butwe've been good friends. I wish it could have remained that way. Youngas I am, I've had disappointments--bitter ones. The people I thought Icould trust--"
"_Andrew!_"
She had never called
him by his name before. At the word, a curiouslittle thrill stirred in him, and he closed his eyes, his mouthtightening at the corners.
"Forgive me," he added, in a whisper.
"Is it possible," said Mirabelle slowly, "that all this timeyou--_haven't known_?"
"I've tried not to know," he answered. "I've tried not to listen to whatpeople said. It has all been so different from anything like that.You've been like the girls I know in my own country, like a comrade,like a chum. I've tried to keep myself from thinking of you in any otherlight. I've always been glad to be with you: yes, and I'm glad to haveyou with me now. And yet--I know that we shall both be sorry for this.To-morrow--"
"_To-morrow!_"
Misunderstanding, she turned to him, and slipped her hand into his. Amoment she hesitated, and then bowed her face against his arm.
"Then you _do_ know!" she continued. "Ah, my friend, I have hoped thatit would not come to this."
Her voice had suddenly gone wistful. She was the child again, but thechild hurt, penitent, and near to tears.
"Believe me, _l'ami_, I hoped it would not come to this. I'm socareless, Andrew. I don't think--I forget. You see, we are different,_nous autres_. What are little things to other women are great things tous, and what are great things to them--"
Then she looked into his eyes. Almost unconsciously, her fingers touchedhis arm.
"I wish I could make you understand," she added. "Even with me, there isonly one thing that can justify--"
She paused for a breath, with a gesture toward the open window.
"It was to get away from all that that I came--to forget--to be alonewith you--just we together--two children--to have something different.I'm so tired of it all, Andrew--and--there has never been any one likeyou. I didn't think what it would mean. Ah, my friend--"
She sank back upon the cushion, with a little sigh.
Suddenly Andrew's heart contracted, seemed to mount into his throat,and, repulsed, beat wildly against the bars of its prison. He felt thetremor of its pulsing in his wrists, in his temples, in his ears. Heknew that he was colouring deeply. He strove to tighten his lips, butthey parted in spite of him, and the breath shot through with a littlehiss. Then he came to himself, and saw that the girl's eyes had closed,and that her hand on the arm of the chair had gripped the silken scarf.Folds of it, sharpened to the thinness of paper, came out between herfingers, and her knuckles showed like little bosses of tinted ivorythrough the pink flesh.
What was it? The hand of a passing spirit, wholly unfamiliar, hadtouched him; a voice never heard before had whispered something in hisear. What was it--what was this thing which he understood and did notunderstand? Bending slightly forward, he looked down through theironwork railing at the street below. A solitary cab leaned maudlinlyover the kerb, the driver slewed around in his seat, with his elbow onthe roof, and his varnished hat on the back of his head, reading anewspaper; and the horse nodding, with his nose in a feed-bag. Twochildren were marching resolutely, hand in hand and out of step, theirnurses following, with the gay plaid ribbons of their caps flappingabout their hips. The pipe of an itinerant plumber whined and squeakedunmelodiously, and the horn of a passing automobile hiccoughed in thedistance. Inconsequently there came to Andrew the memory of a suddenawakening from a nap on the beach at Newport. For a moment, everythingin sight--people, houses, boats, the sand, the sunlight, and thesea--had been garbed in startling unreality, in a new, strange light.
The restlessness of a curious dissatisfaction suddenly laid hold uponhim, and he rose and began to pace the _salon_ once more. He would havegiven something to fling himself out of the chaos of conflictingthoughts which beset him, to ride, for example, five miles at a gallop,as he had been wont to do at Beverly, with the wind tearing at his hairand a thoroughbred lunging between his knees.
Presently he became aware that Mirabelle was watching him curiously, andwas puzzled to find that for the first time he was not ready to meet hereyes. He seated himself at the piano, and for a moment fingered themusic on the rack, without actually taking in the title--"RhapsodieHongroise, No. 2." Then he smiled, with a little nod as if he had beengreeting an acquaintance on the street, and his hands fell upon thekeys.
Majestically, with ponderous bass notes and a deeper comment of short,staccato chords, the Rhapsodie began. It was as solemn as a dirge in itsadagio movement, till the high treble began to flutter into the _motif_,and dragged it upward, with a brilliant run, into a suggestion ofrunning water. Plunging again into the bass, the music marched firmlyon, varied with higher chords, until, through the monotonous throb, abird chirped, twittered, and trilled, and cadenza followed cadenza,plashing in and over the main theme. This variation was presently goneagain in a swiftly descending arpeggio, and the adagio reasserteditself, beating out across the _salon_ with the lingering quality oftolled bells, freeing itself at last by another run into the crystalsparkle of the treble, where the _motif_ was repeated, ringing withfresh vigour. The bass replied with a brief word now and again,correcting the new rendering of the air that it had taught, or patientlyrepeating a whole phrase. But, petulantly, the treble threw off thesombre spirit of what had gone before. Again it thrilled withbird-music, and ran into the gay babble of brooks, punctuated rarely bya deeper chord, as if the water swerved round a stone, and slid,murmuring, across a level, before swinging again down a shelving reach.But, almost immediately, a new element stole in--a tremulous flutter ofone note, potently suggestive of mad music to follow. Faster--faster!The flutter was interrupted by a dripping of stray notes, an octavelower, dotted, presently, with a tiny tinkling above. Then, withoutwarning, the whole plunged into a mad _vivace_ movement, that gallopedlike a living thing, was interrupted by whimsically coupled notes,gabbling up and down, and then seemed to lengthen and bound forward asif it had been spurred. There was a thunder of chromatics--hoofspounding on a long bridge--then the tinkle of water broke inagain--right at his elbow--lingered briefly, and was gone, and the hoofswere thudding on a muffling stretch of soft road. The suggestion, atfirst merely a fancy, grew upon him as he played. This was the gallop ofwhich he had felt a need! He could almost see the wiry mare snapping inthe wind, smell the horse and the saddle, and hear the stirrup-leatherssqueaking against his boots. In spirit, at least, he put into the musicthe exultation, which is near to delirium, of a ride at nightfall or atdawn. The earth, which never sighs save when falling asleep or waking,sighs then, and her breath is sweet. Scents and sounds step to theroadside, and are gone again in a moment. The wind whips and whistles.And the triplicate hoof-beats pound, pound, pound out of life all thatis stale, morbid, and unclean, so that it becomes a crystal domeinverted on a perfume-breathing garden, and one man whirling throughspace like a god, with a laugh on his lips!
Hurdles rushed at Andrew out of the music, and he rose to them, and,clearing them, would have shouted, but that the music shouted for him.He felt the familiar shock of landing, the infinitesimal pause beforethe recover, and then--away, away! It was life, youth, the surge andhammer of red blood through every vein, the certainty of strength andthe sovereignty of success, the ineffable wine of life, filling the cupto the brim, and splashing over into the sunlight, in drops like rubiessheathed in silver.
As suddenly as it had begun, the mad, blood-stirring gallop was over.The stream tinkled and was still. The _motif_ was repeated softly,incompletely, as if regretfully, in adagio, then paraphrased in abrilliant staccato movement, which mounted, plunged madly down fromtreble to bass, hesitated, and whipped out of existence in a group ofcrashing chords.
"I never knew you could play like that!"
Mirabelle had risen, and come across to the piano, and the words werespoken in a voice barely above a whisper. The room seemed to Andrew tobe closing in around him, and out of its dwindling distance floated herface, more beautiful than he had ever seen it, but very pale and witheyes wide and startled. He did not answer directly. Thoughts as confusedas the wisps of a dream but half recalled went racing through his brain.For an inst
ant he strove to control himself, strove to remember, stroveto forget. Then, as it were, a great tide of oblivion to all but theintoxication of the moment swept down upon him.
"You said," he began, "that only one thing could justify--What is it?What did you mean?"
He stood up as he spoke, came quite close to her, and took her hands.
"What did you mean?" he repeated. "Tell me--Mirabelle."
As she did not speak, he took her hand and drew her toward him, with akind of dull wonder in his eyes. What he saw in hers he had never seenin a woman's before--a mist not wholly moisture, and tenderer thantears.
"Mirabelle!"
"_Je t'aime!_" she murmured. "_Je t'adore!_"
She would have drawn back, but he took her in his arms. From thegold-bronze hair which touched his cheek came a faint perfume, andthrough the thin silk he could feel the hammer of her heart. So for along moment he held her, with his lips on hers. It was like kissing arose--a rose that smelt of orris.