Martin had been among the lions who were fed to-night at Lady
Sunningdale’s, and had eaten of rich and slightly indeterminate food,
for his hostess’s vagueness and volubility, like Karl’s love of form,
found expression in the dinner. Afterwards he had taken up a strategic
position near the head of the stairs when the meaner animals or belated
lions began to arrive, in order to watch and wait for Stella’s entrance.
Then as soon as her mother and Lady Sunningdale had retired into their
corner, he had annexed her--with her complete assent--and plunged into
discussions about affairs not in the least private. Had her mother
overheard, she would, with her strong, practical common sense, have
ordered the conversation to cease at once, so wanting in the right sort
of intimacy would she have found it. And in so doing she would have made
one of those mistakes which are so often and so inevitably committed by
people of great common sense but no imagination, who cannot allow for
the possible presence of romance in pursuits which they themselves
consider prosaic. Had Martin been talking to her daughter about music,
she would have considered that sufficiently promising to allow
developments, for that was a thing very real to him,--his heart spoke.
As it was, she would have considered that the conversation held not a
germ of that disease of which she longed that Martin should sicken.
Lady Sunningdale, far less superficial really than the other, not
knowing that almost everything under the sun was rich with childish
romance in Martin’s eyes, had hazarded the suggestion that they were
talking about golf. This was practically correct, because they were
talking about skating, and the two to her were indistinguishable,--she
supposed you got runs at each,--being objectless exercises for the body.
The moment you hunted or shot or played any game you entered that
bracket. All these things were of the same genre, and quite
unintelligible.
“But I can’t get my shoulders round,” said Stella. “It is no earthly use
telling me that I must. They won’t go. Can you understand the meaning of
those three simple words, or shall I try to express it differently? And
if I try to make them get round I fall down.”
Martin frowned.
“Stella, you are really stupid about it,” he said,--they had long ago
fallen into Christian names. “For the hundredth time you have to
consider your foot as fixed. Then pivot round, head first,--then----“
Stella nodded.
“Yes, I understand that,” she said. “It is always head first with
me,--on the ice.”
“You’re not being serious,” said Martin; “and if you can’t be serious
about a game you can’t be serious about anything. That is a universal
truth. I discovered it. What do you suppose matters to me most in my
life? Music? Not at all. Get along with you, you silly thing. But, oh,
if any one would teach me to do back brackets not rather clean, but
quite clean. I dreamed I did one once, and I awoke sobbing loudly from
sheer happiness. I would sign a pledge never to touch tobacco or a
piano again, if I could do that. That’s my real state of mind. Now, will
you skate to-morrow at Prince’s? I can be there at ten for an hour.”
“Considering I am always there at half-past nine,” remarked Stella, “I
don’t think you need ask. And yet you say I am not serious. Oh, Martin,
why is it that one really only wants to do the things one can’t do?”
“You can if you want enough,” said he. “The deuce is that one can’t
always want enough.”
“I don’t believe that,” said she promptly,--Lady Monica would have
stayed her devastating hand, if she had heard this,--“I want lots of
things as much as I possibly can.”
“But perhaps even that isn’t enough. What, for instance?”
Stella could not help a momentary lifting of her eyes to his.
“Why, to skate, silly,” she said. “Yes, I’ll be there by ten, and so be
punctual. I will consider my foot whatever you wish, and I’ll fall down
as often as you think necessary. But don’t be unkind at once when you
pick me up, and tell me I was too much on my heel, or anything of that
sort. Wait till the first agony is over. I attend best when the pain is
beginning to pass off.”
“Well, I only tell you to save trouble in the future,” said he.
“I know, but give me a moment. Do you care about the future much, by the
way? I don’t. Give me the immediate present. To think much about the
future is a sign of age. No one begins to care about the future until
he is too old to have any. Besides, it implies that the present has
ceased to be absorbing.”
Martin pondered this.
“Oh, no; I don’t think that is so at all.”
Stella laughed.
“You never, by any chance, agree with a word I say,” she remarked.
“Well, you haven’t agreed with me since August,” he said. “I made a note
of it. But that is why we have no stupid pauses. All conversation runs
dry in two minutes if one agrees with the other person. But what you say
about age really isn’t so. Look at Karl Rusoff or Lady Sunningdale. They
both live intensely in the present.”
“Ah, you are shallow,” she said. “Years have got nothing whatever to do
with age. That is the most superficial view. People of ninety die young,
people of twenty die of senile decay.”
Martin stretched his trouser over his crossed knee.
“I am a hundred and eleven,” he said, “and whiles--don’t you hate the
Scotch--and whiles I am about twelve in an Eton collar.”
“Yes, loathe them, laddie. Hoots! That is what is so maddening about
you. Half the time I think I am talking to my great-uncle, and the rest
of it to my little nephew up from the country.”
“Is he a nice boy?” asked Martin. “Or do you like your great-uncle
best?”
“I don’t like either at all, thank you. You are always being far too
wise or far too young. As a man of a hundred, how can you play silly
games with such enthusiasm? And as a boy of twelve, how can you play the
piano as you do?”
“It is because I am so extremely gifted,” said Martin, so gravely and
naturally that for an appreciable moment she stared.
“Ah! Don’t you find it an awful bore?” she asked.
“Dreadful. I can’t really take any pleasure in anything, owing to the
sense of responsibility which my talents bring to me.”
Stella broke down and laughed. At gravity he always beat her completely.
At which period in their conversation Lord Sunningdale did as he was
ordered, and, taking him firmly by the arm, led him to the piano.
* * * * *
Karl was always most assiduous in his attendance at houses where Martin
played, and he was here to-night. His object was certainly not to
flatter or encourage his pupil, for often and often, when Martin had
played in his presence the night before, he found but a growling
reception waiting for him at his next lesson.
“You played well enough for them,” Karl would say; “I grant you that.
Any bungling would do for them. But to play ‘well enough for them’ is
damnation.”
“But it _did_,” Martin would argue. “I did not want to play at all; but
one can’t say no. At least I can’t. I was not playing for you.”
“Then you should not have played at all. If you play often enough in a
second-rate manner, you will soon become second-rate.”
But to-night Martin never suggested the second-rate even to his exacting
master. In a sort of boyish protestation at the strictures he had
undergone last night concerning the last of the Noveletten, he played
it again now. Certainly to-night there was no note of stodginess there;
the varied, crisp, masterful moods of the music rang extraordinarily
true. Half way through Karl turned to Lady Sunningdale, who was sitting
next him.
“How has he spent his day?” he asked, suddenly.
“Skating, I think. He skated all morning, and was late for lunch, and he
went back to Prince’s afterwards. He is terribly idle, is he not? Pray
don’t interrupt, Monsieur Rusoff. I never can feel as if I hear a note
at all unless I hear them all. Who said that? You, I think. So true. And
have you heard his piece on me? He must play it. Delicious this is,
isn’t it? I learned it when I was a child. Tum-tum. There is the tune
again.”
“But with whom did he skate, my dear lady?” asked Karl. There had been a
good many notes missed by now.
Lady Sunningdale gasped.
“Oh, Monsieur Rusoff, how clever of you!” she said. “You are really
clairvoyant. So is my maid,--the one like a murderess. Do you know her?
No; how should you. Martin was skating with Stella Plympton. And that is
important, is it? Don’t tell her mother. She is such a fool, and also
she has been trying to pump me. You see, it was I who brought them
together. So suitable. I feel dreadfully responsible----“
At this point the Novelette ended, and Lady Sunningdale clapped her
hands in a perfunctory manner.
“Too heavenly, monster,” she said. “Now play Tum-te-tum. Yes, that one.
And is he really going to marry her?” she continued to Karl. “I love
being pumped, if I know it. Dear Monica, she pumps like a fire-engine.
There is no possibility of mistake. Now, while he is playing this, do
tell me all you know.”
“My dear lady, you are building on no foundation,” said Karl. “All I
know is that he played that to me last night, and played it abominably.
To-night he has played it--well, you have heard. And, psychologically, I
should like to know what has occurred in the interval.”
“Was his playing of it just now very wonderful?” she asked.
“Yes; one might venture to say that. And as he has been skating all day,
presumably he has not thought much about it. His thinking perhaps has
been done for him. And who is Stella Plympton? Wife or maid?”
Lady Sunningdale gave a little shriek of laughter. Really people who
lived out of the world were much more amusing than those who lived in
it. Those who lived in it, it is true, always believed the worst in the
absence of definite knowledge; the others, however, made far more
startling suggestions.
“Next but two on your right,” she whispered. “Dear Monica will have a
fit if Stella turns out to be already married.”
Karl’s eyes wandered slowly to the right, looking pointedly at many
things first, at the cornice of the ceiling, at Martin’s profile, at the
slumber of Lord Sunningdale. Then they swept quickly by Stella.
She sat there absorbed and radiant, her face flushed with some secret,
delicate joy as she watched and listened, hardly knowing whether eyes or
ears demanded her attention most. Certainly the music and the musician
between them held her in a spell.
“She is looking quite her best,” whispered Lady Sunningdale. “How
interesting! They have millions, you know--oil-cake, or was it
oil-cloth? Oil-something, anyhow, which sounds so rich, and she is the
only child. The father is quite impossible, not an ‘h,’ though every one
crowds there. One always does if there are millions. So vulgar of one.
Dear Monica. We were almost brought up together.”
Karl turned round to her.
“Dear Lady Sunningdale,” he said, “you are really quite premature if you
build anything on what I have said. He played admirably to-night what he
played abominably last night. That is absolutely all I know. I should be
so sorry if I had suggested anything to you which proved to be without
any sort of foundation.”
* * * * *
There certainly seemed to be some new power in Martin’s playing
to-night; but new power had constantly shewn itself there during the
last month or two, for, as Karl said, he had been growing. To-night,
however, he was conscious of it himself, and even as he played, he knew
that fresh light of some kind, some fresh spring of inspiration, was
his. His hand and his brain were too busy as he played to let him be
more than conscious of it. Where it came from, what it was, he could not
guess this moment; but as he struck the last chords the tension relaxed,
and he knew. Then, looking up, he saw Stella sitting near him, leaning
forward, her beautiful mouth a little open. That glorious white column
of her neck supported her head like the stem of a flower,--no garden
flower, but something wonderful and wild. There were rows of faces
behind her, to each side of her,--she was one in a crowd only; but as
his eyes caught her gaze, the crowd fell away, became misty to him,
vanished as a breath vanishes in a frosty air, and she only, that one
face bending a little towards him, remained.
For a long moment their eyes dwelt on each other; neither smiled, for
the occasion was too grave for that, and they two for all they knew,
were alone, in Paradise or in the desert, it was all one. The gay crowd,
the applause that merged into a crescendo of renewed conversation,
lights, glitter, men and women, were for that one moment obliterated,
for in his soul Love had leaped to birth,--no puny weakling, prematurely
warped and disfigured by evil practices and parodies of itself, but
clean and full-grown it sprang towards her, knowing, seeing that its
welcome was already assured. Then the real world, so strangely unreal in
comparison to that world in which for a moment their souls had mingled
and embraced, reeled into existence again, and Martin rose from the
piano, for she had risen, too, and had turned to some phantom on her
right that appeared to speak to her.
Lady Sunningdale beckoned and screamed to him.
“Martin,” she cried, “you are too deevey! Monsieur Rusoff is really
almost--didn’t you say almost--satisfied with the way you played that.
And you learned all that exquisite thing--I used to play it years
ago--while you were skating to-day, because he says you played it too
abominably last night. Really, if I thought I could play it like that
to-morrow evening I would go and skate all day. Now, don’t waste time,
but play something more instantly.”
“Oh, please, Lady Sunningdale, I would rather not,” said he. “I really
don’t think I could play any more to-night. I really am--I don’t know
what--tired.”
Lady Sunningdale looked at his brilliant, vigorous face.
“Martin, I don’t believe you will ever learn to tell a decent, passable
lie,” she said. “Why not tell me you had got cancer. Oh, there’s Suez
Canal come back. Naughty! Monsieur Rusoff, won’t you tell him that he
must. Just a scale or two. I adore scales, so satisfactory, are they
not--so expected--as if it was a music-lesson. No? How tiresome of you.”
Karl laid his hand on Martin’s arm.
“No, my dear lady,” he said. “He’s never to play except when he wants
to. But if you really want a little more music, and I----“
“Ah, but how enchanting of you. Monsieur Rusoff is going to play.
Surely, dear Monica, you will wait. You are not going yet?”
“Desolated, Violet, but Stella says she feels a little faint. The hot
room, I suppose. She is waiting for me outside. How deliciously you
play, Mr. Challoner. I suppose you practise a great deal. Won’t you come
some day and----“
She broke off, for Martin had simply turned his back on her, and was
firmly edging his way through the crowd to the door. Then Lady Monica’s
maternal instinct positively leaped to a conclusion, and Martin’s
rudeness was completely forgiven.
“But I can’t resist waiting to hear Monsieur Rusoff,” she said. “I
thought he never played at private houses. How clever of you, dear
Violet. I wonder if you could get him to play for me. Stella will sit
down and wait for me, no doubt.”
But before Karl struck the first chord, Martin had won (not to say
pushed) his way through the hushed crowd, and found Stella sitting
outside in the other drawing-room. Every one had flocked in to hear the
music, and they were alone.
His foot was noiseless on the thick carpet, and he was but a yard or two
from her when she raised her eyes and saw him. Then with a little
choking cry, only half articulate, he came close to her. All the
excitement and fire in which his life was passed was cold ashes compared
to this moment, and his heart thumped riotously against his chest. Twice
he tried to speak, but his trembling lips would not form the words, and
she waited, her eyes still fixed on his. Then suddenly he threw his arms
out.
“It is no good trying,” he said. “But I love you! I--I love you!”
Oh, the clumsy, bald statement! But Life and Death meant less than that
word.
“Oh, Martin,” she said, “I have waited--I--I don’t know what I am
saying.”
“Waited?” he asked, and his eyes glowed like hot coals.
Then he laughed.
“And you never told me,” he said. “If it was not you, I should never
forgive you. And if it was not you, I should not care.”
“Isn’t that nonsense?” she asked.
“Yes, probably. Who cares? Stella! Oh, my star!”
He flung his arms round her.
“My star, my star,” he cried again.
For one moment she could not but yield to him.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered; “but Martin, Martin,” and her mouth wreathed
into laughter, “it is an evening party. You must not; you must not.”
He paused like a man dying of drought from whose lips the cup of water
had been taken away.
“Party,” he cried; “what party? It is you and I, that is all.”
This was all unknown to her. She had loved him, the boy with the
extraordinary eyes, the boy who played so magnificently, who laughed so
much. But now there was roused something more than these. The
piano-player was gone, he did not laugh, his eyes had never quite glowed
like that, and there was in his face something she had never seen yet.
The woman had awakened the man; this was his first full moment of
consciousness. And, like all women for the first time face to face with
the lover and the beloved, she was afraid. She had not till now seen his
full fire.
“I am frightened,” she cried. “What have we done?”
But his answer came back like an echo to what she had not said, but what
was behind her words.
“Frightened?” he said. “Oh, Stella, not of me, not of the real me?”
She gave a little laugh, still mysteriously nervous.
“You were a stranger,” she said. “I never saw you before.”
Martin gave a great, happy sigh.
“You are quite right,” he said, and the authentic fire leaped to and fro
between their eyes. “I was never _this_ before. But you are not
frightened now?”
This time her eyes did not waver from his.
“No, Martin,” she said.
* * * * *
But there was no more privacy possible here. Stella had been quite
right; there was a party going on, and at the moment a great burst of
applause signified the end of Karl Rusoff’s performance. Stella started.
“There. I told you so,” she said. “Now take me to my mother; she will be
waiting for me.”
Martin frowned.
“Cannot she wait?” he asked. “I too have never seen the real you
before.”
“No, dear, we must go. There is to-morrow, all the to-morrows.”
“And to think that it has only been yesterday until this evening,” he
said. “There is Lady Monica, looking for you.”
Lady Monica had a practised eye. She kept everything she had in
excellent practise; there was nothing rusty about her.
“Stella dear, I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “Are you better? Has
Mr. Challoner been taking care of you?”
That was sufficient.
“Stella says I may,” said he.
Lady Monica checked her exclamation of “Thank God!” as being a shade too
business-like.
“Ah, dear Mr. Martin,” she said. “How nice, how very, very nice! Stella,
my dearest. How secret you have been. Come, darling, we must go. I can’t
talk to either of you in this crowd. But how nice! We shall see you
to-morrow? Come to lunch, quite, quite quietly.”
Stella looked at him.
“Yes, do, Martin,” she said. “I will take you back after our skate.”
“Ah, I had forgotten,” he said.
She laughed divinely.
“But I had not. And you will be kind to me, as I asked you?” she added.
He dwelt on his answer.
“I kind--to you?” he said.