(_The Grey Wig/Stories and Novelettes_, New York: The Macmillan Company,
1903)
I
She came 'to meet John Lefolle', but John Lefolle did not know he was
to meet Winifred Glamorys. He did not even know he was himself the
meeting-point of all the brilliant and beautiful persons, assembled in
the publisher's Saturday Salon, for although a youthful minor poet, he
was modest and lovable. Perhaps his Oxford tutorship was sobering. At
any rate his head remained unturned by his precocious fame, and to meet
these other young men and women--his reverend seniors on the slopes of
Parnassus--gave him more pleasure than the receipt of 'royalties'. Not
that his publisher afforded him much opportunity of contrasting the two
pleasures. The profits of the Muse went to provide this room of old
furniture and roses, this beautiful garden a-twinkle with Japanese
lanterns, like gorgeous fire-flowers blossoming under the white
crescent-moon of early June.
Winifred Glamorys was not literary herself. She was better than a
poetess, she was a poem. The publisher always threw in a few realities,
and some beautiful brainless creature would generally be found the
nucleus of a crowd, while Clio in spectacles languished in a corner.
Winifred Glamorys, however, was reputed to have a tongue that matched
her eye; paralleling with whimsies and epigrams its freakish fires and
witcheries, and, assuredly, flitting in her white gown through the dark
balmy garden, she seemed the very spirit of moonlight, the subtle
incarnation of night and roses.
When John Lefolle met her, Cecilia was with her, and the first
conversation was triangular. Cecilia fired most of the shots; she was
a bouncing, rattling beauty, chockful of confidence and high spirits,
except when asked to do the one thing she could do--sing! Then she
became--quite genuinely--a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing.
However, the suppliant hostess bore her off, and presently her rich
contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion and
mystery, and through the open French windows, John could see her
standing against the wall near the piano, her head thrown back, her eyes
half-closed, her creamy throat swelling in the very abandonment of
artistic ecstasy.
'What a charming creature!' he exclaimed involuntarily.
'That is what everybody thinks, except her husband,' Winifred laughed.
'Is he blind then?' asked John with his cloistral _naïveté_.
'Blind? No, love is blind. Marriage is never blind.'
The bitterness in her tone pierced John. He felt vaguely the passing of
some icy current from unknown seas of experience. Cecilia's voice soared
out enchantingly.
'Then, marriage must be deaf,' he said, 'or such music as that would
charm it.'
She smiled sadly. Her smile was the tricksy play of moonlight among
clouds of faëry.
'You have never been married,' she said simply.
'Do you mean that you, too, are neglected?' something impelled him to
exclaim.
'Worse,' she murmured.
'It is incredible!' he cried. 'You!'
'Hush! My husband will hear you.'
Her warning whisper brought him into a delicious conspiracy with her.
'Which is your husband?' he whispered back.
'There! Near the casement, standing gazing open-mouthed at Cecilia. He
always opens his mouth when she sings. It is like two toys moved by the
same wire.'
He looked at the tall, stalwart, ruddy-haired Anglo-Saxon. 'Do you mean
to say he--?'
'I mean to say nothing.'
'But you said--'
'I said "worse".'
'Why, what can be worse?'
She put her hand over her face. 'I am ashamed to tell you.' How adorable
was that half-divined blush!
'But you must tell me everything.' He scarcely knew how he had leapt
into this role of confessor. He only felt they were 'moved by the same
wire'.