Miss Gannion nestled luxuriously back into the depths of her easy chair.
"Do you know, Mr. Thayer, it is a very wonderful experience, this having
a species of court musician?"
He laughed the silent laugh she liked so well. It came from between
close-shut teeth; but it lighted his whole face.
"As wonderful as it is to have a good listener who always understands
and rarely praises?" he asked.
Under her thin, middle-aged skin, the flush rose to her cheeks, turning
them to the dainty likeness of youth.
"You say very pleasant things."
"True ones. If this keeps on, I shall begin using you as critic for all
my new songs."
"Like the fabled dog? I wish you would. But, truly, I am not joking. You
are quite spoiling me for my usual diet of recitals. Do you realize
that, for the past two months, you have sung to me on an average of two
hours a week?"
Thayer smiled contentedly down at her, as he sat by the piano, with one
muscular arm thrown across the rack.
"Well, what of it?" he inquired.
"Nothing, except that people say you are refusing engagements."
"A fellow must have a little time to enjoy his friends," he returned
coolly. "I can't be expected to sing, six nights a week."
"Your logic betrays your artistic nature. You have sung at five
recitals, this week. This is the sixth night; but you've not been
silent."
"You know you wanted to hear _Faust_ sung again."
"Yes, and so did Mrs. Stanley want you to sing at her house."
He looked up sharply.
"Who told you?"
"Mr. Arlt."
"Arlt shouldn't tell tales. But I had three good reasons for refusing: I
don't like Mrs. Stanley; she doesn't treat Arlt as well as she treats
her pug dog, and moreover you had asked me to dinner. I never sing after
a good dinner."
"But you mustn't refuse engagements."
"I didn't. I kept one."
"Engagements to sing, I mean. You seem to forget that you are a star."
"All the more reason I should stop twinkling now and then. I can't be on
duty, the whole time. Besides, Miss Gannion," he rose from the piano and
came forward to her side; "we can't give out, all the time. We must stop
occasionally to take something in, else our mental fuel runs low. I
wonder if you realize that this is the one place in New York City where
I can be entirely off my guard, entirely at home. A place like this
means a good deal to an isolated man."
"I am very glad," she said quietly.
"Most people forget that a public singer has a private personality," he
went on thoughtfully. "We are supposed to divide our time into even
thirds, practising, singing and receiving compliments. It gets to be a
positive delight to discuss the weather and the fashion in neckties."
"And to sing by the hour for your friends?" she inquired.
"It is our easiest way of speaking to them."
She laughed.
"But, on the other hand, you are demoralizing me completely. You have no
idea what empty, formal affairs recitals seem to me now; they are so
impersonal. I feel like grumbling, because I can't talk over each item
of the programme with the one who does it. I said something of the sort
to Miss Dane, the other day; but she told me she always dreaded the
sound of a speaking voice after one of your songs."
"She might have a species of choral service evolved for social use,"
Thayer suggested dryly. "The Gregorian tones would lend dignity even to
conventionalities, and they are quite within the powers of any amateur."
There was an interval of silence which Miss Gannion employed in bringing
herself back to the physical world around her. Thayer's singing always
swayed her profoundly; it gave her the impression of the ultimate
satisfaction of a wish which had haunted her whole life. During the past
two months, she and Thayer had established relations of cordial
friendship. They had met frequently in the world which already was
clamorous for Thayer's appearing, and Thayer was a frequent guest at
Miss Gannion's home. He always sang to her; it had become so much a
matter of routine that now he never waited for an invitation. Once
seated at the piano, talking and singing by turns, she allowed him to
follow out the bent of his mood; but, wherever it led him, she was
always conscious of the insistent, throbbing note which told her that,
underneath his self-control, there pulsed a fiery nature which was
curbed, but not yet tamed, that the day might come when the Puritan
would meet the Russian face to face, and the Russian would be dominant,
if only for one brief hour. And then? Often as she asked herself the
question, Margaret Gannion never swerved from her original answer. In
the end, the Puritan would rule. No man could so dominate others and
fail to dominate himself.
Thayer, meanwhile, had risen and was thoughtfully pacing the room. Miss
Gannion shook off the last of her reverie and turned to watch him.
"What is it, Mr. Thayer?" she inquired suddenly.
He came back to the fire and, deliberately moving the trinkets on the
mantel, made a place for his elbow. Then he hesitated, with his clear,
deep-set eyes resting on her face.
"I think I am going to ask your advice," he said slowly.
"Or my approval. It amounts to the same thing in a man."
It was a direct challenge, and it was made with deliberate intention.
Accustomed as she was to the semi-imaginary mental crises of
struggling, strenuous youth, she yet shrank from the intentness of
Thayer's mood.
He ignored the challenge.
"No; it is advice whether to act at all. Later, when I have acted, it
will be time to demand your approval."
"But you may not like my advice."
"Very possibly. I am not binding myself to follow it."
Her color came again this time not altogether from pleasure.
"Then why do you ask it?"
"Because I need fresh light on the subject. As often as I go over it, I
find myself in a mental blind alley, and I am hoping that, if I talk it
over with you, I shall clear up my ideas and perhaps get some new ones."
His tone was dispassionate, yet kindly. With a pang, Miss Gannion
admitted to herself the futility of her ever hoping to gain so
impersonal an attitude. She was intensely feminine, which is to say,
intensely subjective. Talking to Thayer in his present mood gave her the
feeling that unexpectedly she had collided with an iceberg. Glittering
coldness is an admirable surface to watch; but not an altogether
comfortable one upon which to rest. The touch set her to stinging,
although she realized that the sting was out of all proportion to the
touch. She was silent, and Thayer went on,--
"You know the people, one of them much better than I do."
"Then it is not about yourself?"
Thayer shook his head.
"I rarely ask help in solving my own problems," he replied. Then, as he
saw her face, he suddenly realized that he had hurt her in some unknown
fashion. "That sounds rather brutal," he added; "but, if you will think
it over a bit, you will see it is wise. I don't believe in wasting
words, and there is no real use in talking some things over. A man knows
he can't state his own problem impartially to someone else, so of course
he isn't going to trust someone else's solution of the problem."
Her smile came back again.
"No," she assented; "but there is a certain comfort in talking things
over."
"Not for me. If I have anything to do, I grit my teeth and do it, and
waste as little thought upon it as possible. Iteration makes good into a
bore. It is best to let it alone. And of bad, the less said, the better,
that is, when it is a matter of one's own personality. But now I want
to talk about Miss Dane."
"Beatrix?"
"Yes. I have felt anxious about her lately, and I haven't known whether
to keep still, or to speak. It all seems a good deal like meddling, and
I really know her so little."
It was unlike his usual directness to wander on in this fashion, and
Miss Gannion wondered. She started to speak; then she thought better of
it and leaned back in her chair. The ticking of the clock and the
snapping of the fire mingled in a staccato duet. A stick burned in two
and fell apart, with tiny, torch-like flames dancing on its upturned
ends. Methodically Thayer bent over and piled up the embers. Then he
spoke again.
"And so I thought I would speak to you about it. You have known Miss
Dane always, and you know New York and how it looks at such things. I
imagine you take it more seriously, here in America. It is serious, God
knows, and yet it may not amount to anything."
Margaret Gannion straightened up and spoke with a sudden assumption of
dignity which seemed to add inches to her moral and physical stature.
"To what are you referring, Mr. Thayer?"
"I beg your pardon. I thought you knew. I am talking about Lorimer."
"What about him?"
Man as he was, Thayer flinched under her keen eyes. All at once, he
realized that Margaret Gannion included among her friends Beatrix Dane,
and that it was Margaret Gannion's habit to fight for her friends.
"I had hoped you would understand without my putting it into so many
words. Lorimer has been my friend for years, and it seems rather beastly
to begin talking him over; but--"
"But?" Miss Gannion's tone was as hard and ringing as steel.
"But he sometimes takes a little more wine than is altogether wise,"
Thayer replied, with brief directness.
Miss Gannion dropped back in her chair.
"Does--does he get--drunk?" she questioned sharply.
"No. That is too strong a word. He is imprudent, foolish. Still, one
never knows what may come."
"Poor Beatrix!" Miss Gannion said softly.
Thayer faced her again.
"Understand me, Miss Gannion; I am not doing this for love of gossip.
Miss Dane is nothing to me, and I like Lorimer immensely. But there is
a good deal at stake, and I am not sure how much I ought to leave to
chance. Lorimer is one of the most lovable fellows in the world,
generous and loyal; but he is weak. He was born so; I fancy it is in the
blood. If Miss Dane is strong enough and has tact, perhaps she can hold
him steady. He can't be driven an inch; but he can be led a long way."
Miss Gannion brushed her hair away from her face with an odd, bewildered
gesture.
"Wait," she said breathlessly. "I love Beatrix, and it makes me slow to
take this in. How long has it been going on?"
Thayer's lips tightened.
"Ever since I have known him," he answered reluctantly.
"Much?"
"No, comparatively little."
"Often?"
"Well--" The lengthening of the word told its own story.
"Does it increase?"
His expression answered her, and she took the answer in perfect silence.
It was a full minute before she spoke again; but when she did speak, her
voice had the old, level intonation.
"Are you willing to tell me just how far the trouble has gone, Mr.
Thayer?"
"It is a hard matter to measure. Lorimer drinks less than a good many
men; but it takes less to upset him. In Germany, the students all drink,
and he was with them. As a rule, he stopped in time, but occasionally he
was a little silly. Once or twice it was worse."
"How much worse?" The question was almost masculine in its direct
brevity.
"I helped him to bed."