"What did you want of me for Wednesday?"
Again Bobby's face clouded, and he laughed uneasily.
"Something you can't and must not do, Thayer. I oughtn't to have spoken
of it."
"What was it?" Then a new idea crossed Thayer's mind. "Something about
Lorimer?"
"Yes, I may as well tell you. We have been telephoning back and forth,
all day. They'll be down, Monday night, and the funeral is to be on
Wednesday afternoon. Beatrix is leaving all the plans to my uncle; and
my aunt, who is a sentimental soul and has no idea of the real state of
the case, is insisting that the poor old chap shall be buried with all
manner of social honors. It is to be a real function, and she thought it
would be the most suitable thing in the world, if you were to sing at
the funeral. I knew you wouldn't enjoy doing it, all things considered;
but I couldn't say so to my uncle. All in all, it is a relief to have
this other affair knock it in the head."
To Bobby, the pause was scarcely perceptible. To Thayer, it sufficed to
review the years between his meeting Lorimer in Goettingen and that last
gray dawn in the cottage.
"But it doesn't," Thayer said then.
"You don't mean--?"
"I will sing. We rehearse in the morning, and I have nothing afterwards
until evening. What time is the service?"
Bobby Dane's call left Thayer feeling once more at war with himself.
Worn out with the long strain of watching over Lorimer, exhausted with
the agony of that hour in the cottage, it had been a relief to him, now
that his work was ended, to throw himself wholly into the preparations
for _Faust_. The needed rehearsals and the inevitable details of
costuming had been sufficient to occupy his tired mind completely, and
he had held firmly to his resolve to forget the past two months. He had
been able to accomplish this only by getting a strong grip upon his own
mind and holding on tightly and steadily; but he had accomplished it.
Bobby left him with it all to do over again. In spite of himself,
Beatrix's desperate question for "the black, blank years," drowned the
familiar words of his cavatina and set themselves in their place,--
_"Even black, blank years shall pass."_
Impatiently he shut the piano and, sitting down at his desk, began
studying aloud the list of stage directions which outlined his acting;
but, in the intervals of turning a page, he asked himself over and over
again whether any other life could hold a grimmer contrast than the one
confronting him, that coming Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Wednesday came at last. Thayer had left his card at the Lorimers' house,
the day before; but he had felt no surprise that Beatrix had refused to
see him. He caught no glimpse of her until the hour for the funeral, and
he felt that it was better so. For the present, their lives must lie in
different paths.
As Bobby had predicted, Sidney Lorimer's funeral was a function.
Everything about it was above criticism, with the minor exception of
the manner in which Lorimer had met his end. Society, black-clothed and
sombre-faced, was present, partly from respect to the Danes, partly from
a real liking for Lorimer as they had known him at first, partly from
curiosity to see whether there were any foundation for the rumors which
already were flying abroad. The rumors embraced everything from
meningitis to suicide, everything except the truth. And meanwhile, the
Lorimers' rooms were transformed into a species of flower show, and, in
the midst of the flowers, Lorimer lay asleep, his cheek resting on his
hand, his lips curving into the old winning smile they knew so well. For
him, as for Thayer, the past was passed and done. For him, too, the
future might still be full of promise. Thayer, as he stood beside the
man who had been his old-time friend, admitted as much to himself, and
all at once the intoning of the solemn ritual ceased to jar upon his
ears. For Lorimer, as for himself, the fight was still on. The arena had
changed; that was all. Perhaps in the new battle, Lorimer would arm
himself with stronger weapons.
Then the intoning stopped, and some one made a signal to Thayer. Simply
as a boy, and with a boyish tenderness, he sang the little hymn they
had chosen for him. Each man and woman who listened, felt gentler and
nobler for his song; but only Beatrix, shut decorously in the room
upstairs, away from her dead, realized that, for the passing hour,
Thayer had annulled the passion and the pain of those last weeks, and
had gone back again to the old, pitiful, protecting love which for years
had marked his attitude towards Lorimer.
From Lorimer's funeral, society went home to rest and gossip and
exchange its sombre clothing for its most brilliant plumage. Nearly two
years before, society had taken Cotton Mather Thayer to its bosom. Now
it was making ready to burn much incense in his honor, and its first
step in the process was to make his opening night of opera one of the
most brilliant events of the winter. With this laudable end in view, the
house was packed, and the women present had drawn heavily upon their
reserve fund of brand-new gowns which they had been hoarding for the
final gayeties of the season.
Thayer, with Arlt at his side, lingered idly in the wings, while the
audience listened with ill-concealed impatience to the melodious
bargaining between _Faust_ and _Mephistopheles_. Then the attention
quickened, as every bar of the Kermess chorus brought them nearer to
the moment for _Valentine's_ coming.
Charm in hand, he came at last, and the applause, caught up to the
galleries and tossed back to the floor, echoed again and again through
the great opera house. He accepted it quietly, almost indifferently, and
stood waiting for the storm to die away, while his keen eyes, sweeping
the house, recognized here and there among the jewelled, bare-shouldered
women before him the faces of the black-gowned mourners to whom he had
sung in the afternoon. The sight brought Beatrix to his mind. He
wondered how she was passing the evening, whether, from under the
benumbing effects of the blow she had suffered, she were still sending a
thought, a hope for success in his direction. Unconsciously to himself,
his pulses were tingling and throbbing with the music, and the throb and
tingle brought back to him the memory of the pounding of his pulses,
that morning in the cottage, only a week before. He had almost yielded
to their sway; then he had rallied. He had gone through the shock of
Lorimer's death, through the hasty discussion of arrangements which had
followed, through the saying good-by, with a calmness that had steadied
Beatrix and had been a surprise, even to himself. It was more--He
roused himself abruptly to the consciousness that mechanically he had
been going through the scene with _Wagner_, and that the moment for his
cavatina had come.
Instinctively he squared his shoulders and raised his eyes. As he did
so, he caught sight of Bobby Dane, and the sight recalled to him the
half-dismissed thought of Beatrix. During the one measure of
introduction, Beatrix and _Marguerite_, the cottage and the Kermess went
whirling together through Thayer's brain, turning and twisting,
intermingling and separating again like the visions of delirium. For
that one measure, his operatic fate was trembling in the balance. Then
the artist triumphed. Steady and clear, yet burdened with infinite
sadness, his voice rang out, filling the wide spaces of the great house,
filling the smallest heart within it with its throbbing, passionate
power.
_"Yet the bravest heart may swell
In the moment of farewell."_
The house was rocking and ringing with applause, as the song died away;
but Thayer heard it with unheeding ears. His old destiny had fulfilled
itself. The chord which closed his cavatina had sealed his fame in
opera; but his fame was to him as ashes in his mouth. With that same
chord, he had wilfully bidden farewell, not to _Marguerite_, his sister,
but to Beatrix, the wife of his friend, Sidney Lorimer. And, as the
chord died away, with its death there also died his passionate love. Who
could foretell what its resurrection would be? Or when? Or where?