"I almost made a whole poem about you," Bobby said to Thayer, one night.
Thayer laughed.
"How far did you get?"
"The last line."
"Then you actually did make one."
Bobby shook his head.
"Oh, no. I only made the next to the last line and the last. Then the
inspiration gave out."
"What was it?" Thayer asked idly.
The mirth left Bobby's face, and he looked up at his companion almost
defiantly.
"Forget the things we cannot,
And face the things we must,"
he said slowly.
The dark red leaped up into Thayer's face, as he looked at Bobby keenly.
"How long have you known it?"
"Since the day I told you they had come home from abroad. You sang _St.
Paul_, that night, you may remember, and afterwards I advised you to go
into grand opera. A fellow with a voice like yours can't expect to have
any secrets of his own." Bobby paused; then he added thoughtfully, "Life
is bound to be a good deal of a bluff for us all."
Thayer walked on in silence for seven or eight blocks.
"What do you think about it?" he asked then.
"I think that I would almost delay my own wedding, for the sake of being
your best man."
"And yet, she says it is impossible," Thayer said thoughtfully.
"When was that?"
"Two years ago, when I came home from Europe."
"Oh!" Bobby said slowly, as the light dawned upon him. "That was the
blow that floored you, that summer; was it? I never knew. What was the
trouble? The child?"
Thayer's assent was rather curt in its brevity. Bobby's blunt, kindly
questions hurt him; yet, after all, there was a sort of comfort in the
hurt. After two years of silence, it was a relief to be able to speak of
his trouble. It had grown no more, no less with the passing months; it
was just what it had been, at the close of that warm May afternoon.
"Do you know, I rather like Beatrix for the stand she has taken," Bobby
said meditatively. "She has the sense to know that, if she married you
and made you share the responsibility of that child, it would knock your
singing higher than a kite."
Thayer interrupted him impatiently.
"How much does my singing amount to me in comparison with my love for
Beatrix? I would cancel my engagements, to-morrow, if she would say the
word."
"But, thank the Lord, she won't," Bobby replied placidly. "Don't be an
ass, Thayer. It is a popular fiction that an artist is expected to give
up his work for the sake of matrimony; but it's an immoral fable. The
gods have endowed you with a voice, and you have no business to fling
away the gift, when your keeping it can do so much good in the world.
You owe something to humanity, and a lot more back to the gods who gave
you the voice; you have no moral right to do anything that will hinder
your paying that debt. Beatrix knows this. She knows what would be the
inevitable effect of saddling you with the child, and she is right in
her decision."
"Has she been talking the matter over with you?" Thayer asked, with
sudden jealousy.
Bobby laughed scornfully.
"No need. I have eyes of my own, and I learned my _Barbara Celarent_ in
junior year."