"What a setting for melodrama!" said Mrs. Shiffney. She was standing on
the balcony of a corner room on the second floor of the Grand Hotel at
Constantine, looking down on the Place de la Breche. Evening was
beginning to fall. The city roared a tumultuous serenade to its delicate
beauty. The voices sent up from the dusty gardens, the squares, and the
winding alleys, from the teeming bazaars, the dancing-houses, the houses
of pleasure, and the painted Moorish cafes, seemed to grow more defiant
as the light grew colder on the great slopes of the mountains that
surround Constantine, as in the folds of the shallow valleys the
plantations of eucalyptus darkened beside the streams.
Madame Sennier was standing with Mrs. Shiffney and was also looking
down.
"Listen to all the voices!" she said. "Nobody but Jacques could ever get
this sort of effect into an opera."
A huge diligence, painted yellow, green, and red, with an immense hood
beneath which crowded Arabs vaguely showed, came slowly down the hill,
drawn by seven gray horses. The military Governor passed by on
horseback, preceded by a mounted soldier, and followed by two more
soldiers and by a Spahi, whose red jacket gleamed against the white coat
of his prancing stallion. Bugles sounded; bells rang; a donkey brayed
with dreary violence in a side street. Somewhere a mandoline was being
thrummed, and a very French voice rose above it singing a song of the
Paris pavements. In the large cafes just below the balcony where the two
women were standing crowds of people were seated at little tables,
sipping absinthe, vermouth, and bright-colored syrups. Among the
Europeans of various nations the dignified and ample figures of
well-dressed Arabs in pale blue, green, brown, and white burnouses, with
high turbans bound by ropes of camel's hair, stood out, the conquered
looking like conquerors.
"_Cirez! Cirez!"_ cried incessantly the Arab boot-polishers, who
scuffled and played tricks among themselves while they waited for
customers. "_Cirez, moosou! Cirez!_" Long wagons, loaded with stone from
the quarries of the Gorge, jangled by, some of them drawn by mixed teams
of eleven horses and mules, on whose necks chimed collars of bells.
Chauffeurs sounded the horns of their motors as they slowly crept
through the nonchalant crowd of natives, which had gathered in front of
the post-office and the Municipal Theater to discuss the affairs of the
day. Maltese coachmen, seated on the boxes of large landaus, cracked
their whips to announce to the Kabyle Chasseurs of the two hotels the
return of travellers from their excursions. Omnibuses rolled slowly up
from the station loaded with luggage, which was vehemently grasped by
native porters, brought to earth, and carried in with eager violence.
The animation of the city was intense, and had in it something barbaric
and almost savage, something that seemed undisciplined, bred of the
orange and red soil, of the orange and red rocks, of the snow and
sun-smitten mountains, of the terrific gorges and precipices which made
the landscape vital and almost terrible.
Yet in the evening light the distant slopes, the sharply cut silhouettes
of the hills, held a strange and exquisitely delicate serenity. The sky,
cloudless, shot with primrose, blue, and green, deepening toward the
West into a red that was flecked with gold, was calm and almost tender.
Nature showed two sides of her soul; but humanity seemed to respond only
to the side that was fierce and violent.
"What a setting for melodrama!" repeated Mrs. Shiffney.
She sighed. At that moment the presence of Henriette irritated her. She
wanted to be alone, leaning to watch this ever-shifting torrent of
humanity. This balcony belonged to her room. She had revenged herself
for the upper berth by securing a room much better placed than
Henriette's. But if Henriette intended to live in it--
Suddenly she drew back rather sharply. She had just seen, in the midst
of the crowd, the tall figure of Claude Heath moving toward the cafe
immediately opposite to her balcony.
"Is my tea never coming?" she said. "I think I shall get into a tea-gown
and lie down a little before dinner."
Madame Sennier followed her into the room.
"Till dinner, then," she said. "We are sure to see them, I suppose?"
"Of course. Leave the libretto entirely to me. He would be certain to
suspect any move on your part."
Madame Sennier's white face looked very hard as she nodded and left the
room. She met the waiter bringing Mrs. Shiffney's tea at the door.
When she and the waiter were both gone Mrs. Shiffney drank her tea on
the balcony, sitting largely on a cane chair. She felt agreeably
excited. Claude Heath had gone into the cafe on the other side of the
road, and was now sitting alone at a little table on the terrace which
projects into the Place beneath the Hotel de Paris. Mrs. Shiffney saw a
waiter take his order and bring him coffee, while a little Arab,
kneeling, set to work on his boots.
All day long Claude and Gillier had remained invisible. Mrs. Shiffney,
Henriette, and Max Elliot, after visiting the native quarters in the
morning, had expected to see the two men at lunch, but they had not
appeared. Now the two women had just returned from a drive round the
city and to the suspension bridge which spans the terror of the Gorge.
And here was Claude Heath just opposite to Mrs. Shiffney, no doubt
serenely unconscious of her presence in Constantine! As Mrs. Shiffney
sipped her tea and looked down at him she thought again, "What a setting
for melodrama!"
She was a very civilized child of her age, and believed that she had a
horror of melodrama, looking upon it as a degraded form of art, or
artlessness, which pleased people whom she occasionally saw but would
never know. But this evening some part of her almost desired it, not as
a spectacle, but as something in which she could take an active part. In
this town she felt adventurous. It was difficult to look at this crowd
without thinking of violent lives and deeds of violence. It was
difficult to look at Claude Heath without the desire to pay him back
here with interest for a certain indifference.
"But I'm not really melodramatic," said Adelaide Shiffney to herself.
She could resent, but she was not a very good hater. She felt generally
too _affairee_, too civilized to hate. In her heart she rather disliked
Claude Heath as once she had rather liked him. He had had the
impertinence and lack of taste to decline her friendship, tacitly, of
course, but quite definitely. She had never been in love with him. If
she had been she would have been more definite with him. But he had
attracted her a good deal; and she always resented even the crossing of
a whim. Something in his personality and something in his physique had
appealed to her, a strangeness and height, an imaginativeness and
remoteness which features and gesture often showed in despite of his
intention. He was not like everybody. It would have been interesting to
take him in hand. It had certainly been irritating to make no impression
upon him. And now he was married and living in a delicious Arab nest
with that foolish Charmian Mansfield. So Mrs. Shiffney called Charmian
at that moment. Suddenly she felt rather melancholy and rather cross.
She wanted to give somebody a slap. She put down her tea-cup, lit a
cigarette, and drew her chair to the rail of the balcony.
Claude Heath was sipping his coffee. One long-fingered musical hand lay
on his knee. His soft hat was tilted a little forward over the eyes that
were watching the crowd. Probably he was thinking about his opera.
Mrs. Shiffney was incapable of Henriette's hard and bitter
determination. Her love was not fastened irrevocably on any man. She
wished that it was, or thought she did. Such a passion must give a new
interest to life. Often she fancied she was in love; but the feeling
passed, and she bemoaned its passing. Henriette was determined to keep a
clear field for her composer. She was ready to be suspicious, to be
jealous of every musical shadow. Mrs. Shiffney found herself wishing
that she had Henriette's incentive as she looked at Claude Heath. She
could not see his face quite clearly. Perhaps when she did--
That he should have married that silly Charmian Mansfield! Ever since
then Mrs. Shiffney had resolved to wipe them both off her
slate--gradually. Charmian had been right in her supposition. But now
Mrs. Shiffney thought she was perhaps on the edge of something that
might be more amusing than a mere wiping off the slate.
Of course Claude Heath and Gillier would be at dinner. It would be
rather fun to see Claude's face when she walked in with Henriette and
Max Elliot.
She got up and stood by the rail; and now she looked down on Claude with
intention, willing that he should look up at her. Why should not she
have the fun of seeing his surprise while she was alone? Why should she
share with Henriette?
Without turning his eyes in her direction Claude rapped on his table
with a piece of money, paid a waiter for his coffee, got up, made his
way out of the cafe, and mingled with the crowd. He did not come toward
the hotel, but turned up the street leading to the Governor's palace and
disappeared. Mrs. Shiffney noticed an Arab in a blue jacket and a white
burnous, who joined him as he left the cafe.
"Local color, I suppose," she murmured to herself. She wished she could
go off like that in the strange and violent crowd, could be quite
independent.
"What a curse it is to be a woman!" she thought.
Then she resolved after dinner to go out for a stroll with Claude.
Henriette should not come. If she, Adelaide Shiffney, were going to work
for Henriette she must be left to work in her own way. She thought of
the little intrigue that was on foot, and smiled. Then she looked out
beyond the Place, over the dusty public gardens and the houses, to the
far-off, serene, bare mountains. For a moment their calm outlines held
her eyes. For a moment the clamor of voices from below seemed to die out
of her ears. Then she shivered, drew back into her room, and felt for
the knob of the electric light. Darkness was falling, and it was growing
cold on this rocky height which frowned above the gorge of the Rummel.
Neither Claude Heath nor Gillier appeared at dinner. Their absence was
discussed by Mrs. Shiffney and her friends, and Mrs. Shiffney told them
that she had seen Claude Heath that evening in a cafe. After dinner
Henriette Sennier remarked discontentedly:
"What are we going to do?"
"Max, why don't you get a guide and take Henriette out to see some
dancing? There is dancing only five minutes from here," said Mrs.
Shiffney.
"Well, but you--aren't you coming?"
She had exchanged a glance with Henriette.
"I must write some letters. If I'm not too long over them perhaps I'll
follow you. I can't miss you. All the dancing is in the same street."
"But I don't think there are any dancing women here."
"The Kabyle boys dance. Go to see them, and I'll probably follow you."
As soon as they were gone Mrs. Shiffney put on a fur coat, summoned an
Arab called Amor, who had already spoken to her at the door of the
hotel, and said to him:
"You know the tall Englishman who is staying here?"
"The one who takes Aloui as guide?"
"Perhaps. I don't know. But he is fond of music; he--"
"It is Aloui's Englishman," interrupted Amor, calmly.
"Where does he go at night? He's a friend of mine. I should like to meet
him."
"He might be with Said Hitani."
"Where is that?"
"If madame does not mind a little walk--"
"Take me there. Is it far?"
"It is on the edge of the town, close to the wall. When Said Hitani
plays he likes to go there. He is growing old. He does not want to play
where everybody can hear. Madame has a family in England?"
Mrs. Shiffney satisfied Amor's curiosity as they walked through the
crowded streets till they came to the outskirts of the city. The stars
were out, but there was no moon. The road ran by the city wall. Far down
below, in the arms of the darkness, lay the gorge, from which rose
faintly the sound of water; lay the immense stretches of yellow-brown
and red-brown country darkened here and there with splashes of green;
the dim plantations, the cascades which fall to the valley of Sidi
Imcin; the long roads, like flung-out ribands, winding into the great
distances which suggest eternal things. From the darkness, as from the
mouth of a mighty cavern, rose a wind, not strong, very pure, very keen,
which seemed dashed with the spray of water. Now and then an Arab
passed muffled in burnous and hood, a fold of linen held to his mouth.
The noise of the city was hushed.
Presently Amor stood still.
"_Voila_ Said Hitani!"
Mrs. Shiffney heard in the distance a sound of music. Several
instruments combined to make it, but the voice of a flute was dominant
among them. Light, sweet, delicate, it came to her in the night like a
personality full of odd magic, full of small and subtle surprises,
intricate, gay, and sad.
"Said Hitani!" she said. "He's delicious! Take me to him, Amor."
She knew at once that he was the flute-player.
They walked on, and soon came to a patch of light on the empty road.
This was shed by the lamps of the cafe from which the music issued.
Under the two windows, which were protected by wire and by iron bars,
five Arabs were squatting, immersed in a sea of garments in which their
figures and even their features were lost. Only their black eyes looked
out, gazing steadily into the darkness. A big man, with bare legs and a
spotted turban, came to the door of the cafe to invite them to go in;
but Mrs. Shiffney refused by a gesture.
"In a minute!" she said to Amor.
Amor spoke in Arabic to the attendant, who at once returned to the
coffee niche. Within the music never ceased, and now singing voices
alternated with the instruments. Mrs. Shiffney kept away from the door
and looked into the room through the window space next to it.
She saw a long and rather narrow chamber, with a paved floor, strewn
with clean straw mats, blue-green walls, and an orange-colored ceiling.
Close to the door was the coffee niche. At the opposite end of the room
five musicians were squatting, four in a semicircle facing the coffee
niche, the fifth alone, almost facing them. This fifth was Said Hitani,
the famous flute-player of Constantine--a man at this time sixty-three
years old. In front of him was a flat board, on which lay two freshly
rolled cigarettes and several cigarette ends. Now and then he took his
flute from his lips, replaced it with a lighted cigarette, smoked for a
moment, then swiftly renewed his strange love-song, playing with a
virile vigor as well as with airy daintiness and elaborate grace. Of his
companions, one played a violin, held upright by the left hand, with its
end resting on his stockinged foot; the second a species of large
guitar; the third a derbouka; and the fourth a tarah, or native
tambourine, ornamented with ten little discs of brass, which made a soft
clashing sound when shaken. On the left of the room, down one side,
squatted a row of Arabs with coffee-cups and cigarettes. By the door two
more were playing a game of draughts. And opposite to the windows, on an
Oriental rug, the long figure of Claude Heath was stretched out. He lay
with his hat tilted to the left over one temple, his cheek on his left
hand, listening intently to the music. On a wooden board beside him was
some music paper, and now and then with a stylograph he jotted down some
notes. He looked both emotional and thoughtful. Often his imaginative
eyes rested on the small and hunched-up figure of Said Hitani, dressed
in white, black, and gold, with a hood drawn over the head. Now and then
he looked toward the window, and it seemed to Mrs. Shiffney then that
his eyes met hers. But he saw nothing, except perhaps some Eastern
vision summoned up by his lit imagination.
The music very gradually quickened and grew louder, became steadily more
masculine, powerful, and fierce, till it sounded violent. The volume of
tone produced by the players astonished Mrs. Shiffney. The wild vagaries
of the flute seemed presently to be taking place in her brain. She drew
close to the window, put her hands on the bars. At her feet the
crouching Arabs never stirred. Behind her the cold wind came up from the
gorge and the great open country with the sound of the rushing water.
At that moment she had the thing that she believed she lived for--a
really keen sensation.
Suddenly, when the music had become almost intolerably exciting, when
the players seemed possessed, and noise and swiftness to rush together
like foes to the attack, the flute wavered, ran up to a height, cried
out like a thing martyred; the violin gave forth a thin scream; on the
derbouka the brown fingers of the player pattered with abrupt
feebleness; the guitar died away; the little brass discs shivered and
fell together. Another thin cry from the flute upon some unknown height,
and there was silence, while Claude wrote furiously, and the musicians
began to smoke.
[Illustration: "AT HER FEET THE CROUCHING ARABS NEVER STIRRED"--_Page
258_]
"Now I'll go in!" said Mrs. Shiffney to Amor.
He led the way and she followed. Claude glanced up, stared for a moment,
then sprang up.
"Mrs. Shiffney!"
His voice was almost stern.
"Mrs. Shiffney!" he repeated.
"Come to hear your music, for I know they are all playing only for you
and the opera."
Her strong, almost masculine hand lingered in his, and how could he let
it go without impoliteness?
"Aren't they?"
"I suppose so."
"It's wonderful the way they play. Said Hitani is an artist."
"You know his name?"
"And I must know him. May I stay a little?"
"Of course."
He looked round for a seat.
"No, the rug!" she said.
And, despite her bulk, she sank down with a swift ease that was almost
Oriental.
"Now please introduce me to Said Hitani!"
Till late in the night she stayed between the blue-green walls,
listening to the vehement voices and to the instruments, following all
the strange journeys of Said Hitani's flute. She was genuinely
fascinated, and this fact made her fascinating. As she had caught at Max
Elliot that day when he asked her, against his intention, to meet Claude
Heath, so now she caught at Claude Heath himself. She had come to the
cafe with a purpose, and, as she forgot it, she carried it out. Never
before had Claude understood completely why she had gained her position
in London and Paris, realized fully her fascination. Her delightful
naturalness, her pleasure, her almost boyish gaiety, her simplicity, her
humor took him captive for the moment. She explained that she had left
her companions and stolen away to enjoy Constantine alone.
"And now I'm interrupting you. But you must forgive me just for this one
night!"
Through Amor, who acted as interpreter, she carried on a lively
intercourse with Said Hitani. The other musicians smiled, but seldom
spoke, and only among themselves. But Said Hitani, the great artist of
his native city, a man famous far and wide among the Arabs, was
infinitely diverting and descriptive in talk even as when he gave
himself to the flute. With an animation that was youthful he described
the meaning of each new song. He had two flutes on which he played
alternately--"Mousou et Madame," he called them. And he knew, so he
declared, over a hundred songs. Mrs. Shiffney, speaking to him always
through Amor, told him of London, and what a sensation he and his
companions would make there in the _decor_ of a Moorish cafe. Said
Hitani pulled his little gray beard with his delicate hands, swayed to
and fro, and smiled. Then sharply he uttered a torrent of words which
seemed almost to fight their way out of some chamber in his narrow
throat.
"Said Hitani says you have only to send money and the address and they
are all coming whenever you like. They are very pleased to come."
At this point one of the musicians, a fair man with pale eyes who played
the tarah, interposed a remark which was uttered with great seriousness.
"Can they go to London on camels, he wishes to know," observed Amor
gently.
Said Hitani waited for Mrs. Shiffney's answer with a slightly judicial
air, moving his head as if in approval of the tarah-player's
forethought.
"I'm afraid they can't."
The tarah-player spoke again.
"He says, can they go on donkeys?"
"No. It is further than Paris, tell him."
"Then they must go on the sea. Paris is across the sea."
"Yes, they will have to take a steamer."
At this juncture it was found that the tarah-player would not be of the
party.
"He says he would be very sick, and no man can play when he is sick."
"What will Madame pay?" interposed Said Hitani.
Mrs. Shiffney declared seriously that she would think it over, make a
calculation, and Amor should convey her decision as to price to him on
the morrow.
All seemed well satisfied with this. And the tarah-player remarked,
after a slight pause, that he would wait to know about the price before
he decided whether he would be too sick to play in London. Then, at a
signal from Said Hitani, they all took up their instruments and played
and sang a garden song called _Mabouf_, describing how a Sheik and his
best loved wife walked in a great garden and sang one against the other.
"It has been quite delicious!" said Mrs. Shiffney to Claude, when at
last the song _Au Revoir_, tumultuously brilliant with a tremendous
crescendo at the close, had been played, and with many salaams and good
wishes the musicians had departed.
"I love their playing," Claude answered. "But really you shouldn't have
paid them. I have arranged with Hitani to come every evening."
"Oh, but I paid them for wanting to know whether they could go to London
on camels. What a success your opera ought to be if you have got a fine
libretto."
They were just leaving the cafe.
"Do let us stand by the wall for a minute," she added. "By that tree. It
is so wonderful here."
Claude's guide, Aloui, had come to accompany him home, and was behind
with Amor. They stayed in the doorway of the cafe. Mrs. Shiffney and
Claude leaned on the wall, looking down into the vast void from which
rose the cool wind and the sound of water.
"What would I give to be a creative artist!" she said. "That must add so
much meaning to all this. Do you know how fortunate you are? Do you know
you possess the earth?"
The sable sleeve of her coat touched Claude's arm and hand. Her deep
voice sounded warm and full of genuine feeling. A short time ago, when
she had come into the cafe, he had been both astonished and vexed to see
her. Now he knew that he had enjoyed this evening more than any other
evening that he had spent in Constantine.
"But there are plenty of drawbacks," he said.
"Oh, no, not real ones! After this evening--well, I shall wish for your
success. Till now I didn't care in the least. Indeed, I believe I hoped
you never would have a great success."
She moved slightly nearer to him.
"Did you?" he said.
"Yes. You've always been so horrid to me, when I always wanted to be
nice to you."
"Oh, but--"
"Don't let us talk about it. What does it matter now? I thought I might
have done something for you once, have helped you on a little, perhaps.
But now you are married and settled and will make your own way. I feel
it. You don't want anyone's help. You've come away from us all, and how
right you've been. And Charmian's done the right thing, too, giving up
all our nonsense for your work. Sacrifice means success. You are bound
to have it. I feel you are going to. Ah, you don't know how I sometimes
long to be linked, really linked, to the striving, the abnegation, the
patience, the triumph of a man of genius! People envy my silly little
position, as they call it. And what is it worth? And yet I do know, I
have an instinct, a flair, for the real thing. I'm ignorant. I can dare
to acknowledge it to you. But I can tell what is good and bad, and
sometimes even why a thing is good. I'm led away, of course. In a silly
social life like mine everybody is led away. We can't help it. But I
could have been worth something in the art life of a big man, if I'd
loved him."
How soft sable is against a hand!
"I'm sure you could," Claude said.
"And as it is--"
She stopped speaking abruptly. Then with a marked change of voice she
said:
"Oh, do forgive me for committing the unpardonable sin--babbling about
myself! You're the only person I have ever--Forget all about it, won't
you? I don't know why I did it. It was the music, I suppose, and the
strangeness of this place, and thinking of your work and your hopes for
the future. It made me wish I had some too, either for myself or
for--for someone like you."
As if irresistibly governed by feeling her voice had again changed,
become once more warm as with emotion. But now she drew herself up a
little and laughed.
"Don't be afraid! It's over! But you have had a glimpse no one else has
ever had, and I know you'll keep it to yourself. Let's talk of something
else--anything. Tell me something about your libretto, if you care to."
As they walked slowly toward the heart of the city, followed by the two
Arabs, she took Claude's arm, very naturally, as if half for protection,
half because it was dark and false steps were possible.
And he told her a good deal, finally a great deal, about the libretto.
"It sounds wonderful!" she said. "I'm so glad! But may I give you a
little bit of advice?"
"Yes, do."
"Don't say anything about it to Henriette--Madame Sennier."
"No. But--"
"Why not? I scarcely know. My instinct! Don't!"
"I won't," Claude said.
"I'd give anything to read it. But if I were you I wouldn't let anyone
read it. As you probably know, I'm in half the secrets of the artistic
world, and always have been. But there isn't one woman in a hundred who
can be trusted to hold her tongue. Is this the hotel? Good-night. Yes,
isn't it a delicious coat? _Bonne nuit_, Amor! _A demain!_"
A minute later Mrs. Shiffney tapped at Henriette's door, which was
immediately opened.
"It is all right," she whispered. "I shall have the libretto
to-morrow."