LOVE, JEALOUSY AND MUSIC
The telephone bell in her apartment was ringing as Miss Holland entered
from her stroll, radiantly happy and at peace with all the world. She
took the receiver from the maid.
"Dr. Morris? Yes, I shall be home this evening, and glad to see you, of
course. Bring your violin and come by eight-thirty. Yes--yes. I meant to
have called you and apologized for my somewhat cavalier desertion of you
last night. I am sorry I was rude, I didn't mean to be, but come and let
me ask you to forgive me." Her tone was adorable and melted the sullen
mood of the man at the other end of the wire.
Having sworn that he would not see her again, having 'phoned to make an
appointment at which he meant to utter as bitter reproaches as he dared,
he appeared promptly at the hour set, ready to implore her grace and
accept with gratitude any smallest favor, any ray of hope she might see
fit to bestow upon him.
Like many another professional man in New York, in order to cater to the
class in society in which he hoped to establish his reputation and
clientele, Morris had found it necessary to live in a style which far
exceeded his income, although that was a good one for a man still young
in his profession. He was not popular with men, who regarded him as
rather theatrical and a _poseur_, but his music, a certain deference of
manner, a more romantic quality than is to be generally found among
American business men, gave him a great vogue with women, and he
cultivated them, especially the older ones, and they made life very
pleasant for him, introduced him to the right people, and gave him much
good advice now and then.
One of the smartest of these social leaders said practically one day:
"My dear boy, why do you let all these rich girls marry those silly
foreigners, without an idea to bless themselves with--dukes, debts and
diseases seem synonymous; you are not only clever, but you have the one
gift, saving the title, that commends these creatures to our girls."
He smiled his inscrutable smile and bowed. "And that is?"
"You seem to have found the lost art of making pretty speeches, and
paying a woman the small attentions that we all like so well. If I were
a man," went on this dreadful dame, "I should never forget to kiss my
wife and send her flowers and remember all the family anniversaries. It
is by attention to such small details as this that a man may purchase
immunity in larger and more important matters. I know this is most
immoral, but it makes the wife happy, the husband comfortable, and would
go far to decimate the divorce rate, so what more could you ask?"
"Perhaps I owe this to the fact that my father was a Hungarian
nobleman--oh, just a trumpery little title, with nothing to pay for the
necessary gold lace, so when he came to America he decided, like so many
of the revolutionists of that period, to be ultra-American, and dropped
even the foreign spelling of the name, changing the 'itz' to plain
'r-i-s,'" he answered. "I'm sure my music belongs to the other side of
the Atlantic."
"That accounts for it all," she said. "There is absolutely no reason why
you shouldn't marry almost any woman you want to. Why not find one who
can give you millions in money and the social position you need without
taking a generation to create one? I hope you haven't any foolish
entanglements," she added.
He flushed, but did not answer, and when a few weeks later he and Silvia
Holland had played together for some charitable entertainment, his
venerable mentor had sought him out, ready to bestow her blessing at the
earliest possible moment, approving his practical judgment and his good
taste. That was a long time ago.
He had resented the implication at the time; to do him justice, had
Silvia been penniless she would still have attracted him as no other
woman ever had. It was partly her personal charm, partly her music. It
may be true that the world of art is still the world, but it is a very
different world from that in which most of us live and move and have our
being, and Morris was conscious when her fingers touched the keys, and
he took up his bow and drew it across the strings of his violin, that
they entered upon a new and boundless universe in which sound superseded
all other mediums of communication, and seemed to take the place of
mere mundane sensation. Whether his passion for Silvia grew out of their
music, or the wonder of the music was a result of the perfect accord of
their natures, he could not tell. They had become one in his mind.
He fervently hated her various public activities. Here again the
ancestral traits dominated. He thought of her as a great lady, and being
that, she should have been content without anything more. Rushing madly
about doing things for other people implied a certain loss of caste. But
until the previous evening his discontent had been free from the bitter
draught of jealousy. There had been safety in the number of Miss
Holland's admirers, and when he was surest that she did not in any way
return his feeling for her, there had been balm in the thought that she
was too busy elevating the condition of her own sex to have much time to
waste upon any member of his. Instinctively he knew, when he intercepted
the first look between the lady of his dreams and his erstwhile college
associate, that the hour had come that he had dreaded. Silvia Holland
had at last met a man whom, consciously or unconsciously, she
acknowledged king. His rival was there, upon the threshold of her life,
and he was a rival to be feared. That he might also be a rival in his
profession, that he was so rich that he was far above the straits in
which Morris found himself more and more frequently involved, only added
to the flame that consumed him; life without Silvia herself would be
dull, colorless, objectless; life without her music would be but "wind
along the waste."
He had no patience with the theories of the newer medical practitioners
who refuse to be frightened by the cry of "professional ethics" or by
the demand that practice shall be "regular" whether the patient survives
or not; and yet while he denounced all forms of mental therapeutics, he
was conscious of a strain of superstition which he could in no wise
overcome. Weird folk-lore and uncanny rites kept up by some of the
primitive people of Hungary had had a strange fascination for him when
he was abroad. In himself, he found a singular mixture of the primeval
savage, and the ultra refined that approaches decadence. Of one thing
alone he was certain. To lose Silvia was to lose his soul; without her
there was neither here nor hereafter. Ruthlessly as he had brushed aside
the one woman in his life who came between them, he was prepared to
thrust out of his way any man who sought to become a part of her life.
It was in this mood that he entered her presence, and in this mood he
accepted her _amende honorable_, which she made with charming humility,
but when she would have led him to the music-room, for once he
hesitated.
"In a few minutes," he said, "but just now there is something I must say
to you. It is true that I was deeply hurt last night, but your regret,
so graciously expressed, emboldens me to think that you would not
willingly hurt me." He stopped, and she looked at him with a rather
puzzled air. "We have been friends for a great while," he said
irrelevantly.
"Yes," she said cordially, and somewhat relieved. "Haven't we? And what
a friendship it has been! A triangular affair, like a loving cup--you
and I and some one of the great masters of melody. Shall it be Chopin
to-night, or shall we begin with something lighter and finish with the
Twelfth Nocturne, as usual?"
She led the way, and stood by the piano, rippling her fingers over the
keys, and he stood before her, his face white and intense with feeling.
He laid his strong, brown fingers over the white ones, and raised them
to his lips, and Silvia laughed a trifle nervously. It was one of his
old-world ways that she liked, but disapproved with all proper
democratic fervor.
"Has it indeed been a loving cup from which we have drunk?" he said,
with passionate sadness. "I dare not think so, I dare not even hope so
much grace! And yet how is it possible that a man should feel what I
feel for you unless there is a response, little as he may deserve
it----"
He paused, and she took away her hand, and laid it lightly on his
shoulder as he sank down on the seat before the piano.
"Please don't," she said gently. "Don't you see that you are quite
right? If it were really, truly love that had come to you, I should feel
it also, there could be no question of doubting or daring; no thought of
hopelessness. Some time you will know that this is true, when some other
heart speaks to yours in the unmistakable tone of the one only love of
your heart. Each of us has his place in life, and in the lives of those
with whom we come in contact. No one can ever have your place; I can't
tell you how much rest and happiness you have brought me when I have
been a-weary of this world. Come, Orrin, don't rob me of my friend that
I may lose a lover."
By a herculean effort he restrained his feelings, and answered lightly,
"You shall keep your friend, my sorceress of song," but he added under
his breath, "Look to it, when the lover comes, for you may still lose
_him_." Then he took up his violin, and the night became a splendid
harmony, despite the discord that raged in his soul.