"Because of the glamour, the mystery, which surrounded your name."
"Even now I don't see."
He looked amused and cried out: "On my life, I believe you don't! Being
at the source of the light, you can't see it, of course. It's like
wearing a crown of electric lamps--others see you as a dazzling thing;
you are in the dark. It is my trade to use words to express my meaning,
but I confess my hesitation in trying to make you see yourself as I saw
you. You were like a baleful, purple star, something monstrous yet
beautiful. Your fame filled the world and fell into my garret chamber
like a lurid sunrise. With your coming, mysterious posters bloomed and
crimson letters blazed on street-walls. Praiseful paragraphs appeared in
the newspapers, gowns and hats (named after you) and belt-buckles and
shoes and cigarettes arranged themselves in the windows, each bearing
your name."
"What a load of tinsel for a poor little woman to carry around! How it
must have shocked you to find me so commonplace! None of us escape the
common fates. It is always a surprise to me to discover how simple the
men of great literary fame are. A friend of mine once spent a whole
evening with a great novelist without discovering who he was. She said
to him when she found him out, 'I couldn't believe that any one I could
meet could be great.' Really, I hope you will forgive me for not being
as superhuman as my posters. It was the mystery of the unknown. If you
knew all about me I would be entirely commonplace." She was more
concerned about his opinion of her than she expressed in words. Her
eagerness appeared in her voice.
"I found you infinitely more womanly than I had supposed, and simpler.
Even yet I don't see how you can carry this oppressive weight of
advertising glory and still be--what you are."
"You seem to hesitate to tell me what I am."
"I do," he gravely answered, and for a moment she sat in silence.
"There's one objection to your assisting at rehearsals," she said,
irrelevantly. "You will lose all the intoxication of seeing your play
freshly bodied forth. It will be a poor, old, ragged story for you at
the end of the three weeks."
"I've thought of that; but there are other compensations."
"You mean the pleasure of having the work go right--"
"Yes, partly that--partly the suggestion that comes from a daily study
of it."
But the greatest compensation of all--the joy in her daily
companionship--he did not have the courage to mention, and though she
divined other and deeper emotions she, too, was silent.