I
She came "to meet John Lefolle," but John Lefolle did not know he was
to meet Winifred Glamorys. He did not even know he was himself the
meeting-point of all the brilliant and beautiful persons, assembled in
the publisher's Saturday Salon, for although a youthful minor poet, he
was modest and lovable. Perhaps his Oxford tutorship was sobering.
At any rate his head remained unturned by his precocious fame, and
to meet these other young men and women--his reverend seniors on
the slopes of Parnassus--gave him more pleasure than the receipt of
"royalties." Not that his publisher afforded him much opportunity of
contrasting the two pleasures. The profits of the Muse went to provide
this room of old furniture and roses, this beautiful garden a-twinkle
with Japanese lanterns, like gorgeous fire-flowers blossoming under
the white crescent-moon of early June.
Winifred Glamorys was not literary herself. She was better than
a poetess, she was a poem. The publisher always threw in a few
realities, and some beautiful brainless creature would generally be
found the nucleus of a crowd, while Clio in spectacles languished in a
corner. Winifred Glamorys, however, was reputed to have a tongue that
matched her eye; paralleling with whimsies and epigrams its freakish
fires and witcheries, and, assuredly, flitting in her white gown
through the dark balmy garden, she seemed the very spirit of
moonlight, the subtle incarnation of night and roses.
When John Lefolle met her, Cecilia was with her, and the first
conversation was triangular. Cecilia fired most of the shots; she was
a bouncing, rattling beauty, chockful of confidence and high spirits,
except when asked to do the one thing she could do--sing! Then she
became--quite genuinely--a nervous, hesitant, pale little thing.
However, the suppliant hostess bore her off, and presently her rich
contralto notes passed through the garden, adding to its passion
and mystery, and through the open French windows, John could see her
standing against the wall near the piano, her head thrown back, her
eyes half-closed, her creamy throat swelling in the very abandonment
of artistic ecstasy.
"What a charming creature!" he exclaimed involuntarily.
"That is what everybody thinks, except her husband," Winifred laughed.
"Is he blind then?" asked John with his cloistral _naivete_.
"Blind? No, love is blind. Marriage is never blind."
The bitterness in her tone pierced John. He felt vaguely the passing
of some icy current from unknown seas of experience. Cecilia's voice
soared out enchantingly.
"Then, marriage must be deaf," he said, "or such music as that would
charm it."
She smiled sadly. Her smile was the tricksy play of moonlight among
clouds of faery.
"You have never been married," she said simply.
"Do you mean that you, too, are neglected?" something impelled him to
exclaim.
"Worse," she murmured.
"It is incredible!" he cried. "You!"
"Hush! My husband will hear you."
Her warning whisper brought him into a delicious conspiracy with her.
"Which is your husband?" he whispered back.
"There! Near the casement, standing gazing open-mouthed at Cecilia.
He always opens his mouth when she sings. It is like two toys moved by
the same wire."
He looked at the tall, stalwart, ruddy-haired Anglo-Saxon. "Do you
mean to say he--?"
"I mean to say nothing."
"But you said--"
"I said 'worse.'"
"Why, what can be worse?"
She put her hand over her face. "I am ashamed to tell you." How
adorable was that half-divined blush!
"But you must tell me everything." He scarcely knew how he had leapt
into this _role_ of confessor. He only felt they were "moved by the
same wire."