Lily did not sell and for a time the letters of Folsom and Jones ceased
to arrive regularly. Since all her property in the Town was sold save
the site of the house at Cypress Hill, there remained no cause for
correspondence. Her money she invested through the American banks in
Paris. She heard nothing more of the Town until November when she
returned to the city. The prospect of a winter in Paris appeared to
revive her spirits, and she went, as usual, to hear Ellen play her first
concert of the season. That year Lilli Barr played a new Poem with the
Colonne Orchestra under the bâton of the elegant Gabriel Pierné. The
performance was not a great success. There was too little sympathy
between the scholarly soul of the conductor and the vigorous, barbaric
temperament of the pianist. Yet it was Ellen who came off best, bearing
all the laurels, with all the simpering critics trotting attendance.
“Mlle. Barr,” they said, “has the perfect temperament for it ... the
superb adjustment of soul and intellect indispensable to the
interpretation of such febrile music. It is music which requires a
certain coldness of brain, a perception delicate and piercing ... a
thing of the nerves.” And so they ran on, wallowing in their delight for
the _mot juste_, praising more extravagantly than was either honest or
in good taste. One or two saw an opportunity in the praise of hitting a
back handed slap at the conductor and his orchestra.
It was M. Galivant, critic of the Journal des Arts Modernes, who hit
upon the phrases “febrile music” and “delicate perception.” He showed
Lilli Barr the article in the salon after the concert, with the keys of
the great piano barely cool from her hot fingers.
“Pish! Tosh!” she remarked to Lily who waited for her in the dressing
room. “Did you see what Galivant has written? It’s too exquisite for
me. To hear them talk, you’d think I took the veil for months at a time
just to meditate what my music is all about. I know what it’s about and
I don’t want praise that’s written before they hear me play, just
because I help their modern music along. Nerves! Nerves! I haven’t got
such things!”
Yet she was, as always after a concert, tense and nervous, filled with a
terrible energy which would not let her sleep until dawn. To-night she
wore a long tight gown of cloth of silver, without sleeves and girdled
by a single chain of rhinestones. With her dark hair drawn tightly back,
she resembled a fine greyhound--lean, muscular, quivering.
“At least they liked it,” said Lily, “judging from the applause.” She
sat waiting in a long cloak of black velvet, held together with silver
clasps.
There was a sudden knock at the door and Lily murmured “Come in.” It was
the porter, a lean, sallow, man with a stoop and enormous black
mustaches.
“There is a gentleman to see Madame l’artiste,” he said.
Ellen turned. “Who is it?”
The man grimaced. “How should I know? He says he knows you.”
A shadow of irritation crossed Ellen’s smooth brow. “If he wants to see
me, tell him to send in his name.” And then to Lily as the porter
withdrew, “You see what fame is. The porter doesn’t even know my name.
He calls me Madame l’artiste ... Madame indeed! He hasn’t even bothered
to read the bills.”
The fellow returned again, this time opening the door without the
courtesy of a knock.
“His name, Madame, is ’arrisong.”
Ellen pursed her lips thoughtfully and struck a match on the sole of her
slipper, holding the flame to the cigarette in her strong slim fingers.
“Harrison?... Harrison?” she repeated, holding the cigarette between her
lips and the lighted match poised. “I don’t know any Harrison.... Tell
him to come in.”
The stranger must have been waiting just outside the door, for at the
word he stepped timidly inside. He was dressed in black and wore a
derby hat set well on the back of his head. Over one arm hung an
umbrella. He was rather sallow and macabre despite his plumpness. There
was the faint air of an undertaker about him. He might have been any
age.
As he advanced he smiled and, observing Lily, his countenance assumed an
expression of surprise. Ellen gave no sign of recognition. It was Lily
who stirred suddenly and stood up, her face glowing with a genuine
spontaneous pleasure.
“Willie Harrison!” she cried. “Where have _you_ come from?”
At the sound of his name Ellen’s smooth brow wrinkled in a slight frown.
“Willie Harrison,” she murmured, and then joined Lily in welcoming him.
For a moment he stood awkwardly regarding the two women. Then he said,
“I came to your concert, Ellen.... I saw it advertised in the Herald. I
knew you were Lilli Barr.” He chortled nervously. “Funny how famous you
are now! Nobody ever would have thought it!”
The sight of Willie appeared suddenly to loosen all Ellen’s taut nerves.
She sat down, leaned back in the chair, and laughed. “Yes. I fooled
them, didn’t I?” she said. “I fooled them.” And a sort of grim
satisfaction entered her voice.
Lily was smiling now, out of sheer pleasure at the sight of Willie. It
amused her probably more than anything that could have happened to her
at that moment.
“But what on earth are you doing in Paris?”
From the tone of her voice, it was clear that she regarded his presence
as a sort of miracle.... That Willie Harrison should have had the energy
to cross the Atlantic and wander about alone in Paris.
Willie sat down, rather stiffly, and told his story. He was with a
Cook’s party. His tour included London, Paris, the château country and
Switzerland. He was leaving shortly.
“It’s been a wonderful trip,” he remarked, his plump face all aglow.
“I’d no idea how much country there was over here.”
“Yes,” said Ellen, “there’s a good deal, taking it all in all.” She said
this with an undisguised air of patronizing him. It was she who was
great now, she who held the whip hand. She was no longer an awkward girl
in a home-made ball gown so unpretentious that men like Willie Harrison
failed to notice her.
But Willie failed to understand. He was childishly excited over Paris.
“It’s a great city!” he observed, fingering nervously the ruby clasp of
his watch chain. “A great city!”
Lily stood up suddenly.
“Willie,” she said, “come home and have supper with us.” And turning to
Ellen she added, “Paul will be waiting for us. He must be there
already.” And to Willie, “Paul is Monsieur Schneidermann, a friend of
Ellen’s and mine.”
Willie rose. “I don’t know,” he said timidly. “Maybe you aren’t prepared
for me. Maybe I’d be in the way. I didn’t mean to force my way in on
anything when I called. It was just for the sake of old times.”
Lily, moved toward the door trailing the magnificent cloak of black and
silver. She thrust her arm through his. “Come along, Willie,” she said.
“No nonsense. Why, we grew up together.”
And they went out, Ellen following them in her plum-colored wrap, to the
motor which bore on its polished door the crest of the Baron.
Throughout the journey Willie kept poking his head in and out of the
closed motor, drinking in the sights along the way ... the hushed,
shadowy mass of the Madeleine, the warm glow before Maxims’, the ghostly
spaces of the Place de la Concorde, the white palaces of the Champs
Elysées. Ellen in her corner remained sulky and taciturn, smoking
savagely. Lily talked merrily, pointing out from time to time sights
which she deemed worthy of Willie’s appreciation. He seemed not to be
listening.
“It’s a wonderful place,” he kept saying over and over again. “It’s a
wonderful place.” And a kind of pathetic and beautiful awe crept into
his thin voice. It seemed that he had no other words than “wonderful.”
He kept repeating it again and again like a drunken man holding a
conversation with himself.
At Numero Dix, Rue Raynouard, Willie underwent the experience of every
stranger. He entered by the unpretentious door and found himself
suddenly at the top of a long, amazing stairway which led down to a
drawing-room all rosy with the glow of warm light. Half-way down the
stairs candles burned in sconces against the dull paneling. From below
drifted the faint sound of music ... a Debussy nocturne being played
with caressing fingers in the shadowy, dim-lit spaces of the
drawing-room.
“Paul is here,” observed Ellen and led the way down the long stairs.
Lily followed and close at her silver heels Willie Harrison, divested
now of his derby and umbrella. Half-way down, he paused for a moment and
Lily, conscious that he had ceased to follow her, waited too. As she
turned she saw that he was listening. There was a strange blurred look
in his pale eyes ... the look of one awaking from a long sleep.
“It’s beautiful,” he said reverently. “My God! It’s beautiful!” A kind
of dignity seized him. He was no longer gauche and timid. He stared at
Lily who stood with her back to a mirror, the black and silver cloak
thrown carelessly back from her voluptuous white shoulders, her handsome
head crowned with gold bronze hair. And then all at once the tears shone
in his eyes. He leaned against the paneling.
“I understand now,” he said softly. “I understand ... everything. I know
now how little I must have counted.... me and all the Mills together.”
And in Lily’s eyes there was mirrored another picture ... that of a vast
resounding shed bright with flames and thick with the odor of soot and
half-naked bodies ... Willie, eternally fingering the ruby clasp of his
watch chain, herself turning the rings round and round on her slim
fingers, and in the distance the white, stalwart body of a young
Ukrainian steel worker ... a mere boy ... but beautiful. Krylenko was
his name ... Krylenko ... Krylenko ... It was a long time ago, more than
fourteen years. How time flew!
Lily’s dusky blue eyes darkened suddenly and the tears brimmed over.
Perhaps it came to her then for the first time ... a sense of life, of a
beautiful yet tragic unity, of a force which swept both of them along
helplessly.
All at once she held her handkerchief, quite shamelessly, to her eyes.
“We are beginning to be old, Willie,” she said softly. “Do you feel it
too?”
And she turned and led the way downwards. The music had ceased and the
voices of Ellen and Paul Schneidermann rose in dispute. They were
arguing with a youthful fire over the merits of the new concerto.
“Here,” came Ellen’s voice. “This part. It is superb!” And then the
sound of a wild, ecstatic sweep of music, terrifying and beautiful. “You
understand the strings help a great deal. Part of it lies in the
accompaniment.” And she began singing the accompaniment as she played.
But Lily with her companion trooping along behind her, did not interrupt
the discussion. They made their way, enveloped in a peaceful silence,
into the dining-room where supper waited them--some sort of hot stuff in
a silver dish with an alcohol flame burning beneath it, an urn
steaming with hot chocolate, a bowl of whipped cream, a few
sandwiches--superlatively French sandwiches, very thin and crustless
with the faintest edge of buff colored paté showing between the
transparent slices of white bread. It was all exquisite, perfect,
flawless.
“Sit down,” said Lily, as she flung off the black and silver cloak. “Sit
down and tell me all about yourself.”
Willie drew up a chair. “I shan’t be able to stay very late,” he said.
“You see, I’m leaving early in the morning.” He watched Lily fumbling
with the lamp beneath the urn. She was plumper than he had expected.
Indeed she was almost fat. There was a faint air of middle-age about
her, indiscernable but unmistakably present.
“What about yourself?” he asked politely. “What has your life been?”
Lily kept on turning and pushing at the silver burner. “My life?” she
said. “Well, you see it all about you, Willie.” She made a little
gesture to include the long, softly glittering rooms, Ellen, the piano,
Paul Schneidermann. “It’s just been this,” she said. “Nothing more ...
nothing less. Not much has happened.” For a moment she stopped her
fumbling and sat thoughtful. “Not much has happened,” and then after
another pause, “No, scarcely anything.”
There was a sudden, sharp silence, filled by the sound of Ellen’s
music. She had become absorbed in it, utterly. It was impossible to say
when she would come in to supper.
Then Willie, in an attempt at courtliness, strained the truth somewhat.
“You don’t look a day older, Lily ... not a day.... Just the same. It’s
remarkable.”
His companion lifted the lid of the chafing dish. “Some hot chicken,
Willie?” she asked, and when he nodded, “I must say you look younger ...
ten years younger than the last time I saw you. Why, you look as though
you’d forgotten the Mills ... completely.”
Willie laughed. It was a curious elated laugh, a little wild for all its
softness.
“I have,” he said. “You see I’m out of the Mills for good. I’ve been out
of them for almost seven years.”
Lily looked at him. “Seven years,” she said, “seven years! Why that’s
since the strike. You must have gotten out at the same time.”
“I did,” he replied, “I own some stock. That’s all. Judge Weissman is
dead, you know. When mother died, the old crowd went out of it for good.
All the Mills are now a part of the Amalgamated.”