I had been astonished to find her in a modest hotel, with no trace of
her customary _entourage_, and no doubt she saw that, for she explained
that she had spent money almost as fast as she had earned it, and that
she felt obliged to be careful.
“But Jim—” I protested.
“I have never gone to Jim for money,” she said proudly. But her face
twitched a little. “I can’t ask him to keep me now.”
She had something, of course, but I was aghast at the distance that had
evidently come between them. That she still cared I was positive, but
how far had Jim drifted? I remembered the girl in the restaurant.
I cabled Jim that night without telling her, and for four days no reply
came. I was angry and frightened, but on the fifth day he cabled.
_Have moved heaven and earth for passport. Can’t get one. Will you bring
her home?_
She was like a ghost on the steamer. She was afraid of being recognised,
and only after night was I able to get her out on deck for a breath of
air. At first I thought that she was grieving over her condition, for
the fall from supreme greatness is harder than for those who have not
reached the top. But I began to see after a time that she had waved that
aside as of no importance whatever, and that her whole mind was on Jim.
Out of all that life had held out to her, only Jim was left.
Would Jim see that too? I could not get to him first to warn him, and
yet, in her psychological condition, I did not know what would happen if
he failed her.
She was dressed, veiled and on deck long before we were ready to dock.
She had even, a rare thing for her, put some rouge on her cheeks. I
found her, however, scrubbing it off.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “He must see me just as I am.”
She had lost a great deal of her beauty, and she looked almost old. I
confess that I was worried, but I need not have been. I saw Jim on the
pier before she did, and he had the same hungry look in his eyes that I
had seen in the box at the opera.
He just took her into his arms and held her there. . . .
The answer? There is no answer, except perhaps that success passes, one
way or another, and that the only thing that matters is a strong, warm,
human hand to hold to in the dark.
But there is a brief sequel to this story, and I do not know what it
teaches. Perhaps that it does not require failure to teach a woman
perspective. To some, of course, success is enough in itself, but there
are others who, not through calamity but because they will not pay the
cost, prefer love to success when, as sometimes happens, they cannot
have both.
We came through the war safely, and last summer I went out to Montana,
where Jim had bought a summer ranch. Three years had passed and more,
and all the world knew that the great _diva_ would never sing again. It
was true that she no longer whispered, but her singing voice was gone.
I found them brown and happy, and inseparable. The old look had gone
from both of them, and Peggy was doing most of the work, with a Chinaman
in the kitchen. There was not even a piano, nor one of the photographs
which used to litter up whatever Peggy was calling home at the moment.