"Good-bye again."
After Mrs. Lennox had left the room, Katrine and the Countess looked at
each other with questioning in the eyes of each.
"You lived at a place called Ravenel," Madame de Nemours asked, "and
never told me?"
"I did not think the name one you would care to hear," Katrine answered.
"Ah, you so sweet thing!" the Countess cried, impulsively, putting her
hand on the girl's cheek. "You were right. There are probably thousands
of Ravenels in America unconnected with my unfortunate life."
But Katrine, who had had her own surprises in the interview, inquired,
"Why did Mrs. Lennox, who is very beautiful, very wealthy, and of the
monde, take so much trouble to come here to tell me of a Mr. van
Rensselaer?"
"I didn't think she came for that alone," answered the Countess. "I
thought she wanted you to know that Monsieur Ravenel was coming over to
visit her."
Naturally, a marked change in Katrine's attitude toward her unknown
benefactor followed this talk with Anne Lennox. She had become
accustomed to think of "The Dear Unknown" as a lady, old and beneficent.
The new idea was startling. Thinking it over, she became convinced of
the extreme unlikelihood that two people should have become so greatly
interested in her voice at exactly the same time, and her conclusions
led to believing that Mrs. Lennox had probably given her a true version
of the affair. But if Nicholas van Rensselaer were her patron, instead
of some white-haired old lady down in Leeds or Kent or Surrey, as she
had imagined, her last letter must inevitably have told him, who had
spent so much time in North Carolina, of her love for Francis Ravenel.
The obviously honest thing to do was to write to Mr. van Rensselaer
immediately, to let him know that without effort or curiosity on her
part his identity had been revealed to her.
Her letter to him was short to abruptness. She stated briefly the manner
in which the information had come to her as well as her regret that his
wish to remain unknown had been thwarted. She hoped that her voice would
fulfill all the promise he thought it gave two years back; referred to
the personal nature of her last letter; spoke of her desire to repay in
full the money part of her obligation to him, realizing that the kind
thought could never be repaid in this world, and signed herself his
"grateful Katrine Dulany."
In a fortnight the answer came:
MY DEAR MISS DULANY,--Your letter reached me but a few minutes ago,
and I am feeling, since its arrival, like the ass that wore the
lion's skin. Mrs. Lennox was entirely wrong in her statements. It
is true that I proposed the arrangement, which she told you of, to
Mrs. Ravenel, but that dear lady wrote me within the week that I
was too late in my offer, and that another believer in your gift
had anticipated the pleasure I had promised myself in helping to
give to the world a great voice.
I am extremely sorry that you are under no obligations to me. The
confidences which you mention I assure you are entirely safe so far
as I am concerned, for I never received a letter from you save the
one which lies before me as I write.
I have heard that you will sing at the Josef recital in May. May I
count upon you to write me a line as to the exact time, so that I
may have the pleasure of hearing you?
If, meanwhile, there is any way that I can serve you, believe me
that I shall be glad to do so, for I heard you sing "Ah! Fors e
lui" one night, standing under the pines outside of your window,
and my debt is great.
Sincerely,
NICHOLAS VAN RENSSELAER.
And it was a curious thing to note that this letter, caused by the
chatter of Anne Lennox, was the direct cause of Katrine's next meeting
with Frank, a meeting which, but for this correspondence which led to an
acquaintance with the Van Rensselaers, might never have taken place.
One evening, shortly after the receipt of this letter, Madame de Nemours
told Katrine a piece of news for which she was not unprepared.
"By-the-way," she said, "Mrs. Lennox was here to-day. Mr. Ravenel is
expected in Paris to-morrow. I have asked a party to dine with them on
Friday."
Katrine had just said good-night to the Countess, and was standing in
the doorway, candle in hand, with the light shining full on her face, as
Madame de Nemours spoke; but she received the news with no change of
face, no tremor of an eyelid. She felt it a loyalty to old love that the
Countess should be forever unable to recognize in Frank the man whom
they had discussed so often, namelessly; and of whom Madame de Nemours
had such a slighting opinion. The strangest thing of all was that she
had for this man's coming; this man for whose presence she had longed
day and night for two years; the remembrance of whose words could
thrill her and bring tears to her eyes or a smile to her lips; that for
this man's coming, she had no thought save regret that he was to come,
and determination not to meet him.
"I want to be sent away, Illustrious Master," she said, the following
afternoon, to Josef, when the lesson was over, and they stood together
looking at the sun going down over the gray mist of the Paris roofs. "I
am not well, and there is some one coming to Madame de Nemours' on
Friday whom I do not wish to meet."
Josef looked at her quickly.
"Mademoiselle Silence," he said, "I, who read voices as others read a
printed page, understand. You had better see him."
Katrine flushed crimson, but changed suddenly to such a whiteness that
Josef thought she would have fallen.
"Forgive me," he said, tenderly, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I am
the surgeon with the knife, but my work is almost done. Let me tell you
something. You have worked as I have never seen any one work before. I
have not praised much, but I have seen. Ah, I know! Tones, little, big,
staccato, breath, breath, breath! Over, and yet again over. And the
thinking a tone, which is the hardest of all. And the acting--to
conceive what a character's voice should be; to understand that the
timbre of Carmen's voice would not be that of Marguerite's; that the
soul of the voice must change for each character. To slave, to slave, to
slave, and suffer as you have done into the third year, is it not? None
other can know the value of it all as I know it, and at the end what has
the master done for you? Meet this man and you will find out. It is for
my reward I am asking, for I, too, have done something."
Katrine took the hand of the great teacher and kissed it lovingly.
"Something?" she said. "You have done all."
"Not all; a part, a very little part," he returned. "But meet the man,
my child, and you will see how much has been done by both of us. On
Saturday morning you will come to me. You will say, 'Prophetic man, I am
ashamed through all my being to have loved so slight a thing.' You will
find you have outgrown him, and he will have only the weight of the
Santa Claus, which children painlessly outgrow. And ever after you will
have toward him a kindly mother-feeling, for that is woman's way toward
their first loves."