A little color came into her cheeks. She took a deep breath and kept
at it. Her performance was not quite perfect--she got in only two clean
notes between _a_ and _a_-flat. But at that it was easily the most
delicately precise bit of singing I have ever heard. She played with
those close intervals with a facility that was amazing. And baring
perhaps Sembrich and the earlier Melba, I have never heard such
perfection of breath control (Patti doubtless had it, but I never heard
her).
She stepped forward, threw her shoulders back (without raising them),
swung up on the balls of her feet, and with a fine un-self-consciousness
spun out those light, clear threads of tone. When she breathed it was
with a quick inhalation that expanded the whole upper part of her body
and made you forget how slim she had seemed. She became for the moment a
strong, vibrant creature with a light in her eyes. But when she stopped
singing that light died out.
“Come!” I cried. “We shall get this down now. We shall prove it on the
phonograph. We shall settle that von Westfall beast forever!”
And I rushed back into my own room and prepared the instrument, without
so much as ushering her in first. This was rude of me. But I have
admitted I was not quite myself.
Before I had the cylinder on and the horn in position she followed. She
stood at my side, watching my hands at work. I felt her there, so close,
and was elated. I can not describe this sensation. That it is dangerous,
I know only too well It is distinctly a tendency to be resisted.
On second thought, I decided not to waste any of my precious cylinders
until she should acquire a reasonable degree of certainty with the
delicate scale that was our goal. I explained this to her, and she
understood. So I made her work upward from middle _c_, note by note,
employing the utmost care to keep the intervals at precisely one-eighth
of a tone. Over and over we did this. It called for the closest
concentration, on her part as well as mine. I found a sort of wild
happiness springing up within me at the thought that this woman has the
rarest of all qualities, great capacity for work and for the enthusiasm
and utter self-absorption that enter into all real achievement. I can
not call her a trained worker. I would not go so far as to say that
she has a trained mind. She needs guidance. And I rather imagine that
further acquaintance will show that she lacks enterprise. Women of fine
quality and great capacity often do, I think. They need stimulus and
leadership. Imagine a man with both her extraordinary gift and her
striking personality yet stirred by no curiosity to explore and create!
“There never was any reason for trying,” was all she had said to that,
and it was plainly all that was in her mind on the subject.
Women are incomplete creatures.
But--come to think of it--so are men.
Outside, the early April twilight settled down and deepened without
our knowing it. It was she who first noted the fact. I was writing down
notes on my extra-ruled paper to show her just where she had repeatedly
missed our scale by a fine fraction of a tone, and she was bending
close in the effort to see. Suddenly she sat up, drew in a quick breath,
blinked a little, then reached over and switched on the electric light.
This act broke the tension of our work. We talked on about it for a
little while, planning to get at it again in the morning. After a time
she rose. But instead of going into her own room she moved over to the
window and looked out across the dim, tiled roofs of the Chinese houses
toward the walls and trees of the Legation Quarter that were darkly
outlined against a glow of electric light.
I had lifted her momentarily out of her solitude. Now she dreaded
returning to it. I felt this, with a glow of exultation in my heart that
frightened me. But my impulses were too strong to-night to be governed
offhand. I followed her to the window and stood beside her looking out,
while my pulse raced.
“It's a wonderful old city,” I heard myself saying.
And though I did not look around, I knew that she inclined her head by
way of reply.
Then for quite a long time we were silent. But my muscles were tense.
There was a suggestion gathering head in my mind that I knew had to
come out. I waited, resisting it with less and less vigor frum moment to
moment. I was afraid of it.
Finally it came. I said, “I wish we could have dinner here together.”
Then I dug my nails into my palms, standing very still there, and tried
to breathe.