“I am not hungry,” she said.
After a minute, as I still waited, she added--“Though I don't know that
it makes any difference--if you wish.”
“Of course not,” said I clumsily--“just having a little food brought
in.”
So I rang for the China boy, and cleared the phonograph and cylinders
and papers and ash-tray off my little iron table, and we had dinner
there. Though first she slipped into her room, drew the door to, and
changed from her gray kimono to a simple blue frock that I thought very
becoming.
After the meal, we sat back without saying anything in particular until
she grew restless, and finally pushed her chair back.
“I wish,” said I, “before you go, that you would sing that Franz song
again for me. And let your voice out a little. I want to hear it.”
I thought her eyes grew suddenly moist. But without the slightest
hesitation, without rising, even, she began the song--“Aus Meinen
Grossen Schmerzen.”
But she was still holding her voice in. “Louder,” I urged. “Come, come!
Sing!”
She could not resist my appeal. Out came the tones, round and rich, and
colored with the inexpressible sorrow that is the life-breath of that
exquisite song.
I leaned right forward on the table. I could not take my eyes from her
broad white throat and the softly rounded chin above it and the finely
muscular lips that framed themselves around the tones with a slight
flaring out that suggested the bell of a trumpet.
The tears came flooding to my eyes. There was _timbre_ in that voice,
and a wonderful floating yet firm resonance. When it swelled out in the
climax I could feel the sound vibrations throbbing against my ear
drums. Then it shrank in volume, and died down until the song ended in
a breathless sob that yet was perfect music. And after she had done, and
was sitting there motionless, brooding, with downcast face, it seemed to
me I could still hear those sad, breathless words, and could still feel
that gentle throbbing against my ear.
“You have learned how to sing that song,” said I.
“Yes,” she replied, “I have learned how to sing it.”
We were in a sort of poignant dream--I still gazing at her; she still
downcast, with the light gone out of her eyes.
Then, directly outside my door in the hall, we heard a man clear his
throat. An old man, unmistakably. And we heard heavy footsteps creaking
slowly off toward the stairs. God knows how long he had been listening
there!
She said nothing. Merely sat with her hands in her lap. But she seemed
to me to go limp. Certainly her face grew slowly pale until it was quite
white, as I had first seen it.
“I should have known better,” I muttered. “I am a fool!”
She did not reply at once. After a moment she rose, then hesitated,
resting a hand on the back of her chair. And her eyelids drooped until I
could see the long, long lashes against her white skin.
“It was n't your fault,” she said, very low.
She moved toward her own room. I rose, and followed part way. “The
morning will be a better time--to work,” I managed to say. “It will be
quieter then.”
She hesitated in the doorway; then slowly inclined her head, as if in
assent. It seemed to me that she was making an effort to smile.
“Good-night,” she murmured.
“Good-night,” said I.
She closed the door after her. But there remained a narrow opening where
the upper part had shrunk away from the frame.
I stood confused, looking about my room. The table was still cluttered
with our dinner things.
I got my long raincoat out of the wardrobe that serves me for a closet.
I unscrewed a hook from the wardrobe and, climbing on a chair, screwed
it into the woodwork directly above the edge of the door. Then I hung my
raincoat from it. Thus I cosed that narrow opening between her room and
mine.
When I went out for my walk, a little later, I came squarely on Sir
Robert. He was standing at one end of the clerk's desk, peering through
his monocle at the board on which were recorded the names and room
numbers of the guests.
It is an odd and frank custom, that. It is doubtless done for the
guidance of the Chinese servants, who know us only by our numbers.
He turned and met me squarely, as I was about to walk by.
“So,” he said, wrinkling up his face into a smile and pecking at me with
his monocle. His left eyelid drooped unpleasantly. “So--you, my friend,
are the fortunate inhabitant of number sixteen. I was captivated by
the lady's voice. I congratulate you--again.” Then, still smiling as he
observed my rising anger, he added--“But, my dear Eckhart, you must not
look at me as if I were an intruder--not after the lady has sung like
that. I could hardly refuse to listen.”
He grew thoughtful, and looked past me toward the door. “Women and
song!” he mused. “Women and song!... You are a sly devil, Eckhart.”
He turned, raised his monocle, and again studied the board--with an
insolence that was calmness itself.
He was searching for the name of the woman.
I grew hot all over as I stood there watching him. In a moment--a
second--he would find it. But no, he was looking everywhere on the board
except in the space next to that occupied by my name. Clearly, it had
not occurred to him to look there.
I moved closer and peeped over his shoulder. I had not before observed
this board, beyond noting in a general way that it hung here by the
clerk's desk. I found myself suddenly wondering if she could possibly
have been so careless--