over the programme for the last time, turned suddenly from the piano
with an impatient shrug of his shoulders.
"Rotten!" he said brutally, peering up at her. "You're not doing
yourself justice. What's the matter with you?" Beneath the strong,
overhanging brow his little eyes glowered fiercely.
They happened to be alone that afternoon in his great bare studio,
where no soft background or dim lights conspired to hide her
dejection. She had sung badly. She knew it, but she could not answer
such a brusque attack, could not defend herself against harsh
questioning.
"I don't know. Perhaps I'm tired," she said.
David Cannon rose from the piano with the powerful lunging movement
of a bull.
"You tired? Nonsense!" His charge sent him beyond her a pace. He
wheeled and came up close. He was shorter than she, but the sheer
force of the man topped her. His keen little eyes looked her over,
took in her bright, drooping head, and her sloping-shouldered,
slim-waisted health. "Tired!" he grunted. "That's an excuse, not a
reason." He tapped his heart and forehead. "Your troubles lie here
and here."
She tried to smile, with a lift of her eyebrows.
"What do you know about it?"
"I know more than you think I do," he flung at her, frowning.
"You're worried about something, and when you worry, you can't sing.
You're made that way, and I suppose you can't help it. Don't
interrupt yet," he fairly shouted at her as she began to protest.
"I've watched over and taught you for three years. I ought to know."
"I owe you a lot," she said faintly.
"You owe me nothing," he snapped. "Your debt is to yourself."
She could not fend off that merciless look, which went through and
through her. "If my debt is to myself, I need pay only if I choose,"
she tried to jest.
"Don't make that mistake," he warned. "Your work is your life. I
tell you that, and I know."
"I wonder," she said more to herself than to him.
He looked at her grimly.
"Just as I thought. Same old question--marriage. You're jealous, or
he's jealous of God knows whom or what. And your voice goes to pieces.
Which is it?" he demanded. "Is Oliver misbehaving?"
"Of course not," she said indignantly.
"Humph! Well, he's faithful, you're faithful. You've both got talent,
friends, a home, a profession. What more do you want?"
"There are other--jealousies," she said slowly, and with gathering
passion she went on: "I suppose I owe you some explanation, David,
though you won't understand. Oliver is the most wonderful person in
the world. I never thought I could love any one as I love him. And
it's the same with him. But he wants me all to himself." Her hands
fluttered together in nervous appeal. "Can't you see how it is? Since
we've been married we've never been separated a day. And now this
South-American thing has come up, and he's felt--oh, I can't explain.
But I'm so afraid--"
"Afraid of what?"
"It's hard to put into words," she said hopelessly. "I suppose I'm
afraid of losing my happiness. Oliver's right in many ways. He never
does have me to himself; I belong to so many people. It's always
been my life, you know. But I thought I could combine everything
when I married, and I'm beginning to see that it can't be done."
"He knew what your life was," said David.
"Does one ever know?" she said sadly. "This concert, you see, is my
first important appearance since our marriage. And then my going
away right after--"
David strode over to the piano and sat there silent, his head sunk
on his chest, his short arms stiffly before him.
"I realize how absurd it is," she murmured; "but it isn't just those
few months. He trusts me. It's the feeling he has that this is only
a beginning. I know what he means so well," she ended helplessly.
David's short fingers moved over the keys. A music wild and pagan
rose up, filled the room with rhythms of free dancing creatures,
sank to a minor plaint, and broke off on a harsh discord as the
door-bell jangled.
"There's your Oliver," he said, and went to let him in.
It was the day of the concert, and Myra wanted above all to be alone.
She had never felt this way before. She dreaded the evening, dreaded
facing a critical audience; she had fretted herself into a fever
over it. But when she tried to explain her state of mind to Oliver
that morning at breakfast, he would not hear of any prescription for
nerves which did not include his company. Why should she want to be
alone? If she was ill or troubled, his place was beside her. He had
planned to lunch and spend the afternoon with her. Her faintly
irritable "I wish you wouldn't," only wounded and shocked him. Her
strength was not equal to discussion, and in the end she yielded.
For the rest of the morning he followed her about, tenderly opposing
any exertion.
"I must have you at your best to-night, dear," he kept on saying.
"I'm going to be proud of my Myra." He was so eager, wistful, and
loving, she could not resent his care. She gave in to it with a
sense of helplessness.
Soon after lunch her head started aching. She suggested a brisk walk.
The air might do her good. But he persuaded her to lie down on the
couch instead. The touch of his fingers on her hot forehead was
soothing, too soothing. She relaxed luxuriously, closing her eyes,
subdued, indifferent.
He was saying:
"What will you do, beloved, if you are taken ill in South America?
No Oliver to care for you. I can't bear to think of it." Suddenly,
he laid his cheek against hers. "If anything happens to you, I shall
go mad."
She sat up with a swift movement that brought back an almost
intolerable pain.
"Nothing will happen," she tried to say, and found herself weakly
sobbing in his arms.
It was time to dress. She did her hair, to please Oliver, in a
girlish way, parted and knotted low. Her gown, designed by Martigues,
did not fit in with this simple coiffure. She was aware of an
incongruity between the smooth, yellow bands of hair meekly
confining her small head, and the daring peacock-blue draperies
flowing in long, free lines from her shoulders, held lightly in at
the waist by a golden cord.
"One will get the better of the other before the evening is over,"
she thought with a sigh, turning away from her mirror.
"My beautiful Myra!" Oliver said as if to cheer her.
"I have never looked worse," she retorted a trifle impatiently, and
would not argue the point as they drove up town.
"We'll see what I really amount to now," she told herself.
She had never before so tensely faced an audience, but there was
more at stake than she cared to confess, and she was not equal to it.
She shone, but did not blind those thousand eyes; she sang but did
not cast enchantment. And David Cannon would not help her. He sat at
the piano, uncouth, impassive, deliberately detached, as if he gave
her and his music over to an anonymous crowd of whose existence he
was hardly aware. There was something huge and static about him,
something elemental as an earth-shape, containing in and by itself
mysterious rhythms. His songs were things of faun-like humours,
terrible, tender, mocking, compassionate. They called for an entire
abandon, for witchery, for passion swayed and swaying; but although
at times Myra's voice held a Pan-like flutiness, although an
occasional note true and sweet as a mate-call stirred that dark
fronting mass, she failed to sustain the spell. She was too aware of
Oliver leaning forward in his box, applauding louder than any one.
His loyalty would force out of this fastidious audience an ovation
she did not deserve. She would not look his way. "I can't sing," she
thought mournfully.
Had David Cannon shown any annoyance, she might have been goaded on
to a supreme effort; but he avoided her. When once she went up to
him during an intermission and said timidly:
"I'm sorry, David; I'm spoiling everything," he answered
indifferently:
"My songs can stand it."
She wished then that she had not begged Oliver to keep away from her
until the end. She felt lonely and near to tears. As the evening
wore on, lightened by spasmodic applause, she became very quiet. She
even sang better, and felt rather than saw Oliver brighten. But it
was too late; she had lost her audience. There were now gaps in the
earlier unbroken rows; a well-known critic trod softly out; little
nervous coughs and rustlings rose up.
At last it was all over. She wanted only to hide, but she was not to
escape another ordeal. She and Oliver had arranged for a supper
party that evening. To it they had bidden many musical personalities
and several of Oliver's architect friends. She had meant to announce
then the South-American recitals. The prospect of such an
entertainment was now almost unendurable. She knew well what these
people would say and think. Driving home with Oliver, she relaxed
limp against his shoulder, her eyes closed. That haven could at
least always be counted on, she reflected with passionate gratitude.
His voice sounded from a distance as he talked on and on, explaining,
excusing, what he could not honestly ignore. She had worked too hard.
She was tired out. There was the headache, too. But she had sung
wonderfully all the same.
"Please, Oliver!" she faintly interrupted.
"You made the best of it," he insisted. "David's songs, though, are
beyond me."
She sat up very straight at this.
"My dear," she said in a cold voice, "I made a mess of it, and you
know it. There _is_ no excuse. David has every reason to be furious."
"I'd like to see him dare--"
"Please, Oliver!" she said again on a warning note of hysteria. She
stared out of the window at the blur of passing lights. It was
misting; the streets gleamed wet and wan beneath the lamps.
Oliver's arm went around her.
"I'm sorry, dear. Nothing matters, after all, but you and I together,"
he whispered.
"Nothing else does matter, does it?" she cried suddenly. "Love me a
great deal, Oliver, a great, great deal. That's all I ask."
They drove on in silence for a while. She sat very quiet, her face
half hidden in the high fur collar of her cloak. Now and then she
glanced at Oliver, her eyes wistful.
"Oliver," she said at last, "would it make any difference to you if
I never sang again?"
"Never sang again," he echoed. "I don't understand."
"I want you and my home," came from her slowly. "I've been wondering
for some time how much my singing really meant to me. To-night I
think I've found out. I can't seem to keep everything I started out
with and be happy. I'm not big enough," she added sadly.
He was startled, incredulous.
"Myra, you don't realize what you're saying. You're tired to-night.
I could not let you give up your singing. You are an artist, a big
artist."
She shook her head and sighed.
"I might have been, perhaps; but no, I'm not. David could tell you
that. He knows."
"It's been my fault, then, if you feel this way," he said in a
melancholy voice. "I've been selfish and stupid."
The taxi slowed down before the red-brick entrance of the apartment
house. She put her hand impulsively on his arm.
"Oliver, promise me something."
"Whatever you ask."
"Don't mention South America to any one. You promise?"
"But, Myra----"
"Promise."
"I won't, then. But----"
"I see Walter Mason and Martigues waiting for us," she said quickly.
"Remember, not a word." She was out of the cab, hurrying forward to
greet her guests. Oliver followed, his eyes mutely pleading. But she
seemed her old self again, graciously animated, laughing at Martigues,
who sulked because he did not like the way her hair was done.
Soon other guests arrived, and still others, all of them primed with
compliments carefully prepared.
Last of all came David Cannon, who brushed away flattery with curt
gestures and grunts. He sat heavily down in a corner of the room, a
plate of cheese sandwiches and a frosted glass of beer before him,
and turned an unsociable eye on all intruders. Myra, knowing his mood,
left him alone.
"You are different to-night," Martigues whispered to her. "There is
something I do not understand. You have the Madonna smile."
"I am happy," she said, and her eyes turned to Oliver, who held the
look and gave it back with deeper meaning.
When later Martigues asked her to sing, she glanced again at Oliver,
who nodded and smiled.
"If David will accompany me," she said then. David left sandwiches
and beer but without enthusiasm. He crossed over to the piano, and
peered up at her with a kind of sombre malice.
"So you will sing now," he said. "Will this do?" He played a few
notes softly, and she nodded with a little smile.
It was a song about the love of a white-throated sparrow for a
birch-tree of the North. All summer long the bird lived on the
topmost branch and sang most beautifully. The season of southward
journey came, but the white throated sparrow would not leave her tree.
She stayed on alone, singing while the leaves turned gold and fell.
She sang more faintly as the land grew white with the first snows
and when she could sing no longer for the cold, she nestled down in
a bare hollow of the white tree and let the driving flakes of the
North cover her.
Oliver stood near the piano. Myra sang to and for him. She stood
very tall and straight, her hair, loosened from its tight bands,
soft around her face. Her voice thrilled out in the mate-call, grew
fainter and sweeter as winter came on, grew poignant under the cold,
quivered on the last note. As David Cannon ended with the fate theme
of the tree, a genuine shiver went through the little group. There
was no hesitation this time in the applause. They swept forward,
surrounding her, begging her to sing again. But it was to Oliver
that she turned.
"It pleased you? I'm glad."
David Cannon said nothing. He sat, his shoulders hunched, his
fingers on the keys until she had refused to sing again.
"I didn't think you would," he said then, and abruptly left his post
to go back to beer and sandwiches. Soon after he slipped out. Myra
went with him to the hall, where they talked for a while in low
voices. When she came back into the room she was smiling serenely.
She and Oliver were alone at last.
"You glorious creature!" he cried. "I'm so proud of you! Everyone
was crazy about the way you sang." She walked slowly toward him.
"Oliver," she said, "I told David this evening that I wouldn't go to
South America with him."
"You didn't!" His voice rose sharp and shocked.
She nodded, beaming almost mischievously.
"But I did, and nothing will make me change my mind."
"How could you be so impulsive, so foolish!" he cried.
She was looking at him now more soberly.
"Aren't you glad?"
"Myra, you mustn't! I'll telephone David at once.. I'll--you did
this for me. I won't have it. You should have asked me----"
"It's no use; I'm not going," she said.
He dropped on the couch and hid his face in his hands.
"You're giving this up because of me."
She went to him.
"Oliver, look at me."
Slowly he raised his head.
"I don't see why----" he began, but she was so beautiful, so radiant,
that he caught his breath and faltered.
She sat down beside him.
"Ah, but you will," she said. "It's very simple, dear. Even David
understands."
"What does he think?"
"He thinks as I do," she said quickly. "He was quite relieved;
honestly, dear. He didn't want any homesick woman spoiling his songs
for him in South America. And then I suggested Frances Maury in my
place. She has a lovely voice, and she'll jump at the chance."
"I've never heard her, but I'm sure she can't sing as well as you,"
he said, with returning gloom. "And it was only for two months."
She laughed as at an unreasonable child.
"It isn't the two months, dear. It's our whole life. There would be
other partings, you see, other interests drawing me away. And if it
became easier to leave you, then I should know that everything was
wrong between us; but if it kept on being hard to divide myself
between you and my work, then my work would suffer and so would you.
Either way, it couldn't go on. I'm not big enough to do both," she
said.
"I can't accept such a sacrifice."
"Don't you want me with you always?"
He seized her hands and passionately drew her close to him.
"Want you? I can tell you now. I've been jealous, terribly so, of
everyone, everything that touched you."
"I knew it," she said. "That's one reason why I didn't sing well
to-night. Now I'm free"--she threw her arms out with the gesture of
flying--"I'm free to love just you. We'll start another life, Oliver,
a life of our own. We'll be fire-side people, dear, homely lovers
content to sit and talk of an evening. You'll find me very valuable,
really, as a partner," she said eagerly. "I've never been near
enough to your work. And it's such wonderful work!" With an impulsive
movement she went over and closed the piano. "I'll only open it when
you ask me to," she said.
The process of elimination was simple enough. There was a touch of
melancholy in Myra's measurement of relationships, in her
consciousness of their frailty. People fell away easily, leaving her
and Oliver to their chosen isolation. A dozen regrets or so to
invitations, a week or two of evasions over the telephone, a few
friends like Martigues turned away at the door when obviously she
was at home, a refusal to sing at a charity concert and, most
conclusive of all, David Cannon's advertised departure with another
artist, and the thing was virtually done.
Then came a succession of long intimate evenings, she and Oliver
left to their caprice, she and Oliver walking and driving together,
wandering where their fancy took them in the springtime of city and
country. She laughed sometimes at him, he seemed so dazed by the
consciousness of utter possession. "You are sure you are not bored,
darling?" he would often ask these first days. She could not
reassure him enough; could not find ways enough to prove to him that
when a woman like herself gave of body, mind, and spirit, it was a
full giving. There was exquisite pain in that giving; it was almost
a terrifying thing. She was a vital creature, and must spend that
which was hers, wisely or foolishly. Her ceaseless energy had always
before found an outlet in her work. Now her only expression lay in
Oliver. Her mind, never at rest, seized upon his working life, made
it hers. But she soon learned that he regarded her self-appointed
post of partner with a tender condescension edged with intolerance.
She learned with a tiny shock that although in matters musical he
trusted absolutely to her judgment, he did not consider the feminine
intellect as equal to his own. Music, she discovered, had always
been defined by him as something feminine in its application to the
arts.
She became gradually aware that he objected to her visits to his
office. His glance did not brighten at her entrance. He was not
amused as he had been at first, when she bent over the sketches or
ran her slim fingers along the tracery of blue prints, daring to
question them. Sometimes she had a feeling that she did not entirely
know Oliver; that there were plans of his, thoughts of his, which
she did not share. She had not missed these before when her own life
was full. She had time now during their long hours together to
observe reactions of the cause of which she knew nothing. He was
absent-minded, off on a trail that led away from her.
There came a week when he allowed her the brunt of wooing; a new
dress failed to bring forth the usual compliment; a question lay
unanswered where in pride she left it. Then one morning with a new
crisp note in his voice, he telephoned, telling her that he must
meet a man at his club for dinner that evening. Mechanically she
answered, dully heard his voice warm to a sweetness that should have
comforted her.
"You know I wouldn't leave you unless it were important, dearest. I
can't explain now, but I may have great news for you when I come home."
She hung up the receiver thoughtfully, and turned to an apartment
which seemed suddenly dreary and empty. She had no purpose in her day.
The twilight hour loomed in prospect an endless, dusky loneliness.
For a moment she thought of ringing him up and proposing to meet him
downtown for lunch; then restrained the impulse. Was she to turn
into a nagging wife! She longed now for some friend with whom she
could spend the day; but she could think of none. Since her marriage
with Oliver she had not encouraged intimacies. On his account she
had estranged the few women to whom she might now have turned.
Oliver had never understood friendships among women.
The day dragged by. For the first time in months she found herself
wishing that she was going out that evening. She thought almost
guiltily of David Cannon and Frances Maury, imagining herself in
Frances's place. She went to the piano, tried to sing, and realized
with dismay that she was sadly out of practice. After all, what did
it matter? she decided moodily. Oliver rarely asked her for music.
She took up a novel and dozed over it.
At eleven o'clock Oliver came home. She knew by the way he opened
the front door that the news was good. She ran to meet him; her
dullness vanished.
He took her by the hand and led her into the softly lit room which
seemed suddenly warm again with his presence. Then he whirled her,
facing him. Her smile was a happy reflection of his own brightness.
"You'll never guess what's happened," he began.
"Tell me quickly!" she begged.
He waited a moment, with an eye to dramatic effect.
"Well, then," he said proudly, "I've been appointed on a special
committee of reconstruction in France. Malcolm Wild--you've heard me
speak of him--came down from Washington to-day to propose it to me.
There are six of us on the committee, and I'm the youngest."
"Oliver!" She put into the exclamation something of what he expected,
for he seemed satisfied. He lifted his head with a young, triumphant
gesture. "It is my chance to do a great and useful work," he said.
"I needn't tell you what it means. I never hoped, _I_ never dreamed
of such an honour."
"I'm so proud of you!" she cried.
He hardly seemed to hear her.
"Think of it, just think of it--to be invited to go over there with
five of the biggest architects here, American money backing us!
We've been given a whole section to rebuild; I forget how many
villages. It's like a dream." He passed his hand over his eyes.
"France!" she heard herself saying. "But, Oliver, it's the work of
months."
He nodded happily.
"That's what it is."
"France!" she murmured in a kind of ecstasy. "I'm just getting it."
She clasped her hands together. "I've always wanted to be in France
with you. My dear, when do we start?"
He gave her a swift, bewildered look.
"Why, Myra, didn't you understand? I can't take you right away with
me. Later, of course, you'll join me. It won't be long, a few months
at most."
"I'm not to go when you go?"
Her voice, low and strained, drove straight to his heart.
"Myra, I never thought--it's a man's trip just now, darling.
I--couldn't take you with me," he stammered miserably. "Passports
are almost impossible to get; and then conditions over there----"
She backed away from him, her arms stiff at her sides.
"When were you--planning to go?"
He stared at her pitifully.
"Beloved, don't look at me that way!"
"When were you planning to go?" she repeated.
"Next week," he said in an altered voice. "I never thought you would
take it this way. I never thought--it's a great chance."
"That's what I once told you," she said slowly, and turned away that
he might not see her face. "Don't touch me!" she cried as he came
nearer. "Don't! I've been nervous all day, and lonely." She tried to
control herself, but as his arms went around her, she began to sob
like a hurt child. "If you leave me, I shall die. I can't bear it. I
know it's wicked of me." Her words reached him brokenly. "It's only
because you're all I have. I've given up everything; and now----"
He stood very still, staring into space, his hold on her never
loosening. She stumbled on, confessing what had lain hidden in her
heart until this moment. She told him things she had never thought
she could betray to any one--things she had never even dared
formulate. When she had done, he said in a strange, gentle voice:
"I didn't know you depended so on me. But it's all right; I won't
leave you, ever. It's all right. There, dear, I understand."
She struggled free from his hold, and dried her eyes with a sudden
passionate gesture of scattering tears.
"You shall go," she said fiercely. "I hate myself for acting this way.
It was only because----" She could get no further.