RHAPSODIE HONGROISE, NO. 2.
"It was a whim, if you like," said Mirabelle, a little unevenly, as she
stripped off her gloves. "I hadn't seen you for four whole days, except
for that little glimpse at St. Germain, and I was tired, cross, and a
little lonely. So I took the chance of your being back and of finding
you alone and disengaged. Perhaps, if you've nothing to do, you will let
me stay to breakfast. I told Pierre that I would send down word if he
was not to wait. Will you ask your man to say so?"
"Certainly."
Andrew touched the bell, gave the message, and, when Jules had gone,
stood for a moment by the table fingering his letters. Mirabelle had
removed her veil and hat, but was still at the mirror, touching the
trifling disarrangement of her hair. Their eyes met in reflection, and
suddenly both laughed. Then he went over to her side.
"It's very good to see you again," he said, but with a slight trace of
embarrassment in his voice.
Mirabelle gave his shoulder a tiny pat.
"_L'ami!_" she said simply.
Abruptly her mood changed, and she wheeled upon him, all eager
animation.
"So this is your little house, great baby! You must show me everything.
It's a picnic, this: we shall be two children. Paris? _Ca n'existe pas!
Il n'y a que nous deux au monde!_"
She perched upon the tall fender, swinging her feet, and humming a
little tune.
"_Oh, la vie bourgeoise!_"
Subtly her gaiety infected him, and he laughed again, this time without
a hint of embarrassment. This was another Mirabelle, a Mirabelle he had
not known. In some unaccountable fashion, her mood stripped her of a
decade. She was, in very truth, a child, with a child's light-hearted
mirth, a child's shiningly excited eyes, a child's imperious demand to
be amused.
They went over the apartment together, pausing for all manner of
comment. She took an almost infantile delight in bringing into prim
order the chaos of neckties thrown carelessly into an upper drawer;
smoothed her golden-bronze hair with his silver-backed brushes; washed
her hands at his basin, and flicked the shining drops of water at him
from the tips of her slender fingers. She mocked the vanity indicated by
a dozen pairs of patent-leathers; tested, with a feigned shudder, the
keenness of his razors; simulated a furious jealousy at the discovery of
a photograph of Rejane upon his dressing-table; rummaged through the
cups and plates and glasses in the _vitrine_; called him, whimsically,
_gran'pere_, _mon oncle_, and _vieux garcon_; laughed, frowned, scolded,
teased, and petted; and was, in short, the incarnation of a gay,
reckless, _toi-et-moi-et-vogue-la-galere_ femininity.
Little by little, the charm of her humour gained upon him. To the man in
whose life woman has never played a thoroughly intimate part there is
something indescribably alluring in her near association with the little
details of commonplace existence. Andrew was conscious that, in this
independence which he had so lately learned to value, there had been
lacking a something which was now, for the first time, supplied. A
phrase occurred to him--"the better half." Yes, that was it--the curious
inspiration with which an interested, intimately concerned woman infects
such sordid items as neckties, cups and saucers. Until then, the main
charm of his new manner of life had lain in its sheer independence of
all save his personal inclination. Now he was suddenly aware that man's
completest happiness relies upon a partial subordination; upon a certain
dependence upon another, if still a kindred, point of view. As he
watched Mirabelle come and go, as he heard her comments, as he felt the
magnetism of her presence, he was smitten with a vast sense of
loneliness--with a perception that, in reality, no man is sufficient
unto himself. In this first flush of life, in this new enjoyment of
Paris the alluring, he felt the need of something more. Was it Margery?
Was it Mirabelle? At the moment he could not have told which, if indeed
it was either. Once he risked a compliment.
"How pretty you are! It makes one want to kiss you!"
"Don't!" she said shortly. "Please don't talk like that. It spoils
everything."
He drew back to look at her, puzzled, but it seemed that she avoided his
eyes.
"Not--not just now," she added. "You don't understand."
Almost immediately, she was laughing and chattering again.
Then came breakfast, and--what is rare even in Paris--a breakfast
perfect in its very simplicity. A bisque as smooth as velvet, _sole
cardinale_ worthy of Frederic himself, a _casserole_ of chicken, with a
salad of celery and peppers, Burgundy tempered to an eighth of a degree,
no sweets--but a compensating cup of coffee, _eau de vie de Dantzic_,
with its flecks of shattered sunlight gleaming oddly in the clear
liquid, and cigarettes, which Mirabelle refused with a _moue_ which
hinted at temptation. Andrew toasted her, across the table, with mock
ceremony, in the gold-shot _liqueur_.
"It's like your life, _l'amie_," he said, squinting at the last few
drops, "smooth and sweet and all spangled with sunshine and gold."
"And soon done with!" added Mirabelle lightly, turning her glass upside
down upon the cloth.
She would have him take the largest and most comfortable chair by the
window, while she chose the broad, flat sill at his feet. The glare of
the sunlight was cut off from them by an awning, but its warmth came
pleasurably through. A window-box of narcissus in full bloom breathed a
perfume, as deadening as the juice of poppies, on the air. Now and again
a cab rattled sharply down the incline of cobbles to the Place d'Iena,
and was blotted abruptly out of hearing on the muffling driveway of the
square. For the rest, the world was very still, all distinct noises of
the great and restless city being merged into one indeterminate blur of
sound.
The curious instinct of silence, which so often gave the hours they
spent together their especial character, fell upon them now. Once, as if
some disturbing thought had startled her, Mirabelle turned suddenly and
touched Andrew's hand, but her own fell back before the gesture was
actually complete. The light wind stirred the hair at her temples, and
the long scarf of delicate Liberty gauze which she had thrown across her
shoulders, and he took up a corner of this and pleated it between his
fingers for a time in silence. He was the first to speak.
"Would you care to go out--to the Exposition or the Bois? You'll be
saying presently that you've had a stupid afternoon."
Mirabelle shook her head, with a faint smile, and then altered her
position, drawing up her feet and linking her fingers across her knees.
The change brought her close to the arm of his chair, and she looked up
at him long and steadily, and then shook her head again.
"No," she answered, "I shall not say that. The Exposition? The Bois? I
suppose there _are_ such things, but I'd forgotten them. I like it here.
I am happy."
With that strange new understanding of his, it was not alone her smile
which he noticed, but the slow, irregular fall of her eyelids, and the
deepening of a tiny shadow when the lashes rested on her cheek. An
atmosphere for which he was at a loss to account seemed always to
envelop him when he came into this girl's presence. He was conscious of
the same not unpleasant languor which had come upon him on that first
afternoon in her _salon_, after the return from Auteuil, but now it was
not due, as then, to drowsiness. Rather, it was a blotting out of every
consideration save that he was with her. America, Poissy, even Paris,
humming there below them, seemed to belong to another world, and that in
which he was living for the moment, to be made up of sunlight, and
silence, and perfume.
"I'm almost sorry," he said presently, "that you came."
The girl made no reply. A singular change, which was not movement,
seemed to stiffen and straighten her. Without actually altering, her
position lost its grace, its ease, its assurance. Staring straight away
before her, her eyes forgot to wink. Her whole bearing was that of an
animal warned by the crackle of a trodden twig of some peril imminent
and vital.
"I'm sorry you felt that you _could_ come," continued Andrew. "I've not
had much experience of life, and it's not for me to question you. But
we've been good friends. I wish it could have remained that way. Young
as I am, I've had disappointments--bitter ones. The people I thought I
could trust--"
"_Andrew!_"
She had never called him by his name before. At the word, a curious
little thrill stirred in him, and he closed his eyes, his mouth
tightening at the corners.
"Forgive me," he added, in a whisper.
"Is it possible," said Mirabelle slowly, "that all this time
you--_haven't known_?"
"I've tried not to know," he answered. "I've tried not to listen to what
people said. It has all been so different from anything like that.
You've been like the girls I know in my own country, like a comrade,
like a chum. I've tried to keep myself from thinking of you in any other
light. I've always been glad to be with you: yes, and I'm glad to have
you with me now. And yet--I know that we shall both be sorry for this.
To-morrow--"
"_To-morrow!_"
Misunderstanding, she turned to him, and slipped her hand into his. A
moment she hesitated, and then bowed her face against his arm.
"Then you _do_ know!" she continued. "Ah, my friend, I have hoped that
it would not come to this."
Her voice had suddenly gone wistful. She was the child again, but the
child hurt, penitent, and near to tears.
"Believe me, _l'ami_, I hoped it would not come to this. I'm so
careless, Andrew. I don't think--I forget. You see, we are different,
_nous autres_. What are little things to other women are great things to
us, and what are great things to them--"
Then she looked into his eyes. Almost unconsciously, her fingers touched
his arm.
"I wish I could make you understand," she added. "Even with me, there is
only one thing that can justify--"
She paused for a breath, with a gesture toward the open window.
"It was to get away from all that that I came--to forget--to be alone
with you--just we together--two children--to have something different.
I'm so tired of it all, Andrew--and--there has never been any one like
you. I didn't think what it would mean. Ah, my friend--"
She sank back upon the cushion, with a little sigh.
Suddenly Andrew's heart contracted, seemed to mount into his throat,
and, repulsed, beat wildly against the bars of its prison. He felt the
tremor of its pulsing in his wrists, in his temples, in his ears. He
knew that he was colouring deeply. He strove to tighten his lips, but
they parted in spite of him, and the breath shot through with a little
hiss. Then he came to himself, and saw that the girl's eyes had closed,
and that her hand on the arm of the chair had gripped the silken scarf.
Folds of it, sharpened to the thinness of paper, came out between her
fingers, and her knuckles showed like little bosses of tinted ivory
through the pink flesh.
What was it? The hand of a passing spirit, wholly unfamiliar, had
touched him; a voice never heard before had whispered something in his
ear. What was it--what was this thing which he understood and did not
understand? Bending slightly forward, he looked down through the
ironwork railing at the street below. A solitary cab leaned maudlinly
over the kerb, the driver slewed around in his seat, with his elbow on
the roof, and his varnished hat on the back of his head, reading a
newspaper; and the horse nodding, with his nose in a feed-bag. Two
children were marching resolutely, hand in hand and out of step, their
nurses following, with the gay plaid ribbons of their caps flapping
about their hips. The pipe of an itinerant plumber whined and squeaked
unmelodiously, and the horn of a passing automobile hiccoughed in the
distance. Inconsequently there came to Andrew the memory of a sudden
awakening from a nap on the beach at Newport. For a moment, everything
in sight--people, houses, boats, the sand, the sunlight, and the
sea--had been garbed in startling unreality, in a new, strange light.
The restlessness of a curious dissatisfaction suddenly laid hold upon
him, and he rose and began to pace the _salon_ once more. He would have
given something to fling himself out of the chaos of conflicting
thoughts which beset him, to ride, for example, five miles at a gallop,
as he had been wont to do at Beverly, with the wind tearing at his hair
and a thoroughbred lunging between his knees.
Presently he became aware that Mirabelle was watching him curiously, and
was puzzled to find that for the first time he was not ready to meet her
eyes. He seated himself at the piano, and for a moment fingered the
music on the rack, without actually taking in the title--"Rhapsodie
Hongroise, No. 2." Then he smiled, with a little nod as if he had been
greeting an acquaintance on the street, and his hands fell upon the
keys.
Majestically, with ponderous bass notes and a deeper comment of short,
staccato chords, the Rhapsodie began. It was as solemn as a dirge in its
adagio movement, till the high treble began to flutter into the _motif_,
and dragged it upward, with a brilliant run, into a suggestion of
running water. Plunging again into the bass, the music marched firmly
on, varied with higher chords, until, through the monotonous throb, a
bird chirped, twittered, and trilled, and cadenza followed cadenza,
plashing in and over the main theme. This variation was presently gone
again in a swiftly descending arpeggio, and the adagio reasserted
itself, beating out across the _salon_ with the lingering quality of
tolled bells, freeing itself at last by another run into the crystal
sparkle of the treble, where the _motif_ was repeated, ringing with
fresh vigour. The bass replied with a brief word now and again,
correcting the new rendering of the air that it had taught, or patiently
repeating a whole phrase. But, petulantly, the treble threw off the
sombre spirit of what had gone before. Again it thrilled with
bird-music, and ran into the gay babble of brooks, punctuated rarely by
a deeper chord, as if the water swerved round a stone, and slid,
murmuring, across a level, before swinging again down a shelving reach.
But, almost immediately, a new element stole in--a tremulous flutter of
one note, potently suggestive of mad music to follow. Faster--faster!
The flutter was interrupted by a dripping of stray notes, an octave
lower, dotted, presently, with a tiny tinkling above. Then, without
warning, the whole plunged into a mad _vivace_ movement, that galloped
like a living thing, was interrupted by whimsically coupled notes,
gabbling up and down, and then seemed to lengthen and bound forward as
if it had been spurred. There was a thunder of chromatics--hoofs
pounding on a long bridge--then the tinkle of water broke in
again--right at his elbow--lingered briefly, and was gone, and the hoofs
were thudding on a muffling stretch of soft road. The suggestion, at
first merely a fancy, grew upon him as he played. This was the gallop of
which he had felt a need! He could almost see the wiry mare snapping in
the wind, smell the horse and the saddle, and hear the stirrup-leathers
squeaking against his boots. In spirit, at least, he put into the music
the exultation, which is near to delirium, of a ride at nightfall or at
dawn. The earth, which never sighs save when falling asleep or waking,
sighs then, and her breath is sweet. Scents and sounds step to the
roadside, and are gone again in a moment. The wind whips and whistles.
And the triplicate hoof-beats pound, pound, pound out of life all that
is stale, morbid, and unclean, so that it becomes a crystal dome
inverted on a perfume-breathing garden, and one man whirling through
space like a god, with a laugh on his lips!
Hurdles rushed at Andrew out of the music, and he rose to them, and,
clearing them, would have shouted, but that the music shouted for him.
He felt the familiar shock of landing, the infinitesimal pause before
the recover, and then--away, away! It was life, youth, the surge and
hammer of red blood through every vein, the certainty of strength and
the sovereignty of success, the ineffable wine of life, filling the cup
to the brim, and splashing over into the sunlight, in drops like rubies
sheathed in silver.
As suddenly as it had begun, the mad, blood-stirring gallop was over.
The stream tinkled and was still. The _motif_ was repeated softly,
incompletely, as if regretfully, in adagio, then paraphrased in a
brilliant staccato movement, which mounted, plunged madly down from
treble to bass, hesitated, and whipped out of existence in a group of
crashing chords.
"I never knew you could play like that!"
Mirabelle had risen, and come across to the piano, and the words were
spoken in a voice barely above a whisper. The room seemed to Andrew to
be closing in around him, and out of its dwindling distance floated her
face, more beautiful than he had ever seen it, but very pale and with
eyes wide and startled. He did not answer directly. Thoughts as confused
as the wisps of a dream but half recalled went racing through his brain.
For an instant he strove to control himself, strove to remember, strove
to forget. Then, as it were, a great tide of oblivion to all but the
intoxication of the moment swept down upon him.
"You said," he began, "that only one thing could justify--What is it?
What did you mean?"
He stood up as he spoke, came quite close to her, and took her hands.
"What did you mean?" he repeated. "Tell me--Mirabelle."
As she did not speak, he took her hand and drew her toward him, with a
kind of dull wonder in his eyes. What he saw in hers he had never seen
in a woman's before--a mist not wholly moisture, and tenderer than
tears.
"Mirabelle!"
"_Je t'aime!_" she murmured. "_Je t'adore!_"
She would have drawn back, but he took her in his arms. From the
gold-bronze hair which touched his cheek came a faint perfume, and
through the thin silk he could feel the hammer of her heart. So for a
long moment he held her, with his lips on hers. It was like kissing a
rose--a rose that smelt of orris.