DISSONANCE
The car had turned an abrupt corner and stopped before the house. Regina
opened the door, a metamorphosed Regina clad in concert regalia, very
respectable and solid. Upon her face an expression of exaltation was
overlaid by one of anxiety. Anne attributed the exaltation to the
concert. Regina had all the Latin's adoration for music. But the anxiety
was somewhat puzzling.
"Has Mr. Petrovskey arrived?"
Regina nodded. The black brows knitted themselves above troubled eyes.
"He awaits in the sitting-room, Signora."
Something was very much the matter. Had Alexis been snubbing the poor
old dear? Anne assumed a gay nonchalance.
"Well, was it not a concert after your own heart, Regina? A triumph and
a marvel?"
The woman raised knotted hands to heaven. "He is an angel, Signora!
Inspired by the Madonna and all the saints. He could melt the heart of
the devil himself, not to speak of poor old Regina!" Her face fell
suddenly. "After a trionfo like that, he should be gay as the bird. But
he is not, Signora mia. He walk up the stairs with a face like one black
cloud. He never say a word to poor Regina!"
"He is tired. You must excuse him. He is usually so nice to you, you
know."
"Ah, si, si!"
Anne proceeded slowly up the stairs. So she would have to cope with a
mood! Ennui surged over her. In that moment she understood fully the
weary distaste of a man who has to deal with a hysterical woman. Oh, why
was Alexis so temperamental? She shrugged, and turning the knob of the
sitting room door, entered.
Apparently unoccupied, the only light came from the cheerful fire which
chuckling upon the hearth like a contented hen, lent an amber glow to
the paneled walls where Sargent's portrait of Anne's mother smiled
gently in its antiquated garb. Anne pressed her finger on the electric
button by the door. A golden stream flooded the shadowy corners. Upon a
sofa at the extreme end of the room lay Alexis. At her approach, he drew
an audible, almost sobbing breath, and sat up and faced her. The thick
hair rumpled into a comb over knotted brows, his eyes were somber.
"Where have you been? I thought you would never come!" He walked swiftly
towards her.
As Anne heard the stricken note in his voice, her heart melted into a
pool of tears. She ran forward and encircled him with her arms, as one
would a sorrowful child.
"I didn't think you would be here so soon," she exclaimed contritely. "I
imagined there would be a swarm of people waiting to fall upon you with
congratulations. Was I wrong?"
He trembled beneath her hold. She released him with a weary little sigh.
Her doubt had evidently ruffled his vanity.
"Of course there was a crowd. But I only spoke to a few personal
friends, and one or two reporters. Rosenfield told the rest I was too
exhausted to speak to them, which, was a lie, God knows, for I never
felt less tired in all my life. You see, I was thinking of you and this
meeting." He laughed loudly.
She ignored his angry eyes with a feeling of guilt. "But Alexis, what a
triumph! How proud you have made me!" She caressed his shoulders with
gentle hands.
He flung himself from her hold. "Then why, if you are so proud and
happy, have you kept me waiting while you go motoring with another man?"
A milk-white pallor overspread Anne's cheeks. She flung off her coat and
seated herself before the fire.
"So that is what is the matter?" In the glow of the flames her hair
encircled her face like a brazen nimbus. Alabaster skin shone luminous
against the opaque white of the gardenias upon her shoulder. Alexis'
gaze bit into her beauty angrily.
"Isn't that enough? Isn't it enough that you should leave me to-night
for another man? To-night which was mine by right? Desert me for a
stranger at the very doors of Carnegie Hall?" The clenched hands became
livid.
"But Alexis, give me a chance to explain. It was all an accident.
Entirely unpremeditated."
"An accident! I shouldn't call it exactly that! Who was this man with
whom a tête-à-tête was so necessary that you couldn't wait until
to-morrow?"
"It was the Marchese Torrigiani, since you ask. I would have told you
before if your torrential abuse had permitted." She replied quietly.
"But I thought he was in Italy!"
"So he will be in another week. He is sailing to-morrow." The regret in
her tone angered Alexis.
"But what is he doing in New York again? Or has he been here all the
time?" He inquired with quick suspicion.
"I am not in the habit of lying, Alexis."
Her composure frightened him. He threw out his arms in a beseeching
gesture.
"Have pity on me, Anne. I don't mean to hurt you. But I'm so unhappy!"
The cold light died out of her eyes.
"There's nothing to be so miserable about, Alexis. Torrigiani has been
in Mexico all this time. He merely stopped on his way back to Italy. He
hadn't even let me know that he was here. He happened to be passing by
Carnegie Hall to-night and saw the notices of your concert. Our meeting
was entirely accidental, and nothing to torture yourself about. As it
seemed to be our only chance for a talk, I drove him around the park and
left him at his hotel."
He flung himself at her feet in his customary gesture of penitence.
"Oh, Anne, forgive me if I seem cruel and suspicious. But are you in
love with this man?"
She laid her hand on the tumbled fair hair.
"No, dear, of course not. But I do care for and respect him almost more
than any one I know. No one, not even you could ever come between us,
and I don't want you to try."
He looked at her with tragedy-ridden eyes.
"I have a terrible premonition that you are going to marry Torrigiani
some time, and I am ready to kill him when I think of it."
"Don't commit any murders as yet!" Her laugh sounded forced. "I am not
going to marry him or any other man, yourself included!"
He rose to his feet with the cry of a wounded animal. "You do love him.
You cannot hide it from me any longer, Anne. As soon as I leave New York
you are going to Italy to meet him. Deny it if you can!"
"Of course I'm going to Italy, Alexis. There could be nothing to keep me
here after you go. I am homesick for Florence and my garden. But I'm not
going there to meet Vittorio."
"Yes, you are. And you are afraid to tell me for fear my music will
suffer. But it won't. Nothing can ever take it from me now. Least of all
a woman's whim!"
A grim smile sketched itself upon Anne's lips. Alexis' temper she had
borne with before. But his ingratitude was new, and wounded.
"If I'm not necessary to you, perhaps it is just as well that we are
separating so soon!"
"So I was right, after all!" he exclaimed with a certain tragic
satisfaction.
She determined to punish him.
"Perhaps, who knows? Life with Vittorio would at least be peaceful. He
is neither temperamental nor a genius. Just a mere man who believes in
me. His bruised feelings wouldn't have to be perpetually coddled!"
"If that is the way you feel about me, Anne, I had better go!" Beads of
moisture about his temples, Alexis made for the door.
She followed him, and drew him back into the room.
"Don't be silly, dearest. You know I don't want you to go!"
He wheeled in her arms, and kissed her with tragic passion. His face was
wet with tears.
"Oh, Anne, if I should lose you!"
"You won't, poor dear, you won't!" she cried brokenly.
She drew him down on to the chaise-longue beside her. He laid his head
upon her shoulder.
"Torrigiani will not be in Florence," she explained, leaning her cheek
against the thick, soft hair. "He expects to go direct to Sicily. If he
were to be there I should not want to go. It would be too humiliating."
"Does he know? Have you told him about us?" There was a throb of
incredulous joy in Alexis' voice.
"Yes." Her head drooped beneath the crimson stain that surged up to her
forehead.
"Oh, Anne, can you ever forgive me?"
"Yes, dear. Only don't try me too often. Just take me for granted
sometimes."
"Oh, I mean to, God knows. Only I'm so afraid of losing you. There are
so many men in your life. And I am tied." She laid commanding fingers
upon his lips.
"That subject is taboo! Don't you dare bring it up again! But tell me
how did you know about Torrigiani!" she inquired with a certain
curiosity. Had the probing blue orbs belonged to Mme. Petrovskey after
all?
"My mother told me," he replied simply. "She saw you go out together.
She came behind to see me afterward. However, I scarcely believed her. I
thought she must have mistaken some one else for you. She had only seen
you once, you know. But when I arrived, and you hadn't come, I suddenly
knew it was all true. I wanted to strangle poor old Regina and her
congratulations. That was almost an hour ago. I was just thinking of
going when you came."
She pressed his head against her slim bosom. "Poor darling, it must have
been awful. But you didn't suppose I could forget that I had invited you
to supper to-night of all nights?"
"I'm a fool, I realize it. But I'm so mad about you, I'm really not
sane," he whispered, his lips against the satin of her throat. "You're
an angel to put up with me."
She laughed and put him aside. Springing to her feet she gave the
bell-rope a vigorous pull. "Nonsense! No angel could possibly be as
hungry as I am at present. Let us see what Regina can do for us."
But the appetite was rather a pretense on both sides. They were too
excited to eat. With a discreet smile, Regina wheeled in the supper on a
tea wagon, and insisted upon leaving them immediately, in spite of
Alexis' efforts to make up for his former unamiability.
"The Signorino must eat. Even music must die on the empty stomach."
There were oysters on the half-shell, cold duck and a varicolored salad
that rivaled a Neapolitan sunset. Alexis opened the champagne himself.
"It was awfully banal to have it," laughed Anne. "But we simply had to
to-night, you know." She raised her glass and smiled at him, over its
miniature golden cauldron. "To Alexis Petrovskey and his triumph!"
"To the power behind the throne," he countered.
The seething wine whipped their spirits. Between parted lips, their
teeth gleamed like crescent moons.
"Oh, Alexis, you don't know what to-night has meant to me. Your success
was as intoxicating as a personal triumph."
"It was one, wasn't it? Since I owe every bit of it to you?" His eyes
were full of worship.
"Don't say that. The power was within yourself. I merely set it in
motion again. I fully believe it would have returned to you eventually."
"I'm not so sure of that. I was pretty nearly done for, when you
retrieved me. How can I ever thank you enough?"
He got up from the table, and running around to her side, threw his arms
about her shoulders. She tossed back her head and their lips met.
"Don't think of that now," she murmured, as he dropped to his knees
beside her. Conscious of the pathetic weariness in her voice, an icy
band tightened about his heart. He must be more careful, or he would
lose her entirely. Ah, how clumsy he had been! What a fool to let her
slip through his fingers in that mad fashion. Like a woman who fears to
lose her lover, he must exert all his charm, every vestige of
personality he possessed in order to retain her. The band tightening
about his heart, he smiled up at her with pathetic blandishment.
"You are so beautiful to-night in your gown of palest green," he
whispered. "Like Venus rising from the waves. I adore you more every
minute."
She laughed softly in her throat. "You are an incorrigible baby, Alexis.
Come, get up and eat a little more supper, or Regina will be
disappointed."
"I will, if I can put my chair next to yours."
"Of course, foolish one!" She watched with a tender, rather tired little
smile, while he moved his chair from across the table.
"Tell me, were you frightened to-night?"
He laughed happily.
"Not for a moment. It seemed as if I had the confidence of a thousand
devils!"
"That is more than I can say for myself. I had an awful attack of
stage-fright. My knees rattled beneath me!"
"You do care, don't you?" His voice was exultant.
"Very much more than you will ever guess, Alexis!"
"Darling!" He squeezed her hand ecstatically.
"When you play at the Philharmonic on Friday I'll not be afraid at all."
He looked at her tenderly. "Why should you be if I'm not, sweetheart?
You mustn't make yourself ill over me. You've heard me play the Brahm's
Concerto many times, and you know that it is mine, or rather that I am
its!"
They laughed at his comical way of putting it.
"I intend to play it in Boston next week, too," he continued. "How I
loathe these trips that take me away from you! When the ocean separates
us I shall be wild. But you will join me as soon as you can on the
Continent? If you don't want me to come to Florence we can meet in
Venice, perhaps. I have set my heart on Venice. Think of us in a palazzo
over the pole-shadowed waters. We will wind in and out of the tiny
canals, in a gondola beneath a golden moon, and I will play to you."
"You would take all the trade from the Grand Canal, and we should be
solitary for about half a second!"
They laughed.
"Come, is it a bargain?"
"Of course," she was a little breathless. "And in the mornings we can
bathe at the Lido."
"The mornings! They can take care of themselves! It is the nights, the
glorious, moon-ridden nights that I am thinking of. I will hold you in
my arms on a dim, star-lit balcony, while the gondolas swish by below
and the water laps against the base of our walls."
"And tourists rend the heavens with raucous laughter!"
He swept her into his arms impetuously.
"Anne, let me stay to-night. Don't send me back to Gramercy Park alone."
His heart-beats against her cheek, she demurred faintly.
"Impossible, darling. You must go. Indeed, you ought to be going now.
The servants may return at any moment."
"And what difference does that make? Pray, do they invade your sitting
room at this hour of the night?"
"No--but Regina----"
"Can put you to bed, as usual. I shall have gone, you see. But I can
come back. There are such things as latch-keys, aren't there?"
"If you should be caught!" Her heart swooped in delightful fear.
"But I shan't," he countered triumphantly. "In the morning I shall creep
out long before your lordly butler is awake. Surely, you can't refuse me
anything to-night?"
Her laugh was smothered against his breast. She could feel his heart
knocking against her lips.
"Romeo and Juliet all over again, without even omitting the nurse!" she
murmured. "It is really awfully unoriginal of us, you know."
His lips within the brazen gold of her hair, he laughed exultantly.
A few minutes later the street door closed with rather unnecessary
emphasis. Roused from her doze in Anne's bedroom, Regina started up
thankfully. The Signorino was gone. That was good. That was as it should
be. Now her lady could have a reposeful night. She had looked so weary
this evening!