Life in Philadelphia runs on oiled wheels. After the huge clatter of New
York, there is something mellow and human about the drowsy hum of
Chestnut Street, the genteel reaches of Walnut, and the neat frontage of
Spruce Street. Ellenora, so quick to notice her surroundings, was at
first bored, then amused, at last lulled by the intimate life of her new
home. She had never been abroad, but declared that London,
out-of-the-way London, must be something like this. The fine, disdainful
air of Locust Street, the curiously constrained attitude of the brick
houses on the side streets--as if deferentially listening to the
back-view remarks of their statelier neighbors, the brown-stone
fronts--all these things she amused herself telling Paul, playfully
begging him not to confront her with the oft-quoted pathetic fallacy of
Ruskin. Hadn't Dickens, she asked, discerned human expression in
door-knockers, and on the faces of lean, lonely, twilight-haunted
warehouses?
She was gay for the first time in her restless dissatisfied life. By
some strange alchemy she and Paul were able to precipitate and blend the
sum total of their content, and the summer was passed in peace. At first
they went to a hotel, but fearing the publicity, rented under an assumed
name a suite in the second storey of a pretty little house near South
Rittenhouse Square. Here in the cheerful morning-room Ellenora wrote,
and Paul smoked or trifled at the keyboard. They were perfectly
self-possessed as to the situation. When tired of the bond it should be
severed. This young woman and this young man had no illusion about
love--the word did not enter into their life scheme. Theirs was a pact
which depended for continuance entirely upon its agreeable quality. And
there was nothing cynical in all this; rather the ready acceptance of
the tie's fallibility mingled with a little curiosity how the affair
would turn out.
It was not yet November when Paul stopped in the middle of a Chopin
mazurka:
"Ellenora, have you heard from Vibert?"
She looked up from the writing-desk.
"How could I? He doesn't know where we are."
"And I fancy he doesn't care." Paul whistled a lively lilt. His manner
seemed offensive. She flushed and scowled. He moved about the room still
whistling and made much noise. Ellenora regarded him intently.
"Getting bored, Paul? Better go to New York and your club," she amiably
suggested.
"If you don't care," and straightway he began making preparations for
the journey. In a quarter of an hour he was ready, and with joy upon his
handsome face kissed Ellenora fervently and went away to the Broad
Street station. Then she did something surprising. She threw herself
upon a couch and wept until she was hysterical.
"I'm a nice sort of a fool, after all," she reflected, as she wiped her
face with a cool handkerchief and proceeded to let her hair down for a
good, comfortable brushing. "I'm a fool, a fool, to cry about this vain,
selfish fellow. Paul has no heart. Poor little Arthur! If he had been
more of a man, less of a conceited boy. Yet conceit may fetch him
through, after all. Dear me, I wonder what the poor boy did when he got
the news."
Ellenora laughed riotously. The silliness of the situation burned her
sense of the incongruous. There she stood opposite the mirror with her
tears hardly dry, and yet she was thinking of the man she had deserted!
It was absurd after all, this hurly-burly of men and women. Then she
began to wonder when Paul would return. The day seemed very long; in the
evening she walked in Rittenhouse Square and watched Trinity Church
until its brown façade faded in the dusk. She expected Paul back at
midnight, and sat up reading. She didn't love him, she told herself, but
felt lonely and wished he would come. To be sure, she recalled with her
morbidly keen memory that Howells had said: "There is no happy life for
woman--the advantage that the world offers her is her choice in
self-sacrifice." At two hours past the usual time, she went to bed and
slept uneasily until dawn, when she reached out her hand and awoke with
a start....
The next night he came back slightly the worse for a pleasant time. He
was too tired to answer questions. In the morning he told her that
Vibert announced a concert in Carnegie Hall, the programme made up of
his own compositions.
"His own compositions?" Ellenora indignantly queried. "He has nothing
but the piano concerto, an overture he wrote in Germany, and some
songs." She was very much disturbed. Paul noticed it and teased her.
"Oh, yes, he has; read this:"
"Mr. Arthur Vibert, a talented young composer, pupil of Saint-Saëns and
Brahms, will give an instrumental concert at Carnegie Hall, November
10th, the programme of which will be devoted entirely to his own
compositions. Mr. Vibert, who is an excellent pianist, will play his new
piano concerto; a group of his charming songs will be heard; an
overture, one of his first works, and a new symphonic poem will comprise
this unusually interesting musical scheme. Mr. Vibert will have the
valuable assistance of Herr Anton Seidl and his famous orchestra."
"I will go to New York and hear that symphonic poem." She spoke in her
most aggressive manner.
"Well, why not?" replied Paul flippantly. "Only you will see a lot of
people you know, and would that be pleasant?"
"You needn't go to the concert, you can meet me afterward, and we'll go
home together."
Paul yawned, and went out for his afternoon stroll.... Ellenora passed
the intervening days in a flame of expectancy. She conjectured all sorts
of reasons for the concert. Why should Arthur give it so early in the
season? Where did he get the money for the orchestra? Perhaps that old,
stupid, busybody, portrait-painting friend of his had advanced it. But
when did he compose the symphonic poem? He had said absolutely nothing
about it to her; and she was surprised, irritated, a little proud that
he had finished something of symphonic proportions. She knew Arthur too
well to suppose that he would offer a metropolitan audience scamped
workmanship. Anyhow, she would go over even if she had to face an army
of questioning friends.
Vibert! How singularly that name looked now. It was a prettier, more
compact name than Goddard. But of course she wasn't Mrs. Goddard, she
was Mrs. Vibert, and would be until her husband saw fit to divorce her.
Would he do that soon? Then she walked about furiously, drank tea, and
groaned--she was ennuied beyond description....
Paul had the habit of going to New York every other week, and she raised
no objection as his frivolous manner was very trying during sultry days;
when he was away she could abandon herself to her day-dreams without
fear of interruption. She thought hard, and her strong head often was
puzzled by the cloud of contradictory witnesses her memory raised. But
she cried no more at his absence....
It was quite gaily that she took her seat beside him in the drawing-room
car of the train and impatiently awaited the first sight of the salt
meadows before Jersey City is reached.
"Ah! the sea," she cried enthusiastically, and Paul smiled indulgently.
"You are lyrical, after all, Ellenora," he remarked in his most critical
manner. "Presently you will be calling aloud 'Thalatta, Thalatta!' like
some dithyrambic Greek of old."
"Smell the ocean, Paul," urged Ellenora, who looked years younger and
almost handsome. Paul's comment was not original but it was sound: "You
are a born New York girl and no mistake." He took her to luncheon when
they reached the city and in the afternoon she went to a few old
familiar shops, felt buoyant, and told herself that she would never
consent to live in Philadelphia, as inelastic as brass. Alone she had a
hasty dinner at the hotel--Paul had gone to dine with his mother--and
noted in the paper that there was no postponement of the Vibert concert.
The evening was cool and clear, and with a singular sensation of
lightness in her head she went up to the hall in a noisy Broadway
car....
Her heart beat so violently that she feared she was about to be ill;
intense excitement warned her she must be calmer. All this fever and
tremor were new to her, their novelty alarmed and interested her.
Accustomed since childhood to time the very pulse-beats of her soul,
this analytical woman was astounded when she felt forces at work within
her--forces that seemed beyond control of her strong will. She did not
dare to sit downstairs, so secured a seat in the top gallery, meeting
none of Arthur's musical acquaintances. She eagerly read the programme.
How odd "Vibert" seemed on it! She almost expected to see her own name
follow her husband's. Arthur Vibert and Ellenora, his wife, will play
his own--their own--concerto for piano and orchestra!
She laughed at her conceit, but her laugh sounded so thin and miserable
that she was frightened....
Again she looked at the programme. After the concerto overture
"Adonaïs"--Vibert loved Shelley and Keats--came the piano concerto, a
group of songs--the singer's name an unfamiliar one--and finally the
symphonic poem. The symphonic poem! What did she see, or were her eyes
blurred?
"Symphonic Poem 'The Zone of the Shadow'. For explanatory text see the
other side." Sick and trembling she turned the page and read "The
Argument of this Symphonic Poem is by Ellenora Vibert."