It so happened that one May morning a note was brought him, in which Miss Raritan said that her mother and herself were to leave in a day or two for the country, and could he not get her something to read on the way. Tristrem passed an hour selecting, with infinite and affectionate care, a small bundle of foreign literature. In the package he found room for Balzac’s Pierrette and the Curé de Tours, one of Mme. Craven’s stupidities, a volume of platitude in rhyme by François Coppée, a copy of De Amicis’ futile wanderings in Spain—a few samples, in fact, of the pueris virginibusque school. And that evening, with the bundle under his arm, he sought Miss Raritan.
The girl glanced at the titles and put the books aside. “When we get in order at Narragansett,” she said, “I wish you would come up.”
Had she kissed him, Tristrem could not have revelled more. “There are any number of hotels,” she added, by way of douche.
“Certainly, if you wish it, but—but—”
“Well, but what?”
“I don’t know. You see—well, it’s this way: You know that I love you, and you know also that you care for me as for the snows of yesteryear. There is no reason why you should do otherwise. I don’t mean to complain. If I am unable to make you care, the fault is mine. I did think—h’m—no matter. What I wanted to say is this: there is no reason why you should care, and yet—. See here; take two slips of paper, write on one, I will marry you, and, on the other, Put a bullet through your head, and let me draw. I would take the chance so gladly. But that chance, of course, you will not give. Why should you, after all? Why should I give everything I own to the first beggar I meet? But why should you have any other feeling for me than that which you have? And yet, sometimes I think you don’t understand. Any man you meet could be more attractive than I, and very easy he would find it to be so; but no one could care for you more—no one—”
Miss Raritan was sitting opposite to him, her feet crossed, her head thrown back, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. One arm lay along the back of the lounge which she occupied, the other was pendant at her side. And while he still addressed her, she arose with the indolence of a panther, crossed the room, picked up a miniature from a table, eyed it as though she had never seen it before and did not particularly care to see it again, and then, seating herself at the piano, she attacked the “Il segreto per esser felice,” the brindisi from Lucrezia Borgia.
In the wonder of her voice Tristrem forgot the discourtesy of the action. He listened devoutly. And, as he listened, each note was an electric shock. Il segreto per esser felice, indeed! The secret of happiness was one which she alone of all others in the world could impart. And, as the measures of the song rose and fell, they brought him a transient exhilaration like to that which comes of champagne, dowering him with factitious force wherewith to strive anew. And so it happened that, when the ultimate note had rung out and the girl’s fingers loitered on the keys, he went over to her with a face so eloquent that she needed but a glance at it to know what he was seeking to say.
With a gesture coercive as a bit, she lifted one hand from the keys and stayed his lips. Then, she stood up and faced him. “Tristrem,” she began, “when I first saw you I told you that I was married to my art. And in an art such as mine there is no divorce. It may be that I shall go on the stage. After all, why should I not? Is society so alluring that I should sacrifice for it that which is to me infinitely preferable? If I have not done so already it is because of my mother. But should I decide to do so, there are years of study before me yet. In which case I could not marry, that is self-evident, not only because I would not marry a man who would suffer me to sing in public—don’t interrupt—but also because—well, you told me that you understood the possibilities of the human voice, and you must know what the result would be. But even independent of that, you said a moment ago that I did not love you. Well, I don’t. I don’t love you. Tristrem, listen to me. I don’t love you as you would have me. I wish I did. But I like you. I like you as I can like few other men. Tristrem, except my mother, I have not a friend in the world. Women never care for me, and men—well, save in the case of yourself, when their friendship has been worth the having, it belonged to someone else. Give me yours.”
“It will be hard, very hard.”
Miss Raritan moved from where she had been standing and glanced at the clock. “You must go now,” she said, “but promise that you will try.”
She held her hand to him, and Tristrem raised it to his lips and kissed the wrist. “You might as well ask me to increase my stature,” he answered. And presently he dropped the hand which he held and left the house.
It was a perfect night. The moon hung like a yellow feather in the sky, and in the air was a balm that might have come from fields of tamaris and of thyme. The street
