Joanna already started on her concert tours, often met him on the “road.” Sometimes they were booked at the same place for the same night. Each was the other’s supporting attraction.
“Oh, is this Mr. Marshall?” Joanna would gush when he met her train. She put an imaginary lorgnette to her eye. “Any relation to the eminent Miss Joanna Marshall, the world-famous mezzo?”
“Never heard of her. Haven’t the least idea who she is. Come along, Silly. Now, Joanna, do be on time and don’t stop to primp. Mind, I won’t wait for you a minute.”
“Not the littlest, teeniest one?” It was hard to say which was prouder of the other.
Joanna was in fine feather in those days. She had youth and a certain grave beauty which did not strike the observer at first as did Sylvia’s or even poor Maggie’s. But it grew on one and remained. Young men, though they liked to be seen with a star, were a little afraid of her queenliness, her faint condescension. She took herself so seriously! Her own folks and Peter often teased her about this, but they adored it in her. And she, in turn, adored her little fame, the footlights, the adulation. Even the smallest church in the quietest backwoods, with a group of patient dark faces peering at her out of the often smoky background, had its appeal. At such times, strange to say, she was at her best, gave of her finest. She would come on the stage, trailing clouds of glory, and lean toward them—a rosy brown vision. In some misty colorful robe of Sylvia’s designing, her thick crinkling hair piled high on her head as the Spanish woman had taught her, she seemed to say:
“I am no better than you. You are no worse than I. Whatever I am, you, in your children, may be. Whatever you are, I in my father have been.”
She was absolutely sincere in her estimation of her art, or of any art. It was only in its relation to the other things of life that she lost her vision and sense of proportion.
She liked most to go to Philadelphia, where she was in great favor. There she had had three great triumphs, once in Association Hall, twice at the Academy of Music. Both she and Peter had thrilled when she came from the Academy the second time. She sent her flowers and her stage-gown home in the car of a friend, while she and Peter were whirled in a taxi out to Fairmount Park.
They had driven to the Green Street entrance, and then dismissing the cab had walked around the drive, up the steps, in front of the mansion and on to Lemon Hill. It was one of those last, warm, almost hot nights of Indian Summer. The slopes of the park lay deserted before them, deep in velvety shadow, with here and there a gold patch bright as day under the watching arc-light.
They sat down on the dry, short grass. “Like that other evening in Morningside, long, long ago. How long, Joanna?”
“Oh, ages! How’d I sing, Peter?”
“Divinely. You looked like an angel, Janna. No, not an angel, more like a siren in that yellow dress. Where’d you get it, dearest?”
“Yellow nothing! That was orange—deep, deep orange. Sylvia planned it out for me. Isn’t she a genius? Through me she certainly is teaching these colored people how to dress. We will not wear these conventional colors—grays, taupe, beige—poor boy, you don’t know what they are, do you? They’re all right for these palefaces. But colored people need color, life, vividness.”
“George! I guess you’re right. How’d you come to think of it?”
“I didn’t. It was Sylvia. I started out in a white dress. You should have seen me looking like an icebergish angel.”
“You are one, you know Janna.”
“Which? Iceberg or angel?”
“Both. One makes me adore you, the other says ‘hands off.’ ”
“Not a bad thing, do you think, considering all the men I meet?”
“I hate them. Sure you don’t like any of ’em better than me?”
“No, dear, I like you best.”
“ ‘No, dear, I like you best,’ ” he mimicked. “For God’s sake, Jan, can’t you say, ‘Peter, I love you always’? Say it.”
She hesitated, sighed a little. “Peter I love you.”
“Why’d you leave off ‘always’?”
“Dear little boy, how can I say it? I do when I think of it. But, Peter, I have so much to think about—my tour, my booking, you know, my lessons in French and Italian, my dancing. I still keep that up; I’d really rather do that than sing. Dancing makes me—”
“Oh, damn the dancing!”
“Why, Peter!” She looked at his flushed face in amazement.
“Hang it all, talking to me about dancing, when I’m talking to you about love—love, Joanna—and there’s nothing to keep us from getting married. Some fellows and girls ball their lives up so they can’t ever get them straightened out. But here we are ‘all set’ as the fellows say. And you talk to me about dancing! Suppose I were to talk to you about Materia Medica!”
“I think it would be a good thing if you would.”
He was honestly aggrieved at that.
She leaned over and kissed him. “See how brazen I am. That’s the second time I’ve given you a kiss. Oh, Peter, you big baby!”
“Dear Janna, I love you so! Great Scott! aren’t girls funny! You can’t guess how hard it is for me to be letting all these stupid years go by. Sometimes I’ve half a mind to chuck it all.”
“You’d never get me then.”
“I don’t suppose I would. Well, I have you now.”
“Dear Peter, we must be going home. Cousin Parthenia will rave.”
“Pshaw, she knows you’re with me. Love me, darling?”
“You know I do, you dear, dear boy.”
“Come, sit up on the bench. There, that’s it.” He knelt before her. “Know what I’m going to give you tonight?” He felt in his pocket. “Like it, Janna?”
He showed her a ring, a tiny gold chased ring, whose facets gleamed like diamonds.
“Peter, it’s
