The Dominant Strain Part 42

"Oh, but you must! We can't spare you, Mr. Arlt. If you don't care for the charity, you'll do it for me; won't you?"

Deliberately Arlt packed the sugar and the spoon into his cup, and set the cup down on the table. Then he turned to face Mrs. Lloyd Avalons squarely.

"On the contrary, that is the very reason I cannot do it, Mrs. Lloyd Avalons. When Miss Gannion introduced me to you as Mr. Thayer's accompanist and a pianist who needed engagements, you wished to refuse me a place on your programme. Now that others have been good enough to listen to me, you can make room for two numbers by me. I am very sorry; but I shall be unable to accept your invitation."

There was no underlying rancor in the slow, deliberate syllables; they were merely the statement of an indisputable fact. Most women would have accepted them in silence. Not so with Mrs. Lloyd Avalons.

"But you played for Miss Van Osdel, last week," she persisted.

Arlt rose to his feet.

"Yes, I played for Miss Van Osdel, last week, just as I hope to have the pleasure of playing for her many times more in the future. However, that is quite a different matter. Miss Van Osdel and I are very old friends, and it will always be one of my very greatest pleasures to be entirely at her service." He made a quaint little bow in Sally's direction, and his face lighted with the friendly, humorous smile she knew so well.

Then he added, "And now I must bid you all a very good afternoon."

He bowed again and walked away, with his simple dignity unruffled to the last. Society might bless him, or society might ban. Nevertheless, it was by no means Arlt's intention to turn his art into a species of lap-dog, to come trotting in at society's call, and then be dismissed to the outer darkness again, so soon as the round of its tricks was accomplished. Egotism Arlt had not; but his independence shrank at no one of the corollaries of his creed of art.

Bobby lingered after the others had gone away.

"I say, Sally," he remarked at length, apparently apropos of nothing in particular; "how does it happen that you have never married me?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I believe I might as well ask you now'"]

"Probably for the very excellent reason that you have never asked me,"

Sally responded frankly.

With his hands in his pockets, Bobby sauntered across to the sofa where she was sitting. There he stood contemplating her for a moment. Then he settled himself at her side.

"Well," he said slowly; "I believe I might as well ask you now."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

"I almost made a whole poem about you," Bobby said to Thayer, one night.

Thayer laughed.

"How far did you get?"

"The last line."

"Then you actually did make one."

Bobby shook his head.

"Oh, no. I only made the next to the last line and the last. Then the inspiration gave out."

"What was it?" Thayer asked idly.

The mirth left Bobby's face, and he looked up at his companion almost defiantly.

"Forget the things we cannot, And face the things we must,"

he said slowly.

The dark red leaped up into Thayer's face, as he looked at Bobby keenly.

"How long have you known it?"

"Since the day I told you they had come home from abroad. You sang _St.

Paul_, that night, you may remember, and afterwards I advised you to go into grand opera. A fellow with a voice like yours can't expect to have any secrets of his own." Bobby paused; then he added thoughtfully, "Life is bound to be a good deal of a bluff for us all."

Thayer walked on in silence for seven or eight blocks.

"What do you think about it?" he asked then.

"I think that I would almost delay my own wedding, for the sake of being your best man."

"And yet, she says it is impossible," Thayer said thoughtfully.

"When was that?"

"Two years ago, when I came home from Europe."

"Oh!" Bobby said slowly, as the light dawned upon him. "That was the blow that floored you, that summer; was it? I never knew. What was the trouble? The child?"

Thayer's a.s.sent was rather curt in its brevity. Bobby's blunt, kindly questions hurt him; yet, after all, there was a sort of comfort in the hurt. After two years of silence, it was a relief to be able to speak of his trouble. It had grown no more, no less with the pa.s.sing months; it was just what it had been, at the close of that warm May afternoon.

"Do you know, I rather like Beatrix for the stand she has taken," Bobby said meditatively. "She has the sense to know that, if she married you and made you share the responsibility of that child, it would knock your singing higher than a kite."

Thayer interrupted him impatiently.

"How much does my singing amount to me in comparison with my love for Beatrix? I would cancel my engagements, to-morrow, if she would say the word."

"But, thank the Lord, she won't," Bobby replied placidly. "Don't be an a.s.s, Thayer. It is a popular fiction that an artist is expected to give up his work for the sake of matrimony; but it's an immoral fable. The G.o.ds have endowed you with a voice, and you have no business to fling away the gift, when your keeping it can do so much good in the world.

You owe something to humanity, and a lot more back to the G.o.ds who gave you the voice; you have no moral right to do anything that will hinder your paying that debt. Beatrix knows this. She knows what would be the inevitable effect of saddling you with the child, and she is right in her decision."

"Has she been talking the matter over with you?" Thayer asked, with sudden jealousy.

Bobby laughed scornfully.

"No need. I have eyes of my own, and I learned my _Barbara Celarent_ in junior year."

Another block was pa.s.sed in silence. Then Thayer asked,--

"Do you see Mrs. Lorimer often?"