Told in a French Garden Part 26

She threw back the hood of her cape and faced me.

Rodriguez had heard, too. He wheeled quickly toward us, as nearly broken from his self-control as a man so sure of himself could be.

Under the flash of our eyes the color surged up painfully in her pale face. There was much the same expression in our eyes, I fancy,--Rodriguez's and mine--but I felt that it was at his face she gazed.

I have never known how far it is given to woman to penetrate the mysteries of human nature, for she is gifted, it seems to me, with a dissimulation in which she wraps herself, as with an impenetrable veil of outward innocence, and ignorance, from our less acute perception and ruder knowledge.

There were speeches enough that it would have become a man in my position to make. I knew them all. But--I said nothing. Some instinct saved me; some vague fore-knowledge made me feel--I knew not why--that there was really nothing for me to say at that moment.

For fully a minute none of us moved.

Rodriguez recovered himself first. I cannot describe the peculiar expression of his eyes as he slowly turned them from her face to mine.

So bound up was he in himself that I was confident that he did not yet suspect more than that she and I had met before. What was in her mind I dared not guess.

He composedly crossed to her. He gently unfastened her heavy wrap, carefully lifted it from her shoulders. He pushed a high backed chair toward her, and, with a smile, forced her to sit--she did look dangerously white. She sank into it, and wearily leaned her pretty head back, as if for support, and I noticed that her slender hands, as they grasped either arm of the chair, trembled, in spite of the grip she took to steady herself. I felt her whole body vibrate, as a violin vibrates for a moment after the bow leaves the strings.

"It is a strange chance that you two should know each other," he said, "and very well, too, if I may judge from your manner of addressing her?"

I moved to a place behind her chair, and laid my hand on it. "This lady is my affianced wife," I replied.

He did not change color. For an instant not a muscle moved. He did not stir a step from his place before the fire, where he stood, with his gaze fixed on her face. For one instant he turned his widely opened eyes on me--brief as the glance was, I felt it was critical. Then his lids quivered and drooped completely over his eyes, absolutely veiling the whole man, and, to my amazement, he laughed aloud.

But even as he did so, he spread his hands quickly toward us as if to apologize, and ghastly as the comment was, grotesque even, as it all seemed, I think we both understood. He hardly needed to say, "Pardon me," as he quickly recovered his strong hold on himself.

The next instant he was again standing erect before the fire, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and his voice was absolutely calm as he turned toward me and said, with a smile under his half lowered heavy lids, "I promised you, when I asked you to accompany me, that before we slept to-night I would explain my singular request. I hardly thought that I should have to do it, whether I would or not, under these circ.u.mstances. Indeed, it appears that you have the right to demand of me the explanation I so flippantly offered you an hour ago.

I am bound to own that, had I dreamed that you knew this lady--that a relation so intimate existed between you--I should surely never have done of my own will this which Fate has presumed to do for me. What can I say to you two that will help or mend this--to you, my fellow musician, who were willing to stand my friend in need, without question; and to the woman you love, and to whom I owe an eternal debt--that we may have no doubts of one another in the future? I cannot make excuses well, even if I have the right to. I only hope we are all three so const.i.tuted that we may be able to feel that for a little we have been outside common causes and common results, and that you may listen to an explanation which may seem strange, pardon me, and part from me without resentment, being sure that I shall suffer, and yet be glad."

The face against the high-backed chair was very pale. She closed her eyes. His gaze was on her. He marked the change, I was sure. He thrust his hands still deeper into his pockets, as if to brace himself, and went on. "Last night her pure eyes looked into mine. I had seen her face before me night after night, never dreaming who she was. I had always played to her, and it had seemed to me at times as if the music I made was in her face. I could see nothing else. I seemed to be looking through her amber eyes, down, down into her deep beautiful soul, and my soul reached out toward her, with a sudden knowledge of what manhood might have been had all womanhood been pure; of what life might have been with one who could know no sin.

"It was only her face that I saw, as I stood waiting the end of the applause. I seemed to be gazing between her glorious eyes, as to tell the truth, I had more than once gazed in my dreams in the past month.

I had already written the song that seeing her face had sung in my heart. It was with an irresistible longing, an impulse stronger than my will, to say to her just what her face had said to me,--though she might never know it was said to her--that I went back to the stage.

Almost before I realized it, I was there. I felt the vibrant soul of my violin as I laid my cheek against it, and I saw the same spirit tremble behind the eyes of the fair face above me, as one sees a reflection tremble under the wind rippled water. The first chord throbbed on the air in response to it. Then I played what she had unconsciously inspired in me. It was in her eyes, where never swerving, immortal loyalty shone, that I read the deathless theme. Out of her nature came the inspiration. To her belongs the honor. I know--no one better, that as I played last night, I shall never play again; just as I realize that _what_ I played last night my own nature could never of itself have created. It was she who spoke, it was not I. Let him who dares, try to explain that miracle."

She rose from her chair and moved toward him, and as she moved, she swayed pitifully.

He did not stir.

It was I who caught her as she stumbled, and I held her close in my arms. After a moment, she relaxed a little, and her head drooped wearily on my shoulder. He lowered his lids, and I felt that every nerve in his well controlled body quivered with resentment.

He motioned to entreat her to sit down again. She shook her head, and, when he went on, again, he for the first time addressed himself directly to her. "It was chance that set you across my path last night--you and your father. I recognized him at once. I knew your mother well. I can remember the day on which you were born, I was a lad then. Your mother was one of my idols. Why, child, I fiddled for you in your cradle. At the moment I realized who you were, you were so much a part of my music that you only appealed to me through that. But when I left you, I carried a consciousness of you with me that was more tangible. I had held your hand in mine. I feel it there still.

"I went directly to my room, alone. I sat down immediately to transcribe as much of what I had played as possible while it was fresh in my mind. As I wrote I was alone with you. But as the spirit of the music was imprisoned, I knew that you were becoming more and more a material presence to me. When I slept, it was to dream of you again--but, oh, the difference!

"I should have been grateful to you for the inspiration that you had been to me--and I was! But it had served its purpose. They tell me I never played like that before. I feel I never shall again. But the end of an emotion is never in the spirit with me.

"I started out this afternoon to find you, oblivious of the fact that I should have left town. I had the audacity to tell myself that I should be a cad if I departed without thanking the sweet daughter of your mother for her share in making me great. I had the presumption to believe in myself. It seemed natural enough to your good father that 'a whimsical genius,' as he called me, should be allowed the caprice of even tardily looking up his boyhood's acquaintance. He received me n.o.bly, was proud that you should see I remembered him--and simply made no secret of it.

"Though I knew what you had seemed to me, I little realized that the child of true, fine musical spirits had a nature strung like my Strad--fine, clear, true, matchless, as well as inspiring. I spent a beautiful afternoon with you. I cannot better explain than by saying that to me it was like such a day as I have sometimes had with my violin. I call them my holy-days, and G.o.d knows I try to keep them holy,--though after too many of them follow a St. Michael and the Dragon tussle--and I mean no discredit to the Archangel, either.

"The honest old father, proud to trust his daughter to me,--in his kind heart he always considered me a most maligned man,--went off to the play and his Sat.u.r.day night club. He told me that.

"We were alone together. It was then that I began to think that I could probably play on her nature as I did on my violin, and then, with a player's frenzy, to realize that I had been doing it from the first; that we had vibrated in harmony like two ends of a chord. Then I saw no more the spirit behind her eyes. I saw only the beautiful face in which the color came and went, the burnished hair so full of golden lights, on which I longed to lay my hand--the sensitive red lips--and the angel and the demon rose up within me, and looked one another in the face, and I heard the one fling the truth at the other, which even the devil no longer cared to deny--Ah, forgive me!--"

In his egoism of self-a.n.a.lysis and open confession, I am sure he did not realize how far he was going, until she buried her face in her hands.

Then he stepped across the room and stood before me as she rested her face in her hands against my breast.

"It was not especially clever--the last struggle against myself. I had never known such a woman before. I suppose if I had, I should have tortured her to death to strike new chords out of her nature,--and wept at my work! I had not the courage to tear myself abruptly away. I suggested an hour of the opera--I gave her the public as a protector--and they sang 'Faust.' It was then that, knowing myself so well, I looked out into the auditorium and saw you! It was Providence that put you in my way. I thought it was accident. I am sure I need say no more?"

I shook my head.

He leaned over her a moment. He gently took her hands from her face.

Her eyelids trembled. For one brief moment she opened her eyes to his.

"You have given me one sweet day," he murmured. "Some part of your soul has called its music out of mine. That offspring of a miraculous sympathy will live immortal when all else of our two lives is forgotten. Remember to-day as a dream--and me as a shadow there--" he stopped abruptly. I felt her head fall forward. She had swooned.

Together we looked into the beautiful colorless face.

I loved music as I loved light. I was an artist myself. A great musician--and this man was one--was to me the greatest achievement of Art and Living.

I did not refuse the hand he held out. I buried mine in it.

I did not smile nor mistrust, nor misunderstand the tears in his eyes, nor despise him because I knew they would soon enough be dry. I did not doubt his sincerity when he said, "I have never done so bitter a thing as say 'good-bye' to this--though I know but too well such are not for me."

He bent over her, as if he would take her in his arms.

She was unconscious. I felt tempted to put her there. I knew I loved her as he could never love--yet I pitied him the more for that.

"Tell her," he whispered, "tell her, when she shall have forgotten this--as I hope she will--that for this hour at least I loved her; that losing her I am liable to love her long,--so we shall never meet again. I shall never cease to be grateful to the Providence that threw you in my way--after to-night. To-night I could curse it and my conscience with a right good will." With an effort he straightened himself. "You can afford to forgive me," he said, "for I--I envy you with all my heart."--And he was gone.

I heard his voice as he spoke to the waiter outside. I listened to his step as he descended the stairs. He had pa.s.sed out of our life forever.

That was years ago.

She has long been dead.

He was not to blame if the suns.h.i.+ne that danced in music out of the eyes of the woman I loved never quite came back again. We were, all the same, happy together in our way.

He was not to blame if it was written in the big book of Fate that it should be his heart, and not mine, that should read the song she bore in her soul.

Something must be sacrificed for Art. We sacrificed our first illusions--and the Song he read will sing on when even Rodriguez is but a tradition.

X

EPILOGUE