Chapter 2

"I don't know. It is not certain. No, I don't think she will do that," said his companion, evidently in some confusion. "The fact is I have not written to her--I couldn't. I don't know what she will think of me, but I cannot write to her. I have tried in vain. I fear she will be hurt, but I have done no more than send her a brief note to tell her she must not judge me by the frequency of my letters--that I love her just the same--but I seem really not to know what to write. It is all so strange--the new country and the changes--and everything being so different--and I feel she would want a full and interesting letter, which I cannot yet compose myself to write. This seems very strange, but it will be different in time, will it not? You don't think this feeling of being in such a strange, strange land, as if it couldn't be real, and couldn't be I--myself--will last always, do you? It will surely pass away. Oh, if you knew how I long to feel at home--to feel it is a place where I am to stay! I feel all the time that I must be just on the way to somewhere, and that I have just stopped here a little while. But I have not. It is my home and I am to spend my life here. I try to tell myself that all day long and make myself believe it, but I cannot. I often fear it will distress my husband that I feel so, but he has not found it out, I'm glad to say. He seems so quiet and satisfied, that I feel ashamed to feel so restless. It will go away in time, will it not? It is perhaps because I am a foreigner and this is a strange land that the feeling is so strong, but it was almost the same when we were in Italy. Sometimes I am afraid I have not a contented disposition, and that I will make myself unhappy always by it, and perhaps my husband too, if he should find it out. Sometimes I cry to think how wrong it is of me. My father told me it was my duty to be happy, with a kind, good husband to take care of me, and I know I ought, but I feel so homesick--for, I don't know what--for Nina and the sisters and the convent. Oh," she broke off suddenly, "I do hope you will forgive me. It is very silly to talk to you so, all about myself, but I have had no one to speak to--at least no one but my husband, and I could not tell him all these feelings that I ought to be ashamed of. I know it is my duty to be satisfied and not feel homesick, but you think it will pass away after a while, do you not?"

What was he to say? The truth was very plain to him that it would never pass, but go on growing worse and worse, as gradually she came to know her own soul better and to understand herself, in the light of the new relationship she had entered into. In the case of most women the revelation she had so unconsciously made to him of the insufficiency of her marriage would have been unwomanly, and perhaps it was even so in her, but it was so only in the sense of being childlike. She was really no more than a child, and more ignorant of the world than many a child of ten. What did she know about marriage or the needs of her own soul? Evidently nothing, and some day he saw before her a terrible awakening from this trance of ignorance. His heart literally ached for her as he sought diligently in his mind for some way to help her and could find not one. The only thing was to let her talk freely, to encourage her by a gentle friendly interest, such as a girl friend might have shown, and to give her the relief of expression for these vague troubles and perplexities which, when uttered, seemed intangible and entirely inexplicable to her. Not once did she so much as imply any reproach to her husband, and it was plain that she felt unconscious of any ground for complaint. She alluded to him frequently and always most kindly, and laid at her own door the entire fault of her discontent.

Noel spoke little, but led her gently on to talk as freely as she chose. Often she would pause and remind herself that she was doing wrong to take up his whole visit with talk about herself, but it was evident it never once occurred to her that she had been guilty of any self-betrayal which she should not have made. He saw her utter loyalty to her husband, even in thought, and it made his blood boil to think of his stupid insensibility to the possession he had in such a wife.

Gradually he was able to soothe her--or perhaps it was the relief of utterance that made her presently seem more light-hearted. Noel pronounced a great many platitudes in an insincere effort to persuade her that things would get better, and somehow they seemed to give her comfort for the moment. As if to put the subject by, she called the big cat to her, snapping her fine slim fingers, and saying, "Come, Grisette"; and the creature jumped into her lap with the obedience of a well-trained dog. Then she enticed the kittens to follow, one by one, until they were all in her lap playing with her ribbons, catching at her little embroidered handkerchief with their soft paws, and rolling over in high glee. She talked to them as if they had been children, petted and chided them in the prettiest way, and then put them down, one by one, with a kiss on each little soft head that made Noel half angry and wholly pitying. It was so touching to see her tenderness, her longing to expend the great store of love within her--and to see her, too, so utterly without an object for it.

The cat and kittens having returned to their place on the rug, Noel proffered a request he had been wanting to put all the evening and asked her to sing. He had found out on the steamer that she possessed an extraordinarily beautiful voice. Her face, which had grown brighter, clouded suddenly.

"I cannot," she answered. "I don't sing at all. My husband got me a piano, thinking it would please me, but I have not opened it. I was afraid he would be disappointed, but he has not noticed it. I used to be sorry he was not fond of music, but this makes me glad."

"Do you really mean that you are going to give up singing? If you do you must let me assure you that it would be very wrong, a wrong to others, to let such a voice as yours be silent."

"Oh, do not tell me that," she said, "I want not to do anything wrong, but indeed I cannot sing. I have tried it sometimes when I sit alone, and it is always the same thing--I choke so I cannot sing. I will get over it, but don't ask me to sing yet."

He could not say another word, especially as the tears were evidently near her eyes, and seeing that the hour was late and her husband, for whose return he had expected to wait, was delayed, he got up to take his leave.

"Vill you not vait for Robert?" she said, speaking for the first time in English and showing already a greater ease in its use. "He vill not be late. I haf not know him to remain so long as this, since I am here."

Noel smiled to hear her, but shook his head.

"No," he answered, "I must go now, but first I want to get you to give me a promise." He put out his hand as he spoke, and she placed hers in it with the confidence of a child.

"You are in a strange land," he said, "but I don't want you to feel that you are altogether among strangers. You may have some need of friends--trouble or sickness or some of the things that are always happening in this sad world, may come to you. I trust not. I hope to God they may let you go by, but we can never tell what will come to us, and I want you to promise me that if you are ever in need of a friend you will write to me. Your husband may be ill, or something like that," he added hurriedly, fearing he had ventured too far, though she showed no sign of thinking so. "And if it is a thing in which you want a woman's help, I have sisters and a mother and they shall come to you. Will you promise me this?"

"I vill. Oh, I vill promise truly," she said. "But vill you not come more?"

"Oh, perhaps so, now and then," he said hurriedly. He could not tell her he had resolved not to, but that was the fixed determination which had been the result of this evening's experiences. He saw her needs of help and tenderness so clearly and he longed so to answer them that the very intensity of that longing was a warning to him. If he had been a younger man, or she an older woman, he might not have come to this hard resolution, but he was experienced enough to know that there was danger in such a companionship as he was tempted to enter into. If she had been older and better acquainted with the world that also might have made a difference, but it would have been exactly the same thing as taking advantage of the unknowingness of a child. Then again, in the third place, if her husband had been careful of her, or even suspicious and jealous, he might have thought it some one's else affair than his, and allowed himself the delight of this acquaintanceship, guarding and loving her like a brother, but none of these supposititious cases was so. The matter as it stood threw the whole responsibility upon him, and, as a man of honor, he could see but one course open to him.

So he stood and held her by the hand with a feeling that she was his little sister, struggling with another feeling that she was not, and took a long look at her lovely face. How he yearned to paint it, and perhaps, for the asking, he might!

"One thing more," he said at last, feeling that he must get it over, "I have never heard your first name, will you not tell me what it is?"

"Christine," she said, and as he repeated it gently she exclaimed:

"Oh, it is truly a pleasant thing to hear it. I have not heard it since so long a time. Robert do say it is too, vat you call--I forget, but he call me Chrissy, and my own name do seem a thing forgot."

"Good-night, Christine," he said, feeling sure he might venture this once, "and do not think I have forgotten you, if you don't see me soon. I am very busy--my friends claim my spare time--I live very far away, but if you are ever in any trouble, little or big, and you or your husband should need me, send a line to my club, and I will come the instant I receive it. Good-by, be a good, brave girl, and don't forget me."

During all these parting words she had let him hold her little hand. He wanted to kiss it before dropping it, for it seemed to him unlikely that he would ever touch it again. He resisted this, however, and merely said good-by again and left her.

Looking back before he closed the front door he could see her in the pretty drawing-room seated on the rug before the fire, her silk draperies crushed beneath her, and holding all the kittens in her lap, the mother-cat sitting by, and looking on contentedly. It was upon this picture that he closed the door.

Just outside he met Dallas, who apologized for being late. He had stayed for the ballet, he said, knowing his wife was not alone. He asked Noel to come again, but got no very satisfactory response.

IV.

During the months that followed Mrs. Dallas did not see Noel again, and the news accidentally reached her that he had gone abroad with his mother and sisters. He had called on her once, probably on the eve of his departure, but she had been ill that evening, and the servant had excused her. It had been reported to her that he had inquired particularly whether her illness was serious and had been informed that it was not. That was the last she had heard of him, until she had made some acquaintances in the society in which he was known, and then she occasionally heard his name mentioned and gained the information alluded to.

Her introduction into this society had come about very suddenly. For a long time she had known absolutely no one, and once, in her intense longing for some one to speak to, she had obeyed an ardent impulse and run across the street to a house where a young girl and her mother lived, the former keeping a day-school for small children, and had begged the little teacher to come over and spend the evening with her. Out of this a friendship had sprung, which had been for a long time her only resource. Her husband's habit of going to some place of amusement in the evening seemed to be an inveterate one, though he cared little, apparently, for what he saw. She wearied through a great many evenings with him, and then got out of the habit of accompanying him. It was evident he cared little whether she went or stayed.

One Sunday afternoon the little school-teacher persuaded her to go with her to a great church near by. They were given seats close to the choir, and when a familiar piece of music began Christine, in utter self-forgetfulness, lifted up her voice and sang. When the service was over the conductor of the singing came up to her, and pleading the common bond of music, introduced himself and begged that he and his wife might be allowed to call on her to enlist her interest and services in a great charity entertainment which he was getting up. Christine agreed, with the feeling that it would be ungracious to decline, and the next day they called.

The outcome of the visit of Mr. and Mrs. Jannish was an engagement on the part of Mrs. Dallas to sing the leading rôle in an opera which had become a cherished wish among some of the best amateur musicians of the city. The scheme had halted only for want of a soprano capable of taking the responsibility of the most difficult part. Jannish was an authority in this musical set, and he knew that the acquisition he had made for their scheme would be not only approved, but rejoiced over. It was such an infinite improvement upon the idea of securing the services of a professional--a thing that they had almost been compelled to resort to.

Mrs. Dallas qualified her consent by the securing of her husband's approval, though she said she felt sure he would not withhold it. He was out at the time, but before the visitors left he came in. He was called and introduced and the request put to him by Jannish, in his most elaborate and supplicatory style. Consent was immediately given, with an air of slightly impatient wonder at being dragged into it at all. It was precisely what his wife had expected, and as she looked at him as he spoke, there was a different expression on her face from that which it would have worn a few months back. That vague and wondering look was less noticeable and an element of comprehendingness that made her eyes look hard now struggled with it sometimes.

After the visit of Jannish and his wife other people called, and immediately Mrs. Dallas was drifting in a stream of musical engagements and rehearsals that took up most of her time, and formed a strong contrast to her former mode of life. She had opportunities to indulge her taste for dress and to wear some of the charming costumes which belonged to her trousseau--bought with what girlish ardor, and then laid away out of sight! She soon came to be admired for her dressing, as well as her beauty and her voice, and as is usual in such cases, the men regarded her with more favor and less suspicion than the women. The good will of the latter sex was, however, secured to some extent, when it was discovered that the prima donna, who they all perceived was to make their opera a great success and the envy of all sister cities with aspiring musical _coteries_, was apparently indifferent to the attentions of the men, if not, indeed, embarrassed by them. She never went anywhere, to rehearsals or resorts of any kind, public or private, without her husband, no matter who tried to entice her away. She never left his side, except under the necessity of going through her part, and then she returned to him unvaryingly. He was good-looking and well-dressed, and some of the company of both sexes made an effort to make something out of him, but he always seemed surprised when he was spoken to, and to find it a trouble to respond. He was too free from self-consciousness to be awkward, and would sit passive, twirling his mustache and looking on, and was apparently as satisfied to be a spectator of this performance as to go to see something professional. He had grown accustomed to sameness, perhaps, for he never seemed to object to it.

To see his wife the object of enthusiastic adulation on all sides, whether sincere or put on of necessity, as it was by some of the company, appeared to arouse in the husband no emotions of either satisfaction or displeasure.

V.

The great occasion came. The evening's entertainment rose, minute by minute, to its climax of glory, on which the curtain fell, amidst an enthusiasm so intense that only the controlled good breeding of the invited audience prevented demonstrations of a noisy character. Christine had been previously seen by very few of them, and as the audience dispersed, her name, coupled with expressions of enthusiastic surprise and admiration, was on every lip.

Fifteen minutes after the curtain went down the theatre was empty and deserted, every light was out, and profound silence reigned where so lately all had been excitement and animation, and the young creature who had occasioned so much the greatest part of it was being driven homeward, leaning back in the close carriage and clasping close the work-hardened hand of the little teacher who was her companion. Her husband sat opposite, silent as usual, and after a few impetuous, ardent words of love and appreciation Hannah had fallen silent too, merely holding out her hand to meet the hard and straining clasp that had seized upon it as soon as they were settled in the carriage.

After the performance people who had leaped from the audience to the stage, privileged by an acquaintance with some of the company, had pressed forward eagerly for an introduction to Christine. Invitations to supper were showered upon her. She might have gone off in a carriage drawn by men instead of horses if she had desired it. But she had turned away from it all. She was in haste to go, and summoning her husband and friend as quickly as possible, she had declared she was tired out, and had made her excuses with an air so earnest, and to those who had the vision for it, so distressed, that amidst the reproaches of some and the regrets of others she had made her escape.

She shivered as the cold night air struck her face outside the theatre, and drew her wrap closer about her as she stepped into the carriage which was waiting. The drive homeward was silent. The two women sat together, each feeling in that fervent handclasp the emotions which filled the heart of the other. Mrs. Dallas had been roused by something to an unusual pitch of excited feeling, and her little friend, by the intuition of sympathy, defined it. The way was long and Mr. Dallas, making himself as comfortable as possible on the seat opposite, took off his hat, leaned his head back and in a few moments was breathing audibly and regularly.

"He is asleep," whispered his wife, and then, on the breath of a deep-drawn sigh, she added in the same low whisper, "Oh, God, have mercy on me."

"What is it?" whispered Hannah timidly, her voice tender with sympathy.

"Hush! I am going to tell you everything. Wait till we get home. I am going to tell you all."

She spoke excitedly, though still in a whisper, and it was evident that the agitation under which she labored was urging her on to actions in which the voice of discretion and prudence had no part.

Hannah, who had long ago suspected that her beautiful friend--whose face and voice, together with the luxury of her surroundings and dress had made her acquaintance seem like intercourse with a being from a higher sphere--was not happy, now felt an impulse of affectionate pity which made her move closer to her companion and rather timidly put her arm around her. In an instant she was folded in a close embrace, the bare white arm under the wrap straining her in an ardent pressure that drew her head down until it leaned against the breast of the taller woman, and felt the bounding pulses of her heart.

"I am so miserable," whispered the soft voice close to her ear. "I am going to tell you about it. If I couldn't talk to somebody to-night I feel as if I should go mad. Whether it's right or wrong I'm going to tell you. I can't bear it this way any longer. Oh, I am so unhappy--I am so unhappy."

Hannah only pressed closer, without speaking. There was nothing that she could say. She felt keenly that in what seemed the brilliant lot of her beautiful friend there were possibilities of anguish which her commonplace life could know nothing of. So they drove along in silence until the carriage stopped at the door. Mr. Dallas was sleeping so soundly that it was necessary for his wife to waken him, and he got up, looking sleepy and confused, and led the way into the house, while the carriage rolled away, the wheels reverberating down the silent streets.

In the hall Hannah looked at her friend and saw that her face, though pale, was perfectly composed, and her voice, when she spoke to her husband, was also quiet and calm.

"Hannah is going to stay all night, you know," she said. "You needn't stay up for us. I will put out the lights."

He nodded sleepily and went at once up-stairs, as the two women turned into the drawing-room. The lights in the chandelier were burning brightly and a great deep chair was drawn under them, upon which Mrs. Dallas sat down, motioning her friend to a seat facing her. She was wearing the dress in which she had sung the last act of the opera--a Greek costume of soft white silk with trimmings of gold. It was in this dress that she had roused the audience to such a pitch of admiration by her beauty, and seen close, as Hannah was privileged to see it now, there were a score of perfections of detail, in both woman and costume, which those who saw her from afar would not have been aware of. Hannah, who had an ardent soul within her very ordinary little body, looked at her with a sort of worship in her eyes.

Meeting this look, Mrs. Dallas smiled--a smile that was sadder than tears.

"Oh, Hannah, I am so unhappy," she said. "I want to tell you but I don't know how. Oh, my child, I am so miserable."

Her utterance had still that little foreign accent that made it so pathetic, although, in spite of some odd blunders, she had become almost fluent in the English tongue. There was still no indication of tears in either her voice or her eyes, as she leaned back in the padded chair, her head supported by its top, and her long bare arms with their picturesque Greek bracelets resting wearily on its cushioned sides.

Hannah looked at her with the tenderness of her kind heart overflowing in great tears from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. She pressed her handkerchief to her face in the vain effort to keep them back, but the woman for whom they fell shed no tears. She sat there calm and quiet in her youth and beauty and looked at the plain little school-teacher with a wistful gaze that seemed as if it might be envy.

"Tell me, Hannah," she said presently, when the girl had dried her eyes and grown more calm, "tell me frankly, no matter how strange it may seem to you to have the question asked, what do you think of my husband?"

This startling question naturally found Hannah unprepared with an answer, and after clearing her throat and getting rather red, she said confusedly that she had seen so little of Mr. Dallas, her intercourse with him had been so slight, that she really did not feel that she knew him well enough to give an answer.

"You know him as well as I do," his wife replied. "As he is to you--as you see him daily, exactly so he is to me. I have waited and waited for something more, but in vain. I have come at last to the conclusion that this is all."

Hannah, between wonder and distress, began to feel the tears rise again. The other saw them and bent forward and took her hand.