Chapter 16

After a while she recalled with a start the events of less than an hour ago--events that ought to have seemed wildly exciting, arousing the deepest and strongest emotions. Yet they had made no impression upon her. Absolutely none. She had no horror in the thought that she had been the victim of a bigamist; she had no elation over her release into freedom and safety. She wondered whether this arose from utter frivolousness or from indifference to the trifles of conventional joys, sorrows, agitations, excitements which are the whole life of most people--that indifference which is the cause of the general opinion that men and women who make careers are usually hardened in the process.

As she lay awake that night--she had got a very bad habit of lying awake hour after hour--she suddenly came to a decision. But she did not tell Keith for several days. She did it in this way:

"Don't you think I'm looking better?" she asked.

"You're sleeping again," said he.

"Do you know why? Because my mind's at rest. I've decided to accept your offer."

"And my terms?" said he, apparently not interested by her announcement.

"And your terms," assented she. "You are free to stop whenever the whim strikes you; I must do exactly as you bid. What do you wish me to do?"

"Nothing at present," replied he. "I will let you know."

She was disappointed. She had assumed that something--something new and interesting, probably irritating, perhaps enraging, would occur at once. His indifference, his putting off to a future time, which his manner made seem most hazily indefinite, gave her the foolish and collapsing sense of having broken through an open door.

VII

THE first of September they went up to town. Stanley left at once for his annual shooting trip; Donald Keith disappeared, saying--as was his habit--neither what he was about nor when he would be seen again. Mrs. Brindley summoned her pupils and her musical friends. Mildred resumed the lessons with Jennings. There was no doubt about it, she had astonishingly improved during the summer. There had come--or, rather, had come back--into her voice the birdlike quality, free, joyous, spontaneous, that had not been there since her father's death and the family's downfall. She was glad that her arrangement with Donald Keith was of such a nature that she was really not bound to go on with it--if he should ever come back and remind her of what she had said. Now that Jennings was enthusiastic--giving just and deserved praise, as her own ear and Mrs. Brindley assured her, she was angry at herself for having tolerated Keith's frankness, his insolence, his insulting and contemptuous denials of her ability. She was impatient to see him, that she might put him down. She said to Jennings:

"You think I can make a career?"

"There isn't a doubt in my mind now," replied he. "You ought to be one of the few great lyric sopranos within five years."

"A man, this summer--a really unusual man in some ways--told me there was no hope for me."

"A singing teacher?"

"No, a lawyer. A Mr. Keith--Donald Keith."

"I've heard of him," said Jennings. "His mother was Rivi, the famous coloratura of twenty years ago."

Mildred was astounded. "He must know something about music."

"Probably," replied Jennings. "He lived with her in Italy, I believe, until he was almost grown. Then she died. You sang for him?"

"No," Mildred said it hesitatingly.

"Oh!" said Jennings, and his expression--interested, disturbed, puzzled--made Mildred understand why she had been so reluctant to confess. Jennings did not pursue the subject, but abruptly began the lesson. That day and several days thereafter he put her to tests he had never used before. She saw that he was searching for something--for the flaw implied in the adverse verdict of the son of Lucia Rivi. She was enormously relieved when he gave over the search without having found the flaw. She felt that Donald Keith's verdict had been proved false or at least faulty. Yet she was not wholly reassured, and from time to time she suspected that Jennings had not been, either.

Soon the gayety of the preceding winter and spring was in full swing again. Keith did not return, did not write, and Cyrilla Brindley inquired and telephoned in vain. Mildred worked with enthusiasm, with hope, presently with confidence. She hoped every day that Keith would come; she would make him listen to her, force him to admit. She caught a slight cold, neglected it, tried to sing it away. Her voice left her abruptly. She went to Jennings as usual the day she found herself able to do nothing more musical than squeak. She told him her plight. Said he:

"Begin! Let's hear."

She made a few dismal attempts, stopped short, and, half laughing, half ashamed, faced him for the lecture she knew would be forthcoming. Now, it so happened that Jennings was in a frightful humor that day--one of those humors in which the most prudent lose their self-control. He had been listening to a succession of new pupils--women with money and no voice, women who screeched and screamed and thoroughly enjoyed themselves and angled confidently for compliments. As Jennings had an acute musical ear, his sufferings had been frightful. He was used to these torments, had the habit of turning the fury into which they put him into excellent financial or disciplinary account. But on this particular day his nerves went to pieces, and it was with Mildred that the explosion came. When she looked at him, she was horrified to see a face distorted and discolored by sheer rage.

"You fool!" he shouted, storming up and down. "You fool! You can't sing! Keith was right. You wouldn't do even for a church choir. You can't be relied on. There's nothing behind your voice--no strength, no endurance, no brains. No brains! Do you hear?--no brains, I say!"

Mildred was terrified. She had seen him in tantrums before, but always there had been a judicious reserving of part of the truth. Instead of resenting, instead of flashing eye or quivering lips, Mildred sat down and with white face and dazed eyes stared straight before her. Jennings raved and roared himself out. As he came to his senses from this debauch of truth-telling his first thought was how expensive it might be. Thus, long before there was any outward sign that the storm had passed, the ravings, the insults were shrewdly tempered with qualifyings. If she kept on catching these colds, if she did not obey his instructions, she might put off her debut for years--for three years, for two years at least. And she would always be rowing with managers and irritating the public--and so on and on. But the mischief had been done. The girl did not rouse.

"No use to go on to-day," he said gruffly--the pretense at last rumblings of an expiring storm.

"Nor any other day," said Mildred.

She stood and straightened herself. Her face was beautiful rather than lovely. Its pallor, its strong lines, the melancholy intensity of the eyes, made her seem more the woman fully developed, less, far less, the maturing girl.

"Nonsense!" scolded Jennings. "But no more colds like that. They impair the quality of the voice."

"I have no voice," said the girl. "I see the truth."

Jennings was inwardly cursing his insane temper. In about the kindliest tone he had ever used with her, he said: "My dear Miss Stevens, you are in no condition to judge to-day. Come back to-morrow. Do something for that cold to-night. Clear out the throat--and come back to-morrow. You will see."

"Yes, I know those tricks," said she, with a sad little smile. "You can make a crow seem to sing. But you told me the truth."

"To-morrow," he cried pleasantly, giving her an encouraging pat on the shoulder. He knew the folly of talking too much, the danger of confirming her fears by pretending to make light of them. "A good sleep, and to-morrow things will look brighter."

He did not like her expression. It was not the one he was used to seeing in those vain, "temperamental" pupils of his--the downcast vanity that will be up again in a few hours. It was rather the expression of one who has been finally and forever disillusioned.

On her way home she stopped to send Keith a telegram: "I must see you at once."

There were several at the apartment for tea, among them Cullan, an amateur violinist and critic on music whom she especially liked. For, instead of the dreamy, romantic character his large brown eyes and sensitive features suggested, he revealed in talk and actions a boyish gayety--free, be it said, from boyish silliness--that was most infectious. His was one of those souls that put us in the mood to laugh at all seriousness, to forget all else in the supreme fact of the reality of existence. He made her forget that day--forget until Keith's answering telegram interrupted: "Next Monday afternoon."

A week less a day away! She shrank and trembled at the prospect of relying upon herself alone for six long days. Every prop had been taken away from her. Even the dubious prop of the strange, unsatisfactory Keith. For had he not failed her? She had said, "must" and "at once"; and he had responded with three words of curt refusal.

After dinner Stanley unexpectedly appeared. He hardly waited for the necessary formalities of the greeting before he said to Mrs. Brindley: "I want to see Mildred alone. I know you won't mind, Mrs. Brindley. It's very important." He laughed nervously but cheerfully. "And in a few minutes I'll call you in. I think I'll have something interesting to tell you."

Mrs. Brindley laughed. With her cigarette in one hand and her cup of after-dinner coffee in the other, she moved toward the door, saying gayly to Mildred:

"I'll be in the next room. If you scream I shall hear. So don't be alarmed."

Stanley closed the door, turned beaming upon Mildred. Said he: "Here's my news. My missus has got her divorce."

Mildred started up.

"Yes, the real thing," he assured her. "Of course I knew what was doing. But I kept mum--didn't want to say anything to you till I could say everything. Mildred, I'm free. We can be married to-morrow, if you will."

"Then you know about me?" said she, confused.

"On the way I stopped in to see Keith. He told me about that skunk--told me you were free, too."

Mildred slowly sat down. Her elbows rested upon the table. There was her bare forearm, slender and round, and her long, graceful fingers lay against her cheek. The light from above reflected charmingly from the soft waves and curves of her hair. "You're lovely--simply lovely!" cried Stanley. "Mildred--darling--you WILL marry me, won't you? You can go right on with the career, if you like. In fact, I'd rather you would, for I'm frightfully proud of your voice. And I've changed a lot since I became sincerely interested in you. The other sort of life and people don't amuse me any more. Mildred, say you'll marry me. I'll make you as happy as the days are long."

She moved slightly. Her hand dropped to the table.

"I guess I came down on you too suddenly," said he. "You look a bit dazed."

"No, I'm not dazed," replied she.

"I'll call Mrs. Brindley in, and we'll all three talk it over."

"Please don't," said she. "I've got to think it out for myself."

"I know there isn't anyone else," he went on. "So, I'm sure--dead sure, Mildred, that I can teach you to love me."

She looked at him pleadingly. "I don't have to answer right away?"

"Certainly not," laughed he. "But why shouldn't you? What is there against our getting married? Nothing. And everything for it. Our marriage will straighten out all the--the little difficulties, and you can go ahead with the singing and not bother about money, or what people might say, or any of those things."

"I--I've got to think about it, Stanley," she said gently. "I want to do the decent thing by you and by myself."

"You're afraid I'll interfere in the career--won't want you to go on? Mildred, I swear I'm--"

"It isn't that," she interrupted, her color high. "The truth is--" she faltered, came to a full stop--cried, "Oh, I can't talk about it to-night."

"To-morrow?" he suggested.

"I--don't know," she stammered. "Perhaps to-morrow. But it may be two or three days."

Stanley looked crestfallen. "That hurts, Mildred," he said. "I was SO full of it, so anxious to be entirely happy, and I thought you'd fall right in with it. Something to do with money? You're horribly sensitive about money, dear. I like that in you, of course. Not many women would have been as square, would have taken as little--and worked hard--and thought and cared about nothing but making good-- By Jove, it's no wonder I'm stark crazy about YOU!"

She was flushed and trembling. "Don't," she pleaded. "You're beating me down into the dust. I--I'm--" She started up. "I can't talk to-night. I might say things I'd be-- I can't talk about it. I must--"

She pressed her lips together and fled through the hall to her own room, to shut and lock herself in. He stared in amazement. When he heard the distant sound of the turning key he dropped to a chair again and laughed. Certainly women were queer creatures--always doing what one didn't expect. Still, in the end--well, a sensible woman knew a good chance to marry and took it. There was no doubt a good deal of pretense in Mildred's delicacy as to money matters--but a devilish creditable sort of pretense. He liked the ladylike, "nice" pretenses, of women of the right sort--liked them when they fooled him, liked them when they only half fooled him.

Presently he knocked on the door of the little library, opened it when permission came in Cyrilla's voice. She was reading the evening paper--he did not see the glasses she hastily thrust into a drawer. In that soft light she looked a scant thirty, handsome, but for his taste too intellectual of type to be attractive--except as a friend.

"Well," said he, as he lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the big copper ash-bowl, "I'll bet you can't guess what I've been up to."

"Making love to Miss Stevens," replied she. "And very foolish it is of you. She's got a steady head in that way."

"You're mighty right," said he heartily. "And I admire her for that more than for anything else. I'd trust her anywhere."

"You're paying yourself a high compliment," laughed Cyrilla.

"How's that?" inquired he. "You're too subtle for me. I'm a bit slow."

Mrs. Brindley decided against explaining. It was not wise to risk raising an unjust doubt in the mind of a man who fancied that a woman who resisted him would be adamant to every other man. "Then I've got to guess again?" said she.

"I've been asking her to marry me," said Stanley, who could contain it no longer. "Mrs. B. was released from me to-day by the court in Providence."

"But SHE'S not free," said Cyrilla, a little severely.

Stanley looked confused, finally said: "Yes, she is. It's a queer story. Don't say anything. I can't explain. I know I can trust you to keep a close mouth."

"Minding my own business is my one supreme talent," said Cyrilla.

"She hasn't accepted me--in so many words," pursued Baird, "but I've hopes that it'll come out all right."

"Naturally," commented Cyrilla dryly.

"I know I'm not--not objectionable to her. And how I do love her!" He settled himself at his ease. "I can't believe it's really me. I never thought I'd marry--just for love. Did you?"

"You're very self-indulgent," said Cyrilla.

"You mean I'm marrying her because I can't get her any other way. There's where you're wrong, Mrs. Brindley. I'm marrying her because I don't want her any other way. That's why I know it's love. I didn't think I was capable of it. Of course, I've been rather strong after the ladies all my life. You know how it is with men."

"I do," said Mrs. Brindley.

"No, you don't either," retorted he. "You're one of those cold, stand-me-off women who can't comprehend the nature of man."

"As you please," said she. In her eyes there was a gleam that more than suggested a possibility of some man--some man she might fancy--seeing an amazingly different Cyrilla Brindley.

"I may say I was daft about pretty women," continued Baird. "I never read an item about a pretty woman in the papers, or saw a picture of a pretty woman that I didn't wish I knew her--well. Can you imagine that?" laughed he.

"Commonplace," said Cyrilla. "All men are so. That's why the papers always describe the woman as pretty and why the pictures are published."

"Really? Yes, I suppose so." Baird looked chagrined. "Anyhow, here I am, all for one woman. And why? I can't explain it to myself. She's pretty, lovely, entrancing sometimes. She has charm, grace, sweetness. She dresses well and carries herself with a kind of sweet haughtiness. She looks as if she knew a lot--and nothing bad. Do you know, I can't imagine her having been married to that beast! I've tried to imagine it. I simply can't."

"I shouldn't try if I were you," said Mrs. Brindley.

"But I was talking about why I love her. Does this bore you?"

"A little," laughed Cyrilla. "I'd rather hear some man talking about MY charms. But go on. You are amusing, in a way."

"I'll wager I am. You never thought I'd be caught? I believed I was immune--vaccinated against it. I thought I knew all the tricks and turns of the sex. Yet here I am!"

"What do you think caught you?"

"That's the mystery. It's simply that I can't do without her. Everything she looks and says and does interests me more than anything else in the world. And when I'm not with her I'm wishing I were and wondering how she's looking or what she's saying or doing. You don't think she'll refuse me?" This last with real anxiety.

"I haven't an idea," replied Mrs. Brindley. "She's--peculiar. In some moods she would. In others, she couldn't. And I've never been able to settle to my satisfaction which kind of mood was the real Mary Stevens."

"She IS queer, isn't she?" said Stanley thoughtfully. "But I've told her she'd be free to go on with the career. Fact is, I want her to do it."

Mrs. Brindley's eyes twinkled. "You think it would justify you to your set in marrying her, if she made a great hit?"

Stanley blushed ingenuously. "I'll not deny that has something to do with it," he admitted. "And why not?"

"Why not, indeed?" said she. "But, after she had made the hit, you'd want her to quit the stage and take her place in society. Isn't that so?"

"You ARE a keen one," exclaimed he admiringly. "But I didn't say that to her. And you won't, will you?"

"It's hardly necessary to ask that," said Mrs. Brindley. "Now, suppose-- You don't mind my talking about this?"

"What I want," replied he. "I can't talk or think anything but her."

"Now, suppose she shouldn't make a hit. Suppose she should fail--should not develop reliable voice enough?"

Stanley looked frightened. "But she can't fail," he cried with over-energy. "There's no question about her voice."

"I understand," Mrs. Brindley hastened to say. "I was simply making conversation with her as the subject."

"Oh, I see." Stanley settled back.

"Suppose she should prove not to be a great artist--what then?" persisted Cyrilla, who was deeply interested in the intricate obscure problem of what people really thought as distinguished from what they professed and also from what they imagined they thought.

"The fact that she's a great artist--that's part of her," said Baird. "If she weren't a great singer, she wouldn't be she--don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with an ironic sadness which she indulged openly because there was no danger of his understanding.

"I don't exactly love her because she amounts to a lot--or is sure to," pursued he, vaguely dissatisfied with himself. "It's just as she doesn't care for me because I've got the means to take care of her right, yet that's part of me--and she'd not be able to marry me if I hadn't. Don't you see?"

"Yes, I see," said Mrs. Brindley with more irony and less sadness. "There's always SOME reason beside love."

"I'd say there's always some reason FOR love," said Baird, and he felt that he had said something brilliant--as is the habit of people of sluggish mentality when they say a thing they do not themselves understand. "You don't doubt that I love her?" he went on. "Why should I ask her to marry me if I didn't?"

"I suppose that settles it," said Cyrilla.

"Of course it does," declared he.

For an hour he sat there, talking on, most of it a pretty dull kind of drivel. Mrs. Brindley listened patiently, because she liked him and because she had nothing else to do until bedtime. At last he rose with a long sigh and said:

"I guess I might as well be going."

"She'll not come in to-night again," said Cyrilla slyly.

He laughed. "You are a good one. I'll own up, I've been staying on partly in the hope that she'd come back. But it's been a great joy to talk to you about her. I know you love her, too."

"Yes, I'm extremely fond of her," said she. "I've not known many women--many people without petty mean tricks. She's one."

"Isn't she, though?" exclaimed he.

"I don't mean she's perfect," said Mrs. Brindley. "I don't even mean that she's as angelic as you think her. I'd not like her, if she were. But she's a superior kind of human."

She was tired of him now, and got him out speedily. As she closed the front door upon him, Mildred's door, down the hall, opened. Her head appeared, an inquiring look upon her face. Mrs. Brindley nodded. Mildred, her hair done close to her head, a dressing-robe over her nightgown and her bare feet in little slippers, came down the hall. She coiled herself up in a big chair in the library and lit a cigarette. She looked like a handsome young boy.

"He told you?" she said to Mrs. Brindley.

"Yes," replied Cyrilla.

Silence. In all their intimate acquaintance there had never been an approach to the confidential on either side. It was Cyrilla's notion that confidences were a mistake, and that the more closely people were thrown together the more resolutely they ought to keep certain barriers between them. She and Mildred got on too admirably, liked each other too well, for there to be any trifling with their relations--and over-intimacy inevitably led to trifling. Mildred had restrained herself because Mrs. Brindley had compelled it by rigid example. Often she had longed to talk things over, to ask advice; but she had never ventured further than generalities, and Mrs. Brindley had never proffered advice, had never accepted opportunities to give it except in the vaguest way. She had taught Mildred a great deal, but always by example, by doing, never by saying what ought or ought not to be done. Thus, such development of Mildred's character as there had been was natural and permanent.

"He has put me in a peculiar position," said Mildred. "Or, rather, I have let myself drift into a peculiar position. For I think you're right in saying that oneself is always to blame. Won't you let me talk about it to you, please? I know you hate confidences. But I've got to--to talk. I'd like you to advise me, if you can. But even if you don't, it'll do me good to say things aloud."

"Often one sees more clearly," was Cyrilla's reply--noncommittal, yet not discouraging.

"I'm free to marry him," Mildred went on. "That is, I'm not married. I'd rather not explain--"

"Don't," said Mrs. Brindley. "It's unnecessary."

"You know that it's Stanley who has been lending me the money to live on while I study. Well, from the beginning I've been afraid I'd find myself in a difficult position."

"Naturally," said Mrs. Brindley, as she paused.

"But I've always expected it to come in another way--not about marriage, but--"

"I understand," said Mrs. Brindley. "You feared you'd be called on to pay in the way women usually pay debts to men."