Iole

by Robert W. Chambers

  VIII

 

  Harrow looked at his program, then, leaning toward Lissa, whispered:"That is the overture to _Attitudes_--the program explains it: 'A seriesof pale gray notes'--what the deuce!--'pale _gray_ notes giving thevalue of the highest light in which the play is pitched'--" He paused,aghast.

  "I understand," whispered the girl, resting her lovely arm on the chairbeside him. "Look! The curtain is rising! _How_ my heart beats! Doesyours?"

  He nodded, unable to articulate.

  The curtain rose very, very slowly, upon the first scene of BarnardHaw's masterpiece of satire; and the lovely firing-line quivered, bluebatteries opening very wide, lips half parted in breathlessanticipation. And about that time Harrow almost expired as a soft,impulsive hand closed nervously over his.

  And there, upon the stage, the human species was delicately vivisectedin one act; human frailty exposed, human motives detected, human desirequenched in all the brilliancy of perverted epigram and the scalpelanalysis of the astigmatic. Life, love, and folly were portrayed withthe remorseless accuracy of an eye doubly sensitive through the stimulusof an intellectual strabismus. Barnard Haw at his greatest! And how hedissected attitudes; the attitude assumed by the lover, the father, thewife, the daughter, the mother, the mistress--proving that virtue, _perse_, is a pose. Attitudes! How he flayed those who assumed them. Hisattitude toward attitudes was remorseless, uncompromising, inexorable.

  And the curtain fell on the first act, its gray and silver folds swayingin the half-crazed whirlwind of applause.

  Lissa's silky hand trembled in Harrow's, her grasp relaxed. He droppedhis hand and, searching, encountered hers again.

  "_What_ do you think of it?" she asked.

  "I don't think there's any harm in it," he stammered guiltily, supposingshe meant the contact of their interlaced fingers.

  "Harm? I didn't mean harm," she said. "The play is perfectly harmless,I think."

  "Oh--the play! Oh, that's just _that_ sort of play, you know. They'reall alike; a lot of people go about telling each other how black whiteis and that white is always black--until somebody suddenly discoversthat black and white are a sort of greenish red. Then the audienceapplauds frantically in spite of the fact that everybody in it hadconcluded that black and white were really a shade of yellowish yellow!"

  She had begun to laugh; and as he proceeded, excited by her approval,the most adorable gaiety possessed her.

  "I _never_ heard anything half so clever!" she said, leaning toward him.

  "I? Clever!" he faltered. "You--you don't really mean that!"

  "Why? Don't you know you are? Don't you know in your heart that you havesaid the very thing that I in my heart found no words to explain?"

  "Did I, really?"

  "Yes. Isn't it delightful!"

  It was; Harrow, holding tightly to the soft little hand half hidden bythe folds of her gown, cast a sneaking look behind him, and encounteredthe fixed and furious glare of his closest friend, who had pinched him.

  "Pig!" hissed Lethbridge, "do I sit next or not?"

  "I--I can't; I'll explain----"

  "_Do_ I?"

  "You don't understand----"

  "I understand _you_!"

  "No, you don't. Lissa and I----"

  "Lissa!"

  "Ya--as! We're talking very cleverly; _I_ am, too. Wha'd'you wan' tobutt in for?" with sudden venom.

  "Butt in! Do you think I want to sit here and look at tha' damfool play!Fix it or I'll run about biting!"

  Harrow turned. "Lissa," he whispered in an exquisitely modulated voice,"what would happen if I spoke to your sister Cybele?"

  "Why, she'd answer you, silly!" said the girl, laughing. "Wouldn't you,Cybele?"

  "I'll tell you what I'd like to do," said Cybele, leaning forward: "I'dlike very much to talk to that attractive man who is trying to look atme--only your head has been in the way." And she smiled innocently atLethbridge.

  So Lissa moved down one. Harrow took her seat, and Cybele dropped gailyinto Harrow's vacant place.

  "_Now_," she said to Lethbridge, "we can tell each other all sorts ofthings. I was so glad that you looked at me all the while and so vexedthat I couldn't talk to you. _How_ do you like my new gown? And what isyour name? Have you ever before seen a play? I haven't, and my name isCybele."

  "It is per--perfectly heavenly to hear you talk," stammered Lethbridge.

  Harrow heard him, turned and looked him full in the eyes, then slowlyresumed his attitude of attention: for the poet was speaking:

  "The Art of Barnard Haw is the quintessence of simplicity. What is thequintessence of simplicity?" He lifted one heavy pudgy hand, joined thetips of his soft thumb and forefinger, and selecting an atom of air,deftly captured it. "_That_ is the quintessence of simplicity; _that_ isArt!"

  He smiled largely on Harrow, whose eyes had become wild again.

  "_That!_" he repeated, pinching out another molecule of atmosphere, "and_that_!" punching dent after dent in the viewless void with invertedthumb.

  On the hapless youth the overpowering sweetness of his smile acted likean anesthetic; he saw things waver, even wabble; and his hidden clutchon Lissa's fingers tightened spasmodically.

  "Thank you," said the poet, leaning forward to fix the young man withhis heavy-lidded eyes. "Thank you for the precious thoughts you inspirein me. Bless you. Our mental and esthetic commune has been very preciousto me--very, very precious," he mooned bulkily, his rich voice dying toa resonant, soothing drone.

  Lissa turned to the petrified young man. "Please be clever some more,"she whispered. "You were so perfectly delightful about this play."

  "Child!" he groaned, "I have scarcely sufficient intellect to keep meovernight. You must know that I haven't understood one single thing yourfather has been kind enough to say."

  "What didn't you understand?" she asked, surprised.

  "'_That!_'" He flourished his thumb. "What does '_That!_' mean?"

  "Oh, that is only a trick father has caught from painters who tell youhow they're going to use their brushes. But the truth is I've usuallynoticed that they do most of their work in the air with their thumbs....What else did you not understand?"

  "Oh--Art!" he said wearily. "What is it? Or, as Barnard Haw, the higherexponent of the Webberfield philosophy, might say: 'What it iss? Yess?'"

  "I don't know what the Webberfield philosophy is," said Lissainnocently, "but Art is only things one believes. And it's awfully hard,too, because nobody sees the same thing in the same way, or believes thesame things that others believe. So there are all kinds of Art. I thinkthe only way to be sure is when the artist makes himself and hisaudience happier; then that is Art.... But one need not use one's thumb,you know."

  "The--the way you make me happy? Is _that_ Art?"

  "Do I?" she laughed. "Perhaps; for I am happy, too--far, far happierthan when I read the works of Henry Haynes. And Henry Haynes _is_ Art.Oh, dear!"

  But Harrow knew nothing of the intellectual obstetrics which producedthat great master's monotypes.

  "Have you read Double or Quits?" he ventured shyly. "It's a humming WallStreet story showing up the entire bunch and exposing the trading-stampswindle of the great department stores. The heroine is a detectiveand--" She was looking at him so intently that he feared he had saidsomething he shouldn't. "But I don't suppose that would interest you,"he muttered, ashamed.

  "It does! It is _new_! I--I never read that sort of a novel. Tell me!"

  "Are you serious?"

  "Of course. It is perfectly wonderful to think of a heroine being adetective."

  "Oh, she's a dream!" he said with cautious enthusiasm. "She falls inlove with the worst stock-washer in Wall Street, and pushes him off aferry-boat when she finds he has cornered the trading-stamp market andis bankrupting her father, who is president of the department storetrust----"

  "Go on!" she whispered breathlessly.

  "I will, but----"

  "What is it? Oh--is it my hand you are looking for?
Here it is; I onlywanted to smooth my hair a moment. Now tell me; for I never, never knewthat such books were written. The books my father permits us to read arenot concerned with all those vital episodes of every-day life. Nobodyever _does_ anything in the few novels I am allowed to read--except,once, in _Cranford_, somebody gets up out of a chair in one chapter--butsits down again in the next," she added wearily.

  "_I'll_ send you something to make anybody sit up and stay up," he saidindignantly. "Baffles, the Gent Burglar; Love Militant, by Nora NorrisNewman; The Crown-Snatcher, by Reginald Rodman Roony--oh, it's simplyghastly to think of what you've missed! This is the Victorian era; youhave a right to be fully cognizant of the great literary movements ofthe twentieth century!"

  "I love to hear you say such things," she said, her beautiful faceafire. "I desire to be modern--intensely, humanly modern. All my life Ihave been nourished on the classics of ages dead; the literature of theOrient, of Asia, of Europe I am familiar with; the literature ofEngland--as far as Andrew Bang's boyhood verses. I--all mysisters--read, write, speak, even think, in ten languages. I long forsomething to read which is vital, familiar, friendly--something of myown time, my own day. I wish to know what young people do and dare; whatthey really think, what they believe, strive for, desire!"

  "Well--well, I don't think people really do and say and think the thingsthat you read in interesting modern novels," he said doubtfully. "Factis, only the tiresome novels seem to tell a portion of the truth; butthey end by overdoing it and leave you yawning with a nasty taste inyour mouth. I--I think you'd better let your father pick out yournovels."

  "I don't want to," she said rebelliously. "I want _you_ to."

  He looked at the beautiful, rebellious face and took a closer hold onthe hidden hand.

  "I wish you--I wish I could choose--everything for you," he saidunsteadily.

  "I wish so, too. You are exactly the sort of man I like."

  "Do--do you mean it?"

  "Why, yes," she replied, opening her splendid eyes. "Don't I show thepleasure I take in being with you?"

  "But--would you tire of me if--if we always--forever----"

  "Were friends? No."

  "Mo-m-m-more than friends?" Then he choked.

  The speculation in her wide eyes deepened. "What do you mean?" she askedcuriously.

  But again the lone note of the thumped piano signaled silence. In thesudden hush the poet opened his lids with a sticky smile and folded hishands over his abdomen, plump thumbs joined.

  "_What_ do you mean?" repeated Lissa hurriedly, tightening her slenderfingers around Harrow's.

  "I mean--I mean----"

  He turned in silence and their eyes met. A moment later her fingersrelaxed limply in his; their hands were still in contact--but scarcelyso; and so remained while the _Attitudes_ of Barnard Haw held the stage.