‘So am I, Stemp. Quite sure. Go on. What happened?’
‘Well, sir, you hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes when somebody knocked, and there was the landlord, if that’s what he calls himself, and a strange German gentleman with him, who spoke English. Rather shabby-looking, sir, I thought him. He spoke most uncivilly, and said I was driving him half crazy with my whistling. I said I hadn’t whistled, and he said I had, and the landlord talked German at me, as it were, sir. I said again I hadn’t whistled, and he said I had, the shabby gentleman, I mean, speaking most uncivilly, sir, I assure you. So when I saw that they doubted my word, I put them out and fastened the door, thinking this was what you would have ordered, sir, if you’d been there yourself, but I’m afraid I did wrong.’
‘No, Stemp. You didn’t do wrong.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I suppose, though, that when you put them out they didn’t exactly want to go, did they?’
‘No, sir, but I had no trouble with them.’
‘Any heads broken?’
‘No, sir, I was careful of that. I sent the landlord downstairs first, as he was a fat man and not likely to hurt himself, and the shabby gentleman went down on top of him quite comfortably, so he did not hurt himself either. I was very careful, sir, being in a foreign country.’
‘What happened next? They didn’t come upstairs again and throw you out, I suppose.’
‘No, sir. They went and got two of these German policemen with swords, and broke into the room, and told me we must move at once. I didn’t like to resist the police, sir. It’s sometimes serious. The German gentleman wanted them to arrest me, so I offered to pay any fine there was for having been hasty, and we settled for two sovereigns, which I thought dear, sir, and I’d have gone to the police station rather than pay it, only I knew you’d need my services in this heathen town, sir. I’m highly relieved to know that you approve of that, sir. But they said we must turn out directly, just the same, so I re-packed your things and got a porter, and he’s standing over the luggage in the street, waiting for orders.’
‘Stemp,’ said Mr. Van Torp, ‘I’d been whistling myself, before you came in, and the lunatic in the next room had already been fussing about it. It’s my fault.’
‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’
‘And it will be my fault if we have to sleep in a cab to-night.’
The door opened while he was speaking, and Margaret heard the last words as she entered the room.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I thought you had finished. I could not help hearing what you said about sleeping in a cab. That’s nonsense, you know.’
‘Well,’ said Mr. Van Torp, ‘they’ve just turned us out of the one room we had because I whistled Parsifal out of tune.’
‘You didn’t whistle it out of tune,’ Margaret answered, to Stemp’s great but well-concealed astonishment. ‘I know better. Please have your things brought here at once.’
‘Here?’ repeated Mr. Van Torp, surprised in his turn.
‘Yes,’ she answered, in a tone that forestalled contradiction. ‘If nothing else can be had you shall have this room. I can do without it.’
‘You’re kindness itself, but I couldn’t do that,’ said Mr. Van Torp. ‘Bring our things to this hotel, anyway, Stemp, and we’ll see what happens.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Stemp disappeared at once, and his master turned to Margaret again.
‘Nothing will induce me to put you to such inconvenience,’ he said, and his tone was quite as decided as hers had been.
She smiled.
‘Nothing will induce me to let a friend of mine be driven from pillar to post for a lodging while I have plenty of room to spare!’
‘You’re very, very kind, but — —’
‘But the mouse may turn into a tiger if you contradict it,’ she said with a light laugh that thrilled him with delight. ‘I remember your description of the Tartar girl!’
‘Well, then, I suppose the hyæna will have to turn into a small woolly lamb if you tell him to,’ answered Mr. Van Torp.
‘Yes,’ laughed Margaret. ‘Be a small, woolly lamb at once, please, a very small one!’
‘Knee-high to a kitten; certainly,’ replied the millionaire submissively.
‘Very well. I’ll take you with me to hear Parsifal to-morrow, if you obey. I’ve just asked Mrs. Rushmore if it makes any difference to her, and she has confessed that she would rather not go again, for it tires her dreadfully and gives her a headache. You shall have her seat. What is it? Don’t you want to go with me?’
“Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten.”
Mr. Van Torp’s face had hardened till it looked like a mask, he stared firmly at the wall, and his lips were set tightly together. Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten. Then he spoke slowly, with evident effort, and in an odd voice.
‘Excuse me, Miss Donne,’ he said, snapping his words out. ‘I’m so grateful that I can’t speak, that’s all. It’ll be all right in a second.’
A huge emotion had got hold of him. She saw the red flush rise suddenly above his collar, and then sink back before it reached his cheeks, and all at once he was very pale. But not a muscle of his face moved, not a line was drawn; only his sandy eyelashes quivered a little. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his jacket, but the fingers were motionless.
Margaret remembered how he had told her more than once that she was the only woman the world held for him, and she had thought it was nonsense, rather vulgarly and clumsily expressed by a man who was not much better than an animal where women were concerned.
It flashed upon her at last that what he had said was literally true, that she had misjudged an extraordinary man altogether, as many people did, and that she was indeed the only woman in the whole world who could master and dominate one whom many feared and hated, and whom she had herself once detested beyond words.
He was unchanging, too, whatever else he might be, and, as she admitted the fact, she saw clearly how fickle she had been in her own likes and dislikes, except where her art was concerned. But even as to that, she had passed through phases in which she had been foolish enough to think of giving up the stage in the first flush of her vast success.
While these thoughts were disturbing her a little, Mr. Van Torp recovered himself; his features relaxed, his hands came out of his pockets, and he slowly turned towards her.
‘I hope you don’t think me rude,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I feel things a good deal sometimes, though people mightn’t believe it.’
They were still standing near together, and not far from the door through which Margaret had entered.
‘It’s never rude to be grateful, even for small things,’ she answered gently.
She left his side, and went again to the window, where she stood and turned from him, looking out. He waited where he was, glad of the moments of silence. As for her, she was struggling against a generous impulse, because she was afraid that he might misunderstand her if she gave way to it. But, to do her justice, she had never had much strength to resist her own instinctive generosity when it moved her.
‘Lady Maud told me long ago that I was mistaken about you,’ she said at last, without looking at him. ‘She was right and I was quite wrong. I’m sorry. Don’t bear me any grudge. You won’t, will you?’
She turned now, rather suddenly, and found him looking at her with a sort of hunger in his eyes that disappeared almost as soon as hers met them.
‘No,’ he answered, ‘I don’t bear you any grudge, I never did, and I don’t see how I ever could. I could tell you why, but I won’t, because you probably know, and it’s no use to repeat what once displeased you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Margaret, she scarcely knew why.
Her handsome head was a little bent, and her eyes were turned to the floor as she passed him going to the door.
‘I’m going to see the manager of the hotel,’ she said. I�
��ll be back directly.’
‘No, no! Please let me — —’
But she was gone, the door was shut again, and Mr. Van Torp was left to his own very happy reflections for a while.
Not for long, however. He was still standing before the table staring at the corn-flowers and poppies without consciously seeing them when he was aware of the imposing presence of Mrs. Rushmore, who had entered softly during his reverie and was almost at his elbow.
‘This is Mr. Van Torp, I presume,’ she said gravely, inclining her head. ‘I am Mrs. Rushmore. You have perhaps heard Miss Donne speak of me.’
‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Rushmore,’ said the American, bowing low. ‘I’ve often heard Miss Donne speak of you with the greatest gratitude and affection.’
‘Certainly,’ Mrs. Rushmore answered with gravity, and as she established herself on the sofa she indicated a chair not far from her.
It was only proper that Margaret should always speak of her with affection and gratitude. Mr. Van Torp sat down on the chair to which she had directed rather than invited him; and he prepared to be bored to the full extent of the bearable. He had known the late Mr. Rushmore in business; Mr. Rushmore had been a ‘pillar’ of various things, including honesty, society, and the church he went to, and he had always bored Mr. Van Torp extremely. The least that could be expected was that the widow of such an estimable man should carry on the traditions of her deeply lamented husband. In order to help her politely to what seemed the inevitable, Mr. Van Torp mentioned him.
‘I had the pleasure of knowing Mr. Rushmore,’ he said in the proper tone of mournfully retrospective admiration. ‘He was sincerely lamented by all our business men.’
‘He was,’ assented the widow, as she would have said Amen in church, in the right place, and with much the same solemn intonation.
There was a moment’s pause, during which the millionaire was trying to think of something else she might like to hear, for she was Margaret’s friend, and he wished to make a good impression. He was therefore not prepared to hear her speak again before he did, much less for the subject of conversation she introduced at once.
‘You know our friend Monsieur Logotheti, I believe?’ she inquired suddenly.
‘Why, certainly,’ answered Van Torp, brightening at once at the mention of his rival, and at once also putting on his moral armour of caution. ‘I know him quite well.’
‘Indeed? Have you known many Greeks, may I ask?’
‘I’ve met one or two in business, Mrs. Rushmore, but I can’t say I’ve known any as well as Mr. Logotheti.’
‘You may think it strange that I should ask you about him at our first meeting,’ said the good lady, ‘but I’m an American, and I cannot help feeling that a fellow-countryman’s opinion of a foreigner is very valuable. You are, I understand, an old friend of Miss Donne’s, though I have not had the pleasure of meeting you before, and you have probably heard that she has made up her mind to marry Monsieur Logotheti. I am bound to confess, as her dear mother’s oldest friend, that I am very apprehensive of the consequences. I have the gravest apprehensions, Mr. Van Torp.’
‘Have you really?’ asked the millionaire with caution, but sympathetically. ‘I wonder why!’
‘A Greek!’ said Mrs. Rushmore sadly. ‘Think of a Greek!’
Mr. Van Torp, who was not without a sense of humour, was inclined to answer that, in fact, he was thinking of a Greek at that very moment. But he abstained.
‘There are Greeks and Greeks, Mrs. Rushmore,’ he answered wisely.
‘That is true,’ answered the lady, ‘but I should like your opinion, as one of our most prominent men of business — as one who, if I may say so, has of late triumphantly established his claim to respect.’ Mr. Van Torp bowed and waved his hand in acknowledgment of this high praise. ‘I should like your opinion about this — er — this Greek gentleman whom my young friend insists upon marrying.’
‘Really, Mrs. Rushmore — —’
‘Because if I thought there was unhappiness in store for her I would save her, if I had to marry the man myself!’
Mr. Van Torp wondered how she would accomplish such a feat.
‘Indeed?’ he said very gravely.
‘I mean it,’ answered Mrs. Rushmore.
There was a moment’s silence, during which Mr. Van Torp revolved something in his always active brain, while Mrs. Rushmore looked at him as if she expected that he would doubt her determination to drag Logotheti to the matrimonial altar and marry him by sheer strength, rather than let Margaret be his unhappy bride. But Mr. Van Torp said something quite different.
‘May I speak quite frankly, though we hardly know each other?’ he asked.
‘We are both Americans,’ answered the good lady, with a grand national air. ‘I should not expect anything but perfect frankness of you.’
‘The truth is, Mrs. Rushmore, that ever since I had the pleasure of knowing Miss Donne, I have wanted to marry her myself.’
‘You!’ cried the lady, surprised beyond measure, but greatly pleased.
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Van Torp quietly, ‘and therefore, in my position, I can’t give you an unbiassed opinion about Mr. Logotheti. I really can’t.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs. Rushmore, ‘I am surprised!’
While she was still surprised Mr. Van Torp tried to make some running, and asked an important question.
‘May I ask whether, as Miss Donne’s oldest friend, you would look favourably on my proposal, supposing she were free?’
Before Mrs. Rushmore could answer, the door opened suddenly, and she could only answer by an energetic nod and a look which meant that she wished Mr. Van Torp success with all her excellent heart.
‘It’s quite settled!’ Margaret cried as she entered. ‘I’ve brought the director to his senses, and you are to have the rooms they were keeping for a Russian prince who has not turned up!’
CHAPTER VI
IN THE SANCTUARY of Wagnerians the famous lyric Diva was a somewhat less important personage than in any of those other places which are called ‘musical centres.’ Before the glories of the great Brunhilde, or the supreme Kundry of the day, the fame of the ‘nightingale soprano’ paled a little, at least in the eyes of more than half the people who filled the Bayreuth theatre. But she did not pass unnoticed by any means. There were distinguished conductors of Wagner’s music who led the orchestra for other operas too; there were Kundrys and Brunhildes who condescended to be Toscas sometimes, as a pure matter of business and livelihood, and there were numberless people in the audience who preferred Cavalleria Rusticana to the Meistersinger or the Götterdämmerung, but would not dare to say so till they were at a safe distance; and all these admired the celebrated Cordova, except the few that were envious of her, and who were not many. Indeed, for once it was the other way. When Margaret had come back to her own room after hearing Parsifal the first time, she had sat down and hidden her face in her hands for a few moments, asking herself what all her parts were worth in the end compared with Kundry, and what comparison was possible between the most beautiful of Italian or French operas and that one immortal masterpiece; for she thought, and rightly perhaps, that all the rest of Wagner’s work had been but a preparation for that, and that Parsifal, and Parsifal alone, had set the genius of music beside the genius of poetry, an equal, at last, upon a throne as high. On that night the sound of her own voice would have given her no pleasure, for she longed for another tone in it; if by some impossible circumstance she had been engaged to sing as Juliet that night, she would have broken down and burst into tears. She knew it, and the knowledge made her angry with herself, yet for nothing she could think of would she have foregone the second hearing of Parsifal, and the third after that; for she was a musician first, and then a great singer, and, like all true musicians, she was swayed by music that touched her, and never merely pleased by it. For her no intermediate condition of the musical sense was possible between criticism and delight; but beyond that she had found
rapture now, and ever afterwards she would long to feel it again. Whether, if her voice had made it possible to sing the part of Kundry, she could have lifted herself to that seventh heaven by her own singing, only the great Kundrys and Parsifals can tell. In lyric opera she knew the keen joy of being both the instrument and the enthralled listener; perhaps a still higher state beyond that was out of any one’s reach, but she could at least dream of it.
She took Van Torp with her to the performance the next day, after impressing upon him that he was not to speak, not to whisper, not to applaud, not to make any sound, from the moment he entered the theatre till he left it for the dinner interval. He was far too happy with her to question anything she said, and he obeyed her most scrupulously. Twenty-four hours earlier she would have laughed at the idea that his presence beside her at such a time could be not only bearable, but sympathetic, yet that seemed natural now. The Diva and the ex-cowboy, the accomplished musician and the Californian miner, the sensitive, gifted, capricious woman and the iron-jawed money-wolf had found that they had something in common. Wagner’s last music affected them in the same way.
Such things are not to be explained, and could not be believed if they did not happen again and again before the eyes of those who know how to see, which is quite a different thing from merely seeing. Margaret’s sudden liking for the man she had once so thoroughly disliked had begun when he had whistled to her. It grew while he sat beside her in the darkened theatre. She was absorbed by the music, the action, and the scene, and at this second hearing she could follow the noble poem itself; but she was subconscious of what her neighbour felt. He was not so motionless merely because she had told him that he must sit very still; he was not so intent on what he heard and saw, merely to please her; it was not mere interest that held him, still less was it curiosity. The spell was upon him; he was entranced, and Margaret knew it.
Even when they left the theatre and drove back to the hotel, he was silent, and she was the first to speak. Margaret hated the noise and confusion of the restaurant near the Festival Theatre.
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