The Imitator Part 9

"They might not thank me at first, but they would learn grat.i.tude in the end, A contortionist is quite as oppressive a sight as an automaton. No; I repeat, performers of music should never, never be visible. It is a blow in the face of the art of music; it puts it on the plane of the theatre. What persons of culture want to do is to listen, to listen, to listen; to shut the eyes, and weave fancies about the strains as they come from an unseen corner. Is there not always a subtle charm about music floating over a distance? That is a case in point; that same charm should always be preserved. The pianist, the soloist of any sort, as well as the orchestra, or the band--except in the case of the regimental band, in battle or in review, where actual spectacle, and visible encouragement are the intention--should never be seen. There should always be a screen, a curtain, between us and the players. It would make the trick of music criticism harder, but it would still leave us the real judges. Take out of music criticism the part that covers fingering, throat manipulation, pedaling, and the like, and what have you left?

These fellows judge what they see more than what they hear. To give a proper judgment of the music that comes from the unseen; that is the only test of criticism. There can be no tricks, no paddings."

"But the opera?" wondered the girl.

"The opera? Oh, the opera is, at best, a contradiction in terms. But I do not waive my theory for the sake of opera. It should be seen as little as any other form of music. The audience, supplied with the story of the dramatic action, should follow the incidents by ear, not by eye.

That would be the true test of dramatic writing in music. We would, moreover, be spared the absurdity of watching singers with beautiful voices make themselves ridiculous by clumsy actions. As to comic opera--the music's appeal would suffer no tarnish from the merely physical fascination of the star or the chorus ... I know the thought is radical; it seems impossible to imagine a piano recital without long hair, electric fingers, or visible melancholia; opera with only the box-holders as appeals to the eye seems too good to be true; but--I a.s.sure you it would emanc.i.p.ate music from all that now makes it the most vicious of the arts. Painters do not expect us to watch them painting, nor does the average breed of authors--I except the Manx--like to be seen writing. Yet the musician--take away the visible part of his art, and he is shorn of his self-esteem. I a.s.sure you I admire actors much more than musicians; actors are frankly exponents of nothing that requires genius, while musicians pretend to have an art that is over and above the art of the composer.... Music--"

"Do you realize," interrupted the girl, with a laugh that was melody itself, "that you are feasting me upon dinner-music without dinner. It must be ages since we began that imaginary feast. But now, I am quite sure we are at the black coffee. And I have been able to notice nothing except your ardor in debate. You were as eager as if you were being contradicted."

"You see," he said, "it only proves my point. Dinner-music is an abomination. It takes the taste of the food away. While I was playing, you admit, you tasted nothing between the soup and the coffee. Whereas, in point of fact--"

"Or fancy?"

"As you please. At any rate--the menu was really something out of the common. There were some delightful wines. A sherry that the innkeeper had bought of a bankrupt n.o.bleman; so would run his fable for the occasion, and we would believe it, because, in cases of that sort, it takes a very bad wine to make one pooh-pooh its pedigree. A Madeira that had been hidden in a cellar since 1812. We would believe that, every word of it, because we would know that there was really no Madeira in all the world; and we must choose between insulting our stomachs or our intelligence. And then the coffee. It would come in the tiniest, most transparent, most fragile--"

"Yes," she laughed, "I dare say. As transparent and as fragile as the entire fabric of our repast, I have no doubt. But--pity me, do!--I shall have to leave the beautiful banquet about where you have put it, in the air. I have a ticking conscience here that says--"

"Oh, hide it," he supplicated, "hide it. Watches are nothing but mechanisms that are jealous of happiness; whenever there is a happy hour a watch tries to end it. When I am king I shall prohibit the manufacture and sale of watches. The fact that they may be carried about so easily is one of their chief vices; one never knows nowadays from what corner a woman will not bring one; they carry them on their wrists, their parasols, their waists, their shoulders. Can you be so cruel as to let that little golden monster spoil me my hour of happiness--"

"But I would have to be cruel one way or the other. You see, my father will wonder what has become of me. He expects me to dinner."

"Ah, well," he admitted soberly, if a little sadly, "we must not keep him waiting. You must tell the Professor where we have been, and what we said, and how silly I was, and--Heigho, I wish I could tell you how the little hour with you has buoyed me up. Your presence seems to stir my possibilities for good. I wish I could see you oftener. I feel like the provincial who says good-bye with a: 'May I come 'round this evening?'

as a rider."

"A doubtful compliment, if I make you rustic," she said. "But I have something on this evening; an appointment with a man. The most beautiful man in the world, and the best, and the kindest--"

"His name?" he cried, with elaborate pretense of melodrama, for he saw that she was full of whimsies.

"Professor Vanlief," she curtsied.

They were walking, by now, in the shade of the afternoon sun. Vane saw a stage approaching them, one that would take him back to the lower town.

She saw it, too, and his intention. She shook hands with him, and took time to say, softly:

"Do you never ride in the Park any more?"

"Oh," he said, "tell me when. To-morrow morning? At McGowan's Pa.s.s? At ten? Oh, how I wish that stage was not coming so fast!"

In their confusion, and their joyous sense of having the same absurd thought in common, they both laughed at the notion of a Fifth avenue stage ever being too fast. Yet this one, and Time, sped so swiftly that Vane could only shake hands hastily with his fair companion, look at her wors.h.i.+pfully, and jump upon the clattering vehicle.

He would never have believed that so ramshackle a conveyance could have harbored so many dreams as had been his that day.

That thought was his companion all the way home. That, and efforts to define his feelings toward Miss Vanlief. Was it love? What else could it be! And if it was, was he ready, for her, to give up those ambitions of still further sounding hitherto unexplored avenues of the human mind?

Was this fragile bit of grace and glamour to come between him and the chance of opening a new field to science? Had he not the opportunity to become famous, or, at the very least, to become omnipotent in reading the hearts, the souls, of men? Were not the possibilities of the Professor's discovery unlimited? Was it not easy by means of that mirror in his rooms, for any chief of police in the world to read the guilt or innocence of every accused man? Yet, on the other hand, would marriage interfere? Yes; it would. One could not serve two such G.o.ddesses as woman and science. He would have to make up his mind, to decide.

But, in the meanwhile, there was plenty of time. Surely, for the present, he could be happy in the thought of the morrow, of the ride they were to take in the Park, of the cantering, the chattering together, the chance to see the morning wind spin the twists of gold about her cheeks and bring the sparkle to her eyes.

He let himself into his house without disturbing any of the servants. He pa.s.sed into his room. He lifted the curtain of the doorway with one hand, and with the other turned the b.u.t.ton that lighted the room. As the globes filled with light they showed him his image in the new mirror.

He reeled against the wall with the surprise of the thing. He noted the mirror's curtain in a heap at the foot of the frame. Perhaps, after all, it had been merely the wind.

He summoned Nevins. The curtain he replaced on the staring face of the mirror. Whence the thought came from, he did not know, but it occurred to him that the scene was like a scene from a novel.

"Nevins," he asked, "was anyone in my rooms?"

"Mr. Spalding-Wentworth, sir."

Orson Vane laughed,--a loud, gusty, trumpeting laugh.

He understood. But he understood, also, that the accident that had brought the soul of Spalding-Wentworth into his keeping had decreed, also, that the dominance should not be, as on a former time, with the usurper.

He knew that the soul of Spalding-Wentworth, to which he gave the refuge of his own body, was a small soul.

Yet even little souls have their spheres of influence.

CHAPTER XI.

It was a morning such as the wild flowers, out in the suburban meadows, must have thought fit for a birthday party. As for the town, it lost, under that keen air and gentle sun, whatever of garish and unhealthy glamour it had displayed the night before.

"The morning," Orson Vane had once declared, in a moment of revelation, "is G.o.d's, and the night is man's." He was speaking, of course, of the town. In the severe selectiveness that had grown upon him after much rout and riot through other lands, he pretended that the town was the only spot on the map. Certainly this particular morning seemed to bear out something of this saying; it swept away the smoke and the taint, the fever and the flush of the night before; the visions of limelights and glittering crystals and enmillioned vice fled before the gust of ozone that came pouring into the streets. Before night, to be sure, man would have a.s.serted himself once more; the pomp and pageant of the primrose path would have ousted, with its artificial charm, the clean, sweet freshness of the morning.

The grim houses on upper Fifth avenue put on semblance of life reluctantly that morning. Houses take on the air of their inmates; these houses wore their best manner only under artificial lights. Surly grooms and housemaids went muttering and stumbling about the areas. Sad-faced wheelmen flashed over the asphalt, cursing the sprinkling carts. It was not too early for the time-honored preoccupation of the butcher cart, which consists of turning corners as if the world's end was coming.

Pallid clubmen strode furtively in the growing suns.h.i.+ne. To them, as to the whole town, the sun and its friend, the breeze, came as a tonic and a cure.

So strange a thing is the soul of man that Orson Vane, riding towards the Park that morning, caught only vague, fleeting impressions of the actual beauty of the day. He simply wondered, every foot of the way to McGowan's Pa.s.s, whether Miss Vanlief played golf. The first thing he said to her after they had exchanged greetings, was:

"Of course you golf?"

She looked at him in alarm. There was something--something, but what was it?--in his voice, in his eye. She had expected a reference to the day before, to their infantile escapade on the roof of the coach. Instead, this ba.n.a.le, this stupid, this stereotyped phrase! Her flowerlike face clouded; she gave her mare the whip.

"No," she called out, "I cannot bear the game." His horse caught the pace with difficulty; the groom was left far out of sight, beyond a corner. But the diversion had not touched Vane's trend of thought at all.

"Oh," he a.s.sured her, when the horses were at an amble again, "it's one of those things one has to do. Some things have to be done, you know; society won't stand for anything less, you know, oh, no. I have to play golf, you know; part of my reputation."

"I didn't know," she faltered. She tried to remember when Orson Vane had ever been seen on either the expert or the duffer list at the golf matches.

"Oh, yes; people expect it of me. If I don't play I have to arrange tournaments. Handicapping is great fun; ever try it? No? You should.

Makes one feel quite like a judge at sessions. Oh, there's nothing like golf. Not this year, at least. Next year it may be something else. I may have to take to polo or tennis. One is expected to show the way, you know; a man in my position--" He looked at her with a kind of 'bland, blunt, clumsy egoism, that made her wonder where was the Orson Vane of yesterday. This riddle began to sadden her. Perhaps it was true, as she had heard somewhere, that the man was mentally unbalanced; that he had his--well, his bad days. She sighed. She had looked forward to this ride in the Park; she admitted that to herself. Not in a whole afternoon spent with Luke Moncreith had she felt such happy childishness stirring in her as yesterday, in the hour with Orson Vane. And now--She sighed.

The hum of an approaching automobile reached them, the glittering vehicle proclaiming its progress in that purring stage whisper that is still the inalienable right of even the newest "bubble" machine. The coat worn by the smart young person on the seat would have shocked the unenlightened, for that sparkling, tingling morning it struck the exact harmonious note of artifice.

Orson Vane bowed. It was "the" Miss Carlos. Just as there is only one Mrs. Carlos, so there is only one Miss Carlos.

"She plays a decent game," said Vane to his companion.

"Of life?"