Fairfax and His Pride Part 52

"And I have asked my little girl to come as well to-night to hear the music."

Fairfax, instead of drinking his coffee, stared at Dearborn, and when Dearborn murmured, "Nora Scarlet is her name. Isn't it a name for a drama?" Fairfax stared still harder and repeated the girl's name under his breath, flus.h.i.+ng, but Dearborn did not observe it.

"I want you to see her, Tony; she is sweet and good."

"Bob," said Fairfax gravely, "you mean to tell me you have been falling in love and carrying on a romance without telling me a word about it?"

Dearborn smiled. "To tell the truth, old man," he replied, "you have been so absorbed; there was not room for two romances in the studio.

"I met her in the springtime, Gentle Annie," Dearborn said whimsically, "and it was raining cats and dogs--but for me it rained just love and Nora. We were both waiting for a 'bus. Neither one of us had an umbrella. Now that you speak of it, Tony, I think we have never mended that lack in our possessions. We climbed to the _imperiale_ together, and the rain beat upon us both. We laughed, and I said to myself, a girl that can laugh like that in a shower should be put aside for a rainy day. We talked and we giggled. The rain stopped. We forgot to get down.

We went to the end of the line and still we forgot to get down. The conductor collected a double fare, and afterward I took her home."

(Antony thought to himself, "Just what I did not do.")

"She is angelic, Tony, delightful, an artist's dream, a writer's inspiration, and a poor man's fairy."

Fairfax laughed.

"Don't laugh, old man," said Dearborn simply. "I have never heard you rave like this about the peerless Mary."

Fairfax said, "No. But then you talk better than I do." He shook Dearborn's hand warmly. "You know I am most awfully glad, don't you?"

"I know I am," said Dearborn, lighting a cigarette.

He settled himself with a beautiful content, asking nothing better than to go on rehearsing his love affair.

"We have been engaged a long time, Tony. It is only a question of how little two people can dare to try to get on with, you know, and I have determined to risk it."

As they went up the steps of the studio together, Fairfax said--

"She is coming to-night, Bob, you say? Does she know anything about me?"

At this Dearborn laughed aloud. "She knows a great deal about me, Tony.

My dear boy, do you think we have talked much about anything but each other? Do you talk with Mrs. Faversham about me? Nora knows I live here with a chum. She doesn't even know your name."

As Dearborn threw open the door they could hear Potowski playing softly the old French ballad, "J'ai perdu ma tourterelle."

A woman sat by Potowski in a big chair, and the lamp on the piano shone yellow upon her. When the two men entered the studio she rose, and Potowski, still playing, said--

"Let me present, at last, my better half. Mes amis, la Comtesse Potowski."

Dearborn greeted her enthusiastically, and Tony stood petrified. The comtesse, more mistress of the moment than Tony was, put out one hand and smiled, but she had turned very pale.

It was his Aunt Caroline....

"Mr. Rainsford," she lifted her brows, "I think I have seen you before."

Tony bowed over her hand and Potowski, still smiling and nodding, cried--

"These are great men and geniuses, _ma cherie_. You have here two great artists together. They both have wings on their shoulders. Before they fly away from us and are lost on Olympus, be charming to them. Carolina, _ma cherie_, they shall hear you sing."

Robert Dearborn put his hand on Potowski's shoulder and said--

"We love your husband, madame. He has been such a bully friend to us, such a wonderful friend."

"Poof, my dear Bobbie," murmured Potowski.

("J'ai perdu ma tourterelle.")

Fairfax asked, looking directly at her, "Will you really sing for us, Madame Potowski? Can you sing some old English ballad? We have not heard a word of English for many a long day."

Potowski wandered softly into a familiar tune. He smiled over his shoulder at his wife, and, standing by the piano, Caroline Carew--Carolina Potowski--put her hands over her husband's on the keys and indicated an accompaniment, humming.

"If you can, dear, I will sing Mr. Rainsford _this_."

Tony took his place on the divan.

Then Madame Potowski sang:

"Flow gently, sweet Afton."

In New York Tony had said, as he sat in the big Puritan parlour, that her voice was divine. No one who has ever heard Carolina Potowski sing "Flow gently, sweet Afton" can ever forget it. Tony covered his face with his hands and said to himself, being an artist as well, "No matter what she has done, it was worth it to produce such art as that."

"Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise, My Mary is asleep by your turbulent stream, Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream."

Little Gardiner once more leaned against his arm; restless little Bella in red, her hair down her back, slipped out of the room to read in peace, and he sat there, a homeless stranger in a Northern city without a cent of money in his pocket, and the desires of life and art s.h.i.+ning in his soul.

"Flow gently, sweet Afton."

He indistinctly heard Dearborn open the door. A woman slipped in and went over and sat down by her lover. The two sat together holding hands, and "Sweet Afton" flowed on, and n.o.body's dream was disturbed. Little Gardiner slept his peaceful sleep in his child's grave; his mother slept her sleep in a Southern cemetery; the Angel of Resurrection raised his spotless wings over the city of the silent dead, and Antony's heart swelled in his breast.

When the Comtesse Potowski stopped singing no one said a word. Her husband played a few bars of Werther and she sang the "Love Letters."

Then, before she ceased, Antony was conscious that Nora Scarlet had recognized him. Before any embarra.s.sment could be between them, he went over to her and took her hand, saying warmly--

"I am so glad, Miss Scarlet. Dearborn has told me of his good fortune.

He is the best fellow in the world, and I know how lucky he is," and Nora Scarlet murmured something, with her eyes turned away from him.

Tony turned to Madame Potowski and said ardently, "You must let me come to see you to-morrow. I want to thank you for this wonderful treat."

And when Potowski and his Aunt Caroline had gone, and when Dearborn had taken Nora Scarlet home, Antony stood in the studio, which still vibrated with the tones of the lovely voice. He had lived once again a part of his old life. This was his mother's sister, and she had made havoc of her home. He thought of little Bella's visit to him in Albany.

"Mother has done something perfectly terrible, Cousin Antony--something a daughter is not supposed to know."

Well, the something perfectly terrible was, she had set herself free from a man she did not love; that she was making Potowski happy; that she had found her sphere and soared into it.

Fairfax tried in vain to think of himself now and Mary Faversham, but he could not. The past rushed on him with its palpitating wings. He groaned and stretched out his arms into the shadows of the room.

"There is something that chains me, holds me prisoner. I am wedded to something--is it death and a tomb?"