Anna Chapin Ray

“ To Beatrix Dane, pleasure was an interlude, never the sole end and aim of life. And, on her own side, Beatrix felt a thorough admiration for the clean-minded, clean-bodied singer, a thorough reliance upon his judgment and upon his loyalty to anyone to whom he vouchsafed his friendship.
This had been the relation between them, on the evening of the concert for the Fresh Air Fund, a relation whose cordial matter-of-factness was in no way disturbed by the potent spell of Thayer's voice. Beatrix had spent much of her life in the open air; she was too healthy to be given to self-analysis. ”

“ For the second time in his life, Thayer grew dizzy with the tingle of his nerves answering to the shock to his brain. The blood was pounding across his temples, and his ears rang loudly. Then he lifted his eyes deliberately and looked Beatrix full in the face. For an instant, he held her eyes; then she drew away from him. This was not the quiet, self-contained man upon whom she had leaned for months. This man's eyes were glowing, his lips quivering, his hands outstretched to meet her own. No need to tell her what flame had kindled him into such fierce and burning life. ”

“ I am weak, Beatrix, weak and selfish. I honestly think it is harder for me to keep steady than it would be for Thayer, or even for Bobby. The taint is in me. I don't mean that it is any excuse for my making a brute of myself; but, if there is any pity in God, he must give a little bit of it to us fellows, born weak, realizing our weakness and truly meaning to fight it, and yet giving in to it again and again. ”

“ Gently Bobby laid the baby back into Beatrix's arms. Then he rose.
"No," he said slowly; "it won't make any difference, and it gives the chance of bringing the name back to its old standing. You may take lots of comfort with the boy, Beatrix. I hope so with all my heart, for I know how you need it. Things have gone rather against you, these last months; but perhaps the bad times are all over now." At the door, he lingered and looked back. "If you need me at Monomoy, Beatrix, don't hesitate to send for me. Sometimes it is a comfort to have somebody of one's own generation within hail." ”

“ The silence was short; then Thayer mastered himself again. "Lorimer," he said quietly; "I certainly do congratulate you, for you have been able to gain one of the noblest women in the world. Your happiness ought to be great; but you have taken a fearful responsibility along with it. At your best you can be worthy of her; but, if you fall one inch below your best level, you will deserve to be flayed alive. You have gone into this with your eyes open. You know that you can make Beatrix Dane's life a heaven or a hell. ”

“ The event had fully justified the prediction of the old maestro, and in his operatic rôles Thayer was finding out where his real greatness lay. His mental personality, as well as his huge figure, demanded room to manifest itself. His acting was dramatic, yet full of control and reserve power, and his voice, fresh from its weeks of rest, richer and stronger than ever, was endowed with a new note of pathos, of longing for something quite beyond his power of attainment. Measured by the eye, Thayer held the world in the hollow of his hand. ”

“ Unbroken ice thickens most quickly. However, when Thayer, after a half-hour of platitudes, went down the steps, Beatrix, locked into her own room, paced the floor, to and fro, to and fro again, like a caged panther, while Thayer walked the streets until time to dress for the stage, and then sang the part of Valentine with a furious madness of despair which merely added another stiff little leaf to his garland of fame. The next day, the papers waxed enthusiastic over Thayer's temperament, and Beatrix, alone in her room, read the papers and smiled sadly to herself as she read. ”

“ During the one measure of introduction, Beatrix and Marguerite, the cottage and the Kermess went whirling together through Thayer's brain, turning and twisting, intermingling and separating again like the visions of delirium. For that one measure, his operatic fate was trembling in the balance. Then the artist triumphed. Steady and clear, yet burdened with infinite sadness, his voice rang out, filling the wide spaces of the great house, filling the smallest heart within it with its throbbing, passionate power.
"Yet the bravest heart may swell
In the moment of farewell." ”

“ Familiarity in all truth does breed contempt, and a second hearing often proves a disappointment. For Lorimer's sake, she was anxious to enjoy the recital, and she drew a quick, nervous breath as Thayer, followed by Arlt, came striding out across the little stage with the same unconscious ease with which he had crossed her parlor, the week before. As he waited for Arlt to seat himself, he glanced about the room, his practised eye measuring its size and the probable nature of his audience. For an instant, his glance rested upon Beatrix and Lorimer, and he gave a slight smile of recognition. ”

“ To some men, the mere professional success would have been enough in itself; but Thayer was of too large calibre to find a steady diet of applause and adjectives, both in the superlative degree of comparison, either a satisfactory or a stimulating meal. Often and often, as he bowed across the footlights preparatory to shouldering and lugging off his ponderous wreath of laurels, he would have given all the evening's triumph for the sake of one quiet hour upon the Monomoy beach. ”

“ Anything is better than drifting; it is a comfort to look steadily forward to the best or to the worst." Suddenly she roused herself. "Mr. Thayer, do you realize that it is two months since I have heard you sing?"
He roused himself quite as suddenly. In the slight pause which had broken her speech, he had been making a swift, but futile effort to chart the future. He knew that Lorimer was drifting carelessly, thoughtlessly; he also knew that Beatrix was allowing herself to drift idly in his wake. ”

“ As he crossed the stage, he glanced hastily from Bobby to Bobby's cousin. Bobby was glowering at the audience and grumbling into Sally's ear. Four rows in front of them, Beatrix sat silent at Lorimer's side. The color had left her face again, and her eyes drooped heavily. It was as if, in watching Arlt's overthrow, her old prescience of impending disaster had come back upon her in fourfold measure, heightened by the [Pg 115] intensity of her exhilaration of a few moments before. When a quiet woman is stirred from her usual poise, the pendulum of her nerves swings in a long arc. ”

“ Each man and woman who listened, felt gentler and nobler for his song; but only Beatrix, shut decorously in the room upstairs, away from her dead, realized that, for the passing hour, Thayer had annulled the passion and the pain of those last weeks, and had gone back again to the old, pitiful, protecting love which for years had marked his attitude towards Lorimer. ”

“ The worst, the most unbearable phase of the whole situation lay in the knowledge, again and again brought to the proof, that he himself was the only living person who had the ability to hold Lorimer even approximately steady, that in a way the thread of his destiny was knotted together with that of Beatrix. He loved her absolutely, and the only proof of his love for her must lie in his strange power to make more tolerable for her the galling yoke of her marriage to another man. ”

“ Lorimer remarked to Beatrix, as they took their seats. "Thayer can't complain of the acoustic effects of the place."
"When have you seen him?"
"Just before dinner. He was in superb voice then, and a fairly good mood."
"Isn't he always?" she questioned idly, as she nodded to an acquaintance in the next row of chairs.
"Not always. As a rule, he is the best-tempered fellow in the world. Once in a while, though, he wraps himself up in his dignity and stalks about like an Indian brave in his best Navajo blanket. Nobody ever knows what is the reason, nor when he will go off into a Mood. ”

“ Danny and Arlt's failure had led inevitably up to the finale when Thayer's eyes, burning with that new, strange light, had held her own eyes captive while he had sounded the tragic note which dominates all human love. ”

“ Bobby demanded, as soon as they could struggle a little apart from the gossiping, gushing ranks of the chorus which surrounded them, pulling surreptitious bits from Thayer's mammoth wreath of laurel.
"Why not?" Thayer asked calmly.
"Because you are throwing away the best of yourself. Putting you into oratorio is like icing tea. You belong in grand opera." ”

“ Dane had taught her child in preparation for her coming-out tea had been the simple and obvious one that men were rarely minded to sympathize with feminine moods; but that under all conditions a woman who seeks to please, must adapt herself to the mental vagaries of her masculine companion. Even Lorimer, tender and loving as he invariably showed himself, was no exception to the rule. ”

“ Thayer interrupted him impatiently.
"How much does my singing amount to me in comparison with my love for Beatrix? I would cancel my engagements, to-morrow, if she would say the word."
"But, thank the Lord, she won't," Bobby replied placidly. "Don't be an ass, Thayer. It is a popular fiction that an artist is expected to give up his work for the sake of matrimony; but it's an immoral fable. The gods have endowed you with a voice, and you have no business to fling away the gift, when your keeping it can do so much good in the world. ”

“ Arlt, musicians are second-rate beings, at best."
"I am sorry. Perhaps you can suggest a remedy," Arlt replied literally.
"Cast off your leading strings, and work out your own theories to suit yourselves," Bobby answered unhesitatingly. "Now look here, I used to think that it was greater to create music than to evolve literature; now I know more, I know it isn't. When a man writes a book, he goes ahead and does it according to the light of nature and the sense that is in him. Sometimes it is good; mostly it isn't, but at least he has done it out of himself and by himself. ”

“ Even the critics are prone to take a man at his own valuation, and one of the best American musicians is working in a corner, to-day, because he finds it a good deal more interesting to work towards future successes than to exploit his past ones in the eyes of the world."
Beatrix smiled, half in assent, half in amusement at his sudden energy.
"Mr. Arlt will succeed in time; he is only a boy yet. But, with genius and energy and his real love for his art, there can be no doubt of his future."
"That is as fate may decree," Thayer answered. ”

“ Not many mortals reach the top round of the ladder."
"No; and, even if they did, they would be a good deal in your way, for the space up there is limited. It will be merely a question of your own will whether or not you occupy a part of it."
He was surprised at the turn the conversation had taken. No woman, not even Miss Gannion, had ever dared question to him the wisdom of his choice, or imply to him that there were laurels which he had not yet plucked. Strange to say, he rather enjoyed the frank fashion in which Beatrix was taking him to task. ”

“ With a commendable spirit of originality, the officers of the chorus had broken away from the established rule which proclaimed it an Elijah season, and had chosen to give St. Paul, that night. Thayer liked the oratorio. It seemed to him more original, more inspired, infinitely more human than the other. Moreover, it would be restful to keep silent and let the tenor warble himself to a lingering death. Even fiery chariots become monotonous in time, and an indignant mob affords a welcome variety. ”

“ The next afternoon, Thayer found himself in the familiar room, with Beatrix's hand in his own.
"Only ten weeks, measured by time," he answered her greeting; "but it seems half a decade since we were killing time on the beach at Monomoy."
"Killing crabs, you would better say," she returned, with a smile. "I think you and Sidney must have exterminated the race for all time."
"Can you destroy the future for a race that habitually goes backwards?" he questioned, with a boyish gayety which she had never seen in him before. "How is Lorimer?" ”

“ As Arlt's fingers dropped from the keys at the close of Valentine's song of farewell, Thayer laughed suddenly.
"It is rather contrary to custom to be accompanied by the star of the evening, Arlt. I suppose I ought to have hunted up somebody else; but these other fellows make frightful work of my accompaniments. They hurry till they get me out of breath, and then they take advantage of the moment to drown me out. I'd like a baton, only I should beat the accompanist with it, before I was half through a programme." ”

“ The success on which we rest, is no better than a failure. Some day, I shall begin my ideal symphony; but, by the time I have reached my final Maestoso, I shall have learned that my ideal has moved on again beyond my reach."
"In other words, a real genius is nothing but an artistic butter-fingers," Bobby commented irreverently. "Stop your German philosophizing, Arlt, and help us enjoy the present by playing your Scherzo. Thayer says it is by far the best thing you have ever done." ”

“ It's not an easy place to put a woman with a conscience. The old-fashioned idea was to marry a man to reform him; the new-fashioned practice is to wash your hands of him altogether, as soon as he makes a single slip. The middle course is the most difficult one to take and the most thankless. Any good woman is sure to have a strong hold on the man who loves her; and, in times of real danger, she is afraid to let go that hold." [Pg 141]
Bobby shook his head.
"That's Beatrix all over, Miss Gannion. But it will take a mighty strong grip to haul Lorimer across to firm ground." ”

“ From your own showing, it is like fighting an unseen enemy. One never knows when or where it will come. She will only be put under a terrible nervous strain, faced by a fear that will haunt her, day and night. Besides, she might break the engagement. Have you thought of that?"
"It was of that I was thinking. She ought to have the facts, and be allowed to face the alternatives before it is too late. Miss Gannion," he turned upon her sharply; "can't you realize the pain it is to me to be saying this? I love Lorimer, love him as one man rarely loves another. ”

“ While I live, my house will hold a welcome to you. Auf wiedersehen!"
As Thayer went out into the sunshine, the glitter and the brightness of it all, of the day and of the future, dazzled him and made him afraid. Then of a sudden the blood of the Thayers, in abeyance during those mad, sad, glad years of study and of striving, asserted itself again. Obeying its behest, he turned abruptly from the street where he was seeking the impresario to whom his master had sent him. In that instant, he turned his back for many a long month upon opera and upon all that followed in its train. ”

“ Bobby, with a shrug of his shoulders, admitted that a man should not be condemned for a first offence, that there was plenty of time to watch for a repetition of the affair, to warn Beatrix then and to allow her to take her own course as seemed good to her. Meanwhile, there was no use in disturbing her for nothing. It might be a single slip, such as all men are liable to make. Of course, as Sally argued, Lorimer had been under strong excitement, that evening, partly by reason of his own newly-announced engagement, partly by reason of the brilliant success of his friend. ”

“ Beatrix heard some of it, too, before Mr. Thayer took her away. I was at her house, the next afternoon, when Mr. Lorimer called, and I was sure she would break her engagement there and then. Put not your faith in the principles of a woman in love."
"Confound her principles! That's what is the matter with her," Bobby growled. "I had always supposed that Beatrix was a reasonable girl; but no girl in her senses would tackle the job of marrying Sidney Lorimer to reform him."
"When I do it, I'll reverse things and reform the man to marry him," Sally returned shrewdly. ”