Beatrice looked up to the sky with a strange, serene smile. "Langhetti has no pa.s.sion out of art," she said. "As an artist he is all fire, and vehemence, and enthusiasm. He is aware of all human pa.s.sions, but only as an artist. He has only one love, and that is music. This is his idol.
He seems to me himself like a song. But all the raptures which poets and novelists apply to lovers are felt by him in his music. He wants nothing while he has this. He thinks the musician"s life the highest life. He says those to whom the revelations of G.o.d were committed were musicians.
As David and Isaiah received inspiration to the strains of the harp, so, he says, have Bach and Mozart, Handel and Haydn, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. And where, indeed," she continued, in a musing tone, half soliloquizing, "where, indeed, can man rise so near heaven as when he listens to the inspired strains of these lofty souls?"
"Langhetti," said Brandon, in a low voice, "does not understand love, or he would not put music in its place."
"Yes," said Beatrice. "We spoke once about that. He has his own ideas, which he expressed to me."
"What were they?"
"I will have to say them as he said them," said she. "For on this theme he had to express himself in music."
Brandon waited in rapt expectation. Beatrice began to sing:
"Fairest of all most fair, Young Love, how comest thou Unto the soul?
Still as the evening breeze Over the starry wave-- The moonlit wave--
"The heart lies motionless; So still, so sensitive; Love fans the breeze.
Lo! at his lightest touch, The myriad ripples rise, And murmur on.
"And ripples rise to waves, And waves to rolling seas, Till, far and wide, The endless billows roll, In undulations long, For evermore!"
Her voice died away into a scarce audible tone, which sank into Brandon"s heart, lingering and dying about the last word, with touching and unutterable melancholy. It was like the lament of one who loved. It was like the cry of some yearning heart.
In a moment Beatrice looked at Brandon with a swift, bright smile. She had sung these words as an artist. For a moment Brandon had thought that she was expressing her own feelings. But the bright smile on her face contrasted so strongly with the melancholy of her voice that he saw this was not so.
"Thus," she said, "Langhetti sang about it: and I have never forgotten his words."
The thought came to Brandon, is it not truer than she thinks, that "she loves him very dearly?" as she said.
"You were born to be an artist," he said, at last.
Beatrice sighed lightly. "That"s what I never can be, I am afraid,"
said she. "Yet I hope I may be able to gratify my love for it. Art,"
she continued, musingly, "is open to women as well as to men; and of all arts none are so much so as music. The interpretation of great masters is a blessing to the world. Langhetti used to say that these are the only ones of modern times that have received heavenly inspiration.
They correspond to the Jewish prophets. He used to declare that the interpretation of each was of equal importance. To man is given the interpretation of the one, but to woman is given the interpretation of much of the other. Why is not my voice, if it is such as he said, and especially the feeling within me, a Divine call to go forth upon this mission of interpreting the inspired utterances of the great masters of modern days?
"You," she continued, "are a man, and you have a purpose." Brandon started, but she did not notice it. "You have a purpose in life," she repeated. "Your intercourse with me will hereafter be but an episode in the life that is before you. I am a girl, but I too may wish to have a purpose in life--suited to my powers; and if I am not able to work toward it I shall not be satisfied."
"How do you know that I have a purpose, as you call it?" asked Brandon, after a pause.
"By the expression of your face, and your whole manner when you are alone and subside into yourself," she replied, simply.
"And of what kind?" he continued.
"That I do not seek to know," she replied; "but I know that it must be deep and all-absorbing. It seems to me to be too stern for Love; you are not the man to devote yourself to Avarice: possibly it may be Ambition, yet somehow I do not think so."
"What do you think it is, then?" asked Brandon, in a voice which had died away, almost to a whisper.
She looked at him earnestly; she looked at him pityingly. She looked at him also with that sympathy which might be evinced by one"s Guardian Angel, if that Being might by any chance become visible. She leaned toward him, and spoke low in a voice only audible to him:
"Something stronger than Love, and Avarice, and Ambition," said she.
"There can be only one thing."
"What?"
"Vengeance!" she said, in a voice of inexpressible mournfulness.
Brandon looked at her wonderingly, not knowing how this young girl could have divined his thoughts. He long remained silent.
Beatrice folded her hands together, and looked pensively at the sea.
"You are a marvelous being," said Brandon, at length. "Can you tell me any more?"
"I might," said she, hesitatingly; "but I am afraid you will think me impertinent."
"No," said Brandon. "Tell me, for perhaps you are mistaken."
"You will not think me impertinent, then? You will only think that I said so because you asked me?"
"I entreat you to believe that it is impossible for me to think otherwise of you than you yourself would wish."
"Shall I say it, then?"
"Yes."
Her voice again sank to a whisper. "Your name is not Wheeler."
Brandon looked at her earnestly. "How did you learn that?"
"By nothing more than observation."
"What is my name?"
"Ah, that is beyond my power to know," said she with a smile. "I have only discovered what you are not. Now you will not think me a spy, will you?" she continued, in a pleading voice.
Brandon smiled on her mournfully as she stood looking at him with her dark eyes upraised.
"A spy!" he repeated. "To me it is the sweetest thought conceivable that you could take the trouble to notice me sufficiently." He checked himself suddenly, for Beatrice looked away, and her hands which had been folded together clutched each other nervously. "It is always flattering for a gentleman to be the object of a lady"s notice," he concluded, in a light tone.
Beatrice smiled. "But where," he continued, "could you have gained that power of divination which you possess; you who have always lived a secluded life in so remote a place?"
"You did not think that one like me could come out of Hong-Kong, did you?" said she, laughingly.
"Well, I have seen much of the world; but I have not so much of this power as you have."
"You might have more if--if--" she hesitated. "Well," she continued, "they say, you know, that men act by reason, women by intuition."
"Have you any more intuitions?" asked Brandon, earnestly.