On the hapless youth the overpowering sweetness of his smile acted like an anesthetic; he saw things waver, even wabble; and his hidden clutch on Lissa"s fingers tightened spasmodically.
"Thank you," said the poet, leaning forward to fix the young man with his heavy-lidded eyes. "Thank you for the precious thoughts you inspire in me. Bless you. Our mental and esthetic commune has been very precious to me--very, very precious," he mooned bulkily, his rich voice dying to a resonant, soothing drone.
Lissa turned to the petrified young man. "Please be clever some more,"
she whispered. "You were so perfectly delightful about this play."
"Child!" he groaned, "I have scarcely sufficient intellect to keep me overnight. You must know that I haven"t understood one single thing your father has been kind enough to say."
"What didn"t you understand?" she asked, surprised.
""_That!_"" He flourished his thumb. "What does "_That!_" mean?"
"Oh, that is only a trick father has caught from painters who tell you how they"re going to use their brushes. But the truth is I"ve usually noticed that they do most of their work in the air with their thumbs....
What else did you not understand?"
"Oh--Art!" he said wearily. "What is it? Or, as Barnard Haw, the higher exponent of the Webberfield philosophy, might say: "What it iss? Yess?""
"I don"t know what the Webberfield philosophy is," said Lissa innocently, "but Art is only things one believes. And it"s awfully hard, too, because n.o.body sees the same thing in the same way, or believes the same things that others believe. So there are all kinds of Art. I think the only way to be sure is when the artist makes himself and his audience happier; then that is Art.... But one need not use one"s thumb, you know."
"The--the way you make me happy? Is _that_ Art?"
"Do I?" she laughed. "Perhaps; for I am happy, too--far, far happier than when I read the works of Henry Haynes. And Henry Haynes _is_ Art.
Oh, dear!"
But Harrow knew nothing of the intellectual obstetrics which produced that great master"s monotypes.
"Have you read Double or Quits?" he ventured shyly. "It"s a humming Wall Street story showing up the entire bunch and exposing the trading-stamp swindle of the great department stores. The heroine is a detective and--" She was looking at him so intently that he feared he had said something he shouldn"t. "But I don"t suppose that would interest you,"
he muttered, ashamed.
"It does! It is _new_! I--I never read that sort of a novel. Tell me!"
"Are you serious?"
"Of course. It is perfectly wonderful to think of a heroine being a detective."
"Oh, she"s a dream!" he said with cautious enthusiasm. "She falls in love with the worst stock-washer in Wall Street, and pushes him off a ferry-boat when she finds he has cornered the trading-stamp market and is bankrupting her father, who is president of the department store trust----"
"Go on!" she whispered breathlessly.
"I will, but----"
"What is it? Oh--is it my hand you are looking for? Here it is; I only wanted to smooth my hair a moment. Now tell me; for I never, never knew that such books were written. The books my father permits us to read are not concerned with all those vital episodes of every-day life. n.o.body ever _does_ anything in the few novels I am allowed to read--except, once, in _Cranford_, somebody gets up out of a chair in one chapter--but sits down again in the next," she added wearily.
"_I"ll_ send you something to make anybody sit up and stay up," he said indignantly. "Baffles, the Gent Burglar; Love Militant, by Nora Norris Newman; The Crown-s.n.a.t.c.her, by Reginald Rodman Roony--oh, it"s simply ghastly to think of what you"ve missed! This is the Victorian era; you have a right to be fully cognizant of the great literary movements of the twentieth century!"
"I love to hear you say such things," she said, her beautiful face afire. "I desire to be modern--intensely, humanly modern. All my life I have been nourished on the cla.s.sics of ages dead; the literature of the Orient, of Asia, of Europe I am familiar with; the literature of England--as far as Andrew Bang"s boyhood verses. I--all my sisters--read, write, speak, even think, in ten languages. I long for something to read which is vital, familiar, friendly--something of my own time, my own day. I wish to know what young people do and dare; what they really think, what they believe, strive for, desire!"
"Well--well, I don"t think people really do and say and think the things that you read in interesting modern novels," he said doubtfully. "Fact is, only the tiresome novels seem to tell a portion of the truth; but they end by overdoing it and leave you yawning with a nasty taste in your mouth. I--I think you"d better let your father pick out your novels."
"I don"t want to," she said rebelliously. "I want _you_ to."
He looked at the beautiful, rebellious face and took a closer hold on the hidden hand.
"I wish you--I wish I could choose--everything for you," he said unsteadily.
"I wish so, too. You are exactly the sort of man I like."
"Do--do you mean it?"
"Why, yes," she replied, opening her splendid eyes. "Don"t I show the pleasure I take in being with you?"
"But--would you tire of me if--if we always--forever----"
"Were friends? No."
"Mo-m-m-more than friends?" Then he choked.
The speculation in her wide eyes deepened. "What do you mean?" she asked curiously.
But again the lone note of the thumped piano signaled silence. In the sudden hush the poet opened his lids with a sticky smile and folded his hands over his abdomen, plump thumbs joined.
"_What_ do you mean?" repeated Lissa hurriedly, tightening her slender fingers around Harrow"s.
"I mean--I mean----"
He turned in silence and their eyes met. A moment later her fingers relaxed limply in his; their hands were still in contact--but scarcely so; and so remained while the _Att.i.tudes_ of Barnard Haw held the stage.
IX
[Ill.u.s.tration]
There was a young wife behind the footlights explaining to a young man who was not her husband that her marriage vows need not be too seriously considered if he, the young man, found them too inconvenient. Which scared the young man, who was plainly a purveyor of heated air and a short sport. And, although she explained very clearly that if he needed her in his business he had better say so quick, the author"s invention gave out just there and he called in the young wife"s husband to help him out.
And all the while the battery of round blue eyes gazed on unwinking; the poet"s dewlaps quivered with stored emotion, and the spellbound audience breathed as people breathe when the hostess at table attempts to smooth over a bad break by her husband.
"Is _that_ life?" whispered Cybele to Lethbridge, her sensitive mouth aquiver. "Did the author actually know such people? Do _you_? Is conscience really only an att.i.tude? Is instinct the only guide? Am _I_--really--bad----"
"No, no," whispered Lethbridge; "all that is only a dramatist"s att.i.tude. Don"t--don"t look grieved! Why, every now and then some man discovers he can attract more attention by standing on his head. That is all--really, that is all. Barnard Haw on his feet is not amusing; but the same gentleman on his head is worth an orchestra-chair. When a man wears his trousers where other men wear their coats, people are bound to turn around. It is not a new trick. Mystes, the Argive comic poet, and the White Queen, taught this author the value of subst.i.tuting "is" for "is not," until, from standing so long inverted, he himself forgets what he means, and at this point the eminent brothers Rogers take up the important work.... Please, please, Cybele, _don"t_ take it seriously!...
If you look that way--if you are unhappy, I--I----"
A gentle snore from the poet transfixed the firing-line, but the snore woke up the poet and he mechanically pinched an atom out of the atmosphere, blinking at the stage.
"Precious--very, very precious," he murmured drowsily. "Thank you--thank everybody--" And he sank into an obese and noiseless slumber as the gray and silver curtain slowly fell. The applause, far from rousing him, merely soothed him; a honeyed smile hovered on his lips which formed the words "Thank you." That was all; the firing-line stirred, breathed deeply, and folded twelve soft white hands. Chlorippe, twelve, and Philodice, thirteen, yawned, pink-mouthed, sleepy-eyed; Dione, fourteen, laid her golden head on the shoulder of Aphrodite, fifteen.