PART SIX LOT & COMPANY: II (continued 2)

Bellair never forgot that, or rather what she had meant to say.

“Singing is what drew me to you, Bessie. What I object to is what the world tries to do with its singers, and that so many singers fall for it.”

“The world lets you more or less alone—until you make good. Plenty of time after that to answer back.”

She yawned. It was as near reality as they had gotten, and Bellair, who asked so little, had a glimpse again of the loveliness he had first taken to sea—even to the kiss at the last. She also granted him this:

“You’ve been good to me. I couldn’t have done without you——”

He lay awake long. The house in which he lived was very silent, and it pressed so close to the sea.

9

She was only partly dressed when he came early the next afternoon, but was not long in letting him in. Before any words, he knew that she had won. A man often has to readjust hastily after the night before. It was so with Bellair now. Her eyes were bright with emotions, but a certain hardness was shining there. It was an effort for her to think of him and be kind. He would have seen it all in another’s story.

His glance kept turning to her bare arm, upon which a hideous vaccination-scar was revealed. They had not thought of her singing in those days.... She had never spoken of her house or her people. It was enough that those days were finished. Bellair could understand that. Her victory was all through her now, satisfying, completing her. She did not love money for its own sake or she would have treated him differently. All her surplus energy, even her passion, was turned to this open passage of her career. Having that, previous props could be kicked away; at least, Bellair felt this.

“Yes, it’s all done. A month of solid rehearsal—then the road. I take the second part, but I hope to come back in the first——”

“You were at your best at the trial?”

“After the first moment or two.... And no more Brandt’s or Castle—no more with the other three—God, how sick I am of them—and of this room!”

“Will you lunch with me?”

“Yes—I have until three.”

It was shortly after one. She talked with animation about her work, her eyes held to a glistening future. She finished her dressing leisurely, with loving touches, abandoning herself completely to the mirror as an old actress might, having conceded the essential importance of attractions. She studied her face and figure as if she were the maid to them. Bessie dressed for the world, not for herself, certainly not for Bellair. Without, in the world—streets, restaurants, theatres—there existed an abstraction which must be satisfied. She had not yet entered upon that perilous adventure of dressing for the eyes of one man. She did not think of Bellair as she lifted her arms to her hair. On no other morning could she have been so far from the sense of him in her room. Empires have fallen because a woman has lifted her naked arms to her hair with a man in the room.

An older woman would have rewarded him for being there; an older woman never would have put on her hat for the street without remembering her humanity. There was something in Bessie that reserved the kiss for the last. Possibly after the last song of the day, a kiss remained. She put on the flowers he brought; even that did not remind her, nor the dress he had bought for her—asking him if he approved, not that she cared, but because she was turning before the glass with the thing upon her body and mind. She would have asked a child the same.

They went to Beathe’s for luncheon, which was also Bessie’s breakfast. There, it may have been that she was ready to forget herself, knowing it would keep for a little. In any event, she seemed to see Bellair as he ordered for her, as if recalling that he had made many things move easily of late, and that it was pleasant to have these matters, even luncheons, conducted by another. Thinking of him, the voyage was instantly associated:

“I said last night that I didn’t like that woman,” she began. “I didn’t mean just that, of course. But a woman can see another woman better than a man. There are women who keep their mouths shut and get great reputations for being wise and all that. They never associate with women. You’ll always find them with men, playing sister and helping and saying little. Men get to think they’re the whole thing——”

“I suppose there are,” said Bellair.

He wished she had not picked up this particular point again; and yet a certain novelty about this impressed him now, and recurred many times afterward—that it was she who had broached the subject.

“Do you think a man knows men better than a woman does?” he asked.

Bessie had not thought of it; she was not sure.

Nor was Bellair. “The fact is, it doesn’t greatly matter what women think of women, and what men think of men—compared to what men and women think of each other,” he observed.

“You say you didn’t know that other man at first—that preacher,” she remarked.

“That’s true. There had to be danger—I had to hear his voice in danger.”

Bellair was lifted to his life-theme. He had never really told it in one piece. He did not mean to now, but Fleury came clearly to mind. The food was served and it was quiet behind the palms. If he could only say something for her heart. She seemed ready. Points of human interest were crowding to mind—perhaps he could hold her with them.

“... His every thought was for others,” he was saying. “I disliked him at first, but he was so kind and good-natured throughout that he could not fail to impress me a bit, but I didn’t really see him before the night of the wreck, when he arose to take things in hand. It was not noise, nor voice, but a different force. He seemed to rise—so that the huge Stackhouse was just a squealing pig before him. He had no fear. You looked into his face and wanted to be near him, and to do what he said. I caught his secret. A fool would. It was because he wasn’t thinking of himself. It seems, Bessie, as sure as you live—that the more a man gives out in that pure way Fleury did for us all—the more power floods into him. It came to him in volumes. We all knew it—even Stackhouse——

“And this is what I’m getting at. You’ve got the chance to use it. I can’t yet. I seem to be all clotted with what I want, but you can! You did. You pulled me out of the crowd, not knowing me at all—made me come to you—changed me. You can give with your singing—to hundreds—so that they will answer in their thoughts, and do things strange to themselves at first. They’ll want to die for you—but that isn’t the thing for you. You must want to sing for them—want to give them your soul all the time. Greater things will come to you than this—this which makes you happy. All that the world could give you—you will come to see—doesn’t matter—but what you can give the world——”

He saw her falling away from his story. It crippled him. He did not think he could fail so utterly.

“But you were a thief,” she said.

“I—was what?”

“You preach all the time, but you were a thief——”

He had heard aright. His hand reached for the wallet, that contained the letter from Lot & Company, but fell from it again.

“If you like,” he answered, “but I saw a beast die in the open boat—and saw a saint die——”

“You preach—preach—preach!” she cried, and her own points of view returned with greater intensity. “You’ve been kind—but, oh, you bore me so! You have been kind—but oh, don’t think you fail to make one pay the price! You were sunstruck, or crazed—and you come back preaching. I’m sick of you—just in my highest day, after the months of struggle—I hate you——”

Bellair heard a ship’s bell. It was dark about him—a cool, serene dark. The air fanned him softly and sweet; the place rocked—just for an instant, as if he were at sea.

“I hate you when you preach,” she finished. Her voice was softer. He knew she was smiling, but did not look at her face. She had delivered him. He was calm, and ineffably free, the circle finished.

“Oh, that we two were Maying——” he muttered, his thoughts far down the seas—remote and insular, serene and homing thoughts.

“It takes two to sing that,” she said.

“Yes.”

“But, I’m so sick of that——”

“You must have sung it many times,” he said.

He did not want to linger. A certain hush had come to her from him. It was not yet three.... He seemed surprised to find it broad day in the street. She touched his sleeve, drawing him to the curb, away from the crowds which astonished him. Clearly something was wrong with his head.

“Bessie—before your salary begins—have you everything? Isn’t there something——?”

She smiled and hesitated. He rubbed his eyes.

“I’m so glad I thought of it,” he said, drawing forth the brown wallet.

His gift bewildered her, but she did not ask him this time what he wanted. Instead she asked:

“But where are you going?”

“Why, Bessie, I’m going home.”