TENDERNESS

They always said of her that she was selfish and spoiled and that, although she lived in a big house and had everything in the world money could buy, no one really cared about her for herself. They admitted she had beauty, but they said her face was hard and bitter and that her only power lay in her worldly prosperity, which had a certain empty, insincere following,—but that she had no real influence because she did not have a heart and no one loved her. I used to hear them talking about her rudeness and her detached indifference, and they seemed to excite themselves greatly about her, and grow angry and shrug their shoulders; then they would always end by thanking God they were not like her. After these discussions—in which I took no part—I always went home and thought about her. And then one day I went to hear Kreisler play. I think he played more exquisitely than I had ever heard him before; perhaps it was the music of Beethoven that moved me so or, more likely, the mingling of both their spirits that tore so plaintively at my soul. Whatever the cause, I felt a great spell upon me, and I saw nothing and was not conscious where I was until, suddenly and accidentally, my eyes fell upon her face; I was brought back to my surroundings,—and all the things I had heard about her came to me, and went crowding through my mind. She was not alone in the box, although she sat apart in a corner, separated from the other people as it seemed to me she always was. She was leaning a bit forward with her hands clasping her knees, her lips a trifle apart and seeming singularly pale; but what I noticed most was the expression in her eyes, which had an entreaty and a pathos in them I had never seen in any face before,—and her mouth was strangely soft with a look of sweetness about its corners. She was not looking at Kreisler, but gazing out before her as though at something we others could not see, and I was filled with a peculiar sensation that she understood and felt things which were remote from other people. Then I looked away because somehow I felt as if I were spying at her with her mask off, and looking upon her soul! The violin stopped and, as the last notes vibrated and died away and were swallowed up in the applause, I looked at her again. Once more the hard look was on her face and the bitter pain in her eyes. I saw the people she was with exchange a casual remark with her, and then draw a little aside and talk among themselves. All at once a great wave of tenderness came over me, and I longed with sudden eagerness to put my arms about her and draw her to me. I wanted to tell her not to be lonely and sad and bitter, because I knew she was not all they said she was, and all they had made her with their idle talk. I wanted to hold her hand and tell her I understood and sympathized with her, and that I knew she only seemed all the things they said, simply because no one ever kissed her.