Part 37 (1/2)

”Well, I--Why on earth did she refuse you?”

”Oh, I suppose she'd already begun to fancy _you_, my friend. _Il y en a toujours un autre!_”

”Fancy _me_--prefer _me_--to _you_?”

”Well, yes. It _does_ seem odd--eh, old fellow? But there's no accounting for tastes, you know. She's built on such an ample scale herself, I suppose, that she likes little uns--contrast, you see. She's very maternal, I think. Besides, you're a smart little chap; and you ain't half bad; and you've got brains and talent, and lots of cheek, and all that. I'm rather a _ponderous_ kind of party.”

”Well--I _am_ d.a.m.ned!”

”_C'est comme ca!_ I took it lying down, you see.”

”Does the Laird know?”

”No; and I don't want him to--nor anybody else.”

”Taffy, what a regular downright old trump you are!”

”Glad you think so; anyhow, we're both in the same boat, and we've got to make the best of it. She's another man's wife, and probably she's very fond of him. I'm sure she ought to be, cad as he is, after all he's done for her. So there's an end of it.”

”Ah! there'll never be an end of it for _me_--never--never--oh, never, my G.o.d! She would have married me but for my mother's meddling, and that stupid old a.s.s, my uncle. What a wife! Think of all she must have in her heart and brain, only to _sing_ like that! And, O Lord! how beautiful she is--a G.o.ddess! Oh, the brow and cheek and chin, and the way her head's put on! did you _ever_ see anything like it! Oh, if only I hadn't written and told my mother I was going to marry her! why, we should have been man and wife for five years by this time--living at Barbizon--painting away like mad! Oh, what a heavenly life! Oh, curse all officious meddling with other people's affairs! Oh! oh!...”

”There you go again! What's the good? and where do _I_ come in, my friend? _I_ should have been no better off, old fellow--worse than ever, I think.”

Then there was a long silence.

At length Little Billee said:

”Taffy, I can't tell you what a trump you are. All I've ever thought of you--and G.o.d knows that's enough--will be nothing to what I shall always think of you after this.”

”All right, old chap.”

”And now I think _I_'m all right again, for a time--and I shall cut back to bed. Good-night! Thanks more than I can ever express!” And Little Billee, restored to his balance, cut back to his own bed just as the day was breaking.

Part Seventh

”The moon made thy lips pale, beloved; The wind made thy bosom chill; The night did shed On thy dear head Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie Where the bitter breath of the naked sky Might visit thee at will.”

Next morning our three friends lay late abed, and breakfasted in their rooms.

They had all three pa.s.sed ”white nights”--even the Laird, who had tossed about and pressed a sleepless pillow till dawn, so excited had he been by the wonder of Trilby's reincarnation, so perplexed by his own doubts as to whether it was really Trilby or not.

And certain haunting tones of her voice, that voice so cruelly sweet (which clove the stillness with a clang so utterly new, so strangely heart-piercing and seductive, that the desire to hear it once more became nostalgic--almost an ache!), certain bits and bars and phrases of the music she had sung, unspeakable felicities and facilities of execution; sudden exotic warmths, fragrances, tendernesses, graces, depths, and breadths; quick changes from grave to gay, from rough to smooth, from great metallic brazen clangors to soft golden suavities; all the varied modes of sound we try so vainly to borrow from vocal nature by means of wind and reed and string--all this new ”Trilbyness”

kept echoing in his brain all night (for he was of a nature deeply musical), and sleep had been impossible to him.

”As when we dwell upon a word we know, Repeating, till the word we know so well Becomes a wonder, and we know not why,”

so dwelt the Laird upon the poor old tune ”Ben Bolt,” which kept singing itself over and over again in his tired consciousness, and maddened him with novel, strange, unhackneyed, unsuspected beauties such as he had never dreamed of in any earthly music.

It had become a wonder, and he knew not why!