Part 75 (1/2)
”He had another think comin'.” They both laughed.
Andrews walked off, vaguely angry. There were many soldiers on the Boulevard Montparna.s.se. He turned into a side street, feeling suddenly furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the harsh voice of a sergeant shouting orders at him.
The silver in his breeches pocket jingled with every step.
Andrews leaned on the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony, looking down into the square in front of the Opera Comique. He was dizzy with the beauty of the music he had been hearing. He had a sense somewhere in the distances of his mind of the great rhythm of the sea. People chattered all about him on the wide, crowded balcony, but he was only conscious of the blue-grey mistiness of the night where the lights made patterns in green-gold and red-gold. And compelling his attention from everything else, the rhythm swept through him like sea waves.
”I thought you'd be here,” said Genevieve Rod in a quiet voice beside him.
Andrews felt strangely tongue-tied.
”It's nice to see you,” he blurted out, after looking at her silently for a moment.
”Of course you love Pelleas.”
”It is the first time I've heard it.”
”Why haven't you been to see us? It's two weeks.... We've been expecting you.”
”I didn't know...Oh, I'll certainly come. I don't know anyone at present I can talk music to.”
”You know me.”
”Anyone else, I should have said.”
”Are you working?”
”Yes.... But this hinders frightfully.” Andrews yanked at the front of his tunic. ”Still, I expect to be free very soon. I'm putting in an application for discharge.”
”I suppose you will feel you can do so much better.... You will be much stronger now that you have done your duty.”
”No... by no means.”
”Tell me, what was that you played at our house?”
”'The Three Green Riders on Wild a.s.ses,'” said Andrews smiling.
”What do you mean?”
”It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'” said Andrews. ”If you didn't think the same as M. Emile f.a.guet and everyone else about St. Antoine, I'd tell you what I mean.”
”That was very silly of me.... But if you pick up all the silly things people say accidentally... well, you must be angry most of the time.”
In the dim light he could not see her eyes. There was a little glow on the curve of her cheek coming from under the dark of her hat to her rather pointed chin. Behind it he could see other faces of men and women crowded on the balcony talking, lit up crudely by the gold glare that came out through the French windows from the lobby.
”I have always been tremendously fascinated by the place in La Tentation where the Queen of Sheba visited Antoine, that's all,” said Andrews gruffly.
”Is that the first thing you've done? It made me think a little of Borodine.”
”The first that's at all pretentious. It's probably just a steal from everything I've ever heard.”