Part 42 (2/2)

”He didn't say anything about me, did he?” she asked.

”No,” March said, ”I don't think he did.”

”I suppose you'd remember it if he'd happened to tell you that he loathed and hated me and never wanted to see me again.” Then she rose and went over to the opposite side of his little table and leaning down spread her hands out over his score.

”Oh, I know I said I wouldn't bother, but do stop thinking about this and talk to me for a minute. We're having--we're having a perfectly hideous time. He and I. We've been fighting like cat and dog for four days. I don't exactly know what it's all about, except that it seems we hate each other and can't go on. You've got to tell me what to do. It all started with you anyway. With the time you brought around those Whitman songs.--That was the day Mary came home from New York, too,” she added.

”All right,” he said, shutting down the cover upon his ma.n.u.script, ”then Mary and I will try to patch you up. That is, if we haven't already done it.”

Her face darkened. ”Don't try to talk the way they do,” she commanded.

”I'm not intelligent enough to take hints. Do you mean that the whole trouble is that I'm jealous of Mary? And that now she's going to marry you I'll have nothing to be jealous of? Well, you're wrong both ways.

There's more to it than that. And that isn't going to stop just because she's marrying you. She'll always be there for him. And he'll be there for her. You'll find that out before you've gone far.”

He didn't seem disposed to dispute this, nor to be much perturbed about it, either. He annoyed her by saying, ”Well, if it's a permanent fact, like snow in February, what's the good of taking it so hard?”

”You can go south in February,” she retorted. Then she went on, ”I want to know if you don't think I've a right to be jealous of her. I'd saved his life. He admitted that. But when we went south, afterward, he simply didn't want me around. Sent me home pretending I'd be wanted for rehearsals. And then he sent for her. They spent a week together--talking! As far as that goes, they could have done it just as well if I'd been there. They can talk right over my head and I never know what it's all about. Wait till they begin doing that with you! I don't suppose they will though. You're a talker, too. He told her things he'd never told me-about his money troubles. What he said to me was that he didn't want to stand in the way of my career. He left her to tell me the truth about it, later,--after I'd told him I didn't want any career--though I'd just been offered the best chance I ever had. And then, when he came and found that I'd done--for him--what he'd been trying to make me do for myself, he was furious. We fought all night about it. And when I came down the next morning, ready to do anything he wanted me to, he'd wandered off with Mary. To talk me over with her again.--Tell her some more things, I suppose, that I didn't know about.”

March had nothing to interpose here, it seemed, in Mary's defense, for her pause gave him ample opportunity to do so. He merely nodded reflectively and loaded and lighted his pipe.

”Well,” she demanded presently, ”can you see now that there's something more to it than jealousy? Whatever I try to do, he fights. When I wanted to begin singing again last spring, he fought that. And when I wanted to give it all up, after he'd so nearly died, he wouldn't let me. And when I'd refused the best chance I'd ever had, for him, and then changed around and accepted it because of him, he seemed to hate me for doing that. And he simply boiled when I told him I'd gone and got the money, myself, from Wallace Hood.”

”Yes,” March said, so decisively that he startled her, ”I know all about it up to there. That was Thursday afternoon, wasn't it? Go on from then.”

The interruption disconcerted her. ”There isn't much more--to tell,” she went on, but a good deal less impetuously. ”Except that we fought and fought and fought. About eight o'clock that night I said I was going to the park to see the performance;--just to get a rest from talking. Mr.

Eckstein was there and the Williamsons and James Wallace, so I asked them all to come home with us. And Fournier and LaChaise, too. And we got on your opera and LaChaise played part of it and then I read a lot of it with Fournier. So they didn't go home till after three. John thought I was keeping them there in order not to be left alone with him.--Well, what was the good of talking, anyhow? We did get started again on Friday, though; all day long. And Friday night we--made up, in a way. At least, I thought we did.

”Well, and then yesterday morning Rush telephoned out from town and said he thought John ought to come in to see Mary. She wasn't very well. I told him to go if he liked. I was feeling perfectly awful, yesterday, myself--and I was billed for _Thais_ last night. There isn't another soprano up here who wouldn't have cancelled it, feeling the way I did.

But I told John that if he thought Mary needed him more than I did, he'd better go.--I wish he had gone. After he'd telephoned to say he wasn't coming--he'd talked to Mary herself, that time--he kept getting colder and gloomier and more--unendurable from hour to hour. And after the performance, we had the most horrible fight of all. He told me I had kept him away from Mary on purpose,--because I was jealous of her. He said he could never forgive himself for the way he'd treated her--in order to curry favor with me. And he said that the first thing in the morning he was going to her. That's all.--Oh, well, I said a few things to him, too.

Do you wonder?”

By way of a flourish, she flashed to her feet again at this conclusion (she'd been up and down half a dozen times in the course of her appeal to him as jury), and walked away to a window. But after the silence had spun itself out to the better part of a minute, she whipped round upon him.

”Have you been listening to a word I've said?” she demanded.

”Yes,” he said, but with the contradictory air of fetching himself back from a long way off. ”Truly! I've listened to every word. And I don't wonder a bit.”

”Don't wonder at what?”

”That you said a few things to him, too. You've got a valid grievance, it seems to me. You couldn't be blamed for quarreling with him over it as bitterly as possible.”

She barely heeded the words. They never did mean much to Paula. But his look and his tone reached her, and stung.

”Look here!” she said with sudden intensity. ”Before we go any farther, I want to know this. Did Mary really need John, yesterday?”

She saw him turn pale and she had to wait two or three long breaths for her answer. But it came evenly enough at last.

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