Part 21 (1/2)

”Oh, if it would last,” she said--”if it would last!”

But it did not last, and when it was over Mariana pressed her hand to her brow like one in pain. The return to reality jarred upon her vibrant nerves, and she became aware of shooting throbs in her temples, and of the depressing moisture in the atmosphere.

”I am faint,” she complained. ”I must have something--anything.”

”It is all that clas.h.i.+ng and banging,” responded Anthony. ”What a relief silence is!”

They bought ale and cheese and crackers from a grocery at the corner, and carried the parcels to their room. Mariana let down her hair, put on her dressing-gown, and threw herself upon the hearth-rug. She felt weak and hungry. ”If there were only a fire,” she lamented regretfully, stretching her hands towards the register; after which she opened the paper-bags and ate ravenously.

In the night she awoke with a start and a sob. She reached out moaningly in the darkness. Her hands were trembling and the neck of her gown was damp and chill. ”I believe I shall go mad,” she said, desperately.

Anthony struck a match, lighted the candle, and looked at her. He laid a cool hand upon her forehead.

”What is it?” he asked. ”Are you nervous? Have you been dreaming?”

”No, no,” cried Mariana, rolling her head upon the pillow, ”but I want music. I want art. There is so much that is beautiful, and I want something.”

She wept hysterically. Anthony got up and made her a cup of tea, which she could not drink because it was smoked.

But on the morrow she was herself again. As she was arranging her hair she laughed and chattered gayly, and the effect of the previous evening was shown only in a tendency to break into song. Before drinking her coffee she turned to the piano and trilled an Italian aria, the fingers of one hand wandering over the key-board in a careless accompaniment.

During the day her buoyancy was unfailing. She took up her studies zealously, and the morning devoted to Mill was rich in results. Her acuteness of apprehension was a continual marvel to Algarcife's steadier perception, and he regarded with deference the quickness with which she grasped the general drift of unstudied social problems. An exaggerated example of feminine intuition he ascribed unhesitatingly to a profundity of intellectual ability. That Mariana was adapting herself to his theories of life, he recognized and accepted. There was relief in the thought that his influence over her was weightier than the appeal of her art. With adolescent egotism, he convinced himself that he was shaping and perfecting a mental energy into channels other than the predestined ones; and while Mariana was matured into a palpitant reflection of his own image, he believed that he was liberating an intellect enthralled by superficialities. But, in truth, the stronger force was a.s.similating to itself the weaker, and the comrades.h.i.+p existing in their love was perfect in smoothness and finish. The opinions which Anthony radiated Mariana reflected, and they presented to the world proof of a domestic unity complete in its harmony.

CHAPTER XIV

One evening in March, Mr. Nevins gave a supper in his studio.

Anthony had come in that morning looking somewhat perplexed. ”Nevins wants us to-night,” he said to Mariana, ”and I couldn't get out of it.”

Mariana looked up eagerly from her practising. ”Oh, it is the 'Andromeda,'” she replied. ”He said he would celebrate it. So it has been accepted.”

”But it hasn't been. It is the rejection he is celebrating. He told me so. I feel sorry for the fellow, so I said we would go.”

”Of course we will!” exclaimed Mariana. ”But I'm afraid he'll be gloomy.”

”On the contrary, he has just come off a spree, and has a patch over his left eye. His hilarity is positively annoying. He and Ardly are smas.h.i.+ng everything in their rooms. The pitcher went as I pa.s.sed.”

”Oh, it is his way of expressing feeling,” returned Mariana, sympathetically. ”Listen to this new air. It goes tra la la, tra--”

Anthony cut her short.

”My dear girl, I'm in an awful hurry. Would you mind being quiet awhile?” And he entered his study, closing the door after him. Mariana left the piano and sat with folded hands looking down into the street below. A fine rain was falling, and the streets were sloppy with a whitish slime. The women that pa.s.sed held their skirts well above their ankles, revealing all shapes and varieties of feet. She noticed that they carried their skirts awkwardly, with a curious. .h.i.tch upon the right hip. They were working-women for the most part, and their gowns were neither well made nor well cut, but they walked aggressively, with an uneven, almost masculine, swagger.

Mariana yawned and sighed. She would have liked to go back to the piano and bang a march or some stirring strain of martial music, but she recalled Anthony's injunction and yawned again. She remembered suddenly that her practising had become uncertain of late, and that Anthony's objection seemed to lie like a drawn sword between her and her art. An involuntary smile crossed her lips, that she who had pledged herself to the pursuit of music had also given herself to a man to whom Wagner was as Rossini. She dwelt upon her changed conditions almost unconsciously.

It was not that her devotion to art had cooled since her marriage, but that something was forever preventing the expression of it. That Anthony regarded it as one of the trivialities of life, she saw clearly, and there was an aggrieved note in her regret. To her, in whom the artistic instinct was bone of her bone and blood of her blood, the sacrifice of a professional career was less slight than Algarcife believed, and in the depths of her heart there still lurked the hope that in time Anthony's impa.s.sioned opposition to a stage life would wear itself out. When the moment came, she dreamed of a final reinspiration of the slumbering fires of her ambition. Now, as she sat beside the window, she became aware of the awakening. Once again she allowed her mind to hover above the distant future and to illuminate its neutral canvas with garish colors. In the future anything and everything was possible. Some weeks ago Signor Morani had sent for her and offered her tuition, and she had accepted. ”If you achieve success you can repay me,” he had said, adding, with philosophic intention, ”If not, I shall have lost nothing that was my own.”

Mariana, in a burst of grat.i.tude, had wept upon his shoulder, and he had smiled as he patted her prostrate head.