Part 25 (1/2)
”And you're willing to put up with one for the sake of the other?”
”Yes.”
Bobby dodged a shower of mud from a pa.s.sing cab.
”Well, tastes differ, then. In New York, we've been going on the same old routine, and yet no two days have been alike, except in the minor detail of missing you at places. You have been in twenty different cities, and I'd be willing to bet that your routine hasn't varied: sleeper, hotel, rehearsal, concert, applause, wreath, supper, hotel, bed, and so on around the circuit again and again. And you say the singing pays for it. It does pay us; but you can't hear yourself, Thayer, not to get any good of it. If it isn't the applause and such stuff, what do you do it for?”
Thayer glanced down at the man beside him. He liked Bobby Dane, and, for the moment, he felt moved to discard his customary reticence in regard to his art.
”For the sake of feeling myself picked up and carried along by something quite outside myself, something I am powerless to a.n.a.lyze, or to master; yet something that I can help to express,” he answered.
Bobby accepted the lesson in silence. Then of a sudden his whimsical fun rea.s.serted itself.
”Must feel a good deal like getting drunk,” he commented gravely. ”And _a propos des bottes_, Beatrix is at home again.”
Thayer's shoulders straightened, his step grew rhythmic once more.
”When did she come?”
”She landed, ten days ago, and they went right to the new house. She is going to send out cards for Mondays in May; but, meanwhile, we are coming in for an earlier event. There's a note at your rooms now, asking you to dine with them, next Monday.”
”How do you know?”
”Because, like a coy maiden, I named the day. It is a sort of post-nuptial event, the maid of honor, the best man, and the master of ceremonies, meaning myself. She wasn't going to ask me, because it would spoil the number; but I told her I would make a point of being there, and that Monday was my most convenient day. It will give us our first chance to talk over the wedding.”
”How does she--Mrs. Lorimer look?”
”She Mrs. Lorimer looks very natural,” Bobby replied gravely. ”As a rule, we only say a person looks natural after his demise; but I a.s.sure you that Beatrix is very much alive.”
”And happy?” Thayer asked involuntarily.
Bobby gave him a swift, sharp glance. Then he resumed his former nonchalant air.
”As happy as one always is at landing after five days of acute sea-sickness. They pursued a storm, all the way home. They didn't catch it, though, except in the figurative sense of our remote childhood. I never saw Beatrix look so happy in her life as when she planted her second foot safely on the pier.”
”What about Lorimer?”
Bobby shook his broad shoulders, with the air of a man shaking off a disagreeable subject.
”Oh, he's all right,” he said shortly.
Together the two men idled away the afternoon. Bobby would fain have introduced Thayer to his own brother craftsmen who infested the hotel in the hope of getting speech with the artists; but Thayer had little liking for being interviewed, and preferred to divide his time between his own room and the streets. He and Bobby had an apparently limitless fund of talk, and their conversation wandered at will over the events of the past two months. However, as all roads lead to Rome, so all subjects led to Beatrix. When they came around to her in their discussion, Thayer invariably changed the subject; yet even a few words on a constantly recurring theme can end by illuminating that theme perfectly, provided only that it recurs often enough. By the time Thayer was dressing for the concert, that night, he was in full possession of all Bobby Dane's facts concerning his cousin, and he was convinced that all was not well with Lorimer.
With a commendable spirit of originality, the officers of the chorus had broken away from the established rule which proclaimed it an _Elijah_ season, and had chosen to give _St. Paul_, that night. Thayer liked the oratorio. It seemed to him more original, more inspired, infinitely more human than the other. Moreover, it would be restful to keep silent and let the tenor warble himself to a lingering death. Even fiery chariots become monotonous in time, and an indignant mob affords a welcome variety. He had not heard the tenor since they had sung together in Berlin, two years before, and he was looking forward to the evening with a good deal of pleasure.
To his surprise and annoyance, he found the music stopping short at his tympani, powerless to enter his brain. When he jolted himself out of his train of subconscious thought, he was aware that the orchestra was superb, that his old friend, the tenor, had added many cubits to his artistic stature, during the past two years, that he himself, Cotton Mather Thayer, would have to use his best efforts if he did not wish to occupy an entirely subordinate place upon the programme. Then he recurred to his thought of Beatrix and Lorimer. If Lorimer had not kept a straight course during his honeymoon, what hope was there for either himself or Beatrix in the many, many moons to come?
The strings and the wind took up the _Allegro_, and Thayer rose.