Part 52 (1/2)

”Then why won't you,” said Jeff, in wrath, ”let me knock something else into their heads. You can't do it by facts. There aren't many facts just now that aren't shameful. Why can't you let me do it by poetry?”

Madame Beattie stopped in the street and gazed up at the bright heaven.

She was remembering how the stars looked in Italy when she was young and sure her voice would sound quite over the world. She seldom challenged the stars now, they moved her so, in an almost terrible way. What had she made of life, they austerely asked her, she who had been driven by them to love and all the excellencies of youth? But then, in answer, she would ask them what they had done for her.

”Jeff,” said she, ”you couldn't do it in a million years. They'll do anything for me, because I bring their own homes to them, but they couldn't make themselves over, even for me.”

”They like me,” said Jeff, ”for some mysterious reason.”

”They like you because I've told them to.”

”I don't believe it.” But in his heart he did.

”Jeff,” said she, ”life isn't a matter of fact, it's a matter of feeling. You can't persuade men and women born in Italy and Greece and Syria and Russia that they're happy in this little bare town. It doesn't smell right to them. Their hearts are somewhere else. And they want nothing so much in the world as to get a breath from there or hear a story or see somebody that's lived there. Lived--not stayed in a _pension_.”

”Do they feel so when they've seen their sisters and cousins and aunts carved up into little pieces there?” Jeff asked scoffingly. But she was hypnotising him, too. He could believe they did.

”What have you to offer 'em, Jeff, besides wages and a prospect of not being a.s.sa.s.sinated? That's something, but by G.o.d! it isn't everything.”

She swore quite simply because out in the night even in the straight street of a New England town she felt like it and was carelessly willing to abide by the chance of G.o.d's objecting.

”But I don't see,” said Jeff, ”why you won't let me have my try at it.”

He was waiting for her to signify her readiness to go on, and now she did.

”Because now, Jeff, they do think you're a G.o.d. If they saw you trying to produce the Merchant of Venice they'd be bored and they wouldn't think so any more.”

”Have you any objection,” said Jeff, ”to my trying to produce the Merchant of Venice with English-speaking children of foreigners?”

”Not a grain,” said Madame Beattie cordially. ”There's your chance. Or you can get up a pageant, if you like-, another summer. But you'll have to let these people act their own historic events in their own way. And, Jeff, don't be a fool.” They were standing before her door and Esther at the darkened window above was looking down on them. Esther had not gone to the dances because she knew who would be there. She told herself she was afraid of seeing Jeff and because she had said it often enough she believed it. ”Tell Lydia to come to see me to-morrow,” said Madame Beattie. Sophy had opened the door. It came open quite easily now since the night Madame Beattie had called Esther's name aloud in the street.

Jeff took off his hat and turned away. He did not mean to tell Lydia.

She saw enough of Madame Beattie, without instigation.

XXVIII

Lydia needed no reminder to go to Madame Beattie. The next day, in the early afternoon, she was taking her unabashed course by the back stairs to Madame Beattie's bedchamber. She would not allow herself to be embarra.s.sed or ashamed. If Esther treated Madame Beattie with a proper hospitality, she reasoned when her mind misgave her, it would not be necessary to enter by a furtive way. Madame Beattie was dressed and in a high state of exhilaration. She beckoned Lydia to her where she sat by a window commanding the street, and laid a hand upon her wrist.

”I've actually done it,” said she. ”I've got on her nerves. She's going away.”

The clouds over Lydia seemed to lift. Yet it was incredible that Esther, this charming sinister figure always in the background or else blocking everybody's natural movements, should really take herself elsewhere.

”It's only to New York,” said Madame Beattie. ”She tells me that much.

But she's going because I've ransacked her room till she sees I'm bound to find the necklace.”

Lydia was tired from the night before; her vitality was low enough to waken in her the involuntary reb.u.t.tal, ”I don't believe there is any necklace.” But she only pa.s.sed a hand over her forehead and pushed up her hair and then drew a little chair to Madame Beattie's side.

”So you think she'll come back?” she asked drearily.

”Of course. She's only going for a couple of days. You don't suppose she'd leave me here to conspire with Susan? She'll put the necklace into a safe. That's all.”