Rose of Dutcher's Coolly Part 35

The mystery of human genius came also to Rose as Mr. Harvey pointed out to her the city's most noted men and women. They were mere dabs of color--sober color, for the most part--upon this flood of humankind. She was to Mason, probably, only a neutral spot in the glorious band of color, which swept in a graceful curve back from the footlights. It was wonderful, also, to think that these smiling men were the millionaire directors of vast interests--they seemed without a care in the world.

At last the stage chairs were all filled by a crowd of tw.a.n.ging, booming, sawing, squeaking instrumentalists. Then the leader, a large man of military erectness, came down to the leader's desk and bowed, amidst thunderous applause. Then rapping sharply on his desk he brought orderly silence out of the tumult, and the concert began.

The music did not mean much to Rose during the first half-hour, for the splendor of the whole spectacle dominated the appeal of the instruments.

Such music and such audiences were possible only in the largest cities, and that consideration moved her deeply. It seemed too good to be true that she sat here securely, ready to enjoy all that came. It had come to her, too, almost without effort, almost without deserving, she felt.

But there came at last a number on the programme which dimmed the splendor of the spectacle. The voice of Wagner came to her for the first time, and shook her and thrilled her and lifted her into wonderful regions where the green trees dripped golden moss, and the gra.s.ses were jeweled in very truth. Wistful young voices rose above the lazy lap of waves, sad with love and burdened with beauty which destroyed. Like a deep-purple cloud death came, slowly, resistlessly, closing down on those who sang, clasped in each other's arms.

They lay dead at last, and up through the purple cloud their spirits soared like gold and silver flame, woven together, and the harsh thunder of the gray sea died to a sullen boom.

When she rose to her feet the girl from the coule staggered, and the brilliant, moving, murmuring house blurred into fluid color like a wheel of roses.

The real world was gone, the world of imagined things lay all about her.

She felt the power to reach out her hand to take fame and fortune.

In that one reeling instant the life of the little coule, the lonely, gentle old father, and the days of her youth--all her past--were pushed into immeasurable distance. The pulling of weeds in the corn, the driving of cattle to pasture were as the doings of ants in a dirt-heap.

A vast pity for herself sprang up in her brain. She wanted to do some gigantic thing which should enrich the human race. She felt the power to do this, too, and there was a wonderful look on her face as she turned to Isabel. She seemed to be listening to some inner sound throbbing away into silence, and then her comprehension of things at hand came back to her, and Isabel was speaking to her.

"Here's Mr. Mason coming to speak to us," interrupted Mr. Harvey.

She turned to watch him as he came along the aisle behind the boxes; her head still throbbed with the dying pulsations of the music. Everybody seemed to know and greet him with cordial readiness of hand. He came along easily, his handsome blonde face showing little more expression at meeting her than the others, yet when he saw her rapt and flushed face he was touched.

"I came to see how Miss Dutcher was enjoying the evening."

Rose felt a sudden disgust with her name; it sounded vulgarly of the world of weeds and cattle.

In some way she found herself a few moments later walking out through the iron gate into the throng of promenaders back of the seats. It was the most splendid moment of her life. She forgot her fear of Mason in the excitement of the moment. She walked with hands clenched tightly and head lifted. The look on her face, and the burning color in her face made scores of people turn to look at her.

Mason perceived but misinterpreted her excitement. He mistook her entire self-forgetfulness for a sort of vain personal exaltation or rapture of social success.

She saw only dimly the mighty pillars, the ma.s.sive arches, lit by stars of flame. She felt the carpet under her feet only as a grateful thing which hushed the sound of feet.

They made one circuit with the promenaders, Mason bowing right and left, and talking disjointedly upon indifferent subjects. He felt the tormenting interest of his friends in Rose, and drew her out of the crowd.

"Let us stand here and see them go by," he said. "You liked the music, did you?"

His commonplace question fell upon her like the scream of a peac.o.c.k amid songs of thrushes. It showed her in a flash of reasoning of which he could not know, that it was possible to be ennuied with glorious harmonies. Her mind asked, "Shall I, too, sometimes wish to talk commonplaces in the midst of such glories?"

"O, it was beyond words!" she said. And then Mason was silent for a little s.p.a.ce. He divined her mood at last, but he had something to say which should be said before she returned to her box.

He began at once:

"Let me say, Miss Dutcher, that while the main criticism of your work, which I made in my note this morning, must hold, still I feel the phraseology could be much more amiable. The fact is, I was irritated over other matters, and that irritation undesignedly crept into my note to you."

"I haven't received it," she said looking directly at him for the first time.

"Well then, don't read it. I will tell you what I think you ought to do."

"O, don't talk of it," she said, and her voice was tense with feeling.

"All I have written is tonight trash! I can see that. It was all somebody else's thought. Don't let's talk of that now."

He looked down at her face, luminous, quivering with excitement--and understood.

"I forgot," he said gently, "that this was your first concert at the Auditorium. It is beautiful and splendid, even to an habitue like me. I like to come here and forget that work or care exists in the world. I shall enjoy it all the more deeply now by reason of your enthusiasm."

In the wide s.p.a.ce back of the seats a great throng of young people were promenading to the left, round and round the ma.s.sive pillars, in leisurely rustling swing, the men mainly in dress suits, the ladies in soft luminous colors; the heavy carpet beneath their feet gave out no sound, and only the throb of laughter, the murmur of speech and the soft whisper of drapery was to be heard.

It was all glorious beyond words, to the imaginative girl. It flooded her with color, beauty, youth, poetry, music. Every gleaming neck or flashing eye, every lithe man's body, every lover's deferential droop of head, every woman's worshipful upturned glance, came to her with power to arouse and transform. The like of this she had not dreamed of seeing.

n.o.body had told her of this Chicago. n.o.body could tell her of it, indeed, for no one else saw it as she did. When Mason spoke again his voice was very low and gentle. He began to comprehend the soul of the girl.

"I've no business to advise you. I've come to the conclusion that advice well followed is ruinous. Genius seldom takes advice, and n.o.body else is worth advising. I took advice and went into a newspaper office twenty years ago. I've been trying ever since to rectify my mistake. I would be a literary if I were not forced to be a newspaper man, just when my powers are freshest. I want to write of today. I want to deal with the city and its life, but I am forced to advise people upon the tariff. I come home at night worn out and the work I do then is only a poor starveling. Now, see this audience tonight! There are themes for you.

See these lovers walking before and behind us. He may be a clerk in a bank; she the banker's daughter. That man Harvey, in whose box you sit tonight, was a farmer's boy, and his wife the daughter of a Methodist preacher in a cross-roads town. How did they get where they are, rich, influential, kindly, polished in manner? What an epic!"

"Are you advising me now?" she asked with a smile.

Her penetration delighted him.

"Yes, I am saying now in another way the things I wrote. I hope, Miss Dutcher, you will burn that packet without reading. I would not write it at all now."

They were facing each other a little out of the stream of people. She looked into his face with a bright smile, though her eyes were timorous.

"Do you mean ma.n.u.script and all?"

His face was kind, but he answered firmly:

"Yes, burn it all. Will you do it?"

"If you mean it."

"I mean it. You're too strong and young and creative to imitate anybody.

Burn it, and all like it. Start anew tonight."

His voice compelled her to a swift resolution.

"I will do it."

He held out his hand with a sudden gesture, and she took it. His eyes and the clasp of his hand made her shudder and grow cold, with some swift, ominous foreknowledge of distant toil and sorrow and joy.

The lights were dimmed mysteriously, and Mason said:

"They are ready to begin again; we had better return."

He led her back to the box, and Mrs. Harvey flashed a significant look upon him, and said in a theatrical aside:

"Aha! at last."