The Master's Violin Part 24

"I shall never be as happy as I was," she sighed. "No one is the same after a sorrow like mine."

"I suppose not," answered Lynn. "We are always changing. No one can go back of to-day and be the same as he was yesterday. I often think that old Greek philosopher was right when he said that the one thing common to all life was change."

"Which one was he?"

"Herac.l.i.tus, I think. Anyhow, he was a clever old duck."

Iris smiled. "I have sometimes thought ducks were philosophers," she said, "but it never occurred to me that philosophers were ducks."

Lynn laughed heartily, thoroughly pleased with himself because Iris seemed so much better. "We don't want to go too far," he said. "I wouldn't tire you for anything. Shall we go back?"

"No--not yet. Isn't there a marsh up here somewhere?"

"I should think there would be."

"Then let's keep on and see if we don't find it. I feel as though I were exploring a new country. It's strange that I've never been here before, isn't it?"

"It's because I wasn't here to take you, but you'll always have me now.

You and I and mother are all going to live together. Won't that be nice?"

"Yes," answered Iris, but her voice sounded far away and her eyes filled.

Late afternoon flooded the earth with gold, and from distant fields came the drowsy hum and whir of the fairy folk with melodious wings. The birds sang cheerily, b.u.t.terflies floated in the fragrant air, and it was difficult to believe that in all the world there was such a thing as Death.

"I'm not going to let you go any farther," said Lynn. "You'll be tired."

"No, I won't, and besides, I want to see the marsh."

"My dear girl, you couldn't see it--you could only stand on the edge of it."

"Well, I'll stand on the edge of it, then," said Iris, stubbornly. "I've come this far, and I'm going to see it."

"Suppose we climb that hill yonder," suggested Lynn. "It overlooks the marsh."

"That will do," returned Iris. "I'm willing to climb now, though I wasn't when we started."

At first, Lynn walked by her side, warning her to go slowly, then he took her hand to help her. When they reached the summit, he had his arm around her, and it was some minutes before it occurred to him to take it away.

Iris was looking at the tapestry spread out before them--the great marsh with the sunset light upon it and the swallows circling above it.

"Oh," she whispered, with her face alight, "how beautiful it is! See all the purple in it--why, it might be violets, from up here!"

"Yes," answered Lynn, dreamily, "it is your name-flower, the fleur-de-lis." Then the colour flamed in his face and he bit his lips.

Quick as a flash, Iris turned upon him. "Did you write the letters?" she demanded.

Lynn's eyes met hers clearly. "Yes," he said, very tenderly. "Dear Heart, didn't you know?"

XV

Little Lady

Up in the attic, Iris sat beside the old trunk, her lap filled with papers. Never had she felt so alone, so desolate as to-day. The rain beat upon the roof and grey swirls of water dashed against the pane. The old house rocked in the rising wind, and from below, like an eerie accompaniment, came the sound of Lynn's violin.

He was practising, and Iris heard him walking back and forth, playing with mechanical precision. She shuddered at the sound of it, for, strangely enough, she was conscious of bitter resentment against Lynn.

His hand had destroyed her dream and levelled it to the dust. In the darkness, she had leaned, insensibly, upon the writer of the letters, and now she knew that it was only Lynn--Lynn, who had no heart.

There comes a time to most of us, when the single prop gives way and, absolutely alone, we either stand or fall. In the hard school of life, sooner or later, one learns self-reliance. Iris began to perceive that, in the end, she could depend upon no one but herself.

With a sigh, she turned to the papers once more. There was the report of the detective whom Aunt Peace had engaged at the beginning, voluminous, and obscured by legal phrases. Two or three letters, bearing upon the subject, were attached to it. In the bottom of the box were a wide, showy band of gold which, presumably, had been her mother's wedding ring, and two photographs.

One was of a man whose weakness was indelibly stamped upon every feature--the low, narrow forehead, the eyes slanting inward, the full lips, and receding chin. On the back of it, Aunt Peace had written: "Supposed to be her father." Looking at it, Iris wondered how her mother could have cared for a man like that--weak and frankly sensuous. Yet there was an air of gay carelessness about the picture, a sort of friendly _camaraderie_, distantly related to those genial ways which stamp a higher grade of man as "a good fellow."

Over the other photograph, she lingered long. The first Iris Temple was pictured in the panoply of a stage queen. The crown of paste brilliants upon her head, the tawdry gown, elaborately trimmed with tinsel, and the gilded sceptre were all discredited by the face. Beneath its mask of artificiality was a woman, a very human woman, impulsive, eager, and loving, whose trustful eyes looked straight at Iris with intimate comprehension. Plainly, the life of the stage was not to her taste; she hungered, as every normal woman hungers, for the quiet hearthstone and the simple joys of home.

In all her dreams of her mother, Iris had never imagined her like this, and yet she was not disappointed. At times, looking back upon her miserable childhood, she had bitterly blamed her for it, but now, for the first time, she understood. "Poor little mother," said Iris, "you did the very best you could."

If things had been different, she and her mother could have had a little home of their own. Rebellion was hot in the girl's heart, when she suddenly remembered something Fraulein Fredrika had said long ago.

"Wherever one may be, that is the best place. The dear G.o.d knows."

She folded up the papers and put them back in the box, with the photographs and the wedding ring. For the moment, she wondered what her real name might be, for Iris Temple was only a stage name. Then she dismissed the matter as of no importance, for she certainly would not care to bear the name of the man who had deserted her mother in her hour of need.

She wondered why Aunt Peace had never given her the papers before, but, after all, what good could it have done? What had she gained by it, even now? In a flash of insight, she saw that she had been given a feeling of definite relationship with the woman in the tawdry stage trappings, who had loved much and suffered more--that though an old grave divided them, she was not quite motherless, not quite alone. For the first time since Aunt Peace was stricken with the fever, balm came into the girl's sore heart.

Below, Lynn played unceasingly. "Four hours a day," thought Iris. "One sixth of life--and for what?"

Lynn was asking himself the same question. "For what?" Ambition was strong within him, but Herr Kaufmann's words had struck deep. "I will be an artist!" he said to himself, pa.s.sionately; "I will!" He worked feverishly at his concerto, but his mind was not upon it. He was thinking of Iris and of the unconscious scorn in her face when she discovered that he had written the letters.

He put down his violin and meditated, as many a man in that very room had done before him, upon the problem of the eternal feminine. Iris was incomprehensible. He knew that the letters had not displeased her; that, on the contrary, she had been unusually happy when they came. He remembered also that moonlight night, when, safely screened by the shrubbery across the street, he had seen her put the flower upon the gate-post and as swiftly take it away. He had loved her all the more for that quick impulse, that shame-faced retreat, and put the memory securely away in his heart, biding his time.

"Iris," he asked, at luncheon, "will you go for a walk with me this afternoon?"

"No," she returned, shortly.

"Why not? It isn't too wet, is it?"

"I'm going by myself. I prefer to be alone."

Lynn coloured and said nothing more. In the afternoon, while he was at work, he saw her trip daintily down the path, lifting her skirts to avoid the pools of water the Summer shower had left. He watched her until she was no longer within range of his vision, then went back to his violin.

Iris had no definite errand except to the post-office, where, as usual, there was nothing, but it rested her to be outdoors. It is Nature's unfailing charm that she responds readily to every mood, and ultimately brings extremes to a common level of quiet cheerfulness.

She leaned over the bridge and looked into the stream, where her own face was mirrored. She saw herself sad and old, a woman of mature years, still further aged by trouble. What had become of the happy girl of a few months ago?