The Way of Ambition Part 117

"You see!" he said. "You dare not tell me you didn't know!"

His eyes were always upon her. She opened her lips. She tried to speak, to say that she loved the opera, that she thought it a work of genius, that everyone would recognize it as such soon, very soon, if not now, immediately. Words seemed to be struggling up in her, but she could not speak them. She felt that she was growing paler and paler beneath his gaze.

"Thank G.o.d!" he exclaimed, with violence. "You've got some sincerity left in you. We want it, you and I, to-night!"

He turned away from her, went to the sofa, sat down on it, put his hand to the breast-pocket of his coat, and drew out two papers--Madre's cablegram and the letter which had come while they were at supper.

"Come here, Charmian!" he said, more quietly.

She came to him, hesitated, met his eyes again, and sat down in the other corner of the sofa beside him.

"I want you to read that."

He gave her the letter.

"Read it carefully. Don't hurry!" he said.

She took the letter and read.

"MY DEAR MR. HEATH,--I've left the opera-house and have come to the office of my paper to write my article on your work which I have just heard. But before I do so I feel moved to send this letter to you. I don't know what you will think of it, or of me for writing it, but I do care. I want you very much not to hate it, not to think ill of me. People, I believe, very often speak and think badly of us who call ourselves, are called, critics. They say we are venial, that we are log-rollers, that we have no convictions, that we don't know what we are talking about, that we are the failures in art, all that kind of thing. We have plenty of faults, no doubt. But there are some of us who try to be honest. I try to be honest. I am going to try to be honest about your work to-night. That is why I am sending you this.

"Your opera is not a success. I know New York. I dare even to say that I know America. I have sat among American audiences too long not to be able to 'taste' them. Their feeling gets right into me.

Your opera is not a success. But it isn't really that which troubles me to-night. It is this. Your opera doesn't deserve to be a success.

"That's the wound!

"I don't know, of course--I can't know--whether you are aware of the wound. But I can't help thinking you must be. It is presumption, I dare say, for a man like me, a mere critic, who couldn't compose a bar of fine genuine music to save his life, to try to dive into the soul of an artist, into your soul. But you are a man who means a lot to me. If you didn't I shouldn't be writing this letter. I believe you know what I know, what the audience knew to-night, that the work you gave them is spurious, unworthy. It no more represents you than the mud and the water that cover a lode of gold represent what the miner is seeking for. I'm pretty sure you must know.

"Perhaps you'll say: 'Then why have the impertinence to tell me?'

"It's because I've seen a little bit of the gold shining. The other night, after I dined with you--you remember? Gold it was, that's certain. We Americans know something about precious metal, or the world belies us. After that night I was looking to write a great article on you. And I'll do it yet. But I can't do it to-night.

That's my trouble. And it's a heavy one, heavier than I've had this season. I've got to sit right down and say out the truth. I hate to do it. And yet--do I altogether? I don't want to show up as conceited, yet now, as I'm covering this bit of paper, I've begun to think to myself: Shan't I, perhaps, while I'm doing my article, be helping to clear away a little of the water and the mud that cover the lode? Shan't I, perhaps, be getting the gold a bit nearer to the light of the day, and the gaze of the world? Or, better still, to the hand of the miner? Well, anyhow, I've got to go ahead. I can't do anything else.

"But I remember the other night. And if I believe there's music worth having in any man of our day I believe it's in you.--Your very sincere friend, and your admirer, "ALFRED VAN BRINEN."

Charmian read this letter slowly, not missing a word. As she read she bent her head lower and lower; she almost crouched over the letter. When she had finished it she sat quite still without raising her eyes for a long time. The letter had vanished from her sight. And how much else had vanished! In that moment little or nothing seemed left.

At last, as she did not move, Claude said, "You've finished?"

"You've finished the letter?"

"Yes."

"May I have it, then?"

She knew he was holding out his hand. She made a great effort, lifted her hand, and gave him Van Brinen's letter without looking at him. She heard the thin paper rustle as he folded it.

"Charmian," he said, "I'm going to keep this letter. Do you know why?

Because I love the man who wrote it. Because I know that if ever I am tempted again, by anyone or by anything, to prost.i.tute such powers as have been given me, I have only to look at this letter, I have only to remember to-night, to be saved from my own weakness, from my disease of weakness."

Still she did not look at him. But she noticed in his voice a sound of growing excitement. And now she heard him get up from the sofa.

"But I believe, in any case, what has happened to-night would have cured me. I've had a tremendous lesson to-night. We've both had a tremendous lesson. Do you know that after the call at the end of the third act Armand Gillier very nearly a.s.saulted me?"

"Claude!"

Now she looked up. Claude was standing a little way from her by the piano. With one hand he held fast to the edge of the piano, so fast that the knuckles showed white through the stretched skin.

"Miss Mardon and he realized, as of course everyone else realized, my complete failure which dragged his libretto down. The way the audience applauded him when I left the stage told the story. No other comment was necessary. But Gillier isn't a very delicate person, and he made comments before Miss Mardon, Crayford, and several of the company, before scene-shifters and stage carpenters, too. What he said was true enough. But it wasn't pleasant to hear it in such company."

He came away from the piano, turned his back on her for a moment, and walked toward the farther wall of the room.

"Oh, I've had my lesson!" she heard him say. "Miss Mardon said nothing to you?"

He had turned.

"No," she said.

"Crayford said nothing?"

"Mr. Crayford was surrounded. He said, 'It's gone grandly. We've all made good. I don't care a snap what the critics say to-morrow.'"

"And you knew he was telling you a lie!"

She was silent.

"You knew the truth, which is this: everyone made good except myself.

And everyone will be dragged down in the failure because of me. They've all built on a rotten foundation. They've all built on me. And you--you've built on me. But not one of you, not one, has built on what I really am, on the real me. Not one of you has allowed me to be myself, and you least of all!"

"Claude!"

"You least of all! Don't you know it? Haven't you always known it, from the moment when you resolved to take me in hand, when you resolved to guide me in my art life, to bring the poor weak fellow, who had some talent, but who didn't know how to apply it, into the light of success!

You meant to make me from the first, and that meant unmaking the man you had married, the man who had lived apart in the odd, little unfashionable Bayswater house, who had lived the odd, little unfashionable life, composing Te Deums and Bible rubbish, the man whom n.o.body knew, and who didn't specially want to know anyone, except his friends. You thought I was an eccentricity--"

"No, no!" she almost faltered, bending under the storm of unreserve which had broken in this reserved man.

"An eccentricity, when I was just being simply myself, doing what I was meant to do, what I could do, drawing my inspiration not from the fashions of the moment but from the subjects, the words, the thoughts, which found their way into my soul. I didn't care whether they had found their way into other people's souls. What did that matter to me? Other people were not my concern. I didn't think about them. I didn't care what they cared for, only what I cared for. I was myself, just that. And from to-night I'm going to be just that, just simply myself again. It's the only chance for an artist." He paused, fixing his eyes upon her till she was forced to lift her eyes to his. "And I believe--I believe in my soul it's the only chance for a man."

He stood looking into her eyes. Then he repeated:

"The only chance for a man."

He went back slowly to the piano, grasped it, held it once more.

"Charmian," he said, "you've done your best. You've drawn me into the world, into the great current of life; you've played upon the surface ambition that I suppose there is in almost every man; you've given me a host of acquaintances; you've turned me from the one or two things that I fancied I might make something of since we married, _The Hound of Heaven_, the violin concerto. On the other side of the account you found me that song, and Lake to sing it. And you got me Gillier's libretto and opened the doors of Crayford's opera-house to me. You've devoted yourself to me. I know that. You've given up the life you loved in London, your friends, your parties, and consecrated yourself to the life of the opera. You've done your best. You've stuck to it. You've done all that you, or any other woman with your views and desires, could do for me in art. You've unmade me. I've been weak and contemptible enough to let you unmake me. From to-night I've got to build on ruins. Perhaps you'll say that's impossible. It isn't. I mean to do it. I'm going to do it. But I've got to build in freedom."