Nancy hastened along the crowded corridors, where people in groups were discussing her little daughter, and the words, "wonderful! marvellous! incredible!" beat with their accustomed soft wing on her ears.
"Happy mother!" Oh yes, she was a happy mother! She said it over and over again, and repeated it to herself as she tied the soft woollen scarf round Anne-Marie's head, and again as they made their way through the cheering crowd, and the outstretched hands, and the waving hats. She repeated it as she sat in the motor open to the balmy Neapolitan night, and held Anne-Marie tightly as she stood up on the seat, waving both small hands to the surrounding throng. The little standing figure swayed as the carriage moved swiftly down the street. Soon the shouting people were left behind, and Anne-Marie slid down to her place near her mother. Beyond the Gulf, Vesuvius breathed its glowing rhythmic breath, and the waters glittered. Nancy remembered that this was Aldo's birthplace; and then she forgot it in the lilt of the usual dulcet words:
"Did you like my concert, mother dear?"
The phrase had now become a formula which they repeated laughingly like the refrain of a song. Of all the hours of the rushing turbulent day, this was the hour of joy for Nancy. Anne-Marie, who was elfish and impish, made strange by her music, and made wild by the worship of many people, in this one hour became a little tender child again, softer and sweeter than the day-time Anne-Marie, nearer and more human than the concert Anne-Marie, who was a strange, inaccessible being that Nancy sometimes thought could not really belong to her.
Fräulein and Bemolle followed them in another carriage. No one since the impresario had ever dared to intrude upon this sacred starlit hour of their love.
Did Nancy's heart ever regret her own hopes of glory? Did she remember her unwritten Book? Did she feel the wounded place of the wings that she had torn out? Never! She lived for Anne-Marie and in Anne-Marie. Little by little the chimera of inspiration drew away from her. She forgot that she had once clasped Fame to her own breast. No words, no visions, no dreams haunted her any more. She breathed in the music Anne-Marie played. She dreamed the music Anne-Marie composed. The Pied Piper had passed her; his call dragged at her soul no more. The eagle of her genius no more shook and shattered her with the wild beating of his wings. She was like the Silent Violin—the music that her soul had not sung was dead.
It was in Paris that what Nancy had so often vaguely dreaded and expected happened at last. She was alone in the hotel in her own quiet sitting-room when the lift-boy knocked at the door, and on her careless response a visitor was ushered in. It was Aldo—Aldo with a square beard and a dangling eyeglass, hat in hand, and faultlessly attired.
He stood before her, gazing at her face. Then he put his hat on a chair, extended both hands, and said in a deep, fervent voice:
"Nancy!"