What I have always been doing, studying for opera. That teacher in Paris nearly ruined my voice. I am really, it seems, a contralto, and that fool had me studying Manon. Carmen is to be my great rôle. I have a splendid teacher now and I am working hard. In two or three more years, I should be ready for my début. I want to get into the Metropolitan.... You, I hear, are with the Times. Perhaps you can help me....
So she rambled on. I had heard everything she had to say many times before and I have heard it many times since; I found it hard to listen. Looking across the room, I saw Peter gazing at us. So he knew she was there, but he only smiled and turned back his attention to the book he held in his hand. Clara, however, had caught his eye. Her face became hard and bitter.
He might speak to me, she said and there was a tone of defiance in her voice. Then, more calmly, I never understood Peter; I don't understand him now. For three days, a week, perhaps, I thought he loved me. One day he disappeared, without any explanation; nothing, not a sign, not a word. I knew that he had left Paris, because he had taken the cat with him. I was not very much in love with him and so it didn't hurt, at least it didn't hurt deeply, but what do you make of a man like that?
He contradicts himself, I put in rather lamely, searching for words.
That's it! He contradicts himself. Why, do you know, I don't believe he cared at all for my singing. After the day I sang for you, he never asked me to sing again and when I offered to he always put me off.
An old lady in a black satin dress, trimmed with cataracts of jet beads, addressed me and fortunately drew me out of Clara's orbit.
Mrs. Dale has some remarkable pictures of the new school, she began, but, of course, I don't like them. Now, if you want to see pictures—I hadn't said that I did—you should go to Henry Frick's. Do you know Mr. Frick?
No, but I know the man who shot him.
The old lady grew almost apoplectic and the jet beads jangled like Æolian harps in a heavy wind. She managed, however, to gasp out with a sound that was remarkably like gurgling, O! indeed! How interesting! Then, peering about nervously, I don't suppose he's here tonight.
I haven't seen him, I said, but he often comes here and, as I see Emma Goldman yonder, I should think it extremely likely that he will appear later.