Sylvia found that she had brought with her by chance the manuscript of the poems given to her by the outcast Englishman in Paris, and Arthur was very anxious that she should come back to her idea of rendering these. He had already composed a certain number of unimportant songs in his career, but now the Muses smiled upon him (or perhaps it might be truer to speak of her own smiles, Sylvia thought) with such favor that he set a dozen poems to the very accompaniment they wanted, the kind of music, moreover, that suited Sylvia’s voice.
“We must get these done in New York,” he said; but that week a letter came from Olive Airdale, and Sylvia had a sudden longing for England. She did not think she would make an effort to do anything in America. The truth was that she had supplemented the Englishman’s poems with an idea of her own to give impressions gathered from her own life. It was strange how abruptly the longing to express herself had arrived, but it had arrived, with a force and fierceness that were undeniable. It had come, too, with that authentic fever of secrecy that she divined a woman must feel in the first moment of knowing that she has conceived. She could not have imparted her sense of creation to any one else; such an intimacy of revelation was too shocking to be contemplated. Somehow she was sure that this strange shamefulness was right and that she was entitled to hug within herself the conception that would soon enough be turned to the travail of birth.
“By, Jove! Sylvia, this holiday has done you good!” Arthur exclaimed.
She kissed him because, ignorant though he was of the true reason, she owed him thanks for her looks.
“Sylvia, if we go back to England, do let’s be married first.”
“Why?”
“Why, because it’s not fair on me.”
“On you?”
“Yes, on me. People will always blame me, of course.”
“What has it got to do with anybody else except me?”