I rose, telling her to set the table while I dressed. She put on two cups, each trip to the table impeded by the paper, over which she trampled with loud cracklings, then she gave it up and followed me, talking. My toilet, performed with mutilated rites owing to its publicity, took me from room to room, with Lizzie at my heels. When I shut the door on my bath, she leaned against it and through the crack gave me her opinion on the rival merits of Paris and Berlin as centers of musical study.
While I was making the breakfast she stood in the entrance of the kitchenette, then, squeezing by her with the coffee pot in one hand and a plate of toast in the other, she did not give me enough room and the toast slid off the plate and was strewed afar. She picked up a piece and sat down eating it, her elbows on the table, while I gathered up the rest. Hot and disheveled I took my place opposite while she watched me, biting delicately at her toast, benignly beautiful and fresh as a summer’s morn.
She was stretching her hand for her cup when a disturbing thought made her pause. She dropped the hand and looked at me in consternation:—her big trunk was no good, it had been broken three years ago coming from California.
“Oh, well”—a happy solution occurred to her and she held out her hand for the cup—“I can borrow one of yours. That large one with the Bagdad portière over it. I’ll return it as soon as I get there. You don’t mind loaning it to me, do you, dearest?”
I gave it, warmly, generously, effusively. It wasn’t like giving Mrs. Bushey the lamp. There was no necessity for diplomatic pressure. I would have given her my jewels, my miniatures, my last cent in the bank, my teeth like Fantine, each and all of my treasures, to have her go. Nobody knows how I wanted her to go. It was not that I had ceased to love her—I will do that till I die. It was not that I had hopes Roger would forget her—he may be as faithful as Penelope for all I know. I was unable to stand any more. I was down, done, ended. I wanted to creep into my little hole, curl up and lie still. I wanted to look at the wreath of cement flowers for years. I wanted immunity from the solving of unsolvable questions, respite from trying to straighten out what persisted in staying tangled, freedom to regain my poise, reinstate my conscience, patch up the broken pieces of my heart. An immovable body had encountered an irresistible force, and though the immovable body was still in its old place, it had been so scarred and torn and tattered by the irresistible force that only rest would restore it.
That was two days ago. In the interim there has been no rest—I have spent most of the forty-eight hours in taxicabs and at telephones—but relief is in sight.
Lizzie is going.
It is all arranged. Betty has dispersed the pupils and renewed her European offer. Between taxicabs she caught me here yesterday and told me that few women have the privilege of being the patron of one of the greatest living prima donnas. The privilege sat soberly upon her and she was going to make herself worthy of it by giving one of the greatest living prima donnas every advantage that Europe offers.
In the afternoon Lizzie and I went down to the steamship office and bought her ticket, and then to the banker’s to draw the first instalment on her letter of credit. It was a royally generous letter and I said so. Lizzie didn’t think it was too much and went over a list of expenses to prove it. She is to go to Berlin—Vignorol wanted Paris but as a dramatic singer she preferred Berlin. I gathered from a casual remark that Vignorol was hurt at her desertion of him and his country. But this didn’t trouble her.
“Vignorol! I don’t see that it was so kind of him to want to take me for nothing. It would have made him. He’s only known here in New York now and as my teacher he would have been known all over the world.”