“He is The Golden Sun,” she whispered, and laughed low.
He had the honour to announce that Madame Hélène would declaim an apostrophe from her last written work.
The young woman arose simply, smiled to Noll, and making her way to the piano, took her place before it amidst a salvo of applause; and with a strange thrill in her husky voice, she spoke of the cruelty of Nature, the eyes glowing in the deep shadows of her fine brows that gleamed white amidst the masses of her tawny hair, where she stood below the light, gracefully poised against the piano. She uttered the exquisitely phrased sentences in a well modulated low voice that was vibrant with suppressed passion, without trick, without gesture.... The warfare of life was unceasing, unmerciful. Race struck at race, man lay in wait for man—on the mart, on the field of battle, in love, robbed the one the other of the simplest needs of life.... Everywhere was struggle—everywhere was strenuous rivalry—at the end of all, the grave.... The caged bird, what a thing of pity! Denied the range of life, destitute of its mate, its wings cramped, its functions atrophied—yet—open the door of its narrow prison, let it but fly across the sweet-scented meadows, and a hawk swings out of the heavens, falls from the splendid blue, and strikes with rending claws, and tears out with cruel well-contrived beak the little life from the delicately designed beauty of the songster.... Why flutter against the encaging bars? why struggle ever to be in the winds and the free airs? Tush! wherein was freedom but to flee from death? The little fragile thing had the gift of song; let it be glad that it had the gift of song.
She uttered the pity of it in the most caressing tongue that the nations have wrought; and when she had spoken the last word, she bowed to the thunder of applause, came back to the table, and seated herself by Noll with a freedom from conceit that touched him.
They came and clasped her hand, and gave her ungrudging praise, with all the airs and kindly dignity of France. And Noll noticed that Aubrey was gone....
The room was gay with banter and laughter, glasses clinked, the waiter sped about busily, bawling orders, and the smoke of cigarettes clouded the ceiling.
And, of a truth, the atmosphere of the place had a strange fascination for Noll.
Here were no longer the crude essayings, and the more crude aims of fledgling studenthood. He was weary of the fierce partisanship, the shifting foundations, the tentative idols of their passing frenzies, this taking of sides about things that did not matter.
These people were out of the years of their apprenticeship to the arts.
Here, on the other hand, was no posing at all costs for outrageous originality, no seeking for the eccentric aspect of things, none of the fantastic extravagances that marked the revels of the sordid gatherings in the taverns of Montmartre—for these people had no desire to the breaking of idols, the outraging of the decencies, the mocking at ideals.