“Did he? I didn’t think the old gray fra had such discernment. Did he tell you my name? I know yours. It is all the sweethearts of the ages in one. That last thing I played was a Celtic love song; I saw you in a silver mist with the sea behind you and headlands and a girl moon clambering up the stairway of desire.” He stopped short, eyeing her with boyish curiosity. “I wonder just who you are really. You came with old Veracci, didn’t you?”
“I am Italian,” Carlota answered gravely. “I have been here nearly three years. I am a singer.”
“Are you?” he exclaimed eagerly. “That’s why everything in me called out to you. I was in college, the third year, when the war came over here. I had wanted to go with Carrollton, but I was just eighteen then, so I promised my mother I’d wait. She’ll love you,” he added ingenuously. “I went over the next spring and came through all right; that’s how I met Dmitri. We were all wounded about the same time.”
“I thought you said you were all right?”
“I mean I didn’t get killed or anything like that. Isn’t Phelps a wonder? He’d give a dying coyote courage to howl. He told me to stick it out down here. I’m a composer. One of those kinks of fate put me into a perfectly respectable, sane Colorado family. Father was head of some smelter works out there. He started me through Columbia, with a postgrad. in law ahead of me, but I met Carrollton and he heard me play. Now I’m here until I make good.”
“You will be famous.” Carlota’s eyes shone as she looked up at him. “Never have I heard such music, and I have listened to—” She checked herself, a sudden spirit of mischief prompting her. Was he not Pierrot, poor and struggling, with his heart a chalice of faith uplifted to the stars, while she was a child of fortune with the pathway to success fair and broad before her as the sea road to the Campagna back home. But for to-night, only to-night, she would be Columbine for him, straying, friendless Columbine, seeking shelter from the storm. “Some day I hope to be a great singer,” she said softly.
“Do you? You beautiful, dreaming moth girl. And lessons cost like the very devil here in New York.” He ran his fingers through his close-cut blond hair doubtfully, Carlota watching him shyly, thinking how much his profile was like that of a certain young emperor’s on an old Roman coin she had. There was the same straight line from forehead to nostril, the same touch of youth’s arrogance in his curving lips and cleft, projecting chin. “Do you know,” he continued confidently, “I am sure I can help you. I could start you on your lessons, you know. Don’t refuse. I’d love to help you, to even think I was. I have a rocky old studio down on the Square; nothing like this; it’s poverty’s back door compared to it, but if you’ll come there, I will help you.”
“Oh, but it is impossible,” Carlota exclaimed, rising hurriedly. “I never go anywhere alone, it is not the custom with my people. It is so very kind of you, but”—she met his eyes wistfully—“I do not even know your name.”
“I am Griffeth Ames. Ask Veracci, he knows me, so does Phelps. Listen, if you won’t come for your own sake, for God’s pity, come for mine. I’m starving down here for just what you gave me to-night when I first looked into your eyes—inspiration. I must see you and talk to you about my work; I need you. Will you come?”
“The heavens would fall if I did,” she laughed unsteadily, trying to draw her hands from his clasp.