“I’m a brute!” exclaimed Ames, holding her hands in his with quick, understanding tenderness. “The way I have let you come and go without showing any real interest after all you have done for me.”
“What have I done? Come down here and let you teach me and in return told you some fairy-tales.”
He stared down at her, puzzled as always. He was twenty-four, and the coasts of chance and illusion were far more tangible to him than any of Life’s ports of call. He wondered if he could make her understand all that she had become to him. He wheeled about and found his pipe with sudden disgust at his own impotence.
“Carlota, do you know, I’ve just discovered something about myself. I’m a beastly poor amateur at making love. I want to tell you just how I feel about you slipping in here like a sunbeam, or—or Ptolemy. You know, I found him on the fire escape one morning, and he’s stayed here ever since. There was a sparrow, too, last winter. I left my window open there, and it flew in out of the storm and perched on the curtain rod. Fought me every time I tried to feed it. You seemed to belong to their crowd, the sunbeam and the sparrow and Ptolemy. You just came and stayed, and I was a fool; I took you for granted.”
“You asked me to come, after we first met,” Carlota corrected him. “I would not come without the invitation first.”
He bowed low before her.
“And I am honored by the royal presence. I have learned these last two days the strangest thing. When you are here and we are friends, I can work at my best, and when you are angry with me, it goes just like that, all my inspiration. So you see you have me at your mercy.” He turned and rummaged among the mass of papers and score-sheets on the piano-top. “I’m going to finish my operetta in a week if you’ll stand by me and not get temperamental, dear. The big chance is coming now. Mrs. Nevins says she can get me an immediate hearing from Casanova if she presents it first at her fête. Isn’t that great?”
Carlota’s lips pressed together firmly at the name. She did not answer.
“You must be glad with me because you gave me the idea for it. I had been tormented with a mass of harmonies and tunes that would not shape into anything. Remember how I played that first night you met me? Listen to this and see if you remember it.”
He leaned over the piano towards her, reading aloud the synopsis of the libretto.