Ames avoided Carlota’s questioning, accusing eyes.
“Twice, to give lessons.”
“Twice for lessons, and then you stay all the afternoon and have dinner also there. The truth ye cannot bear.”
“When I believed that you were working hard on your opera and were sorry I did not come back to you,” Carlota said softly.
“Son of discordance!” Ames flung a cushion headlong over the partition. “You only want to set Carlota against me and seize her yourself.”
“See?” Dmitri’s head showed around the curtain delightedly. “He has already the little social tricks. To be petty. Still, I like him, so I will save him. You shall not become the Harlequin boy of the nouveaux riches. They will but monopolize your time until a new warrior of ennui shall appear and grasp the golden bough from your hand. They will permit you to loll in their beautiful playgrounds until you imagine yourself indispensable. You will think you are succeeding, getting in on the inside, as they say. You will gain patronage. You are young and might be popular, but time is your treasure, and they waste it as nothing.”
Out of doors spring dallied in the old square, and Jacobelli, stepping from the interior of a green motor ’bus just beyond the Arch, lingered to regard almost paternally the toddling, black-eyed babies and fluttering, dancing youngsters that played around the dry fountain. A flock of pigeons swerved down from the Judson Memorial Tower and he smiled at them benignly, seeing those that fed at noon below the Campanile.
He had tried to induce Casanova to join him at luncheon down at the Brevoort, but the director had another engagement and Jacobelli had been forced to come alone, something he innately disliked. There was the genial, gregarious instinct of the old Roman feaster in the maestro. He loved to treat himself to a carefully chosen meal in a favorite corner, with a friend opposite, and a chef on duty who knew his name.
The beauty of the Square lured him. In late October it seemed to rest like some gypsy dancer, garbed in rich attire of red and gold, but silent and tense with expectation of the next twirl. He strolled towards the south side leisurely, intending to circle the Square on his way back to the hotel, trying to reason with himself on his duty to Carlota. His experience with women had taught him the usual causes of their temperamental moods. Something had undoubtedly aroused Carlota’s nature into sudden and unexpected sensitiveness. It could not be merely her dislike and resentment towards Ward. If this had been so, then why had she not reacted under the stimulus during the past two years. No, he mused, with toleration, somehow, the contagion of Love had touched her in spite of their care, and lo, the walls of Tittani tumbled at the magic bugle of some Childe Roland. Even so, it was nothing serious, he told himself. Maria’s health was better now. She could watch her closer. At eighteen a girl’s imagination will clothe some distant object with all the splendor of heroism. Doubtless she was under the spell of her own natural yearning for love.
And suddenly, even while he rambled and reasoned, the demigod of Misrule wakened drowsily and took note of the excellent juxtaposition of certain humans. Jacobelli stopped dead short, head uplifted like a horse scenting fire as a voice floated out on the midday air singing Mimi’s duet with a lilting, impetuous tenor for company. He could have sworn it was Carlota. Never could there be two such voices in New York. He tried to locate the sound, but it seemed to float from him elusively. He cut hastily across the southwest end of the park, seeking it, and gazed up at the row of brownstone old studio buildings across Fourth Street.