She was a devoted admirer of Wagner, and that was bond enough to set reverberating other chords of sympathy in the pair. I do not assert in cold blood that the girl deliberately set herself to charm the boyish-looking composer, but there was certainly a basking allurement in her gaze when her eyes brushed his. With her complicated personality he could not cope—that was only too evident; and so I watched the little comedy with considerable interest, and not without misgiving.
Arthur fell in love without hesitation, and though Ellenora felt desperately superior to him—you saw that—she could not escape the bright, immediate response of his face. The implicated interest of her bearing—though she never lost her head—his unconcealed adoration, soon brought the affair to the altar—or rather to a civil ceremony, for the bride was an agnostic, priding herself on her abstention from established religious forms.
Her clear, rather dry nature had always been a source of study to me. What could she have in common with the romantic and decidedly shy youth? She was older, more experienced—plain girls have experiences as well as favored ones—and she was not fond of matrimony with poverty as an obbligato. Arthur had prospects of pupils, his compositions sold at a respectable rate, but the couple had little money to spare; nevertheless, people argued their marriage a capital idea—from such a union of rich talents surely something must result. Look at the Brownings, the Shelleys, the Schumanns, not to mention George Eliot and her man Lewes!
They were married. I was best man, and realized what a menstruum is music—what curious trafficking it causes, what opposites it intertwines. And the overture being finished the real curtain arose, as it does on all who mate....
I did not see much of the Viberts that winter. I cared not at all for society and they had moved to Harlem; so I lost two stars of my studio receptions. But I occasionally heard they were getting on famously. Arthur was composing a piano concerto, and Ellenora engaged upon a novel—a novel, I was told, that would lay bare to its rotten roots the social fabric; and knowing the girl's inherent fund of bitter cleverness I awaited the new-born polemic with gentle impatience. I hoped, however, like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine asperity would be tempered by the suavities of married life.
One afternoon late in March Arthur Vibert dropped in as I was putting the finishing touches on my portrait of Mrs. Beacon. He looked weary and his eyes were heavily circled.
"Hello, my boy! and how is your wife, and how is that wonderful concerto we've all been hearing about?"
He shrugged his shoulders and asked for a cigarette.
"Shall I play you some bits of it?" he queried in a gloomy way. I was all eagerness, and presently he was absently preluding at my piano.
There was little vigor in his touch, and I recalled his rambling wits by crying, "The concerto, let's have it!"