The people whom he met at the Tarara’s rooms were of a sort with herself, and all of them were so easy-going and inconsequent, that it was a pleasant reaction from the rather constraining ideal held up to him by his child.
Poor old Clem! He had been a dreamer all his life—of the earth, earthy, though his dreams had been—and shifting and unstable as they were in character. The favor which the Tarara showed him now had led him into dreams of a marriage with her, which would establish him for life in the green-room and lime-light atmosphere which he loved, and would give him, not only the Tarara herself, with whom he believed he was madly in love, but also all the other things which he desired in life. In the pursuance of these hopes, he had resolutely concealed from her the knowledge of the fact that he had a child, believing that it would be quite fatal to his cause.
In the evenings, when work was over, and the tiny room in perfect order, Clementina would sit alone and think. Of what did she think there in her little chair, so neat and self-collected, with her eyes fixed on space, or else occasionally turned upward to the stars, of which she could see a small bright patch out of her little window? Her experience in this human existence had been so meagre, the avenues of knowledge so limited, that it would almost seem reasonable to suppose that she drew upon former experiences in some other incarnation, for the material of that deep thinking and wise doing, which continually occupied her.
One evening, it happened that Clem became conscious of an unusually penetrating and scrutinizing look fixed upon him by this austere child of his, and he imagined that it was in some occult way the result of that investigation, which caused her to announce, suddenly,
“I’m going with you this evening, Clem.”
“Where?” he said, surprised.
“Wherever you are going.”
“I’m going to the concert,” he said; and then added, dissuadingly, “You wouldn’t like it.”
“But I’m going,” she answered, putting away her dusting-cloth, after having made the room as neat as usual.
He felt a certain protest and anxiety, but he never resisted her, and so a little later they were taking their places in front of the lowered curtain. The prices at these concerts were very small, and there was always a good attendance, but the child and her father being early, had secured good seats.