Harold answered that he did not, and Sonia’s sense of helpless misery increased as she perceived that Martha was going to describe it. She bit her tongue to keep from crying out as Martha proceeded to give the following description:
“It is a woman’s figure lying on the globe in an attitude of fatigue and dejection. The scantily draped form is beautiful, but not youthful-looking, and the face, partly concealed by a bandage over the eyes, is also beautiful, but lined with care and sorrow. In her hands she holds an old lyre with every string broken except one. This one string, frayed and worn and lax, she is striking with her thin, weak fingers, and she is bending her dulled ears to try to catch the note. When Sonia first showed it to me, and said that it was one of her favorite pictures, I did not understand it. We have all been taught at Etienne’s such a fine contempt for English art that I was disposed to treat it lightly. I soon saw, however, the wonderful, tragic meaning in the picture, and I quite long to see the original.”
This was too much. Sonia felt that if anything else occurred to hold her up to contempt in this man’s eyes, she should give up, and burst into tears. Her courage was fast oozing to the last ebb; and with a feeling of actual desperation she looked involuntarily into the face of her opposite neighbor, and met his eyes fixed on her with a strong gaze that in an instant supported and calmed her. She did not quite read its meaning, but she felt that there was kindness for her in it, and that there was no contempt. A look from him had given her courage many a time in the past, and it was availing now. She felt suddenly self-possessed and strong; but the remainder of the meal was a confused blur in her memory, and she was devoutly thankful when her maid came to fetch her home.
Martha thought it a little strange that her brother did not go down to put their guest into her carriage; but she reflected that he was far more familiar with the rules of foreign society than she was, and she concluded that he must be acting in accordance with them.
XII
Martha felt herself genuinely surprised, puzzled, and disappointed at the result of the meeting which she had worked so hard to bring about. Nothing could be more incontestably evident than that her brother and her friend had not proved sympathetic—did not “hit it off.” What was the reason? How could both of them be so perfectly congenial to her and still uncongenial to each other? It was a painful mystery, to which she tried in vain to find the key.
Next morning Sonia did not come to the atelier at her usual time, and Martha painted on without her in pronounced despondency of spirit. When she had quite given the princess up, she looked around, and, to her delight, saw Sonia placing her easel, and preparing to go to work, a short distance off. She thought her friend looked a little pale and ill; but when she managed presently to catch her eye, she received an affectionate smile from her, which gave her a certain amount of reassurance.
When the interval for lunch came, and they went off together to the crémerie, Martha waited for her friend to introduce the subject so near to her heart, and was surprised when she led the talk in an entirely different direction.
It had been much the same with Harold after their guest had left the evening before. Beyond a rather preoccupied and spiritless assent to all she had to say about the beauty of the princess, he had seemed more or less indifferent on the subject, and had plunged with zest into the discussion of other things. Martha could not altogether wonder at this, for she had never seen her adored friend appear to so little advantage. Her brother, however, had seemed to her charming, though not, of course, at his very best, and she expected that Sonia would at least say that he was handsome and agreeable. When it appeared that she was going to say nothing at all, Martha boldly took the initiative, and asked:
“What do you think of Harold?”