And the following day Lily received a polite letter from Folsom and Jones giving her a brief account of the catastrophe. They also mentioned the story told by the mulatto woman. They believed, however, that it was simply the crazy imagining of a demented old woman.
“Perhaps now,” the letter concluded, “Miss Shane would desire to rid herself of a property that could no longer hold her even by ties of sentiment.”
LXVIII
LILY did not sell and for a time the letters of Folsom and Jones ceased to arrive regularly. Since all her property in the Town was sold save the site of the house at Cypress Hill, there remained no cause for correspondence. Her money she invested through the American banks in Paris. She heard nothing more of the Town until November when she returned to the city. The prospect of a winter in Paris appeared to revive her spirits, and she went, as usual, to hear Ellen play her first concert of the season. That year Lilli Barr played a new Poem with the Colonne Orchestra under the bâton of the elegant Gabriel Pierné. The performance was not a great success. There was too little sympathy between the scholarly soul of the conductor and the vigorous, barbaric temperament of the pianist. Yet it was Ellen who came off best, bearing all the laurels, with all the simpering critics trotting attendance. “Mlle. Barr,” they said, “has the perfect temperament for it ... the superb adjustment of soul and intellect indispensable to the interpretation of such febrile music. It is music which requires a certain coldness of brain, a perception delicate and piercing ... a thing of the nerves.” And so they ran on, wallowing in their delight for the mot juste, praising more extravagantly than was either honest or in good taste. One or two saw an opportunity in the praise of hitting a back handed slap at the conductor and his orchestra.
It was M. Galivant, critic of the Journal des Arts Modernes, who hit upon the phrases “febrile music” and “delicate perception.” He showed Lilli Barr the article in the salon after the concert, with the keys of the great piano barely cool from her hot fingers.
“Pish! Tosh!” she remarked to Lily who waited for her in the dressing room. “Did you see what Galivant has written? It’s too exquisite for me. To hear them talk, you’d think I took the veil for months at a time just to meditate what my music is all about. I know what it’s about and I don’t want praise that’s written before they hear me play, just because I help their modern music along. Nerves! Nerves! I haven’t got such things!”
Yet she was, as always after a concert, tense and nervous, filled with a terrible energy which would not let her sleep until dawn. To-night she wore a long tight gown of cloth of silver, without sleeves and girdled by a single chain of rhinestones. With her dark hair drawn tightly back, she resembled a fine greyhound—lean, muscular, quivering.
“At least they liked it,” said Lily, “judging from the applause.” She sat waiting in a long cloak of black velvet, held together with silver clasps.
There was a sudden knock at the door and Lily murmured “Come in.” It was the porter, a lean, sallow, man with a stoop and enormous black mustaches.
“There is a gentleman to see Madame l’artiste,” he said.