“It’s beautiful,” he said reverently. “My God! It’s beautiful!” A kind of dignity seized him. He was no longer gauche and timid. He stared at Lily who stood with her back to a mirror, the black and silver cloak thrown carelessly back from her voluptuous white shoulders, her handsome head crowned with gold bronze hair. And then all at once the tears shone in his eyes. He leaned against the paneling.
“I understand now,” he said softly. “I understand ... everything. I know now how little I must have counted.... me and all the Mills together.”
And in Lily’s eyes there was mirrored another picture ... that of a vast resounding shed bright with flames and thick with the odor of soot and half-naked bodies ... Willie, eternally fingering the ruby clasp of his watch chain, herself turning the rings round and round on her slim fingers, and in the distance the white, stalwart body of a young Ukrainian steel worker ... a mere boy ... but beautiful. Krylenko was his name ... Krylenko ... Krylenko ... It was a long time ago, more than fourteen years. How time flew!
Lily’s dusky blue eyes darkened suddenly and the tears brimmed over. Perhaps it came to her then for the first time ... a sense of life, of a beautiful yet tragic unity, of a force which swept both of them along helplessly.
All at once she held her handkerchief, quite shamelessly, to her eyes. “We are beginning to be old, Willie,” she said softly. “Do you feel it too?”
And she turned and led the way downwards. The music had ceased and the voices of Ellen and Paul Schneidermann rose in dispute. They were arguing with a youthful fire over the merits of the new concerto.
“Here,” came Ellen’s voice. “This part. It is superb!” And then the sound of a wild, ecstatic sweep of music, terrifying and beautiful. “You understand the strings help a great deal. Part of it lies in the accompaniment.” And she began singing the accompaniment as she played.
But Lily with her companion trooping along behind her, did not interrupt the discussion. They made their way, enveloped in a peaceful silence, into the dining-room where supper waited them—some sort of hot stuff in a silver dish with an alcohol flame burning beneath it, an urn steaming with hot chocolate, a bowl of whipped cream, a few sandwiches—superlatively French sandwiches, very thin and crustless with the faintest edge of buff colored paté showing between the transparent slices of white bread. It was all exquisite, perfect, flawless.
“Sit down,” said Lily, as she flung off the black and silver cloak. “Sit down and tell me all about yourself.”
Willie drew up a chair. “I shan’t be able to stay very late,” he said. “You see, I’m leaving early in the morning.” He watched Lily fumbling with the lamp beneath the urn. She was plumper than he had expected. Indeed she was almost fat. There was a faint air of middle-age about her, indiscernable but unmistakably present.