“Oh, but Mademoiselle, I am ashamed, horrified—I have played to you for an hour, a thousand pardons!”
“A thousand nothings of the kind,” interrupted Liane impatiently. “We drop all this now, you know, you and I—we are artists, and artists, as you probably don’t know, are very simple people when they are together and attend strictly to business. You will, of course, throw up this performance at the Bank to-morrow. You had better come here on Sunday at ten o’clock (the evening, you know, mon petit; nothing is done at ten o’clock in the morning but the saying of one’s prayers, unless, indeed, one is under the tyranny of a dressmaker). Then you must play to Cartier; he will take you in hand, I fancy. I will have some other men here too; this affair of yours must be well looked into—and fancy that that crétin of a Maurice hadn’t the sense to tell me you were an artist, and there I was stiffening my jaws with the rubbish of an afternoon call.”
Liane spoke to him simply, plainly, and like a man. The awe of her exquisite manner fell away. She no longer seemed to Jean like a mysterious and potent being from another world; but he had no time to regret the destruction of his illusion. For the first time in his life he was talking to a real comrade. Bliss had come out of solitude, and submitted joyously to the reinforcement of humanity. The names of great musicians flashed between them. Liane flung her experiences into his hands and drew out of him in return his ambitions and desires; these at present, it seemed, did not include retirement into a monastery or the rules of the Third Order.
“You are one of the emotional players,” she said to him. “Not the great, broad interpreters who give you the picked bones of a musician’s work—but one of their own brothers, who fire you afresh with their laughter and their tears. You will play Chopin most, I fancy. Schumann and Grieg, and the Russian men—our French moderns too, of course, Debussy above all; for there is so much dream in you—but Cartier won’t let you specialize yet. What he’ll give you is Bach and Mozart; he’ll stuff it into you by the yard. You must meet some singers, too, and play for them. Often one must begin this way.”
In the middle of their talk the door opened and Maurice Golaud stood there, tired and wet from the courses, but looking at them nevertheless with curious amusement in his eyes.
Jean stood up half embarrassed, with the burden of his youth upon him, and as he did so he saw Liane’s face change; it was as if she had covered herself subtly and suddenly with a veil of intangible gauze, the artist had retreated once more. She was the beautiful woman with the lure in her eyes. Her lips parted, and a glance ran between her and Maurice which seemed to Jean like quick flame. The smile in Maurice’s eyes deepened.
“Ah, you have found us at last, mon ami?” Maurice said to Jean. “For my part, I was fancying you must have picked up some pretty amusements elsewhere, since you have been in Paris nearly a month before looking us up. You should have been at the courses this afternoon; it was really not half bad. No, it wouldn’t have amused you, ma chérie, no one was killed and no one was ruined, and the ladies’ clothes looked passés in the rain. You really did better for yourself remaining here, and entertaining my dear old Jean.”
Liane smiled, but she did not say anything. She no longer looked at Jean.
He got up to go; they both of them urged him to remain, though Maurice went to the door with him in a bland cordiality of farewell.
“Well, and now you have found your way here you must come often,” he said. “I can see already that Liane likes you.”