When Carter Van Meter reached Los Angeles and his tearfully happy mother he drew her into the library and closed the door. "Mater," he said with an odd air of intense repressed excitement, "I'm going to show you something, but you must promise me on your honor not to breathe it to a living soul, least of all, Mrs. Lorimer."
"Oh, dearest," gasped his mother, "I promise faithfully——"
He took Honor's telegram out of his wallet and unfolded it and smoothed it out for her to read the single word it contained. Then, at her glad cry, "Sh ... Mater! It isn't—exactly—what you think. I can't explain now. But it's a hope; it may—I believe it will, one day—lead to the thing we both want!" He folded it again carefully into its creases and put it back into his wallet and he was breathing hard.
CHAPTER IX
Ethel Bruce-Drummond was better than her word. She did not wait for the Christmas holidays but went down to Florence early in December for Honor's first concert, and she wrote many pages to Stephen Lorimer.
Of course you know by this time that the concert was a success—you'll have had Honor's modest cable and the explosive and expensive one from the fat lark! They are sending you translations from the Italian papers, and clippings in English, and copies of some of the notes she's had from the more important musical people, and I really can't add anything to that side of it. You know, my dear Stephen, when it comes to music I'm confessedly ignorant,—not quite, perhaps, like that fabled countryman of mine who said he could not tell whether the band were playing "God Save the Weasel" or "Pop Goes the Queen," but bad enough in all truth. Therefore, I keep cannily out of all discussion of Honor's voice. I gather, however, that it has surprised every one, even the Signorina, and that there is no doubt at all about her making a genuine success if she wants to hew to the line. She has had, I hear, several rather unusual offers already. But of course she hasn't the faintest intention of doing anything in the world but the thing her heart is set upon. It's rather pathetic, really. There's something a little like Trilby about her; she does seem to be singing under enchantment. What she really is like, though, is a lantern-jawed young Botticelli Madonna. She's lost a goodish bit of flesh, I should say, and her color's not so high, and she might easily have walked out of one of the canvases in the Pitti or the Ufizzi, or the Belli Arti. Her hair is Botticelli hair, and that "reticence of the flesh" of which one of your American novelists speaks—Harrison, isn't it?—and that faint austerity.
She sang quantities of arias and groups of songs of all nations, and at the end she did some American Indian things,—the native melodies themselves arranged in modern fashion. I expect you know them. The words are very simple and touching and the Italian translations are sufficiently funny. Well, the very last of all was something about a captive Indian maid, and a young chap here who clearly adores her and whom she hasn't even taken in upon her retina played a wailing, haunting accompaniment on the flute. As nearly as I can remember it went something like:
From the Land of the Sky Blue Water
They brought a captive maid.
Her eyes were deep as the—(I can't remember what, Stephen)
But she was not afraid.
I go to her tent in the evening
And woo her with my flute,
But she dreams of the Sky Blue Water,
And the captive maid is mute.
My dear Stephen, I give you my word that I very nearly put my nose in the air and howled. She is a captive maid—captive to her talent and the fat song-bird and her mother's ambition and yours, and her mother's determination not to let her marry her lad, and to that Carter chap, and the boy playing the flute—the whole network of you,—but she's dreaming of the Sky Blue Water, and dreaming is doing with that child. You'd best make up your minds to it, and settle some money on them and marry them off. My word, Stephen, is there so much of it lying about in the world that you can afford to be reckless with it? I arrived too late to see her before the concert, and I went behind—together with the bulk of the American and English colonies—directly it was over. She was tremendously glad to see me; I was a sort of link, you know. When I started in to tell her how splendidly she'd sung and how every one was rejoicing she said, "Yes,—thanks—isn't every one sweet? But did Stepper write you that Jimsy was 'Varsity Captain this year, and that they beat Berkeley twelve to five? And that Jimsy made both touchdowns? Do you remember that game you saw with us—and how Jimsy ran down the field and shook hands with the boy who'd scored on us? And how that gave every one confidence again, and we won? We always won!"—and standing there with her arms full of flowers and all sorts of really important people waiting to pat her on the head, she hummed that old battle song:
You can't beat L. A. High!
You can't beat L. A. High!
and her eyes filled up with tears and she gave me her jolly little grin and said, "Oh, Miss Bruce-Drummond, I can hardly wait to get back to real living again!"
Honor was honestly happy over her success. It was good to satisfy—and more than satisfy—the kind Signorina and all the genial and interested people she had come to know there; to send her program and her clippings home to her mother; it was jolly to be asked out to luncheon and dinner and tea and to be made much of; it was best of all to have something tangible to give up for Jimsy. If she had failed, going back to him and settling quietly down with him would have seemed like running to sanctuary; now—with definite promises and hard figures offered her—it was more than a gesture of renunciation. She could understand adoring a life of that sort if she hadn't Jimsy; as it was she listened sedately to the Signorina's happy burblings and said at intervals:
"But you know, Signorina dear, that I'm going to give it up and be married next year?"