“There is n't, dear. If I spend these next two years just in learning by heart the operas that I've got to know, they will be years very well invested. I could do that out here as well as in Paris.”
“But you are begging the question, dear. It is n't just that. You know it is n't just that.”
“What is just that?” she asked, still smiling.
It was hard to answer this directly. But I had to. I dropped on my knees beside her. I gripped her shoulders. I tried to make her look at me. For it would not do for us to go all to pieces—we must face this thing.
“Heloise, dear—you are making me say it, but you knew the problem is there. You have not forgotten what those three great singers said?”
“No,” she murmured, “I remember well enough.” But still she would not look up.
“You know what they said... the art of the opera singer is the most exacting thing in the world. There is no place in it for a husband, a home... and children, dear. For these things are exacting, too. It was the three greatest sopranos in the world who said that.”
“Oh, I know all that, Anthony,”—I could not make her lift her eyes,—“but people are so different. There is n't any problem, really. There are only different persons. That's all, Anthony. I could tell you of three other great singers that have husbands, homes and splendid families.... Only one thing bothers me—they all happen to be contraltos. Do you suppose there is any such difference as that between contraltos and sopranos, Anthony?”
Now she looked up. That smile was still hovering about her eyes and the corners of her mouth. But when I drew her dear head against my shoulder and pressed my lips to her forehead, it faded.
I kissed her eyes, slowly, one after the other.