Greenleaf was soon engaged in conversation with Mrs. Sandford. She had too much delicacy to flatter him upon his singing, but naturally turned the current towards his art. Without depreciating his efforts or the example of deservedly eminent American painters, she spoke with more emphasis of the acknowledged masters; and as she dwelt with unaffected enthusiasm upon the delight she had received from their immortal works, his old desire to visit Europe came upon him with redoubled force. There was a calm strength in her thoughts and manner that moved him strangely. He saw in a new light his thoughtless devotion to pleasure, and especially the foolish fascination into which he had been led by a woman whom he could not marry and ought not to love. Mrs. Sandford did not exhort, nor even advise; least of all did she allude to her sister-in-law. Hers was only the influence of truth,—of broad ideas of life and its noblest ends, presented with simplicity and a womanly tact above all art. It seemed to Greenleaf the voice of an angel that he heard, so promptly did his conscience respond. He listened with heightening color and tense nerves; the delirious languor of amatory music, and the delirium he had felt while under the spell of Marcia's beauty, passed away. It seemed to him that he was lifted into a higher plane, whence he saw before him the straight path of duty, leading away from the tempting gardens of pleasure,—where he recognized immutable principles, and became conscious that his true affinities were not with those who came in contact only with his sensuous nature. He had never understood himself until now.
A long meditation, the reader thinks; but, in reality, it was only an electric current, awakening a series of related thoughts; as a flash of lightning at night illumines at once a crowd of objects in a landscape, which the mind perceives, but cannot follow in detail.
When, at length, Greenleaf looked up, he was astonished to find the room silent, and himself with his companion in the focus of all eyes. Marcia looked on with a curiosity in which there was perhaps a shade of apprehension. Easelmann relieved the momentary embarrassment by walking towards his friend, with a meaning glance, and taking a seat near Mrs. Sandford.
"I can't allow this," said Easelmann. "You have had your share of Mrs. Sandford's time. It is my turn. Besides, you will forget it all when you cross the room."
"Trust me, I shall never forget," said Greenleaf, with a marked emphasis, and a grateful look towards the lovely widow.
"What's this? What's this?" said Easelmann, rapidly. "Insatiate trifler, could not one suffice?"
"Oh, we understand each other, perfectly," said Mrs. Sandford, in a placid tone.
"You do, eh? I should have interrupted you sooner. It might have saved my peace of mind, and perhaps relieved some other anxieties I have witnessed. But go, now!" Greenleaf turned away with a smile.
Marcia at once proposed a duet to conclude the entertainment, —Rossini's Mira bianca luna,—a piece for which she had reserved her force, and in which she could display the best qualities of her voice and style. Greenleaf had a high and pure tenor voice; he exerted himself to support her, and with some success; the duet was a fitting close to a delightful and informal concert. But he was thoroughly sobered; the effects he produced were from cool deliberation, rather than the outbursts of an enthusiastic temper. Earlier in the evening the tones and the glances of his companion would have sent fiery thrills along his nerves and lifted him above all self-control.
In the buzz of voices that followed, Marcia commenced a lively colloquy with Greenleaf, as though she desired to leave him under the impressions with which the evening commenced. The amusements of summer were discussed, the merits of watering-places and other fashionable resorts, when Greenleaf accidentally mentioned that he and Easelmann were going presently to Nahant.