“I’m not trying to,” he said, “I get all relaxed and then it comes in and—understands me.”
This answer seemed to impress her hugely.
“That was an infinite answer, Mr. Burt,” she said. And, then, the pianist joined them. He was introduced to Mr. Carvalho. And his remark about the music was repeated, as a gem, word for word. In her mouth, it rang profound. Mr. Carvalho, also, was impressed.
“Probably, you compose?” he asked.
The bringing in of the pianist meant the loss of Mrs. Deering, who left now, and did not return. There had been fully half-an-hour of her company. And the energy which she had aroused propelled him happily through the remainder of the evening. As soon as he was free of Mr. Carvalho, to whom he had absolutely naught to say, and who forsook him as soon as he politely could in order to trail after Mrs. Deering, Quincy crossed into the study where the Professor held an intent group.
At the rear of his room which Quincy, of course, knew, the door had been thrown open into a smaller chamber in which stood the piano. This was Mrs. Deering’s. It was rather closely furnished and fully ornamented. It contrasted strikingly with the naked, larger room. Here they had sat—close to the music. Quincy did not catch many details on this occasion. He recalled a languid couch, littered with barbaric cushions—the modern German school—and bowered by a canopy of orange silk that turned the blue base below it into a liquid marine color. He recalled several cozy arm-chairs wherein guests were ensconced deeply, a tea-table of Japanese wood upon which was a case of cloisonné. Out of it, the guests took cigarettes. This was essentially a setting for the hostess. Her figure, thin and tense and simply draped in a dull violet dress, stood out nobly in this rather lavish mass. Even so, the generous and ample form of the Professor was well marked against the scant rigor of his study.
Quincy found him sprawling in a Windsor fan-backed chair—an old spindle of oak. One heavy leg was thrown over the side, the other curled up on the seat. His evening clothes, which were a bit too tight, had the semblance of broadcloth in the soft haze of the candles. The Professor puffed on a rich, red briar pipe.
“Bring a chair up—right here. There’s room,” he hailed him from a distance.
As he came, Quincy felt a strained pressure about him. These half-dozen men had banded themselves into a unit, designed for the momentary purpose of enjoying the big man that sat among them. Tacitly, unconsciously they had grown together; they felt together; they gave out a voice together. Their vibrance murmured adversely at this intrusion. They were a crowd, conservative, greedy like all crowds. A primitive mist came from them. Behind, in the other room, such groups were also—fashioned for their own delectation, to enjoy their hostess or some other person who had something to give out. Everywhere, Quincy felt these subtle bands, these correlated breathings, these intense concentrations of many energies upon some little temporary point. He was unused to gatherings. He could still understand them. But he could not understand himself. There was no hint in him of why, alone after his half hour with the Professor’s wife, he had gone straight toward the Professor.
In Quincy’s mind remained the print of these two rooms, undulant in their candle-glow, where many persons sat, restrained, vital, softened only by the tremor of the lights, subdued by skin-deep custom; yet eager, all, for acquisition and enjoyment to a degree that rubbed menacingly close to the frailties that hemmed them in. In his mind was the great, sanguine figure of the Professor, dominating, laughing at this little crowded drama; was the sharp, nervous body of Julia Deering, a-field in it, like some splendid animal that furrows. That was all.