“The world lets you more or less alone—until you make good. Plenty of time after that to answer back.”
She yawned. It was as near reality as they had gotten, and Bellair, who asked so little, had a glimpse again of the loveliness he had first taken to sea—even to the kiss at the last. She also granted him this:
“You’ve been good to me. I couldn’t have done without you——”
He lay awake long. The house in which he lived was very silent, and it pressed so close to the sea.
9
She was only partly dressed when he came early the next afternoon, but was not long in letting him in. Before any words, he knew that she [Pg 312]had won. A man often has to readjust hastily after the night before. It was so with Bellair now. Her eyes were bright with emotions, but a certain hardness was shining there. It was an effort for her to think of him and be kind. He would have seen it all in another’s story.
His glance kept turning to her bare arm, upon which a hideous vaccination-scar was revealed. They had not thought of her singing in those days.... She had never spoken of her house or her people. It was enough that those days were finished. Bellair could understand that. Her victory was all through her now, satisfying, completing her. She did not love money for its own sake or she would have treated him differently. All her surplus energy, even her passion, was turned to this open passage of her career. Having that, previous props could be kicked away; at least, Bellair felt this.
“Yes, it’s all done. A month of solid rehearsal—then the road. I take the second part, but I hope to come back in the first——”
“You were at your best at the trial?”
“After the first moment or two.... And no more Brandt’s or Castle—no more with the other three—God, how sick I am of them—and of this room!”