Ravel casually bent over and picked up the book. He replaced it on the shelf in the most matter-of-fact and easy manner, while Melissa, her face red, clutched the green velvet peignoir tightly about her, conscious of her casual dress, her disheveled hair and ink-stained hands.
Ignoring her confusion, Ravel said gravely: “I am so glad you came down, Mrs. Dunham. I was having a very tedious hour here, alone.”
“I didn’t know you were here, or I should not have come,” replied Melissa bluntly. Then she stammered: “Oh, no, I did not mean that as it sounds! I mean, I’d not have disturbed you!”
“On the contrary,” replied Ravel, with quiet enthusiasm, “you have relieved my tedium. You see, I have a headache tonight, and was in no mood for festivities. Very distrait. Not ill enough to retire, not well enough to cavort, especially when the temperature is so unfriendly outside. I suppose you find yourself in the same case?”
“Well, yes,” answered Melissa slowly. “Perhaps not exactly. I just felt that no one cared whether I went or not, and, then, I am always making the most dreadful mistakes.”
Ravel was offering her a leather chair near the fire and, forgetting her state of dress, she sat down mechanically. The haggard look began to recede from her face. But Ravel knew he must move delicately. He began to scan the books on the shelves, gave a rueful smile, shook his head. “I confess I find nothing worth while or of interest to me here,” he said, pretending that he had not heard Melissa’s last remark. “I was reading a criticism of Mr. Dickens only recently, by a very famous and serious New York critic who openly declared that Mr. Dickens was not a writer but only a vulgar story-teller. No reality in his work, no depth. His prolific pen proves that he cannot be counted among those rare souls whom we call geniuses.
“It is is impossible to write a serious book in less than two or three years of long and arduous toil, soul-searching struggle, solemn contemplation and reflection. Mr. Dickens is, therefore, not a writer of any importance to this generation, or to the generations to come. The very prodigality of his works, the constant easy flow, the profusion of his chapters and his involved phrases, the effortless abundance, all betray the mark of the superficial scribbler, the writer of no consequence, the entertainer, whose name will be forgotten with his death, if not before.” Ravel turned to Melissa. “That is the judgment of reputable critics. I quote them practically verbatim, Mrs. Dunham.”
His remarks had given Melissa time to forget her confusion and dismay and to take her self-engrossed mind from her own problems. Before Ravel had half finished, she had forgotten herself and was listening with that absorbed seriousness so characteristic of her.
Ravel, a very subtle man, understood Melissa with extraordinary acuteness. The way to that beleaguered heart, that cold hard innocence, was not through physical channels but through the bookish and intellectual mind, which was at once so strong in her and so ingenuous. He believed that her ice-bound emotions could be released by abstract words only, that she was immune to human temptations as other women knew them.
Melissa considered what he had said, sitting primly and stiffly on the edge of her chair, the green velvet making her long throat seductively white and pure. It also enhanced the fragile gilt of her hair, and threw sea-colored lights into her eyes. Ravel thought he had never seen a woman so tempting, so desirable, so lovely, and his tenderness made his handsome face soft and hushed. He came closer to her, and looked down at her. She studied him thoughtfully, no coquetry in her manner, no coy shrinking or flirtation. He was, to her, a human being who had made it clear that he shared her own, and her father’s, opinions, and was therefore to be trusted. Ravel sighed, half with impatience, half with amusement. He saw that he might roll his limpid eyes, show off his profile and his shoulders, and strike the most classic attitudes, yet they would not entice or interest Melissa in the least. This both intrigued and exasperated him. Here was a woman who was truly a woman, with the features, the breasts, the hair, the throat, the curves of an adorable female, yet anyone less female he had never seen in his life.
Ravel, in his eloquent and soothing voice, continued for a few moments to expound on the despicable Dickens and Thackeray, then he said: “Dear Mrs. Dunham, I am de lighted to have the opportunity tonight of telling you of my profound admiration and reverence for your father’s work. Books of authentic genius. Documents of a superior and immortal mind.”
Immediately, Melissa became faintly animated, and she smiled, showing the beautiful even whiteness of her teeth. He had never seen her smile before and he was struck by its shy, pure charm, its open and virginal quality. Fascinated, he came even closer to her. Yes, this was certainly Eurydice; lines of his projected poem rushed suddenly into his mind, perfectly formed and faultless.
She did not thank him conventionally for his kind opinion of her father, for she took it for granted that any man of sensibility and learning would have this opinion as a matter of course. But she said, to his great confusion: “What did you think of the third volume, Mr. Littlefield? There was some controversy about that, between Papa and—and Geoffrey.”
Ravel’s sharp ear caught the sudden low dropping of her voice as she spoke her husband’s name, but he could not interpret it. Besides, he was embarrassed. He had never read any of Charles’ books, for the simple reason that he had never heard of them. But he could not withdraw now, so he said, with reverent enthusiasm: “Absolutely perfect, dear Mrs. Dunham! But not to be compared, even in perfection, with the fourth.” He fervently prayed that there had been a fourth. When he saw Melissa nod gravely, he sighed with profound relief.
“What was the controversy about the third?” he asked hastily, to forestall any insistence by Melissa that he enlarge upon the comparison, with details.
“Geoffrey thought the volume too—too scholarly,” said Melissa, censoriously. “I did not concur, though Papa listened. Papa did not agree that his chapter on Aristophanes demanded copious quotations from the plays, for Papa believed that the reading public would be misled by the apparent frivolousness of some of them. It was Papa’s belief that only the true scholar knew that the plays were really not comedies at all but subtle tragedies full of despair and suffering. The average reader would not know that, or even the average scholar, and Papa did not wish to degrade Aristophanes, nor to popularize the plays for the benefit of the light-minded. He used to say: ‘Imagine Aristophanes in the playhouses of New York! What desecration!’ But Geoffrey insisted that whole acts be incorporated in the book.” Melissa paused, and frowned. “Finally, Papa compromised, but only to the extent of quoting excerpts in the original Greek. Geoffrey was very annoyed, but Papa was adamant.”
For some reason, Ravel wanted to laugh out loud, but he controlled himself. “That certainly would prevent the ‘light-minded’ from understanding,” he said.
Melissa nodded vigorously. “Papa and I worked very carefully on the excerpts. To make sure, we eliminated some of the lighter speeches and moments, even from the original Greek.” She added: “The first edition, of course, contained the plays in the original, but the second edition—and Papa was furious and threatened to withdraw the book from circulation—had an English translation appended. I advised him then to find another publisher.”
“But he remained with Dunham?”
“Yes. I think it was a question of loyalty, on Papa’s part. He had always published through that house.”
Ravel was no fool. He might be pretentious when it came to “literature” and his own special province, “poetry,” but even he had moments of honest clarity when he confessed to himself that he was secretly envious of the success of less “dedicated” writers. So he understood that “Papa’s loyalty” was due to Papa’s knowledge that probably no one else but Dunham would publish his works. And why Dunham did publish them might have been baffling unless one looked hard and long at Melissa. It was an interesting subject.
Ravel sat down near Melissa and gave her that absorbed and profound attention which no other woman had been able to resist. Melissa, too, found it irresistible, but not for the same reasons. She thought it was reverence for her father, and she was moved and deeply grateful. The pain in her heart had almost disappeared. She sat back in her chair, and smiled again at Ravel, that touching smile which had fascinated him before.
Very softly, humbly, he began to tell her of his projected poem about Eurydice. He was so genuinely stirred by this girl, so inspired by her, that whole sonorous stanzas came easily to his mind, and he spoke them aloud. Never had he composed with such fervor, such perfection, such ease. He was at once astounded at himself and enormously excited. At moments, he saw only Melissa’s eyes, and it was to those eyes that he recited. And there were other moments when he cursed inwardly that he did not have pen and paper handy to put down these singing metaphors, these shining stanzas.
But for the time, it was enough that Melisaa was leaning breathlessly toward him, that her hands were clasped fiercely on her knees, that her eyes were glowing, that her whole face was illuminated with delight and passion. Once or twice she cried out as if in ecstasy, and this spurred him on. They were lost in their mutual raptures; they did not remember where they were. The fire fell lower, the lamps flickered. Not a servant came near them. They were not aware that the room was becoming colder, and that the wind of the night was striking heavily against the windows. They were certainly not aware of the fact that Ellis, sent by her indisposed mistress to fetch a book, stood near the threshold, but hidden, and was listening with avid interest.
At length, Ravel was actually exhausted and burned out by the fires of his inspiration. He felt spent but mysteriously peaceful and full of happiness. Long after he had become silent, Melissa could only sit there and look at him with that deep glow in her eyes, a shy smile on her lips. And he returned her look with tender and gratified excitement, for Ravel, at once intimate and remarkably sincere. The young woman’s innocent and uninhibited ardor and emotional admiration enhanced the high esteem in which he always held himself, and if he had not already loved her, he would have loved her now for this ingenuous and completely pure flattery.
Women had flattered him with their love and their adoration of his face and figure and manners. No one, he reflected ruefully for a moment, had ever flattered him for his “mind.” No one, with the exception of fat beldames, ladies (very serious) of more or less certain age and frustrated emotions, and women like Arabella and Mrs. Bertram, who “devoted their lives to art.” But really valuable women—that is, women fair of face and body and luminous with youth—had little knowledge of or use for poetry or for earnest and important literature of any kind. It was his one vain regret. He had always dreamed of a beautiful young woman who would admire him as a poet and not merely as a man with a face.
And now here was such a woman, beautiful and young, who listened to his impromptu poetry in a kind of shining bemusement and joy. She listened to him and looked at him as a man, too. That was evident by the expression of her eyes and the moist vividness of her lips.
It was at this point that something cold blew over Ravel, and he leaned forward the better to see Melissa. That shy smile: Why, it was the smile of a very young girl, a girl of eight or ten or twelve, perhaps. It was not the smile of a woman at all. It was not even the coy smile of green puberty. It was, Ravel reflected with sudden bitterness, “a breastless smile.” Those eyes, too, though deep and intense, were the eyes of a young child unaware of life and men. I would bet, thought Ravel, with increasing bitterness, that she believes babies are found under cabbages, or, if they are not, that it is very bad taste. I haven’t the slightest doubt that she can quote whole acts by Aristophanes, but what that ribald Greek was implying she wouldn’t have the faintest idea.
Ravel thought female ignorance “very damn boring.” Give him the rose-cheeked peach but never the hard-fibered young apple, even if the peach might be somewhat overripe. For a moment, as he studied Melissa, he felt a definite impatience and revulsion. She was not a young girl, yet she was as smooth, and possibly as sour and juiceless, as that apple still hanging on the bough.
His inspection, at a polite distance, of the female body, was always circumspect and without obviousness. But he saw he need not be so delicate with Melissa. Quite cooly, he ran his eyes nimbly over her major points of interest, and now it was only with impatience. Yet he smiled a little. Again, he felt tenderness, and amusement, and a sudden excitement. He was certain that, once having seduced her mind, he could proceed with the seduction of something infinitely more desirable and rewarding.
Melissa was saying, and Ravel came back from his musings with a start: “When your poem is published, Mr. Littlefield, I hope you will send me a copy.”
Ravel said, with heavy emphasis on the bitterness: “I am sure, dear Mrs. Dunham, that no publisher will be interested. I don’t write poems for the empty-headed masses. They would not understand, and would not buy them, and so there would be no profit for the publisher.”
“I know!” exclaimed Melissa, with answering anger. “They prefer to let the true poet, the true writer, starve to death in his garret!”
Ravel had a sudden vision of his very elegant New York establishment, and as he was sometimes a man of reason and humor, as well as a poet, he felt some sheepishness.
“To think that genius should be at the mercy of tradesmen!” cried Melissa.
Ravel suddenly remembered that his father was a cheese-monger, and that it was to good healthy cheese, eaten by masses of people with enjoyment, that he owed his establishment, his leisure, his ladies, his excellent tailor, and the money in his pocket. But, he reflected, if Melissa wished to see the shadow of gaunt emaciation on his cheeks, it would do no harm at all. He sighed heavily, let his hands sag wearily between his broadcloth knees. A very fine diamond ring glittered on one of his white fingers. He was sure that Melissa saw neither the broadcloth nor the ring.
While Melissa stared at him, rapt, seeing him clothed in shabbiness, with the aureole of the “true, serious poet” shining about his well-barbered and exquisitely curling head, Ravel became aware of tinkling bells outside, and voices. He jumped to his feet, and said, in a lowered voice: “Mrs. Dunham, I believe the party is returning.” It would be extremely embarrassing to have his host, and the other guests, enter this library and find him tête-à-tête with his hostess, whose green velvet peignoir had long since parted quite heedlessly and shamelessly, revealing the nightgown underneath.
Melissa, still bemused, stood up. She caught Ravel’s meaning glance, looked down, snatched the robe about her. Without a word of goodbye, she fled out of the room, and he heard her footsteps rushing up the stairs just as the gay company reëntered the house.
When she burst into her own room, she was wild with excitement, her whole mind electric and thrumming. She threw herself into a chair, then stood up and ran to her desk. Her earlier lethargy and dullness had gone. Why, she could write for hours now, without weariness! And all because of her wonderful conversation with Mr. Littlefield, who had so inspired her, so recharged her with energy and pride. He had justified her faith in her father; he had made work meaningful for her again.
While she scribbled furiously, opened and shut books, Ellis, standing panting before her mistress, her hand on her breast, was saying: “Mrs. Shaw, ma’am, she was right on my heels! I thought she’d catch me any moment, she came that fast when the master and the other gentlemen and ladies came in. Flew like the culprit she was.”
Arabella had listened to her maid’s story with avidity and delight, though she had felt a momentary fury and incredulous rage at the thought of Ravel’s engrossment with that impossible zany. But she knew Ravel’s reputation well. It was not possible that he thought Melissa handsome! It was not possible he” was really interested in her. However, to Ravel
Littlefield, a woman was a woman. If only he lived in Mid-field, he might be used to ruin Melissa and thus remove her forever from this house! But every tiniest piece of evidence could be used to destroy her, and Arabella was grateful.
“I have you as a witness, Ellis,” she said, solemnly, and prepared to go to bed in comparative satisfaction.