… under music …

OT SUCH A GOOD IDEA, DENNIS thought, listening to music when you had things on your mind. The music simply drove the worry out in the open, made it race around the brain to varying tempos, induced the saddest of endings. During the Debussy he saw Effie drowning herself because the futility of her life had been pointed out to her by her dearest friend, Dennis Orphen. He reached for her hand and held it tightly, rings cutting his palm, so that if during the Ravel she tried to float gently and sadly up to heaven like Little Eva as the music urged everyone to do, he could hold her down. He stole a look at her face to see if, as she had threatened, she was really sniffling, but her profile was calmly musical, quite proper, quite controlled. He thought again of what her brief connection with Callingham had done for her—given her a confident way of holding her head, a consciousness of her public, so to speak, and this sweet arrogance affected people, even crowds—“Who is she? She must be somebody”—and even when the illustrious name was not recognized as it seldom was in musical circles it was thereafter remembered because it must be fine indeed to bestow such dignity on the wearer.

He wished, though, that some day he could persuade her to a definitely stylish outfit so that she would look less a personage and more a person. Dressed by Hawes or Bergdorf she would be a devilish sight more attractive than that scrawny little Kansas girl Andy was now with. But no, she must wear capes and flowing sleeves, Russian jewelry, Cossack belts on velvet smocks, costumes deserving an escort with a black beard, black Homburg hat, opera cape, ribbons of honor and a tiny medal or two twinkling on the lapel. Come to think of it, Alfonso of Spain was the man for her, he thought, like a producer doing type-casting. Wonder if we could get hold of old Alfonso? Call up Packards, Browns, all the agents—what?—in Hollywood? Take a wire to M.G.M. Studios. Dear Alfonso, would you consider a return to stage in role particularly adapted—

Effie drew her hand away from his suddenly and when he lifted his eyebrows—

“I don’t like my hand held just because somebody’s thrilled over music or a sunset,” she whispered.

“You want it to be sheer lust, eh?” he accused her, quite shocked.

Gieseking, the pianist, looked too big to be bullying such delicate melodies, he thought, though he tried to be very gentle with them. He crouched over the piano with his big hands cupping the keys as if a mouse might peep out of his fist once he relaxed. Softly his fingers in ten little bedroom slippers tiptoed up and down Schumann, music became so diminished under his microscope, made so tiny and perfect that it could be neatly placed in a baby’s ear.

“He plays as if the piano was his valentine,” Effie said as they walked down Seventh to her apartment, “and little white birdies with tiny envelopes marked ‘I love you’ might come twittering out any minute.”

Little white messages, yes, flying across oceans, over green Spain, pink Alps, lavender Saar, fluttering over Persian temples, high over missionary-colored China, into the longest bar in the world, paging Mr. Callingham, is it true he’s in Shanghai, was his picture in yesterday’s News beaming out of aviation hood or was that only Malraux or the merest Halliburton?

Effie’s apartment was the top floor of an old Chelsea private house because she—or was it Andy?—liked neighborhoods with a history, she liked to feel that Lillie Langtry had often passed, perhaps even entered this house, that H. C. Bunner, Clement Moore, O. Henry, Poe, anybody once glamorous, might have lived here or next door. Dennis thought, too, she selected her rooms always for their quietness and suitability to a writer, as though, supposing Andy did come back to live with her, he wouldn’t be displeased with her home. In the doorway Dennis hesitated, for Effie made no move to invite him in but started fussing with the fireplace silently.

“Look here, Effie, you don’t mind that book, really? You know it has nothing to do with you. You may have started the idea off in my head, of course, but the rest is all my gorgeous imagination. Give me credit for originality, please.”

“Of course, darling. You don’t mind if I hide for a few days after the book comes out, do you? I mean—you know—I hate people finding out that Andy deserted me, that’s all. I’d rather they just went on thinking we—well—were temporarily away from each other.”

Dennis stared at her in absolute bewilderment. She actually thought people didn’t know! Or did she?

“Is that all?” he blurted out in amazement. “Why everyone’s always known that he walked out on you, if that’s all that worries you about the book. Hell, Effie, that’s no news to anybody!”

Now it was too late. Now there was nothing more to be said. This blow was final. Effie, quite pale, sat down abruptly on the desk chair, staring at him blankly. He’d done it now, if he hadn’t before.

“I’ll run along,” he said, angry at the whole mess.

He walked hurriedly down the stairs, his cane, as always, clattering down ahead of him. Now he’d done it, now he’d said it, now he’d fixed it, but how could one dream what fantastic lies people’s egos fed on? Here was Effie, a balanced, intelligent woman nourished for years on the pretense that people believed her solitude was accidental circumstance, not her husband’s own selfish choice. What made a woman like Effie so blind, or was it perhaps not rosy veils but healing bandages she wore, and was it not tonic but ruin to destroy them? Behind them what did Effie really think, did she love Andy truly all these years or was that loyalty, did she hurt when she saw his name or did she swell with possessive pride? He wondered if now she was up there—yes, she probably was—flung down on the black sateen-covered couch under the Van Gogh print; or no, she was staring into the fire not sad over Andy, but storing bitter, vengeful thoughts against Dennis, each resentful memory of tonight a fresh stone for Andy’s monument, loyalty to him enhanced by the detractor’s sarcasm, words erased by anger at the speaker … or perhaps this was only what he would feel and do in her situation and instead was she—