AT THE GOLDEN SUN.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1831, 10 April 1907, Page 5

AT THE GOLDEN SUN.

(By Mary B. Mullet.)

That must be midnight striking, though Stuart’s smug-faced little French clock will probably insist that it is the middle of the afternoon. It’s too flighty to tell the time of day, much les3 the time of night. Nine—ten—eleven —twelve. My compliments on this unexpected accuracy! Now, if you could manage to strike a light as well as the hour, I should appreciate the favour. It’s not exactly hilarious, stumbling around in a half strange place—a studio at that. For general outdoorishness. commend me to a studio. If I lived in one very long, I’d expect to comb stars out of my hair some fine morning. A light! That’s better. And a pipe! Better still. Almost wish, though, that I had insisted on going to the hotel, instead of waiting for Stuart here. I’m enough upset without having to smoke any of these ungodly foreign mixtures. Ten years in Paris have corrupted Stuart’s judgment of tobacco—though he does seem to have learned a thing or two about girls.

I wonder what he will think he has to tell me—me, who could tell, the story better than he can—up to a certain point. He’s sure to come home all cf a tremble; but I doubt' if his hand fumbles the door worse than mine did. He has had his experience. and I have had mine. He has won a girl’s heart; I’ve seen it.

I wonder if she will realise—but she does! Somehow, that's the gripping part of it. She knows as well as I do that the placidly pretty Miss Norton of this afternoon, singing her cool little songs to the entirely appropriate accompaniment of the clinking teacups, is dead. Or, no! I don’t suppose she is dead. That girl still exists in the one who will lie awake to-night —and look back —and look forward. The girl of this afternoon was like—well, not even like"a bud; just the green calyx of a bud. Pretty, in its way, but hard, for all that, and shut as tight on what it holds as a fist on gold. She was pretty, though—the sort of prettiness certain days have; bright and sparkling and clean—clean —clean! Not a soft haze anywhere. Not a cloud, not a shadow. Not any of the still heat, either, that melts all the bars you have laboriously put up about your primal instincts. Not even one of the exhilarating, winy days that make your heart sing. Just a bright, cold, wintry morning, setting your ears tingling instead of your heart.

But she was pretty. She made every other girl there look shop-worn. A rather interesting lot of girls, too, I fancy. Some of them rather queerish about the head. Outside, I mean. Inside, too, perhaps. I should think hanging around these studios would -affect tanybody. It isn’t natural, 'this having : a floor under your feet, ‘four walls shutting you in, hut the -sky eternally peering at you overhead. It isn’t natural. Perhaps the fact that the disordering influence comes from above accounts for their hair. Stuart says that, as a rule, these American girls, studying art in Paris, are as irreproachable as if they were taking domestic science at Chautauqua. I suppose .they put all possible effervescence into one wildly ebullient coiffure, and then rest calm and cold under all other temptations. Cold ? JECumphi I wonder if Stuart ■will resist ihe temptation to tell nur l ?was wrong this afternoon about the coldness of at least one girl. How smoothly he managed that whole scheme, anyway —if it was a •scheme 1 Maybe I flattered myself undtfly] but I thought afterwards that ■he cmight have wanted me to see Miss Norton, unbiased by the knowledge tKat;he cared for her. Wanted to get 6no) of-. the impressionistic views he’s always; doddering about. Well, if he did, fate lined 3ip with nsua,l, said he was going, over there to see his sweetheart, instead of pretending

that he wanted me eto see the place? “You’ve been so curious about the American girls in the Latin Quarter,’ he said, “that I’m going to take you where you can study the species to your heart’s content. Every afternoon they serve tea ever at the American Girls’ dub. Some uncommonly sensible woman pays for the thing year in and year out, I think; and any American girl in Paris may go there, and may invite a friend or two as well. I’ve a standing invitation, and though I don’t often go, it’s a flattering experience when I do. Some of the students seem to have a pleasing hallucination about my being a sort of a And they defer to me, and kowtow to me, till I could patronise any old master that ever sucked a brush-handle.”

“And you want me to go and witness the spectacle?” I said. “No, thank you. You might finish by patronising me.” “But you must go!” he insisted. “You’ve been wondering how an unprotected American girl can live in Paris without lamentably degenarating. I don’t pretend to tell you liow they do it, but if you will come over to the Girls’ Club, I can prove to you that it is done.”

In the state of his feelings for Miss Norton, I suppose my speculations about American girls in Paris had touched him rather too closely. Well, he took a good way of answering me —though he was as little satisfied with my second theory as he had been with my first. It was a new experience for me, in more wavs than one. I thought that a New York man about town was nroof against any chance of being disconcerted. But those young women with their freemasonry of interests and experiences—to both of which I was a perfect stranger—their art lingo, which was almost an unknown tongue to me, and their loose hair and tight morals, soon had me out of my depth; or, at least, in a new element.

Not quite at first, though. Stuart says I classify people as if they were insects, but that my system is _ all wrong; that I have such specifications as: Ants—colour, black; length, onequarter inch; diet, mixed. Then everything that is black, a quarter of an inch long, and eats different things, I call an ant. Perhaps lie is right. To-day's little drama makes me wonder.

I wasn’t troubled by any doubts this afternoon, though. I certainly felt competent to classify every mother’s daughter of them, not by any means excepting Miss Norton, in the middle of her song, and bowing to Stuart as casually as she would have turned a sheet of music. At least, if she did feel any emotion, it wasn’t visible.

It wasn’t simply her appearance; though I have always said that grey eyes, in a woman, were a sign of superabundant grey matter behind them. Another of my inadequate classifications, I suppose. And yet these grey-eyed girls are apt to be clear-headed and cool-hearted. I’ve watched thorn.

I might have kept on watching without learning anything different if fortune had not favoured me for once, and let mo see a drama of the sort to which she generally admits only the actors. If Miss Norton hadn’t been singing, I might not have been so sure, grey eyes or no grey eyes. But I thought a woman couldn’t sing three lines without betraying himself to me. And she sang three verses! Three verses of Schubert. They might as well have been the multiplication-table. A sweet voice; as clear —and as cool and shadowless —as her eyes. Voice and eyes and that mass of soft, fair hair. Not even her hair ruffled. The sort of head you might see bowed at, St. Thomas’s any Sunday, even out of Lent. Well, I can’t deny that I was mistaken, but Jove! I can’t even now reconcile the girl of this afternoon with the one I saw to-night. “Who is the distractingly pretty girl at the piano?” I asked Stuart. I hope that' “distractingly pretty” was a sugar-coating for my subsequent remarks. “That is Miss Norton,” he bubbled, and I suppose I ought to have guessed the state of affairs, but I was too busy with my theories. There were two or three rooms, all pretty well filled, and I looked around

with a good deal of curiosity. It interested me. Young men with flowing ties—and hair the same; young men with pointed beards; and boys _ too young for much more than luxuriant hopes of arriving *at the same distinction. Young women with prophetic eyes and pasty skins. Stuart says they don’t eat enough, nor of the right sort. They weren’t all like that. Some of them were as pink and white as any healthy American girl. And there were some with no more prophecy in their eyes than there is in a calendar.

Even the prophetic eyes left you cold. At least, they didn’t touch me. Their dreams were ambitious; their enthusiasms merely technical. There was one girl who glowed with a positive fire when she talked about that picture of a woman-cat, by Manet, in the Luxembourg. But I soon found she was holding forth about the picture merely as a study in values, not as a revelation of human character — though perhaps Manet’s woman isn’t altogether human. What the girl cared for was something about the bit of black ribbon on the woman’s neck, the different black of the servant behind her, and this, that, and the other tone of white. A study in values ? A study in the devil!—begging his pardon. When I got hold of Stuart again, I told him I had solved the problem.

“You were right,” I said. “I don’t admit yet that all.the American girls over here are the same, and I still insist that Paris is a fiery furnace to put them into. But I see that at least some of them go through it unscathed. The reason, though, is that their natures are proof even against the furnace fires of French passion—the only kind of furnace fires the blooming country knows anything about. Why, these girls have icicles for hearts!”

‘'lcicles will melt when —hot potatoes won’t!” Stuart retorted.

“But wouldn’t you rather have an unmolted hot potato than ” I began. “Oh!” Stuart interrupted; “go off in a corner and juggle your fool metaphors by yourself! Metaphor is like a magician’s silk hat. You can find in it anything you want, from paperflowers to live rabbits. You can cook an omelet in it, or hatch a duck. But you won’t find the secret of a girl’s heart in it.’’ Of course, I ought to have seen that his defence was particular, not general. But I was in the saddle, and I suppose I was a hit nettled, too. At any rate, I made a flying leap straight at destruction.

“You're a painter,” I said, “and von look at faces, while I look at what is behind them. Take Miss Norton, for instance. You see her colouring and her features, which are ”

“We won’t discuss Miss Norton, please, old fellow,” Stuart interrupted.

T wish he had waited a minute. I was going to say, “which are exquisite.” That would have let us both down a bit easier. As it was, I had hard work to pick my wits up and at. tempt a congratulation. “Confound you, Stuart!” I said. “Why did you let me go on and'make such an ass of myself? Miss Norton—as I was going to say—is as pretty as a picture. Prettier than any of you fellows can paint! And as for her heart, I was very foolish to think that, because she doesn’t wear it on her sleeve, she doesn’t have one in its proper place—which, of course, is in your keeping.” I tried to speak .as if I thought Miss Norton and a grande passion for Stuart were companions for life, but I didn’t believe a word of it. I had a sneaking pity for him, and I couldn't help being rather proud of my own perspicuity when he said: ‘‘You misunderstand me. Miss Norton doesn’t agree with you—and me —about the proper place for her heart. But she has one. Don’t make any mistake about that. And if I could win it, I should think myself the luckiest man in the world.”

I had my own opinion on that subject, but I had substituted discretion for theories, so I beamed benevolently upon him. “Then she’s only waiting for the psychological moment to come,” I said. “The Stuarts were always winners in love.”

He was as serious as an ostrich, and shook his head dismally, but, as soon as the song was over, introduced me to Miss Norton.

I was glad they fixed up the dinner with Carhart and his wife. 1 wanted to study Miss Norton a bit more, and see if I could come round at all to Stuart’s way of thinking. He’s a good old cliap; too fine a fellow to have his doll stuffed with sawdust. But I certainly thought it was going to be, even after I had watched Miss Norton through seven courses. She was bright and she was friendly, and she was enthusiastic -enough; but there was a baffling quality about it all. If the talk was about pictures, she was interested only with the technique; though perhaps that wa3 natural, for an art student among

artists. I didn’t count. But it was the same if the talkwaai about books. She didn’t seem to take account of anything but the style. And if it was of people, she somehow failed to go below just what they said and did. By the time we had got to coffee, I was sure she was an immensely clever girl, but —pshaw! I’d ;as soon have married a nice, companionable set of books in a Cobden-Sanderson binding. When it was decided that we should go to the Soleil d’Or, she seemed, to like the .idea, but she was as impersonal about that as she had been about everything else. Carhart and Stuart ha'd been there, but it was a new experience for the rest of us. A queer place to he called “The Golden Sun”! Not much more than a cellar; a floored cellar, to be sure, plastered and ceiled and huddled full of wire tables and chairs. But so low that when the poets who recited their own sonnets, and the musicians who played their own compositions, stood on a little scrap of a platforaa, their heads were as close to the ceiling as they were, all the time, to the clouds.

As we went through the cafe overhead, to the steep little stairway that plunged almost straight down to this basement. Stuart pointed out the corner where poor old Verlaine used to drink and dream whenever he was not in La Salpetriere.

The place was pretty full when we got down there, so that Miss Norton and I were at one table, the Carharts at another in front of us, while Stuart had to find a place just around a jog in the room. I felt a little awkward and apologetic at first at having Miss Norton with me, but I soon decided that she didn’t care much one way or the other. I wonder if she did care. I wonder if she was simply refusing to recognise the depths of her own nature, because they were vague and abysmal. Perhaps she was afraid of them and ignored them—or tried to—as pitfalls to be avoided by every nice girl who loves light-rather than darkness. Well, I suppose Stuart will know one of these days—and I won’t —and it’s none of my business, anyway. A cat may look at a king, hut a man has no right to look, unhidden, into a girl’s soul. Another fine theory; but circumstances, which alter cases, wipe out theories. The Golden Sun was a circumstance neither Miss Norton nor I had counted on. It flashed a rather blinding illumination iii±p the carefully ignored depths of her nature. She had to see them. And I—well, I did look, whether I had to or not. What a creature that Frenchwoman was! She and Miss Norton could have stretched out their hands and touched each other, they sat so close together; and yet they seemed as far apart in nature as if they were not made of the same flesh and blood. Miss Norton’s fairness and delicacy and aloofness were a startling contrast to that woman —swarthy, passionate, her soul looking out of her eyes with an unreserve which was half revolting, half fascinating. Evidently she did not know that Stuart came in with us. I don’t think she had ever seen him before the violinist played. I had noticed her. She sat resting her head against the wall behind her, her dark eyes dull and brooding, not paying much, attention to the young men around her, or to those who had been spouting their verses from tlie platform.

I don’t know whether she had ever met Stuart before or not. I don’t believe so. I think it was merely that the music stirred her, and * that Stuart’s head was in a line with her eyes, when they looked up, seeking whom they might devour. With that woman’s emperament nothing more was necessary. She was tinder. The music and Stuart’s face struck the spark. There was fire enough then and to spare; fire enough to burn the recollection of her into my memory as well, I imagine, as into Miss Norton’s. I couldn’t quite make out Stuart. Whenever I moved so that I could catch a glimpse of him, he was staring straight at the low ceiling, his head back against the wall. I suppose he was thinking of Miss Norton. Love is a strong tide. Throw an emotion into it and it is swept with the flood. You must wait till the ebb before you can expect it to drift to some other shore. Stuart’s love andoubtedly was setting too strongly toward Miss Norton to let any of his feelings find another point to break on.

I shall - go again to the Golden Sun on the chance of hearing that woman sing. A sireii’s song, perhaps ; but, yo gods! change from the chattering of magpies. When she went up to the platform there was some applause, but .almost immediately .it died away into a curious hushed expectancy. She didn’t really have much of a voice, as ,a voice; but when she l»ilf sang, half spoke, the lines, with the violin as an accompaniment, it was like .a thread of flame through you. I don’t think I should have remembered that there wak such a person

in existence as Miss Norton, if things had been different. But when I found that it was Stuart at whom the woman looked and sang, I stole a glance at the girl. Evidently she hadn’t yet made the discovery I had. She seemed much as she had, except that there was something troubled in her eyes. It was only a shadow, but there hadn’t been even a shadow be-

fore. The woman went on singing, in

that wonderful voice—which was not bo much a voice as it was fire, tears, kisses ; a respectable portion of heaven and an unrespectable portion of hell.

I watched Miss Norton without letting her know it. Her _eyes were darkening, the pupil widening as if it were a door being slowly forced open. Suddenly she leaned forward so

that she could see at whom the woman was singing. I held my breath

then, but she only looked back again with a little puzzled frown. At the end of the song there was a moment’s silence, then a storm of applause which threatened to bring the low ceiling down on our heads.

The woman sang -again; the most pleadingly tender thing this time. Still they would not let her stop, and if there is a note of love that she did not sound, then I’ve never even dreamed it. Through it all she kept her eyes on Stuart; the sort of look which was so much like a physical touch that it Beemed impossible he should not feel it as he would have felt the touch of

her hand or of her lips. I moved - Once in awhile so as to get a glimpse of him; but he sat with his side toward the platfrom, and was always staring at the ceiling. • Miss Norton, too, looked toward

him once or twice, though I think she tried hot to. Finally she sat quite still, her fingers twisted together, the colour gone from her cheeks, watching the woman as fixedly as the woman, in her turn, watched Btuart. I was a little bit revolted at first. I said to myself: “Oh, yes, it would be the same with any other china doll! It can’t burn with a flame of its own. All it can do is to give back a flickering reflection of some fire outside of itself.”

Another of my accommodating metaphors. But Stuart was right. Metaphor didn’t give me the clue to what was happening in Miss Norton’s heart. I dare say there was some reflection in it, but there was a good deal more than that. Jealousy, for one thing, I believe. But there was more than that. Maybe she had been coming to it for a long time; studying French with her pretty ears pricked up to detect the subtleties of the accent vrai, but deaf to what was stirring in her heart. .

v She’s not the introspective sort. She’s not given to analysing emotions. That was plain. And I think that must be the explanation of it. She wasn’t the reflection of the French woman’s emotions. It was the other way around. It came home to her that the French woman was reflecting Helen Norton’s emotions —the ones she was capable of, at least. It needed an actual voice, speaking to her very ears, to tell her what love meant to her.

' It was a tolerably complete exposition of it that the French woman gave us. The accent a little strong on the passion part; but not dwelling there altogether. She rah very nearly the whole gamut before she came slowly back to her place to Miss Noiton.

The woman sat a trifle farther forward than we did, and when she leaned back against the wall she looked straight at Stuart, though he would have had to turn his head to

see her. It seems to me he must have felt her eyes on him before long. . I ; Can’t explain his unconsciousness—if he ■ was unconscious—-unless it was that he fitted the singing to hir- own and they; absoi bed ' kim. But the woman seemed bent on comJpolling him to' look at her, and it . seems to me she ;prust‘ have succcded •*iVeiy'BOon#‘.•? '.V.-': ' V,

It was a situation which threatened to become more and more awkward. If Miss Norton hadn’t done what she did, the moment she did, I should have made some excuse for speaking to Stuart and getting him to change places with me. A blundering move, but it would have let the French woman know that he was with our party. I did not imagine that Miss Norton could devise anything, unless it might be some commonplace pretence of being faint. And I believed she had a sort of pride which would make her refuse to show the white feather by escaping that way.

I’m indlined to think she acted hs she did motives. Her jealousy may have been stirred, lot that perhaps was the least . f her feelings, since Stuart seemed perfey:Jy unconscious of the woman's saving singled him out. More probably the woman’s attitude seemed to Miss Norton’s awakened love an unwarrantable intrusion, an unpleasant i.orfc of competition, forced on her by an unexpected and unworthy rival. But I believe there was something else in her mind; something like gratitude, and somethirg like consideration, too. Under the / circumstances, nothing exactly cheering awaited the rash intruder between herself and Stuart. If the woman succeeded in forcing his notice, it could only mean a rebuff for her; and while she might not have minded that, except as a frosty touch to her pride, I believe the thought of it did hurt Miss Norton.

At least it seemed to me there was something like that in her face when she leaned forward. I suppose I should have tried to stop her if I had realised what she was going to do. Yes, and have been a fool for my pains. After all, intakes a woman to read

a woman. Though those two—well, I think I’ll have to give up trying to classify human insects. The French gave a little start, and looked around when Miss Norton touched her arm. It seems as if Stuart must have felt cold when she turned her eyes from him. The violinist was playing again; trying to make his violin sing as the woman had—and not succeeding. Miss Norton spoke so, low that certainly no one heard her but the woman and me: “Ne faites pas ca. II est a moi/’ Her tone wa§u’t exactly gentle, nor pleading, nor defiant, nor dignified; but it was all of them and more. There was a quiet sort of fellowship in it, as if she said: “I know you will recognise and allow my rights. Don’t do that. He belongs to me.” They looked straight into each other’s eyes for a moment. Then the woman bent close to Miss Norton. “He belongs to you?” “He belongs to me,” Miss Norton repeated, the colour creeping into her face. “Tres bien!” said the woman. “And you ?” The colour came in a flood then, and Miss Norton hesitated. Still she looked at the woman, but it was as if she were looking into her own self. And something grew in her face —flowered in it, under my very eyes! For I did look. , „ „ “Yes,” she whispered finally. I know, for she nodded her headThe woman’s eyes changed wonderfully. -They were positively wistful for the fraction of af second; then she smiled as if she were relinquishing nothing more important than a seat for which somebody else held the coupon. ' ■' ' ' • ‘/ : “A : la bonne heure!” she', said, still in a ! low voip’e, but as gailv as if she

had just realised her dearest wish. “I am nothing less than enchanted to wish mademoiselle joy 1” And with that she was suddenly another woman; listening to the music and soaring sonnets; applauding extravagantly; laughing with the young man near her; finishing her consommation; looking over, through, or; better still, at Stuart with coolly careless eyes. I think Miss Norton wondered what I thought of her speaking to the French woman. She knew that neither Stuart nor the Carharts had seen the incident, but I could feel that she looked at me, half timidly, half defiantly. I assumed so absorbing an interest in the violinist, however, that I positively started when she spoke to me. Did I not think the place very interesting ?

I' thought the place very interesting. , , . Weren’t some of the drawings clever? . * Very clever j especially that charcoal head where the crack in the plastering had been allowed to play the role of a Roman nose.

She seemed to be reassured, and promptly slipped back to her own thoughts, though they ivere somewhat disturbing, I could see, by the startling completeness of the French woman’s change of manner. Suddenly Stuart came around to our table. “You’re pale,” he said to Miss Norton. “Aren't you tired? The air is bad, anyway. Why not all go back to Carhart’s, instead of slowly asphyxiating down here?” I confess that I was surprised that Miss Norton kept close to me when we got up to the street. We were all going to walk, for the sake of the

fresh air; and I, making the mistake, I suppose, of judging a girl by myself, thought she would make sure of Stuart for her companion. Still, I liked her the better for avoiding a promenade a deux with him just then, and she and I walked to the Carhart’s together. We all went out to the dining-room at first, but I left the rest there while Mrs Carhart skirmished for something to eat, and betook myself to the studio. It must be that they’re getting an influence over me, too. If there’s a studio around, I go mooning off toward it. So I drifted into Carhart’s, and was standing there in the dark, looking up at the stars and feeling as if I’d gone walking without my hat, when Miss Norton came into the next room and sat down at the piano. There was a rose-shaded lamp there, but even in that light I could see that she was pale. She touched the keys, then stopped, as if she lacked the courage to go on. But she could see—so could I —through the open door and along the corridor to the diningroom, where Stuart was standing alone. At least, he seemed to be alone. I suppose Carhart had joined his wife on the skirmish-line. Miss Norton looked at Stuart a moment ; then she began that song the French woman sang—the pleadingly tender one. Evidently she knew it. If I could hear such singing—but I might as well go and listen to the French woman! If I should wait Until I was as deaf as the manikin over there, I should never again hear a woman sing as Miss Norton did. Fate let me see this play out; but it won’t happen again. And as for anyone 'singing to me that way—well, because Stuart’s magpie proved to be a nightingale, it isn’t to be expected that all magpies are translatable. ' . -Kf!

Her singing wasn’t a mere echo of the French woman’s. I couldn’t have forgiven that. It was hbr own heart she put into it; a tremulous but unequivocating avowal.

Stuart had been smoking and idly examining a picture; but when she began, he turned quickly, then stood listening as if he feared to miss a note, for she sang in a low voice. Only one verse; (then her hands dropped from the keys and she watched Stuart. As soon as he realised that she was not going on, he threw his cigar away and came quickly along the corridor. That seemed to frighten the girl, and she sprang up as if she meant to escape. But, before she had gone more than a few steps, Stuart was in the room, and was speaking her. name. When she buried her face in her hands, however, and shrank back, lie stopped short. Of course, it was respectful and delicate and all that, but it was a terribly critical moment for anything like hesitation, and I had an idea that my little romance would

go to pieces before my eyes when he began stammering and apologising. “I beg your pardon, Helen! You did not mean—you did not want me to hear —or, at least, to think ” I ground my teeth. Couldn’t he see that she had given him his chance? He might as well accuse her of a mistake, in having sung as she had, as to accuse himself for having heard her. I thought it was all over. But I was wrong again. The bully little girl braced right up. I could have hugged her myself. “Yes, I did!” she said. “I did want you to hear—and I did want you to think—whatever you want to/’ Well, I fancy she was properly hugged, even if I couldn’t attend to it.

By the mercy of Providence, who must have been watching me through the skylight, and have seen my predicament, I found a door into the hall, and was going through the motions of reading in the salon when I was summoned to the dining-room. Radiant? It’s a wonder Carhart couldn’t see what a chance he had to save candles. He’s a pretty blind sort of a stick, though, even if he is an artist. Now, Mrs Carhart can see about as far as the next one, and Here comes Stuart! Treading on air—and stumbling on the top step. Hand strong as steel—but door-knob extremely wobbly. There! lie’s got it open.

“Hello, you confounded, self-satis-fied, fool-for-luck dog, you! Which will you have first, apologies or congratulations ?”