第90章

"The most beautiful woman you have ever known? she insisted.Then on the instant added: "Oh, I may be really as plain as a kitchen-maid, but you must believe that I am not.I would rather be ugly and have you think me beautiful, than to be the most beautiful woman in the world and have you think me plain.Tell me--am I not the most beautiful woman you ever saw?""The most beautiful I ever saw," he repeated, fervently."But--Lord, what will you do next?

Whatever put it into your head to get into this rig?""Oh, I don't know.I just took the notion.You've seen me in every one of my gowns.I sent down for this, this morning, just after you left.Curtis, if you hadn't made me love you enough to be your wife, Laura Dearborn would have been a great actress.I feel it in my finger tips.Ah!" she cried, suddenly flinging up her head till the pendants of the crown clashed again."I could have been magnificent.You don't believe it.Listen.This is Athalia--the queen in the Old Testament, you remember.""Hold on," he protested."I thought you were this Theodora person.""I know--but never mind.I am anything I choose.Sit down; listen.It's from Racine's 'Athalie,' and the wicked queen has had this terrible dream of her mother Jezabel.It's French, but I'll make you see."And "taking stage," as it were, in the centre of the room, Laura began:

"Son ombre vers mon lit a paru se baisser Et moi, je lui tendais les mains pour l'embrasser;Mais je n'ai plus trouve q'un horrible melange D'os et de chair meurtris et traines dans la fange, Des lambeaux pleins de sang, et des membres affreux Que les chiens d'evorants se disputaient entre eux.""Great God!" exclaimed Jadwin, ignorant of the words yet, in spite of himself, carried away by the fury and passion of her rendering.

Laura struck her palms together.

"Just what 'Abner' says," she cried."The very words.""Abner?"

"In the play.I knew I could make you feel it.""Well, well," murmured her husband, shaking his head, bewildered even yet."Well, it's a strange wife I've got here.""When you've realised that," returned Laura, "you've just begun to understand me."Never had he seen her gayer.Her vivacity was bewildering.

"I wish," she cried, all at once, "I wish I had dressed as 'Carmen,' and I would have danced for you.Oh, and you could have played the air for me on the organ.Ihave the costume upstairs now.Wait! I will, I will!

Sit right where you are--no, fix the attachment to the organ while I'm gone.Oh, be gay with me to-night, she cried, throwing her arms around him."This is my night, isn't it? And I am to be just as foolish as Iplease."

With the words she ran from the room, but was back in an incredibly short time, gowned as Bizet's cigarette girl, a red rose in her black hair, castanets upon her fingers.

Jadwin began the bolero.

"Can you see me dance, and play at the same time?""Yes, yes.Go on.How do you know anything about a Spanish dance?""I learned it long ago.I know everything about anything I choose, to-night.Play, play it _fast._She danced as though she would never tire, with the same force of passion that she had thrown into Athalie.

Her yellow skirt was a flash of flame spurting from the floor, and her whole body seemed to move with the same wild, untamed spirit as a tongue of fire.The castanets snapped like the crackling of sparks; her black mantilla was a hovering cloud of smoke.She was incarnate flame, capricious and riotous, elusive and dazzling.

Then suddenly she tossed the castanets far across the room and dropped upon the couch, panting and laughing.

"There," she cried, "now I feel better.That had to come out.Come over here and sit by me.Now, maybe you'll admit that I can dance too.""You sure can," answered Jadwin, as she made a place for him among the cushions."That was wonderful.But, at the same time, old girl, I wouldn't--wouldn't----""Wouldn't what?"

"Well, do too much of that.It's sort of over-wrought--a little, and unnatural.I like you best when you are your old self, quiet, and calm, and dignified.It's when you are quiet that you are at your best.I didn't know you had this streak in you.You are that excitable to-night!""Let me be so then.It's myself, for the moment whatever it is.But now I'll be quiet.Now we'll talk.Have you had a hard day? Oh, and did your head bother you again?""No, things were a little easier down town to-day.But that queer feeling in my head did come back as I was coming home--and my head aches a little now, besides.""Your head aches!" she exclaimed."Let me do something for it.And I've been making it worse with all my foolishness.""No, no; that's all right," he assured her."I tell you what we'll do.I'll lie down here a bit, and you play something for me.Something quiet.I get so tired down there in La Salle Street, Laura, you don't know."And while he stretched out at full length upon the couch, his wife, at the organ, played the music she knew he liked best--old songs, "Daisy Dean," "Lord Lovell," "When Stars Are in the Quiet Sky," and "Open Thy Lattice to Me."When at length she paused, he nodded his head with pleasure.

"That's pretty," he said."Ah, that _is_ blame pretty.

Honey, it's just like medicine to me," he continued, "to lie here, quiet like this, with the lights low, and have my dear girl play those old, old tunes.My old governor, Laura, used to play that 'Open the Lattice to me,' that and 'Father, oh, Father, Come Home with me Now'--used to play 'em on his fiddle." His arm under his head, he went on, looking vaguely at the opposite wall."Lord love me, I can see that kitchen in the old farmhouse as plain! The walls were just logs and plaster, and there were upright supports in each corner, where we used to measure our heights--we children.And the fireplace was there," he added, gesturing with his arm, "and there was the wood box, and over here was an old kind of dresser with drawers, and the torty-shell cat always had her kittens under there.Honey, I was happy then.Of course I've got you now, and that's all the difference in the world.