"Anne-Marie!"
Anne-Marie drew her hand away, rubbing it lightly against her dress.
He again said: "Anne-Marie!" in a hoarse voice, with his hands clasped together. "Look at me," he said, and the blue eyes obediently left the ceiling and rested on his face. "Do you remember me?"
"Yes," said Anne-Marie promptly and unveraciously. She had often been chided by Fräulein for saying an abrupt "no" on these occasions. "It is rude to say 'no' and it hurts people's feelings. You must say: 'I am not sure … I think I remember …' Fräulein had admonished. "Oh, if I must not say no, I had better say yes," said Anne-Marie, who believed in being brief. And so she did on this occasion.
The hot blood had rushed like a flame to Aldo's face. He dropped upon his knee and took her hands, pressing them to his eyes, and to his forehead, and to his lips. "My little girl! My little girl!" he said, and the quick southern tears flowed. Anne-Marie said to herself: "He must be a German musician." Only German musicians had been as demonstrative as this. And she looked round to her mother, but her mother's face was turned away.
"May I stay—may I stay, Anne-Marie? You don't want me to go away again, do you? Tell your mother that you want me to stay with you and take care of you!"
Now it was for Anne-Marie to be bewildered.
"I don't want to be taken care of, thank you," she said, as politely as she could.
Aldo laughed through his tears. "Dear, funny little child of mine," he cried, kissing her hand and her sleeve.
Anne-Marie was matter-of-fact. "Good-bye," she said decisively. "If you want an autograph, I will give you one."
Aldo caught her by both arms, gazing into her face with blurred eyes. "Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! you said you remembered me! Don't you know who I am? Don't you remember your father, Anne-Marie, who used to sing 'Celeste Aïda, forma divina' to you when you were ill, and who took you to see the squirrels in the park? Anne-Marie, don't you remember me?"
Anne-Marie's underlip trembled. She shook her head. Aldo rose from his knees. He turned away and hid his face in his hands.
Anne-Marie tiptoed to her mother's side, and nestled in her encircling arm. Then her eyes wandered upwards in search of the balloon. There it was, close to the ceiling. Anne-Marie thought that it looked smaller than it was before. She wondered how she would ever get it down again.
Nancy had turned her face—a pinched white face that also looked smaller, thought Anne-Marie—towards her, and spoke in a low voice.
"Anne-Marie, he is your father."
"Is he?" said Anne-Marie, glancing at the tall figure with the sloping shoulders and the hidden face, and then at the hat on the chair.
"Shall he stay with us?" questioned Nancy under her breath.
"With us two?" asked Anne-Marie, with round, troubled eyes, and remembering the impresario.
"With us two."
"For always?" and Anne-Marie's eyes were larger and more troubled.
"For always," said Nancy.
Anne-Marie glanced at the man again and at the hat again. Then she put her cheek against her mother's arm, as she always did, when she asked a favour. "Rather not, Liebstes," she whispered.
The Arbiter had spoken.
Aldo said only a few words more to Nancy. He placed his hands on Anne-Marie's head, and looked at her a long time. Then he turned suddenly, took up his square hat, and left the room.
"That was a strange man," said Anne-Marie. "Was he really my father?"
Nancy, with pale lips, said: "Yes."
"Are you sure?" questioned Anne-Marie, raising her eyes to the balloon.
"Yes, dear," said Nancy; and her tears fell.
Suddenly Anne-Marie flew to the door. "Father!" she cried in a shrill treble voice.
Aldo, on the stairs, heard and stood still. His hand gripped the bannisters, his heart leaped to his throat.
"Father!"
He turned slowly, doubtingly.
"Father!" came the treble voice again; and he mounted the steps, and went trembling and stumbling along the passage. Anne-Marie was standing at the door.
"Do you think," she said, "you could catch my balloon before you go?"
He caught her balloon. Then he went—out of the room, out of their lives, out of the story.
XXVI
"Nancy,—The years and the yearning are over. I am leaving for Europe. You will come to meet me in Genoa; and we shall sit on the balcony where three years ago you told me of your Book, which you feared would die like a babe unborn in your breast.
"I am coming to take you to Porto Venere, 'white in the sunshine—tip-tilted over the sea'; and the Book shall live at last.
"And we, also, shall live. Oh, Nancy, Nancy! I have been a silent and a lonely man so long, that my love has no words, my happiness no language. Even now I can hardly believe that the years of exile and solitude are over. But I know that you, having loved me once, still love me and will love me. I know that your heart is not a heart that changes, and that the words that drew you to me across the ocean three years ago will bring you to me again. Nancy, come to me. To my empty arms, to my sad and solitary heart, Nancy, come at once. And for ever."
"Dear Ogre, dear friend and love of mine, your call has shaken my soul. All my longings, all my dreams, have joined their voices with yours, crying to me to go to you. Alas! a little prayer that Fräulein used to make me say when I was a child whispers to me, and its small voice drowns the cry of my desires. It is the prayer of the Three Angels that stand round one's bed in the night:
"Can I come to you when I am thus bound—bound hands and feet by Law and Church? My small conventional soul shrinks from the unlawful and the forbidden.
"But, believe me, were I free as air, were my hands unbound to lie in yours, my feet unloosed to fly to you, the Third Angel remains. 'And the Third One holds my heart.' Anne-Marie is the Third Angel. Anne-Marie holds my heart. How could I bring her with me? Think and reply for me. How could I leave her? Think and reply. Dear Ogre, I am one of the Devoured. Little Anne-Marie has devoured me, and it is right that it should be so; she has absorbed me, and I am glad; she has consumed me, and I am grateful. For it is in the nature of things that to these lives given to us, our lives should be given. What matter that I fall back into the shadow—my course not run, my goal not reached, my mission unfulfilled? Anne-Marie will have what I have missed; Anne-Marie will reach the completeness that has failed me; for her will be the heights I have not conquered, the Glory I have not attained.
"Oh, lover and friend of mine, understand and forgive me. There is no room for love in my life. My life is full of haste and turmoil, full of Kings and Queens, full of rushing trains, and shouting voices, and clapping hands....
"Can you not see it all as in a picture—the Pied Piper whistling and dancing on ahead; little Anne-Marie, Fame-drunken, music-struck, whirlwinding after him; and I following them in breathless, palpitant haste, leaving all that was once mine behind me—my Books, my Dreams, my Love?… Love in the picture is not a rose-crowned god of laughter and passion. Love is a lonely figure, lonely and stern and sad. Oh, love, forgive me, and understand! And say good-bye—good-bye to Nancy!"
He forgave her, and understood, and said good-bye to Nancy.
XXVII
The days swung on. And they swung Anne-Marie from triumph to triumph. And they poured sunshine into her hair, and sea-shine into her eyes. And they reared her into fulgent maidenhood, as a white lily is reared on a fragile stem.
They swung Nancy back into the shadow where mothers sit with gentle hands folded, and eyes whose tears no one counts. She learned to forget that she had even known a poem about "La belle qui veut, la belle qui n'ose, ceuillir les roses du jardin bleu!" The blue garden of youth closed its gates silently behind her, and the roses that Nancy's hand had not gathered would bloom for her no more.