The Business of Life

"That," he faltered, amid a stillness so profound that it seemed to fill the ear like a hollow roar, – "that is weather. If you approve it, the most precious expression of your sympathy will be absolute silence."

Fortunately, not even Reggie Ledyard dropped.

Mr. Sissly passed a lank and lily hand across his large pale eyes.

"Like the Japanese," he lisped, "I bring to you my most precious thought-treasures one at a time – and never more than two between the rising of the orb of day and the veiling of it at eventide. I offer you, on the altar of my colour organ, a transposition of Von Schwiggle's symphony in A minor; and I can only say that it is replete with a meaning so exquisitely precious that no human intelligence has yet penetrated it."

Out went the lights. Presently the screen became visible. Upon it there seemed to be no colour, no hint of any tint, no quality, no value. It was merely visible, and remained so for three mortal minutes. Then the lights broke out, revealing Mr. Sissly half fainting at his organ, and two young women in Greek robes waving bunches of violets at him. And the curtain fell.

"There only remains," whispered Ledyard, "the funny-house for me."

"If you make me laugh I'll never forgive you," Mrs. Barkley warned him under her breath. "But – oh, do look at Mrs. Hammerton!"

Aunt Hannah's visage resembled that of a cornered and enraged mink surrounded by enemies.

"If that man comes near me," she said to Desboro, "I shall destroy him with hatpins. You'd better keep him away. I'm morally and nervously disorganised."

Sissly had come off the stage and now stood in the wide aisle, surrounded by the earnest and intellectual womanhood of Westchester, eagerly seeking more light.

But there was little in Mr. Sissly's large and washed-out eyes; even less, perhaps, than illuminated his intellect. He gazed wanly upon adoration, edging his way toward Miss Frere, who, at dinner, had rashly admitted that she understood him.

"Was it satisfying?" he lisped, when he had attained to her vicinity.

"It was most – remarkable," she said, bewildered. "So absolutely new to me that I can find nothing as yet to say to you, except thank you."

"Why say it? Why not merely look it? Your silence would be very, very precious to me," he said in a low voice. And the stately Miss Frere blushed.

The audience, under the stimulus of the lights, recovered very quickly from its semi-stupor, and everybody was now discussing with animation the unique experience of the past half-hour. New York chattered; Westchester discussed; that was the difference. Both had expected a new kind of cabaret show; neither had found the weird performance disappointing. Flippant and unintellectual young men felt safe in the certainty that neither their pretty partners nor the more serious representatives of the substantial county knew one whit more about soundless symphonies than did they.

So laughter and noise filled the armoury with a gaily subdued uproar, silenced only when Katharine Frere's harp was brought in, and the tall, handsome girl, without any preliminaries, went forward and seated herself, drew the gilded instrument back against her right shoulder, set her feet to the pedals, her fingers to the strings, and wandered capriciously from Le Donne Curiose and the far, brief echoes of its barcarolle, into Koenigskinder, and on through Versiegelt, till she lost herself in a dreamy Bavarian folk-song which died out as sunset dies on the far alms of the Red Valepp.

Great applause; no cabaret yet. The audience looked at the programme and read:

"A Thousand Years B.C. … Miss Nevers."

And Reggie Ledyard was becoming restless, thinking perhaps that a little ragtime of the spheres might melt the rapidly forming intellectual ice, and was saying so to anybody who'd listen, when ding-dong-dang! ding-dong! echoed the oriental gong. Out went the lights, the curtain split open and was gathered at the wings; a shimmering radiance grew upon the stage disclosing a huge gold and green dragon of porcelain on its faïence pedestal. And there, high cradled between the forepaws of the ancient Mongolian monster, sat a slim figure in silken robes of turquoise, rose, and scarlet, a Chinese lute across her knees, slim feet pendant below the rainbow skirt.

Her head-dress was wrought fantastically of open-work gold, inlaid with a thousand tiny metallic blue feathers, accented by fiery gems; across the silky folds of her slitted tunic were embroidered in iris tints the single-winged birds whirling around each other between floating clouds; little clog-like shoes of silk and gold, embroidered with moss-green arabesques inset with orange and scarlet, shod the feet.

Ancient Cathay, exquisitely, immortally young, sat in jewelled silks and flowers under the huge and snarling dragon. And presently, string by string, her idle lute awoke, picked with the plectrum, note after note in strange and unfamiliar intervals; and, looking straight in front of her, she sang at random, to "the sorrows of her lute," verses from "The Maker of Moons," sung by Chinese lovers a thousand years ago:

"Like to a Dragon in the Sky
The fierce Sun flames from East to West;
The flower of Love within my breast
Blooms only when the Moon is high
And Thou art nigh."

The dropping notes of her lute answered her, rippled on, and were lost like a little rill trickling into darkness.

"The Day burns like a Dragon's flight
Until Thou comest in the night
With thy cool Moon of gold —
Then I unfold."

A faint stirring of the strings, silence; then she struck with her plectrum the weird opening chord of that sixth century song called "The Night Revel"; and sang to the end the ancient verses set to modern music by an unknown composer:

"Along the River scarlet Lanterns glimmer,
Where gilded Boats and darkling Waters shimmer;
Laughter with Singing blends;
But Love begins and ends
Forever with a sigh —
A whispered sigh.

"In fire-lit pools the crimson Carp are swirling;
The painted peacocks shining plumes are furling;
Now in the torch-light by the Gate
A thousand Lutes begin the Fête
With one triumphant Cry!
Why should Love sigh?"

The curtain slowly closed on the echoes of her lute; there came an interval of absolute silence, then an uproar of cries and of people getting to their feet, calling out: "Go on! Go on! Don't stop!" No applause except this excited clamour for more, and the racket of moving chairs.

"Good Lord!" muttered Captain Herrendene. "Did you ever see anything as beautiful as that girl?"

And: "Where did she learn such things?" demanded people excitedly of one another. "It must be the real business! How does she know?"

The noise became louder and more emphatic; calls for her reappearance redoubled and persisted until the gong again sounded, the lights went out, and the curtains twitched once more and parted.

She slid down from her cradled perch between the forelegs of the shadowy dragon and came to the edge of the footlights.

"I was going to show you one or two jades from the Desboro collection, and tell you a little about them," she began, "but my lute and I will say for you another song of ancient China, if you like. It was made by Kao-Shih about seven hundred years after the birth of Christ. He was one of the T'ang poets – and not a very cheerful one. This is his song."

And she recited for them: "There was a king of Liang."

After that she stepped back; but they would not have it, to the point of enthusiastic rudeness.

She recited for them Mêng Hao-Jan's "A Friend Expected," from "The Maker of Moons," and the quatrains of the lovely, naïve little "Spring Dream," written by Ts'en-Ts'an in the eighth century.

But they demanded still more. She laid aside her lute and intoned for them the noble lines of China's most famous writer:

"Thou that hast seen six kingdoms pass away – "

Then, warming to her audience, and herself thrilled with the spirit of the ancient splendour, she moved forward in her whispering silks, and, slightly bending, her finger lifted like one who hushes children with a magic tale, she spoke to them of Fei-yen, mistress of the Emperor; and told them how T'ai-Chên became an empress; sang for them the song of Yu Lao, the "Song of the Moon Moth":

"The great Night Moth that bears her name
Is winged in green,
Pale as the June moon's silver flame
Her silken sheen:
No other flame they know, these twain