At last I was alone, save one. The time of my fruition was not afar. O! for the moment when I should realize my dreams.... I saw this last one swept away, swept down the vistas toward life, the thunderous surge singing in her ears. O! that my time would come. At last, after vague alarms, I was summoned....
The hour had struck; eternity was left behind, eternity loomed ahead, implacable, furrowed with Time's scars. I hastened to the only one in the Cosmos. I tarried not as I ran in the race. Moments were precious; a second meant æons; and crashing into the light--Alas! I was too late.... Of what avail my travail, my countless, cruel preparations? O Chance! O Fate! I am one of the silent multitude of the Frustrate....
When she had finished reading this strange study in evolution she awaited criticism, but with the air of an armed warrior.
"Really, Mrs. Vibert, I am overwhelmed," I managed to stammer. "Only the most delicate symbolism may dare to express such a theme." I felt that this was very vague--but what could I say?
She regarded me sternly. Arthur, catching what I had uttered at random, burst in:
"There, Ellenora, I am sure he is right! You leave nothing to the imagination. Now a subtile veiled idealism--" He was not allowed to finish.
"Veiled idealism indeed!" she angrily cried. "You composers dare to say all manner of wickedness in your music, but it is idealized by tone, isn't it? What else is music but a sort of sensuous algebra? Or a vast shadow-picture of the emotions?... Why can't language have the same privilege? Why must it be bridled because the world speaks it?"
"Just because of that reason, dear madame," I soothingly said; "because reticence is art's brightest crown; because Zola never gives us a real human document and Flaubert does; and the difference is a difference of method. Flaubert is magnificently naked, but his nakedness implicates nothing that is--"
"As usual you men enter the zone of silence when a woman's work is mentioned. I did not attempt a monument in the frozen manner of your Flaubert. Mr. Goddard believes--" There was a crash of music from the piano as Arthur endeavored to change the conversation. His wife's fine indifference was tantalizing, also instructive.