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Book 1Fourteen
Soon after Sebastian left for his Eastern tour, Lucy got a letter from Harry Gordon: he was coming on for a week of the opera, and she must remember her promise. In those days the New York opera company came to Chicago for several weeks every spring. Last year she had been glad to go to the opera with Harry. But now everything was different: she didn`t want to see him, didn`t want to be reminded of Haverford or of anything that lay behind her. She was going to the Public Library every day now, to hunt through the newspapers for notices of Sebastian`s concerts; that took time. Her life was exactly as she wanted it, and Harry would spoil it. He would manage to prove to her that she had been living in a dream, that she was Lucy Gayheart and had been fooling herself all this while.
In his letter Harry asked where he could meet her. She knew he hated calling for her at the bakery. Sebastian didn`t mind waiting in the restaurant downstairs when he came to take her out to dinner, but it annoyed Harry. She sent a note to the hotel where he would be stopping, telling him to meet her at Auerbach`s studio on Monday, after her lessons. Auerbach`s show studio was used as a reception room, when he was not giving a lesson there. His private office opened behind it. Across the hall was a much bleaker room, with a north light, where Lucy heard the younger pupils, and practised if she had a vacant hour.
On Monday afternoon when Lucy came out from this back studio she found Auerbach himself in the reception room, entertaining Harry Gordon, and they seemed to be getting on very well together. As she crossed the room toward him, she suddenly felt pleased with Harry. He came to meet her with such a jolly smile, fresh and ruddy and well turned-out in his new grey clothes. In a flash she was conscious of the thing she had always liked best in him, the fine physical balance which made him a good dancer and a tireless skater. Paul Auerbach seemed as pleased at their meeting as Lucy was herself. He was plainly reluctant to have Harry`s call cut short, urged him to come in again, suggested that Lucy bring him out to his house to see Mrs. Auerbach.
As he walked to the door with them, he asked Harry when he had arrived. Harry replied that he had come in "by the morning train," without betraying the fact that he had already been in Chicago three days. He had written his tailor to have two suits ready for the last fitting, and he made no calls until these were sent to his hotel. He wanted to wear exactly what well-dressed men in Chicago were wearing.
After they left the studio, Harry said they must go somewhere for dinner. "Shall we go early, or do you want to dress and have me call for you later?"
"Oh, no! We can dine in state tomorrow evening, before the opera. I`d rather you took me to some quiet place where we can talk."
"Anything you like. We mean to have one good time this week, don`t we, Lucy?"
Lucy remembered that when Harry was out for a good time he swept one along with him, just as he did in a polka or a schottish. She liked to do those rather violent, jumpy dances with him; he had a good sense of rhythm and put so much lift and spring behind his partner.
When she got home that evening, Lucy told herself that it was nice to see Harry again. She hated the idea of throwing over old friends. She was thinking, as she undressed, that Harry would be very intelligent if he were not so conceited; it was a kind of mental near-sightedness, and kept him from seeing what didn`t immediately concern him. But tonight she hadn`t minded that he was pleased with himself, because he was pleased with everything. He hadn`t made the countryman`s mistake of finding fault with the service and the food. He had tipped the waiters generously, without fumbling or ostentation. He had insisted upon a drive along Michigan Avenue before they came home--a hopeful sign! With the Gordons, who had good horses and carriages of their own, a hired carriage was regarded as a painful extravagance and meant the shortest route. She thought she must have forgotten how much she liked to hear Harry talk--for his voice, chiefly. No matter what he was saying, you could guess his real feeling from his voice, once you knew its several disguises. There was the genial, confidential tone, just tinged by regret, with which he refused a loan to a man who needed it. And there was the other friendliness, not so very different (a little less concerned, indeed), but that was real.
The next evening, for Aida, Harry appeared in his new dress clothes, very handsome and correct. Lucy had been teaching all afternoon and was rather tired when they drove to his hotel for dinner, but his good spirits revived her. At the opera they had excellent seats; Harry had written for them weeks ago. He was in his most engaging mood, and didn`t once try to ridicule things which she "held sentimentally sacred," as he said. He enjoyed the music, and the audience, and being with Lucy. His enthusiasm for the tenor was sincere; the duet in the third act was, he whispered, his idea of music. He beat time softly to the triumphal march, and didn`t mind that the trumpets played off pitch.
When he said good-night to Lucy at the foot of her staircase, she could honestly tell him that she loved going to the opera with him.
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