The heavenly magic of that fiddle! It made her sad. Genius, the ability
to play with souls, soothe, tantalize, lift up; and then to smile at her
like that!
She shut down the curtain upon these cogitations and summoned Cutty,
visualized his handsome head, shot with gray, the humour of his smile.
She did care for him; no doubt of that. She couldn't have sent that
telegram else. Cutty--name of a pipe, as the Frenchmen said! All at once
she rocked with laughter. She was going to marry a man whose given name
she could not recall! Henry, George, John, William? For the life of her
she could not remember.
And with this laughter still bubbling in a softer note she got into bed,
twisted about from side to side, from this pillow to that, the tired
body seeking perfect relaxation.
A broken melody entered her head. Sleepily she sought one channel of
thought after another to escape; still the melody persisted. As her
consciousness dodged hither and thither the bars and measures joined....
She sat up, chilled, bewildered. That Tschaikowsky waltz! She could
hear it as clearly as if Johnny Two-Hawks and the Amati were in the very
room. She grew afraid. Of what? She did not know.
And while she sat there in bed threshing out this fear to find the
grain, Cutty was tramping the streets of Washington, her telegram
crumpled in his hand. From time to time he would open it and reread it
under a street lamp.
To marry her and then to cheat her. It wasn't humanly possible to marry
her and then to let her go. He thought of those warm, soft arms round
his neck, the absolute trust of that embrace. Molly's girl. No, he could
not do it. He would have to back down, tell her he could not put the
bargain through, invent some other scheme.
The idea had been repugnant to her. It had taken her a week to fight it
out. It was a little beyond his reach, however, why the idea should have
been repugnant to her. It entailed nothing beyond a bit of mummery. The
repugnance was not due to religious training. The Conover household, as
he recalled it, had been rather lax in that respect. Why, then, should
Kitty have hesitated?
He thought of Hawksley, and swore. But for Hawksley's suggestion no
muddle like this would have occurred. Devil take him and his infernal
green stones!
Cutty suddenly remembered his train. He looked at his watch and saw that
his lower berth was well on the way to Baltimore. Always and eternally
he was missing something.