"You are perfectly detestable and horrid," she told him when he had
finished, "but I suppose there must be some good in you. Don't think
you argued me into this, however, for you didn't. There's an altogether
different reason why I want those two to make up." She laid her hand
upon his arm again, and when Pope caught her meaning his sallow cheeks
were glowing and his eyes as bright as hers.
"Gee! You're all right!" said he. "I'll call for you after the show."
Adoree's smile was uncertain as she demurred. "Perhaps you'd better
meet me here. What will people say?" But Pope was insistent.
We are accustomed to resent the efforts of our friends to arrange our
affairs for us, and we pray for deliverance from their mistakes, yet
without their assistance we would often make miserable failures of our
lives. So it was in the case of Bob and Lorelei.
Burning with shame and resentment, she had been strong in her
determination to end their marriage, and this frame of mind had
continued for some time; but as her anger cooled she dimly understood
that a change had come over her and that she no longer looked upon the
world with the eyes of a girl. Simultaneously there came another
discovery which completely upset all her calculations and to which she
had not fully adjusted herself even up to the time of the critic's
visit to Adoree. One great mystery she had solved; another, the deepest
mystery of a woman's life, had begun to unfold, and as yet she could
scarcely give it credence.
She was surprised when Adoree brought Campbell Pope home with her that
night, and she was somewhat diverted by the complete change in their
mutual attitude. Now that the first clash was over, now that they had
expressed their dislike and disapproval of each other, they no longer
quarreled. Pope was frankly admiring, and Adoree could not conceal her
awe at Campbell's literary and musical ability. She explained to
Lorelei: "I asked him in for the sake of the piano. I knew you were
blue, and there's nothing so cheering as music."
But when Pope finally got around to play the result was not altogether
happy. Adoree, to be sure, seemed delighted, but Lorelei felt herself
gripped by a greater loneliness than usual. Pope's music was far from
lively, and he had cunningly chosen the hour when it exerts its
greatest emotional appeal. He was artist enough, moreover, to work his
effects with certainty.
Lorelei sought relief at length in the seclusion of Adoree's rear room,
and there in the midst of a "crying spell" Bob found her.
Her first quick resentment at the deception practised upon her melted
at sight of him, for he had suffered, and he was evidently suffering
now. He was not the Bob she had known, but chastened, repentant,
speechless with a tremulous delight at seeing her again. In the next
room Campbell played on, smoothing the way for a reconciliation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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