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With high relief she heard the music end. There was conventional applause. Alixe restlessly peered into the auditorium. Again she saw opera-glasses turned toward the box. "Our good friends," she rather bitterly thought. Rentgen recognized her mental turmoil. "Don't worry," he said soothingly. "It will be all right to-morrow morning. What I write will make the fortune of the composition."
Why should a man seek to destroy her faith in her husband, in love itself, if not for some selfish purpose of his own? But she was wrong, and became vaguely alarmed at least if he had offered his service and sympathy in exchange for her friendship, she might have understood his fantastic talk. Rentgen sourly reflected despite epigrams, women never vary. For him her sentiment was suburban.
Alixe recalled the interminable arguments, the snatches of poetry, the hasty rushes to the keyboard; a composer was in travail. At the end of a year, Rentgen professed his satisfaction; Van Kuyp stood on the highroad to fame. Of that there could be no doubt; Elvard Rentgen would say so in print. Alixe had been reassured
Now the old doubts came to life as the chivalric tones of Weber rose to her sharpened senses. Why couldn't Richard The door in the anteroom opened, her guest entered. Alixe was not dismayed. She left her seat and, closing the curtains, greeted him. The overture was ending as Rentgen sat down beside her in the intimate little chamber, lighted by a solitary electric bulb.
Richard Strauss embroiders philosophical ideas, so why should not Richard Van Kuyp go to Ireland, to the one land where there is hope of a spiritual, a poetic renascence? Ireland! The very name evoked dreams! When Rentgen called at the Van Kuyps' it was near the close of a warm afternoon. The composer would not stir, despite the invitation of the critic or the pleading of his wife.
I have sketched the beginning of The Shadowy Horses. You remember the Yeats poem, Rentgen? Listen!" Furiously he attacked the instrument, from which escaped accents of veritable torture; a delirium of tone followed, meagre melodies fighting for existence in the boiling madness of it all; it was the parody of a parody, the music of yesterday masquerading as the music of to-morrow.
"And now for the favour!" he demanded, his eyes contentedly resting upon the graceful expanse of his guest's figure. She moved restlessly: "My dear Rentgen, I am about to ask you a question, only a plain question. That is the favour." He bowed incredulously. "I must know the truth about Richard. It is a serious matter, this composing of his.
Even sculpture was rifled for analogies, and Van Kuyp to his bewilderment found himself called "The Rodin of Music"; at other times, "Richard Strauss II," or a "Tonal Browning"; finally, he was adjured to swerve not from the path he had so wonderfully hewn for himself in the virgin jungle of modern art, and begged to resist the temptations of the music-drama. Rentgen loathed the music of Wagner.
Did you get the wires, the telephone messages? Oh, why did you keep us expecting you, Richard! We have had a wonderful time and missed you so much! Such a talk with Rentgen! And all about you. Nicht wahr, Rentgen? He says you are the only man in the world with a musical future. Isn't that so, Rentgen? Didn't you say that Richard was the only man in whom you took any interest?
Such an insane chase after a rabbit! Yes, she said the word to herself and found her lips carved into a hard smile, which she saw reflected as in a trick mirror upon the face of Elvard Rentgen. He understood. Of little avail Sordello's frantic impotencies.
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