Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/274

 It's too exquisite for me. To hear them talk, you'd think I took the veil for months at a time just to meditate what my music is all about. I know what it's about and I don't want praise that's written before they hear me play, just because I help their modern music along. Nerves! Nerves! I haven't got such things!"

Yet she was, as always after a concert, tense and nervous, filled with a terrible energy which would not let her sleep until dawn. To-night she wore a long tight gown of cloth of silver, without sleeves and girdled by a single chain of rhinestones. With her dark hair drawn tightly back, she resembled a fine greyhound—lean, muscular, quivering.

"At least they liked it," said Lily, "judging from the applause." She sat waiting in a long cloak of black velvet, held together with silver clasps.

There was a sudden knock at the door and Lily murmured "Come in." It was the porter, a lean, sallow, man with a stoop and enormous black mustaches.

"There is a gentleman to see Madame l'artiste," he said.

Ellen turned. "Who it it?"

The man grimaced. "How should. I know? He says he knows you."

A shadow of irritation crossed Ellen's smooth brow. "If he wants to see me, tell him to send in his name." And then to Lily as the porter withdrew, "You see what fame is. The porter doesn't even know my name. He calls me Madame l'artiste . . . Madame indeed! He hasn't even bothered to read the bills."

The fellow returned again, this time opening the door without the courtesy of a knock.

"His name, Madame, is 'arrisong."

Ellen pursed her lips thoughtfully and struck a match on the sole of her slipper, holding the flame to the cigarette in her strong slim fingers.

"Harrison? . . . Harrison?" she repeated, holding the cigarette between her lips and the lighted match poised. "I don't know any Harrison. . . . Tell him to come in."

The stranger must have been waiting just outside the door, for at the word he stepped timidly inside. He was dressed in