LADY GLEESON, owing to an outraged vanity and jealousy she was unable to control, missed the final scene, for before the song was actually finished she was gone. Being near a passage that was draped only by a curtain, she slipped out easily, flung herself into a luxurious motor, and vanished into the bleak autumn night.
She had seen enough. Her little heart raged with selfish fury. What followed was told her later by word of mouth.
Never could she forgive herself that she had left the studio before the thing had happened. She blamed Devonham for that too.
For LeVallon, it appears, having passed the cup of coffee to her through a third person in itself an insult of indifference and neglect stood absorbed in the words and music of the song., Being head and shoulders above the throng, he easily saw the girl at the piano. No one, unless it was Fillery, a few yards away, watched him as closely as did Devonham and Lady Gleeson, though all three for different reasons. It was Devonham, however, who made the most accurate note of what he saw, though Fillery ‘s memory was possibly the truer, since his own inner being supplied the fuller and more sympathetic interpretation.
LeVallon, tall and poised, stood there like a great figure shaped in bronze. He was very calm. His bright hair seemed to rise a little; his eyes, steady and wondering, gazed fixedly; his features, though set, were mobile in the sense that any instant they might leap into the alive and fluid expression of some strong emotion. His whole being, in a word, stood at attention, alert for instant action of some uncontrollable, perhaps terrific kind, “He seemed like a glowing pillar of metal that must burst into flame the very next instant,” as a Member told Lady Gleeson later.
Devonham watched him. LeVallon seemed transfixed. He stared above the intervening tousled heads. He drew a series of deep breaths that squared his shoulders and made his chest expand. His very muscles ached apparently for instant action. An intensity of wondering joy and admiration that lit his face made the eyes shine like stars. He watched the singing girl as a tiger watches the keeper who brings its long-expected food. The instant the bar is up, it springs, it leaps, it carries off, devours. Only, in this case, there were no bars. Nor was the wild desire for nourishment of a carnal kind. It was companionship, it was intercourse with his own that he desired so intensely.
“He divines the motherhood in her,” thought Fillery, watching closely, pain and happiness mingled in his heart. “The protective, selfless, upbuilding power lies close to Nature.” And as this flashed across him he caught a glimpse by chance of its exact opposite in Lady Gleeson’s peering, glittering eyes the destructive lust, the selfish passion, the bird of prey.
“The dark firs knew his whistle up the trail,” the song in that soft true voice drew to its close. LeVallon was trembling.
“Good Heavens!” thought Devonham. “Is it ‘N.H.’? Is it ‘N.H.’ after all, waking rising to take possession?” He, too, trembled.
It was here that Lady Gleeson, close, intuitive observer of her escaping prey, rose up and slipped away, her going hardly noticed by the half — entranced, half-dreaming hearts about her, each intent upon its own small heaven of neat desire. She went as unobstrusively as an animal that is aware of untoward conditions and surroundings, showing her teeth, feeling her claws, yet knowing herself helpless. Not even Devonham, his mind ever keenly alert, observed her going. Fillery, alone, conscious of LeVallon’s eyes across the room, took note of it. She left, her violent little will intent upon vengeance of a later victory that she still promised herself with concentrated passion.
Yet Devonham, though he failed to notice the slim animal of prey in exit, noticed this that the face he watched so closely changed quickly even as he watched, and that the new expression, growing upon it as heat grows upon metal set in a flame, was an expression he had seen before. He had seen it in that lonely mountain valley where a setting sun poured gold upon a burning pyre, upon a dancing, chanting figure, upon a human face he now watched in this ridiculous little Chelsea studio. The sharpness of the air, the very perfume, stole over him as he stared, perplexed, excited and uneasy. That strange, wild, innocent and tender face, that power, that infinite yearning! LeVallon had disappeared. It was “N.H.” that stood and watched the singer at the little modern piano.
Then with the end of the song came the rush, the bustle of applause, the confusion of many people rising, trotting forward, all talking at once, all moving towards the singer when LeVallon, hitherto motionless as a statue, suddenly leaped past and through them like a vehement wind through a whirl of crackling dead leaves. Only his deft, skilful movement, of poise and perfect balance combined with accurate swiftness, could have managed it without bruised bodies and angry cries. There was no clumsiness, no visible effort, no appearance of undue speed. He seemed to move quietly, though he moved like fire. In a moment he was by the piano, and Nayan, in the act of rising from her stool, gazed straight up into his great lighted eyes.
It was singular how all made way for him, drew back, looked on. Confusion threatened. Emotion surged like a rising sea. Without a leader there might easily have been tumult; even a scene. But Fillery was there. His figure intervened at once.
“Nayan,” he said in a steady voice, “this is my friend, Mr. LeVallon. He wants to thank you.”
But, before she could answer, LeVallon, his hand upon her arm, said quickly, yet so quietly that few heard the actual words, perhaps his voice resonant, his eyes alight with joy: “You are here too with me, with Fillery. We are all exiles together. But you know the way out the way back! You remember!...”
She stared with delicious wonder into his eyes as he went on:
“O star and woman! Your voice is wind and fire. Come!” And he tried to seize her. “We will go back together. We work here in vain!...” His arms were round her; almost their faces touched.
The girl rose instantly, took a step towards him, then hung back; the stool fell over with a crash; a hubbub of voices rose in the room behind; Povey, Kempster, a dozen Members with them, pressed up; the women, with half-shocked, half — frightened eyes, gaped and gasped over the forest of intervening male shoulders. A universal shuffle followed. The confusion was absurd and futile. Both male and female stood aghast and stupid before what they saw, for behind the mere words and gestures there was something that filled the little scene with a strange shaking power, touching the panic sense.
LeVallon lifted her across his shoulders.
The beautiful girl was radiant, the man wore the sudden semblance of a god. Their very stature increased. They stood alone. Yet Fillery, close by, stood with them. There seemed a magic circle none dared cross about the three. Something immense, unearthly, had come into the room, bursting its little space. Even Devonham, breaking with vehemence through the human ring, came to a sudden halt.
In a voice of thunder though it was not actually loud LeVallon cried:
“Their little personal loves! They cannot understand!” He bore Nayan in his arms as wind might lift a loose flower and whirl it aloft. ‘Come back with me, come home! The
Sun forgets us here, the Wind is silent. There is no Fire. Our work, our service calls us.” He turned to Fillery. “You too. Come!”
His voice boomed like a thundering wind against the astonished frightened faces staring at him. It rose to a cry of intense emotion: “We are in little exile here! In our wrong place, cut off from the service of our gods! We will go back!” He started, with the girl flung across his frame. He took one stride. The others shuffled back with one accord.
“The other summons at the door. But, Edward! you you too!”
It was Nayan’s voice, as the girl clung willingly to the great neck and arms, the voice of the girl all loved and worshipped and thought wonderful beyond temptation; it was this familiar sound that ran through the bewildered, startled throng like an electric shock. They could not believe their eyes, their ears. They — stood transfixed.
Within their circle stood LeVallon, holding the girl, almost embracing her, while she lay helpless with happiness upon his huge enfolding arms. He paused, looked round at Fillery a moment. None dared approach. The men gazed, wondering, and with faculties arrested; the women stared, stock still, with beating hearts. All felt a lifting, splendid wonder they could not understand. Devonham, mute and motionless before an inexplicable thing, found himself bereft of judgment. Analysis and precedent, for once, both failed. He looked round in vain for Khilkoff.
Fillery alone seemed master of himself, a look of suffering and joy shone in his face; one hand lay steady upon LeVallon’s arm.
Within the little circle these three figures formed a definite group, filling the beholders, for the first time in their so-called “psychic” experience, with the thrill of something utterly beyond their ken something genuine at last. For there seemed about the group, though emanating, as with shining power, from the figure of LeVallon chiefly, some radiating force, some elemental vigour they could not comprehend. Its presence made the scene possible, even right.
“Edward you too! What is it, O, what is it? There are flowers great winds! I see the fire!”
A searching tenderness in her tone broke almost beyond the limits of the known human voice.
There swept over the onlookers a wave of incredible emotion then, as they saw LeVallon move towards them, as though he would pass through them and escape. He seemed in that moment stupendous, irresistible. He looked divine. The girl lay in his arms like some young radiant child. He did not kiss her, no sign of a caress was seen; he did no ordinary, human thing. His towering figure, carrying his burden almost negligently, came out of the circle “like a tide” towards them, as one described it later or as a poem that appeared later in “Simplicity” began:
“With his hair of wind
And his eyes of fire
And his face of infinite desire...”
He swept nearer. They stirred again in a confused and troubled shuffle, opening a way. They shrank back farther. They shivered, like crying shingle a vast wave draws back. Only Fillery stood still, making no sign or movement; upon his face that look of joy and pain wild joy and searching pain no one, perhaps, but Devonham understood.
“Wind and fire!” boomed LeVallon’s tremendous voice. “We return to our divine, eternal service. O Wind and Fire! We come back at last!” An immense rhythm swept across the room.
Then it was, without announcement of word or action, that Nayan, suddenly leaping from the great enfolding arms, stood upright between the two figures, one hand out-stretched towards Fillery.
At which moment, emerging apparently from nowhere, Khilkoff appeared upon the scene. During the music he had left the studio to find certain sketches he wished to show to LeVallon; he had witnessed nothing, therefore, of what had just occurred. He now stood still, staring in sheer surprise. The people in a ring, gazing with excited, rapt expression into the circle they thus formed, looked like an audience watching some performance that dazed and stupefied them, in which Fillery, LeVallon and Nayan h............