The Moon out of Reach | Page 5

of her charm, of the compelling fascination which made her so unforgettable--did he not know how unforgettable!--she yet lacked the tremendous force of magnetic personality which penetrates through a whole concourse of people, temperamentally differing as the poles, and carries them away on one great tidal wave of enthusiasm and applause.
"It may be true," he said, at last, reluctantly. "I don't think you possess great animal magnetism! Yours is a more elusive, more--how shall I put it?--an attraction more spirituelle. . . . To those it touches, worse luck, a more enduring one."
"More enduring?"
"Far more. Animal magnetism is a thing of bodily presence. Once one is away from it--apart--one is free. Until the next meeting! But your victims aren't even free from you when you're not there."
"It sounds a trifle boring. Like a visitor who never knows when it's time to go."
Rooke smiled.
"You're trying to switch me off the main theme, which is your work."
She sprang up.
"Don't bully me any more," she said quickly, "and I'll play you one of my recent compositions."
She sauntered across to the piano and began to play a little ripping melody, full of sunshine and laughter, and though a sob ran through it, it was smothered by the overlying gaiety. Rooke crossed to her side and quietly lifted her hands from the keys.
"Charming," he said. "But it doesn't ring true. That was meant for a sad song. As it stands, it's merely flippant--insincere. And insincerity is the knell of art."
Nan skimmed the surface defiantly.
"What a disagreeable criticism! You might have given me some encouragement instead of crushing my poor little attempt at composition like that!"
Rooke looked at her gravely. With him, sincerity in art was a fetish; in life, a superfluity. But for the moment he was genuinely moved. The poseur's mask which he habitually wore slipped aside and the real man peeped out.
"Yours ought to be more than attempts," he said quietly. "It's in you to do something really big. And you must do it. If not, you'll go to pieces. You don't understand yourself."
"And do you profess to?"
"A little." He smiled down at her. "The gods have given you the golden gift--the creative faculty. And there's a price to pay if you don't use the gift."
Nan's "blue violet" eyes held a startled look.
"You've got something which isn't given to everyone. To precious few, in fact! And if you don't use it, it will poison everything. We artists may not rust. If we do, the soul corrodes."
The sincerity of his tone was unmistakable. Art was the only altar at which Rooke worshipped, it was probably the only altar at which he ever would worship consistently. Nan suddenly yielded to the driving force at the back of his speech.
"Listen to this, then," she said. "It's a setting to some words I came across the other day."
She handed him a slip of paper on which the words were written and his eyes ran swiftly down the verses of the brief lyric:
EMPTY HANDS
Away in the sky, high over our heads, With the width of a world between, The far Moon sails like a shining ship Which the Dreamer's eyes have seen.
And empty hands are out-stretched in vain, While aching eyes beseech, And hearts may break that cry for the Moon, The silver Moon out of reach!
But sometimes God on His great white Throne Looks down from the Heaven above, And lays in the hands that are empty The tremulous Star of Love.
Nan played softly, humming the melody in the wistful little pipe of a voice which was all that Mature had endowed her with. But it had an appealing quality--the heart-touching quality of the mezzo-soprano--while through the music ran the same unsatisfied cry as in her setting of the old Tentmaker's passionate words--a terrible demand for those things that life sometimes withholds.
As she ceased playing Maryon Rooke spoke musingly.
"It's a queer world," he said. "What a man wants he can't have. He sees the good gifts and may not take them. Or, if he takes the one he wants the most--he loses all the rest. Fame and love and life--the great god Circumstance arranges all these little matters for us. . . . And mighty badly sometimes! And that's why I can't--why I mustn't--"
He broke off abruptly, checking what he had intended to say. Nan felt as though a door had been shut in her face. This man had a rare faculty for implying everything and saying nothing.
"I don't understand," she said rather low.
"An artist isn't a free agent--not free to take the things life offers," he answered steadily. "He's seen 'the far Moon' with the Dreamer's eyes, and that's probably all he'll ever see of it. His 'empty hands' may not even grasp at the star."
He had adapted the verses very cleverly to suit his purpose.