Old Rose and Silver

"Does my name fit me?" queried Isabel, much interested.

"It would," said Allison, "if you weren't quite so tall. Does my name fit me?"

He spoke to Madame Bernard but he looked at Rose. It was the older woman who answered him. "Yes, of course it does. How dare you ask me that when I named you myself?"

"I'd forgotten," Allison laughed. "I can't remember quite that far back."

They began to play once more and Isabel, pleading a headache, said good- night. She made her farewells very prettily and there was a moment's silence after the door closed.

"I'm afraid," said Madame, "that our little girl is lonely. Allison, can't you bestir yourself and find some young men to call upon her? I can't think of anybody but the Crosby twins."

"What's the matter with me?" inquired Allison, lightly. "Am I not calling? And behold, I give her a headache and she goes to bed."

"You're not exactly in her phase of youth," Madame objected. "She's my guest and she has to be entertained."

"I'm willing to do my share. I'll take her into town to the theatre some night, and to supper afterward, in the most brilliantly lighted place I can find."

"That's very nice of you," responded Rose, with a look of friendly appreciation. "I know she would enjoy the bright lights."

"We all do, in certain moods," he said. "Are you ready now?"

The voice of the violin rose to heights of ecstasy, sustained by full chords in the accompaniment. Mingled with the joy of it, like a breath of sadness and longing, was a theme in minor, full of question and heartbreak; of appeal that was almost prayer. And over it all, as always, hovering like some far light, was the call to which Rose answered. Dumbly, she knew that she must always answer it, though she were dead and the violin itself mingled with her dust.

Madame Bernard, still seated by the fire, stirred uneasily. Something had come into her house that vaguely troubled her, because she had no part in it. The air throbbed with something vital, keen, alive; the room trembled as from invisible wings imprisoned.

Old dreams and memories came back with a rush, and the little old lady sitting in the half light looked strangely broken and frail. The sound of marching and the steady beat of a drum vibrated through her consciousness and the singing violin was faint and far. She saw again the dusty street, where the blue column went forward with her Captain at the head, his face stern and cold, grimly set to some high Purpose that meant only anguish for her. The picture above the mantel, seen dimly through a mist, typified, to her, the ways of men and women since the world began--the young knight riding forward in his quest for the Grail, already forgetting what lay behind, while the woman knelt, waiting, waiting, waiting, as women always have and always must.