The Brimming Cup

It all came up before her as she talked, that horrid encounter with

commercial ruthlessness: she saw again poor 'Gene's outraged face of

helpless anger, felt again the heat of sympathetic indignation she and

Neale had felt, recognized again the poison which triumphant

unrighteousness leaves behind. She shook her head impatiently, to shake

off the memory, and said aloud, "Oh, it makes me sick to remember it! We

couldn't believe, any of us, that such bare-faced iniquity could

succeed."

"There's a good deal of bare-faced iniquity riding around prosperously

in high-powered cars," said Mr. Welles, with a lively accent of

bitterness. "You have to get used to it in business life. It's very

likely that your wicked Mr. Lowder in private life in New Hampshire is a

good husband and father, and contributes to all the charitable

organizations."

"I won't change my conception of him as a pasty-faced demon," insisted

Marise.

It appeared that Mr. Marsh's appetite for local history was so slight as

to be cloyed even by the very much abbreviated account she had given

them, for he now said, hiding a small yawn, with no effort to conceal

the fact that he had been bored, "Mrs. Crittenden, I've heard from Mr.

Welles' house the most tantalizing snatches from your piano. Won't you,

now we're close to it, put the final touch to our delightful lunch-party

by letting us hear it?"

Marise was annoyed by his grand seigneur air of certainty of his own

importance, and piqued that she had failed to hold his interest. Both

impressions were of a quicker vivacity than was at all the habit of her

maturity. She told herself, surprised, that she had not felt this little

sharp sting of wounded personal vanity since she was a girl. What did

she care whether she had bored him or not? But it was with all her

faculties awakened and keen that she sat down before the piano and

called out to them, "What would you like?"

They returned the usual protestations that they would like anything she

would play, and after a moment's hesitation . . . it was always a leap in

the dark to play to people about whose musical capacities you hadn't the

faintest idea . . . she took out the Beethoven Sonata album and turned to

the Sonata Pathétique. Beethoven of the early middle period was the

safest guess with such entirely unknown listeners. For all that she

really knew, they might want her to play Chaminade and Moskowsky. Mr.

Welles, the nice old man, might find even them above his comprehension.

And as for Marsh, she thought with a resentful toss of her head that he

was capable of saying off-hand, that he was really bored by all

music--and conveying by his manner that it was entirely the fault of the

music. Well, she would show him how she could play, at least.