# The Green Bay Tree (Bromfield, Frederick A. Stokes Company, printing 11)/Chapter 68

LILY did not sell and for a time the letters of Folsom and Jones ceased to arrive regularly. Since all her property in the Town was sold save the site of the house at Cypress Hill, there remained no cause for correspondence. Her money she invested through the American banks in Paris. She heard nothing more of the Town until November when she returned to the city. The prospect of a winter in Paris appeared to revive her spirits, and she went, as usual, to hear Ellen play her first concert of the season. That year Lilli Barr played a new Poem with the Colonne Orchestra under the baton of the elegant Gabriel Pierné. The performance was not a great success. There was too little sympathy between the scholarly soul of the conductor and the vigorous, barbaric temperament of the pianist. Yet it was Ellen who came off best, bearing all the laurels, with all the simpering critics trotting attendance. "Mlle. Barr," they said, "has the perfect temperament for it . . . the superb adjustment of soul and intellect indispensable to the interpretation of such febrile music. It is music which requires a certain coldness of brain, a perception delicate and piercing . . . a thing of the nerves." And so they ran on, wallowing in their delight for the mot juste, praising more extravagantly than was either honest or in good taste. One or two saw an opportunity in the praise of hitting a back handed slap at the conductor and his orchestra.
It was M. Galivant, critic of the Journal des Arts Modernes, who hit upon the phrases "febrile music" and "delicate perception." He showed Lilli Barr the article in the salon after the concert, with the keys of the great piano barely cool from her hot fingers.
"Pish! Tosh!" she remarked to Lily who waited for her in the dressing room. "Did you see what Galivant has written? ​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 ​black and wore a derby hat set well on the back of his head. Over one arm hung an umbrella. He was rather sallow and macabre despite his plumpness. There was the faint air of an undertaker about him. He might have been any age.
As he advanced he smiled and, observing Lily, his countenance assumed an expression of surprise. Ellen gave no sign of recognition. It was Lily who stirred suddenly and stood up, her face glowing with a genuine spontaneous pleasure.
"Willie Harrison!" she cried. "Where have you come from?"
At the sound of his name Ellen's smooth brow wrinkled in a slight frown. "Willie Harrison," she murmured, and then joined Lily in welcoming him.
For a moment he stood awkwardly regarding the two women. Then he said, "I came to your concert, Ellen. . . . I saw it advertised in the Herald. I knew you were Lilli Barr." He chortled nervously. "Funny how famous you are now! Nobody ever would have thought it!"
The sight of Willie appeared suddenly to loosen all Ellen's taut nerves. She sat down, leaned back in the chair, and laughed. "Yes. I fooled them, didn't I?" she said. "I fooled them." And a sort of grim satisfaction entered her voice.
Lily was smiling now, out of sheer pleasure at the sight of Willie. It amused her probably more than anything that could have happened to her at that moment.
"But what on earth are you doing in Paris?"
From the tone of her voice, it was clear that she regarded his presence as a sort of miracle. . . . That Willie Harrison should have had the energy to cross the Atlantic and wander about alone in Paris.
Willie sat down, rather stiffly, and told his story. He was with a Cook's party. His tour included London, Paris, the château country and Switzerland. He was leaving shortly.
"It's been a wonderful trip," he remarked, his plump face all aglow. "I'd no idea how much country there was over here."
"Yes," said Ellen, "there's a good deal, taking it all in all." She said this with an undisguised air of patronizing him. It was she who was great now, she who held the whip hand. She was no longer an awkward girl in a home-made ball ​gown so unpretentious that men like Willie Harrison failed to notice her.
But Willie failed to understand. He was childishly excited over Paris. "It's a great city!" he observed, fingering nervously the ruby clasp of his watch chain. "A great city!"
Lily stood up suddenly.
"Willie," she said, "come home and have supper with us." And turning to Ellen she added, "Paul will be waiting for us. He must be there already." And to Willie, "Paul is Monsieur Schneidermann, a friend of Ellen's and mine."
Willie rose. "I don't know," he said timidly. "Maybe you aren't prepared for me. Maybe I'd be in the way. I didn't mean to force my way in on anything when I called. It was just for the sake of old times."
Lily, moved toward the door trailing the magnificent cloak of black and silver. She thrust her arm through his. "Come along, Willie," she said. "No nonsense. Why, we grew up together."
And they went out, Ellen following them in her plum-colored wrap, to the motor which bore on its polished door the crest of the Baron.
Throughout the journey Willie kept poking his head in and out of the closed motor, drinking in the sights along the way . . . the hushed, shadowy mass of the Madeleine, the warm glow before Maxims', the ghostly spaces of the Place de la Concorde, the white palaces of the Champs Elysées. Ellen in her corner remained sulky and taciturn, smoking savagely. Lily talked merrily, pointing out from time to time sights which she deemed worthy of Willie's appreciation. He seemed not to be listening.
"It's a wonderful place," he kept saying over and over again. "It's a wonderful place." And a kind of pathetic and beautiful awe crept into his thin voice. It seemed that he had no other words than "wonderful." He kept repeating it again and again like a drunken man holding a conversation with himself.
At Numero Dix, Rue Raynouard, Willie underwent the experience of every stranger. He entered by the unpretentious door and found himself suddenly at the top of a long, amazing stairway which led down to a drawing-room all rosy with the ​glow of warm light. Half-way down the stairs candles burned in sconces against the dull paneling. From below drifted the faint sound of music . . . a Debussy nocturne being played with caressing fingers in the shadowy, dim-lit spaces of the drawing-room.
"Paul is here," observed Ellen and led the way down the long stairs.
Lily followed and close at her silver heels Willie Harrison, divested now of his derby and umbrella. Half-way down, he paused for a moment and Lily, conscious that he had ceased to follow her, waited too. As she turned she saw that he was listening. There was a strange blurred look in his pale eyes the look of one awaking from a long sleep.
"It's beautiful," he said reverently. "My God! It's beautiful!" A kind of dignity seized him. He was no longer gauche and timid. He stared at Lily who stood with her back to a mirror, the black and silver cloak thrown carelessly back from her voluptuous white shoulders, her handsome head crowned with gold bronze hair. And then all at once the tears shone in his eyes. He leaned against the paneling.
"I understand now," he said softly. "I understand . . . everything. I know now how little I must have counted. . . . me and all the Mills together."
And in Lily's eyes there was mirrored another picture . . . that of a vast resounding shed bright with flames and thick with the odor of soot and half-naked bodies . . . Willie, eternally fingering the ruby clasp of his watch chain, herself turning the rings round and round on her slim fingers, and in the distance the white, stalwart body of a young Ukrainian steel worker . . . a mere boy . . . but beautiful. Krylenko was his name . . . Krylenko . . . Krylenko . . . It was a long time ago, more than fourteen years. How time flew!
Lily's dusky blue eyes darkened suddenly and the tears brimmed over. Perhaps it came to her then for the first time . . . a sense of life, of a beautiful yet tragic unity, of a force which swept both of them along helplessly.
All at once she held her handkerchief, quite shamelessly, to her eyes. "We are beginning to be old, Willie," she said softly. "Do you feel it too?"
​And she turned and led the way downwards. The music had ceased and the voices of Ellen and Paul Schneidermann rose in dispute. They were arguing with a youthful fire over the merits of the new concerto.
"Here," came Ellen's voice. "This part. It is superb!" And then the sound of a wild, ecstatic sweep of music, terrifying and beautiful. "You understand the strings help a great deal. Part of it lies in the accompaniment." And she began singing the accompaniment as she played.
But Lily with her companion trooping along behind her, did not interrupt the discussion. They made their way, enveloped in a peaceful silence, into the dining-room where supper waited them—some sort of hot stuff in a silver dish with an alcohol flame burning beneath it, an urn steaming with hot chocolate, a bowl of whipped cream, a few sandwiches—superlatively French sandwiches, very thin and crustless with the faintest edge of buff colored paté showing between the transparent slices of white bread. It was all exquisite, perfect, flawless.
"Sit down," said Lily, as she flung off the black and silver cloak. "Sit down and tell me all about yourself."
Willie drew up a chair. "I shan't be able to stay very late," he said. "You see, I'm leaving early in the morning." He watched Lily fumbling with the lamp beneath the urn. She was plumper than he had expected. Indeed she was almost fat. There was a faint air of middle-age about her, indiscernable but unmistakably present.
"What about yourself?" he asked politely. "What has your life been?"
Lily kept on turning and pushing at the silver burner. "My life?" she said. "Well, you see it all about you, Willie." She made a little gesture to include the long, softly glittering rooms, Ellen, the piano, Paul Schneidermann. "It's just been this," she said. "Nothing more . . . nothing less. Not much has happened." For a moment she stopped her fumbling and sat thoughtful. "Not much has happened," and then after another pause, "No, scarcely anything."
There was a sudden, sharp silence, filled by the sound of ​Ellen's music. She had become absorbed in it, utterly. It was impossible to say when she would come in to supper.
Then Willie, in an attempt at courtliness, strained the truth somewhat. "You don't look a day older, Lily . . . not a day. . . . Just the same. It's remarkable."
His companion lifted the lid of the chafing dish. "Some hot chicken, Willie?" she asked, and when he nodded, "I must say you look younger . . . ten years younger than the last time I saw you. Why, you look as though you'd forgotten the Mills . . . completely."
Willie laughed. It was a curious elated laugh, a little wild for all its softness.
"I have," he said. "You see I'm out of the Mills for good. I've been out of them for almost seven years."
Lily looked at him. "Seven years," she said, "seven years! Why that's since the strike. You must have gotten out at the same time."
"I did," he replied, "I own some stock. That's all. Judge Weissman is dead, you know. When mother died, the old crowd went out of it for good. All the Mills are now a part of the Amalgamated."