Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-01

North Africa the French steamer
Normandie coasted giloS.like through
the darkness mute, jet sea.
The foam along her flank was
mere lace border stabbed now and then by blue
dagger points of phosphorescent fire. Four
warm pulsing stars-three drops of old gold
and an unset ruby-swinging low against the
night in the faint south wind, kept easy pace.
The moon lost.
Eugene Forbes stood alone at the aftefdeck
rail- The hour was very late and there was
none to spy when she reached up her Wmte
arms as If to enfold those warm stars and
make them hers Even her AA three-cabm
suite with its sitting room and little white
piano, had seemed too confined tonight, ana
GAMMA squat as a Buddha and black-eyed as
an Anime hawk had scowled and muttered too
fericiouSIy because her mistress had fingered
so long with Michael Hope. Eugene had fed
to the deck.
Presently her hands fell from their star
reaching one to rest at the base OF her slender
throat, while the other lifted the soft dark hair
from the nape of her neck. oh, it was all 80
good and it was hers for five long months. and
the great black liner could take her on forever
toward those southlands and blue seas where
there was no Chicago Opera Company and no
concert tours and no eternal drill and labor
under the whip Of cruel master by the name
of Music.
Shed had to faint on the stage before they
would let her go, but then they sent her.
you've been superb, Eugene, for three solid
years. Take a cruise-Africa, the Med1ter-
ranean. Go rest" And her bearded old I-told-
you-so Of q doctor growled, II knew it-nerves!
I warned you you were too slight for opera,
Engenie, darling. Heaven knows where you get
your volume, but you've got to quit it now. Let
the world sing to you for while"
A ND so when an instructive and almost IRE
"A sistible swen within her impelled her to
give back an answer to the night, Eugene held
it down and listened instead for the singing
of the world TO her. She heard it plainly, ut
first indistinguishable from the whisper Of the
water, the cool stir Of air, the measured beat
of engines the symphony Of stars" and finally
standing clear IN o low, controlled baritone and
the words Of dear, simple ballad which she'd
thought was long forgotten, South winds
voice Of a dreamer over the sea-drifting my
dear one nearer to me-"
Eugene heard It without curioSity-tlst part
Of this sweet stolen hour, chord or two struck
from guitar some deckhand with shred or
voice or stoker perhaps treasuring his mo-
fnent of air. She didn't even try to place the
singer, back aft where there were few tourist
passengers probably or above her on the boat
deck although somehow it sounded mostly from
below-"South winds-like memory's kisses
blown from afar-whisper love you wherever
you are"
suddenly Eugene came out of her dream,
beautifully realized passage in that song, but
she had too trained an ear to miss it. That
was no deckhand's voice, but singers voice.
Somebody hne artiSt-was on board the ship,
some one who sang with smoldering passion
that others might forget, but Eugene Forbes
never could She took few running steps
along the deck and stopped to listen again
Drifting my dear one nearer to me-"
She seized the rail- listening. She couldn't
be wrong. 1t was Pascall And then the song
ended and left her there to remember the once
in her life when technique and tone and in
depreciation had been swept aside before the
rush of feeling which in a hard career she
had never before known. 1t was nearly three
years ago, Just after she had gone to Chicago
after her debut In Europe and her season at
Milan. She was making up for "Manon" In her
dressing room when the directors sent word Of
the tenor's illness and that untried young
tenor named Alexandra Pascal would sing
How well Eugene could bring back the excite
ment, the delayed curtain, her refusal to sing
opposite a man with whom she hadn't re-
hearsed, whom she'd never even seen. Well,
except in the wig and makeup of des Grieux,
she hadn't seen him yet for that matter. But
they had prevailed, as her parents, teachers,
directors always prevailed, and she had gone
out to the young man and he smiled at her
and they began singing to each other with all
else forgotten.
There was little more than that, only her
whispered you're splendid" after the famous
"Reve," and his murmur, 1T is you. do not
care about the rest"-and after that only her
trembling every time he touched her, until their
duet during the INN scene when she was IN his
arms and he sang "Manon" and whispered
Eugene"
'Jandro Pascal had been no less a sensation
than Eugene Forbes To that srellbolInd audience