I never heard the finish of it. I became rather interested in a scene near the window, where a boy of about my own age was furiously kissing a girl somewhat younger. Then the lady at my side stretched a long arm towards me, and languished, and making the best of a bad job, I languished, too. When the funny story and the fellah's aunt had been disposed of, some one else went to the piano and played Debussy, and the anarchist brought me another drink; and the whole thing was such painfully manufactured Bohemianism that it made me a little tired. The room, the appointments, the absence of light, Debussy, the drinks, and the girls' costumes were so obviously part of an elaborate make-up, an arrangement of life. The only spontaneous note was that which was being struck near the window. I decided to slip away, and fell down the ragged stairs into Chelsea, and looked upon the shadow-fretted streets, where the arc-lamps, falling through the trees, dappled the pavements with light.
The skies were dashed with stars and a sick moon. It was trying to snow. I tripped down the steps from the door, and ran lightly into a girl who stood at the gate, looking up at the room I had just left. The cheek that was turned toward me was clumsily daubed with carmine and rouge. Snowflakes fell dejectedly about her narrow shoulders. She just glanced at me, and then back at the window. I looked up, too. The piano was at it again, and some one was singing. The thread of light just showed you the crimson curtains and the heavy oak beams. The pianist broke into Delilah's song, and the voice swam after it. It was a clear, warm voice, typical of the fifth-rate concert platform. But the girl, her face uplifted, dropped her lips in a half-whispered exclamation of wonder, "Cuh!" I should have said that she was, for the first time, touching finger-tips with beauty. It moved her as something comic should have done. Her face lit to a smile, and then a chuckle of delight ran from her.
The voice was doing its best. It sank to despair, it leaped to lyric passion, it caressed a low note of ecstatic pain, and then, like a dew-delighted bird, it fled up and hovered on a timid note of appeal. The girl giggled. As the voice died on a long, soft note, she laughed aloud, and swallowed. She looked around and caught my eye. It seemed that she had something about which she must talk.