old, and on each
of these days the lawyer had gone to his private consulting room
immediately after luncheon, and, facing seaward, read the precious
revelation: "Engaged by Gailhard for Opera. Will write. Edna." That was
all--but it was the top of the hill for both after three years of
separation and work. He was not an expansive man and said little to his
associates of this good fortune, though there were times when he felt as
if he would like to throw open the windows and shout the glorious news
across the chimneys of the world.

Etharedge was a slim, nervous man with dark eyes and pointed beard. He
believed in his wife. Europe, artistic Europe, had for him the
fascination which sends fanatics across hot sands to Mecca shrines. He
had never seen Paris but knew its people, palaces, galleries. His whole
life was a preparation for deliberate assault upon the City by the
Seine. He spoke American-French, ate at French-American table d'hotes,
and had been married four years to a girl of Gallic descent whose
singing held such promise of future brilliancy that finally their
household was disrupted by music and its fluent deceptions. The advice
of friends, the unfortunate praise of a few professional critics, and
Edna Etharedge accompanied by her cousin, a widow, sailed for Paris.
Each summer he made up his mind to join her; once the death of his
mother had stopped him, and a second time money matters held him in a
vise of steel, but the third season--he did not care to dwell upon that
last summer: his conscience was ill at ease. And Edna worked like the
galley slave into which operatic routine transforms the most buoyant
spirit. For the first two years her letters were as regular as the mail
service--and hopeful. She was getting on famously. Her cousin
corroborated the accounts of plain living and high singing. There were
no vacations in the simple pension on the Boulevard de Clichy. She had
the best master in Paris, the best repetiteur; and the instructor who
came to coach her in stage business declared that madame held the future
in the hollow of her pretty palm. But the third year letters began to
miss. Edna wrote irregularly in pessimistic phrases. Art was so long and
life so gray that she felt, thus she assured her husband, as if she must
give up everything and return to him. Did he miss her? Why was he
cool--above all, patient? Didn't he long for wings to fly across the
Atlantic? Then a silence of three weeks. Etharedge