Motion Picture Classic (May 1921 - Dec 1927)

CLASSIC of all Come to my house tonight, not as a singer but as the daughter of my old pupil. Once every week I give coffee to my friends, and they all talk of themselves and are happy. At my hou se once every week poor failures are geniuses, and geese are swans. It will amuse you, my child.” Rosa wondered afterward whether the wily old music master had it in his mind that she would meet Griffeth Ames. The rooms of JacobelLi’s old-fashioned house on Gramercy Square were filled with a motley collection of students, singers, and artistes of varying degrees of talent, but it seemed to her that she and the young composer were alone together, in some isolation of soul she could not explain, did not need to explain. She went away from their first evening together, walking under a new sky, and Signora Torani, huddled up in a flannelette dressing-gown of baby blue in waiting for her, exclaimed at the sight of her face. “Who is he, carissimaf You cant cheat a woman who's lived in this world so long as I have ! It’s only a man who can bring a look like that to a girl’s eyes !” “I am going to take singing lessons of him,” Rosa said defiantly. “He is a poor young composer who lives in some attic in the Village, and he thinks I am an ambitious student. Of course I couldn’t give my real name — not that that would have told him anything more yet, until after the opera season begins.” “Singing lessons of some unknown fellow in an attic !” screamed the Signora. “Are you crazy, my child? You who already know more than even the greatest teachers can tell you. You who are to be introduced as a star in a month !” “It cant hurt me to learn the scales and practise my exercises,” Rosa averred wilfully. “And do not get any silly notions in your silly head ! I am not going to fall in love with any handsome boy — he interests me, that is all.” On some inexplicable impulse she went to the trunk and took out a jewel box, unlocking it to reveal a blaze of red and green and golden light. One by one she lifted necklace, pendant, ring and sunburst from their velvet bed and held them to the dark masses of her hair, against the white curving of her throat. One — a great diamond that flashed rose and amethyst — she fastened on her bosom, regarding her glowing beauty in the mirror somberly. “What is the name of this?” she asked the Signora, who crossed herself fearfully before she replied. “It is called the Heart of a Maid,” the old Italian woman answered ; then, unwillingly, “of all your mother’s famous jewels that is the most celebrated. It belonged once to a queen they say, and before that to a famous courtesan. There is a story that when it is worn over a faithless heart it turns crimson — but for the sake of God, my child, put it away ! It is a wicked stone! It brings trouble — death follows it! Your mother had it on the night she was killed by her last lover !” “Do you suppose I can be frightened by old wives' tales?” Rosa scorned. It seemed to her that the stone enhanced her beauty. She wondered to herself what Griffeth Ames would say if he could see it flashing on her white breast. If she could have heard the conversation taking place at that same moment in a far distant part of the city, she might not have sneered at old wives’ tales quite so readily. For the dark, undersized, foreign looking man leaning across the cafe table and speaking to the pallid, poetic looking boy opposite him had just spoken the words — “Heart of a Maid — ” “We have absolute assurance that the stone is in this country,” Count Jurka said, playing with his absinthe glass with slim, prehensile fingers, “Mr. Ward’s agents on the other side have been watching it, and I got a cable only the other day that some singer had brought it away from Italy with a lot of other jewels she got from her mother. Ward’s orders are to buy it at all costs — he’ll pay anything to A shiver went down her spine. “Sophia! you come to me with flowers picked from their graves ” (Twenty-nine)