Chapter III

Maria went to the Argentine a month later but Peter heard from her every now and then. Her letters were mostly brief, acknowledging the letters from Pat which Peter forwarded to her. Occasionally he would supply a footnote to something which Pat had written if it touched upon things which were known only to himself and the boy and could not be understood by an outsider without explanation. Or it might be that some sporting reference, simple enough in itself, seemed to require clarification for the sake of Maria. For instance when Pat wrote, "He tried a forward pass but I managed to grab it on the two yard line and ran all the way for a touchdown," Peter added the note, "A football field is a hundred yards long. Pat's feat was most unusual."

But sports did not figure quite so large in the letters as they had done before. Rather often the boy wrote about books. In one letter he outlined the entire plot of "Mr. Polly" for Peter. In another somewhat to Peter's astonishment he wrote "Heard Galli again last Saturday. She does not excite me so much as she used to." Maria returned this letter with her acknowledgment and Peter found that this time she was supplying a footnote. "Galli," she wrote, "is Galli Curci, an opera singer with the voice and nothing else."

When the letter came in which Pat announced that he had entered the officer's training school at Harvard, Peter cabled to Maria. She replied almost immediately, "Have broken my contract, coming back to Paris." Before she arrived the armistice was signed. Peter went to see her almost immediately. He wanted to explain to her why her schemes about Pat were wholly impossible and he felt that now with the war issue removed it would be easier to discuss the matter calmly and rationally. He plunged into the question immediately.

"Now let's both make a solemn promise, Maria, to tell nothing but the truth without letting emotion or anything like that come in."

"But then," objected Maria, "it would not be the truth."

"Oh, you know what I mean. When I showed you Pat's picture that night you got very much excited. You said he had a nose just like yours and that it meant he was all cut out to be a singer. A great singer you said. Well, we're not excited now. Be honest with me. You can't really tell anything about whether he could be a singer or not just by looking at his nose in a picture. That was a little far-fetched, wasn't it? I mean it wasn't plain, cold, common-sense."

"What you ask me is a little hard, Peter. This common-sense you talk to me about, for that I care nothing. It is no good. It is not so that I see things. I was excited when I see the picture. That is true but it makes no difference. To have the much sense it is necessary for me to get excited. It is so I see things. If you mean can I write it down on the piece of paper like the contract, Pat he will be the singer, the great singer, I must say no. That I cannot promise. But contracts too I do not like."

"Yes," said Peter, "I've observed that."

"But I feel it, Peter. That is so much more. Can you not understand? You have sometimes maybe look into the crystal. It is so when I look at the picture. Here is my nose again in the world. It is for something."

"Maybe," suggested Peter, "it's a nose for news."

Maria paid no attention. "Do you not see? If it is the failure that does not matter. Just so long as it is the possibility it is necessary that we try.

"You don't begin to understand how far apart we are, Maria. I'll tell you frankly where I stand. Even if I knew Pat could be the greatest singer in the world I'd rather have him a newspaperman. That's my angle."

"You are not serious."

"But I am. Newspaper work's real. It's got roots into life. It is life. It makes people in the world a little different. Singing is just something you go and hear in the evening."

"For you it is enough that he should go to the baseball and the football and perhaps the next war and write the book 'Lafayette Voulez Vous.'"

Peter flushed. "I think there's more sense to it," he said. "And it's pretty probable that Pat'll think something like I do. We were together and you weren't there. And we went around together and talked about Matty and Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker."

Maria looked a little puzzled.

"You wouldn't know," said Peter a little bitterly, "they're none of them singers."

"I didn't mean to be rotten," he added hastily. "I'm just trying to tell you the truth."

Maria smiled. "It is all right. You tell me, Peter, the truth---- your truth."

"Well, you see, Maria, he is like me. The nose may be you, but the rest is me. It's just got to be. In the beginning he wasn't anything but just sort of red clay or he was like a phonograph record before you cut the tune on it. He's been brought up around baseball games and newspaper offices. He knows, and everybody knows, that he's coming on the Bulletin and will take my place. In fact the job's been promised him. I'm not trying to lay down the law. It's just the way things are. I don't see what I could do about it even if I wanted to. He's all made by now. What's the use of my saying, 'Yes, let him go over and learn to be a singer.' It just hasn't been put in him."

Peter paused.

"I'm sorry, Maria. The trouble is he's a boy. If he'd been a girl I'd have jumped at the chance to have you make a singer of him. Newspaper work's no good for women."

"And singing, it is not good for men?" asked Maria.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I don't honestly think it is."

"Peter, I understand better now what this is you feel, but it is not all the truth you say. When I go away he is red clay, that is what you say. It is not so simple. I have looked at him then and to me he was just what you have said. But it is more. Inside the clay all the time there is something. The little bug, I do not know what it is you call it."

"Do you mean germ?"

"Yes, I think so. That you cannot touch and I cannot. So we do not need to talk and to get angry. It is for him to say. Is it not so?"

"Well, within reason--yes."

"So! You go back to America and you make him the newspaper man. That is fair. When he is twenty-one you will come here. And he will come. You will say 'yes'."

"That's almost four years off."

"The day I know; it is the twentieth in August. The year it will be 1922."

Peter hesitated.

"But it is fair, Peter. You should like it. Do you not see it is what you call it 'sporting'."

"You're on," said Peter.

"There, now we will not quarrel any more. Some things I want to know. You will tell me. You have heard him singing? Sometimes he sings a little?"

"I suppose so. I never noticed particularly. Yes, I remember when he was a kid he used to sing something that went, 'Tell me, pretty maiden'---- I can't remember the rest of it. He's got a loud voice, I say that for him. When he was playing out in front of the house with other kids I could always hear him a way above all the others. I guess he's got lungs all right."

"Those he has got from you. If he is the singer, you see, it will not be all my fault."

Maria was leaving for Spain within a few days and Peter said he expected to get back to America pretty soon.

"Here we shall meet on the twentieth in August, in nineteen twenty-two," said Maria. "Good-bye, Peter. I want you to bring my son at eight o'clock."