So, Pair said, they were only waiting till
her tailor should drink himself to death, to get married; and
meanwhile, he exacted for her all the respect that would have been due
to his wife; and everybody called her by his name. She was a pretty
little thing, very daintily formed, with tiny hands and feet, and big
gipsyish brown eyes; and very delicate, very fragile--she looked as if
anything might carry her off. Her name, Godeleine, seeming much too
grand and mediaeval for so small and actual a person, Pair had turned
it into Godelinette.
We all said, 'He is splendidly gifted; he will do great things.' He
had studied at Cambridge and at Leipsic before coming to Paris. He was
learned, enlightened, and extremely modern; he was a hard worker. We
said he would do great things; but I thought in those days, and indeed
I still think--and, what is more to the purpose, men who were
themselves musicians and composers, men whose names are known, were
before me in thinking--that he had already done great things, that the
songs he had already published were achievements. They seemed to us
original in conception, accomplished and felicitous in treatment; they
were full of melody and movement, full of harmonic surprises; they had
style and they had 'go.' One would have imagined they must please at
once the cultivated and the general public.
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