"He looks pretty well knocked out, doesn't he?" whispered Biterolf to Mrs. Minne. She curled her lip. She had long set her heart on Tannhaeuser, but since he preferred to sing the praises of Mrs. Holda, she slaked her feelings by cutting up his character in slices and serving them to her friends with a saintly smile.

"Poor old Harry," went on Biterolf in his clumsy fashion. "Your poor old Harry had better keep away from his Venus," snapped the other; "he looks as if he'd been going the pace too fast." Every one looked curiously at the popular tenor. He stood the inspection very well, though his clean-shaven face was slightly haggard, his eyes sunken and bloodshot. But he was such good style, as the women remarked, and his bearing, as ever, gallant.

Elizabeth ended with "Sei mir gegruesst," and there was a volley of handclapping. Tannhaeuser made his way to the piano. His attitude was anything but penitent; the girl did not stir a muscle. He shook hands. Then he complimented her singing. She bowed her head stiffly. Tannhaeuser smiled ironically.

"I suppose I ought to do the conventional operatic thing," he murmured—"cry aloud, 'Let me kneel forever here.'" She regarded him coldly. "You might find it rather embarrassing before this crowd. Do you ever sing any more?" He was slightly confused. "Let us sing the duo in the second act; you know it," she curtly said, "and stop the mob's gaping. Mrs. Minne over there is straining her eyes out." "She cannot say that I ever sang her praises," laughed Tannhaeuser, and as he faced the audience with Elizabeth there was a hum which modulated clamorously into noisy applause.

The pair began "Gepriesen sei die Stunde, gepriesen sei die Macht," and Mr. Landgrave looked on gloomily as the voices melted in lyric ecstasy. Henry's voice was heroic, like himself, and his friend Wolfram felt a glow when its thrilling top tones rang out so pure, so clear. What a voice, what a man! If he would only take care of himself, he thought and looked at Elizabeth's spiritual face wondering if she knew—if she knew of the other woman who was making Henry forget his better self!

The duo ceased and congratulations were heaped upon the singers....

"How do you manage to keep it up, old man?" asked Biterolf while Mrs. Minne engaged Elizabeth.

Tannhaeuser smiled. "You old grim wolf, Biterolf, you cling to the notion that a singer must lead the life of an anchorite to preserve his voice. I enjoy life. I am not a monk, but a tenor—" "Yes, but not a professional one!" "No; therefore I'm happy. If I had to sing to order, I'd jump into the river." "That's what you said this afternoon," replied Biterolf, knowingly.

Henry's face grew dark. "You've said nothing, have you? That's a good fellow. I assure you, Karl, I'm in the very devil of a fix. I've got rid of Holda, but no one can tell how long. She's a terror." "Why don't you travel?" "I have, I swear I have, but she has a trick of finding where my luggage goes and then turns up at Pau or Paris as if I expected her. She's a witch! That's what she is."

"She is Venus," said Biterolf moodily. "Aha! you've been hard hit, too? I believe she does come from the Hollow Hill. Her cavern must be full of dead men's bones, trophies of her conquests. I think I've escaped this time." Tannhaeuser's face grew radiant. "Don't be too sure, she may turn up here to-night." "Good Lord, man, she's not invited, I hope." "I don't know why not—she goes with the best people. Take a tip from me, Harry. Don't waste any more time with her for Eschenbach may cut you out. He's very fond of Elizabeth, and you'd better cut short that duet over there now; Mrs. Minne is not fond of you." "Nonsense!" said Tannhaeuser, but he lounged over toward the two women and his big frame was noted by all the girls in the room.

Tannhaeuser had a very taking way with him. His eyes were sky-blue and his hair old gold. He was a terrific sportsman and when not making love was singing. From his Teutonic ancestry he had inherited a taste for music which desultory study in a German university town, combined with a musical ear, had improved. He had been told by managers that if he would work hard he could make a sensation, but Henry was lazy and Henry was rich, so he sang, shot big game and flirted his years away. Then he met Mrs. Holda, of Berg Street, Piccadilly.

The women were not looking at each other with loving eyes when he drew near. Elizabeth turned to him, her face aglow: "Let us walk a bit before Mr. Eschenbach sings." Her manner was almost seductive. Mrs. Minne sneered slightly and waved her fan condescendingly at the two as they moved slowly up the room. "There go the biggest pair of fools in all Christendom," she remarked to Biterolf; "why, she will believe everything he tells her. She wouldn't listen to my advice." Biterolf shook his head. When Tannhaeuser and Elizabeth returned both looked supremely happy.

"That woman has actually been abusing you, Harry." He pressed her arm reassuringly. Wolfram Eschenbach began to sing "Blick' ich umher in diesem edlen Kreise," and once more silence fell upon the bored crowd. Sympathy was in his tones and he sang tenderly, lovingly. Elizabeth listened unmoved. She now had eyes for Tannhaeuser only, and she laughed aloud when he proposed to follow Wolfram with a solo.

"Do," she said enthusiastically, "it will stir them all up." Although this number was not down on the program, Tannhaeuser was welcomed as he went to the piano. Wolfram seemed uneasy and once looked fixedly at Elizabeth. Then he walked out on the balcony as if seeking some one, and Mrs. Minne nudged her stolid neighbor. "Mark my words, there's trouble brewing," she declared.

By this time Tannhaeuser was in his best form. He seemed to have regained all his usual elasticity, for Berg Street, with its depressing memories, had completely vanished. He expanded his chest and sang, his victorious blue eyes fastened on Elizabeth. He sang the song of Venus, "Dir, Goettin der Liebe," and all the old passion came into his voice; when he uttered "Zieht in den Berg der Venus ein" he was transported, his surroundings melted and once more he was gazing at the glorious woman, his Venus, his Holda. The audience was completely shaken out of its fashionable immobility, and "superb," "bravo," "magnificent," "encore," "bis," were heard on all sides. Elizabeth alone remained mute. Her skin was the pallor of ivory, and into her glance came the look of a lovely fawn run down by the hounds.

"He'd better pack his traps and make a pilgrimage to Rome," remarked Mrs. Minne with malice in her secular eyes as Tannhaeuser strode to the balcony. Wolfram, looking anxious, went to Elizabeth and led her to her uncle; then the supper signal sounded and the buzz and struggle became tremendous.

Mrs. Minne disappeared. Ten minutes later she was at Miss Landgrave's side, and presently the pair left the table, slowly forced a passage through the mob of hungry and thirsty humans and reached the balcony.

The night was rich with May odors, but the place seemed deserted. Plucking at the girl's sleeve, her companion pointed to a couple that stood looking into the garden, the arm of the man passed about the waist of the woman. Even in the starlight Elizabeth recognized the exquisite head and turned to leave; the woman with her was bent on seeing the game. In sharp staccato she said, "What a relief after that hot supper-room!" and the others turned. Elizabeth did not pause a moment. She went to Tannhaeuser's companion and said:

"My dear Mrs. Holda, where have you been hiding to-night? I fear you missed the music and I fear now you will miss the supper; do let us go in." ...

Five minutes later Mrs. Holda left with Tannhaeuser in her brougham, telling the coachman to drive to Berg Street.

II

The drawing-room was delicious that May afternoon—the next after the musicale at Landgrave's. Henry was indolently disposed, and on a broad divan, heaped with Persian pillows, he stretched his big limbs like a guardsman in a Ouida novel. The dark woman near watched him closely, and as he seemed inclined to silence she did not force the conversation.

"Shall we drive, Venus?" he nonchalantly asked. "Just as you please. We may meet your saint with the insipid eyes in the park." "Good heavens!" he testily answered, "why do you forever drag in that girl's name? She's nothing to me." Mrs. Holda went to the window and he lazily noticed her perfect figure, her raven hair and black eyes. She was a stunner after all, and didn't look a day over twenty-eight. How did she manage to preserve the illusion of youth? She turned to him, and he saw the contour of a face Oriental, with eyes that allured and a mouth that invited. A desirable but dangerous woman, and he fell to thinking of the other, of her air of girlhood, her innocence of poise, her calm of breeding that nothing disturbed. Like a good pose in the saddle, nothing could ever unseat the equanimity of Elizabeth. Mrs. Holda grew distasteful for the moment and her voice sounded metallic.

"When you cease your perverse mooning, Harry Tannhaeuser, when you make up your mind once and for all which woman you intend to choose, when you decide between Elizabeth Landgrave and Venus Holda, I shall be most happy. As it is now I am"—Just then two cards were handed her by a footman, and after looking at them she laughed a mellow laugh. Tannhaeuser sat up and asked her the news.

"I laugh because the situation is so funny," she said; "here are your two friends come to visit you and perhaps attempt your rescue from the Venusberg. Oh! for a Wagner now! What appropriate music he could set to this situation." She gave him the cards, and to his consternation he read the names of Elizabeth Landgrave and Wolfram Eschenbach. He started up in savage humor and was for going to the reception room. Quite calmly Mrs. Holda bade him stay where he was.

"They did not ask for you, Harry, dear; stay here and be a good boy, and I'll tell you all about it when they've gone." Her laughter was resilient as she descended the staircase, but to the young man it seemed sinister. He felt that hope had abandoned him when he entered the Berg Street house, and now Elizabeth's presence, instead of relieving his dull remorse, increased it. She was under the same roof with him, yet he could not go to her....

Tannhaeuser paced the parquetry almost hidden by Bokhara rugs, trying to forget the girl. Stopping before an elaborate ebony and gold lectern, he found a volume in vellum, opened and in it he read: "Livre des grandes Merveilles d'amour, escript en Latin et en francoys par Maistre Antoine Gaget 1530." "Has love its marvels?" pondered the disquieted young man. Turning over the title-page he came upon these words in sweet old English:

"Then lamented he weeping: Alas, most unhappy and accursed sinner that I am, in that I shall never see the clemency and mercy of my God. Now will I go forth and hide myself within Mount Horsel, imploring my sweet lady Venus for favor and loving mercy, for willingly would I be forever condemned to hell for her love. Here endeth all my deeds of arms and my sweet singing. Alas, that my lady's face and her eyes were too beautiful, and that in an unfortunate moment I saw them. Then went he forth sighing and returned to her, and dwelt sadly in the presence of his lady, filled with a surpassing love. And afterwards it came to pass that one day the pope saw many red and white flowers and leaf-buds spring forth from his bastions, and all without bloomed anew. So that he feared greatly, and being much moved thereby was filled with great pity for the chevalier who had gone forth hopeless like unto a man forever damned and miserable. And straightway sent he numberless messengers to him to bring him back, saying that he should receive grace and absolution from God, for this his great sin of love. But never more was he seen; for the poor chevalier dwelt forever near unto Venus, that most high and mighty Goddess, in the bosom of the amorous mountain." ...

Mrs. Holda was delightful as she welcomed her visitors. "The drawing-room was not empty," she said; "a friend, an old friend, a bit of a bore, you know;" and they must just stay downstairs, it was more cozy, more intimate. Elizabeth, whose face was quite rosy from walking, studied the woman with the Egyptian profile and glorious hair, and wondered if she ever told the truth. Wolfram alone seemed uneasy. He could not get into the swing of conversation; he was in his watchful mood. He looked at the portieres as if every moment he expected some one to appear. The musicale was discussed and Miss Landgrave's singing praised. Wolfram rather awkwardly attempted to introduce Tannhaeuser's name, but was snubbed by Elizabeth.

"Now, my dear Mrs. Holda, I've come to tell you some news; promise me, I beg of you, promise me not to divulge it. We are engaged, Wolfram and I, and you being such an old friend I came to you first." The girl's pure face was the picture of nubile candor, and her eyes met fairly the shock of the other's quick glance.

"How lovely, how perfectly lovely it all is, and how I appreciate your confidence," sang Mrs. Holda, in purring accents. "How glad Henry Tannhaeuser will be to hear that his two best friends are to be married. I must tell—tell him this afternoon."

"Oh!" cried Elizabeth, lightly, "but your promise, have you forgotten it?" The other laughed in her face.

"We go to Rome, to make what dear Mrs. Minne calls the pilgrimage," declared the girl unflinchingly.

"Then I hope the Wagner miracle will take place again," mockingly answered Mrs. Holda, and after a few more sentences the visitors went away. Venus burst into her drawing-room holding her sides, almost choking. "Harry, Harry, Harry Tannhaeuser, I shall die. They're engaged to be married. They came to tell me, to tell me, knowing that you were upstairs. Oh, that deceitful virgin with her sly airs! I understood her. She fancied that she would put me out of countenance. She and that sheep of a brewer's son, Eschenbach. They're engaged, I tell you, and going to Rome on their wedding trip—their pilgrimage she called it. Oh, these affected Wagnerites! You had better go, too, Mr. Tannhaeuser; perhaps the miracle might be renewed and your staff of faith grow green with the leaves of repentance. Oh, Harry, what a lark it all is!"

He sat on the couch and stared at her as she rolled about on a divan, gripped by malicious laughter.... Engaged! Elizabeth Landgrave engaged to be married! And a few hours ago she told him she loved him, could never love another—and now! What had happened in such a brief time to make her change her mind? Engaged to Wolfram Eschenbach, dear, old stupid Wolfram, who had loved her with a dog's love for years, even when she flouted him. Wolfram, his best friend, slow Wolfram, with his poetizing, his fondness for German singing societies, his songs to evening stars; Eschenbach, the brewer's son, to cut him out, cut out brilliant Harry Tannhaeuser! It was incredible, it was monstrous!... He slowly went to the window. The street was empty, and only his desperate thoughts made noise as they clattered through his hollow head. Her voice roused him. "You can take the pitcher too often to the well, Harry dear, and you drove once too often to Berg Street. Elizabeth, sensible girl, instead of dying, takes the best man she could possibly find; a better man than you, Harry, and she couldn't resist letting me know it. So, silly old boy, better give up your Wartburg ambitions, your pilgrimage to Rome, and stay here in the Venusberg. I know I'm old, but, after all, am I not your Venus?" In the soft light of an early evening in May the face of Mrs. Holda seemed impossibly charming....



THE RED-HEADED PIANO PLAYER

The two young men left the trolley car that carried them from Bath Beach to the West End of Coney Island, and walked slowly up the Broad Avenue of Confusing Noises, smoked and gazed about them with the independent air that notes among a million the man from New York. And as they walked they talked in crisp sentences, laughing at the seller of opulent Frankfurter sausages and nodding pleasantly to the lovely ladies in short, spangled skirts, who, with beckoning glances, sought their eyes. The air reverberated with an August evening's heat and seemed sweating. Its odor modulated from sea-brine to Barren Island, and the wind hummed. The clatter was striking; ardent whistling of peanut steam-roasters, vicious brass bands, hideous harps, wheezing organs, hoarse shoutings and the patient, monotonous cry of the fakirs and photographers were all blended in a dense, huge symphony; while the mouse-colored dust churned by the wheels of blackguard beach-wagons blurred a hard, blue sky from which pricked a soft, hanging star. An operatic sun had just set with all the majestic tranquillity of a fiery hen; and the two friends felt laconically gay. "Let's eat here," suggested the red-haired one.

"Not on your life," answered the other, a stout, cynical blond; "you get nothing but sauerkraut that isn't sour and dog-meat sausage. I'm for a good square meal at Manhattan or Sheepshead Bay."

"Yes, but Billy, there's more fun here, and heavens knows I'm dead tired." The young fellow's accents were those of an irritable, hungry human animal, and his big chum gave in....

They searched the sandy street for a comfortable beer place, and after passing dime-museums, unearthly looking dives, amateur breweries, low gin mills and ambitious establishments, the pair paused opposite a green, shy park of grass and dwarf trees, and listened.

"Piano playing, and not bad," cried Billy. They both hung over the rustic palings and heard bits of Chopin's Military Polonaise, interrupted by laughter and the rattling of crockery.

"I'm for going in, Billy," and they read the sign which announced a good dinner, with music, for fifty cents. They followed the artificial lane to a large summer cottage, about which were bunched drooping willows and, finding all the tables occupied, went inside.

A long room furnished for dining, gaudy pictures on the walls, and at one end upon a raised platform a grand piano. The place was full; and the tobacco-smoke, chatter and calls of the waiters disconcerted the two boys. Just then the piano sounded. Chopin again, and curious to know who possessed such a touch at Coney Island, the friends found a table to the right of the keyboard and sat down. As they did, they looked at the pianist and both exclaimed:

"Paderewski or his ghost!" The fellow wore a shock of lemon-tinted hair after the manner of the Polish virtuoso, but his face was shaven clean.

"Harry, he looks like a lost soul," said Billy, who was rather plain spoken in his judgments.

"Let's give him a drink," whispered Harry, and he called a waiter. "Whiskey," said the waiter after a question had been put, and presently the piano player was bowing to them as he threw the liquor into his large mouth. Then the Chopin study in C minor was recommenced and half-finished and the two music lovers forgot their dinner. A waiter spoke to them twice; the manager, seeing that music was hurting trade, went to the piano and coughed. The pianist instantly stopped, and a dinner was ordered by Harry. Billy looked around him with a trained eye. He noticed that the women were all sunburned and wore much glittering jewelry; the men looked like countrymen and were timid in the use of the fork. When the music began they stopped eating and their companions ordered fresh drinks. Billy could have sworn that he saw one woman crying. But as soon as the music ceased conversation began, and the rattle of dishes was deafening.

"I say, Harry, this is a queer go. There's something funny about this place and this piano. It upsets all my theories of piano music. When the piano begins here the audience forgets to eat, and its passion mounts to its ears. Not like the West End at all, is it?" Harry was busy with his soup. He was sentimental, and the sight of kindred hair—the hue beloved of Paderewski—roused his sympathies.

"By George, Billy, that fellow's an artist. Just look at his expression. There's a story in him, and I'm going to get it. It may be news."

They chatted, and asked the pianist to join them in another drink. Whiskey was sent up to the platform, and the musician drank it at a gulp, his right hand purling over the figuration of "Auf dem Wasser zu Singen." But he took no water. Then making them a little bobbing, startled bow, he began playing. Again it was something of Chopin. On his lean features there was a look of detachment; and the watchers were struck with the interesting forehead, the cheeks etched with seams of suffering, and the finely compressed lips.

"I'll bet it's some German who has boozed too much at home, and his folks have thrown him out," hinted Billy.

"German? That's no German, I swear. It's Hungarian, Bohemian or Pole. Besides, he drinks whiskey."

"Yes, drinks too much, but it hasn't hurt his playing—yet: just listen to the beggar play that prelude."

The B flat minor Prelude, with its dark, rich, rushing cascade of scales, its grim iteration and ceaseless questioning, spun through the room, and again came the curious silence. Even the Oberkellner listened, his mouth ajar. The waiters paused midway in their desperate gaming with victuals, and for a moment the place was wholly given over to music. The mounting unison passage and the smashing chords at the close awakened the diners from the trance into which they had been thrown by the magnetic fluid at the tips of the pianist's fingers; the bustle began, Harry and Billy ordered more beer and drew deep breaths.

"He's a wonder, that's all I know, and I'm going to grab him. What technique, what tone, what a touch!" cried Harry, who had been assistant music critic on an afternoon paper.

A card, with a pencilled invitation, was sent to the pianist, and the place being quite dark the electric lights began hoarsely whistling in a canary colored haze. The musician came over to the table and, bowing very low, took a seat.

"You will excuse me," he said, "if I do not eat. I have trouble with my heart, and I drink whiskey. Yes, I will be happy to join you in another glass of very bad whiskey. No, I am not a Pole; I am English, and not a nobleman. I look like Paderewski, but can't play nearly as well. Here is my card." The name was commonplace, Wilkins, but was prefixed by the more unusual Feodor.

"You've some Russian in you after all?" questioned Billy.

"Perhaps. Feodor is certainly Russian. I often play Tschaikowsky. I know that you wonder why I am in such a place. I will tell you. I like human nature, and where can you get such an opportunity to come into contact with it in the raw as this place?"

Billy winked at Harry and ordered more drinks. The pale Feodor Wilkins drank with the same precipitate gesture, as if eager with thirst. He spoke in a refined manner, and was evidently an educated man.

"I have no story, my friends. I'm not a genius in disguise, neither am I a drunkard—one may safely drink at the seaside—and if, perhaps, like Robert Louis Stevenson, I play at being an amateur emigrant, I certainly do not intend writing a book of my experiences."

The newspaper boys were disappointed. There was, then, no lovely mystery to be unravelled, no subterrene story excavated, no romance at all, nothing but a spiritual looking Englishman with an odd first name and a gift of piano playing.

Mr. Wilkins gave a little laugh, for he read the faces of his companions. As if to add another accent to their disappointment he ordered a Swiss cheese sandwich, and spoke harshly to the waiter for not bringing mustard with it. Then he turned to Harry:

"You love music?"

"Crazy for it, but see here, Mr.—Mr. Wilkins, why don't you play in public? I don't mean this kind of a public, but before a Philharmonic audience! This sort of cattle must make you sick, and for heaven's sake, man, what do they pay you?" Harry's face was big with suppressed questions. The pianist paused in his munching of bread and cheese. His fine luminous eyes twinkled: "My dear boy, I have a story—a short one—and I fancy that it will explain the mystery. I am twenty-seven years old. Yes, that's all, but I've lived and—loved."

"Ah, a petticoat!" exclaimed Harry, triumphantly; "I was sure of it."

"No, not a petticoat, but a piano was the cause of my undoing. Vaulting ambition and all that sort of thing. My parents were easy in circumstances and I was brought up to be a pianist. Deliberately planned to be a virtuoso. I was sent to Leschetizky, to Von Buelow, to Rubinstein, to Liszt. I studied scales in Paris with Plante, trills in Bologna with Martucci, octaves with Rosenthal; in Vienna I met Joseffy, and with him I studied double notes. Wait until later and I shall play for you the Chopin Study in G sharp minor! I mastered twenty-two concertos and even knew the parts for the triangle. Then at the age of twenty-five, after the best teachers in Europe had taught me their particular craft I returned to England, to London, and gave a concert. It was an elaborate affair. The best orchestra, with Hans Richter, was secured by my happy father, and after the third rehearsal he embraced me, saying that he could go to his grave a satisfied man, for his son was a piano artist. There must have been a strain of Slavic in the old man, he loved Chopin and Tschaikowsky so. My mother was less demonstrative, but she was as truly delighted as my father. Picture to yourself the transports of these two devoted old people! And when I left them the night before the concert I really trembled.

"In my bedroom I faced the mirror and saw my secret peering out at me. I knew that if I failed it would kill my parents, who, gambler-like, were staking their very existence on my success. As the night wore white I grew more nervous, and at dawn, not being able to endure the strain a moment more, I crept out of doors and went to a public house and began drinking to settle my nerves."

"I told you it was whiskey," blurted out Billy.

"No, brandy," said Mr. Wilkins, looking into his empty glass, "now it's whiskey. Yes; thank you very much. Well, to proceed.

"I drank all day, but being young I did not feel it particularly. I went home, ran my fingers over the piano, got into a bath and dressed for the concert. At eight o'clock the carriage came, and at eight forty-five, with one more drink in me, I walked out on the platform as bold as you please, and despite the size of the audience, the glare of the lights and the air, charged with human electricity, I felt rather at ease. The orchestra went sailing into the long tutti of the F minor Concerto of Chopin, and Richter, I could feel, was in good spirits. My cue came; I took it, struck out and came down the piano in the introductory unisons—a divine beginning, isn't it?—and my tone seemed rich and virile. I played the first theme, and all went well until the next interlude for the orchestra; I looked about me confidently, feeling quite like a virtuoso, and soon spied my parents, when suddenly my knees began to tremble, trembled so that the damper pedal vibrated. Then my eyes blurred and I missed my cue and felt Richter's great spectacles burning into the side of my head like two fierce suns. I scrambled, got my place, lost it, rambled and was roused to my position by the short rapping of the conductor's stick on his desk. The band stopped, and Herr Richter spoke gruffly to me:

"'Begin again.'

"In a sick, dazed way I put my fingers on the keys, but they were drunk; the cursed brandy had just begun to work, and a minute later, my head reeling, I staggered through the orchestra, lurched against a contrabassist, fell down and was shoved out of sight.

"I lay in the artists' room perfectly content, and even enjoyed the pinched chalky face of my father as he stooped over me.

"'My God, the boy's drunk,' he cried, and big Richter nodded his head quite philosophically, 'Ja, er ist ganz besoffen,' and left us to go to the audience. I fell asleep.... The next evening I found, on awakening, a horrible headache and a letter from my father. I was turned out of doors, disowned, and bade to go about my business. So here I am, gentlemen, as you see, at your service, and always thirsty." ...

The friends were about to put a hundred questions, when a thin, acid female voice broke in: "Benny, don't you think you've wasted enough of the gentlemen's time? You'd better get to work. The people are nearly all gone." Feodor Wilkins started to his feet and blushed as an old, fat woman, wearing a Mother Hubbard of gross pattern, waddled toward the table. The sad pianist with the flaming hair turned to the boys:

"My wife, Mrs. Wilkins, gentlemen!" The lady took a seat at Billy's invitation and also a small drink of peppermint and whiskey. She told them that she was tired out; business had been good, and if Benny would only quit drinking and play more popular music, why, she wouldn't complain! Then she drank to their health, and Billy thought he saw the husband make a convulsive movement in his throat. It may have been caused by hysterical mortification—the woman was undeniably vulgar—but to the practical-minded Billy it was more like an envious involuntary swallowing at the sight of another's drinking. Then the pianist mounted his wooden throne, where, amid the dust and tramplings of low conquests and in the murky air, he began to toll out the bells of the Chopin Funeral March.

"Funny how they all quit eatin' and drinkin' when he speels, isn't it?" remarked the wife with a gratified smile. "Why, if he was half a man he'd play all day as well as night and then folks out yonder would forgit their vittles altogether. I suppose he give you the same old yarn?"

Harry bristled: "What old story, madame? Mr. Feodor Wilkins told us of his studies abroad and his unsuccessful debut in London. It's a beautiful story. He's a great artist, and you ought to be proud of him."

The woman burst into laughter. "Why, the old fraud has been stringing you. Fedderr, he calls himself! His name is Benny, just plain Benny Wilkins, and he never saw London. He's from Boston way, took lessons at some big observatory up there, and he run up such a big slate with me that he married me to sponge it out. Schwamm d'rueber! you know. My first husband left a nice little tavern, and them music stoodents just flocked out after lessons was over to drink beer. Oh, dear me, Benny was a nice boy, but he always did drink too much. Then we moved to Harlem and I rented this place for the summer. I expect to make a tidy sum before I leave, if Benny only stays straight."

There was something pathetic in this last cadence, and the two boys leaned back and listened to the presto of the Chopin B flat minor Sonata, which Wilkins took at a tremendous pace.

"Sounds as if he were the wind weaving over his own grave," said Harry, mournfully. The boys had drunk too much, and the close atmosphere and music were beginning to tell on their nerves.

"He's a tramp of genius, that's what he is," growled Billy crossly.

"But we've got a story," interjected the other.

"Yes, and were taken in finely. Hanged if I didn't believe the fellow while he was yarning."

"You gentlemen won't mind me leaving you, will you? It's near closing-up time, and I've got to be the boss. Benny, he sticks close to the pianner as it gits late. I reckon he feels his licker. Ain't he a dandy with them skinny fingers o' his?"

She moved away, giving her husband a warning not to leave his perch, and went barwards to overhaul her receipts....

The lights were nearly all out and the drumming of the breakers on the beach clearly could be felt. The young men paid their bill and shook hands with the pianist. He leaned over the edge of the platform and spoke to them in a low voice.

"Come again, gentlemen, come again. Don't mind what she tells you. I'm not her husband, no matter what she said just now. She owns me body and soul for this year. I swear to God it's not the drink. I need the experience in public. I must play all the time before that awful nervous terror wears off. This is the place to get in touch with common folk; if I can hold them with Chopin what won't I be able to do with an appreciative audience! Believe me, gentlemen, I pray of you; give me a year, only one year, and I'll get out of this nervousness and this nightmare, and the world of music will hear of me. Only give me time." Feodor Wilkins placed his hand desperately on the pit of his stomach; his wife screamed:

"Benny, come right over here and count the cash."

The boys got into the open air and scented the surf with delight, a moon enlaced with delicate cloud streamers made magic in the sky; then Harry growled:

"Say, Bill, do you believe that story?" ...



BRYNHILD'S IMMOLATION

She had infinitely sad, wide eyes. The sweet pangs of maternity and art had not been denied this woman with the vibrant voice and temperament of fire. Singing only in the Wagner music dramas critics awarded her the praise that pains. She did not sing as Patti, but oh! the sonorous heart....

"Goetterdaemmerung" was being declaimed in a fervent and eminently Teutonic fashion. The house was fairly filled though it could hardly be called a brilliant gathering; the conductor dragged the tempi, the waits were interminable. A young girl sat and wonderingly watched. Her mother was the Brynhild....

This daughter was a strange girl. Her only education was the continual smatter which comes from many cities superficially glided. She spoke French with the accent of Vienna, and her German had in it some of the lingering lees of the Dutch. Wherever they pitched their tent the girl went abroad in the city, absorbing it. Thus she knew many things denied women; and when her mother was summoned to Bayreuth, she soon forgot all in the mists, weavings and golden noise of Wagner. Then followed five happy years. The singer prospered at Bayreuth and engagements trod upon the heels of engagements. Her girl was petted, grew tall, shy, and one day they said, "She is a young woman." The heart of the child beat tranquilly in her bosom, and her thoughts took on little color of the life about her.

Once, after "Tristan und Isolde" she asked:

"Why do you never speak of my father?"

Her mother, sitting on the bed, was coiling her glorious hair; the open dress revealed the massive throat and great white shoulders.

"Your father died years ago, child. Why do you ask now?"

The girl looked directly at her.

"I thought to-night how lovely if he had only been Tristan instead of Herr Albert."

The other's face was draped by hair. She did not speak for a moment.

"Yes. But he never sang: your father was not a music lover." ...

Presently they embraced affectionately and went to bed; the singer did not sleep at once. Her thoughts troubled her....

Madame Stock was a great but unequal artist. She had never concerned herself with the little things of the vocal art. Nature had given her much; voice, person, musical temperament, dramatic aptitude. She erred artistically on the side of over-emphasis, and occasionally tore passion to pieces. But she had the true fire, and with time would compass repose and symmetry. Toward conquering herself she seldom gave a thought. Her unhappy marriage had left its marks; she was cynical and often reckless; but with the growth of her daughter came reflection.... Hilda was not to be treated as other girls. Her Scotch ancestry showed itself early. The girl did not, and could not, see the curious life about her; it was simply a myopia that her mother fostered. Thus, through all the welter and confusion of an opera-singer's life, Hilda walked serenely. She knew there were disagreeable things in the world but refused herself even the thought of them. It was not the barrier of innocence but rather a selection of certain aspects of life that she fancied, and an absolute impassibility in the presence of evil. Then her mother grew more careful.

Hilda loved Wagner. She knew every work of the Master from "Die Feen" to "Parsifal." She studied music, arduously playing accompaniments for her mother. In this way she learned the skeleton of the mighty music dramas, and grew up absorbing the torrid music as though it were Mozartean. She repeated the stories of the dramas as a child its astronomy lessons, without feeling. She saw Siegmund and Sieglinde entwined in that wondrous Song of Spring, and would have laughed in your face if you hinted that all this was anything but many-colored arabesque. It was her daily bread and butter, and like one of those pudic creatures of the Eleusinian mysteries she lived in the very tropics of passion, yet without one pulse-throb of its feverishness. It was the ritual of Wagner she worshipped; the nerves of his score had never been laid bare to her. She took her mother's tumult in good faith, and ridiculed singers of more frigid temperaments. When she writhed in Tristan's arms this vestal sat in front, a piano score on her lap, carefully listening, and later, at home, she would say:

"Dearest, you skipped two bars in the scene with Brangaene," and the singer could not contradict the stern young critic....

Herr Albert sang with them longer than most tenors. They met him in Bayreuth and then in Munich. When they went to Berlin Albert was with them, and also in London. Her mother said that his style and acting suited her better than any artist with whom she had ever sung. He was a young man, much younger than Madame Stock, and a Hungarian. Tall and very dark, he looked unlike the ideal Wagner tenor. Hilda teased him and called him the hero of a melodrama. She grew fond of the young man, who was always doing her some favor. To her mother he was extremely polite; indeed he treated her as a queen.

One afternoon Hilda went back to the dressing-room. In the darkness of the corridor she ran against some one—a man. As she turned to apologize she was caught up in a pair of strong arms and kissed. It was all over in the tick of the clock, and then she ran—ran into the room, frightened, indignant, her face burning.

Her mother's back was toward her, she was preparing for the last act of "Walkuere." She knew Hilda's footsteps. The girl threw herself on a couch and covered her hot face with the cushions. The woman hummed "Ho, jo to-ho!" and continued dressing. And then came her call.

Hilda sat and thought. She must tell—she would tell her. But the man, what of him? She knew who it was, knew it by intuition. She did not see his face, but she knew the man. Oh, why did he do it? Why? She blushed and with her handkerchief she rubbed her lips until they stung. Wipe away the kiss she must, or she could never look him in the face again....

It seemed a long time before Brynhild returned. Footsteps and laughter told of her approach. The maid came in first carrying a shawl, and at the door the singer paused. Hilda half rose in fear—not knowing who was talking. Of course it was Albert. The door was partly opened, and Hilda, looking at her mother on the top steps of the little staircase, saw her lower her head to the level of the tenor's face and kiss him.... Fainting, the girl leaned back and covered her face with her hands. The other entered in whirlwind fashion.

"My Hilda. My God! child, have you been mooning here ever since I went on? What is the matter? You look flushed. Let us go home and have a quiet cup of tea. Albert is coming for us to go to some nice place for dinner. Come, come, rouse yourself! Marie-chen"—to the maid—"don't be stupid. Depechez-vous, depechez-vous!"

And Madame Stock bustled about and half tore off her cuirass, pitched her helmet in the corner and looked very much alive and young.

"Oh, what a Wotan, Mein Gott! what a man. Do you know what he was doing when I sang 'War es so schmaehlich?' He had his back to the house and chewed gum. I swear it. When I grabbed his legs in anguish the beast chewed gum, his whole body trembled from the exertion; he says that it is good for a dry throat."

Hilda hardly listened. Her mother had kissed Albert, and she shook as one with the ague....

She pleaded a headache, and did not go to dinner. The next day they left Hamburg, and Albert did not accompany them. Madame Stock declared that she needed a rest, and the pair went to Carlsbad. There they stayed two weeks. The nervous, excitable soprano could not long bide in one place. She was tired of singing, but she grew restless for the theatre.

"Yes, yes," she cried to Hilda, in the train which bore them toward Berlin. "Yes, the opera is crowded every night when I sing. You know that I get flowers, enjoy triumphs enough to satisfy me. Well, I'm sick of it all. I believe that I shall end by going mad. It may become a monomania. I often say, Why all this feverishness, this art jargon? Why should I burn myself up with Isolde and weep my heart out with Sieglinde? Why go on repeating words that I do not believe in? Art! oh, I hate the word." ...

Hilda, her eyes half closed, watched the neat German landscape unroll itself.

Her mother grumbled until she fell asleep.

Her face was worn and drawn in the twilight, and Hilda noticed the heavy markings about the mouth and under the eyes and the few gray hairs.

She caught herself analyzing, and stopped with a guilty feeling. Yes, Dearest was beginning to look old. The stress and strain of Wagner was showing. In a few years, when her voice—Hilda closed her eyes determinedly and tried to shut out a picture. But then she was not sure, not sure of herself.

She began thinking of Albert. His swarthy face forced itself upon her, and her mother's image grew faint. Why did he kiss her, why? Surely it must have been some mistake—it was dark; perhaps he mistook her. Here her heart began beating so that it tolled like a bell in her brain—mistook her, oh, God, for her mother! No! no! That could never be. Had she not caught him watching her very often? But then why should her mother have kissed him—perhaps merely a motherly interest.

Hilda sat upright and tried to discern some expression on her mother's face. But it was too dark. The train rattled on toward Berlin....

The next day at the Hotel Bellevue there was much running to and fro. Musical managers went upstairs smiling and came down raging; musical managers rushed in raging and fled roaring. Madame Stock drove a hard bargain, and, during the chaffering and gabble about dates and terms, Hilda went out for a long walk. Unter den Linden is hardly a promenade for privacy, but this girl was quite alone as she trod the familiar walk, alone as if she were the last human on the pave. She did not notice that she was being followed; when she turned homeward she faced Herr Albert, the famous Wagnerian tenor.

She felt a little shocked, but her placidity was too deep-rooted to be altogether destroyed. And so Albert found himself looking into two large eyes the persistency of whose gaze disconcerted him.

"Ach, Fraeulein Hilda, I'm so glad. How are you, and when did you return?"

She had a central grip on herself, and regarded him quite steadily.

He noticed it and became abashed—he, the hero of a hundred footlights. He could not face her pure, threatening eyes.

"Herr Albert, we got back last night. Herr Albert, why did you kiss me in the theatre?"

He looked startled and reddened.

"Because I love you, Hilda. Yes, I did it because I love you," he replied, and his accents were embarrassed.

"You love me, Herr Albert," pursued the terrible Hilda. "Yet you were kissed by mamma an hour later. Do you love her too?"

The tenor trembled and said nothing....

The girl insisted:

"Do you love mamma too? You must, for she kissed you and you did not move away."

Albert was plainly nervous.

"Yes, I love your mamma, too, but in a different way. Oh, dearest Hilda, you don't understand. I am the artistic associate of your mother. But I love—I love you."

Hilda felt the ground grow billowy; the day seemed supernaturally bright. She took Albert's arm and they walked slowly, without a word.

When the hotel was reached she motioned him not to come in, and she flew to her mother's room. The singer was alone. She sat at the window and in her lap was a photograph. She looked old and soul-weary.

Hilda rushed toward her, but stopped in the middle of the room, overcome by some subtle fear that seized her throat and limb.

Madame Stock looked at her wonderingly.

"Hilda, Hilda, have you gone mad?"

Hilda went over to her and put her arms about her and whispered:

"Oh, mamma, mamma, he loves me; he has just told me so."

Her mother started:

"He! Who loves you, Hilda? What do you mean?"

Hilda's eyes drooped, and then she saw the photograph in the soprano's hand.

It was Albert's....

"I love him—you have his picture—he gave it to you for me? Oh! he has spoken, Dearest, he has spoken."

The picture dropped to the floor....

"Mamma, mamma, what is the matter? Are you angry at me? Do you dislike Albert? No, surely no; I saw you kiss him at the theatre. He says that he loves you, but it is a different love. It must be a Siegmund and Sieglinde love, Dearest, is it not? But he loves me. Don't be cross to him for loving me. He can't help it. And he says we must all live together, if—" ...

The singer closed her eyes and the corners of her mouth became tense. Then she looked at her daughter almost fiercely. Hilda was terrified.

"Tell me, Hilda, swear to me, and think of what you are saying: Do you love Albert?"

"With my heart," answered the girl in all her white simplicities.

Her mother laughed and arose.

"Then you silly little goose, you shall marry him and be nice and unhappy." Hilda cried with joy: "I don't care if I am unhappy with him."

"Idiot!" replied the other.

That night "Goetterdaemmerung" was given. The conductor dragged the tempi; the waits were interminable, and a young slip of a girl wonderingly watched. Her mother was the Brynhild. The performance was redeemed by the magnificent singing of the Immolation scene....

Later Brynhild faced her mirror and asked no favor of it. As she uncoiled the heavy ropes of hair her eyes grew harsh, and for a moment her image seemed blurred and bitter in the oval glass with the burnished frame that stood upon the dressing-table. But at last she would achieve the unique Brynhild!...

"Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren."



THE QUEST OF THE ELUSIVE

To Miss Bella Seymour

BALAK, November 5.

DEAR DARLING OLD BELLA,—How I wish you were with me. I miss you almost as much as mamma and the girls. I've had such a homesickness that even the elegant concerts, the gay city and the novelty of this out of the way foreign place do not compensate, for Why, oh why, doesn't Herr Klug live in Berlin or Paris, or even Vienna? Think, after you leave Vienna you must travel six hours by boat and three by rail before you reach Balak, but what a city, what curious houses, and what an opera house!

Let me first tell you of my experiences with Herr Klug. I met the Ransoms; you remember those queer Michigan avenue people. They are here with their mother—snuffy Mother Ransom we used to call her—and are both studying with Herr Klug. I met them on the Ringstrasse—the principal avenue here—and they looked so dissatisfied when they saw me. Ada, the short, thin one, you know—well, she lowered her parasol—say, the weather is awful hot—and, honest, I believed she wasn't going to speak to me. But Lizzie is the nice one, and she fairly ate me up. They raved about Herr Klug. He is so nice, so gentle, and plays so wonderfully! Mrs. Ransom was a trifle cool—she and ma never did get along, you remember that fight about free lager for indigent Germans in sultry weather?—well, she and ma quarrelled over the meaning of the word "indigent," and Mrs. R. said that she was indigent at ma's ignorance; then ma burst into a fit of laughter. I heard her—it was a real mean laugh, Bella, and—but I must tell you about this place. Dear, I'm quite out of breath!

Well, the Ransoms took me off to lunch and it was real nice at their boarding house; they call it the Hotel Serbe, or some such name, and I almost regretted that I went to the miserable rooms I'm in, but I have to be economical, and as I intend practising all day and sleeping all night it doesn't matter much where I am. I forgot to tell you what we had for lunch, funny dishes, sour and full of red pepper. I'll tell you all about it in my next letter. I'm so full of Herr Klug that I can't sit still. He is a grand man, Bella, only very old, and very small, and very nervous, and very cross. He didn't say much to me and I held my tongue, for they say he is so nervous that he is almost crazy, besides, he hates American pupils. When I went into the big lesson room it was empty, and I had a good chance to look at all the pictures on the wall. There were Bach, Beethoven and Herr Klug at every age. There must have been at least thirty portraits. He was homely in every one, and wore his hair long, and has such a high, noble forehead. You know Chicago men have such low foreheads. I love high foreheads. They are so destingue (is that spelt right?) and it means such a lot of brains. He was photographed with Liszt and with Chopin. I think it was Chopin, and—just then he came in. He walked very slowly and his shoulders were stooped. Oh, Bella, he has such a venerable look, so saintly! Well, he stood in the doorway and his eyeglasses fairly stared into me, he has such piercing gaze. I was scared out of my seven senses and stood stock still.

"Nu was!" he cried out; "where do you come from?" His English was maddening, Bella, just maddening, but I understood him, and with my heart in my boots I said:

"Chicago, Herr Klug." He snorted.

"Chicago. I hate Chicago, I hate Americans! There's only one city in America—that is San Francisco. I was never there, but I like it because I never had a pupil from that city; that's why I like it, hein!" He laughed, Bella, and coughed himself into a strangling fit over his joke—he thought it was a joke—and then he sharply cried out:

"You may kiss me, and play for me." I was too frightened to reply, so I went up to him and didn't like him. He smelt of cigarettes and liquor, but I kissed him on the forehead, and he gave me a queer look and pushed me to the piano. Well, I was flabbergasted.

"Play," he said, as harsh as could be, and I dashed off the Military Polonaise of Chopin. He walked about the whole time humming out loud, and never paid any attention to me any more than if I hadn't been playing. When I got to the trio I stuck, and he burst out laughing, so I stopped short.

"Aha! you girls and your teachers, how you, all swindle yourselves. You have no talent, no touch, nothing, nothing!"—his voice was like a screaming whistle—"and yet you cheat yourselves and run to Europe to be artists in a year, aha!" "Shall I go on?" I asked. I was getting mad. "No, I've heard enough. Come to the class every Monday and Thursday morning at ten—mind you, ten sharp—and in the meantime study this piece of mine, 'The Five Blackbirds,' for the black keys, and take the first book of my 'Indispensable Studies for Stupid American Girls.'" He laughed again.

"You pay now for the music. I make no discount, for I print it myself. Your lessons you pay for one by one. Please put the money—twenty marks—on the mantelpiece when you are through playing, but don't tell me. I'm too nervous. And now good-day; practise ten hours every day. You may kiss me good-by. No? Well, next time. I hate American girls when they play; but I like to kiss them, for they are very pretty. Wait: I will introduce you to my wife." He rang a bell and barked something at a servant, and she returned followed by a nice-looking German lady, quite young. I was surprised. "My wife." We bowed and then I left.

Funny people, these foreigners. I take my lesson day after to-morrow and I must hurry home to my Blackbirds. Good-by, dear Bella, and tell the girls to write. You answer this soon and I'll write after lesson on Monday. Good-by, Bella. Don't show my ma this letter, and, Bella—say nothing to nobody about the kisses. I didn't like—now if it had been—you know—oh, dear. I hate the piano. Good-by at last, Bella, and oh, Bella, will you send me the address of Schaefer, Schloss & Cantwell's? I want to order some writing paper. Good-by.

Your devoted IRENE.

P.S.—Any kind of Irish linen paper will do without any monogram.

I.

To Mrs. William Murray

BALAK, January 31.

MY DEAR MAMMA,—Certainly I got your last letter. I have not forgotten you at all, and the draft came all right. Bella Seymour exaggerates so. Herr Klug kisses all his pupils in the class, but just as Grandpa Murray would. He's old enough to be our grandfather; besides, as Mrs. Ransom says, it is not for our beauty, but when we play well, that he rewards us. I'm sure I don't like it, and if Mrs. Klug, or his six or seven cousins who live with him, caught him they would make a lively time. I never saw such a jealous set of relatives in my life. How am I improving? Oh, splendid; just splendid. I do wish you wouldn't coax and worm out of Bella Seymour all I write. You know girls exaggerate so. Good-by, darling mamma. Give my love to pa and Harry. I'll write soon. Yes, I need one new morning frock. I owe for one at a store here where the Ransoms go. Lizzie Ransom is the nicest, but I play better than she does.

Your affectionate daughter, IRENE.

To Miss Bella Seymour

BALAK, March 2.

YOU MEAN OLD THING,—I got your letter, Bella, but I don't understand yet how you came to tell mamma the nonsense I wrote. Such a lot of things have happened since I wrote last fall. I haven't improved a bit. I have no talent, old man Kluggy says—he's such a soft old fool. He can't play a bit, but he's always talking about his method, his virtuosity, his wonderful memory and his marvellous touch. He must have played well when he was painted with Beethoven in the same picture. Yes, he knew Beethoven. He's as old as old what's-his-name who ate grass and died of a colic, in the Bible. Golly, wouldn't I like to get out of this hole, but I promised pa I'd stick it out until spring. I play nothing but Klug compositions, his valses, mazurkas—mind his nerve, he says he gave Chopin points on mazurkas; and Bella, Bella, what do you think, I've found out all about his cousins! I wrote ma that all the old hens in his house were his cousins, and I spoke of his wife. Bella, he has no wife, he has no cousins. What do you think? I'll tell you how I found it out. The Ransom girls know, but they don't let on to their mother. The first lesson I took, Klug—I hate that man—motioned me to wait until the other girls had gone. He pretended to fool and fuss over some autographs of Bach and a lot of other old idiots—I hate Bach, too, nasty dry stuff—and I knew what he was up to. He glared at me through his spectacles for a while and then mumbled out:

"You may kiss me before you go." Not much, I thought, and told him so. He rang a bell. The servant came. "Send my wife down. Schnell, du." She hesitated and he yelled out, "Dummkopf" and then turned to me and smiled. The old monkey had forgotten that he had introduced me to Frau Klug two days before. In a minute I heard the swish of a silk dress and a fine-looking old lady entered. I was introduced to—what do you think? Frau Klug, please. I nearly fell over, for I remembered well the frightened-looking German girl—a pretty girl, too, only dressed rotten. Well, I got out the best I could—I couldn't talk German or Balakian—a hideous language, full of coughing and barking sounds—so I bowed and got out. Now comes the funny part of it, Bella. Every time the old fool tries to kiss me I ask him to introduce me to his wife, and he invariably answers: "What, you have not met my wife?" and rings for the ugly servant who stands grinning until I really expect her to say "Which one?" but she never does. I've counted seventeen so far, all sizes, ages and complexions.

The class says they are old pupils who couldn't pay their bills, so Kluggy got a mortgage on them, and they have to stay with him until they work the mortgage off by sewing, washing, cooking and teaching beginners. I've not seen them all yet, and Anne Sypher, from Cleveland, swears that there is a dungeon in the house full of girls from the eighteenth century who hadn't money enough to pay for their lessons. I'm sure ugly Babette, the servant, is an old pupil, for one day I sneaked into the dining-room and heard her playing the Bella Capricciosa, by Hummel, on an upright piano that was almost falling apart. Heavens! how she started when she saw me! The old lady he introduced me to the second time was a pupil of Steibelt's, and she played the "Storm" for us in class when the professor was sick. She must have been good-looking. Her fingers were quite lively. Honest, it is the joke of Balak, and we girls have grown so sensitive on the subject that we never walk out in a crowd, for the young men at the corners call out, "Hello, there goes the new crop for 1902." It is very embarrassing.

Bella, I want to tell you something. Swear that you will never tell my father or mother. I don't give a rap for music; I hate it, but I like the young men here in Balak, no, not the citizens. They are slow, but the soldiers, the regiment attached to the Royal Household. I've met a Lieutenant Fustics—oh, he's lovely, belongs to the oldest family in Serbia, is young, handsome and so fine in his uniform. He is crazy over music and America, and says he will never bear to be separated from me. Of course he's in love and of course he's foolish, for I'm too young to marry—fancy, not eighteen yet, or, is it nineteen?—this place makes me forget my name—besides, pa wouldn't hear of such a thing. Herr Lieutenant Fustics asked my father's business, and told me all Americans were millionaires, and I just laughed in his face. I play for him in the salon—oh, no, not in my room—that would be a crime in this tight-laced old town. Now, Bella, don't tell mamma this time. Why don't you write oftener? Love to all.

Your devoted IRENE.

P.S.—Bella, he's lovely.

To William Murray, Esq.

BALAK, May 12.

DEAR PA,—Yes, I need $500, and Herr Klug says if I stay a year more I can play in public when I go back. Five hundred dollars will be enough now.

Your loving daughter, IRENE.

To Miss Bella Seymour

BALAK, May 25.

DEAR, SWEET BELLA,—I'm gone; Hector, that's his name, proposed to me—and proposed a secret marriage—he says that I can study quietly, inspired by his love, for a year, for his regiment will stay in Balak for another year. Oh, Bella, I'm so happy. How I wish you could see him. I simply don't go near the piano. Old Klug is cross with me and I'm sure the Ransoms are jealous. Good-by, Bella, don't tell mamma. Remember I trust you.

Your crazy IRENE.

P. S.—I'm wild to get married!

To Frau Wilhelm Murray

BALAK, June 25.

HIGH RESPECTED AND HONORABLE MADAME,—I've not seen your daughter, the Fraeulein Irene Murray, since April, although she has been in Balak. I fear she has more talent for a military career than as a pianist. She does owe me for two lessons. Please send me the amount—40 marks. Send it care of Frau Klug—Frau Emma Klug. With good weather,

ARMIN KLUG.

To William Murray, Esq.

August 1.

DEAR WILLIAM,—I've found her—my heart bleeds when I think of her face, poor child—miles from Balak. Of course she followed the regiment when the wretch left, and of course he is a married man. Oh! William, the disgrace, and all for some miserable music lessons. Send the draft to Balak—to the Oriental Bank. I went as far as Belgrade. Poor, tired, daring Irene, how she cried for Chicago and for her papa! Yes, it will be all right. The girls in that old mummy's class gossiped a little, but I fixed up a story about going to Berlin and lessons there. Only the hateful Ransoms smile, and ask every day particularly for Irene. I'd like to strangle them. Have patience, William; will be back in the spring—early in the spring. My sweet, deceived child, our child William! Oh, I would kill that Fizz-sticks, or whatever his name is. His regiment is off in the mountains somewhere, and I'm afraid of the publicity or I'd get our consul to introduce me to the Queen. She is a lady, and would listen to my complaint. But Irene begs me with frightened eyes not to say a word to any one. So I'll go on to Vienna and thence to Paris. For gracious sake, tell that Seymour girl—Bella Seymour—not to bother you about Irene; tell her anything you please. Tell her Irene is too busy practising to answer her silly letters. And William, not a word to Grandpa Murray—not a word, William!

Your loving wife, MARTHA KILBY MURRAY.

P. S.—I don't know, William.

* * * * *

Extract from the Daily Eagle, November 5, 1903

The most interesting feature of the concert was the debut as a pianist of Miss Irene Murray, the daughter of William Murray, Esq., of the Drovers' National Bank. Miss Murray, who was a slip of a girl before she went abroad two years ago to study with the celebrated Herr Armin Klug, of Balak, returns a superb, self-possessed young woman of regal appearance and queenly manners. She played a sweet bit, a fantasia by her teacher, Herr Klug, entitled "The Five Blackbirds," and displayed a wonderful command of the resources of the keyboard. For encore she dashed off a brilliant morceau by Herr Klug, entitled "Echoes de Seraglio." This was very difficult, but for the fair debutante it was child's play. She got five recalls, and after the concert held an impromptu reception in her dressing-room, her happy parents being warmly congratulated by their fellow townsmen. We predict a great career for Irene Murray. Among those present we noticed, etc., etc....



AN INVOLUNTARY INSURGENT

Whereas it is far away from bloodshed, battle-cry and sword-thrust that the lives of most of us flow on, and the men's tears are silent to-day, and invisible, and almost spiritual....—MAETERLINCK.

Racah hated music. Even his father quoted with approval Theophile Gautier's witticism about it being the most costly of noises. Racah, as a boy, shouted under the windows of neighbors in whose rooms string-music was heard of hot summer evenings. On every occasion his nature testified to its lively abhorrence of tone, and once he was violently thrust forth from a church by an excited sexton. Racah had whistled derisively at the feebly executed voluntary of the organist. An old friend of the family declared that the boy should be trained as a music critic—he hated music so intensely. Racah's father would arch his meagre eyebrows and crisply say, "My son shall become a priest." "But even a priest must chaunt the mass; eh, what?"

The boy's sister had a piano and tried to play despite his violent mockery. One afternoon, when the sun drove the town to its siesta, he wandered into the room where stood the instrument. Moved by an automatic impulse, the lad placed one finger on a treble key. He shuddered as it tinkled under the pressure; then he struck the major third and held both keys down, trembling, while drops of water formed under his eyes. He hated the sound he made, but could not resist listening to it. Waves of disgust rolled hotly over his heart, and he almost choked from the large, bitter-tasting ball that rose in his throat. He then struck the triad of C major in a clumsy way—a quarter of an hour later his family found him in a syncope at the foot of the piano, and sent for a doctor. Racah's eyes were open, but only the whites showed. The pulse was strangely intermittent, the heart muffled, and the doctor set it down to nervous prostration brought on by strenuous attendance at church. It was Holy Week and Racah a pious boy.

He soon recovered, avoided the instrument, and kept his peace.... About this time he began going out immediately after supper, remaining away until midnight. This, coupled with a relaxation of religious zeal, drove his pious father into a frenzy of disappointment. But being wise in old age, he did not pester his son, especially as the pale, melancholy lad bore on his face no signs of dissipation. These disappearances lasted for over a year. Racah was chided by his mother, a large, chicken-minded woman, who liked gossip and chocolate. He never answered her, and on Sundays locked himself in his room. Once his sister listened at the door and told her father that she heard her brother counting aloud and clicking on the table with some soft, dull-edged tool, a tiny mallet, perhaps.

The father's curiosity mounted to an unhealthy pitch. He hated to break into his nightly custom of playing cards at the Inn of The Quarrelling Yellow Cats, but his duty lay as plain before him as the moles on his wrist; so he waited until Racah went out, and seizing a stout stick and clapping his hat on his head, followed his son in lagging and deceitful pursuit. The boy walked slowly, his head thrown back in reverie. Several times he halted as if the burden of his thoughts clogged his very motion. Anxiously eying him, his father sneaked after. The eccentric movements of his son filled him with a certain anguish. He was a god-fearing man; erratic behavior meant to him the obsession of the devil.

His son, his Racah, was tempted by the evil one! What could he do to save him from the fiery pit? Urged by these burdensome notions, he cried aloud, "Racah, my son, return to thy home!" But he spoke to space. No one was within hearing. The street was dark; then the sound of music fell upon his ears, and again he looked about him. Racah had disappeared. The only light came from a window hard by. With the music it oozed out between two half-closed shutters, and toward it the depressed one went. He peeped in and saw his son playing at a piano, and by his side sat a queer old man beating time. His name was Spinoza; he was a Portuguese pianist, and wore a tall, battered silk hat which he never removed, even in bed—so the town said.

Racah's father played no dominoes that night. When he returned to his house his wife thought that he was drunk. He told his story in agitated accents, and went to bed a mystified man. He understood nothing, and while his wife calmly slept he tortured himself with questions. How came Racah the priest to be metamorphosed into Racah the pianist? Then the father plucked at the counterpane like a dying fiddler....

The boy showed no embarrassment when interrogated by his parents the next day. He said he did not desire to be a priest, that a pianist could make more money, and though he hated music, there were harder ways of earning one's bread. The callousness which he displayed in saying all this deeply pained his pious father. His son's secret nature was an enigma to him. In vain he endeavored to pierce the meaning of the youth's eyes, but their gaze was enigmatic and veiled. Racah had ever exhibited a certain aloofness of character, and as he grew older this trait became intensified; the riddle of his life had forced itself upon him, and he vainly wrestled with it. Music drew him as iron filings to the magnet, or as the tentacles of an octopus carry to its parrot-shaped beak its victim. It was monstrous, he abhorred it, but could no more resist it than the hasheesh eater his drug.

So in the fury of despair, and with a certain self-contempt, he strove desperately to master the technical problems of his art. He found an abettor in the person of the Portuguese pianist, to whom he laid bare his soul. He studied every night, and since he need no longer conceal his secret, he began practising at home....

Racah made his debut when he was twenty-one years old. The friend of the family nearly burst a blood-vessel at the concert, so enthusiastic was he over the son of his old crony. Racah's father stayed home and refused comfort. His son was a pianist and not a priest. "He has disgraced himself and God will not reply to his call for aid," and he placed his hands over his thin eyebrows and wept. Racah's mother spoke: "Take on courage; the boy plays badly—there is yet hope."

The good man, elated by the idea, went forth to play dominoes with his old crony at the inn where the two yellow cats quarrel on the dingy sign over the door....

Racah sat at his piano. His usually smooth, high forehead, with its mop of heavy black curls, was corrugated with little puckering lines. His mouth was drawn at the corners, and from time to time he sighed; great groans, too, burst forth from him. But he played, played furiously, and he smote the keyboard as if he hated it. He was playing the B minor Sonata of Chopin, with its melting second movement—so moving that it could melt the heart of the right sort of a stone. Yet this lovely cantilena extorted anger from the young pianist. It was true that he played badly, but not so badly as his mother imagined. His very hatred of music reverberated in his playing and produced an odd, inverted, temperamental spark. The transposition of an emotion into a lower or higher key may change its external expression; its intensity is not thereby altered. Racah hated the piano, hated Chopin, hated music; yet potentially Racah was a great pianist....

The years fugued by. Racah gradually became known as an artist of strange power. He had studied with Liszt, although he was not a favorite of the master nor in his cenacle of worshipping pupils. Racah was too grim, too much in earnest for the worldly frivolous crew that flitted over the black keys at Weimar. Occasionally aroused by the power and intensity of the young man's playing, Liszt would smile satirically and say: "Thou art well named 'Raca,'" and then all the Jews in the class would laugh at the word-play. But it gave Racah little concern whether they admired or loathed him. He was terribly set upon playing the piano and little guessed the secret of his inner struggle—the secret of the sad spirit that travailed against itself. Oddly enough his progress was rapid. He soon outpointed in brilliancy and deftness the most talented of the group of Liszt's young people, and once, after playing the Mephisto Walzer with abounding devilry, Liszt cried, "Bravo, child," and then muttered, "And how he hates it all!"

Hypnotized as if by another's will, Racah studied so earnestly that he became a public pianist. He had success, but not with the great public. The critics called him cold, objective, a pianist made, not born. But musicians and those with cultured musical palates discerned a certain acid quality in his playing. His gloomy visage, the reflex of a disordered soul, caused Baudelaire to declare that he had added one more shiver to his extensive psychical collection. In Paris the Countess X.—charming, titled soubrette—said, "Have you heard Racah play the piano? He is a damned soul out for a holiday."

In twenty-four hours this mot spread the length of the Boulevard, and all Paris went to see the new pianist....

Success did not brighten the glance of Racah. He became gloomier as he grew older, and a prominent alienist in Paris warned him to travel or else—and he pointed to his forehead, shrugging his very Gallic shoulders. Racah immediately went to the far East....

After a year's wandering up and down strange and curious countries, he came to the chief city of a barbarous province ruled by a man famous for his ferocities and charming culture. A careful education in Paris, grafted upon a nature cruel to the core, produced the most delicately depraved disposition imaginable. This Rajah was given to the paradoxical. He adored Chopin and loved to roast alive tiny birds on dainty golden grills. He would weep after reading de Musset, and a moment later watch with infinite satisfaction the spectacle of two wretched women dancing on heated copper plates. When he heard of Racah's presence in his kingdom he summoned the pianist.

Racah obeyed the Rajah's order. To his surprise he found him a man of pleasing mien and address. He was dressed in clothes of English cut, and possessed a concert piano. Racah bowed to him on entering the great Hall of the Statues.

"Do you play Chopin?"

"No," was the curt reply. The potentate glanced at the pianist, and then dropped his heavy eyelids. Racah had the air of a man bored to death.

"I entreat you"—the Rajah had winning accents—"play me something of Chopin. I adore Chopin."

"Your Highness, I abominate Chopin; I abominate music. I have taken a vow never to play again anything of that vile Polish composer. But I may play for you instead a Brahms sonata. The great one in F minor—"

"Stop a moment! You distinctly refuse to play me a Chopin valse or mazurka?"

"O Villainy!" Racah was thoroughly aroused; "I swear by the beard of your silly prophet that I will not play Chopin, nor touch your piano!"

The Rajah listened with a sweet forbearing smile. Then he clapped his hands twice—thrice. A slave entered. To him the Rajah spoke quietly, with an amused expression, and the man bowed his head. Touching the pianist on the shoulder he said:

"Come with me." Racah followed. The Rajah burst into loud laughter, and going to the piano played the D flat Valse of Chopin in a facile amateurish fashion.

Footsteps were heard; the Rajah stopped and looked up. There was bright frank expectancy in his gaze as he listened.

Then a curtain was thrust aside. Racah staggered in, supported by the attendant. He was white, helpless, fainting, and in his eyes were the shadows of infinite regret.

"Do play some Chopin," exclaimed the Rajah, gaily, as he ran his fingers over the keyboard.

The pianist groaned as the slave plucked at his arms and held them aloft. The Rajah critically viewed the hands from which the fingertips were missing, and then, noting the remorseful anguish in the gaze of the other, he cried:

"Do you know, I really believe you love music despite yourself!"



HUNDING'S WIFE

I

Calcraft was very noisy in his morning humors, and the banging of windows caused his wife to raise a curious voice.

From the breakfast-room she called, "What is the matter with you this morning, Cal? Didn't Wagner agree with you last night? Or was it the—?"

"Yes, it was that," replied a surly voice.

"Have you hung your wrists out of the window and given them a good airing?"

"I have." Calcraft laughed rudely.

"Then for goodness' sake hurry in to breakfast, if you are cooled off; the eggs are." Mrs. Calcraft sighed. It was their usual conversation; thus the day began.... Her husband entered the room. Of a thick-set, almost burly figure, Calcraft was an enormously muscular man. His broad shoulders, powerful brow, black, deep-set eyes, inky black hair and beard—the beard worn in Hunding fashion—made up a personality slightly forbidding. The suppleness of his gait, the ready laughter and bright expression of the eye, soon corrected this aversion; the critic was liked, and admired,—after the critical fashion. Good temper and wit in the evening ever are. The recurring matrimonial duel over the morning teacups awoke him for the day's labors; he actually profited from the verbal exercising of Tekla's temper.

"After what you promised!" she inquired in her most reproachful manner. Calcraft smiled. "And your story in the Watchman. Now, Cal, aren't you a bit ashamed? We have heard much worse Siegmunds."

"Not much," he grunted, swallowing a huge cup of tea at a draught.

"Yet you roasted the poor boy as you would never dare roast a singer with any sort of reputation. Hinweg's Siegmund was—"

"Like himself, too thin," said her husband; "fancy a thin Siegmund! Besides, the fellow doesn't know how to sing, and he can't act."

"But his voice; it has all the freshness of youth." ... She left the table, and lounging to the window regarded the streets and sky with a contemptuous expression. Tekla was very tall, rather heavy, though well built, with hair and skin of royal blond. She looked as Scandinavian as her name.

"My dear Tek, you are always discovering genius. You remember that young pianist with a touch like old gold? Or was it smothered onions? I've forgotten which." He grinned as he spilled part of an egg on his beard.

She faced him. "If the critics don't encourage youthful talent, who will? But they never do." Her voice took on flat tones: "I wonder, Cal, that you are not easier as you grow older, for you certainly do not improve with age, yourself. Do you know what time you got in this morning?"

"No, and I don't want to know." The man's demeanor was harsh; there were deep circles under his large eyes; his cheeks were slightly puffed, and, as he opened his newspaper, he looked like one who had not slept.

Tekla sighed again and stirred uneasily about the room. "For heaven's sake, girl, sit down and read—or, something!"

"I don't wonder your nerves are bad this morning," she sweetly responded; "the only wonder is that you can keep up such a wearing pace and do your work so well."

"This isn't such a roast," said Calcraft irrelevantly. He had heard these same remarks every morning for more than ten years. "Last night," he proceeded, "the new tenor—"

"Oh! Cal, please don't read your criticism aloud. I saw it hours ago," she implored,—her slightly protuberant, blue eyes were fixed steadily upon him.

"Why, what time is it?"

"Long past twelve."

"Phew! And I promised to be at the office at midday! Where's my coat, my overshoes! Magda! Magda! Hang that girl, she's always gadding with the elevator boy when I need her." Calcraft bustled about the room, rushed to his bedchamber, to the hall, and reappeared dressed for his trip down-town.

"Cal, I forgot to say that Hinweg called this morning and left his card. Foreigners are so polite in these matters. He left cards for both of us."

"He did, did he?" answered Calcraft grimly. "Well, that won't make him sing Wagner any better in the Watchman. And as a matter of politeness—if you will quote the polite ways of foreigners—he should have left cards here before he sang. What name is on his pasteboard? I've heard that his real one is something like Whizzina. He's a Croat, I believe."

She indifferently took some cards from a bronze salver and read aloud: "Adalbert Viznina, Tenor, Royal Opera, Prague."

"So-ho! a Bohemian. Well, it's all the same. Croatia is Czech. Your Mr. Viznina can't sing a little bit. That vile, throaty German tone-production of his—but why in thunder does he call himself Hinweg? Viznina is a far prettier name. Perhaps Viznina is Hinweg in German!"

Tekla shrugged her strong shoulders and gazed outdoors. "What a wretched day, and I have so much to do. Now, Cal, do come home early. We dine at seven. No opera to-night, you know. And come back soon. We never spend a night home alone together. What if this young man should call again?"

"Don't stop him," her husband answered in good-humored accents as he bade her good-by. He was prepared to meet the world now, and in a jolly mood. "Tell your Hinweg or Whizzerina, or whatever his name is, to sing Tristan better to-morrow night than he did Siegmund, or there will be more trouble." He skipped off. She called after him:

"Cal, remember your promise!"

"Not a drop," and the double slamming of the street doors set Tekla humming Hunding's motif in "Die Walkuere."

II

Her morning-room was hung with Japanese umbrellas and, despite the warning of friends, peacock-feathers hid from view the walls; this comfortable little boudoir, with its rugs, cozy Turkish corner, and dull sweet odors was originally a hall-bedroom; Tekla's ingenuity and desperate desire for the unconventional had converted the apartment into the prettiest of the Calcraft flat. Here, and here alone, was the imperious critic forbidden pipe or cigar. Cigarettes he abhorred, therefore Tekla allowed her favorites to use them. She became sick if she merely lighted one; so her pet attitude was to loll on a crimson divan and hold a freshly rolled Russian cigarette in her big fingers covered with opals. Her male friends said that she reminded them of a Frankish slave in a harem; she needed nothing more but Turkish-trousers, hoop ear-rings, and the sad, resigned smile of the captive maiden....

It was half-past five in the dark, stormy afternoon when the electric buzzer warned Tekla of visitors. A man was ushered into the drawing-room and Magda, in correct cap and apron, fetched his card to her mistress.

"Show him in here, Magda, and Magda"—there were languid intonations in the voice of this vigorous woman—"light that lamp with the green globe."

In the fast disappearing daylight Tekla peeped at herself in a rhomboid crystal mirror, saw her house frock, voluminously becoming, and her golden hair set well over her brow: she believed in the eternal charm of fluffiness. After the lamp was ready the visitor came in. He was a very tall, rather emaciated looking, blond young man, whose springy step and clear eyes belied any hint of ill-health. As he entered, the gaze of the two met in the veiled light of the green-globed lamp, and the fire flickered high on the gas-log hearth. He hesitated with engaging modesty; then Tekla, holding out a hand, moved in a large curved way, to meet him.

"Delighted, I am sure, my dear Herr Viznina, to know you! How good of you to call on such a day, to see a bored woman." He bowed, smiled, showing strong white teeth under his boyish moustache, and sat down on the low seat near her divan.

"Madame," he answered in Slavic-accented English, "I am happy to make your acquaintance and hope to meet your husband, M. Calcraft." She turned her head impatiently. "I only hope that his notice will not discourage you for Tristan to-morrow night. But Mr. Calcraft is really a kind man, even if he seems severe in print. I tell him that he always hangs his fiddle outside the door, as the Irish say, which means, my dear Herr Viznina, that he is kinder abroad than at home." Seeing the slightly bewildered look of her companion she added, "And so you didn't mind his being cross this morning, did you?" The tenor hesitated.

"But he was not cross at all, Madame; I thought him very kind; for my throat was rough—you know what I mean! sick, sore; yes, it was a real sore throat that I had last night." It was her turn to look puzzled.

"Not cross? Mr. Calcraft not severe? Dear me, what do you call it, then?"

"He said I was a great artist," rejoined the other.

Tekla burst into laughter and apologized. "You have read the wrong paper, Herr Viznina, and I am glad you have. And now you must promise to stay and dine with us to-night. No, you sha'n't refuse! We are quite alone and you must know that, as old married folks, we are always delighted to have some one with us. I told Mr. Calcraft only this morning that we should go out to dinner if he came home alone. Don't ask for which paper he writes until you meet him. Nothing in the world could make me tell you." She was all frankness and animation, and her guest told himself that she was of a great charm. They fell into professional talk. She spoke of her husband's talents; how he had played the viola in quartet parties; of his successful lecture, "The Inutility of Wagner," and his preferences in music.

"But if he does not care for Wagner he must be a Brahmsianer." The last word came out with true Viennese unction.

"He now despises Brahms, and thinks that he had nothing to say. Wagner is, for him, a decadent, like Liszt and the rest."

"But the classics, Madame, what does M. Calcraft write of the classics?" demanded the singer.

"That they are all used-up romantics; that every musical dog has his day, and the latest composer is always the best; he voices his generation. We liked Brahms yesterday; to-day we are all for Richard Strauss and the symphonic poem."

"We?" A quizzical inflection was in the young man's voice. She stared at him.

"I get into the habit of using the editorial 'we.' I do it for fun; I by no means always agree with my husband. Besides, I often write criticism for Mr. Calcraft when he is away—or lecturing." She paused.

"Then," he exclaimed, and he gazed at her tenderly, "if you like my Tristan you may, perhaps, write a nice little notice. Oh, how lovely that would be!"

The artist in him stirred the strings of her maternal lyre. "Yes, it would be lovely, but Mr. Calcraft is not lecturing to-morrow night, and I hope that—"

The two street doors banged out a half bar of the Hunding rhythm. Calcraft was heard in the hall. A minute later he stood in the door of his wife's retreat; there was a frown upon his brow when he saw her companion, but it vanished as the two men shook hands. Viznina asked him if he spoke German; Magda beckoned to Mrs. Calcraft from the middle of the drawing-room. When Tekla returned, after giving final instructions for dinner, she found critic and tenor in heated argument over Jean de Reszke's interpretation of the elder Siegfried....

The dining-room was a small salon, oak-panelled, and with low ceilings. A few prints of religious subjects, after the early Italian masters, hung on the walls. The buffet was pure renaissance. Comfortable was the room, while the oval table and soft leather chairs were provocative of appetite and conversation.

"Very un-American," remarked the singer, as he ate his crab bisque.

"How many American houses have you been in?" irritably asked Calcraft. Viznina admitted that he was enjoying his debut.

"I thought so." Calcraft was now as bland as a May morning, and his eyes sparkled. His wife watched Magda serve the fish and fowl, and her husband insisted upon champagne as the sole wine. The tenor looked surprised, and then amused.

"Americans love champagne, do they not? I never touch it."

"Would you rather have claret or beer?" hastily inquired the host.

"Neither; I must sing Tristan to-morrow."

"You singers are saints on the stage." The critic laughed. "I am old-fashioned enough to believe that good wine or beer will never hurt the throat. Now there was Karl Formes, and Niemann the great tenor—"

Tekla interrupted. "My dear Cal, pray don't get on one of your interminable liquid talks. Herr Viznina does not care to drink, whether he is singing or not. I told him, too, that we always liked a guest at dinner, for we are such old married people."

Calcraft watched the pair facing one another. He was in a disagreeable humor because of his wife's allusion to visitors; he liked to bear the major burden of conversation, even when they were alone. If Tekla began he had to sit still and drink—there was no other alternative. She asked Viznina where he was born, where he had studied, and why he had changed his name. The answers were those of a man in love with his art. Hinweg, he explained, was his mother's name, and assumed because of the anti-Slav prejudice existing in Vienna.

Calcraft broke in. "You say you are Bohemian, Herr Viznina? You are really as Swedish looking as Mrs. Calcraft."

"What a Sieglinde she would make, with her beautiful blond complexion and grand figure," returned the tenor with enthusiasm.

Tekla sighed for the third time that day. She burned to become a Wagner singer. Had she not been a successful elocutionist in Minnesota? How this talented young artist appreciated her gift, intuitively understood her ambition! Calcraft noted that they looked enough alike to be brother and sister; tall, fair and blue-eyed as they were. He laughed at the conceit.

"You are both of the Woelfing tribe," he roared and ordered beer of Magda. "I always drink dark beer after champagne, it settles the effervesence," he argued.

"You can always drink beer, before and after anything, Cal," said his wife in her sarcastic, vibrant voice.

The guest was hopelessly bored, but, being a man of will, he concentrated his attention upon himself and grew more resigned. He did not pretend to understand this rough-spoken critic, with his hatred of Wagner and his contradictory Teutonic tastes. Tekla with eyes full of beaming implications spoke:

"I should tell you, Cal, that Herr Viznina does not know, or else has forgotten, which paper you write for, and I let him guess. He thinks you praised his Siegmund."

"Saturday morning after the Tristan performance he will know for sure," answered the critic sardonically, drinking a stein of Wuerzburger.

"You rude man! of course he will know, and he will love you afterwards." If Calcraft had been near enough she would have tapped him playfully on the arm.

"Ah! Madame, what would we poor artists do if it were not for the ladies, the kind, sweet American ladies?"

"That's just it," cried Calcraft.

"What an idea, Warrington Calcraft!" Tekla was thoroughly indignant. "Never since I've known you have I attempted to influence you."

"You couldn't," said he.

"No, not even for poor Florence Deliba, who entered into a suicidal marriage after she read your brutal notice of her debut."

"And a good thing it was for the operatic stage," chuckled the man.

"If I write the notices of a few minor concerts I always try to follow your notions." She was out of breath and Viznina admired her without reserve.

Calcraft was becoming slow of utterance. "You women are wonders when it comes to criticism." The air darkened. Viznina looked unhappy and Mrs. Calcraft rose: "Come, let us drink our coffee in my den, Herr Viznina, I hate shop talk." She swept out of the room and the tenor, after a dismissal from the drowsy critic, joined her.

"My headstrong husband doesn't care for coffee," she confessed, apologetically. "Sit down where you were before. The soft light is so becoming to you. Do you know that you have an ideal face for Tristan, and this green recalls the forest scene. Now just fancy that I am Isolde and tell me what your thoughts and feelings are in the second act."

Sitting beside her on the couch and watching her long fingers milky-green with opals, Viznina spoke only of himself, with all the meticulous delicacy of a Wagnerian tenor, and was thoroughly happy playing the part of a tame Tristan.

III

Tristan and Isolde were in the middle of their passionate symphony of flesh and spirit, when Tekla was ushered to the regular Calcraft seats in the opera house. Her husband, who had been in the city all day, returned to the house late for dinner, through which meal he dozed. He then fell asleep on a couch. After dressing and waiting wearily until nearly nine o'clock she had a carriage called and went to the opera alone; not forgetting, however, to bid Magda leave a case of imported beer where Mr. Calcraft could find it when he awoke....

Rather flustered, she watched the stage with anxious eyes. Brangaene—an ugly, large person in a terra-cotta cheese-cloth peplum—had already warned the desperate pair beneath the trees that dawn and danger were at hand. But the lovers sang of death and love, and love and death; and their sweet, despairing imagery floated on the oily waves of orchestral passion. The eloquence became burning; Tekla had forgotten her tribulations, Calcraft and time and space, when King Marke entered accompanied by the blustering busybody Melot.

"Oh, these tiresome husbands!" she thought, and not listening to the noble music of the deceived man, she presently slipped into the lobby. The place was deserted, and as she paced up and down, she recollected with pleasure the boyish-looking Tristan. How handsome he was! and how his voice, husky in "Die Walkuere," now rang out thrillingly! There!—she heard it again, muffled indeed by the thick doors, but pure, free, full of youthful fire. What a Tristan! And he had looked at her the night before with the same ardor! A pity it was, that she, Tekla Calcraft, born Tekla Bjoernsen, had not studied for the opera; had not sung Sieglinde to his Siegmund; was not singing at this moment with such a Tristan in the place of that fat Malska, old enough to be his mother! and instead of being the wife of an indifferent man who— ...

The act was over, the applause noisy. People began to press out through the swinging doors, and Tekla, not caring to be caught alone, walked around to the stage entrance. She met the Director, who made much of her and took her through the archway presided over by a hoarse-voiced keeper.

In his dressing-room Tristan welcomed her with outstretched hands.

"You are so good," and then quickly pointed to his throat.

"And you were superb," she responded unaffectedly.

"Your husband, is he here?" he asked, forgetting his throat.

"He is not here yet; he is detained down-town."

"But he will write the critique?" inquired Viznina with startled eyes. Tekla did not at first answer him.

"I don't know," she replied thickly. He seized her hands.

"Oh, you will like my third act! I am there at my best," he declared with all the muted vanity of a modest man. She was slightly disappointed.

"I like everything you do," she slowly admitted. Viznina kissed her wrists. She regarded him with maternal eyes.

As Tekla mounted the stairs her mind was made up. Fatigued as she was by the exciting events of the past twenty-four hours, she reached the press-room in a buoyant mood. It was smoky with the cigars and cigarettes of a half dozen men who invented ideas, pleasant and otherwise, about the opera, for the morning papers. Mrs. Calcraft was greeted with warmth; like her husband she was a favorite, though an old man grumbled out something about women abusing their privilege. Jetsam, one of her devoted body-guard, gave her a seat, pen and paper, and told her to go ahead; there were plenty of messenger boys in waiting. It was not the first time Tekla had been in the press-room, the room of the dreaded critical chain-gang, as Cal had named it. All asked after Calcraft.

"He has gone to the Symphony Concert," replied Tekla unblushingly, and young Jetsam winked his thin eyes at the rest. Feeling encouraged at this he persisted:

"I thought Gardner was 'doing' the concert for Cal?"

"Oh! you know Cal!" she put a pen in her mouth, "he hates Wagner; perhaps he thinks Mr. Gardner needs company once in a while."

"Perhaps he does," gravely soliloquized Jetsam.

"How many performances of Tristan does this make, Mr. Jetsam?"

"I'm sure I don't know—I am never much on statistics."

When she was told the correct number the scratching of pens went on and the smoke grew denser. Messenger after messenger was dismissed with precious critical freightage, and soon Tekla had finished, envious eyes watching her all the while. Every man there wished that his wife were as clever and helpful as Mrs. Calcraft.

Driving home she forgot all about the shabby cab having memories only for the garden scene, its musical enchantments. The spell of them lay thick upon her as she was undressed by Magda. When the lights were out, she asked Magda if Mr. Calcraft still slept.

"No, ma'am; after drinking the beer he went out."

"Oh! he went out after all, did he?" responded Tekla in a sleepy voice and immediately passed into happy dreams....

It was sullen afternoon when she stood in her room regarding with instant joy a large bunch of roses. Calcraft came in without slamming the doors as usual. She turned a shining face to him. He looked factitiously fresh, with a Turkish bath freshness, his linen was spotless, and in his hand he held a newspaper.

"That was a fine, dark potion you brewed for me last night, Sieglinde!" he mournfully began. "No wonder your Tristan sang so well in the Watchman this morning!" The youthful candors of her Swedish blue eyes with their tinted lashes evoked his sulky admiration.

"I knew, Cal, that you would do the young man justice for his magnificent performance," she replied, her cheeks beginning to echo the hues of the roses she held; her fingers had just closed over an angular bit of paper buried in the heart of the flowers....