PART VI.

KRONBORG

Ten Years Later

I

It is a glorious winter day. Denver, standing on her high plateau under

a thrilling green-blue sky, is masked in snow and glittering with

sunlight. The Capitol building is actually in armor, and throws off the

shafts of the sun until the beholder is dazzled and the outlines of the

building are lost in a blaze of reflected light. The stone terrace is a

white field over which fiery reflections dance, and the trees and

bushes are faithfully repeated in snow—on every black twig a soft,

blurred line of white. From the terrace one looks directly over to

where the mountains break in their sharp, familiar lines against the

sky. Snow fills the gorges, hangs in scarfs on the great slopes, and on

the peaks the fiery sunshine is gathered up as by a burning-glass.

Howard Archie is standing at the window of his private room in the

offices of the San Felipe Mining Company, on the sixth floor of the

Raton Building, looking off at the mountain glories of his State while

he gives dictation to his secretary. He is ten years older than when we

saw him last, and emphatically ten years more prosperous. A decade of

coming into things has not so much aged him as it has fortified,

smoothed, and assured him. His sandy hair and imperial conceal whatever

gray they harbor. He has not grown heavier, but more flexible, and his

massive shoulders carry fifty years and the control of his great mining

interests more lightly than they carried forty years and a country

practice. In short, he is one of the friends to whom we feel grateful

for having got on in the world, for helping to keep up the general

temperature and our own confidence in life. He is an acquaintance that

one would hurry to overtake and greet among a hundred. In his warm

handshake and generous smile there is the stimulating cordiality of

good fellows come into good fortune and eager to pass it on; something

that makes one think better of the lottery of life and resolve to try

again.

When Archie had finished his morning mail, he turned away from the

window and faced his secretary. “Did anything come up yesterday

afternoon while I was away, T. B.?”

Thomas Burk turned over the leaf of his calendar. “Governor Alden sent

down to say that he wanted to see you before he sends his letter to the

Board of Pardons. Asked if you could go over to the State House this

morning.”

Archie shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll think about it.”

The young man grinned.

“Anything else?” his chief continued.

T. B. swung round in his chair with a look of interest on his shrewd,

clean-shaven face. “Old Jasper Flight was in, Dr. Archie. I never

expected to see him alive again. Seems he’s tucked away for the winter

with a sister who’s a housekeeper at the Oxford. He’s all crippled up

with rheumatism, but as fierce after it as ever. Wants to know if you

or the company won’t grub-stake him again. Says he’s sure of it this

time; had located something when the snow shut down on him in December.

He wants to crawl out at the first break in the weather, with that same

old burro with the split ear. He got somebody to winter the beast for

him. He’s superstitious about that burro, too; thinks it’s divinely

guided. You ought to hear the line of talk he put up here yesterday;

said when he rode in his carriage, that burro was a-going to ride along

with him.”

Archie laughed. “Did he leave you his address?”

“He didn’t neglect anything,” replied the clerk cynically.

“Well, send him a line and tell him to come in again. I like to hear

him. Of all the crazy prospectors I’ve ever known, he’s the most

interesting, because he’s really crazy. It’s a religious conviction

with him, and with most of ’em it’s a gambling fever or pure vagrancy.

But Jasper Flight believes that the Almighty keeps the secret of the

silver deposits in these hills, and gives it away to the deserving.

He’s a downright noble figure. Of course I’ll stake him! As long as he

can crawl out in the spring. He and that burro are a sight together.

The beast is nearly as white as Jasper; must be twenty years old.”

“If you stake him this time, you won’t have to again,” said T. B.

knowingly. “He’ll croak up there, mark my word. Says he never ties the

burro at night now, for fear he might be called sudden, and the beast

would starve. I guess that animal could eat a lariat rope, all right,

and enjoy it.”

“I guess if we knew the things those two have eaten, and haven’t eaten,

in their time, T. B., it would make us vegetarians.” The doctor sat

down and looked thoughtful. “That’s the way for the old man to go. It

would be pretty hard luck if he had to die in a hospital. I wish he

could turn up something before he cashes in. But his kind seldom do;

they’re bewitched. Still, there was Stratton. I’ve been meeting Jasper

Flight, and his side meat and tin pans, up in the mountains for years,

and I’d miss him. I always halfway believe the fairy tales he spins me.

Old Jasper Flight,” Archie murmured, as if he liked the name or the

picture it called up.

A clerk came in from the outer office and handed Archie a card. He

sprang up and exclaimed, “Mr. Ottenburg? Bring him in.”

Fred Ottenburg entered, clad in a long, fur-lined coat, holding a

checked-cloth hat in his hand, his cheeks and eyes bright with the

outdoor cold. The two men met before Archie’s desk and their handclasp

was longer than friendship prompts except in regions where the blood

warms and quickens to meet the dry cold. Under the general keyingup of

the altitude, manners take on a heartiness, a vivacity, that is one

expression of the half-unconscious excitement which Colorado people

miss when they drop into lower strata of air. The heart, we are told,

wears out early in that high atmosphere, but while it pumps it sends

out no sluggish stream. Our two friends stood gripping each other by

the hand and smiling.

“When did you get in, Fred? And what have you come for?” Archie gave

him a quizzical glance.

“I’ve come to find out what you think you’re doing out here,” the

younger man declared emphatically. “I want to get next, I do. When can

you see me?”

“Anything on to-night? Then suppose you dine with me. Where can I pick

you up at five-thirty?”

“Bixby’s office, general freight agent of the Burlington.” Ottenburg

began to button his overcoat and drew on his gloves. “I’ve got to have

one shot at you before I go, Archie. Didn’t I tell you Pinky Alden was

a cheap squirt?”

Alden’s backer laughed and shook his head. “Oh, he’s worse than that,

Fred. It isn’t polite to mention what he is, outside of the Arabian

Nights. I guessed you’d come to rub it into me.”

Ottenburg paused, his hand on the doorknob, his high color challenging

the doctor’s calm. “I’m disgusted with you, Archie, for training with

such a pup. A man of your experience!”

“Well, he’s been an experience,” Archie muttered. “I’m not coy about

admitting it, am I?”

Ottenburg flung open the door. “Small credit to you. Even the women are

out for capital and corruption, I hear. Your Governor’s done more for

the United Breweries in six months than I’ve been able to do in six

years. He’s the lily-livered sort we’re looking for. Good-morning.”

That afternoon at five o’clock Dr. Archie emerged from the State House

after his talk with Governor Alden, and crossed the terrace under a

saffron sky. The snow, beaten hard, was blue in the dusk; a day of

blinding sunlight had not even started a thaw. The lights of the city

twinkled pale below him in the quivering violet air, and the dome of

the State House behind him was still red with the light from the west.

Before he got into his car, the doctor paused to look about him at the

scene of which he never tired. Archie lived in his own house on Colfax

Avenue, where he had roomy grounds and a rose garden and a

conservatory. His housekeeping was done by three Japanese boys, devoted

and resourceful, who were able to manage Archie’s dinner parties, to

see that he kept his engagements, and to make visitors who stayed at

the house so comfortable that they were always loath to go away.

Archie had never known what comfort was until he became a widower,

though with characteristic delicacy, or dishonesty, he insisted upon

accrediting his peace of mind to the San Felipe, to Time, to anything

but his release from Mrs. Archie.

Mrs. Archie died just before her husband left Moonstone and came to

Denver to live, six years ago. The poor woman’s fight against dust was

her undoing at last. One summer day when she was rubbing the parlor

upholstery with gasoline,—the doctor had often forbidden her to use it

on any account, so that was one of the pleasures she seized upon in his

absence,—an explosion occurred. Nobody ever knew exactly how it

happened, for Mrs. Archie was dead when the neighbors rushed in to save

her from the burning house. She must have inhaled the burning gas and

died instantly.

Moonstone severity relented toward her somewhat after her death. But

even while her old cronies at Mrs. Smiley’s millinery store said that

it was a terrible thing, they added that nothing but a powerful

explosive _could_ have killed Mrs. Archie, and that it was only right

the doctor should have a chance.

Archie’s past was literally destroyed when his wife died. The house

burned to the ground, and all those material reminders which have such

power over people disappeared in an hour. His mining interests now took

him to Denver so often that it seemed better to make his headquarters

there. He gave up his practice and left Moonstone for good. Six months

afterward, while Dr. Archie was living at the Brown Palace Hotel, the

San Felipe mine began to give up that silver hoard which old Captain

Harris had always accused it of concealing, and San Felipe headed the

list of mining quotations in every daily paper, East and West. In a few

years Dr. Archie was a very rich man. His mine was such an important

item in the mineral output of the State, and Archie had a hand in so

many of the new industries of Colorado and New Mexico, that his

political influence was considerable. He had thrown it all, two years

ago, to the new reform party, and had brought about the election of a

governor of whose conduct he was now heartily ashamed. His friends

believed that Archie himself had ambitious political plans.

II

When Ottenburg and his host reached the house on Colfax Avenue, they

went directly to the library, a long double room on the second floor

which Archie had arranged exactly to his own taste. It was full of

books and mounted specimens of wild game, with a big writing-table at

either end, stiff, old-fashioned engravings, heavy hangings and deep

upholstery.

When one of the Japanese boys brought the cocktails, Fred turned from

the fine specimen of peccoray he had been examining and said, “A man is

an owl to live in such a place alone, Archie. Why don’t you marry? As

for me, just because I can’t marry, I find the world full of charming,

unattached women, any one of whom I could fit up a house for with

alacrity.”

“You’re more knowing than I.” Archie spoke politely. “I’m not very wide

awake about women. I’d be likely to pick out one of the uncomfortable

ones—and there are a few of them, you know.” He drank his cocktail and

rubbed his hands together in a friendly way. “My friends here have

charming wives, and they don’t give me a chance to get lonely. They are

very kind to me, and I have a great many pleasant friendships.”

Fred put down his glass. “Yes, I’ve always noticed that women have

confidence in you. You have the doctor’s way of getting next. And you

enjoy that kind of thing?”

“The friendship of attractive women? Oh, dear, yes! I depend upon it a

great deal.”

The butler announced dinner, and the two men went downstairs to the

dining-room. Dr. Archie’s dinners were always good and well served, and

his wines were excellent.

“I saw the Fuel and Iron people to-day,” Ottenburg said, looking up

from his soup. “Their heart is in the right place. I can’t see why in

the mischief you ever got mixed up with that reform gang, Archie.

You’ve got nothing to reform out here. The situation has always been as

simple as two and two in Colorado; mostly a matter of a friendly

understanding.”

“Well,”—Archie spoke tolerantly,—“some of the young fellows seemed to

have red-hot convictions, and I thought it was better to let them try

their ideas out.”

Ottenburg shrugged his shoulders. “A few dull young men who haven’t

ability enough to play the old game the old way, so they want to put on

a new game which doesn’t take so much brains and gives away more

advertising that’s what your anti-saloon league and vice commission

amounts to. They provide notoriety for the fellows who can’t

distinguish themselves at running a business or practicing law or

developing an industry. Here you have a mediocre lawyer with no brains

and no practice, trying to get a look-in on something. He comes up with

the novel proposition that the prostitute has a hard time of it, puts

his picture in the paper, and the first thing you know, he’s a

celebrity. He gets the rake-off and she’s just where she was before.

How could you fall for a mouse-trap like Pink Alden, Archie?”

Dr. Archie laughed as he began to carve. “Pink seems to get under your

skin. He’s not worth talking about. He’s gone his limit. People won’t

read about his blameless life any more. I knew those interviews he gave

out would cook him. They were a last resort. I could have stopped him,

but by that time I’d come to the conclusion that I’d let the reformers

down. I’m not against a general shaking-up, but the trouble with

Pinky’s crowd is they never get beyond a general writing-up. We gave

them a chance to do something, and they just kept on writing about each

other and what temptations they had overcome.”

While Archie and his friend were busy with Colorado politics, the

impeccable Japanese attended swiftly and intelligently to his duties,

and the dinner, as Ottenburg at last remarked, was worthy of more

profitable conversation.

“So it is,” the doctor admitted. “Well, we’ll go upstairs for our

coffee and cut this out. Bring up some cognac and arak, Tai,” he added

as he rose from the table.

They stopped to examine a moose’s head on the stairway, and when they

reached the library the pine logs in the fireplace had been lighted,

and the coffee was bubbling before the hearth. Tai placed two chairs

before the fire and brought a tray of cigarettes.

“Bring the cigars in my lower desk drawer, boy,” the doctor directed.

“Too much light in here, isn’t there, Fred? Light the lamp there on my

desk, Tai.” He turned off the electric glare and settled himself deep

into the chair opposite Ottenburg’s.

“To go back to our conversation, doctor,” Fred began while he waited

for the first steam to blow off his coffee; “why don’t you make up your

mind to go to Washington? There’d be no fight made against you. I

needn’t say the United Breweries would back you. There’d be some

_kudos_ coming to us, too; backing a reform candidate.”

Dr. Archie measured his length in his chair and thrust his large boots

toward the crackling pitch-pine. He drank his coffee and lit a big

black cigar while his guest looked over the assortment of cigarettes on

the tray. “You say why don’t I,” the doctor spoke with the deliberation

of a man in the position of having several courses to choose from,

“but, on the other hand, why should I?” He puffed away and seemed,

through his half-closed eyes, to look down several long roads with the

intention of luxuriously rejecting all of them and remaining where he

was. “I’m sick of politics. I’m disillusioned about serving my crowd,

and I don’t particularly want to serve yours. Nothing in it that I

particularly want; and a man’s not effective in politics unless he

wants something for himself, and wants it hard. I can reach my ends by

straighter roads. There are plenty of things to keep me busy. We

haven’t begun to develop our resources in this State; we haven’t had a

look in on them yet. That’s the only thing that isn’t fake—making men

and machines go, and actually turning out a product.”

The doctor poured himself some white cordial and looked over the little

glass into the fire with an expression which led Ottenburg to believe

that he was getting at something in his own mind. Fred lit a cigarette

and let his friend grope for his idea.

“My boys, here,” Archie went on, “have got me rather interested in

Japan. Think I’ll go out there in the spring, and come back the other

way, through Siberia. I’ve always wanted to go to Russia.” His eyes

still hunted for something in his big fireplace. With a slow turn of

his head he brought them back to his guest and fixed them upon him.

“Just now, I’m thinking of running on to New York for a few weeks,” he

ended abruptly.

Ottenburg lifted his chin. “Ah!” he exclaimed, as if he began to see

Archie’s drift. “Shall you see Thea?”

“Yes.” The doctor replenished his cordial glass. “In fact, I suspect I

am going exactly _to_ see her. I’m getting stale on things here, Fred.

Best people in the world and always doing things for me. I’m fond of

them, too, but I’ve been with them too much. I’m getting ill-tempered,

and the first thing I know I’ll be hurting people’s feelings. I snapped

Mrs. Dandridge up over the telephone this afternoon when she asked me

to go out to Colorado Springs on Sunday to meet some English people who

are staying at the Antlers. Very nice of her to want me, and I was as

sour as if she’d been trying to work me for something. I’ve got to get

out for a while, to save my reputation.”

To this explanation Ottenburg had not paid much attention. He seemed to

be looking at a fixed point: the yellow glass eyes of a fine wildcat

over one of the bookcases. “You’ve never heard her at all, have you?”

he asked reflectively. “Curious, when this is her second season in New

York.”

“I was going on last March. Had everything arranged. And then old Cap

Harris thought he could drive his car and me through a lamp-post and I

was laid up with a compound fracture for two months. So I didn’t get to

see Thea.”

Ottenburg studied the red end of his cigarette attentively. “She might

have come out to see you. I remember you covered the distance like a

streak when she wanted you.”

Archie moved uneasily. “Oh, she couldn’t do that. She had to get back

to Vienna to work on some new parts for this year. She sailed two days

after the New York season closed.”

“Well, then she couldn’t, of course.” Fred smoked his cigarette close

and tossed the end into the fire. “I’m tremendously glad you’re going

now. If you’re stale, she’ll jack you up. That’s one of her

specialties. She got a rise out of me last December that lasted me all

winter.”

“Of course,” the doctor apologized, “you know so much more about such

things. I’m afraid it will be rather wasted on me. I’m no judge of

music.”

“Never mind that.” The younger man pulled himself up in his chair. “She

gets it across to people who aren’t judges. That’s just what she does.”

He relapsed into his former lassitude. “If you were stone deaf, it

wouldn’t all be wasted. It’s a great deal to watch her. Incidentally,

you know, she is very beautiful. Photographs give you no idea.”

Dr. Archie clasped his large hands under his chin. “Oh, I’m counting on

that. I don’t suppose her voice will sound natural to me. Probably I

wouldn’t know it.”

Ottenburg smiled. “You’ll know it, if you ever knew it. It’s the same

voice, only more so. You’ll know it.”

“Did you, in Germany that time, when you wrote me? Seven years ago,

now. That must have been at the very beginning.”

“Yes, somewhere near the beginning. She sang one of the Rhine

daughters.” Fred paused and drew himself up again. “Sure, I knew it

from the first note. I’d heard a good many young voices come up out of

the Rhine, but, by gracious, I hadn’t heard one like that!” He fumbled

for another cigarette. “Mahler was conducting that night. I met him as

he was leaving the house and had a word with him. ‘Interesting voice

you tried out this evening,’ I said. He stopped and smiled. ‘Miss

Kronborg, you mean? Yes, very. She seems to sing for the idea. Unusual

in a young singer.’ I’d never heard him admit before that a singer

could have an idea. She not only had it, but she got it across. The

Rhine music, that I’d known since I was a boy, was fresh to me,

vocalized for the first time. You realized that she was beginning that

long story, adequately, with the end in view. Every phrase she sang was

basic. She simply _was_ the idea of the Rhine music.” Ottenburg rose

and stood with his back to the fire. “And at the end, where you don’t

see the maidens at all, the same thing again: two pretty voices _and_

the Rhine voice.” Fred snapped his fingers and dropped his hand.

The doctor looked up at him enviously. “You see, all that would be lost

on me,” he said modestly. “I don’t know the dream nor the

interpretation thereof. I’m out of it. It’s too bad that so few of her

old friends can appreciate her.”

“Take a try at it,” Fred encouraged him. “You’ll get in deeper than you

can explain to yourself. People with no personal interest do that.”

“I suppose,” said Archie diffidently, “that college German, gone to

seed, wouldn’t help me out much. I used to be able to make my German

patients understand me.”

“Sure it would!” cried Ottenburg heartily. “Don’t be above knowing your

libretto. That’s all very well for musicians, but common mortals like

you and me have got to know what she’s singing about. Get out your

dictionary and go at it as you would at any other proposition. Her

diction is beautiful, and if you know the text you’ll get a great deal.

So long as you’re going to hear her, get all that’s coming to you. You

bet in Germany people know their librettos by heart! You Americans are

so afraid of stooping to learn anything.”

“I _am_ a little ashamed,” Archie admitted. “I guess that’s the way we

mask our general ignorance. However, I’ll stoop this time; I’m more

ashamed not to be able to follow her. The papers always say she’s such

a fine actress.” He took up the tongs and began to rearrange the logs

that had burned through and fallen apart. “I suppose she has changed a

great deal?” he asked absently.

“We’ve all changed, my dear Archie,—she more than most of us. Yes, and

no. She’s all there, only there’s a great deal more of her. I’ve had

only a few words with her in several years. It’s better not, when I’m

tied up this way. The laws are barbarous, Archie.”

“Your wife is—still the same?” the doctor asked sympathetically.

“Absolutely. Hasn’t been out of a sanitarium for seven years now. No

prospect of her ever being out, and as long as she’s there I’m tied

hand and foot. What does society get out of such a state of things, I’d

like to know, except a tangle of irregularities? If you want to reform,

there’s an opening for you!”

“It’s bad, oh, very bad; I agree with you!” Dr. Archie shook his head.

“But there would be complications under another system, too. The whole

question of a young man’s marrying has looked pretty grave to me for a

long while. How have they the courage to keep on doing it? It depresses

me now to buy wedding presents.” For some time the doctor watched his

guest, who was sunk in bitter reflections. “Such things used to go

better than they do now, I believe. Seems to me all the married people

I knew when I was a boy were happy enough.” He paused again and bit the

end off a fresh cigar. “You never saw Thea’s mother, did you,

Ottenburg? That’s a pity. Mrs. Kronborg was a fine woman. I’ve always

been afraid Thea made a mistake, not coming home when Mrs. Kronborg was

ill, no matter what it cost her.”

Ottenburg moved about restlessly. “She couldn’t, Archie, she positively

couldn’t. I felt you never understood that, but I was in Dresden at the

time, and though I wasn’t seeing much of her, I could size up the

situation for myself. It was by just a lucky chance that she got to

sing _Elizabeth_ that time at the Dresden Opera, a complication of

circumstances. If she’d run away, for any reason, she might have waited

years for such a chance to come again. She gave a wonderful performance

and made a great impression. They offered her certain terms; she had to

take them and follow it up then and there. In that game you can’t lose

a single trick. She was ill herself, but she sang. Her mother was ill,

and she sang. No, you mustn’t hold that against her, Archie. She did

the right thing there.” Ottenburg drew out his watch. “Hello! I must be

traveling. You hear from her regularly?”

“More or less regularly. She was never much of a letter-writer. She

tells me about her engagements and contracts, but I know so little

about that business that it doesn’t mean much to me beyond the figures,

which seem very impressive. We’ve had a good deal of business

correspondence, about putting up a stone to her father and mother, and,

lately, about her youngest brother, Thor. He is with me now; he drives

my car. To-day he’s up at the mine.”

Ottenburg, who had picked up his overcoat, dropped it. “Drives your

car?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes. Thea and I have had a good deal of bother about Thor. We tried a

business college, and an engineering school, but it was no good. Thor

was born a chauffeur before there were cars to drive. He was never good

for anything else; lay around home and collected postage stamps and

took bicycles to pieces, waiting for the automobile to be invented.

He’s just as much a part of a car as the steering-gear. I can’t find

out whether he likes his job with me or not, or whether he feels any

curiosity about his sister. You can’t find anything out from a Kronborg

nowadays. The mother was different.”

Fred plunged into his coat. “Well, it’s a queer world, Archie. But

you’ll think better of it, if you go to New York. Wish I were going

with you. I’ll drop in on you in the morning at about eleven. I want a

word with you about this Interstate Commerce Bill. Good-night.”

Dr. Archie saw his guest to the motor which was waiting below, and then

went back to his library, where he replenished the fire and sat down

for a long smoke. A man of Archie’s modest and rather credulous nature

develops late, and makes his largest gain between forty and fifty. At

thirty, indeed, as we have seen, Archie was a soft-hearted boy under a

manly exterior, still whistling to keep up his courage. Prosperity and

large responsibilities—above all, getting free of poor Mrs. Archie—had

brought out a good deal more than he knew was in him. He was thinking

tonight as he sat before the fire, in the comfort he liked so well,

that but for lucky chances, and lucky holes in the ground, he would

still be a country practitioner, reading his old books by his office

lamp. And yet, he was not so fresh and energetic as he ought to be. He

was tired of business and of politics. Worse than that, he was tired of

the men with whom he had to do and of the women who, as he said, had

been kind to him. He felt as if he were still hunting for something,

like old Jasper Flight. He knew that this was an unbecoming and

ungrateful state of mind, and he reproached himself for it. But he

could not help wondering why it was that life, even when it gave so

much, after all gave so little. What was it that he had expected and

missed? Why was he, more than he was anything else, disappointed?

He fell to looking back over his life and asking himself which years of

it he would like to live over again,—just as they had been,—and they

were not many. His college years he would live again, gladly. After

them there was nothing he would care to repeat until he came to Thea

Kronborg. There had been something stirring about those years in

Moonstone, when he was a restless young man on the verge of breaking

into larger enterprises, and when she was a restless child on the verge

of growing up into something unknown. He realized now that she had

counted for a great deal more to him than he knew at the time. It was a

continuous sort of relationship. He was always on the lookout for her

as he went about the town, always vaguely expecting her as he sat in

his office at night. He had never asked himself then if it was strange

that he should find a child of twelve the most interesting and

companionable person in Moonstone. It had seemed a pleasant, natural

kind of solicitude. He explained it then by the fact that he had no

children of his own. But now, as he looked back at those years, the

other interests were faded and inanimate. The thought of them was

heavy. But wherever his life had touched Thea Kronborg’s, there was

still a little warmth left, a little sparkle. Their friendship seemed

to run over those discontented years like a leafy pattern, still bright

and fresh when the other patterns had faded into the dull background.

Their walks and drives and confidences, the night they watched the

rabbit in the moonlight,—why were these things stirring to remember?

Whenever he thought of them, they were distinctly different from the

other memories of his life; always seemed humorous, gay, with a little

thrill of anticipation and mystery about them. They came nearer to

being tender secrets than any others he possessed. Nearer than anything

else they corresponded to what he had hoped to find in the world, and

had not found. It came over him now that the unexpected favors of

fortune, no matter how dazzling, do not mean very much to us. They may

excite or divert us for a time, but when we look back, the only things

we cherish are those which in some way met our original want; the

desire which formed in us in early youth, undirected, and of its own

accord.

III

For the first four years after Thea went to Germany things went on as

usual with the Kronborg family. Mrs. Kronborg’s land in Nebraska

increased in value and brought her in a good rental. The family drifted

into an easier way of living, half without realizing it, as families

will. Then Mr. Kronborg, who had never been ill, died suddenly of

cancer of the liver, and after his death Mrs. Kronborg went, as her

neighbors said, into a decline. Hearing discouraging reports of her

from the physician who had taken over his practice, Dr. Archie went up

from Denver to see her. He found her in bed, in the room where he had

more than once attended her, a handsome woman of sixty with a body

still firm and white, her hair, faded now to a very pale primrose, in

two thick braids down her back, her eyes clear and calm. When the

doctor arrived, she was sitting up in her bed, knitting. He felt at

once how glad she was to see him, but he soon gathered that she had

made no determination to get well. She told him, indeed, that she could

not very well get along without Mr. Kronborg. The doctor looked at her

with astonishment. Was it possible that she could miss the foolish old

man so much? He reminded her of her children.

“Yes,” she replied; “the children are all very well, but they are not

father. We were married young.”

The doctor watched her wonderingly as she went on knitting, thinking

how much she looked like Thea. The difference was one of degree rather

than of kind. The daughter had a compelling enthusiasm, the mother had

none. But their framework, their foundation, was very much the same.

In a moment Mrs. Kronborg spoke again. “Have you heard anything from

Thea lately?”

During his talk with her, the doctor gathered that what Mrs. Kronborg

really wanted was to see her daughter Thea. Lying there day after day,

she wanted it calmly and continuously. He told her that, since she felt

so, he thought they might ask Thea to come home.

“I’ve thought a good deal about it,” said Mrs. Kronborg slowly. “I hate

to interrupt her, now that she’s begun to get advancement. I expect

she’s seen some pretty hard times, though she was never one to

complain. Perhaps she’d feel that she would like to come. It would be

hard, losing both of us while she’s off there.”

When Dr. Archie got back to Denver he wrote a long letter to Thea,

explaining her mother’s condition and how much she wished to see her,

and asking Thea to come, if only for a few weeks. Thea had repaid the

money she had borrowed from him, and he assured her that if she

happened to be short of funds for the journey, she had only to cable

him.

A month later he got a frantic sort of reply from Thea. Complications

in the opera at Dresden had given her an unhoped-for opportunity to go

on in a big part. Before this letter reached the doctor, she would have

made her debut as _Elizabeth_, in “Tannhäuser.” She wanted to go to her

mother more than she wanted anything else in the world, but, unless she

failed,—which she would not,—she absolutely could not leave Dresden for

six months. It was not that she chose to stay; she had to stay—or lose

everything. The next few months would put her five years ahead, or

would put her back so far that it would be of no use to struggle

further. As soon as she was free, she would go to Moonstone and take

her mother back to Germany with her. Her mother, she was sure, could

live for years yet, and she would like German people and German ways,

and could be hearing music all the time. Thea said she was writing her

mother and begging her to help her one last time; to get strength and

to wait for her six months, and then she (Thea) would do everything.

Her mother would never have to make an effort again.

Dr. Archie went up to Moonstone at once. He had great confidence in

Mrs. Kronborg’s power of will, and if Thea’s appeal took hold of her

enough, he believed she might get better. But when he was shown into

the familiar room off the parlor, his heart sank. Mrs. Kronborg was

lying serene and fateful on her pillows. On the dresser at the foot of

her bed there was a large photograph of Thea in the character in which

she was to make her debut. Mrs. Kronborg pointed to it.

“Isn’t she lovely, doctor? It’s nice that she hasn’t changed much. I’ve

seen her look like that many a time.”

They talked for a while about Thea’s good fortune. Mrs. Kronborg had

had a cablegram saying, “First performance well received. Great

relief.” In her letter Thea said; “If you’ll only get better, dear

mother, there’s nothing I can’t do. I will make a really great success,

if you’ll try with me. You shall have everything you want, and we will

always be together. I have a little house all picked out where we are

to live.”

“Bringing up a family is not all it’s cracked up to be,” said Mrs.

Kronborg with a flicker of irony, as she tucked the letter back under

her pillow. “The children you don’t especially need, you have always

with you, like the poor. But the bright ones get away from you. They

have their own way to make in the world. Seems like the brighter they

are, the farther they go. I used to feel sorry that you had no family,

doctor, but maybe you’re as well off.”

“Thea’s plan seems sound to me, Mrs. Kronborg. There’s no reason I can

see why you shouldn’t pull up and live for years yet, under proper

care. You’d have the best doctors in the world over there, and it would

be wonderful to live with anybody who looks like that.” He nodded at

the photograph of the young woman who must have been singing “_Dich,

theure Halle, grüss’ ich wieder_,” her eyes looking up, her beautiful

hands outspread with pleasure.

Mrs. Kronborg laughed quite cheerfully. “Yes, wouldn’t it? If father

were here, I might rouse myself. But sometimes it’s hard to come back.

Or if she were in trouble, maybe I could rouse myself.”

“But, dear Mrs. Kronborg, she is in trouble,” her old friend

expostulated. “As she says, she’s never needed you as she needs you

now. I make my guess that she’s never begged anybody to help her

before.”

Mrs. Kronborg smiled. “Yes, it’s pretty of her. But that will pass.

When these things happen far away they don’t make such a mark;

especially if your hands are full and you’ve duties of your own to

think about. My own father died in Nebraska when Gunner was born,—we

were living in Iowa then,—and I was sorry, but the baby made it up to

me. I was father’s favorite, too. That’s the way it goes, you see.”

The doctor took out Thea’s letter to him, and read it over to Mrs.

Kronborg. She seemed to listen, and not to listen.

When he finished, she said thoughtfully: “I’d counted on hearing her

sing again. But I always took my pleasures as they come. I always

enjoyed her singing when she was here about the house. While she was

practicing I often used to leave my work and sit down in a rocker and

give myself up to it, the same as if I’d been at an entertainment. I

was never one of these housekeepers that let their work drive them to

death. And when she had the Mexicans over here, I always took it in.

First and last,”—she glanced judicially at the photograph,—“I guess I

got about as much out of Thea’s voice as anybody will ever get.”

“I guess you did!” the doctor assented heartily; “and I got a good deal

myself. You remember how she used to sing those Scotch songs for me,

and lead us with her head, her hair bobbing?”

“‘Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,’—I can hear it now,” said Mrs. Kronborg;

“and poor father never knew when he sang sharp! He used to say,

‘Mother, how do you always know when they make mistakes practicing?’”

Mrs. Kronborg chuckled.

Dr. Archie took her hand, still firm like the hand of a young woman.

“It was lucky for her that you did know. I always thought she got more

from you than from any of her teachers.”

“Except Wunsch; he was a real musician,” said Mrs. Kronborg

respectfully. “I gave her what chance I could, in a crowded house. I

kept the other children out of the parlor for her. That was about all I

could do. If she wasn’t disturbed, she needed no watching. She went

after it like a terrier after rats from the first, poor child. She was

downright afraid of it. That’s why I always encouraged her taking Thor

off to outlandish places. When she was out of the house, then she was

rid of it.”

After they had recalled many pleasant memories together, Mrs. Kronborg

said suddenly: “I always understood about her going off without coming

to see us that time. Oh, I know! You had to keep your own counsel. You

were a good friend to her. I’ve never forgot that.” She patted the

doctor’s sleeve and went on absently. “There was something she didn’t

want to tell me, and that’s why she didn’t come. Something happened

when she was with those people in Mexico. I worried for a good while,

but I guess she’s come out of it all right. She’d had a pretty hard

time, scratching along alone like that when she was so young, and my

farms in Nebraska were down so low that I couldn’t help her none.

That’s no way to send a girl out. But I guess, whatever there was, she

wouldn’t be afraid to tell me now.” Mrs. Kronborg looked up at the

photograph with a smile. “She doesn’t look like she was beholding to

anybody, does she?”

“She isn’t, Mrs. Kronborg. She never has been. That was why she

borrowed the money from me.”

“Oh, I knew she’d never have sent for you if she’d done anything to

shame us. She was always proud.” Mrs. Kronborg paused and turned a

little on her side. “It’s been quite a satisfaction to you and me,

doctor, having her voice turn out so fine. The things you hope for

don’t always turn out like that, by a long sight. As long as old Mrs.

Kohler lived, she used always to translate what it said about Thea in

the German papers she sent. I could make some of it out myself,—it’s

not very different from Swedish,—but it pleased the old lady. She left

Thea her piece-picture of the burning of Moscow. I’ve got it put away

in moth-balls for her, along with the oboe her grandfather brought from

Sweden. I want her to take father’s oboe back there some day.” Mrs.

Kronborg paused a moment and compressed her lips. “But I guess she’ll

take a finer instrument than that with her, back to Sweden!” she added.

Her tone fairly startled the doctor, it was so vibrating with a fierce,

defiant kind of pride he had heard often in Thea’s voice. He looked

down wonderingly at his old friend and patient. After all, one never

knew people to the core. Did she, within her, hide some of that still

passion of which her daughter was all-compact?

“That last summer at home wasn’t very nice for her,” Mrs. Kronborg

began as placidly as if the fire had never leaped up in her. “The other

children were acting-up because they thought I might make a fuss over

her and give her the big-head. We gave her the dare, somehow, the lot

of us, because we couldn’t understand her changing teachers and all

that. That’s the trouble about giving the dare to them quiet,

unboastful children; you never know how far it’ll take ’em. Well, we

ought not to complain, doctor; she’s given us a good deal to think

about.”

The next time Dr. Archie came to Moonstone, he came to be a pall-bearer

at Mrs. Kronborg’s funeral. When he last looked at her, she was so

serene and queenly that he went back to Denver feeling almost as if he

had helped to bury Thea Kronborg herself. The handsome head in the

coffin seemed to him much more really Thea than did the radiant young

woman in the picture, looking about at the Gothic vaultings and

greeting the Hall of Song.

IV

One bright morning late in February Dr. Archie was breakfasting

comfortably at the Waldorf. He had got into Jersey City on an early

train, and a red, windy sunrise over the North River had given him a

good appetite. He consulted the morning paper while he drank his coffee

and saw that “Lohengrin” was to be sung at the opera that evening. In

the list of the artists who would appear was the name “Kronborg.” Such

abruptness rather startled him. “Kronborg”: it was impressive and yet,

somehow, disrespectful; somewhat rude and brazen, on the back page of

the morning paper. After breakfast he went to the hotel ticket office

and asked the girl if she could give him something for “Lohengrin,”

“near the front.” His manner was a trifle awkward and he wondered

whether the girl noticed it. Even if she did, of course, she could

scarcely suspect. Before the ticket stand he saw a bunch of blue

posters announcing the opera casts for the week. There was “Lohengrin,”

and under it he saw:—

_Elsa von Brabant_ . . . . Thea Kronborg.

That looked better. The girl gave him a ticket for a seat which she

said was excellent. He paid for it and went out to the cabstand. He

mentioned to the driver a number on Riverside Drive and got into a

taxi. It would not, of course, be the right thing to call upon Thea

when she was going to sing in the evening. He knew that much, thank

goodness! Fred Ottenburg had hinted to him that, more than almost

anything else, that would put one in wrong.

When he reached the number to which he directed his letters, he

dismissed the cab and got out for a walk. The house in which Thea lived

was as impersonal as the Waldorf, and quite as large. It was above

116th Street, where the Drive narrows, and in front of it the shelving

bank dropped to the North River. As Archie strolled about the paths

which traversed this slope, below the street level, the fourteen

stories of the apartment hotel rose above him like a perpendicular

cliff. He had no idea on which floor Thea lived, but he reflected, as

his eye ran over the many windows, that the outlook would be fine from

any floor. The forbidding hugeness of the house made him feel as if he

had expected to meet Thea in a crowd and had missed her. He did not

really believe that she was hidden away behind any of those glittering

windows, or that he was to hear her this evening. His walk was

curiously uninspiring and unsuggestive. Presently remembering that

Ottenburg had encouraged him to study his lesson, he went down to the

opera house and bought a libretto. He had even brought his old “Adler’s

German and English” in his trunk, and after luncheon he settled down in

his gilded suite at the Waldorf with a big cigar and the text of

“Lohengrin.”

The opera was announced for seven-forty-five, but at half-past seven

Archie took his seat in the right front of the orchestra circle. He had

never been inside the Metropolitan Opera House before, and the height

of the audience room, the rich color, and the sweep of the balconies

were not without their effect upon him. He watched the house fill with

a growing feeling of expectation. When the steel curtain rose and the

men of the orchestra took their places, he felt distinctly nervous. The

burst of applause which greeted the conductor keyed him still higher.

He found that he had taken off his gloves and twisted them to a string.

When the lights went down and the violins began the overture, the place

looked larger than ever; a great pit, shadowy and solemn. The whole

atmosphere, he reflected, was somehow more serious than he had

anticipated.

After the curtains were drawn back upon the scene beside the Scheldt,

he got readily into the swing of the story. He was so much interested

in the bass who sang _King Henry_ that he had almost forgotten for

what he was waiting so nervously, when the _Herald_ began in stentorian

tones to summon _Elsa Von Brabant_. Then he began to realize that he

was rather frightened. There was a flutter of white at the back of the

stage, and women began to come in: two, four, six, eight, but not the

right one. It flashed across him that this was something like

buck-fever, the paralyzing moment that comes upon a man when his first

elk looks at him through the bushes, under its great antlers; the

moment when a man’s mind is so full of shooting that he forgets the gun

in his hand until the buck nods adieu to him from a distant hill.

All at once, before the buck had left him, she was there. Yes,

unquestionably it was she. Her eyes were downcast, but the head, the

cheeks, the chin—there could be no mistake; she advanced slowly, as if

she were walking in her sleep. Some one spoke to her; she only inclined

her head. He spoke again, and she bowed her head still lower. Archie

had forgotten his libretto, and he had not counted upon these long

pauses. He had expected her to appear and sing and reassure him. They

seemed to be waiting for her. Did she ever forget? Why in thunder

didn’t she—She made a sound, a faint one. The people on the stage

whispered together and seemed confounded. His nervousness was absurd.

She must have done this often before; she knew her bearings. She made

another sound, but he could make nothing of it. Then the King sang to

her, and Archie began to remember where they were in the story. She

came to the front of the stage, lifted her eyes for the first time,

clasped her hands and began, “_Einsam in trüben Tagen._”

Yes, it was exactly like buck-fever. Her face was there, toward the

house now, before his eyes, and he positively could not see it. She was

singing, at last, and he positively could not hear her. He was

conscious of nothing but an uncomfortable dread and a sense of crushing

disappointment. He had, after all, missed her. Whatever was there, she

was not there—for him.

The King interrupted her. She began again, “_In lichter Waffen

Scheine._” Archie did not know when his buckfever passed, but presently

he found that he was sitting quietly in a darkened house, not listening

to but dreaming upon a river of silver sound. He felt apart from the

others, drifting alone on the melody, as if he had been alone with it

for a long while and had known it all before. His power of attention

was not great just then, but in so far as it went he seemed to be

looking through an exalted calmness at a beautiful woman from far away,

from another sort of life and feeling and understanding than his own,

who had in her face something he had known long ago, much brightened

and beautified. As a lad he used to believe that the faces of people

who died were like that in the next world; the same faces, but shining

with the light of a new understanding. No, Ottenburg had not prepared

him!

What he felt was admiration and estrangement. The homely reunion, that

he had somehow expected, now seemed foolish. Instead of feeling proud

that he knew her better than all these people about him, he felt

chagrined at his own ingenuousness. For he did not know her better.

This woman he had never known; she had somehow devoured his little

friend, as the wolf ate up Red Ridinghood. Beautiful, radiant, tender

as she was, she chilled his old affection; that sort of feeling was not

appropriate. She seemed much, much farther away from him than she had

seemed all those years when she was in Germany. The ocean he could

cross, but there was something here he could not cross. There was a

moment, when she turned to the King and smiled that rare, sunrise smile

of her childhood, when he thought she was coming back to him. After the

_Herald’s_ second call for her champion, when she knelt in her

impassioned prayer, there was again something familiar, a kind of wild

wonder that she had had the power to call up long ago. But she merely

reminded him of Thea; this was not the girl herself.

After the tenor came on, the doctor ceased trying to make the woman

before him fit into any of his cherished recollections. He took her, in

so far as he could, for what she was then and there. When the knight

raised the kneeling girl and put his mailed hand on her hair, when she

lifted to him a face full of worship and passionate humility, Archie

gave up his last reservation. He knew no more about her than did the

hundreds around him, who sat in the shadow and looked on, as he looked,

some with more understanding, some with less. He knew as much about

_Ortrude_ or _Lohengrin_ as he knew about _Elsa_—more, because she went

further than they, she sustained the legendary beauty of her conception

more consistently. Even he could see that. Attitudes, movements, her

face, her white arms and fingers, everything was suffused with a rosy

tenderness, a warm humility, a gracious and yet—to him—wholly

estranging beauty.

During the balcony singing in the second act the doctor’s thoughts were

as far away from Moonstone as the singer’s doubtless were. He had

begun, indeed, to feel the exhilaration of getting free from

personalities, of being released from his own past as well as from Thea

Kronborg’s. It was very much, he told himself, like a military funeral,

exalting and impersonal. Something old died in one, and out of it

something new was born. During the duet with _Ortrude_, and the

splendors of the wedding processional, this new feeling grew and grew.

At the end of the act there were many curtain calls and _Elsa_

acknowledged them, brilliant, gracious, spirited, with her far-breaking

smile; but on the whole she was harder and more self-contained before

the curtain than she was in the scene behind it. Archie did his part in

the applause that greeted her, but it was the new and wonderful he

applauded, not the old and dear. His personal, proprietary pride in her

was frozen out.

He walked about the house during the _entr’acte_, and here and there

among the people in the foyer he caught the name “Kronborg.” On the

staircase, in front of the coffeeroom, a long-haired youth with a fat

face was discoursing to a group of old women about “die Kronborg.” Dr.

Archie gathered that he had crossed on the boat with her.

After the performance was over, Archie took a taxi and started for

Riverside Drive. He meant to see it through to-night. When he entered

the reception hall of the hotel before which he had strolled that

morning, the hall porter challenged him. He said he was waiting for

Miss Kronborg. The porter looked at him suspiciously and asked whether

he had an appointment. He answered brazenly that he had. He was not

used to being questioned by hall boys. Archie sat first in one tapestry

chair and then in another, keeping a sharp eye on the people who came

in and went up in the elevators. He walked about and looked at his

watch. An hour dragged by. No one had come in from the street now for

about twenty minutes, when two women entered, carrying a great many

flowers and followed by a tall young man in chauffeur’s uniform. Archie

advanced toward the taller of the two women, who was veiled and carried

her head very firmly. He confronted her just as she reached the

elevator. Although he did not stand directly in her way, something in

his attitude compelled her to stop. She gave him a piercing, defiant

glance through the white scarf that covered her face. Then she lifted

her hand and brushed the scarf back from her head. There was still

black on her brows and lashes. She was very pale and her face was drawn

and deeply lined. She looked, the doctor told himself with a sinking

heart, forty years old. Her suspicious, mystified stare cleared slowly.

“Pardon me,” the doctor murmured, not knowing just how to address her

here before the porters, “I came up from the opera. I merely wanted to

say good-night to you.”

Without speaking, still looking incredulous, she pushed him into the

elevator. She kept her hand on his arm while the cage shot up, and she

looked away from him, frowning, as if she were trying to remember or

realize something. When the cage stopped, she pushed him out of the

elevator through another door, which a maid opened, into a square hall.

There she sank down on a chair and looked up at him.

“Why didn’t you let me know?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

Archie heard himself laughing the old, embarrassed laugh that seldom

happened to him now. “Oh, I wanted to take my chance with you, like

anybody else. It’s been so long, now!”

She took his hand through her thick glove and her head dropped forward.

“Yes, it has been long,” she said in the same husky voice, “and so much

has happened.”

“And you are so tired, and I am a clumsy old fellow to break in on you

to-night,” the doctor added sympathetically. “Forgive me, this time.”

He bent over and put his hand soothingly on her shoulder. He felt a

strong shudder run through her from head to foot.

Still bundled in her fur coat as she was, she threw both arms about him

and hugged him. “Oh, Dr. Archie, _Dr. Archie_,”—she shook him,—“don’t

let me go. Hold on, now you’re here,” she laughed, breaking away from

him at the same moment and sliding out of her fur coat. She left it for

the maid to pick up and pushed the doctor into the sitting-room, where

she turned on the lights. “Let me _look_ at you. Yes; hands, feet,

head, shoulders—just the same. You’ve grown no older. You can’t say as

much for me, can you?”

She was standing in the middle of the room, in a white silk shirtwaist

and a short black velvet skirt, which somehow suggested that they had

‘cut off her petticoats all round about.’ She looked distinctly clipped

and plucked. Her hair was parted in the middle and done very close to

her head, as she had worn it under the wig. She looked like a fugitive,

who had escaped from something in clothes caught up at hazard. It

flashed across Dr. Archie that she was running away from the other

woman down at the opera house, who had used her hardly.

He took a step toward her. “I can’t tell a thing in the world about

you, Thea—if I may still call you that.”

She took hold of the collar of his overcoat. “Yes, call me that. Do: I

like to hear it. You frighten me a little, but I expect I frighten you

more. I’m always a scarecrow after I sing a long part like that—so

high, too.” She absently pulled out the handkerchief that protruded

from his breast pocket and began to wipe the black paint off her

eyebrows and lashes. “I can’t take you in much to-night, but I must see

you for a little while.” She pushed him to a chair. “I shall be more

recognizable to-morrow. You mustn’t think of me as you see me to-night.

Come at four to-morrow afternoon and have tea with me. Can you? That’s

good.”

She sat down in a low chair beside him and leaned forward, drawing her

shoulders together. She seemed to him inappropriately young and

inappropriately old, shorn of her long tresses at one end and of her

long robes at the other.

“How do you happen to be here?” she asked abruptly. “How can you leave

a silver mine? I couldn’t! Sure nobody’ll cheat you? But you can

explain everything tomorrow.” She paused. “You remember how you sewed

me up in a poultice, once? I wish you could to-night. I need a

poultice, from top to toe. Something very disagreeable happened down

there. You said you were out front? Oh, don’t say anything about it. I

always know exactly how it goes, unfortunately. I was rotten in the

balcony. I never get that. You didn’t notice it? Probably not, but I

did.”

Here the maid appeared at the door and her mistress rose. “My supper?

Very well, I’ll come. I’d ask you to stay, doctor, but there wouldn’t

be enough for two. They seldom send up enough for one,”—she spoke

bitterly. “I haven’t got a sense of you yet,”—turning directly to

Archie again. “You haven’t been here. You’ve only announced yourself,

and told me you are coming to-morrow. You haven’t seen me, either. This

is not I. But I’ll be here waiting for you to-morrow, my whole works!

Goodnight, till then.” She patted him absently on the sleeve and gave

him a little shove toward the door.

V

When Archie got back to his hotel at two o’clock in the morning, he

found Fred Ottenburg’s card under his door, with a message scribbled

across the top: “When you come in, please call up room 811, this

hotel.” A moment later Fred’s voice reached him over the telephone.

“That you, Archie? Won’t you come up? I’m having some supper and I’d

like company. Late? What does that matter? I won’t keep you long.”

Archie dropped his overcoat and set out for room 811. He found

Ottenburg in the act of touching a match to a chafing-dish, at a table

laid for two in his sitting-room. “I’m catering here,” he announced

cheerfully. “I let the waiter off at midnight, after he’d set me up.

You’ll have to account for yourself, Archie.”

The doctor laughed, pointing to three wine-coolers under the table.

“Are you expecting guests?”

“Yes, two.” Ottenburg held up two fingers,—“you, and my higher self.

He’s a thirsty boy, and I don’t invite him often. He has been known to

give me a headache. Now, where have you been, Archie, until this

shocking hour?”

“Bah, you’ve been banting!” the doctor exclaimed, pulling out his white

gloves as he searched for his handkerchief and throwing them into a

chair. Ottenburg was in evening clothes and very pointed dress shoes.

His white waistcoat, upon which the doctor had fixed a challenging eye,

went down straight from the top button, and he wore a camelia. He was

conspicuously brushed and trimmed and polished. His smoothly controlled

excitement was wholly different from his usual easy cordiality, though

he had his face, as well as his figure, well in hand. On the

serving-table there was an empty champagne pint and a glass. He had

been having a little starter, the doctor told himself, and would

probably be running on high gear before he got through. There was even

now an air of speed about him.

“Been, Freddy?”—the doctor at last took up his question. “I expect I’ve

been exactly where you have. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming

on?”

“I wasn’t, Archie.” Fred lifted the cover of the chafingdish and

stirred the contents. He stood behind the table, holding the lid with

his handkerchief. “I had never thought of such a thing. But Landry, a

young chap who plays her accompaniments and who keeps an eye out for

me, telegraphed me that Madame Rheinecker had gone to Atlantic City

with a bad throat, and Thea might have a chance to sing _Elsa_. She has

sung it only twice here before, and I missed it in Dresden. So I came

on. I got in at four this afternoon and saw you registered, but I

thought I wouldn’t butt in. How lucky you got here just when she was

coming on for this. You couldn’t have hit a better time.” Ottenburg

stirred the contents of the dish faster and put in more sherry. “And

where have you been since twelve o’clock, may I ask?”

Archie looked rather self-conscious, as he sat down on a fragile gilt

chair that rocked under him, and stretched out his long legs. “Well, if

you’ll believe me, I had the brutality to go to see her. I wanted to

identify her. Couldn’t wait.”

Ottenburg placed the cover quickly on the chafing-dish and took a step

backward. “You did, old sport? My word! None but the brave deserve the

fair. Well,”—he stooped to turn the wine,—“and how was she?”

“She seemed rather dazed, and pretty well used up. She seemed

disappointed in herself, and said she hadn’t done herself justice in

the balcony scene.”

“Well, if she didn’t, she’s not the first. Beastly stuff to sing right

in there; lies just on the ‘break’ in the voice.” Fred pulled a bottle

out of the ice and drew the cork. Lifting his glass he looked meaningly

at Archie. “You know who, doctor. Here goes!” He drank off his glass

with a sigh of satisfaction. After he had turned the lamp low under the

chafing-dish, he remained standing, looking pensively down at the food

on the table. “Well, she rather pulled it off! As a backer, you’re a

winner, Archie. I congratulate you.” Fred poured himself another glass.

“Now you must eat something, and so must I. Here, get off that bird

cage and find a steady chair. This stuff ought to be rather good; head

waiter’s suggestion. Smells all right.” He bent over the chafing-dish

and began to serve the contents. “Perfectly innocuous: mushrooms and

truffles and a little crab-meat. And now, on the level, Archie, how did

it hit you?”

Archie turned a frank smile to his friend and shook his head. “It was

all miles beyond me, of course, but it gave me a pulse. The general

excitement got hold of me, I suppose. I like your wine, Freddy.” He put

down his glass. “It goes to the spot to-night. She _was_ all right,

then? You weren’t disappointed?”

“Disappointed? My dear Archie, that’s the high voice we dream of; so

pure and yet so virile and human. That combination hardly ever happens

with sopranos.” Ottenburg sat down and turned to the doctor, speaking

calmly and trying to dispel his friend’s manifest bewilderment. “You

see, Archie, there’s the voice itself, so beautiful and individual, and

then there’s something else; the thing in it which responds to every

shade of thought and feeling, spontaneously, almost unconsciously. That

color has to be born in a singer, it can’t be acquired; lots of

beautiful voices haven’t a vestige of it. It’s almost like another

gift—the rarest of all. The voice simply is the mind and is the heart.

It can’t go wrong in interpretation, because it has in it the thing

that makes all interpretation. That’s why you feel so sure of her.

After you’ve listened to her for an hour or so, you aren’t afraid of

anything. All the little dreads you have with other artists vanish. You

lean back and you say to yourself, ‘No, _that_ voice will never

betray.’ _Treulich geführt, treulich bewacht_.”

Archie looked envyingly at Fred’s excited, triumphant face. How

satisfactory it must be, he thought, to really know what she was doing

and not to have to take it on hearsay. He took up his glass with a

sigh. “I seem to need a good deal of cooling off to-night. I’d just as

lief forget the Reform Party for once.

“Yes, Fred,” he went on seriously; “I thought it sounded very

beautiful, and I thought she was very beautiful, too. I never imagined

she could be as beautiful as that.”

“Wasn’t she? Every attitude a picture, and always the right kind of

picture, full of that legendary, supernatural thing she gets into it. I

never heard the prayer sung like that before. That look that came in

her eyes; it went right out through the back of the roof. Of course,

you get an _Elsa_ who can look through walls like that, and visions and

Grail-knights happen naturally. She becomes an abbess, that girl, after

_Lohengrin_ leaves her. She’s made to live with ideas and enthusiasms,

not with a husband.” Fred folded his arms, leaned back in his chair,

and began to sing softly:—

“In lichter Waffen Scheine,

Ein Ritter nahte da.”

“Doesn’t she die, then, at the end?” the doctor asked guardedly.

Fred smiled, reaching under the table. “Some _Elsas_ do; she didn’t.

She left me with the distinct impression that she was just beginning.

Now, doctor, here’s a cold one.” He twirled a napkin smoothly about the

green glass, the cork gave and slipped out with a soft explosion. “And

now we must have another toast. It’s up to you, this time.”

The doctor watched the agitation in his glass. “The same,” he said

without lifting his eyes. “That’s good enough. I can’t raise you.”

Fred leaned forward, and looked sharply into his face. “That’s the

point; how _could_ you raise me? Once again!”

“Once again, and always the same!” The doctor put down his glass. “This

doesn’t seem to produce any symptoms in me to-night.” He lit a cigar.

“Seriously, Freddy, I wish I knew more about what she’s driving at. It

makes me jealous, when you are so in it and I’m not.”

“In it?” Fred started up. “My God, haven’t you seen her this blessed

night?—when she’d have kicked any other man down the elevator shaft, if

I know her. Leave me something; at least what I can pay my five bucks

for.”

“Seems to me you get a good deal for your five bucks,” said Archie

ruefully. “And that, after all, is what she cares about,—what people

get.”

Fred lit a cigarette, took a puff or two, and then threw it away. He

was lounging back in his chair, and his face was pale and drawn hard by

that mood of intense concentration which lurks under the sunny shallows

of the vineyard. In his voice there was a longer perspective than

usual, a slight remoteness. “You see, Archie, it’s all very simple, a

natural development. It’s exactly what Mahler said back there in the

beginning, when she sang _Woglinde_. It’s the idea, the basic idea,

pulsing behind every bar she sings. She simplifies a character down to

the musical idea it’s built on, and makes everything conform to that.

The people who chatter about her being a great actress don’t seem to

get the notion of where _she_ gets the notion. It all goes back to her

original endowment, her tremendous musical talent. Instead of inventing

a lot of business and expedients to suggest character, she knows the

thing at the root, and lets the musical pattern take care of her. The

score pours her into all those lovely postures, makes the light and

shadow go over her face, lifts her and drops her. She lies on it, the

way she used to lie on the Rhine music. Talk about rhythm!”

The doctor frowned dubiously as a third bottle made its appearance

above the cloth. “Aren’t you going in rather strong?”

Fred laughed. “No, I’m becoming too sober. You see this is breakfast

now; kind of wedding breakfast. I feel rather weddingish. I don’t mind.

You know,” he went on as the wine gurgled out, “I was thinking to-night

when they sprung the wedding music, how any fool can have that stuff

played over him when he walks up the aisle with some dough-faced little

hussy who’s hooked him. But it isn’t every fellow who can see—well,

what we saw tonight. There are compensations in life, Dr. Howard

Archie, though they come in disguise. Did you notice her when she came

down the stairs? Wonder where she gets that bright-and-morning star

look? Carries to the last row of the family circle. I moved about all

over the house. I’ll tell you a secret, Archie: that carrying power was

one of the first things that put me wise. Noticed it down there in

Arizona, in the open. That, I said, belongs only to the big ones.” Fred

got up and began to move rhythmically about the room, his hands in his

pockets. The doctor was astonished at his ease and steadiness, for

there were slight lapses in his speech. “You see, Archie, _Elsa_ isn’t

a part that’s particularly suited to Thea’s voice at all, as I see her

voice. It’s over-lyrical for her. She makes it, but there’s nothing in

it that fits her like a glove, except, maybe, that long duet in the

third act. There, of course,”—he held out his hands as if he were

measuring something,—“we know exactly where we are. But wait until they

give her a chance at something that lies properly in her voice, and

you’ll see me rosier than I am to-night.”

Archie smoothed the tablecloth with his hand. “I am sure I don’t want

to see you any rosier, Fred.”

Ottenburg threw back his head and laughed. “It’s enthusiasm, doctor.

It’s not the wine. I’ve got as much inflated as this for a dozen trashy

things: brewers’ dinners and political orgies. You, too, have your

extravagances, Archie. And what I like best in you is this particular

enthusiasm, which is not at all practical or sensible, which is

downright Quixotic. You are not altogether what you seem, and you have

your reservations. Living among the wolves, you have not become one.

_Lupibus vivendi non lupus sum_.”

The doctor seemed embarrassed. “I was just thinking how tired she

looked, plucked of all her fine feathers, while we get all the fun.

Instead of sitting here carousing, we ought to go solemnly to bed.”

“I get your idea.” Ottenburg crossed to the window and threw it open.

“Fine night outside; a hag of a moon just setting. It begins to smell

like morning. After all, Archie, think of the lonely and rather solemn

hours we’ve spent waiting for all this, while she’s been—reveling.”

Archie lifted his brows. “I somehow didn’t get the idea to-night that

she revels much.”

“I don’t mean this sort of thing.” Fred turned toward the light and

stood with his back to the window. “That,” with a nod toward the

wine-cooler, “is only a cheap imitation, that any poor stiff-fingered

fool can buy and feel his shell grow thinner. But take it from me, no

matter what she pays, or how much she may see fit to lie about it, the

real, the master revel is hers.” He leaned back against the window sill

and crossed his arms. “Anybody with all that voice and all that talent

and all that beauty, has her hour. Her hour,” he went on deliberately,

“when she can say, ‘there it is, at last, _wie im Traum ich_—

“‘As in my dream I dreamed it,

As in my will it was.’”

He stood silent a moment, twisting the flower from his coat by the stem

and staring at the blank wall with haggard abstraction. “Even I can say

to-night, Archie,” he brought out slowly,

“‘As in my dream I dreamed it,

As in my will it was.’

Now, doctor, you may leave me. I’m beautifully drunk, but not with

anything that ever grew in France.”

The doctor rose. Fred tossed his flower out of the window behind him

and came toward the door. “I say,” he called, “have you a date with

anybody?”

The doctor paused, his hand on the knob. “With Thea, you mean? Yes. I’m

to go to her at four this afternoon—if you haven’t paralyzed me.”

“Well, you won’t eat me, will you, if I break in and send up my card?

She’ll probably turn me down cold, but that won’t hurt my feelings. If

she ducks me, you tell her for me, that to spite me now she’d have to

cut off more than she can spare. Good-night, Archie.”

VI

It was late on the morning after the night she sang _Elsa_, when Thea

Kronborg stirred uneasily in her bed. The room was darkened by two sets

of window shades, and the day outside was thick and cloudy. She turned

and tried to recapture unconsciousness, knowing that she would not be

able to do so. She dreaded waking stale and disappointed after a great

effort. The first thing that came was always the sense of the futility

of such endeavor, and of the absurdity of trying too hard. Up to a

certain point, say eighty degrees, artistic endeavor could be fat and

comfortable, methodical and prudent. But if you went further than that,

if you drew yourself up toward ninety degrees, you parted with your

defenses and left yourself exposed to mischance. The legend was that in

those upper reaches you might be divine; but you were much likelier to

be ridiculous. Your public wanted just about eighty degrees; if you

gave it more it blew its nose and put a crimp in you. In the morning,

especially, it seemed to her very probable that whatever struggled

above the good average was not quite sound. Certainly very little of

that superfluous ardor, which cost so dear, ever got across the

footlights. These misgivings waited to pounce upon her when she

wakened. They hovered about her bed like vultures.

She reached under her pillow for her handkerchief, without opening her

eyes. She had a shadowy memory that there was to be something unusual,

that this day held more disquieting possibilities than days commonly

held. There was something she dreaded; what was it? Oh, yes, Dr. Archie

was to come at four.

A reality like Dr. Archie, poking up out of the past, reminded one of

disappointments and losses, of a freedom that was no more: reminded her

of blue, golden mornings long ago, when she used to waken with a burst

of joy at recovering her precious self and her precious world; when she

never lay on her pillows at eleven o’clock like something the waves had

washed up. After all, why had he come? It had been so long, and so much

had happened. The things she had lost, he would miss readily enough.

What she had gained, he would scarcely perceive. He, and all that he

recalled, lived for her as memories. In sleep, and in hours of illness

or exhaustion, she went back to them and held them to her heart. But

they were better as memories. They had nothing to do with the struggle

that made up her actual life. She felt drearily that she was not

flexible enough to be the person her old friend expected her to be, the

person she herself wished to be with him.

Thea reached for the bell and rang twice,—a signal to her maid to order

her breakfast. She rose and ran up the window shades and turned on the

water in her bathroom, glancing into the mirror apprehensively as she

passed it. Her bath usually cheered her, even on low mornings like

this. Her white bathroom, almost as large as her sleeping-room, she

regarded as a refuge. When she turned the key behind her, she left care

and vexation on the other side of the door. Neither her maid nor the

management nor her letters nor her accompanist could get at her now.

When she pinned her braids about her head, dropped her nightgown and

stepped out to begin her Swedish movements, she was a natural creature

again, and it was so that she liked herself best. She slid into the tub

with anticipation and splashed and tumbled about a good deal. Whatever

else she hurried, she never hurried her bath. She used her brushes and

sponges and soaps like toys, fairly playing in the water. Her own body

was always a cheering sight to her. When she was careworn, when her

mind felt old and tired, the freshness of her physical self, her long,

firm lines, the smoothness of her skin, reassured her. This morning,

because of awakened memories, she looked at herself more carefully than

usual, and was not discouraged. While she was in the tub she began to

whistle softly the tenor aria, “_Ah! Fuyez, douce image_,” somehow

appropriate to the bath. After a noisy moment under the cold shower,

she stepped out on the rug flushed and glowing, threw her arms above

her head, and rose on her toes, keeping the elevation as long as she

could. When she dropped back on her heels and began to rub herself with

the towels, she took up the aria again, and felt quite in the humor for

seeing Dr. Archie. After she had returned to her bed, the maid brought

her letters and the morning papers with her breakfast.

“Telephone Mr. Landry and ask him if he can come at half-past three,

Theresa, and order tea to be brought up at five.”

When Howard Archie was admitted to Thea’s apartment that afternoon, he

was shown into the music-room back of the little reception room. Thea

was sitting in a davenport behind the piano, talking to a young man

whom she later introduced as her friend Mr. Landry. As she rose, and

came to meet him, Archie felt a deep relief, a sudden thankfulness. She

no longer looked clipped and plucked, or dazed and fleeing.

Dr. Archie neglected to take account of the young man to whom he was

presented. He kept Thea’s hands and held her where he met her, taking

in the light, lively sweep of her hair, her clear green eyes and her

throat that came up strong and dazzlingly white from her green velvet

gown. The chin was as lovely as ever, the cheeks as smooth. All the

lines of last night had disappeared. Only at the outer corners of her

eyes, between the eye and the temple, were the faintest indications of

a future attack—mere kitten scratches that playfully hinted where one

day the cat would claw her. He studied her without any embarrassment.

Last night everything had been awkward; but now, as he held her hands,

a kind of harmony came between them, a reëstablishment of confidence.

“After all, Thea,—in spite of all, I still know you,” he murmured.

She took his arm and led him up to the young man who was standing

beside the piano. “Mr. Landry knows all about you, Dr. Archie. He has

known about you for many years.” While the two men shook hands she

stood between them, drawing them together by her presence and her

glances. “When I first went to Germany, Landry was studying there. He

used to be good enough to work with me when I could not afford to have

an accompanist for more than two hours a day. We got into the way of

working together. He is a singer, too, and has his own career to look

after, but he still manages to give me some time. I want you to be

friends.” She smiled from one to the other.

The rooms, Archie noticed, full of last night’s flowers, were furnished

in light colors, the hotel bleakness of them a little softened by a

magnificent Steinway piano, white bookshelves full of books and scores,

some drawings of ballet dancers, and the very deep sofa behind the

piano.

“Of course,” Archie asked apologetically, “you have seen the papers?”

“Very cordial, aren’t they? They evidently did not expect as much as I

did. _Elsa_ is not really in my voice. I can sing the music, but I have

to go after it.”

“That is exactly,” the doctor came out boldly, “what Fred Ottenburg

said this morning.”

They had remained standing, the three of them, by the piano, where the

gray afternoon light was strongest. Thea turned to the doctor with

interest. “Is Fred in town? They were from him, then—some flowers that

came last night without a card.” She indicated the white lilacs on the

window sill. “Yes, he would know, certainly,” she said thoughtfully.

“Why don’t we sit down? There will be some tea for you in a minute,

Landry. He’s very dependent upon it,” disapprovingly to Archie. “Now

tell me, Doctor, did you really have a good time last night, or were

you uncomfortable? Did you feel as if I were trying to hold my hat on

by my eyebrows?”

He smiled. “I had all kinds of a time. But I had no feeling of that

sort. I couldn’t be quite sure that it was you at all. That was why I

came up here last night. I felt as if I’d lost you.”

She leaned toward him and brushed his sleeve reassuringly. “Then I

didn’t give you an impression of painful struggle? Landry was singing

at Weber and Fields’ last night. He didn’t get in until the performance

was half over. But I see the _Tribune_ man felt that I was working

pretty hard. Did you see that notice, Oliver?”

Dr. Archie looked closely at the red-headed young man for the first

time, and met his lively brown eyes, full of a droll, confiding sort of

humor. Mr. Landry was not prepossessing. He was undersized and clumsily

made, with a red, shiny face and a sharp little nose that looked as if

it had been whittled out of wood and was always in the air, on the

scent of something. Yet it was this queer little beak, with his eyes,

that made his countenance anything of a face at all. From a distance he

looked like the groceryman’s delivery boy in a small town. His dress

seemed an acknowledgment of his grotesqueness: a short coat, like a

little boys’ roundabout, and a vest fantastically sprigged and dotted,

over a lavender shirt.

At the sound of a muffled buzz, Mr. Landry sprang up.

“May I answer the telephone for you?” He went to the writing-table and

took up the receiver. “Mr. Ottenburg is downstairs,” he said, turning

to Thea and holding the mouthpiece against his coat.

“Tell him to come up,” she replied without hesitation. “How long are

you going to be in town, Dr. Archie?”

“Oh, several weeks, if you’ll let me stay. I won’t hang around and be a

burden to you, but I want to try to get educated up to you, though I

expect it’s late to begin.”

Thea rose and touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Well, you’ll never

be any younger, will you?”

“I’m not so sure about that,” the doctor replied gallantly.

The maid appeared at the door and announced Mr. Frederick Ottenburg.

Fred came in, very much got up, the doctor reflected, as he watched him

bending over Thea’s hand. He was still pale and looked somewhat

chastened, and the lock of hair that hung down over his forehead was

distinctly moist. But his black afternoon coat, his gray tie and

gaiters were of a correctness that Dr. Archie could never attain for

all the efforts of his faithful slave, Van Deusen, the Denver

haberdasher. To be properly up to those tricks, the doctor supposed,

you had to learn them young. If he were to buy a silk hat that was the

twin of Ottenburg’s, it would be shaggy in a week, and he could never

carry it as Fred held his.

Ottenburg had greeted Thea in German, and as she replied in the same

language, Archie joined Mr. Landry at the window. “You know Mr.

Ottenburg, he tells me?”

Mr. Landry’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, I regularly follow him about, when

he’s in town. I would, even if he didn’t send me such wonderful

Christmas presents: Russian vodka by the half-dozen!”

Thea called to them, “Come, Mr. Ottenburg is calling on all of us.

Here’s the tea.”

The maid opened the door and two waiters from downstairs appeared with

covered trays. The tea-table was in the parlor. Thea drew Ottenburg

with her and went to inspect it. “Where’s the rum? Oh, yes, in that

thing! Everything seems to be here, but send up some currant preserves

and cream cheese for Mr. Ottenburg. And in about fifteen minutes, bring

some fresh toast. That’s all, thank you.”

For the next few minutes there was a clatter of teacups and responses

about sugar. “Landry always takes rum. I’m glad the rest of you don’t.

I’m sure it’s bad.” Thea poured the tea standing and got through with

it as quickly as possible, as if it were a refreshment snatched between

trains. The tea-table and the little room in which it stood seemed to

be out of scale with her long step, her long reach, and the energy of

her movements. Dr. Archie, standing near her, was pleasantly aware of

the animation of her figure. Under the clinging velvet, her body seemed

independent and unsubdued.

They drifted, with their plates and cups, back to the music-room. When

Thea followed them, Ottenburg put down his tea suddenly. “Aren’t you

taking anything? Please let me.” He started back to the table.

“No, thank you, nothing. I’m going to run over that aria for you

presently, to convince you that I can do it. How did the duet go, with

Schlag?”

She was standing in the doorway and Fred came up to her: “That you’ll

never do any better. You’ve worked your voice into it perfectly. Every

_nunance_—wonderful!”

“Think so?” She gave him a sidelong glance and spoke with a certain

gruff shyness which did not deceive anybody, and was not meant to

deceive. The tone was equivalent to “Keep it up. I like it, but I’m

awkward with it.”

Fred held her by the door and did keep it up, furiously, for full five

minutes. She took it with some confusion, seeming all the while to be

hesitating, to be arrested in her course and trying to pass him. But

she did not really try to pass, and her color deepened. Fred spoke in

German, and Archie caught from her an occasional _Ja? So?_ muttered

rather than spoken.

When they rejoined Landry and Dr. Archie, Fred took up his tea again.

“I see you’re singing _Venus_ Saturday night. Will they never let you

have a chance at _Elizabeth?_”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Not here. There are so many singers here,

and they try us out in such a stingy way. Think of it, last year I came

over in October, and it was the first of December before I went on at

all! I’m often sorry I left Dresden.”

“Still,” Fred argued, “Dresden is limited.”

“Just so, and I’ve begun to sigh for those very limitations. In New

York everything is impersonal. Your audience never knows its own mind,

and its mind is never twice the same. I’d rather sing where the people

are pig-headed and throw carrots at you if you don’t do it the way they

like it. The house here is splendid, and the night audiences are

exciting. I hate the matinees; like singing at a _Kaffeklatsch_.” She

rose and turned on the lights.

“Ah!” Fred exclaimed, “why do you do that? That is a signal that tea is

over.” He got up and drew out his gloves.

“Not at all. Shall you be here Saturday night?” She sat down on the

piano bench and leaned her elbow back on the keyboard. “Necker sings

_Elizabeth_. Make Dr. Archie go. Everything she sings is worth

hearing.”

“But she’s failing so. The last time I heard her she had no voice at

all. She _is_ a poor vocalist!”

Thea cut him off. “She’s a great artist, whether she’s in voice or not,

and she’s the only one here. If you want a big voice, you can take my

_Ortrude_ of last night; that’s big enough, and vulgar enough.”

Fred laughed and turned away, this time with decision. “I don’t want

her!” he protested energetically. “I only wanted to get a rise out of

you. I like Necker’s _Elizabeth_ well enough. I like your _Venus_ well

enough, too.”

“It’s a beautiful part, and it’s often dreadfully sung. It’s very hard

to sing, of course.”

Ottenburg bent over the hand she held out to him. “For an uninvited

guest, I’ve fared very well. You were nice to let me come up. I’d have

been terribly cut up if you’d sent me away. May I?” He kissed her hand

lightly and backed toward the door, still smiling, and promising to

keep an eye on Archie. “He can’t be trusted at all, Thea. One of the

waiters at Martin’s worked a Tourainian hare off on him at luncheon

yesterday, for seven twenty-five.”

Thea broke into a laugh, the deep one he recognized. “Did he have a

ribbon on, this hare? Did they bring him in a gilt cage?”

“No,”—Archie spoke up for himself,—“they brought him in a brown sauce,

which was very good. He didn’t taste very different from any rabbit.”

“Probably came from a push-cart on the East Side.” Thea looked at her

old friend commiseratingly. “Yes, _do_ keep an eye on him, Fred. I had

no idea,” shaking her head. “Yes, I’ll be obliged to you.”

“Count on me!” Their eyes met in a gay smile, and Fred bowed himself

out.

VII

On Saturday night Dr. Archie went with Fred Ottenburg to hear

“Tannhäuser.” Thea had a rehearsal on Sunday afternoon, but as she was

not on the bill again until Wednesday, she promised to dine with Archie

and Ottenburg on Monday, if they could make the dinner early.

At a little after eight on Monday evening, the three friends returned

to Thea’s apartment and seated themselves for an hour of quiet talk.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t have had Landry with us tonight,” Thea said,

“but he’s on at Weber and Fields’ every night now. You ought to hear

him, Dr. Archie. He often sings the old Scotch airs you used to love.”

“Why not go down this evening?” Fred suggested hopefully, glancing at

his watch. “That is, if you’d like to go. I can telephone and find what

time he comes on.”

Thea hesitated. “No, I think not. I took a long walk this afternoon and

I’m rather tired. I think I can get to sleep early and be so much

ahead. I don’t mean at once, however,” seeing Dr. Archie’s disappointed

look. “I always like to hear Landry,” she added. “He never had much

voice, and it’s worn, but there’s a sweetness about it, and he sings

with such taste.”

“Yes, doesn’t he? May I?” Fred took out his cigarette case. “It really

doesn’t bother your throat?”

“A little doesn’t. But cigar smoke does. Poor Dr. Archie! Can you do

with one of those?”

“I’m learning to like them,” the doctor declared, taking one from the

case Fred proffered him.

“Landry’s the only fellow I know in this country who can do that sort

of thing,” Fred went on. “Like the best English ballad singers. He can

sing even popular stuff by higher lights, as it were.”

Thea nodded. “Yes; sometimes I make him sing his most foolish things

for me. It’s restful, as he does it. That’s when I’m homesick, Dr.

Archie.”

“You knew him in Germany, Thea?” Dr. Archie had quietly abandoned his

cigarette as a comfortless article. “When you first went over?”

“Yes. He was a good friend to a green girl. He helped me with my German

and my music and my general discouragement. Seemed to care more about

my getting on than about himself. He had no money, either. An old aunt

had loaned him a little to study on.—Will you answer that, Fred?”

Fred caught up the telephone and stopped the buzz while Thea went on

talking to Dr. Archie about Landry. Telling some one to hold the wire,

he presently put down the instrument and approached Thea with a

startled expression on his face.

“It’s the management,” he said quietly. “Gloeckler has broken down:

fainting fits. Madame Rheinecker is in Atlantic City and Schramm is

singing in Philadelphia tonight. They want to know whether you can come

down and finish _Sieglinde_.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight fifty-five. The first act is just over. They can hold the

curtain twenty-five minutes.”

Thea did not move. “Twenty-five and thirty-five makes sixty,” she

muttered. “Tell them I’ll come if they hold the curtain till I am in

the dressing-room. Say I’ll have to wear her costumes, and the dresser

must have everything ready. Then call a taxi, please.”

Thea had not changed her position since he first interrupted her, but

she had grown pale and was opening and shutting her hands rapidly. She

looked, Fred thought, terrified. He half turned toward the telephone,

but hung on one foot.

“Have you ever sung the part?” he asked.