One night, as she waited between songs, Marie let her eyes wander
about the smoke-filled room and wondered, as she heard the occasional
bursts of laughter, if these people who came here voluntarily were
really enjoying life. She wondered if this meant happiness to them.
The ideas of right and wrong which had been learned in the convent
and at home with her father, seemed so absolutely apart from what
surrounded her now, that she had not even a means of comparison.
This was simply different.
The young officer over whose boot she had stumbled that first night,
was sitting sullenly at the table near her, and her glance wandered
from him to the man at his elbow, the same who had reprimanded him
for his rudeness.
He was a tall, thin man, older than the boy at his side, and wore the
handsome uniform of a captain of cavalry. She was impressed by the
straight, unbending attitude of his shoulders. The thin, hard mouth
of the supersensualist somehow frightened her, although she was too
inexperienced to know why. She was trying to analyze this fear, this
aversion for a stranger, when she became conscious that he was
staring at her, and for a moment she stared back fascinated into the
brilliant eyes that held her own even against her will. With an
effort, she turned away hastily, and busied herself with the piece of
music she was holding.
Several times during the evening, she was conscious of those magnetic
eyes which she avoided with a curious flutter at her heart. She had
taken her seat beside the piano, when she saw Brower standing at the
edge of the platform, beckoning to her.
Hesitatingly, she rose and went to him.
"Fräulein," he said with his oily smile, "my wife is here with some
friends. We want you to join us for a little while."
Schultz swung around on the piano stool.
"No," he said, emphatically.
Brower shot him a glance charged with venom, a burst of rage
trembling on his lips, which he controlled with an effort.
"What's the matter?" he growled. "My wife wants to meet her.
Anything wrong with that?"
There was the look in Schultz's eyes of a faithful dog which cannot
express the love it feels.
"She should not----" he began, "she----"
Brower turned to Marie.
"Don't you want to come, Fräulein?" he asked.
The girl was pathetically eager to give a sufficient measure of
service for the compensation she received.
"I'll go," she said, timidly.
Brower's wife was a large, boldly handsome woman of about
thirty-five. She had been a very pretty girl, and in spite of the
artificial yellow of her carefully dressed hair, the over-red of her
lips, the paint on her cheeks, she still bore some traces of her
vanished beauty. She blazed with jewels which were obviously not all
that their glitter proclaimed. To the observer it was very apparent
that everything about her was a sham. It was even whispered that her
marriage came under the same heading.
She greeted Marie with an over-effusiveness.
"Do sit down, _Liebchen_. My friends all like your singing so much."
With a wave of her plump, bejeweled hand, she introduced the others
at her table. "Herr Kranz, meet Fräulein Helmar; Herr Schnitzer,
Fräulein Pragt."
Marie slipped into the chair Brower pulled out for her.
"I certainly like your singing, Fräulein," boomed Herr Kranz, in a
voice that Marie felt certain must penetrate to every corner of the
room; "but I like you better," and he smiled a broad smile, that
lifted his heavy black mustache and showed an uneven row of
discolored teeth. His prominent eyes took in her slender prettiness
with an evident relish, and his thick bull-neck settled consciously
into his collar as he pulled down a brilliant vest over his round
paunch.
The other man who had been introduced as Herr Schnitzer, was
stoop-shouldered and pale haired. His prominent Adam's apple slid up
and down grotesquely as he ate the cheese sandwich that was before
him.
"We like little blond singers," he said with his mouth full, but his
eyes were fixed fatuously on Fräulein Pragt who simpered coyly. She
was over-dressed, and over-plump, her empty, common face shone fair
and bland, and her silly little red mouth was always half open.
Marie looked from one to the other with a feeling half of disgust,
and half of pride in herself that she was different.
Brower patted her familiarly on the shoulder as he hailed a passing
waiter.
"Fritz, bring Fräulein Helmar a sandwich and some beer," and he moved
away to another table.
"Nothing for me, please," began Marie.
"Come, _Herzchen_, just a little something! One glass of beer,"
urged her hostess.
"I don't wish anything, thank you," said Marie, with quiet finality.
Frau Brower laughed loudly.
"No wonder you're so thin," she said, "a little more flesh on your
bones wouldn't hurt you, Fräulein."
Kranz leaned toward her admiringly.
"You're young yet," he said, "you'll be just right in a year or so,"
and he put a moist hand over hers.
Marie shrank away, and Frau Brower laughed again offensively.
"She should have a sweetheart, Kranz, that's what she needs," she
said. "Have you got one, _Liebchen_?"
Marie's face flushed.
"No," she said.
There was something about this girl's manner Frau Brower resented.
She experienced the feeling all women of her type do, in the presence
of one who is everything they are not. What right had she, a little
singer in Brewer's café, to give herself airs? She'd put her in her
proper place.
"Can't you get one?" she sneered.
Marie lifted her head proudly.
"I don't believe I want one," she said simply. "I'm here to sing, I
haven't time for anything else!"
Kranz was eyeing her with open admiration, his prominent, dull eyes,
looking ludicrously like a fish's. The other two were deep in a
conversation that consisted mainly of guttural monosyllables from
Schnitzer and conscious giggles from Fräulein Pragt.
Frau Brower looked at her insolently.
"I advise you to drop that stand-offish manner. It won't pay here.
A _fesches Mädel_ like you ought to have a dozen lovers! I'm going
to bring a friend around to meet you!"
Marie flushed at the open coarseness in her voice. She shook her
head.
"Thank you, but I'd rather not meet anyone," she said. "Herr Schultz
takes me home every evening. He doesn't like me to meet strangers.
I don't want to do anything to offend him."
This time the laughter was general.
"What do you care what that old fossil says?" began Frau Brower, and
her husband, who had joined them again, frowned darkly as he looked
toward the platform.
"Look here," he growled, "what's this? Am I paying you to be a fine
lady? Do you think you're an opera singer?"
Marie's lips trembled. She rose to her feet.
"Please," she faltered, "I--I think I'd better go back." She was
looking into Brewer's scowling face. She saw his eyes shift, and
suddenly, a great change came over him. His anger seemed to vanish
almost by magic, and an oily smile spread over his features.
"Never mind, Fräulein," he said, and she thought she saw him glance
warningly at his wife, "we will excuse you if you want to go."
Marie turned to see the cause for this sudden change, and found
herself looking straight into the burning eyes of the man who once
before had come to her assistance.
He bowed slightly, with a smile that was so encouraging that the girl
knew instinctively she owed Brewer's change of front to his
interference. Trembling, she started back to the platform, the
Captain standing aside and bowing his acknowledgment of her timid
smile of thanks.
This man with his polished manner, his fine carriage, his trim
uniform was more like the men she had met at her father's home, more
her own class. His thin, aquiline face had smiled on her with what,
in her ignorance of the world, she took to be kindly, fraternal
interest.
Frau Brower, meanwhile, had watched this little by-play. Her face
reddened under its coat of rouge.
"Brower," she choked, "are you going to be browbeaten in your own
café?"
Her husband tried to stop her, a curious look of fear coming into his
eyes as he glanced hurriedly at the Captain's table, but she went on
angrily.
"Aren't you master in your own house? I wouldn't be ordered around
by any----"
The man put a heavy hand on her arm.
"_Halt's Maul_, you fool," he said. "You don't know what you're
saying, he's----" He bent and whispered something in her ear. What
he said had the effect of instantly dissipating her wrath, and she,
too, turned and glanced fearfully in the direction of the tall
officer.
Brower swore under his breath and turned heavily away, leaving the
others to comfort his spouse.
This was the beginning of Marie's visits among the tables. Once,
Brower called her to explain one of her songs to a "particular
friend" of his. Another time, she must go and ask some officers what
they wanted her to sing next. Schultz, with a heavy heart had to let
her go.
The Captain, whose friendly smile had struck an answering note in her
heart, came sometimes three or four nights consecutively. Then,
perhaps a week or ten days would elapse during which Marie looked in
vain for the tall, lean figure. She forgot her vague fears of his
cruel mouth anl brilliant eyes. Her heart was so sore and lonely in
this unaccustomed place that it was a disappointment to her when she
missed him. She had a curious sense of protection and security
whenever the bright note of his uniform came through the green
swinging-door, and he made his way to his usual table.
There was an undefinable air of reticence, a touch of the mystic
about him, which aroused a feeling of interested curiosity in the
girl's heart.
As she waited between songs, her naturally active mind amused itself
by trying to read the different faces she saw before her. This man
was the only one of whom she could form no conception. All the
others were obviously what they were, he alone was different. And
because it is the unknown which attracts, and because he had on
several instances shielded her from rudeness, she began to think of
him as a friend.
There was no one to point out to her that the brilliant eyes were
cold and calculating, that the lines about the thin mouth and between
his brows, were those experience writes. There was no one to tell
her that this face which seemed to smile so kindly into hers, was
that of a man who knows his ability to judge and compare the values
of sophistication and inexperience, and who has used this knowledge
for the domination and destruction of those weaker than himself.
One evening as she sat watching him, he glanced about the room in a
coldly speculative fashion, as one who sees a vision that includes
those about him. If she were privileged to see the picture in his
mind she would have seen the gay uniforms about her changed into a
dull gray, the jauntily set caps replaced by spiked helmets. A cold
smile played about the thin lips, and his hand resting on the table
unconsciously clinched as though it grasped the hilt of a sword. But
she saw only the smile and not its meaning.
Gradually, she began under Brower's careful maneuvering, to go about
among the tables. At first, her visits were very brief, but
sometimes, some particular friend of the proprietor's detained her
longer. On these occasions there was much laughter, jokes whose
point she did not always see, and many rather rough compliments, but
on the whole, nothing that offended her. Brower had seen to that.
He knew that the watchful eyes of the old pianist followed Marie
about the room, and it suited his purpose to see that both his fears
and hers should be laid to rest.
To the Captain's table, however, she was never invited. There was
only the friendly nod in passing, the kindly smile that said, "I
know; I understand how out of place you are here, how different you
are from the rest!"
And old Schultz, seeing the flutter in the laces of the girl's breast
when the Captain came in, watching the flush on her cheek, when their
eyes met, noting too, with a pang in his heart, the evident
disappointment when he failed to appear, shook his head sadly.