The old flute-player looked down upon his lovely daughter as, sobbing,
she clung to him, with bewildered, utterly dismayed amazement. What
could be the matter with the child? He glanced about him helplessly.
It dazed him. Everything, a moment since, had been so bright and gay!
There had been a smile upon her lips, a soft glow of happiness alight
within her eyes. He could not understand this situation. He was
actually frightened.
So, also, was M'riar, who stood gaping at the spectacle of her Miss
Anna's grief with wide, fear-stricken eyes.
"Cawn't Hi do nothink for 'er, sir?" she said, approaching timidly.
For the first time in his life he spoke almost harshly to the child,
in his excitement. "No," he said emphatically. "You will only stand
and say 'My heye! Hi sye! Hi sye! My heye!' You can do nothing. It
would be well for you to step into the kitchen, possibly. I smell me
that there may be something burning, there. And do not come again
until I call to you. If nothing burns there, now, then something might
burn, later. It would be well for you to stay and watch." He had no
wish to hurt the poor child's feelings--but his Anna! Surely none but
he must witness this completely inexplicable, this mad outburst of
wild woe.
"What is this, my Anna?" he said softly to the weeping girl who clung
there in his arms when M'riar had left the room. "You are tear-ing,
Anna--you are tear-ing, child!" He was sure his English had escaped
him, but he could not stop to make correction.
She looked up at him, at last. "'Tear-ing? Tear-ing?' Oh, crying! Yes,
I'm crying--because I am so happy, and because--"
He was more puzzled by this extraordinary statement than he had been
by her tears. "Because you are so _happy_! Hein! A woman--she is
strange. So strange. She cries because she is so happy, then she cries
because she is so sorry. When she cries no one can tell which makes
her do it. You are sure it is the happiness, this time, that makes you
cry?"
"Quite sure," said Anna, trying hard to stifle the great sobs. "Yes; I
am certain. It is because I am so happy, and--because--I am a little
bit--af-fraid!"
"You are afraid, my child? What is it fears you?"
She slipped out of his arms. There was no going back, she now must
tell him all. She knew that he would not be harshly angry, though she
greatly feared he would be sorely grieved.
She held him, with a gentle hand, back in his chair as he would have
arisen, and sank down at his feet, her arm upon his knee, her face
upturned. "Come, father," she said simply. "I want to sit here at
your feet. I want to sit here at your feet just as I did when I was,
oh, a very little girl!"
The old man was sorely puzzled, but he sank back in his chair and let
her take his hands--both of them. One of them she placed upon her
beautiful, dark hair; the other she held close clasped against her
bosom in her own. "Father, I have something to confess."
He was amazed, but less distressed than he had been. His Anna, his
own, liebling Anna, could not have anything to confess which was so
very terrible. He looked down at her and smiled in reassurance. Her
wonderful, dark eyes were upturned, as he gazed, and, for an instant,
looked straight at his; but then the delicately veined lids drooped.
"You have something to confess? What is it, Anna?"
"I shall not go back again to Mrs. Vanderlyn's," she slowly answered.
"I have come home, my father; have come home to you--to stay."
He was worried. Could she be satisfied, after what she had been having
there at Mrs. Vanderlyn's, with what his small purse had to offer her
in this unpleasant tenement? His heart leaped at the thought of having
her with him again; none but himself could know how greatly he had
missed her, and he could give her food and shelter. But would she,
now, be happy there with him, in all his poverty?
"Ah; you have quarreled?" he ventured, hesitantly.
"No," she faltered.
His wrath rose. Ah, that was it! The woman had been unkind to her, had
asked of her some menial service, had presumed upon the fact that she
was but an employee! "She has mistreated you," he cried, in
indignation. "She has mistreated you! Well, here is--"
Anna interrupted him by laying a soft hand upon his lips. She had to
stretch and strain a little to reach up so far, crouched low there, as
she was, quite at his feet. Her heart was beating very fast as came
the time for her confession. She hoped that he would not be very
angry, very greatly horrified.
"No," she said slowly; "no, we have not quarreled, she has not
mistreated me; but--she will be very angry--she will not forgive me,
when she knows--"
Kreutzer was affrighted. There seemed to him to be a hint of dreadful
revelations to be made in the soft droop of Anna's head, the trembling
of her little hand in his, the swift ebb and flow of the rich color in
the pink satin of her cheeks.
"Anna," he said, aghast, "what is there for her to know? Oh, my
Anna--what is there for her to know? Fear not. Your old father--he
will understand and will forgive--will forgive anything in all this
world--no matter what. Remember that. Remember that, and tell me,
Anna, what is there for Mrs. Vanderlyn to pardon?"
She did not lift her head. Her eyes flashed up at him in one quick
look of terror, but never by an inch did she raise toward her
father's, now, her pale, affrighted face. "It was a great temptation,
father," she said slowly. "A very great temptation."
Now he was alarmed, indeed. "Anna," he demanded, in a voice that was
not like his own, "what have you done? What have you done?"
Every horrid thought--but one--which could flash into being in the
human mind at such a time, rushed into his, in a terrific jumble of
mad speculations.
For a moment Anna cowered, alarmed by what a quick glimpse of his face
had shown her. She had never seen a human face so--not whitened by his
fear, but greyed--greyed as if seared with fire and turned to carven
ashes. She could tell, by that, that he would never, really, forgive
her. Too firmly had his hopes been fixed upon the plans which he had
built in many long hours of reflections going back along the years, no
doubt, to that far time when she was lying, a mere babe, in her dear
mother's arms. How ardently she wished, now, at this crisis, that that
mother might be there to soften things for her; to turn his wrath,
explain, make clear to him the fact that there are impulses too strong
for women's hearts to put aside!
She did not look at him again--she could not bear to see that face
again--but slowly rose and slowly crossed the little room to the crude
table and took from it her handbag, which, when M'riar had cleared off
the dinner things, she had replaced where it had been when she had
started, first, to lay the table. As she raised the bag her father's
eyes were fixed upon her in an agony of dread.
Trembling with apprehension, her fingers shaking so that it was with
great difficulty that she managed the bag's clasp, she opened the
receptacle, and, with accelerating nervousness which made her feel and
fumble, took from it a small box--a jeweler's box. Slowly she returned
to him, her feet dragging as if weighted; slowly, as she stood before
him, drooping, frightened, she took off the cover of the little box,
her heart hammering till it seemed as if it must burst from her
breast; slowly, then, with trembling fingers, while her eyes remained
steadfastly downcast and the quick rising, falling, of her delicately
rounded, girlish bosom showed how keen her agitation was, she took
from the opened box a sparkling trinket.
"You will understand me, father, when I show you--"
She held the brilliant bauble towards him, and, as she stretched out
her hand a hundred little facets on the glittering thing caught light,
there in the gloomy tenement house room, and blazed and sparkled as
with inner fires.
"Look, father."
The old flute-player stretched a wondering hand to take the trinket.
He could not understand, at all, what all this meant. What had the
thing to do with her great agitation? How came she with so valuable a
jewel? What did it mean--all of it? What under heaven could it mean?
"A ring? Ah," said he, "it is a beautiful ring set with a diamond.
Where did you get it, Anna?" He laid it upon the table quickly. He did
not seem to wish to hold it in his hand.
This was the crucial moment and she looked at him with dumb appeal in
her fine eyes. Then, seeing nothing in his face to reassure her, she
dropped her gaze. Her chest heaved with a quick sob.
"My dear, my dear," she now began, "I have a great confession. Do not,
please, be angry with me, father! I must tell you--"
She was interrupted by a quick, sharp rap upon the door. There was in
it the abrupt demand of an official visitation, and it startled both
of them.
Hastily she rose and stood gazing at the closed door; wonderingly he
rose, also, and, poised, ready to go and open it, waiting a second, to
see if there would be a repetition of the knock.
"Who is there?" he called, at length.
"I, Mrs. Vanderlyn," came the reply, in high-pitched, angry tones.
"M'riar," the flute-player called loudly, "go to the door."
Anna, now very plainly much alarmed, cowered back against the table,
her face turned toward the door, her two hands back of her, caught
desperately on the table and supporting her. Kreutzer looked at her
with new alarm--a dreadful apprehension. What could the girl have done
to be thus frightened by the coming of the woman whose employment she
had left?
"Mrs. Vanderlyn!" the girl gasped, weakly.
Then Kreutzer saw her do a thing which added to his great amazement,
his great worry. With a quick stride she crossed the little space
between her and the table, quickly snatched from it the box and ring,
put the cover on the box, and, hurriedly, with almost furtive gesture,
thrust the box into her handbag, being careful, he observed, to see to
it that in the bag it was well covered by a handkerchief and veil.
"Why do you look so frightened?" he demanded, in a voice now hoarse
and painful.
Anna was as pale as death as she replied: "I am afraid she has
discovered--"
"Discovered?" said her father, a grim light breaking on his confused
faculties. Ah, this was terrible, but must be faced! Ah, God! His
little Anna! She had taken it--had stolen it--from Mrs. Vanderlyn! But
he would stand by her. Nothing should induce him to abandon her, no
matter what mad thing she had been tempted into doing. Doubtless it
had been his poverty (and was his poverty not direct result of his
incompetence?) which had led her into doing the dread thing which he
began to understand that she had done.
Now, surely, was not the time for him to offer her reproaches. Now was
the time, when he, the best friend she had, could ever have, must
comfort her and shelter her. Later, if there were reproaches to be
offered, would be time enough to offer them.
"Hush!" he said cautiously. "How you tremble! Anna--my little Anna!
She shall not see you like this. Go, liebling. I will first speak to
her. And ... whatever it may be ... fear not. Fear not."
M'riar had come in, and, fascinated by the scene, began to dimly see
its awful import, also. Her training in the slums of London where a
knock like that upon the door meant but one thing--the law--made the
situation clear to her, at once, and, bewildered as she was by the
amazing fact that it was Anna--her Frow-line--who was involved, she
did not lose her head.
"This w'y," she whispered, hoarsely. "This w'y, Frow-line! This w'y!"
She hurried Anna out into the kitchen and the flute-player could hear
the key turn in the lock behind them. Sure that, for the moment, his
dear child was safe, he now went to the door, with measured, steady
tread, and opened it.
"Come, Madame, come," he said to Mrs. Vanderlyn, who, flushed and
angry, waited with small patience at the threshold.
The old flute-player caught the glint of polished buttons and a
polished shield upon the breast of a man's coat beyond her, and he
recognized the face above them as that of his old shipboard enemy,
Moresco, now policeman on this beat.