"Well, fetch her," he said. "And fetch the old Fraeulein across too, if

she likes to come. Then go to Porto Venere, or to Spezia, or anywhere

you like, and take a house, and sit down and work."

She could not speak. She saw Porto Venere white in the sunshine,

tip-tilted over the sea, and she saw The Book that was to live, to live

after all.

As she did not answer he said: "Don't you like it?"

She took his hand, and pressed it to her lips, and to her cheek, and to

her heart. She could not answer. And his chilly blue eyes grew suddenly

lighter than usual. "Dear little Miss Brown," he said; "dear, dear,

foolish, little Miss Brown." And, bending forward, he kissed her

forehead.

XVII

The _Gartenhaus_ on Staten Island in the twilight, with lamplight and

firelight gleaming through its casements, and a little hat of snow on

its roof, looked like a Christmas-card, when Nancy hurried through the

narrow garden-gate, and ran up the tiny gravel-path. She had left all

her belongings at the dock in order not to lose an instant. Anne-Marie's

pink fingers were dragging at her heart.

Fraeulein, foggy as to time-tables and arrivals of boats, had thought it

wisest not to attempt a meeting at the crowded, draughty, New York

landing-station. She had kept Anne-Marie indoors for the last three

days, saying: "Your mother may be here any moment." After the first

thirty-six hours of poignant expectancy and frequent runnings to the

gate, Anne-Marie had silently despised Fraeulein for telling naughty

untruths, and had whispered in the hairy ear of Schopenhauer that she

would never again believe a word Fraeulein ever said again.

Schopenhauer--whose name had been chosen by Fraeulein for educational

purposes, namely (as she wrote in her diary), "to enlarge the childish

mind by familiarity with the names of authors and philosophers"--was

sympathetic and equally sceptical when Fraeulein Mueller sibilantly urged

him: "Schoppi, Schoppi, mistress is coming. Go seek mistress! Seek

mistress, sir." But Schoppi, who had searched and sniffed every corner

of the hedge, and dug rapid holes round the early cabbages and in the

flower-bed, knew that "mistress" was a pleasurably exciting, but merely

delusive and empty sound. And so nobody expected Nancy as she ran up the

path in the twilight, and saw the lights shining through the casement.

Her heart beat in trepidant joy. She had been so anxious about

Anne-Marie. During the last few hours of the journey she had had ghostly

and tragic imaginings. What if Anne-Marie had been running about the

island, and had fallen into the sea? What if a motor-car--her heart had

given a great leap, and then dropped, like a ball of lead, turning her

faint with reminiscent terror. She would not think about it. No, she

would not think of such things any more. But what if Anne-Marie had

scarlet fever? Yes! suddenly she felt convinced that Anne-Marie had

scarlet fever, that she would see the little red flag of warning hanging

out over the _Gartenhaus_ door....

Nancy made ready to knock; then, before doing so, she dropped quickly to

her knees on the snowy doorstep, and folded her hands in a childlike

attitude of prayer: "O God! let me find Anne-Marie safe and happy!"

Almost in answer a sound struck her ear--a chord of sweetness and

harmony, then a long, lonely note, and after it a quick twirl of running

notes like a ripple of laughter. The violin!

Nancy sprang from the doorstep, and ran under the window that was lit

up. She scrambled on to the rockery under it, and, scratching her hand

against the climbing rose-branches, she grasped the ledge and looked in

through the white-curtained glass. It was Anne-Marie. Standing in the

circle of light from the lamp, with the violin held high on her left

arm, and her cheek resting lightly against it, she looked like a little

angel musician of Beato Angelico.

Her eyes were cast down, her floating hair rippled over her face.

Nancy's throat tightened as she looked. Then Nancy's brain staggered as

she listened. For the child was playing like an artist. Trills and

arpeggios ran from under her fingers like clear water. Now a full and

sonorous chord checked their springing lightness, and again the bubbling

runs rilled out, sprinkling the twilight with music.

Nancy's hand slipped from the sill, and a rose-branch hit the window.

Then the fox-terrier's sharp bark rang through the house; there were

hurrying feet in the hall; the door was opened by the smiling

Elisabeth--and Fraeulein was exclaiming and questioning, and Anne-Marie

was in her mother's arms. Warm, and living, and tight she held her

creature, thanking God for the touch of the fleecy hair against her

face, for the fresh cheek that smelt of soap, and the soft breath that

smelt of grass and flowers.

"Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! Have you missed me, darling?"

Anne-Marie was sobbing wildly. "No! No! I haven't! Only now! Only now!"

"But now you have me, my own love."

"But now I miss you! Now I miss you," sobbed Anne-Marie, incoherent and

despairing. And her mother understood. Mothers understand.

"Anne-Marie! I shall never go away from you again! I promise!"

Anne-Marie looked up through shimmering tears. "Honest engine?" she

asked brokenly, putting out a small damp hand.

"Honest engine," said Nancy, placing her hand solemnly in the hand of

her little daughter. Schopenhauer, squirming with barks, was patted and

admired, and made to sit up leaning against the leg of the table; and

Fraeulein told the news about Anne-Marie having _doch gegessen_ the

tapioca-puddings, but never the porridge, and seldom the vegetables.

Then, as it was late, Anne-Marie was conducted upstairs by everybody,

including Schopenhauer, and while Elisabeth unfastened buttons and

tapes, Fraeulein brushed and plaited the golden hair, and Nancy, on her

knees before the child, laughed with her and kissed her.

When she was in bed Elisabeth and Schopenhauer had to sit in the dark

beside her until she slept.

"But, Fraeulein, that will never do!" said Nancy, as they went down the

little staircase together arm-in-arm. "You spoil her shockingly."

"Hush!" said Fraeulein. And as they entered the cheerful drawing-room,

where the violin lay on the table, and the bow on a chair, and a piece

of rosin on the sofa, Fraeulein stopped, and said impressively, "You do

not know that that child is a Genius!"

In Fraeulein's voice, as she said the word "genius," was awe and homage,

service and genuflexion. Nancy sat down, and looked at the little piece

of rosin stuck on its green cloth on the sofa. "A Genius!" The word and

the awestruck tone brought a recollection to her mind. Years ago, when

she had stepped into the dazzling light of her first success, and all

the poets of Italy had come to congratulate and to flatter, One had not

come. He was the great and sombre singer of revolt, the Pagan poet of

modern Rome. He was the Genius, denounced, anathematized and exalted in

turn by the hot-headed youth of Italy. He lived apart from the world,

aloof from the clamour made around his name, shunning both laudators and

detractors, impassive alike to invective and acclamation. To him, with

his curt permission, Nancy herself had gone. A disciple and apostle of

his, long-bearded and short of words, had come to conduct her to the

Poet's house in Bologna. It was an old house on the broad, ancient

ramparts of the city, where an armed sentinel marched, gun on shoulder,

up and down. Nancy remembered that she had laughed, and said

frivolously: "I suppose the Poet has the soldier on guard to prevent his

ideas being stolen." The apostle had not smiled. Then she had entered

the house alone, for the apostle was not invited.

The Spirit of Silence was on the cold stone staircase. The door had been

opened by a pale-faced, stupid-looking servant, whose only mission in

life seemed to be not to make a noise. Three hushed figures, the

daughters of the Poet, had bidden her in a half-whisper to sit down.

They all had a look about them as if they lived with something that

devoured them day by day. And they looked as if they liked it. They

lived to see that the Genius was not disturbed. Then the Genius had

entered the room--a fierce and sombre-looking man of sixty, with a

leonine head and impatient eyes. And she, seeing him, understood that

one should be willing to tiptoe through life with subdued gesture and

hushed voice, so that he were not disturbed. She understood that he had

the right to devour.

He carried her little book in his hand, and spoke in brief, gruff tones.

"Three women," he said, his flashing eyes looking her up and down as if

he were angry with her, "have been poets: Sappho, Desbordes Valmore,

Elizabeth Browning. And now--you. Go and work."

That was all. But it had been enough to send Nancy away dazed with

happiness. The Devoured Ones had opened the door for her, and silently

shown her out; and as she went tremblingly down the steps she had heard

a heavy tread above her, and had stopped to look back. He had come out

on to the landing, and was looking after her. She stood still, with a

beating heart. And he had spoken again. Three words: "Aspetto e

confido--I wait and trust."

She had replied, "Grazie," and then had gone running down the stairs,

trembling and stumbling, knowing that his eyes were upon her.

"_Aspetto e confido_." He had waited and trusted in vain. She had never

written another book. And now he would never read what she might write,

for he was dead.

Nancy still stared at the little piece of rosin stuck on its dentelated

green cloth--stared at it vaguely, unseeing. What? Anne-Marie was a

Genius? The little tender, wild-eyed birdling was one of the Devourers?

Yes, already in the _Gartenhaus_ there was the atmosphere of hushed

reverence, the attitude of sacrifice and waiting. Fraeulein spoke in

whispers; Elisabeth and the fox-terrier sat in the dark while the Genius

went to sleep. Her violin possessed the table, her bow the armchair, her

rosin the sofa. Fraeulein had all the amazed stupefaction of one of the

Devoured.

"The child is a Genius," she was repeating. "She will be like Wagner.

Only greater."

Then she seemed to awake to the smaller realities of life. "What did the

Firm say? When does your book appear? My poor dear, you must be tired!

you must be hungry! But, hush! the child's room is just overhead, so, if

you do not mind, I will give you your supper in the back-kitchen.

Anne-Marie, when she is not eating, does not like the sound of plates."

XVIII

So Nancy did not go to Porto Venere after all. Nor to Spezia. For there

was no great violin teacher in either of those blue and lovely places.

There were only balconied rooms, with wide views over the Mediterranean

Sea, where Nancy could have written her Book, and seen visions and

dreamed dreams; but surely, as Fraeulein said, she could write her book

in any nice quiet room, with a table in it, and pen and ink, while

Anne-Marie must cultivate her gift and her calling. Anne-Marie must

study her violin. So Nancy wrote, and explained this to the Ogre, and

then she went with Anne-Marie and Fraeulein to Prague, where the greatest

of all violin-teachers lived, fitting left hands with wonderful

technique, and right hands with marvellous pliancy; teaching slim

fingers to dance and scamper and skip on four tense strings, and supple

wrists to wield a skimming, or control a creeping, bow. And this

greatest of teachers took little Anne-Marie to his heart. He also called

her the _Wunderkind_, and set her eager feet, still in their white socks

and button shoes, on the steep path that leads up the Hill of Glory.

Nancy unpacked her manuscripts in an apartment in one of the not very

wide streets of old Prague; opposite her window was a row of brown and

yellow stone houses; she had a table, and pen and ink, and there was

nothing to disturb her. True, she could hear Anne-Marie playing the

violin two rooms off, but that, of course, was a joy; besides, when all

the doors were shut one could hardly hear anything, especially if one

tied a scarf or something round one's head, and over one's ears.

So Nancy had no excuse for not working. She told herself so a hundred

times a day, as she sat at the table with the scarf round her head,

staring at the yellow house opposite. Through the open window came the

sound of loud, jerky Czech voices. The strange new language, of which

Nancy had learned a few dozen words, rang in her ears continuously:

Kavarna ... Vychod ... Lekarna ... the senseless words turned in her

head like a many-coloured merry-go-round. Even at night in her dreams

she seemed to be holding conversations in Czech. But that would pass,

and she would be able to work; for now she had no anxieties and no

preoccupations. Fraeulein looked after Anne-Marie, body and soul, with

unceasing and agitated care, deeming it as important that she should

have her walk as that she should play the "Zigeunerweisen," that she

should say her prayers as that she should eat her soup. And Nancy had no

material preoccupations either. She had decided to accept gratefully,

and without scruple, all that she needed for two years from her friend

the Ogre. Long before then The Book would be out, and she could repay

him. And what mattered repaying him? All he wanted was that she should

be happy, and live her own life for two years. He would have to go back

to Peru, and stay there for about that period of time. Let her meanwhile

live her own life and fulfil her destiny--thus he wrote to her. And the

Prager Bankverein had money for her when she needed it.

So Nancy sat before her manuscripts and lived her own life, and tried

not to hear the violin, and not to mind interruptions. In her heart was

a great longing--the longing to see the Ogre again before he left

Europe, a great, aching desire for the blue chilliness of his eyes, for

his stern manner, and his gruff voice, and for the shy greatness of his

heart that her own heart loved and understood.

And besides this ache was the yearn and strain and sorrow of her destiny

unfulfilled. For once again the sense of time passing, of life running

out of her grasp, bit at her breast like an adder.

"La belle qui veut,

La belle qui n'ose

Cueillir les roses

Du jardin bleu."

She sat down and wrote to him. "I cannot work. I cannot work. I am swept

away and overwhelmed by some chimeric longing that has no name. My soul

drowns and is lost in its indefinite and fathomless desire. Will you

take me away before you go, away to some rose-lit, jasmine-starred nook

in Italy, where my heart may find peace again? I feel such strength,

such boundless, turbulent power, yet my spirit is pinioned and held down

like a giant angel sitting in a cave with huge wings furled....

"You have unclosed the sweep of heaven before me; I will bring the

sunshot skies down to your feet...."

The door opened, and Fraeulein's head appeared, solemn and sibylline,

with tears shining behind her spectacles.

"Nancy, to-day for the first time Anne-Marie is to play Beethoven. Will

you come?"

Yes, Nancy would come. She followed Fraeulein into the room where

Anne-Marie was with the Professor and his assistant.

The Professor did not like to play the piano, so he had brought the

assistant with him, who sat at the piano, nodding a large, rough black

head in time to the music. Anne-Marie was in front of her stand. The

Professor, with his hands behind him, watched her. The Beethoven Romance

in F began.

The simple initial melody slid smoothly from under the child's fingers,

and was taken up and repeated by the piano. The willful crescendo of

the second phrase worked itself up to the passionate high note, and was

coaxed back again into gentleness by the shy and tender trills, as a

wrathful man by the call of a child. Martial notes by the piano. The

assistant's head bobbed violently, and now Beethoven led Anne-Marie's

bow, gently, by tardigrade steps, into the first melody again. Once

more, the head at the piano bobbed over his solo. Then, on the high F,

down came the bow of Anne-Marie, decisive and vehement.

"That's right!" shouted the Professor suddenly. "Fa, mi, sol--play that

on the fourth string."

Anne-Marie nodded without stopping. Eight accented notes by the piano,

echoed by Anne-Marie.

"That is to sound like a trumpet!" cried the master.

"Yes, yes; I remember," said Anne-Marie.

And now for the third time the melody returned, and Anne-Marie played it

softly, as in a dream, with a _gruppetto_ in _pianissimo_ that made the

Professor push his hands into his pockets, and the assistant turn his

head from the piano to look at her. At the end the slowly ascending

scales soared and floated into the distance, and the three last, calling

notes fell from far away.

No one spoke for a moment; then the Professor went close to the child

and said:

"Why did you say, 'I remember' when I told you about the trumpet

notes?"

"I don't know," said Anne-Marie, with the vague look she always had

after she had played.

"What did you mean?"

"I meant that I understood," said Anne-Marie.

The Professor frowned at her, while his lips worked.

"You said, 'I remember.' And I believe you remember. I believe you are

not learning anything new. You are remembering something you have known

before."

Fraeulein intervened excitedly. "Ach! Herr Professor! I assure you the

child has never seen that piece! I have been with her since the first

day she _ueberhaupt_ had the violin, and--"

The Professor waved an impatient hand. He was still looking at

Anne-Marie. "Who is it?" and he shook his grey head tremulously. "Whom

have we here? Is it Paganini? Or Mozart? I hope it is Mozart." Then he

turned to the man at the piano, who had his elbows on the notes, and his

face hidden in his hands. "What say you, Bertolini? Who is with us in

this involucrum?"

"I know not. I am mute," said the black-haired man in moved tones.

"Thank the Fates that you are not deaf," said the Professor, looking

vaguely for his hat, "or you would not have heard this wonder."

Then he took his leave, for he was a busy man. Bertolini remained to

pack up the Professor's precious Guarnerius del Gesu, dearer to him than

wife and child, and his music, and his gloves, and his glasses, and

anything else that he left behind him, for the Professor was an

absent-minded man.

Then Nancy said to the assistant: "Are you Italian?"

"Sissignora," said Bertolini eagerly.

"So am I," said Nancy. And they were friends.

Bertolini came the next day to ask if he might practise with "little

Wunder," as he called her. He also came the next day, and the day after,

and then every day. He was a second-rate violinist, and a third-rate

pianist; but he was an absolutely first-rate musician, an extravagant,

impassioned, boisterous musician, whose shouts of excitement, after the

first half-hour of polite shyness, could be heard all over the house.

Anne-Marie loved to hear him vociferate. She used to watch his face when

she purposely played a false note; she liked to see him crinkle up his

nose as if something had stung him, and open a wild mouth to shout. Once

she played through an entire piece in F, making every B natural instead

of flat. "Si bemolle! B flat!" said Bertolini the first time.

"_Bemolle!_" cried Bertolini the second time. "BEMOLLE!" he roared,

trampling on the pedals, and with his hand grasping his hair, that

looked like a curly black mat fitted well over his head.

"What is the matter with Bemolle?" asked Fraeulein, raising bland eyes

from her needlework.

Anne-Marie laughed. "I don't know what is the matter with him. I think

he's crazy." And thus Signor Bertolini was christened Bemolle for all

time.

Bemolle, who was a composer, now composed no more. He soon became one of

the Devoured. His mornings were given up to the Professor; his

afternoons he gave to Anne-Marie. He would arrive soon after lunch, and

sit down at the piano, tempting the child from playthings or story-book

by rippling accompaniments or dulcet chords. And because the Professor

had said: "With this child one can begin at the end," Bemolle lured her

long before her ninth birthday across the ditches and pitfalls of Ernst

and Paganini, over the peaks and crests of Beethoven and Bach.

On the day that Nancy was called from her writing to hear Anne-Marie

play Bach's "Chaconne," Nancy folded up the scarf that she had used to

cover her ears with, and put it away. Then she took her manuscripts,

and kissed them, and said good-bye to them for ever, and put them away.

* * * * *

Soon afterwards the Ogre came to Prague. He had received Nancy's letter

about Italy, and had come to answer it in person. It was good to see him

again. His largeness filled the room, his mastery controlled and soothed

the spirit. He was the "wall" that Clarissa had spoken of in the Villa

Solitudine long ago.

Lucky is the woman who belongs to a wall. When she has bruised and

fretted herself in trying to push through it, and get round it, and jump

over it, let her sit down quietly in its protecting shadow and be

grateful.

An hour after his arrival the imperious Anne-Marie was subjugated and

entranced, Fraeulein was a-bustle and a-quiver with solicitude as to his

physical welfare, and Nancy sat back in a large armchair, and felt that

nothing could hurt, or ruffle, or trouble her any more.

In the evening, when Fraeulein had taken Anne-Marie to bed, the Ogre

smoked his long cigar, and said to Nancy:

"There is no jasmine in this season in Italy. And not many roses. But

the place that you asked for is ready. It has a large garden. When I

have settled you there, I am going to Peru."

"Oh, must you?" said Nancy. "Must you really?"

"The Mina de l'Agua needs looking after. Something has gone wrong with

it. I ought to have gone three months ago, when I first wrote to you

that I should," said the Ogre. "But enough. That does not concern you."

Nancy looked very meek. "I am sorry," she said apologetically.

"Very well," said the Ogre "Now let us talk about your work and Italy.

When do you start?"

Those four words thrilled Nancy with indescribable joy. "When do you

start?" What a serene, what an attractive phrase!

"Can you be ready on Thursday?" Again the balm and charm of the question

ran into Nancy's veins. She felt that she could listen to questions of

this kind for ever. But he stopped questioning, and expected an answer.

It was a hesitant answer. She said:

"What about Anne-Marie's violin?"

He waited for her to explain, and she did so. Anne-Marie was going to be

a portentous virtuosa. The great master had said so. It would never do

to take her away from Prague. Nowhere would she get such lessons,

nowhere would there be a Bemolle to devote himself utterly and entirely

to her.

The Ogre listened with his eyes fixed on Nancy.

"Well? Then what?"

"Ah!" said Nancy. "Then what!" And she sighed.

"Do you want to leave her here?" asked the Ogre.

"No," said Nancy.

"Do you want to take her with you?"

"N-no," said Nancy.

"Then what?" said the Ogre again.

Nancy raised her clouded eyes under their wing-like eyebrows to his

strong face. "Help me," she said.

He finished smoking his cigar without speaking; then he helped her. He

looked in her face with his firm eyes while he spoke to her.

He said: "You cannot tread two ways at once. You said your genius was a

giant angel sitting in a cave, with huge wings furled."

"Yes; but since then the genius of Anne-Marie has flown with clarion

wings into the light."

"You said that your unexpressed thoughts, your unfulfilled destiny, hurt

you."

"Yes; but am I to silence a singing fountain of music in order that my

silent, unwritten books may live?"

He did not speak for some time. Then he said: "Has it never occurred to

you that it might be better for the little girl to be just a little

girl, and nothing else?"

"No," said Nancy. "It never occurred to me."

"Might it not have been better if you yourself, instead of being a poet,

had been merely a happy woman?"

"Ah, perhaps!" said Nancy. "But Glory looked me in the face when I was

young--Glory, the sorcerer!--the Pied Piper!--and I have had to follow.

Through the days and the nights, through and over and across everything,

his call has dragged at my heart. And, oh! it is not his call that

hurts; it is the being pulled back and stopped by all the outstretched

hands. The small, everyday duties and the great loves that hold one and

keep one and stop one--they it is that break one's heart in two. Yes,

_in two_, for half one's heart has gone away with the Piper." She drew

in a long breath, remembering many things. Then she said: "And now he is

piping to Anne-Marie. She has heard him, and she will go. And if her

path leads over my unfulfilled hopes and my unwritten books, she shall

tread and trample and dance on them. And good luck to her!"

"Well, then--good luck to her!" said the Ogre.

And Nancy said: "Thank you."

"Now you are quite clear," he said after a pause; "and you must never

regret it. If you want your child to be an eagle, you must pull out your

own wings for her."

"Every feather of them!" said Nancy.

"And when you have done so, then she will spread them and fly away from

you."

"I know it," said Nancy.

"And you will be alone."

"Yes," said Nancy.

And she closed her eyes to look into the coming years.

XIX

The Ogre remained in Prague a week, and took Anne-Marie on the Moldau

and to the White Mountain, to the Stromovka and the Petrin Hill. Bemolle

was frantic. For six days Anne-Marie had not touched the violin. He had

looked forward to long hours of music with Anne-Marie, and had prepared

her entire repertoire carefully in contrasting programmes for the

English visitor's pleasure. But the English visitor would have none of

it, or very little, and that little not of the best. Not much Beethoven,

scarcely any Bach, no Brahms! Only Schubert and Grieg. Short pieces!

Then the large man would get up and shake hands, first with Anne-Marie,

then with Bemolle, and say "Thank you, thank you," and the music was

over.

On the last day of his stay he came before luncheon, and went to the

valley of the Sarka alone with "Miss Brown"--he never called Nancy

anything else, and she loved the name. It was a clear midsummer day. The

country was alight with poppies, like a vulgar summer hat. The heart of

Miss Brown was sad.

"I leave this evening," he said, "at 8.40."

"You have told me that twenty times," said Miss Brown.

"I like you to think of it," he said; and she did not answer. "I am

going back to the mines, back to Peru--"

"You have said that two hundred times," said Miss Brown pettishly.

He paid no attention. "To Peru," he continued, "and I may have to stay

there a year, or two years ... to look after the mine. Then I return."

He coughed. "Or--I do not return."

No answer.

"You have not changed your mind about going to Italy and writing your

book?"

"No," said Nancy, with little streaks of white on each side of her

nostrils.

"I thought not."

Then they walked along for a quarter of an hour in silence. The wind ran

over the grasses, and the birds sang.

"Nancy!" he said. It was the first time he had called her by her name.

She covered her face and began to cry. He did not attempt to comfort

her. After a while he said, "Sit down," and she sat on the grass and

went on crying.

"Do you love me very much?" he asked.

"Dreadfully," said Nancy, looking up at him helplessly through her

tears.

He sat down beside her.

"And do you know that I love you very much?"

"Yes, I know," sobbed Nancy.

There was a short silence. Then he said: "In one of your letters long

ago you wrote: 'This love across the distance, without the aid of any

one of our senses, this is the Blue Rose of love, the mystic marvel

blown in our souls for the delight of Heaven.' Shall we pluck it, Nancy,

and wear it for our own delight?"

The grasses curtseyed and the river ran. He took her hand from her face.

Nancy looked at him, and the tears brimmed over.

"Then," she said brokenly, "it would not be the Blue Rose any more."

"True," he said.

"Then it would be a common, everyday, pink-faced flower like every

other."

"True," he said again.

She withdrew her hand from his. Then his hand remained on his knee in

the sunshine, a large brown hand, strong, but lonely.

"Oh, dear Unknown!" said Nancy; and she bent forward and kissed the

lonely hand. "Do not let us throw our blue dream-rose away!"

"Very well," he said--"very well, dear little Miss Brown." And he kissed

her forehead for the second time.

That evening he went back to his mines.

XX

The following winter, when Nancy had been in Prague nearly a year, the

Professor said:

"Next month Anne-Marie will give an orchestral concert."

"Oh, Herr Professor!" gasped Nancy. "Was giebt's?" asked the Professor.

"Was giebt's?" asked Anne-Marie.

"She is only nine years old."

"Well?" said the Professor.

"Well?" said Anne-Marie.

Who can describe the excitement of the following days? The excitement of

Bemolle over the choice of a programme! The excitement of Fraeulein over

the choice of a dress! The excitement of Nancy, who could close no eye

at night, who pictured Anne-Marie breaking down or stopping in the

middle of a piece, or beginning to cry, or refusing to go on to the

platform, or catching cold the day before! Everyone was febrile and

overwrought except Anne-Marie herself, who seemed to trouble not at

all about it.

She was to play the Max Bruch Concerto? _Gut!_ And the Fantasia

Appassionata? All right. And the Paganini variations on the G string?

Very well. And now might she go out with Schop? For Schopenhauer,

long-bodied and ungainly, had come with them to Europe, and was now

friends with all the gay dogs of Prague.

"I will order the pink dress," said Fraeulein.

"Oh no! Let it be white," said Nancy.

"I want it blue," said Anne-Marie.

So blue it was.

One snowy morning Anne-Marie went to her first rehearsal with the

orchestra. There was much friendly laughter among the strings and wind,

the brass and reeds, when the small child entered through the huge glass

doors of the Rudolfinum, followed by Bemolle carrying the violin, Nancy

carrying the music, Fraeulein carrying the dog, and the Professor in the

rear, with his hat pulled down deeply over his head, and a large unlit

cigar twisting in his fingers. Anne-Marie was introduced to the Bohemian

chef d'orchestre, and was hoisted up to the platform by Fraeulein and the

Professor. Violins and violas tapped applause on their instruments.

And now Jaroslav Kalas raps his desk with the baton and raises his

arm. Then he remembers something. He stops and bends down to Anne-Marie.

Has she the A? Yes, thank you. And the little girl holds the fiddle to

her ear and plucks lightly and softly at the strings. She raises it to

her shoulder, and stands in position.

Again the conductor taps and raises his arms. B-r-r-r-r-r roll the

drums. Re-do-si, re-do-si, re-e, whisper the clarinets. A pause.

Anne-Marie lifts her right arm slowly, and strikes the low G--a long

vibrating note, like the note of a 'cello. Then she glides softly up the

cadenza, and ends on the long pianissimo high D. Bemolle, who has been

standing up, sits down suddenly. The Professor, who has been sitting

down, stands up. Now Anne-Marie is purling along the second cadenza.

Fraeulein, beaming in her lonely stall in the centre of the empty hall,

nods her head rapidly and continuously. Nancy has covered her face with

her hands. But the little girl, with her cheek on the fiddle, plays the

concerto and sees nothing. Only once she gives a little start, as the

brass instruments blare out suddenly behind her and she turns slightly

towards them with an anxious eye. Then she forgets them; and she carries

the music along, winding through the andante, gliding through the

adagio, tearing past the allegro, leaping into the wild, magnificent

finale.

Perfect silence. The orchestra has not applauded. Kalas folds his

arms and turns round to look at the Professor. But the Professor is

blowing his nose. So Kalas steps down from his desk, and, taking

Anne-Marie's hand, lifts it, bow and all, to his lips. Then, stepping

back briskly to the desk, he raps for silence. "Vieuxtemps' Fantasie,"

he says, and the music-sheets are fluttered and turned.

* * * * *

All Prague sat expectant--rustling and murmuring and coughing--in the

stalls and galleries of the Rudolfinum, on the night of the concert. The

Bohemian orchestra were in their seats. Kalas stepped up to his

desk, and an overture was played.

A short pause. Then, in the midst of a tense silence, Anne-Marie

appeared, threading her way through the orchestra, with her violin under

her arm. Now she stands in her place, a tiny figure in a short blue silk

frock, with slim black legs and black shoes, and her fair hair tied on

one side with a blue ribbon. Unwondering and calm, Anne-Marie confronted

her first audience, gazing at the thousand upturned faces with gentle,

fearless eyes. She turned her quiet gaze upwards to the gallery, where

row on row of people were leaning forward to see her. Then, with a

little shake of her head to throw back her fair hair, she lifted her

violin to her ear, plucked lightly, and listened, with her head on one

side, to the murmured reply of the strings. Kalas, on his tribune,

was looking at her, his face drawn and pale. She nodded to him, and he

rapped the desk. B-r-r-r-r-r-r rolled the drums.

* * * * *

In the artists' room at the close of the concert people were edging and

pressing and pushing to get in and catch a glimpse of Anne-Marie. The

Directors and the uniformed men pushed the crowd out again, and locked

the doors. The Professor, who had listened to the concert hidden away in

a corner of the gallery, elbowed his way through the crush and entered

the artists' room. The doors were quickly locked again behind him.

The Professor had his old black violin-case in his hands. He went to the

table, and, pushing aside a quantity of flowers that lay on it, he

carefully put down his violin-case. It looked like a little coffin in

the midst of the flowers. Anne-Marie was having her coat put on by

Kalas, and a scarf tied round her head by Nancy, who was white as

a sheet. The Professor beckoned to her, and she ran to him, and stood

beside him at the table. He opened his violin-case and lifted out the

magnificent blond instrument that he had treasured for thirty years. He

turned the key of the E string, and drew the string off. Then he drew

the A string off; then the D. The violin, now with the single silver G

string holding up its bridge, lay in the Professor's hands for a moment.

He turned solemnly to the little girl.

"This is my Guarnerius del Gesu. I give it to you."

"Yes," said Anne-Marie.

"You will always play the Paganini Variations for the G string on this

violin. Put no other strings on it."

"No," said Anne-Marie.

The Professor replaced the violin in the case, and shut it. "I have

taught you what I could," he said solemnly. "Life will teach you the

rest."

"Yes," said Anne-Marie, and took the violin-case in her arms. The

Professor looked at her a long time. Then he said:

"See that you put on warm gloves to go out; it is snowing." He turned

away quickly and left the room.

Nancy put her arm round Anne-Marie.

"Oh, darling, you forgot to thank him!" she said.

Anne-Marie raised her eyes. She held the violin-case tightly in both her

arms. "How can one thank him? What is the good of thanking him?" she

said. And Nancy felt that she was right.

"Where are my gloves?" said Anne-Marie. "He told me to put them on. And

where is Fraeulein?"

Fraeulein had gone. She had been sent home in a cab after the second

piece, for she had not a strong heart. Bemolle, who had been weeping

copiously in a corner, stepped forward with the other violin-case in his

hand.

Now they were ready. Anne-Marie was carrying the Guarnerius and the

flowers, so Nancy could not take her hand. The men in uniform saluted

and unlocked the doors, throwing them wide open. Then Anne-Marie, who

had started forward, stopped. Before her the huge passage was lined with

people, crowded and crushed in serried ranks, with a narrow space

through the middle. At the end of the passage near the doors they could

be seen pushing and surging, like a troubled sea. Anne-Marie turned to

her mother.

"Mother, what are the people waiting for?" she asked.

Nancy smiled with quivering lips. "Come, darling," she said.

"No," said Anne-Marie; "I will not come. I am sure they are waiting to

see something, and I want to wait, too."

As the crowd caught sight of her and rushed forward, she was lifted up

by a large policeman, who carried her on his shoulder and pushed his way

through the tumult. Anne-Marie clutched her flowers and the violin-case,

which knocked against the policeman's head with every step he took.

Nancy followed in the crush, laughing and sobbing, feeling hands

grasping her hands, hearing voices saying: "Gebenedeite Mutter!

glueckliche Mutter!" And she could only say: "Thank you! Thank you! Oh,

thank you!"

Then they were in the carriage. The door was shut with a bang. Many

faces surged round the windows.

"Wave your hand," said Nancy. And Anne-Marie waved her hand. Cheers and

shouts frightened the plunging horses, and they started off at a gallop

through the nocturnal streets. Nancy put her arm round Anne-Marie, and

the child's head lay on her shoulder. The Guarnerius was at their feet.

The flowers fell from Anne-Marie's hand on to the Professor's old black

case, that was like a shabby little coffin. So they drove away out of

the noise and the lights into the dark and silent streets, holding each

other without speaking. Then Anne-Marie said softly:

"Did you like my concert, Liebstes?"

She had learned the tender German appellative from Fraeulein.

"Yes," whispered Nancy.

"Did I play well, Liebstes?"

"Yes, my dear little girl."

A long pause. "Are you happy, Liebstes?"

"Oh yes, yes, yes! I am happy," said Nancy.

XXI

Before a week had passed Nancy had discovered how difficult a thing it

was to be the mother of a wonderchild, and had grown thin and harassed

by the stream of visitors and the deluge of letters that overwhelmed

their modest apartment in the Vinohrady. As early as eight o'clock in

the morning rival violinists walked beneath the windows to hear if

Anne-Marie was practising, and how she was practising, and what she was

practising. As they did not hear her, they concluded that she practised

on a mute fiddle, and were wrathful and disappointed. By ten o'clock

Lori, the smiling maid, had introduced a reporter or two, an impresario

or two, a mother or two with a child or two, and none of them seemed to

need to go home to luncheon. Questions were asked, and advice was

tendered. "How long did the child practise every day?" "Two or three

hours," said Nancy. "Too much," cried the mothers. "Too little," said

the impresarios. "At what age did she begin?" "When she was between

seven and eight." "Too young," said the mothers. "Too old," said the

impresarios. "How does she sleep?" asked the mothers. "What fees do you

expect?" asked the impresarios. "Why do you dress her in blue?" asked

the mothers. "Why not in white or in black velvet?" "Why don't you cut

her hair quite short and dress her in boy's clothes, and say she is five

years old?" asked the impresarios. "How old is she _really_?" "Does her

father beat her?" There seemed to be no restraint to the kind and the

quantity of questions people were prepared to ask.

Meanwhile the fame of Anne-Marie had flashed to Vienna, and she was

invited to play in the Musikverein Saal. They said good-bye to the

Professor with tears of gratitude, and left--taking away with them his

best violin and his only assistant, for Bemolle was to go with them and

carry the violin, and run the messages, and see after the luggage, and

attend to the business arrangements. This last duty neither Fraeulein nor

Anne-Marie, and least of all Nancy, was capable of undertaking. Bemolle

himself was nervous about it, but the Professor (who knew as much about

business as Anne-Marie) had coached him.

"All you have to do is to count the tickets they give you, and the money

they give you. And there must be no discrepancy. Do you see?"

Yes, Bemolle saw. And so that was what he did, everywhere and after each

concert. He counted the tickets, and he counted the money that was given

him very carefully and lengthily, while the smiling manager stood about

and smoked, or went out and refreshed himself; and it was always all

right, and there was never any discrepancy anywhere. So _that_ was all

right.

The great hall of the Musikverein was filled for Anne-Marie's first

concert. It was crowded and packed for her second, and third, and

fourth. A blond Archduchess asked her to play to her children, and

Anne-Marie's lips were taught to frame phrases to Royal Highnesses, and

her little black legs were trained to obeisance and curtsey. Then Berlin

telegraphed for the Wonderchild, and the Wonderchild went to Berlin and

played Bach and Beethoven in the Saal der Philharmonic. Two tall,

white-haired gentlemen came into the artists' room at the end of the

concert. Solemnly they kissed the child's forehead, and invoked God's

blessing upon her. When they had left, Nancy saw Bemolle running after

them and shaking their hands. Nancy said: "What are you doing, Bemolle?"

The emotional Bemolle, who, since Anne-Marie's debut, passed his days

turning pale and red, and always seemed on the verge of tears,

exclaimed: "I have shaken hands with Max Bruch and with Joachim. I do

not care if now I die."

And always at the end of the concerts crowds waited at the doors for the

child to appear. Anne-Marie passed through the cheering people with her

arms full of flowers, nodding to the right, nodding to the left, smiling

and thanking and nodding again, with Nancy nodding and smiling and

thanking close behind her. Sometimes the crowd was so great that they

could not pass, and Anne-Marie had to be lifted up and carried to the

carriage buoyantly, laughing down at everybody and waving her hands.

Then there was a rush round the carriage door. Nancy, crushed and

breathless, tearful and laughing, managed to get in after her, the door

banged, and off they were, Anne-Marie still nodding first at one window

then at the other, and rapping her fingers against the glass in

farewell.... At last the running, cheering crowds were left behind, and

she would drop her head with a little sigh of happiness against Nancy's

arm.

"Did you like my concert, mother dear? Did I play well, Liebstes?"

That was the hour of joy for Nancy's heart. The concerts themselves

turned her into a statue of terror, enveloped her with fear as with a

sheet of ice. While Anne-Marie played, swaying slightly like a flower in

a breeze, her spirit carried away on the wing of her own music, Nancy

sat in the audience petrified and blenched, her hands tightly

interlaced, her heart thumping dull and fast in her throat and in her

ears. If the blue dream-light of Anne-Marie's eyes wandered round and

found her, and rested on her face, Nancy would try to smile--a strained,

panic-stricken smile, which made Anne-Marie, even while she was playing,

feel inclined to laugh. Especially if she were at that moment performing

something very difficult, spluttering fireworks by Bazzini, or a

romping, breakneck bravura by Vieuxtemps, she would look fixedly at her

mother, while an impish smile crept into her eyes, and her fingers

rushed and scampered up and down the strings, and her bow swept and

skimmed with the darting flight of a swallow.

Nancy, watching her and trying, with ashen lips, to respond to her

smile, would say to herself: "She will stop suddenly! She will forget.

She cannot possibly remember all those thousands and thousands of notes.

She will let her bow drop. The string will break. Something will happen!

And if my heart goes on hammering like this, I shall fall down and die."

But nothing happened, and she did not die, and the piece ended. And the

applause crackled and crashed around them. And the concert ended, and

soon they were alone together in the flower-filled, fragrant penumbra of

the moving carriage.

"Are you happy, mother dear?"

"Yes, yes, yes! I am so happy, my own little girl!"

* * * * *

In the gentle month of May they went to London.

London! Nancy's father's home! London! Close to Hertfordshire, where

Nancy had lived the first eight years of her life.

On board the Channel steamer Nancy, with beating heart, full of

tenderness and awe, pointed out the white cliffs to Anne-Marie. "That is

England."

"Yes," said Anne-Marie, "I know."

"You must love England, darling," said Nancy.

"We shall see," said the Wonderchild, who was not prepared to love by

command. Fraeulein was bubbling over with reminiscences. It was in Dover

that Nancy's mother had come to meet her twenty-four years ago. They had

had tea and sponge-cakes in the train. They had bought an umbrella

somewhere, because she had left hers on the boat, and it was raining.

So it was to-day, raining drearily, heavily on the sad green landscapes

as the train ran through Kent and towards London.

They went to a hotel, close to the hall where Anne-Marie was to play.

And all the way driving to it Bemolle wept, with emotion at being in

London, and with emotion at not being in Italy; for in a little village

at the foot of the Appenines, his old mother still lived, following him

with anxious letters while he rushed across Europe carrying the violin

for Anne-Marie.

The first London concert was to be the week after their arrival. The

manager, pink-faced and blue-eyed, came to the hotel to talk about the

programme.

"England is not Berlin. Don't make it too heavy," he said. So the

Beethoven Concerto was taken out, and the Vieuxtemps Concerto put in its

stead. The Chaconne was taken out, and the Faust Phantasie put in its

stead. The manager said, "That's right," and went out to play golf.

The London audience and the London critics came _en masse_ to hear

Anne-Marie. The London audiences clapped and shouted. The London critics

carped and reproved. How sad it was, said they, that a child with such a

marvellous gift should waste her genius on music of the cheap virtuoso

kind! What a responsibility on the shoulders of parents and masters who

withheld from her the classic glories of Beethoven and Bach!

The manager, coming for the programme of the second concert, said: "Pile

it on. Give it to them heavy. It's the heavy stuff they want." Then he

went out and played golf.

So Anne-Marie played the Beethoven Concerto and the Beethoven Romance,

the Bach Chaconne and Fugue, Prelude and Sarabande. And the audience

shouted and clapped.

But the critics carped and reproved. How can a mere child understand

Beethoven and Bach? How wrong to overweight the puerile brain with the

giants of classic composition! It is almost a sacrilege to hear a little

girl venturing to approach the Chaconne. Let her play Handel and Mozart.

So in the third concert Anne-Marie played Handel and Mozart, and the

audience shouted and clapped.

But the critics said that, though she played the easy, simple music very

nicely for her age, still, in a London concert hall one expected to hear

something more puissant and authoritative. And why did she give concerts

at all? Why not do something else? Study composition, for instance?

"That's England all over," said the manager, and went out and played

golf.

Nancy was bewildered and unhappy. Bemolle danced about in helpless

Latin rage, and Fraeulein sat down and wrote a long letter to the

_Times_. But it is uncertain whether the _Times_ printed it.

Anne-Marie, who did not know that critics existed, nor care what critics

said, was happy and cheerful, and bought a dog in Regent Street, to

replace the quarantined Schopenhauer. He was a young and thin and

careless dog, and answered to the name of Ribs. Then Anne-Marie decided

that she loved England very much.

Many people called at the hotel to ask for autographs, and to express

their views. One elderly musician was very stern with Anne-Marie, and

sterner still with Nancy. He began by asking Nancy what she thought her

child was going to be in the future.

"I do not know," said Nancy. "I am grateful for what she is now."

"Ah! but you must think of the future. You want her to be a great

artist--"

"I don't know that I do," said Nancy. "She is a great artist now. If she

degenerates"--and Nancy smiled--"into merely a happy woman, she will

have had more than her share of luck."

"Take care! The prodigy will kill the artist!" repeated the stern man.

"You pluck the flower and you lose the fruit."

Nancy laughed. "It is as if you said: 'Beware of being a rose-bud lest

you never be an apple!' I am content that she should bloom unhindered,

and be what she is. Why should she not be allowed to play Bach like an

angel to-day, lest she should not be able to play him like Joachim ten

years hence?"

"Yes, why not!" piped up Anne-Marie, who had paid no attention to the

conversation, but who liked to say "Why not?" on general principles.

The stern man turned to her. "Bach, my dear child----" he began.

Anne-Marie gave a little laugh. "Oh, I know!" she said cheerfully.

"What do you know?" asked the gentleman severely.

"You are going to say, '_Always_ play Bach; nothing else is worthy,'"

said Anne-Marie, regretting that she had joined in the conversation.

"I was not going to say anything of the kind," said the stern man.

"Oh, then you were going to say the other thing: 'Do not _attempt_ to

play Bach--no child can understand him.' Professors always say one or

the other of those two things. Much stupid things are said about music."

"It is so," said the gentleman severely. "You cannot possibly understand

Bach."

Anne-Marie suddenly grasped him by the sleeve.

"What do _you_ understand in Bach? I want to know. You must tell me what

you understand. Exactly what it is that you understand and I don't.

Bemolle!" she cried, still holding the visitor's sleeve. "Give me the

violin!"

Bemolle jumped up and obeyed with beaming face.

"Anne-Marie, darling!" expostulated Nancy.

But Anne-Marie had the violin in her hand and wildness in her eye.

"Stay here," she said to the visitor, relinquishing his sleeve with

unwilling hand, and hastily tuning the fiddle. "Now you have got to tell

me what you understand in Bach." She played the first five of the

thirty-two variations of the Chaconne; then she stopped.

"What does Bach mean? What have you understood?" she cried. The English

musician leaned back in his chair and smiled with benevolent

superiority.

"And now--now I play it differently." She played it again, varying the

lights and shades, the piani and the forti. "What different thing have

you understood?"

"And now--now I play it like Joachim. So, exactly so, he played it for

me and with me...

"... Now what have you understood that I have not? What has Bach said to

you, and not to me, you silly man?"

Nancy took Anne-Marie's hand. "Hush, Anne-Marie! For shame!"

"I will not hush!" cried Anne-Marie, with flaming cheeks. "I am tired of

hearing them always say the same stupid things."

The visitor, smiling acidly, stood up to go. "I am afraid too much music

is not good for a little girl's manners," he said.

"Mother," said Anne-Marie, with her head against her mother's breast.

"Tell him to wait. I want to say a thing that I can't. Help me."

"What is it, dear?"

"When we were to have gone to a country that you said was hot and

pretty--and dirty--where was that?"

"Spain?"

"Yes, yes, yes! You said something about the little hotels there ... the

funny little hotels. What did you say about them?"

Nancy thought a moment. Then she smiled and remembered. "I said: 'You

can only find in them what you bring with you yourself.'"

"Yes, yes!" cried Anne-Marie, raising her excited eyes. "Now say that

about music."

And Nancy said it. "You will only find in music what you bring to it

from your own soul."

"Yes," said Anne-Marie, turning to the visitor; "how can you know what I

bring? How can you know that what you bring is beautifuller or gooder?

How can you know that Bach meant what _you_ think and not what I think?"

"Don't get excited, you funny little girl," said the visitor; and he

took his leave with dignity.

But Anne-Marie was excited, and did not sleep all night.

XXII

"Anne-marie, the King wants to hear you play!"

"The King? The real King?"

"Yes."

"Not a fairy-tale king?"

"No."

"The King who was ill when I had a birthday-cake long ago?"

"Yes."

"And that I made get well again?"

"Oh, did you, dear?" laughed Nancy. "I did not know that."

"I did it," said Anne-Marie, with deep and serious mien. "I made him get

well. Do you remember the seven candles round my cake?"

"I heard of them. You were seven when you were at the _Gartenhaus_; and

I was away from you." And Nancy sighed.

"And you know about the birthday wishes?" asked the eager Anne-Marie.

"The Poetry says:

"The heart must be pure,

The Wish must be sure,

The blow must be one--

The magic is done!"

"What terrible lines!" said Nancy.

"Fraeulein did them, from the German," said Anne-Marie.

"What is the blow?"

"The blowing-out of the candles. You may only blow once. And 'the Wish

must be sure.' You must not change about, and regret, and wish you

hadn't. Fraeulein told me it would be safest to make a list of all my

wishes beforehand. So I made a list days and days before my birthday.

They were to be seven things--one for each candle. There was a white

pony, and a kennel for Schopenhauer, and a steamer to go and fetch you

home in, and a lovely dress for Fraeulein, and a gold watch for you, and

something else for Elisabeth, and another dog for me, and to go to the

theatre every day, and--"

"There seem to be more than seven things already," said Nancy.

"Well, they were most beautiful. Especially the pony and the steamer....

And then you wrote about the King."

"I remember," said Nancy.

"You said he was ill, and that he was your papa's King, and that he was

good and forgave everybody: whole countries-full of bad people! And you

wrote that I was to say a prayer, and ask God to make him well."

"I remember."

"Well, I didn't, I said to God: 'Wait a minute!' because next day was my

birthday, and I had the cake with the seven Wishes. I thought first I

would just give up the kennel, and wish _once_ for the King to get well.

So I did it, and blew out one candle; then I gave up the present for

Elisabeth, and wished for the King again. Then I thought I could do

without the dress for Fraeulein. And without the theatre.... And then I

let the steamer and the pony go too. And I blew out all seven candles

for the King!" Anne-Marie folded her hands in her lap. "So that's how I

made him get well."

"How nice," said Nancy.

"And now I am going to see him, and to play to him," said Anne-Marie

dreamily. "It is very strange." She raised her simple eyes to her

mother. "Do you think I ought to tell him about my having saved him?"

"I think not," said Nancy. "It is much nicer to have saved him without

his knowing it."

So Anne-Marie did not tell him.

... But he knew. "I know that he knew!" sobbed Anne-Marie in the evening

of the great day, trembling with emotion in her mother's arms. "I saw it

in the kindness of his eyes. And mother! mother! I think that was why he

kissed me."

XXIII

The Piper piped tunes into Anne-Marie's ear, tunes that she had to hum,

and to sing, and to play; tunes that enraptured her when she created

them, and hurt her when she forgot them. So Bemolle had to write them

down. Everything she heard wandered off into melodies, melted into

harmonies, divided itself up into rhythms. Mother Goose rhymes and

Struwwelpeter were put to music, and all the favourites in Andersen's

Maerchen--the Princess and the Mermaid, the Swineherd and the

Goblins--corresponded to some special bars of music in Anne-Marie's

mind. "She has the sense of the Leitmotiv," said Bemolle, with awestruck

eyes and oracular forefinger.

It had been arranged that Bemolle should have his mornings to himself

for his own compositions. He had, two years before, by dint of much

scraping, paid five hundred francs to secure a good libretto for his

much-dreamed-of opera, of which he had already composed the principal

themes when he first went with the Professor to play for Anne-Marie; he

was also half-way through a tone-poem on Edgar Allan Poe's "Eldorado."

He played it occasionally to Anne-Marie; frequently to Nancy:

"Gaily bedight, a gallant Knight,

In sunshine and in shadow----"

"Do you hear?" he would say, playing with much pedal, while his rough

black head bounced and dipped. "Do you hear the canter and gallop and

thump? It is the Horse, and the Heart, and the Hope of the Knight!"

Yes; Nancy could hear the Horse, and the Heart, and the Hope quite

clearly.

"Now!" Bemolle's curly black mat would swoop over the keys and stay

there quite near to his fingers, "Now--the Hag appears! Do you hear the

Hag murmur and mumble? This is the Hag murmuring and mumbling."

"I should make her mumble in D flat," said Anne-Marie airily. And then

she trotted out of the room, leaving in Bemolle's heart a vague sense

of dissatisfaction with his Hag, because she was mumbling in A natural.

Soon, as there was much to do, programmes to prepare, letters to answer,

engagements to accept, tours to refuse, and they were all four rather

unbusiness-like and confusionary, Bemolle had to put aside his opera and

his tone-poem, and dedicate himself exclusively to the business

arrangements of the party.

They frequently got confused in their dates. "The Costanzi in Rome has

telegraphed, asking for three concerts in February, and I have

accepted!" cried Bemolle triumphantly, when Nancy and Anne-Marie

returned from one of the dreaded and inevitable afternoon receptions

given in their honour.

"I thought we had accepted Stockholm for February," said Nancy, with

troubled brow.

"So we had!" exclaimed Bemolle. "Oh dear! Now we must cancel it."

"Oh, don't cancel Rome! Cancel Stockholm," said Nancy.

And so they cancelled Stockholm with great difficulty, promising

Stockholm a date in March, immediately after Rome, and immediately

before Berlin, where Anne-Marie was to play for the Kaiserfest the Max

Bruch Concerto, accompanied by the great composer himself.

A week later, Nancy, looking at Bemolle's little book of dates and

engagements, said: "How can we get from Rome to Stockholm, and from

Stockholm to Berlin in six days, and give three concerts in between?"

"We cannot do so," said Fraeulein. "From Berlin to Warnemuende--"

"Oh, never mind details, Fraeulein," sighed Nancy. "It cannot be done."

"We must cancel Rome," said Fraeulein.

"No, you can't do that," said Bemolle.

"Well, then, we must cancel Berlin," said Nancy.

"Impossible!"

"Then I suppose we must cancel Stockholm again."

So they cancelled Stockholm again, by telegrams that cost one hundred

and fifty francs, and by paying damages to the extent of two thousand

francs, and by swallowing and ignoring threats of lawsuits and

acrimonious letters.

"I think we ought to have an impresario," said Nancy. "We do not seem to

manage our business affairs well."

So they decided to have an impresario. After wavering for a long time

between a little black man from Rome, who had followed them all over the

Continent, and a great Paris impresario who had only telegraphed twice,

they decided on a nice-looking man in Vienna, who had seemed honest, and

had promised them many things. He was telegraphed for--nobody ever wrote

letters if it could be helped; indeed, the correspondence which flowed

in on them from all parts of the world was only half read and a quarter

answered. The impresario from Vienna replied, asking for two hundred

kronen for travelling expenses. These were sent to him by telegraph. And

then he did not come. "We must not put up with it," said Fraeulein. So

they did not put up with it. They went to a solicitor, who asked for the

correspondence and ten pounds for preliminary expenses, which were given

to him. And that was all--except that about a year afterwards, when they

had forgotten all about it, a bill from the solicitor for four pounds

two shillings followed them across Europe, and finally reached them in

St. Petersburg. And they paid it.

But meanwhile they decided upon the Paris impresario. He was a great

man, and had "launched" everybody who was anybody in the artistic world.

He needed no travelling expenses. He arrived, gorgeous of waistcoat,

resplendent of hat. He said he had already fixed up two Colonne concerts

in Paris for Anne-Marie. He was none of your slow, sleepy, impresarios.

Here was a contract in duplicate ready for them to sign. His bright

brown eye wandered critically over Bemolle. Then he took Fraeulein in at

a glance, and looking at Nancy's helpless and bewildered face he seemed

to be satisfied with Anne-Marie's surroundings. To Anne-Marie herself he

paid no attention. He had heard her play twice. That was enough.

Anne-Marie, as Anne-Marie, interested him not at all. Anne-Marie as

artist still less. Anne-Marie was a musical-box, ten years old, with

yellow hair, whom he had wanted to get hold of for the last six months.

Here was the contract. No father? Well, Nancy could sign it in the

father's stead.

Nancy, Bemolle, and Fraeulein read the contract over very carefully,

while the impresario drank claret and smoked cigarettes. He had a way of

sniffing the air up through his nostrils, and of swallowing with his

lips turned up at the corners in an expectant, self-satisfied manner

that distracted Nancy, and interfered with her understanding of the

contract.

There were fourteen clauses. "It seems all right," said Nancy softly to

Bemolle. Bemolle frowned a businesslike frown, and Fraeulein said,

"Sprechen wir Deutsch," which they did, to the placid amusement of the

Paris impresario, who was born in Klagenfurt.

After much reading and considering, Bemolle turned with his business

frown to the impresario. "You say forty per cent to the artist?"

The impresario sniffed and swallowed. "That's right," he said. "I have

the risks and the expenses."

"Of course," said Nancy.

Bemolle touched her arm lightly and warningly.

"Forty per cent of the _gross_ receipts?" asked Bemolle suspiciously.

"Of the _net_ receipts," said the impresario.

"Ah, that is better!" said the unenlightened Fraeulein. And Bemolle put

out his foot gently and kicked her.

"Now, what is this clause about three years?"

"That's right," said the impresario. "You do not think I am to have all

the trouble of launching her for you to take her away after six months,

while I sit sucking my fingers."

"Gemeiner Kerl!" said Fraeulein to Nancy.

But Nancy said: "She is already launched."

"Is she?" said the impresario. "I don't think so." And he sniffed and

swallowed. "She must make about two million francs in the next two

years. Otherwise she may as well quit."

"Zwei Millionen!" gasped Fraeulein, under her breath.

Bemolle kicked her again. "And what does this mean? Clause eight. 'The

party of the second part agrees to give a minimum of one hundred and

forty concerts per year for three years'?"

"That is a matter of form," said the impresario. "We put that into all

contracts lest we should feel inclined to sit about with our hands in

our pockets doing nothing. Now, if you don't like it, you can leave it.

I've not come over for this. I have a contract with the biggest star

singer in Europe to sign here to-day. That is what I came for. Look at

it." And he pulled out a contract made in the name of a world-famed

tenor, and dotted over with tens of hundreds of pounds as a field is

with daisies.

Fraeulein was much impressed. "Better take him quick," she said in

German. "He might go." So they took him quick, and signed the contract.

And Bemolle was careful to have it stamped.

"Und nun ist Alles in Ordnung," said the "gemeiner Kerl," grinning at

Fraeulein. And then he sniffed and swallowed.

They soon found out what Clause eight meant. The party of the second

part was bound to give a minimum of one hundred and forty concerts a

year--and the party of the second part was Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie was

certainly not to be allowed to sit about with her hands in her pockets.

In sixteen days she gave twelve concerts with eleven journeys between.

She went from town to town, from platform to platform, looking like a

little dazed seraph playing in its dreams. Fraeulein broke down on the

sixth journey, and was left behind, half-way between Cologne and Mainz.

Bemolle said nothing. He could only look at Anne-Marie dozing in the

train, and great tears would gather in his round black eyes, linger and

roll down, losing themselves in his dark moustache, that drooped over

his mouth like a seal's. When the impresario travelled with them,

smoking cigarettes in their faces, and going to sleep with his hands in

his pockets, and his long legs stretched across the compartment, there

was murder--black and scarlet murder--in Bemolle's eyes, and his gaze

would wander from the impresario's flowered waistcoat to his blond,

pointed beard, searching for a place.

During the concerts the impresario was everywhere to be seen, with his

hands in his pockets and his legs wide apart. Between the pieces he sat

in the artists' room and talked to everyone who came in to see

Anne-Marie, scenting out the journalists with the _flair_ of a dog.

Nancy could hear him inventing startling anecdotes about Anne-Marie. He

talked to the enthusiastic musicians and the tearful ladies that came to

congratulate, and always could Nancy hear him recounting the same untrue

and unlikely anecdotes. Yes, this child he had discovered playing the

piano when she was three years old. When she was five she had, with the

aid of her little brother, built a violin out of a soap-box. She had

been kidnapped by some Nihilists in Russia, and had been kept by them

three weeks in a kind of vault, where she had to play to them for hours

when they asked her to. She had jewels and decorations worth ten

thousands pounds. She had three Strads; one of them had belonged to

Wagner and the other to the Tsar.

At the end of the concerts the impresario got into the carriage with

them. The impresario bore Anne-Marie through the clapping crowds. The

impresario carried her flowers and her violin, and waved his hand out of

the window to the people when Anne-Marie was too tired to do so.

Anne-Marie sat in her corner of the carriage and fell asleep. Nancy bit

her lips and tried not to cry. And Bemolle sat outside on the box,

thinking evil Italian thoughts, and murmuring old Italian curses that

had never been known to fail.

This lasted just a fortnight. On the fifteenth day Anne-Marie said: "I

don't want to see that man any more. And I want to have a picnic in the

grass," she added, "with things to eat in parcels, and milk in a

bottle."

"Very well, dear," said Nancy. "You shall have it." And they had it. And

it was very nice.

When the impresario came that evening Anne-Marie was not to be seen. She

was in bed and asleep, rosy and worn out by her long day in the open

air.

"Are you ready?" said the impresario, looking round. Nancy said:

"Anne-Marie cannot play to-night. She is tired. I did not know where to

find you, or I should have let you know before."

"Oh, indeed!" said the impresario. And he sniffed and swallowed.

"And really," said Nancy. "I have come to the conclusion that this won't

do. Anne-Marie must play only when she wants to. One or two concerts in

a month, if she feels like it, and not more. She shall not play because

she must, but because she loves to."

"Gelungen!" said the impresario, sitting down and taking out his

cigarette case.

"So I think you had better just pay for the concerts she has given, and

let us go."

The impresario laughed long and loud. His shoulders shook with

amusement.

"Na, gelungen!" he said again, leaving off laughing to light his

cigarette, and stretching out his long legs. "How much did you say I was

to pay?" And he shook with laughter again.

"Well, our share, I suppose," said Nancy timidly.

"That's right," said the impresario, and he stopped laughing suddenly,

and looked at his watch. "Now hurry up and come along. It is time to

start."

"Anne-Marie is asleep," said Nancy.

"Then wake her," said the impresario.

Nancy felt herself turning pale.

"Get on," said the impresario; "it won't kill her to play to-night. And

the concert-hall is sold out."

"I am sorry," said Nancy; "but Anne-Marie never plays when she is

tired."

"That is foolish, my dear woman," said the impresario, getting up. "I

shall be obliged to wake her myself if you don't." And he took a step

towards the closed door which led into the room where Anne-Marie was

sleeping.

Now Anne-Marie's sleep was a sacred thing. A thing watched over and

hallowed, approached on tip of toe, spoken of with finger on lip and

bated breath. If Anne-Marie slept perfect silence was kept, and the

world must stop. If Bemolle chanced to open a door or creak a careless

shoe, he was frowned at with horrified brows. Anne-Marie's sleep was a

thing inviolate and sacrosanct.

Bemolle had been standing near the window looking out into the darkness

while the impresario spoke to Nancy; but with the first step in the

direction of the closed door Bemolle darted forward with a growl like

that of a angry dog. Bemolle was short and stout, but his long

accumulated anger and hatred stood him in lieu of height and muscles. He

jumped at the impresario, he pulled his beard, he scratched his face, he

pummelled him in the chest, and with short, excited legs he kicked him.

When the big man recovered from the amazement caused by this unexpected

onslaught, he lifted Bemolle off his legs and sat him on the floor. The

he took his hat and his umbrella and walked out of the room, and out of

the hotel.

"Has he gone?" said Bemolle, after a while, sitting up, with papery

cheeks and a reddened eye.

"Yes, he has gone," said Nancy. "Poor Bemolle! Did he hurt you?"

Bemolle did not rise from the floor. He shook his head, and muttered

hoarsely:

"He wanted to wake Anne-Marie. He actually wanted to wake Anne-Marie!"

... It cost them twenty-five thousand francs to annul the contract, and

five hundred francs in legal expenses. But they considered that it was

cheap for the joy of having got rid of the impresario.

They had picnics and played about until Fraeulein was well enough to join

them again, and then they went to Rome, where they arrived with a

fortnight to spare before the orchestral concerts at the Teatro

Costanzi.

Thither from Milan came Aunt Carlotta, bent and wrinkled, and Zio

Giacomo, trembling and slow; and Adele and Nino and Carlo and Clarissa

in a noisy and affectionate group. Many tender tears were shed in memory

of Valeria, who had not lived to see her little grandchild's fame. "But

she saw _your_ glory, Nancy," said Nino.

They lived again in memory Nancy's visit to the Queen with her little

volume of poems, as they all went one sunshiny afternoon up the hill of

the Quirinal and past the Palace. Nino, whose hair was quite grey, and

who, according to Aunt Carlotta, was rather difficult to please and easy

to irritate, walked in front of them, and Anne-Marie trotted beside him,

holding his hand. He told her interesting tales about a pink pinafore

her mother had worn when she was eight years old, and what Fraeulein

looked like when she was apple-cheeked and twenty-five. Fraeulein, who

really did not show the twenty years' difference very much, walked

beside them, deeply moved by these reminiscences; and Bemolle, who was

to go and visit his lonely old mother as soon as the Costanzi concerts

were over, walked behind them all, tearful on general principles.

"By the way," said Nino to Nancy, "I saw the dear old Grey House again.

I went to England on Carlo's affairs two months ago. I ran down to

Hertfordshire and looked at it. It seemed to be empty."

"Oh," said Fraeulein, "what a beautiful place it was! Don't you remember

it, Nancy?"

"I remember the garden," said Nancy, with vague eyes, "and the

swing----"

"What swing?" said Anne-Marie, taking an interest.

Nancy told her about the swing in the orchard of that far-away home,

where she had stood swinging and singing in the placid English sunshine

when she was a little girl.

... After a very few days the well-remembered envelope with the golden

arms of the Royal House was put into Anne-Marie's small hands. On the

following evening, Adele, Carlotta, and Clarissa were in a flutter

preparing Nancy and Anne-Marie for their audience at the Quirinal.

Bemolle was fevered with excitement, for he was to play Anne-Marie's

accompaniments on the piano. He walked, pale and happy, carrying the

violin and the music, behind Nancy and Anne-Marie, as they passed, with

right hands bared, through the red room, and the yellow room, and the

blue room, and at last into the white and gold room where the King and

the Queen and many officers and ladies were waiting for them. The Queen

was not the same Queen whom Nancy had known, and whose name--the name of

a flower--was written on the first page of her old diary. But the

little boy whose picture, framed in diamonds, Nancy had received on her

wedding-day, was King.

The Queen embraced Anne-Marie many times, and laughed when Anne-Marie

talked, and wept when Anne-Marie played. Anne-Marie gazed at the tall,

dark-eyed Queen with adoration, sparing a glance or two for a gorgeous

man in scarlet tunic, with many decorations, whom she took to be the

King.

As the Adagio of Mendelssohn's concerto ended, a stern-faced man in

plain evening-dress, sitting slightly apart from the others, said: "I do

not care much for music, but this music I love." The Queen turned to him

with a smile on her beautiful face--a smile that startled Anne-Marie.

Anne-Marie followed the track of that shining smile, and her eyes

fastened on the face of the stern man. Where had she seen that face

before? Why was it so dear and familiar? Why did it make her think of

New York, and her mother weeping over letters from home. Stamps! She had

seen it on stamps! _He_ was the King of Italy! How could she have looked

at that silly, yellow-haired man in the red tunic! Anne-Marie's small

loyal heart prostrated itself in penitence before him who did not care

for music. And as she played, he smiled back at her with piercing,

friendly eyes.

Bemolle, who had made his deep obeisance on entering the door, and had

then stopped beside the piano, bent under the awful joy of the majestic

presence, never straightened himself out again, but sat down and stood

up when spoken to, in a tense curvilinear posture that was painful to

look upon. He also played many wrong notes in the accompaniments, and

could feel the anger of Anne-Marie flashing upon him, even though her

small blue back was turned. Nancy sat beside the Queen, smiling through

tear-lit eyes, replying to the many intimate and kindly questions the

beautiful lips asked. The Queen addressed her by her maiden name that

was famous, and quoted her poems to her with softly cadenced voice; and

the past and the present melted into one in Nancy's heart, and she could

not separate their beauty.

They drove back to the hotel in moved and grateful spirit. Anne-Marie,

fluffy and feathery in her mother's arms, chatted all the way home, for

she had much to say.

XXIV

A year of dream-like travels from triumph to triumph, from success to

success, scattered roses and myrtles at the feet of Anne-Marie. She went

through life as a child wanders through a fairy-tale garden, alight with

flowers that bow and bend to her hand. The concerts were her joy. Music

filled her soul to overflowing, and, like a pure and chosen vessel,

Anne-Marie poured it forth again upon the listening world. When she

played she was fulfilling her destiny, as a lark must sing.

One day in Genoa she was taken to see Paganini's violin, hanging mute

and sealed in its glass case at the town hall. She looked at it silently

and turned away.

"What are you thinking, dear heart?" said Nancy. "You look so sad."

"I am thinking," said Anne-Marie, with solemn eyes, "how it must hurt

that violin and ache it, to be kept locked up, and not be allowed to

sing!"

The remark was heard, and repeated, and reached the ears of the Mayor of

Genoa. One afternoon, with great pomp, Anne-Marie was invited to the

palace of the Municipio, and, before a few invited guests, the seals

were broken, and the hallowed instrument of the immortal Nicolo was

placed in the little girl's hands. Anne-Marie had not slept for three

nights thinking of that moment, imagining the joy of the imprisoned

voice when her hands should let it loose.

She drew a new E string quickly over the tarnished bridge. Now she

plucked lightly at it, bending her head to listen. Then, raising her

bow, she struck the bonds of silence from the quivering strings. The

chord in D minor rippled out, hoarse and feeble. Anne-Marie struck a

second chord, pressing down her fingers with a vehement vibrato. Again

the reply came--muffled, quavering, weak. Anne-Marie's face grew white

and tense. She removed the violin from her shoulder with a little sob.

"It is dead," she said.

Years after, if ever Nancy thought that it might have been better had

Anne-Marie been held back, and not been allowed to play her heart out to

the world, the memory of the Silent Violin, locked in its glass case,

came back to her--the violin that had died of its own silence. And she

was glad that her little skylark had been allowed to sing.

And sing it did, in many climes and under many skies. Was it in Turin

that the horses were taken from the carriage, and Anne-Marie and Nancy

drawn in triumph through the cheering, waving streets? Was it in Bern

that the police had to hold the crowd back, and clear the squares for

their plunging horses to pass? Where was it that she was serenaded and

called to the balcony twenty times by a crowd that seemed to have gone

mad? Where did men lift little children up that they might touch her

dress, and women, jostled in the crowd, with hats awry, fight for a

glimpse of the fair nodding head, for a touch of the little gloved hand?

Was it at Naples that they called her _la bambino, assistita_, and

thought her possessed by a spirit, and begged her to predict to them the

winning numbers of the following Saturday's lottery?

Yes, that was in Naples. In the confused glory of the shifting scenes

some memories stood out clearly, and held Nancy's recollection. It was

in Naples that no seat had been reserved for her in the immense and

crowded concert-hall, and that the manager had told her of a lady who

would give her a seat in her own box: box 5, tier 2--Nancy remembered it

still. And when Anne-Marie, duly kissed and blessed, stepped out, violin

in hand, upon the platform, Nancy was still running along the empty

corridors of tier 2, looking for box 5. Here it was! There was a lady in

it alone. Nancy bowed to her and took her seat, murmuring: "Grazie."

Then, with tightly folded hands, she had whispered the little prayer she

always said for God to help Anne-Marie. And, as always, the prayer was

answered, for Anne-Marie played grandly and suavely, never even dreaming

that help could be needed.

Nancy sat in the box, tense and terrified as usual, waiting for the

tranquil eyes of Anne-Marie to wander round the auditorium and find her.

There! They found her, and shone and twinkled. Then the Spirit of Music

dropped its great wings between them, and carried away little

Anne-Marie, swinging and singing her out of reach--out of reach of her

mother's love, farther than Nancy could follow.

The lady in black took her pocket-handkerchief and pressed it to her

eyes. Nancy was used to the gesture, but it always moved her. She put

her hand lightly on the arm of the unknown woman whose heart her little

girl's music had wrung.

The last piece was ended, and the well-known cries of applause were

starting from all corners of the house, when Nancy rose quickly to go

back to Anne-Marie. The woman in black put back her veil, and said:

"My name is Villari."

Nancy remembered the name. All that Aldo had told, all that Nino had not

told, years ago swept into her mind. She looked curiously into the tired

face, under its helmet of dark-red tinted hair. There were many lines in

the face. Nancy thought it looked like a map, and along the many little

lines Nancy's eyes seemed to travel into a sad and distant country. She

put out her hand.

"I know your name well," said Nancy. "I salute the great artist."

The woman sighed deeply. "I salute the happy mother," she said. Then she

pulled down her veil and turned away.

Nancy hastened along the crowded corridors, where people in groups were

discussing her little daughter, and the words, "wonderful! marvellous!

incredible!" beat with their accustomed soft wing on her ears.

"Happy mother!" Oh yes, she was a happy mother! She said it over and

over again, and repeated it to herself as she tied the soft woollen

scarf round Anne-Marie's head, and again as they made their way through

the cheering crowd, and the outstretched hands, and the waving hats. She

repeated it as she sat in the motor open to the balmy Neapolitan night,

and held Anne-Marie tightly as she stood up on the seat, waving both

small hands to the surrounding throng. The little standing figure swayed

as the carriage moved swiftly down the street. Soon the shouting people

were left behind, and Anne-Marie slid down to her place near her mother.

Beyond the Gulf, Vesuvius breathed its glowing rhythmic breath, and the

waters glittered. Nancy remembered that this was Aldo's birthplace; and

then she forgot it in the lilt of the usual dulcet words:

"Did you like my concert, mother dear?"

The phrase had now become a formula which they repeated laughingly like

the refrain of a song. Of all the hours of the rushing turbulent day,

this was the hour of joy for Nancy. Anne-Marie, who was elfish and

impish, made strange by her music, and made wild by the worship of many

people, in this one hour became a little tender child again, softer and

sweeter than the day-time Anne-Marie, nearer and more human than the

concert Anne-Marie, who was a strange, inaccessible being that Nancy

sometimes thought could not really belong to her.

Fraeulein and Bemolle followed them in another carriage. No one since the

impresario had ever dared to intrude upon this sacred starlit hour of

their love.

Did Nancy's heart ever regret her own hopes of glory? Did she remember

her unwritten Book? Did she feel the wounded place of the wings that she

had torn out? Never! She lived for Anne-Marie and in Anne-Marie. Little

by little the chimera of inspiration drew away from her. She forgot that

she had once clasped Fame to her own breast. No words, no visions, no

dreams haunted her any more. She breathed in the music Anne-Marie

played. She dreamed the music Anne-Marie composed. The Pied Piper had

passed her; his call dragged at her soul no more. The eagle of her

genius no more shook and shattered her with the wild beating of his

wings. She was like the Silent Violin--the music that her soul had not

sung was dead.

XXV

It was in Paris that what Nancy had so often vaguely dreaded and

expected happened at last. She was alone in the hotel in her own quiet

sitting-room when the lift-boy knocked at the door, and on her careless

response a visitor was ushered in. It was Aldo--Aldo with a square beard

and a dangling eyeglass, hat in hand, and faultlessly attired.

He stood before her, gazing at her face. Then he put his hat on a chair,

extended both hands, and said in a deep, fervent voice:

"Nancy!"

Nancy had risen with quick, indrawn breath, and stood, slim and pale, in

her soft-tinted dressing-gown. He took another step towards her, still

with both hands outstretched. Nancy put out a diffident hand, and her

husband clasped it fervently in both his own. On his little finger was a

diamond ring. He bent his sleek black head over Nancy's hand and kissed

it.

"Thank God!" he murmured, and sank into a chair.

Nancy wondered what he was thanking God for. Aldo himself was not very

clear about it, but it seemed an appropriate thing to say. And he had

nothing else ready. The embarrassing silence was broken by Aldo. He

said:

"Nancy, I have returned!"

Nancy said, "Yes," and thought disconnected thoughts about his beard and

his diamond ring.

"You have thought cruel thoughts of me during all this time?"

No, Nancy had not thought cruel thoughts.

"You have left off loving me?"

Nancy looked at him with vague, dazed eyes, and smiled without knowing

why. Aldo tried not to notice the smile. He said:

"Will you never forgive me?"

"Oh yes, I suppose so," said Nancy; and she smiled again.

She thought it funny that this strange man with the square beard and the

dangling eyeglass should be asking her to forgive him, and questioning

her about love. Nothing about him seemed in the least familiar. His

hair, that used to be parted in the middle, now waved back from his

forehead; his fan-shaped beard altered his face and made him look like a

Frenchman; even his hat, square and high and narrow-rimmed, lying on her

chair, had in it an element of utter strangeness.

"What are you laughing at?" said Aldo. And some tone of offended vanity

in his voice startled her memory, and suddenly it was up and awake.

"I am not laughing," said Nancy, and she began to cry. That was the

attitude that Aldo had expected, and knew how to cope with. A cold,

light-eyed woman with an ambiguous smile was an uncomfortable and

uncertain thing. But a woman in tears was a sight he had often seen, and

he understood the meaning of the bowed head and the significance of the

hidden face. He was beside her, his arm round her narrow shoulders.

"Nancy, don't cry, don't cry! I have been a brute. But I will atone. I

will repay you in happiness a thousandfold for all that you have

suffered!"

Still she wept with her face hidden in her hands.

"I am rich. I have more money than we shall know how to spend."

The heaving shoulders stopped heaving. They seemed to be waiting,

listening. There was distrust in those waiting shoulders, so he hurried

out:

"It is all right. I have not gambled or done anything disreputable. The

money has been left to me"--still the shoulders waited--"by a--by--an

old person whom I befriended. She has died and left me her money. I

deserved it. I was very good to her--"

The shoulders heaved again in a deep sigh. Relief? Despair? Aldo was

uncertain.

"So all your troubles are at an end, Nancy. I have settled enough on you

and the child, so that you need no more exploit Anne-Marie."

Nancy started up and away from him. "Exploit Anne-Marie!"... Exploit

Anne-Marie! Was that what he thought? Was that what other people

thought?--that she was _exploiting Anne-Marie_?

Nancy covered her face again and burst into wild, uncontrollable sobs of

grief. She cried loud, like a child, and Aldo felt that these were not

the tears that he was used to and understood.

In these tears were all Nancy's broken hopes and lost aspirations, all

that she had sacrificed and stifled and tried with prayers and fastings,

for Anne-Marie's sake, not to regret. Her work, her Book, her hopes of

Fame, her dreams of Glory, all that she had given up for love of

Anne-Marie, laid down for Anne-Marie's little feet to trample on, stood

up in her memory like murdered things. She remembered the beating wings

of her own genius that she had torn out in order not to impede

Anne-Marie in her flight, and the wounds burned and bled again.

"I have not been exploiting Anne-Marie," she said, raising her

tear-merged eyes to Aldo. "All that she has earned in her concerts has

been put away for her. It is sacrosanct. No one has touched it."

"Then how have you lived?" he said.

"I have borrowed money," she said defiantly and angrily. "A lot of

money, which I shall repay when I can."

"From whom?" asked Aldo. Nancy did not answer.

"You can repay it now," said Aldo, frowning. And then he was silent.

The frivolous hotel clock struck four in tinkling chimes.

"Where is Anne-Marie?" asked Aldo, in a low voice.

"She is out." And Nancy's face grew hard as stone. "I do not want her to

see you. She is not to be excited and upset."

"Nancy!"--and Aldo's nostrils went white--"you must let me see her. I

have longed for her day and night for the past three years. I have

thought of nothing else. I have lain awake hours every night planning

the meeting with her. When I should be free, when I should be

rich"--Nancy flinched and shivered--"I thought of finding you struggling

and in need. And I planned our meeting. I was going to send something to

her--with no name--every day for a week beforehand, every day something

better than the day before. The first day only a box of sweets, or of

toys. Then a cageful of singing birds. Then a bankbook with money, and

the last day"--Aldo's eyes were full of tears now, but Nancy's were dry

and hard--"it was to be a pony-carriage with two white ponies and a

stiff little groom sitting behind"--Aldo's voice broke--"and that was to

fetch you both away, away from poverty, and misery, and loneliness, and

bring you back to me!"

Aldo covered his face with his hands, and his tears fell over the

diamond ring.

"Then I heard ... I read ... about Anne-Marie ... and I would not go to

hear her. I could not go, I could not sit alone ... and see my own

little girl ... standing there ... playing to a thousand strangers ...

while I, her father----" He became incoherent with grief.

"And I have never heard her, never heard her," he sobbed.

Nancy's lips were shut, and her heart was shut. She did not speak.

Aldo looked at her through his swimming orbs, and wished that she would

weep too. He spoke in a broken whisper.

"Am I not to be forgiven? Can we not all be happy again?"

"No," said Nancy.

"Do you mean never?" asked Aldo, and his beard worked strangely.

"Never," said Nancy, and a shudder of dislike tightened her elbows to

her side.

Then Aldo raved and wept. He had dreamed of this meeting for three

years; he had always loved her; he had always loved Anne-Marie; he had

done what he had done for her sake and for Anne-Marie; he had saved, and

skimped, and schemed for her and for Anne-Marie; he could not have lived

but for the thought of her and of Anne-Marie; and he would not live a

day longer unless it were with her and with Anne-Marie!

As he spoke thus it was truth, and became truer while he said it, and

while he saw her and felt that she would never be anything in his life

again.

"Oh, Nancy! Nancy! Nancy!" He grasped her cold, limp hand, and crushed

it in his own. "You will let me see Anne-Marie. You cannot refuse it! I

shall abide by what she says. If she does not want me I will go away.

But if she wants me--if she remembers me and says that I may

stay--promise me that you will let me! Promise! promise! I will not

leave you--I will not leave you until you promise!"

Nancy would not promise.

"Nancy, remember how we loved each other! Remember the days on Lake

Maggiore! Remember when you were writing your Book, and you used to read

it to me in the evening with your head against my arm. Remember

everything, Nancy, and promise that I may see Anne-Marie, and that if

she is willing you will let me stay. Promise, Nancy, promise!"

But Nancy would not promise.

"Nancy, have you forgotten the hard times in New York? The hunger and

the misery we went through together? For the sake of those dark days,

the days in the old Schmidls' house, and in the little flat; for the

sake of my dreary little dark room, that I have since so often longed

for and regretted, because I could see you and the child asleep through

the open door ... will you not promise, Nancy?"

No; Nancy could not promise.

"Do you remember when Anne-Marie had the measles?" sobbed Aldo. "And

she would only eat the food I cooked?... And she would only go to sleep

if she held my finger and I sang, 'Celeste Aida!' to her?... Will you

remember that, and will you promise?"

Nancy remembered that. And she promised.

They sat waiting for Anne-Marie to come back from her walk. Neither

spoke; but Aldo took a little picture-postcard of Anne-Marie with her

violin that lay on the table, and held it in his hand, gazing at it with

his elbow on his knee. Then his head drooped, and he sat with his

forehead pressed against the little picture.

The unconscious Arbiter of Destinies came running along the hotel

passage with a balloon from the Bon Marche tied to her wrist. It was a

large red balloon with the words "Bon Marche" in gold letters on it, and

it had caused Fraeulein intense mortification as she had walked beside it

down the Boulevard des Italiens to the hotel.

"People will recognize you," she had said to Anne-Marie in the street,

"and they will not take you and your music seriously any more. It is not

for a great artist to walk about with a stupid balloon."

"It is not stupider than any other balloon," said Anne-Marie, slapping

its red inflated head, and watching it ascend slowly to the length of

its string. Then she pulled it down again, and a slight puff of wind

made it knock lightly against Fraeulein's cheek.

Fraeulein was exceedingly vexed. "I cannot imagine how any one who plays

the Beethoven Sonata--"

"Which Sonata?" asked Anne-Marie, who was an adept at changing the

conversation. "The Kreutzer or the Fruehling? I prefer the Kreutzer."

Then she forcibly inserted her fingers under Fraeulein's hard and

resisting arm, and trotted gaily beside her. The balloon bumped lightly

against Fraeulein's hat, but Fraeulein did not mind; she merely said that

she would have preferred if "Louvre" had been written on it instead of

"Bon Marche," which looked so cheap.

Anne-Marie now entered the sitting-room, balloon in hand. Fraeulein,

seeing a visitor there, withdrew to her room.

Anne-Marie was used to people calling on her and waiting for her. She

put out a small warm hand to the stranger, who had started to his feet,

and was looking at her with vehement, tearful eyes.... Anne-Marie had

seen many strangers and many tearful eyes. She was not moved or

surprised.

"Bon jour," she said, judging by the beard.

Then she went to her mother. "Look at my balloon, Liebstes," she said,

slipping the string off her wrist. The balloon rose quickly and gently,

and before it could be stopped it was knock-knocking against the

ceiling. Anne-Marie's despairing eyes followed it. The room was high.

The piece of string hung beyond human reach. Then the man with the beard

took her hand, and said:

"Anne-Marie!"

Anne-Marie drew her hand away, rubbing it lightly against her dress.

He again said: "Anne-Marie!" in a hoarse voice, with his hands clasped

together. "Look at me," he said, and the blue eyes obediently left the

ceiling and rested on his face. "Do you remember me?"

"Yes," said Anne-Marie promptly and unveraciously. She had often been

chided by Fraeulein for saying an abrupt "no" on these occasions. "It is

rude to say 'no' and it hurts people's feelings. You must say: 'I am

not sure ... I think I remember ...' Fraeulein had admonished. "Oh, if I

must not say no, I had better say yes," said Anne-Marie, who believed in

being brief. And so she did on this occasion.

The hot blood had rushed like a flame to Aldo's face. He dropped upon

his knee and took her hands, pressing them to his eyes, and to his

forehead, and to his lips. "My little girl! My little girl!" he said,

and the quick southern tears flowed. Anne-Marie said to herself: "He

must be a German musician." Only German musicians had been as

demonstrative as this. And she looked round to her mother, but her

mother's face was turned away.

"May I stay--may I stay, Anne-Marie? You don't want me to go away again,

do you? Tell your mother that you want me to stay with you and take care

of you!"

Now it was for Anne-Marie to be bewildered.

"I don't want to be taken care of, thank you," she said, as politely as

she could.

Aldo laughed through his tears. "Dear, funny little child of mine," he

cried, kissing her hand and her sleeve.

Anne-Marie was matter-of-fact. "Good-bye," she said decisively. "If you

want an autograph, I will give you one."

Aldo caught her by both arms, gazing into her face with blurred eyes.

"Anne-Marie! Anne-Marie! you said you remembered me! Don't you know who

I am? Don't you remember your father, Anne-Marie, who used to sing

'Celeste Aida, forma divina' to you when you were ill, and who took you

to see the squirrels in the park? Anne-Marie, don't you remember me?"

Anne-Marie's underlip trembled. She shook her head. Aldo rose from his

knees. He turned away and hid his face in his hands.

Anne-Marie tiptoed to her mother's side, and nestled in her encircling

arm. Then her eyes wandered upwards in search of the balloon. There it

was, close to the ceiling. Anne-Marie thought that it looked smaller

than it was before. She wondered how she would ever get it down again.

Nancy had turned her face--a pinched white face that also looked

smaller, thought Anne-Marie--towards her, and spoke in a low voice.

"Anne-Marie, he is your father."

"Is he?" said Anne-Marie, glancing at the tall figure with the sloping

shoulders and the hidden face, and then at the hat on the chair.

"Shall he stay with us?" questioned Nancy under her breath.

"With us two?" asked Anne-Marie, with round, troubled eyes, and

remembering the impresario.

"With us two."

"For always?" and Anne-Marie's eyes were larger and more troubled.

"For always," said Nancy.

Anne-Marie glanced at the man again and at the hat again. Then she put

her cheek against her mother's arm, as she always did, when she asked a

favour. "Rather not, Liebstes," she whispered.

The Arbiter had spoken.

Aldo said only a few words more to Nancy. He placed his hands on

Anne-Marie's head, and looked at her a long time. Then he turned

suddenly, took up his square hat, and left the room.

"That was a strange man," said Anne-Marie. "Was he really my father?"

Nancy, with pale lips, said: "Yes."

"Are you sure?" questioned Anne-Marie, raising her eyes to the balloon.

"Yes, dear," said Nancy; and her tears fell.

Suddenly Anne-Marie flew to the door. "Father!" she cried in a shrill

treble voice.

Aldo, on the stairs, heard and stood still. His hand gripped the

bannisters, his heart leaped to his throat.

"Father!"

He turned slowly, doubtingly.

"Father!" came the treble voice again; and he mounted the steps, and

went trembling and stumbling along the passage. Anne-Marie was standing

at the door.

"Do you think," she said, "you could catch my balloon before you go?"

* * * * *

He caught her balloon. Then he went--out of the

room, out of their lives, out of the story.

XXVI

* * * * *

"MINA DE L'AGUA.

"Nancy,--The years and the yearning are over. I am leaving for Europe.

You will come to meet me in Genoa; and we shall sit on the balcony where

three years ago you told me of your Book, which you feared would die

like a babe unborn in your breast.

"I am coming to take you to Porto Venere, 'white in the

sunshine--tip-tilted over the sea'; and the Book shall live at last.

"And we, also, shall live. Oh, Nancy, Nancy! I have been a silent and a

lonely man so long, that my love has no words, my happiness no language.

Even now I can hardly believe that the years of exile and solitude are

over. But I know that you, having loved me once, still love me and will

love me. I know that your heart is not a heart that changes, and that

the words that drew you to me across the ocean three years ago will

bring you to me again. Nancy, come to me. To my empty arms, to my sad

and solitary heart, Nancy, come at once. And for ever."

* * * * *

"DEAR OGRE, dear friend and love of mine, your call has shaken my soul.

All my longings, all my dreams, have joined their voices with yours,

crying to me to go to you. Alas! a little prayer that Fraeulein used to

make me say when I was a child whispers to me, and its small voice

drowns the cry of my desires. It is the prayer of the Three Angels that

stand round one's bed in the night:

"'One holds my hands, One holds my feet,

And the Third One holds my heart.'

"Can I come to you when I am thus bound--bound hands and feet by Law and

Church? My small conventional soul shrinks from the unlawful and the

forbidden.

"But, believe me, were I free as air, were my hands unbound to lie in

yours, my feet unloosed to fly to you, the Third Angel remains. 'And the

Third One holds my heart.' Anne-Marie is the Third Angel. Anne-Marie

holds my heart. How could I bring her with me? Think and reply for me.

How could I leave her? Think and reply. Dear Ogre, I am one of the

Devoured. Little Anne-Marie has devoured me, and it is right that it

should be so; she has absorbed me, and I am glad; she has consumed me,

and I am grateful. For it is in the nature of things that to these lives

given to us, our lives should be given. What matter that I fall back

into the shadow--my course not run, my goal not reached, my mission

unfulfilled? Anne-Marie will have what I have missed; Anne-Marie will

reach the completeness that has failed me; for her will be the heights I

have not conquered, the Glory I have not attained.

"Oh, lover and friend of mine, understand and forgive me. There is no

room for love in my life. My life is full of haste and turmoil, full of

Kings and Queens, full of rushing trains, and shouting voices, and

clapping hands....

"Can you not see it all as in a picture--the Pied Piper whistling and

dancing on ahead; little Anne-Marie, Fame-drunken, music-struck,

whirlwinding after him; and I following them in breathless, palpitant

haste, leaving all that was once mine behind me--my Books, my Dreams, my

Love?... Love in the picture is not a rose-crowned god of laughter and

passion. Love is a lonely figure, lonely and stern and sad. Oh, love,

forgive me, and understand! And say good-bye--good-bye to Nancy!"

* * * * *

He forgave her, and understood, and said good-bye to Nancy.

XXVII

The days swung on. And they swung Anne-Marie from triumph to triumph.

And they poured sunshine into her hair, and sea-shine into her eyes. And

they reared her into fulgent maidenhood, as a white lily is reared on a

fragile stem.

They swung Nancy back into the shadow where mothers sit with gentle

hands folded, and eyes whose tears no one counts. She learned to forget

that she had even known a poem about "La belle qui veut, la belle qui

n'ose, ceuillir les roses du jardin bleu!" The blue garden of youth

closed its gates silently behind her, and the roses that Nancy's hand

had not gathered would bloom for her no more.

But for Anne-Marie, when the time was ripe, the Pied Piper tossed his

flute to another Player. Anne-Marie stood still and listened to the new

call--the far-away call of Love. Soon she faltered, and turned and

followed the silver-toned call of Love.

* * * * *

XXVIII

The carriage that was to take the bride and bridegroom to the station

was waiting in the Tuscan sunlight, surrounded by the laughing,

impatient crowd. As Anne-Marie appeared--her rose-lit face half hidden

in her furs, her travelling-hat poised lightly at the back of her

shining head--the crowd shouted and cheered, just as it had always done

after her concerts. And she smiled and nodded, and said, "Good-bye!

Good-bye! Thank you, and good-bye!" just as she always did at the close

of her concerts. The bridegroom, tall and serious beside her, would have

liked to hurry her into the carriage, but she took her hand from his arm

and stopped, turning and smiling to the right and to the left, shaking

hands with a hundred people who knew her and loved and blessed her. With

one foot on the carriage-step, she still nodded and smiled and waved her

hand. Then the young husband lifted her in, jumped in beside her, and

shut the carriage-door. Cheers and shouts and waving hats followed them

as the horses, striking fire from their hoofs, broke into a gallop, and

carried them down the street and out of sight.

... Nancy had not left the house. She had not gone to the window. She

could hear the cheers and the laughter, and for a moment she pictured

herself with Anne-Marie in the carriage, driving home after the

concerts--Anne-Marie still nodding, first out of one window, then out of

the other, laughing, waving her hand; then falling into her mother's

arms with a little sigh of delight. At last they were alone--alone after

all the crowd--in the darkness and the silence, after all the noise and

light. And Anne-Marie's hand was in hers; Anne-Marie's soft hair was on

her breast. Again the well-known dulcet tones: "Did you like my concert,

Liebstes? Are you happy, mother dear?" Then silence all the way

home--home to strange hotels, no matter in what town or in what land. It

was always home, for they were together.

Nancy stepped to the window, both hands held tightly to her heart. The

road was empty. The house was empty. The world was empty. Then she

cried, loud and long--cried, stretching her arms out before her,

kneeling by the window: "Oh, my little girl! My own child! What shall I

do? What shall I do?"

But there was nothing left for Nancy to do.

* * * * *

Now it was late. Her Book was dead. Her child had left her. And the blue

garden was closed.