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diff --git a/17841.txt b/17841.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f670bc --- /dev/null +++ b/17841.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4856 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Flute-Player, by +Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Old Flute-Player + A Romance of To-day + +Author: Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey + +Illustrator: Clarence Rowe and J. Knowles Hare, Jr. + +Release Date: February 23, 2006 [EBook #17841] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FLUTE-PLAYER *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: Anna _Frontispiece_] + + + The Old Flute-Player + + A Romance of To-day + + + + BY + + EDWARD MARSHALL + + AND + + CHARLES T. DAZEY + + + + _Illustrations by_ + + CLARENCE ROWE + + + _Frontispiece by_ + + J. KNOWLES HARE, JR. + + + G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY + PUBLISHERS NEW YORK + + + + _Copyright, 1910, By_ + + G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +Anna _Frontispiece_ + +Almost instantly the Italian bully was sprawling in the scuppers and +Vanderlyn had raised the old man to his feet + +It was as if the "sweet birds singing in his heart" had risen and were +perched, all twittering and cooing, chirping, carolling upon his lips + +"She is not guilty! No; it is I--I--I!" + + + + +The Old Flute-Player + +CHAPTER I + + +Herr Kreutzer was a mystery to his companions in the little London +orchestra in which he played, and he kept his daughter, Anna, in such +severe seclusion that they little more than knew that she existed and +was beautiful. Not far from Soho Square, they lived, in that sort of +British lodgings in which room-rental carries with it the privilege of +using one hole in the basement-kitchen range on which to cook food +thrice a day. To the people of the lodging-house the two were nearly +as complete a mystery as to the people of the orchestra. + +"Hi sye," the landlady confided to the slavey, M'riar, "that Dutch +toff in the hattic, 'e's somethink in disguise!" + +"My hye," exclaimed the slavey, who adored Herr Kreutzer and intensely +worshiped Anna. She jumped back dramatically. "_Not bombs!_" + +The neighborhood was used to linking thoughts of bombs with thoughts +of foreigners whose hair hung low upon their shoulders as, beyond a +doubt, Herr Kreutzer's did, so M'riar's guess was not absurd. England +offers refuge to the nightmares of all Europe's political indigestion. +Soho offers most of them their lodgings. For years M'riar had been +vainly waiting, with delicious fear, for that terrific moment when she +should discover a loaded bit of gas-pipe in some bed as she yanked off +the covers. Now real drama seemed, at last, to be coming into her dull +life. Somethink in disguise--Miss Anna's father! She hoped it was +_not_ bombs, for bombs _might_ mean trouble for him. She resolved that +should she see a bobby trying to get up into the attic she would pour +a kettleful of boiling water on him. + +The landlady relieved her, somewhat, by her comment of next moment. +"'E's too mild fer bombs by 'arf," she said, with rich disgust. +"Likelier 'e's drove away, than that 'e's one as wishes 'e could +drive. _Hi_ sye, fer guess, that 'e's got titles, an' sech like, but's +bean cashiered." (The landlady had had a son disgraced as officer of +yeomanry and used a military term which, to her mind, meant exiled.) +"'E's got that look abaht 'im of 'avin' bean fired hout." + +"No fault o' 'is, then," said the slavey quickly, voicing her earnest +partisanship without a moment's wait. She even looked at her employer +with a belligerent eye. + +"'E _doos_ pye reg'lar," the landlady admitted with an air which +showed that she had more than once had tenants who did not. + +"Judgin' from 'is manners an' kind 'eart 'e _might_ be _princes_," +said the slavey, drawing in her breath exactly as she would if +sucking a ripe orange. + +"An' 'is darter might be princesses!" exclaimed the landlady with a +sniff. Quite plainly she did not approve of the seclusion in which +Herr Kreutzer kept his daughter. "Five years 'ave them two lived 'ere +in this 'ere 'ouse, an' not five times 'as that there man let that +there 'aughty miss stir hout halone!" + +"'Ow 'eavingly!" sighed the maid, who never, in her life, had been +cared for, at all, by anyone. + +"'Ow fiddlesticks!" the landlady replied. "You'd think she might be +waxworks, liable to melt if sun-shone-on! Fer _me_, _Hi_ says that +them as is too fine for Soho houghtn't to be _livin'_ 'ere. That's +w'at _Hi_ says--halthough 'e pyes as reg'lar as clockworks." + +"Clockworks fawther with a waxworks darter!" cried the slavey, who had +a taste for humor of a kind. "Th' one 'ud stop if t'other melted. +_That's_ sure." + +"'E hidolizes 'er that much hit mykes me think o' Roman Catholics an' +such," the landlady replied. + +Then, for a time, she paused in thought, while the slavey lost herself +in dreams that, possibly, she had been serving and been worshiping a +real princess. As the height of the ambition of all such as she, in +London, is to be humble before rank, the mere thought filled her with +delight and multiplied into the homage of a subject for an over-lord +the love she felt already for the charming German girl of whom they +spoke. + +"She _might_ be," said the landlady, at length. + +"W'at? Princesses?" inquired the wistful slavey. + +The landlady looked shrewdly at her. It might be that by thus +confiding to the servant her own speculations as to her lodgers' +rank, she had been sowing seed of some extravagance. Hypnotized by the +idea, the slavey might slip to the two mysterious Germans, sometime, +something which would not be charged upon the bill! "Nothink of the +sort!" she cried, therefore, hastily. "An' don't you never tyke no +coals to 'em that you don't tell abaht--you 'ear?" + +The slavey promised, but the seed was sown. From that time on full +many a small attention fell to the Herr Kreutzer and his pretty, +gentle-mannered, dark-haired, big-eyed Anna of which the landlady knew +nothing, and many a dream of romance did the smutted slavey's small, +sad eyes see in the kitchen fire on lonely evenings while she was +waiting for the last lodger to come in before she went to bed behind +the kindlings-bin. And the central figures of these dreams were, +always, the beautiful young German girl and her dignified, +independent, shabby, courteous old father. + +In the small orchestra where Kreutzer played, he made no friends among +the other musical performers; when the manager of the dingy little +theatre politely tried to pump him as to details of his history he +managed to evade all answers in the least illuminating, although he +never failed to do so with complete politeness. + +All that really was known of him was that he had arrived in London, +years ago, with only two possessions which he seemed to value, and, +indeed, but two which were worth valuing. One of these, of course, was +his exquisite young daughter, then a little child; the other was his +wonderful old flute. The daughter he secluded with the jealous care of +a far-eastern parent; the flute he played upon with an artistic skill +unequalled in the history of orchestras in that small theatre. + +With it he could easily have found a place in the best orchestra in +London, but, apparently, he did not care to offer such a band his +services. On the one or two occasions when a "cruising listener" for +the big orchestras came to the little theatre, heard the old man's +masterful performance, found himself enthralled by it and made the +marvelous flute-player a rich offer, the old man refused peremptorily +even to talk the matter over with him--to the great delight of the +small manager, who was paying but a pittance for his splendid work. + +So anxious did Herr Kreutzer seem to be to keep from winning notice +from the outside world, indeed, that when a stranger who might +possibly be one of those explorers after merit in dim places appeared +there in the little theatre, the other members of the orchestra felt +quite sure of wretched playing from the grey-haired flutist. If it +chanced that they had noticed no such stranger, but yet Herr Kreutzer +struck false notes persistently, they all made sure that they had +missed the entrance of the "cruiser," searched the audience for him +with keen and speculative eyes and played their very best, certain +that the man was there and hopeful of attracting the attention and the +approbation which the old flute-player shunned. More than one had thus +been warned, to their great good. + +And Herr Kreutzer, on such evenings, was privileged to strike false +notes with painful iteration, even to the actual distress of auditors, +without a word of criticism from the leader or the manager. +Excruciating discord from the flute, on three or four nights of a +season, was accepted as part payment for such playing, upon every +other night, as seldom had been heard from any flute in any orchestra +in London or elsewhere. + +The theatre saw very little of the daughter. Once at the beginning of +the run of every fit new play, the flute-player requested of the +manager a box and always got it. In this box, on such occasions, his +daughter sat in solitary state, enjoying with a childish fervor the +mumming of the actors on the stage, the story of the play, the music +of the orchestra. Such glimpses, only, had the theatre of her. Her +father never introduced her to an attache of the establishment. Once, +after she had grown into magnificent young womanhood, he very angrily +refused an earnest supplication for an introduction from the manager, +himself. On the nights when she came to the theatre he took her to the +box, before the overture began, and she sat there, quite alone, until +he went to her after the audience had been "played out." + +His own exclusiveness was very nearly as complete. He formed no +intimacies among the members of the orchestra with whom he played +eight times a week, although his face showed, sometimes, that he +yearned to join their gossip, in the stuffy little room beneath the +stage, which housed them when they were not in their places in the +crowded space "in front" allotted to them. + +"_Tiens!_" said the Frenchman who played second-violin. "Ze ol' man +have such fear zat we should wiss to spik us wiz 'is daughtaire, zat +'e trit us lak we 'ave a seeckness catchable!" + +It was almost true. He did avoid the chance of making her acquainted +with any of the folk with whom his daily routine threw him into +contact, with a care which might suggest a fear of some sort of +contagion for her. But not all the members of the orchestra resented +it. The drummer (who also played the triangle and tambourine when need +was, imitated railway noises with shrewd implements, pumped an +auto-horn when motor-cars were supposed to be approaching or departing +"off-stage" and made himself, in general, a useful man on all +occasions) was his firm friend and partisan. + +"Garn, Frawgs!" he sneered, to the resentful Frenchman. "Yer 'yn't fit +ter sye ther time o' dye ter 'er; yer knows yer 'yn't." + +"Wat? To ze daughtaire of a flute!" the Second-Violin replied. "W'y--" + +"Garn!" said the drummer. "Sye, yer myke me sick! You, with yer +black-'aired fyce an' paytent boots! Hi bean 'ammerin' 'ide in +horchestras since me tenth birthdye, but Hi knows a hangel w'en Hi +sees one, an' lawst night Hi missed a 'ole bar on the snare fer +lookin' up at 'er just once. Hi never see a brunette look so +habsolutely hinnocent. Th' Ol' Nick's peekin' out o' brunettes' faces, +somew'eres, mostly. Don't know w'at she myde me think of--m'ybe +wreaths o' roses red an' pink, an' m'ybe crowns o' di'mun's--but Hi +missed a 'ole bar on th' snare fer thinking somethink." + +"_Tiens!_" the Frenchman began scornfully. "He is too much--" + +"Garn!" said the drummer, threateningly, and it may be that the tinkle +of the "ready" bell prevented something more than words between them, +for the drummer, at the time, was holding the bass-drum-stick. He +could have struck a mighty blow with it. + +Just when the thought of leaving for America first began to grow in +Kreutzer's mind, it would be hard to say, but it took definite form +immediately subsequent to the London visit of a Most Exalted Personage +from Prussia. On the last day of this Most Exalted Personage's stay +Herr Kreutzer was enjoying, with his Anna, the long Sunday twilight in +Hyde Park. They often strolled there of a Sunday evening. The Most +Exalted Personage, being in a democratic mood and wishful of seeing +London and its people quietly, was also strolling in Hyde Park and met +the father and the daughter, face to face. + +There was nothing, so far as Anna saw, about the stranger in plain +_mufti_, to make her father drop his head, pull down his hat and +hurry on, almost as if in sudden panic, dragging her by a slender +wrist clasped in a hand which trembled; but he did do all these +things, while the queer gentleman with the upturned moustaches (Anna +had no notion who he was) stopped stonestill in his stroll and gazed +after them with puzzled eyes in which a semi-recognition and a very +lively curiosity seemed growing. + +"Who is he, father?" Anna asked, in English, which the father much +preferred to German from her lips and which she spoke with carefully +exact construction, but with charming rolling of the r's and hissing +of the s's. Her accent was much more pronounced than his, due, +doubtless, to the fact that while he went daily to his little corner +of the English world to earn their living, her seclusion was complete. +She saw few English save M'riar and the landlady--whose accent never +tempted her to imitation. "He seemed to know you," she went on. "He +seemed to wish, almost, to speak with you, but seemed to feel not +positive that you _were_ you." + +Kreutzer gave her a quick glance, then seemed to pull himself together +with an effort. He assumed a carefully surprised air. "Who is he? Who +is who, mine liebschen?" + +"The gentleman from whom you ran away?" + +"I run!" said Kreutzer, doubling his demeanor of astonishment as if in +total ignorance of what she meant. "I run! Why should I run, my Anna? +Why should I run from anybody?" + +The daughter looked at him and sighed and then she looked at him and +smiled, and said no more. So many times, in other days, had things +like this occurred; so many times had she been quite unable to get any +lucid exposition from him of the strange occurrences, that, lately, +she never probed him for an explanation. She well knew, in advance, +that she would get none, and was unwilling to compel him into laboring +evasions. But such matters sorely puzzled her. + +She did not learn, therefore, that the tall and handsome man who had +so curiously stared at them was the Exalted Personage; she did not +learn why it had been that from him Kreutzer had fled swiftly with +her, obviously worrying intensely lest they might be followed. She did +not know why, later, she was in closer espionage than ever. Two or +three days afterwards, when Kreutzer came in with his pockets full of +steamship time-tables and emigration-agents' folders, she did not +dream that it was that the Most Exalted Personage had cast his eyes +upon them, rather than the fact that wonderful advantages were +promised to the emigrant by all this steamship literature, which had +made him make a wholly unexpected plan to go from London and to cross +the mighty sea. He swore her to close secrecy. + +It was with the utmost difficulty that she concealed their destination +from the landlady and from the slavey who assisted her in packing the +small trunks which held their all. She was always glad of anything +which made it absolutely necessary for them to be with her, for her +father, long ago, had told her not to ask them into their small rooms +when their presence there was not imperatively needed. She was and had +been, ever since she could remember clearly, very lonely, full of +longing for companionship--so very full of longing that, had he not +commanded it, she would not have been, as he was, particular about the +social status of the friends she made. + +Even poor M'riar's love was very sweet and dear to her, and now, as +she was packing for departure the meagre garments of her wardrobe, her +scanty little fineries, the few small keepsakes she had hoarded of +the pitifully scarce bright days of her life (almost every one of +these a gift from her old father, token of a birth-or feast-day) it +was with a sudden burst of tears, a rushing, overwhelming feeling of +anticipatory loneliness, that she looked at the grimy little child who +was assisting her. + +M'riar fell back on her haunches with a gasp. "Garn!" she cried. +"Garn, Miss! Don't yer dare to beller!" + +A stranger might have thought she was impertinent, for "garn" on +cockney lips means "go on, now," in the slang of the United States, +and "beller" is not elegant, but Anna knew that she did not intend an +impudence. + +"I feel very sad at leaving you, M'ri-arrr." There was pathos, now, in +the way Miss Anna rolled her r's. + +"Sad! Huh! Hi thinks Hi'll die of it!" was the reply, accompanied by +more choked sobs and many snuffles. "An' yer won't heven tell me +w'ere yer hoff to!" + +"I don't know, exactly, where we're off to M'ri-arrr. Somewhere very +far--oh, very far!" + +M'riar, in spite of a firm resolution not to yield to tears, cast +herself upon the floor in anguish, and, as she kicked and howled, +grasped one of Anna's hands and kissed it, mumbling it, as an +anguished mother might a babe's--the hand of an exceedingly loved babe +whom she expected, soon, to lose by having given it to someone in +adoption. + +At that time M'riar looked upon the separation as inevitable. The wild +scheme which, afterwards, grew in her alert and worried brain, had not +yet had its birth and she could not take the thought of her Miss +Anna's going with composure. + +"Hi didn't want ter 'oller," she said, at length, when she had +regained her self-control, "but that there yell hinside o' me was +bigger'n Hi 'ad room fer, Miss." + +"It is very sweet of you to weep," said Anna gravely, "although it is +not sweet to _hear_ you weep; but I think it means you love me, +M'ri-arrr, doesn't it?" + +"Hi fair wusships yer," said M'riar. "Fair wusships yer." + +And there was a strange thing about Miss Anna. It did not in the least +surprise her to be told with an undoubted earnestness, indeed to know, +that she was literally worshiped as a goddess might be. There was +something in her blood which made this seem quite right and proper. +She looked at the poor slavey with the kind eyes of a princess gazing +at a weeping subject, whose suffering has come through loyalty, and +kindly smiled. + +"It is very nice of you, M'riarr. I am fond of you, M'riarr." + +"I knows yer is; I knows yer is," said M'riar. "Tyke me with yer, +won't yer, Miss?" + +"Oh, I couldn't take you with me," Anna answered, as she laid a kind, +if queenly hand upon the poor thing's cheek. "But you must let me know +just where you are at all times, and, perhaps, some day, I will send +you something to remind you of me." + +"Hi won't need nothink ter remind me, Miss," said M'riar. "Hi'll +remember yer, hall right." + +The next morning came a four-wheeled cab up to the dingy door, to the +vast amazement of the other lodgers, and, indeed, the entire +neighborhood. Into this Herr Kreutzer handed his delightful daughter +with as much consideration as a minister could show a queen, and then, +with courtly bows, climbed in himself, having, with much ceremony, +bade the landlady adieu. Anna cast a keen glance all about, expecting +a last glimpse of M'riar, but had none and was grieved. So soon do +the affections of the lower classes fade! + +After the cab started, the Herr Kreutzer carefully pulled down the +blinds a little way, on both side windows, so that the inside of the +cab was dark enough to make it impossible for wayfarers to note who +was within. + +"Father," said Anna, curiously, "why do you pull down the blinds?" + +"Er--er--mine eyes. The light is--" + +He did not complete the sentence. + +"Father," she asked presently, "why did you change the tickets?" + +"Change the tickets, Anna? I have not changed the tickets." + +"But you told the landlady we were to sail from Southampton. The +tickets, which you showed to me, say Liverpool." + +"A little strategy, mine Anna; just a little strategy." + +"I do not understand." + +"No, liebschen; you do not," he granted gravely. + +A moment later and the cab jounced over a loose paving-block, almost +unseating M'riar from her place on the rear springs. The little scream +she gave attracted the attention of the vehicle's two passengers and +they peered from the window at the rear; but it was small and high and +they did not catch sight through it of the strange, ragged little +figure, with the set, determined face, which was clinging to their +chariot with a desperate tenacity. + +M'riar's feelings would have been difficult of real analysis and she +did not try to analyze them, any more than a devoted dog who +desperately follows his loved master when that master is not cognizant +of it and does not wish it, tries to analyze the dog-emotions which +compel him to cling to the trail. Such a dog knows quite enough, at +such a time, to keep clear of his master's view, although his +following is an expression of his love and though that love is born, +he knows, of like love in his master's heart for him. M'riar was +yielding to an uncontrolled, an uncontrollable impulse of love, and, +though her brain was active with the cunning of the slums, had not the +least idea of combatting it, or letting anything less strong than +actual death would be in its deterrent force, prevent her from obeying +the swift impulse to the very end. She had not taken any of her +mistress' money, when she fled. Her only sin, she told herself, was +leaving without notice. She had only made a little bundle of her own +worn, scanty, extra clothes, which, now, was tied about her waist and +hung beneath the skirt she wore. There were not many of those clothes, +so the dangling bundle did not discommode her when she dodged behind +the cab, ran beside it (on the far side from the lodging-house) till +it turned a corner, and then sought her perch upon its springs +behind. In her mouth were seven golden sovereigns, the hoard of her +whole lifetime, barring some small silver and an Irish one-pound note +stowed in her left stocking. Her right stocking had been darned till +it was nowise to be trusted with one-eighth of her whole wealth. She +had no dimmest thought of whither she was bound; she only knew that +she would go, if Fate permitted, wherever Anna went, to serve her. + +Arrived at the confusion of the railway station known as Waterloo, +Herr Kreutzer helped his Anna from the cab, paid the cabman from his +slender store of silver, hired a porter with another shilling to take +all their luggage to the train and went to get their third-class +railway tickets, keeping, meanwhile, a keen eye for anyone who looked +to be a German of position, and noting with delight that in the crowd +not one pair of moustaches stuck straight up beside its owner's nose. +Slinking after him, at a slight distance, but near enough to hear +quite all he said, came M'riar, and, when he had passed on, bought for +herself a third-class ticket to Southampton. Her keen eyes fixed upon +the backs of the two folk with whom, without their knowledge, she had +cast her fortunes, she then went into the train-shed and found a +place, at length, in the next carriage to the one which they had +entered. Then she trained a wary eye out of the window, to make sure +they did not change their minds and slip out and away without her +knowledge before the train departed. + +On the arrival in Southampton she waited in the railway carriage till +she saw them started down the platform; then, again, she trailed them. +Two minutes after the Herr Kreutzer had purchased steerage tickets on +the _Rochester_ for far America, M'riar had bought one for herself. +When the German and his daughter reached the shore-end of the +slightly-angled gang-plank leading to the steamer's steerage-deck +(close it was beside the steeper one which led up to the higher and +more costly portions of the ship) she was not far behind them, +trailing, watchful, terrified by the ship's mighty warning whistle +which reverberated in the dock-shed till her teeth were set a-chatter +in an agony of fear of the mere noise. + +At this point she nearly lost her self-control and let her quarries +see her, for Herr Kreutzer, in his hurry and excitement, dropped one +of his small hand-bags. Almost she sprang to pick it up for him, +through mere working of her strong instinct to serve him. Indeed, she +would have done so had it not been for a tall and handsome youth. + +This young man's eyes, M'riar had been noting, had been closely fixed +upon the lovely face of Anna, doubly lovely, flushed as it now was by +the excitement of the start of a great journey. He sprang forward, +picked up the handbag and presented it to the old German with a frank +good-fellowship of courtesy which took not the least account of the +mere fact that he, himself, was on the point of stepping to the +gang-plank leading to the first-cabin quarters, while Kreutzer, +obviously, was about to seek the steerage-deck. M'riar, with her +sharp, small eyes, noted that the youth, strong, graceful, tall, +sun-burned and distinctly wholesome of appearance, did not look at +Kreutzer, as he did the little service, but at Anna. + +"Reg'lar toff!" she muttered, gazing at him with frank admiration, +quite impersonal. + +An instant later she saw that when he turned back from the rough, +unpainted gang-plank to the steerage-deck to the more exclusive +bridge, railed, hung with canvas at the sides and carpeted with red, +which led to the first-cabin quarters, a lady seized his arm with a +proprietary grasp and spoke a little crossly to him because he had +delayed to do this tiny service for the pair of steerage passengers. + +"Rg'lar cat!" said M'riar, estimating her as quickly as she had +appraised the youth. "She's 'is mother, but she's catty. Dogs 'ud 'ate +'er, Hi'll go bail." + +Her attention was absorbed, then, by the great problem of getting by +the officer who examined steerage-tickets, without being seen by +Kreutzer and his daughter. + +"W'ere's yer luggage?" asked the officer. + +"Luggage! Huh!" said M'riar. "W'at would _Hi_ want o' _luggage_? Think +Hi'm a hactress startin' hout hon tour?" + +"Tykes six poun' ten to land on t'other side," the officer went on, +suspiciously. "'Yn't got that, nyther, 'ave yer?" + +"Betcher bloomink heye Hi gawt it," said M'riar confidently, and +stooped as if she would pull out her wealth to show him, then and +there. + +"Hin yer stawckin', eh?" the man said grinning. + +That which had been in her mouth was spent for ticket, mostly, but a +little still was in her hand. "W'ere'd yer think Hi'd 'ave it?" she +asked scornfully. "Hin me roight hear?" Then she showed him what was +in her fist. + +"Garn aboard," the man said, grinning. + +"'Yn't I?" she asked briskly, and, seeing that Herr Kreutzer and his +Anna had passed quite out of sight into the ship's mysterious +interior, went up the gang-plank hurriedly, fearing to lose sight of +them. She did not realize that on an impulse she was starting to go a +quarter of the way around the earth. She only knew that love, love +irresistible, supreme, was drawing her to follow where they led. But +notwithstanding that it was pure love which drew her, she told +herself, as she went up the plank: "Hif they ketches me they'll 'eave +me hoverboard an' give me to th' fish, like's not." + +Twenty minutes later the great ship was swinging out into the harbor. +In a dark passage on the steerage-deck cowered M'riar, for the first +time in her life afloat, and wondering why the motion of the vessel +seemed to make her wish to die; her white face, strained, frightened +eyes and trembling hands marking her, to the experienced, +unsympathetic eyes of the stern steerage-stewardess, an early victim +of seasickness. + +"Hi, w'ere's yer ticket?" that fierce female cried, and M'riar showed +it to her, weakly, scarcely caring whether it entitled her to passage +or condemned her to expulsion from the ship by a sharp toss overside. + +"Garn in there," said the stewardess, studying the ticket and its +bearer's symptoms simultaneously. "S'y, yer goin' ter be a nice sweet +passenger to 'ave hon board, now 'yn't yer?" + +"Hi'm goin' ter die," said M'riar with firm conviction and not at all +appalled but rather pleased at thought of it. + +"No such luck fer hus!" the stewardess replied. "Get _in_ there, +cawn't yer, before hit comes quite hon?" + +So M'riar, long before the ship began to definitely feel even the +gentle Channel sea, was thrust into retirement, willy, nilly, and +immediately sought a bunk, absolutely without interest in anything, +even in her own sad fate. All she wished to do was die, at once, and +she had too little energy even to wish that very vividly. Miss Anna, +Herr Kreutzer and the fine young man who had been kind to them, who, +ten minutes earlier, had all been real and potent interests, dimmed +into hazy phantoms of a bygone activity of mind. + +"Oh,--ar-r-r-r-r-r!" M'riar groaned. "Th' bloomink ship is standin' on +'er bloody 'ead, yn't 'er?" + +"Garn! Keep yer 'ead _flat_. Lay _down_," the stewardess replied, "er +_you'll_ be." + +M'riar kept her head flat. + +Out on the open deck, forward of the bridge, where, as well as aft, +the vessel, like many of a bygone type was cut away, leaving the +forward and after railings of the promenade-deck, like the barriers of +a balcony, for the first-cabin passengers to peer across at their less +lucky fellows of the steerage, Herr Kreutzer and his Anna, both +bewildered, stood by their little pile of baggage, waiting for +direction and assistance in searching out their quarters. Surrounding +them a motley group of many nationalities was gathered. There were +Germans, Swedes, some French, some Swiss, a group of heavy-browed and +jowled Hungarians, a few anaemic, underfed young cockneys, and, +dominating all, to the casual eye, because of their bright colors, a +small group of Italians. To these the largest one among them was +making himself clear. + +"I," he was saying, "am Pietro Moresco. I have-a da nice political +posish, an' nice-a barber-shop on Mulberry-a Strit. Some-a day I getta +on da force--da pollis-force. Sure t'ing. I been-a home to see ma +moth. I go-a back to make-a da more mon." He pulled out from his +corded bundle of red quilts and coats and rugs some bottles of cheap +wine. "I getta place for all you men." He was beginning, thus early in +the voyage of these would-be citizens, to prepare to use them in the +politics of his over-crowded ward in New York City. "Come-a! We +drink-a to Americ. We drink-a to New York. New York da mos' reech-a +place." + +Catching sight of the bewildered beauty of poor Anna, and the no less +bewildered dignity of Herr Kreutzer, being dazzled by the former, as +was everyone in sight, and being quite as anxious to make friends +among prospective German citizens as among those of his own country (a +German vote is likely to be useful, now and then, on Mulberry Street) +he offered her a cup, and, as she took it automatically, would have +poured some wine into it with a gallant smile. Kreutzer took the cup +out of her hand and passed it back to him. + +"Bitte," he said, calmly. "I thank you. My daughter does not care for +wine." + +Moresco, angered, gave him a black scowl and took the cup. + +"By Jove," said the youth who had, upon the dock, picked up Herr +Kreutzer's bag. He was standing on the promenade-deck, above, beside +his very, very stately mother, who, over-dressed and full of scorn for +the whole world, was complaining because her doctor's orders had +suggested traveling upon so slow and old a ship. "There's that +stunning little German girl down there. Isn't she a picture? Gee! Her +old man wouldn't let her drink with that black dago--not that she +wanted to. But bully for Professor Pretzel!" "How very vulgar!" said +his mother, looking down at the small, animated scene before her with +disfavor. "Mere immigrants." + +"I s'pose _our_ folks were, sometime," John Vanderlyn replied. "But +isn't she a corker, mother?" + +"John, your language is too shocking! Please see about our +deck-chairs," Mrs. Vanderlyn replied. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Under a brilliant summer sky the ocean heaved in mighty swells. Anna, +on one of the most delightful mornings of this ideal voyage to +America, found the port side of the ship unpleasant, because of the +sun's brilliance. From every tiny facet of the water, which a brisk +breeze crinkled, the light flashed at her eyes with the quick +vividness of electric sparks, and almost blinded her. Not even her +graceful, slender, and (surprising on that steerage-deck) beautifully +white hand, now curved against her brow, could so shade her vision as +to enable her to look upon the sea in search of the far sail which the +lookout in the crow's nest had just reported to the bridge in a long, +droning hail. Her curiosity in the passing stranger had been aroused +by the keen interest which the more fortunately situated, on the +promenade-deck, above, had shown by crowding to their rail. They were, +as she could see from her humbler portion of the ship, talking of the +far craft interestedly; but from her station, owing either to its lack +of altitude or to the more dazzling glitter of the sea, due to the +differing angle of her vision, she failed to catch a glimpse of it. +The glare made her give up the search. + +She shrugged her small, plaid shawl about her shoulders to meet the +wind's now freshening assaults, pulled her knitted hood a little +closer all about her face to hide it, through some sort of instinct +(the first-cabin folk, above, all through the voyage, had been wont to +gaze down on the steerage passengers as if they were a sort of +interesting animals), and made her way across the slowly heaving +planks to starboard. Glancing quickly upward as she went, she colored +gloriously, for looking down straight at her from behind the rail +which edged the elevated platform of the prosperous, stood the youth +who had picked up her father's bag as they had come on board, and +whose eyes, since the first day of the voyage, she had found it wise +to dodge if she would keep the crimson from her cheeks. + +Not that there had been anything, at any time, in the youth's gaze +which could offend; rather had there been in it that which bewitched +and thrilled. There was not another girl upon that steerage-deck who +would not have been immensely pleased by and who would not have shyly +answered his admiring glances, had they turned toward her, although +there probably was not a girl there who was other than quite sweet and +pure. Purity and sweetness are no bars to answering a glance and +giggling. But he paid no heed, at all, to pretty emigrants who would +have been delighted by flirtatious glances. It may, in fact, have been +because of the shy fright, not in the least resentful, but sweetly, +girlishly embarrassed, with which Anna greeted his, whenever her eyes +caught them, that he turned them toward her so exclusively and +frequently. Admiring youth called to admiring youth in surreptitious +glances from the high deck to the lower, and, it may be, from the +steerage-deck up to the promenade. + +But, although she found no slightest thing offensive in the young +man's veiled, approving surveillance, Anna felt almost as if she were +in flight from peril--some brand-new, delightful peril--as, now, she +hurried out of range of it and sought her father where, by the +after-hatch, he perched upon a great coiled cable staring, staring, +staring out across the sea toward Germany, the land to which, a few +days since, although his actual departure had been from English +shores, his heart had said a passionate farewell. + +If Anna, with her graceful form, her delicately-colored, healthful +cheeks, her cleancut and dainty features, offered a strong contrast +to the buxom German maidens, dark, big-eyed Italian girls and others +of the many-nationed women-travelers upon that steerage-deck, her +father offered as strong contrast to the men. Among the swart +Italians, blonde, stupid-looking Swedes, Danes and Norwegians and fat, +red-faced Germans of the male steerage company, his finely-chiselled +features, pale and ascetic-looking in their frame of whitened hair, +stood out with accentuated testimony to high breeding, right living +and exalted aims. And there was another difference, but less pleasing. +By this, the ninth day out from port, grief, born of leaving friends +and childhood scenes had vanished from the faces of the other +voyagers, and, under the influence of a moderately smooth sea and +splendid, sparkling weather, their thoughts were busy with the new +shores to which the voyagers were journeying, with expectations of +great days. But on his face no glow of pleasant anticipation ever +shone. The old man's eyes were always turned toward that dear Germany +which, first, he had been forced to leave for London, and now was, by +the stern necessities of life, obliged to go still further from. +Rarely, since the voyage had begun, had he, when on deck, raised his +gaze from the great vessel's churning wake, which stretched, he liked +to think, straight back toward Germany, save when his daughter spoke +to him and roused him, for a moment, from his black depression. It was +as if that thread of foam was the one thing, brief, evanescent, +futile, though it was, which bound him, now, to the only land he cared +for. His face was that of one who passes into final exile. Only when +his eyes were on his daughter's did the expression of suppressed grief +and despondency go from them for a moment; but when they looked at her +they lighted brilliantly with love. + +He had found adjustment to his crude surroundings with the utmost +difficulty. Poor he had been in London, but his work had been among +musicians, and even cheap musicians have in them something better, +finer, higher than the majority of human cattle in the steerage of +this ship could show. He felt uncomfortably misplaced. + +This had been apparent from the start to his most interested +observer--the handsome youth of the first cabin, whose glances +sometimes made the daughter's eyes dodge and evade. It added to that +young man's growing conviction that the aged man and beautiful young +girl were not at all of the same class as their enforced associates +upon the steerage-deck. + +He remarked upon this to the second officer of the ship, who was +highly flattered by his notice and anxious to give ear. He, too, had +given some attention to the old man and his daughter and agreed with +Vanderlyn about their great superiority to their surroundings. + +He would have agreed with Vanderlyn in almost anything, that second +officer, for every year he met and talked with some few thousand +passengers who said it was the longer voyage which had tempted them to +the old _Rochester_, while rarely was he in the least convinced by +what they said. With the Vanderlyns, who did not say it, he thought +that it was truth. Money they obviously had in plenty, and, inasmuch +as they were, therefore, such pronounced exceptions to the rule, he +spent what time with them he could. They were prosperous and yet they +sailed by that slow ship, therefore they loved the sea. Of this he was +convinced--and in his firm conviction was entirely wrong. + +The real truth was that Mrs. Vanderlyn, made bold by the possession of +her money, had thought it was the magic key which certainly would open +every door for her. There were doors in New York City, which, coming +from the West, she had been palpitantly anxious to pass through, and, +to her amazement, she found that money would not open them. Then there +had occurred to her the brilliant plan of conquering, first, the +aristocracy of Europe, who, the newspapers had told her, bowed in +great humility before the eagle on the Yankee gold-piece. To the doors +with crests upon their paneling, abroad, she had therefore borne her +golden key that summer, only to discover that it fitted their locks +quite as ill as those upon Fifth Avenue. Her heart was saddened with +the woe of failure. The second officer could not guess that, sore from +buffetings from those who would have none of her, she had been glad to +secure passage on this ten-day boat, where, during the long voyage, +she could haughtily refuse to notice those of whom she would have +none. She had searched for a place and found one where she could +scorn as she had recently been scorned. Her soul was black-and-blue +from snubs. She wished to snub. A climber, who had failed to climb the +highest social ladder, the handsome, haughty lady found a certain +satisfaction in sitting for ten days upon the very apex of another +ladder--briefer, less important, very little, to be sure, but still a +social ladder--and giving it a quick, sharp shake as humble people put +their feet upon it timidly, bowing and smiling tentatively at her +unresponsive person. It was a sort of balm to her sore soul so see +them tumble metaphorically, upon their backs. Her demeanor on the +_Rochester_ was the demeanor of a princess among aliens whom she +utterly despises. The Cook's tourists, traveling school-teachers and +young married couples homeward-bound after modest European honeymoons, +were plainly scum to her, and it gave her ardent joy to see that most +of them were hurt when she impressed this on them mercilessly. It was +safer for her son to talk about the interesting German couple to the +second officer than it was for him to talk about them to his mother, +but, lo! youth knows not wisdom. + +"Mother," he suggested upon the sixth day out, "I want to have you +come and see a fascinating couple on the steerage-deck." + +"Another bride and groom?" she asked, in a bored voice. Brides and +grooms had come to be monotonous. She had seen all sorts since she had +started on this journey and now loathed the thought of newly married +fellow-creatures. She could not understand why John's interest had +been maintained in them. + +He laughed. "No, not a bride and groom. The man is an old German, +handsome and refined, evidently out of place upon the steerage-deck, +the girl--she--why, mother, she's a peach. _She'd_ be out of place +'most anywhere but on a throne!" + +"How very vulgar, John," his mother answered with that cold assumption +of superiority which had come to her with money. "I cannot see how +even you can link the steerage-deck with thrones. Princesses do not +travel steerage except between the covers of cheap books." + +He laughed again. John Vanderlyn was clean and healthy-souled. He did +not always take his mother (whom he idolized) too seriously. + +"I didn't say she was a princess," he replied, "but she might well be. +It was, however, rather the old man than the girl, though she is very +beautiful and quite as much misplaced upon the steerage-deck as he is, +that I wished to have you see." He was, it will be noted, learning +something of diplomacy. "He has a magnificent old face--the face of a +fine nature which has suffered terribly. I have seen him as he stood +at the ship's rail, astern, watching the white wake as if every +bubble on it was a marker on a tragic path. It is as if all he loved +on earth except the girl--you ought to see him look at her!--lies at +the far end of that frothy, watery trail." + +"You become almost poetic!" she said without enthusiasm. + +But, a day afterwards, she went with him and looked down at the +steerage passengers, singling out the pair he meant without the +slightest difficulty. + +"What a distinguished-looking man he is!" said she, involuntarily. + +"Isn't he?" said her delighted son. + +The daughter was not on the deck, just then, and young Vanderlyn was +politic enough to say nothing of her, merely talking of the old man's +impressive bearing, asking his mother to help him speculate about his +history. + +"I don't wonder he attracted you," she granted. "He looks very +interesting. I am sure he _has_ a history." + +Her gaze was so intent, that, in a few moments, it attracted the +attention of Herr Kreutzer, and the youth, observing that he seemed +annoyed and shamed, hurried her away. Instinctively he had felt the +old man flinch; instinctively he knew his pride, already, had been +sorely hurt by the necessity of "traveling steerage"; that as they +gazed at him the handsome, white-haired, emigrant had felt that his +dire poverty had made of him a curiosity. + +The young man led his mother back to her rug-padded deck-chair, +pleased by the result of the first step in what he had resolved must +be a strategy of worth. In some way he must fix things so that +properly and pleasantly he could get acquainted with that girl. This, +he thought (not being a born prophet), could only be accomplished +through his mother, and already he had plans for it indefinitely +sketched out in his mind. Events were fated to assist him and do +better for him than his mother could have done for him, but, of +course, he did not know that then. + +From the moment when he saw the dignified old German shrink before his +mother's gaze the youth was careful to avoid appearances of curiosity. +If either old man or young girl came into view while he stood at the +rail, above the steerage-deck, he went away, though other passengers, +attracted by the beauty of the girl, and the distinguished look of the +old man, were less considerate and stared, to their distress. When, +later, the young man saw his mother staring as the others did and as +he had, himself, at first, he hesitantly spoke to her about it. + +"Nonsense," she replied. "You give them credit for too much fine +feeling. Attention doubtless flatters them. It always does such +people." + +That she had lost her first idea that the pair might be entitled to +unusual consideration bothered him; but he feared, because of his +great plan, to make too vehement defense, so only said, with studied +mildness: + +"They are not 'such people', I am sure. You yourself, at first, said +they looked 'different.' It's hard luck, I'll bet a hat, and not a +lack of brains, decency or real distinction that's forced them to herd +down there with those cattle. I'll guarantee they know the whole thing +about the little social game in Germany." He watched his mother +closely, to see if the shot told, and was delighted when he saw it +did. + +"Yes; he really looks superior," she admitted. "I have no doubt their +German is quite _perfect_. I wonder--perhaps he might, at one time, +have been someone of distinct importance." + +"I have no doubt of it. Anyone can see it makes him sore as a mashed +thumb to have his poverty make him into a free side-show to be stared +at on this old canal-boat. I've seen the 'Cookies' rubbering and +making comments that I know he heard. He flushed red as beets and +took his daughter somewhere where their gimlet stare could not bore to +her. Those glass-eyed school-ma'ams actually drove them out of the +fresh air!" + +"He seems to make no friends among the steerage passengers, as all the +others do." + +"Those swine? They drive him crazy. The girl is constantly annoyed by +men that try to sidle up to her. I've been half expecting the old man +would bat that big Italian who's always talking New York +politics--shoot him with whatever he has always with him in that +queer, oval case, and throw him to the fish." + +"I think that is some instrument--some music thing." + +"Might be a flute." + +"Perhaps he is some really great musician," Mrs. Vanderlyn said, +speculatively. "They go everywhere in Germany. No doors are closed to +them. It wouldn't be at all surprising for a musician to travel as +he's doing. Such people are eccentric, and often so foolishly +improvident. Something about music makes them so. But they worship +them in Germany. They know the very _highest_ people." + +Her son grasped at the suggestion. "Funny, isn't it--how crazy all the +lieber-deutchers are when they hear music! Hoch der Kaiser sets the +pace, himself." + +"Yes, I know he does," said Mrs. Vanderlyn, a little shocked by his +irreverent way of making reference to Heaven's Chosen. "Poor things!" +Her sympathy was quite aroused, now. She became quite certain that the +steerage couple had highly influential friends abroad. "Would it +please him, do you think, if I should show the daughter some +attention?" + +John knew that "some attention" from his mother to the emigrants would +mean a course of open patronage and he didn't wish to have her try +that on with that particular pair. He shook his head. "I don't believe +they'd stand for it," he said. "But if you could do them some real +kindness--a courtesy that wasn't--er--er--patronizing, it--" + +He gazed thoughtfully at Mrs. Vanderlyn for a short moment and then +thought better, even, of encouraging her thus much. He loved his +mother dearly but felt certain that she would be sure to wound the +strangers if she did anything whatever for them. + +"Perhaps the best thing, after all," he said, "will be to let them, +undisturbed, preserve the incognito which they evidently wish to keep +in their misfortune." He had roused his mother's interest more keenly +than he had thought was possible. He would do no more to rouse it. He +could only hope that it might bear for him the fruit he wished--a +pleasant way of gaining an acquaintance with the lovely girl. He knew +that it was possible it might do otherwise and make a pleasant +meeting harder, even, than it seemed to be at present, but he had had +to take the chance. At any rate he had sufficiently excused himself, +in her eyes, for any reasonable thing he might, himself, do, when the +opportunity occurred, to gain the friendship of the steerage +travelers. + +As for himself, he now carefully avoided any appearance of observing +them. In one way or another he watched them a good deal, but he did so +with such care that he was certain they were unaware of it--at least +was certain that the old man did not notice it. He found his heart +athrob with quite unusual speed, when, once or twice, he saw the +girl's big eyes directed toward him, not resentfully. They were, he +thought, the most resplendent eyes which ever had been turned in his +direction, but he did not let her know that he observed her glances. + +His interest continually deepened, and the voyage, which he had +thought would be a tiresome trip, became one of the most absorbing +journeys he had ever known. Memories of those eyes were with him, even +when he was beyond the shy range of their timid glances. When, at the +ship's bow, he gazed over at the sporting dolphins or watched the +water curving gracefully from the black prow, they floated in the sea, +alluringly. If he turned his glance above to watch the fleecy clouds +which were the only vapors in the sky upon this ideal crossing, they +shaped themselves into her profile, the azure of the sky lost by +comparison with that which glowed serene from her great eyes. John +Vanderlyn was really dismayed to find that they were everywhere. He +had not been susceptible, as youths go, in the past; now he found +himself enthralled, spellbound by the appeal of this small German girl +who traveled cheaply in the steerage of a slow ship toward America, a +part of a large company of needy aliens seeking a new home in what +they thought the land of promise. + +As the voyage neared its end he saw with some dismay that the old man +had managed to make enemies among the emigrants by his aloofness. The +sea was very smooth, these days, and, under smiling skies the +steerage-deck was swarming. The stewardess announced that but one of +all the seasick passengers, a young English girl, was left in the +infirmary; the only other call for the ship's doctor came from a +mother for her tiny babe of two or three months which had been +stricken with some increasing ailment before they had embarked upon +the ship. The emigrants were making merry daily, from early morning +until nine or ten of evenings; there were few moments when from their +part of the ship some crude music was not rising. + +Concertinas, mouth-organs, a badly-mastered violin gave forth their +notes from time to time, their harshness softened by the mingling of +the waves' lap on the vessel's sides. Now and then the first-class +passengers looked down with amused curiosity upon rude dances, the +dancers' merriment enhanced by stumbling lurches born of the vessel's +slow, long rollings on the sea's vast, smooth-surfaced swells. + +The old man and his daughter never joined in these crude pleasurings +and John found in this a certain comfort which he did not try to +analyze. His mother, also watching now and then, observed it, too, and +felt her interest in them increasing. Two days before the slow old +ship was due to reach New York she had almost made her mind up to +investigate the pair. Should she find that they were worthy, she told +John (that is, should she find they could, in any way, be useful in +her campaign of next summer, which, already, she was planning) she +might try to help them in New York. Her resentment of John's interest +in them had faded. If they were ordinary emigrants he would not see +them after the ship docked, if they were of enough importance to be +useful to her, if they had influential friends abroad, the more he saw +of them the better. Mrs. Vanderlyn was not a mercenary woman. The only +gold she worshiped had been beaten into coronets; of that which had +been minted she had plenty. She did not envy fortunes, though her envy +of position was unbounded. + +"You might make a little inquiry," she told her son. "If they should +really have friends among the aristocracy--" + +It both amused and angered him. He had imbibed, at a small western +college and in the little taste of business life which he had had in +New York City, a wondrous spirit of democracy which his stay in Europe +had by no means lessened. It was not the man's potential social +usefulness which made appeal to him, it was the soul which he saw +shining, clear and lovely, in his daughter's eyes; it was not the +father's slow, grey dignity which made him wish to help him, it was +the long, pathetic gaze, which, from time to time, he saw him cast +back along the vessel's wake, the lines of patiently-borne sorrow +which had formed about his fine, strong mouth, the stoop of weariness +and woe endured with uncomplaining fortitude which bent his shoulders. +He might be of an artistic worth which made him peer of and received +by kings--of that John Vanderlyn knew nothing and cared less; but that +he was a gentleman of lofty mind and many sorrows patiently endured he +felt quite certain, and, as such, his heart yearned to him. He would +have been delighted if some way had come to help him, but he could not +bring himself to such a curious investigation of his poor affairs as +his mother would have had him make with prying inquiries. It seemed to +him that such a course would be impertinent, and so, whenever she +suggested it, he temporized and hesitated. + +As the voyage progressed, too, it was plain enough that others than the +Vanderlyns began to feel, instinctively, the real superiority of the old +man and his daughter. Down on the steerage-deck they were, +involuntarily, given a certain courteous consideration by the +passengers, and even by the stewards--and to impress a steerage-steward +is no ordinary victory. The old man showed a kindly heart, especially to +the many women with small babes among the huddled passengers. Love of +children, plainly, was mighty in his soul and by the hour he sat, +surrounded by a circle of the little ones, to their very great delight +and the relief of the poor mothers who thus obtained the first hours of +freedom from continual care which they had had since the long voyage had +begun. + +It was his playing with the children that gave birth to a sensation +which thrilled the ship from end to end. He was trying patiently, +persistently, to amuse a little, ailing tot. It was beginning to seem +certain that she would not last the voyage out. The mother was in +agony as she held the tiny wailing, creature out toward him while he +cooed to it and touched its cheek with tender fingers, trying to +arouse its interest without success. It was as a final effort to amuse +it that he took his flute out of the curious leather case he always +carried. + +Just as dusk fell on the vessel he began to play. + +At first, the strains were soft and low, for the child's benefit, +alone, scarce audible at any distance. Almost instantly she quieted, +and, as Vanderlyn came up from dinner in the big saloon and glanced +across the rail, as usual, he saw a little group of fascinated folk +there, close about the flute-player, and faintly heard the sweet, +pathetic strains of an old German cradle-song. So soft the sounds +were, though, that he could barely catch them, and, therefore, at +first, he did not wholly realize their beauty. + +Soon, though, the old man plainly utterly forgot the fact that there +were other people near than the now quiet child, its mother, his Anna +and himself, for he threw more force into his playing. The +steerage-passengers drew closer in a reverent silence, as the European +peasant always will at sound of really good music, and many of the +first-cabin passengers joined John at the rail, attracted by the sweet +and soaring melody. In a few moments a full score had gathered there, +all listening, intent, enthralled, quite silent. + +"Marfellous! He iss a firtuoso!" grumbled a big German at John's side. +John turned to him and smiled. The man, he knew, was Anton Karrosch an +operatic impresario. He was glad to have his own impression of the +wondrous merit of the playing confirmed by an authority. + +"He seems to be quite poor," he whispered eagerly. "Perhaps you might +find something for him, when we reach New York. He--" + +"Ach! He will have no droobles," said Herr Karrosch. "A man who blays +like dot! Ven ve land, I see him; yes." + +A moment later the flute-player glanced up and saw the audience behind +the rail. Instantly he lowered his slim instrument, from whose silver +mountings, now, the moonlight was beginning to glint prettily. He gave +the prosperous folk above but one short glance, apparently a bit +resentful, and then, as if they were of small importance, turned from +them to the mother of the child. + +"Does she sleep, still?" John could hear him ask, as he bent above the +infant. + +"Si, si," said the grateful mother, understanding what he meant, +although, apparently, she spoke no English. + +"Good," said the flute-player, "I stop playing, then." And in spite of +a mild spatter of applause from the first-cabin deck and one or two +requests for more of his delightful music, he rose and went within. It +was clear that his soft courtesies, free performances, were for the +poor folk in the steerage, not for the rich upon the promenade. + +Mrs. Vanderlyn was, after this, more than ever anxious to have John +approach the man and make acquaintance with him; but his belief that +such a course would be impertinent was strengthened. What the +impresario had said saddened him a little as he reflected on it. He +had begun to hope that, when they landed (not before), he might be of +service to the pair; but if what Karrosch had said was true, then they +would not need his kindnesses. Almost he had made up his mind, thus +soon, that the shy little German girl was the one woman in the world +for him, so he found it difficult to stop himself from hoping that the +fat manager's predictions would prove false; that the flute-player +might really find difficulty in arranging a career in the United +States; that he, himself, might prove to be essential to the +development of his opportunity. + +He felt a little gloomy, when, long after most of the ship's company +had gone to sleep, he sought his stateroom. Fear that he would find it +quite impossible to win his way even to acquaintance, much depressed +him. + +But the very day the ship turned into the wide beauty of the Lower +Bay, a situation grew out of the commonplace of life upon the +steerage-deck which sharply and dramatically involved him with the two +who had so interested him. + +The steerage passengers were dancing to the music of a concertina, +many of them, more especially the Italians, joining in the merriment +with a gay fervor born of their elation at approach to the rich +mysteries of the new land they sought. Much cheap wine had been +consumed among them, and in some of them this had, already, wrought +its vicious alchemy and changed the gold of sunny tempers into the +dross of ugliness. Among those most affected by the liquor was the man +Moresco, who so continually boasted of the great things he had done in +New York politics and who, since his rebuff by the old German, when he +had tried to induce Anna to drink with him, had eyed the pair askance, +resentfully. + +Young Vanderlyn observed that he was oftener and oftener, as he drank +and danced with women of his own race, turning envious and longing +eyes toward the beautiful young German girl, throwing resentful, +scowling glances at her father, who, on that previous occasion, had so +notably rebuffed him. It became quite plain, ere long, that the man +had worked up a great wrath against the flute-player. + +"I am Pietro Moresco," he boasted, many times, as if the very name +should awe the world. Then, impressively: "I am no common emigrant. +Not a common emigrant, as all may learn, in time. In New York none are +too proud to dance with me. It is not a land for the aristocrat--the +aristocrat who travels steerage!" + +He gazed at the old man fixedly, with that malevolent look of which +none but an Italian really is capable. Vanderlyn saw, also, with +amazement, that there were those among his countrymen--men evidently +knowing him--who were as much impressed by what he said as, evidently, +he believed the whole world ought to be. It almost seemed, indeed, +that these folk took his boastings seriously and thought the old man +and his daughter really had cause to fear the man's reprisals. + +The old man paid no heed to him, however. He only drew his daughter +closer to his side. John noted that her cheeks were hotly flushed with +anger, combined, perhaps, with fear, and felt the blood of wrath +flood to his own and out again, leaving them, he knew, quite ghastly +pale. He always flushed, then paled, when he was very angry, and when +that pallor clung, as it did now, dire things inevitably impended. He +was astonished at the strength of cold resentment in his heart toward +the Italian. He did not for an instant hesitate in deciding to protect +the little girl from her tormentor, if need arose, at any hazard. It +did not once occur to him that this was not his work, that the ship's +officers would doubtless maintain order and, themselves, protect her +as a matter of mere discipline on board. Indeed, it seemed to him that +for some reason the Italian received more than ordinary courtesy from +them. As the episode developed, they appeared to edge away, leaving +the swarthy bully wholly undisturbed. + +He did not fail to take advantage of this situation, but, after +glancing somewhat cautiously around, followed his declaration of his +own importance and resentment with an angry dive, and, an instant +later, had the girl by the right arm, while his countrymen called +loudly in approval. Another instant and the man was dragging Anna to +the center of the open space where dancing had been going on. + +She screamed, her father rose, amazed, resentful, lurching with fierce +but futile rage toward their tormentor as the ship rolled, and the +slight push which the Italian gave him as he advanced upon him, was +all that was required to throw him heavily. Dazed by the fall he lay +there, for a moment, helpless, and by the time he rose the girl, +shrieking with alarm, was being whirled in the Italian's arms in a +crude dance. With a short laugh the man with the accordeon had started +up a faster waltz, and there were dozens who, applauding their bold +leader, looked on with delight. + +[Illustration: Almost instantly the Italian bully was sprawling in the +scuppers and Vanderlyn had raised the old man to his feet] + +But the single spectator above, behind the promenade-deck rail, did +not look on with delight. He lost no time. He did not even waste ten +seconds in rushing to the little stairway which led downward from his +place of vantage, but, with the wiry hand and arm of the trained +college athlete to help him in the spring, he vaulted lightly clean +across the barrier, and, with legs bent skilfully to break the force +of the long drop, landed like a lithe and angry tiger on the deck +below, within two feet of the utterly amazed and terrified Moresco. + +Once there the young American proceeded neatly, rapidly. Almost +instantly the Italian bully was sprawling in the scuppers and +Vanderlyn had raised the old man to his feet. In another moment he had +taken the girl's hand, led her to her father and they were both +trying, in excited German and in English, suffering from the stress of +their emotions, to express their thanks to him. + +It was at this moment that they met with one of the greatest surprises +of their lives. With a sharp cry M'riar burst on them. She had been, +as usual, hiding miserably in the narrow entrance to the companion-way +which led down to the steerage sleeping quarters, where, daily, since +she had in part recovered from her fierce attack of seasickness, she +had lurked with furtive eyes and worried heart, squeezing herself +against the bulkhead to give others way as they went up or down, +afraid to let the voyage end without revealing to her friends her +presence, lest they escape to leave her at the mercy of the outraged +law of the new land, of which she heard much gossip; afraid to let +them know that she was there, lest they, in anger at her presence, +refuse to let her join them. But this situation was too much for her. +Seeing her adored ones in distress she could restrain herself no +longer. She sprang out to the open deck and ranged herself, a +veritable little fury, between her friends and the prostrate Italian. + +"_Garn! Don't yer dare to tech 'er! Garn! Garn!_" she cried and +poised, tense, vicious, ready to pit her puny strength against his +might if he should rise, vanquish Vanderlyn and try, again, to trouble +Anna and her father. + +But members of the ship's crew now rushed up, and, seemingly almost +against their will (Moresco, being in New York City politics, might +control much steerage business for the line), but yielding to the loud +demand of many passengers above, who, attracted by the shouts, had +crowded to the rail, caught the man as, rising, he would have sprung +upon the young American. A moment later and he had been dragged away +and the blushing rescuer of beauty in distress and old age vanquished, +had, stammering in embarrassment before the thanks of his two +beneficiaries, gone back to his own part of the ship. He might have +wholly lost his self-possession had not the vicious glance of the +Italian and a shouted curse come to him while the man was struggling +viciously with his unwilling captors. It cheered him unto laughter to +hear Moresco laying claim to that mysterious importance which he had +so often boasted, and note that he was threatening him with awful +things. Much more interesting he found the small scene he was leaving, +in which two utterly bewildered and astonished Germans and a little +cockney girl were the three actors. + +"_M'ri_-arrr! _M'ri_-arrr!" he heard Anna cry in sheer amazement. +"_M'ri_-arrr!" + +"Mine Gott im himmel! It is M'ria-arrr!" he heard Kreutzer say. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Bartholdi's mighty Liberty loomed high above the vessel as she grandly +swept her way among the crowded shipping of the Upper Bay. On the +huddled steerage-deck Moresco, quickly and mysteriously free from +durance and not at all abashed by what had happened to him, led a +little cheering, in which his countrymen joined somewhat faintly. On +the promenade-deck Vanderlyn was acting as the leader of enthusiastic +rooters for his native land. + +With his mother, whose interest in the old German and his daughter he now +fostered very eagerly, he stood close by the rail across which he had +vaulted when Moresco had assaulted the old man. Not even the enthusiasm of +partings from new friends, ship made, could draw him from this point as +the vessel neared her dock. From it he watched the workings of the +health-and customs-officers among the steerage-passengers, while he tried +to definitely decide upon what means he might employ to keep from losing +sight of the two people in whom his interest had grown to be so great, +after they were diverted by the formalities of immigration laws from the +line of travel he would naturally follow when the ship tied up. + +"The immigrants are sent to Ellis Island," he explained to Mrs. +Vanderlyn. "A case of sheep and goats, all right, according to the +tenets of this land of liberty and lucre. If you've got money you're a +sheep. Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, has wide-open arms for you. No +one tries to stop your entrance. If you've none, why you're the goat +and everybody butts you." + +"Your English is as hard to understand as any of the foreign +languages!" his mother chided. "Every other word is slang. I haven't +an idea what you mean." Down upon the steerage-deck Moresco, after +the faint cheering, was declaiming loudly, now, about the towering +statue and the liberty she symbolizes. + +Towards the mighty effigy the old flute-player's eyes were also +turned, but the emotions it aroused in him were very different from +those which the Italian laid his claim to. To him she did not stand +for license, but for a freedom from that mysterious worry, which, in +London, had been so horridly persistent, which had reached an +intolerable climax in Hyde Park, that day when he had run across the +German with the turned-up moustache, and from which the journey to +America was a veritable flight. The Giant Woman of the Bay would prove +to be to him, the old musician fondly hoped, what her designer had +intended her to be to all the worried, fleeing people of all the +balance of the earth--a great torch-bearer who would light the way to +peace and plenty, free from the social and political turmoil and +oppression of the worn-out lands across the sea. He drew a breath of +crisp air into his lungs, held his daughter closer to his side, took +off his hat and stood agaze while the brisk wind, strengthening for +the moment, blew the folk around him free of steerage odors, waved his +long grey hair about his forehead and flapped his long grey coat about +his legs until its tails snapped. + +An instant later and combined assaults of manifold officials, pregnant +with prying questions and suspicious glances, had driven all thoughts +from his mind and those of other steerage passengers that America +meant freedom. Never had he been so suddenly and vigorously deluged +with such an avalanche of legal interference and investigation. Many a +Russian, fleeing here in search of liberty, has been dismayed into +concluding that he has but stumbled into a new serfdom, when +blue-coats and brass-buttons have descended on him as his ship +reached New York Bay. + +One arm clasped tight in one of his, the other holding M'riar closely +to her side in the dense, swaying crowd, his daughter, as he pondered +on these matters, answered questions, worried, was thinking of far +different things. Ever since the champion of her cause and her +father's against the common enemy, Moresco, had sprung lightly to the +steerage-deck from back of the first-cabin rail, her thoughts had been +more of that champion than of all other combined details of these most +exciting days. Shy and delighted, venturing on new and untried paths +they had been, till now; but now, as the long voyage was ending, she +was filled with blank dismay. She had heard the talk about the +separation of the steerage passengers from the first-cabin passengers, +before they landed, and this gave birth to painfully defined +convictions that the dream, which, almost without her knowledge, had +sprung into being in her heart, must now abruptly end. She would never +see her champion again! The thought led on to others, equally +disturbing. For the first time in her life her heart was asking +questions of her reason. + +Who was she? What was she? Why had her father kept her, all her life, +in such seclusion? In London she had noted it and wondered at it, but +had been content to make no inquiries, because she had not had the +wish to go about and do as, from behind the lattice of the close +seclusion which confined her, she saw other girls of her age do. She +had never had a close friend in her life, except her father, unless +one counted M'riar, humble and devoted worshiper, a friend, or unless +some memories of bygone days, so faint that they might well be dreams, +and which, sometimes, she thought _were_ dreams, were truth instead of +waking fancies. Vague, they were, and shadowy, including visions of a +merry life, as a small tot, in a far country, and a lovely woman who +sometimes, while propped up with the pillows of a bed, held her to her +breast. Then it seemed as if all these delightful things had been +brought to an end in one short day. Vaguely she recalled a dreadful +time when the great bed on which the lovely woman had reclined was +empty. + +All that her brain presented in the way of record of the weeks which +followed, were, first, a series of dim pictures of a hurried journey, +partaking of the nature of a flight from some impending danger. Her +father, she remembered, held her almost constantly against his breast, +while they were on this journey, so tightly that the clasp of his +strong arms was, sometimes, almost painful, and watched continually +from carriage windows, from the deck of a small vessel, and, +afterwards, from the windows of a railway train, when they paused at +stations in the pleasant English country, as if he ever feared that +someone would appear to intercept them and carry her away from him. +Then her home had been of a kind new to her--the lodging-house. +Instead of being in the midst of splendid lawns and mighty trees, she +had been hedged about by grimy streets and dull brick buildings; the +air which had been all a-sparkle for her in her babyhood, was, through +her youth, dull, smoke-grimed, fog-soaked; for roomy spaciousness and +gentle luxury had been exchanged the dinginess and squalor of the +place in Soho. The occasional visits to the theatre where her father +played the flute, now and then a Sunday walk with him when the weather +was sufficiently urbane (marred, always, by his peering watch of every +passing face, which had never been rewarded till they met the staring +stranger in Hyde Park) had been almost the only variations of a dull +routine of life, until this journey had begun which had just brought +them to the mighty New World harbor. She was vastly puzzled by +existence as she stood there in the stuffy crowd and let her mind roam +back in retrospect. Her life was all a mystery to her. + +This journey was the one tremendous episode of her career; her life in +London had been singularly bare of real events; there had only been +her daily grind at books which her father wished to have her +diligently study, the bi-weekly visits of a woman who had taught her +languages and needlework and never talked of anything but youth and +romance, although she, herself, was old, and, presumably, beyond the +pale of romance. Except for this old woman and the landlady of the +cheap lodging-house she had had no friends except poor M'riar. + +From such a dull existence, to be thrust into the whirl of this +amazing voyage, had been very wonderful, for what might not the new +life in the new land mean? Anything, to her young and keen +imagination. In this marvelous new country the old Frenchwoman had +assured her women were as free as men. What would such freedom bring +to her? Riches, possibly, would here reward her father for his +artistry upon the flute, and luxuries surround them both, in +consequence. And romance! Her heart began to flutter at mere thought +of the word, and her mind, against her modest maiden will, +involuntarily turned to the youth who had so splendidly sprung to +their rescue from the malign Moresco. Ah, how strong, how handsome he +had been as he had thrown himself upon the big Italian! She blushed +before her own brain's boldness. In that youth undoubtedly might, even +now, be found the hero of the romance which the new world would +undoubtedly unfold for her delighted eyes to read! Singularly innocent +and ignorant of many things which most girls of her age know well, +she did not stop to reason any of this out--she merely felt the firm +conviction of its certainty, and, for a time, was glad. + +But as the ship passed slowly up the river, and, finally, was taken +charge of by the grimy tugs which nosed her with much labor into place +at a great dock, the officers began to hustle all the steerage +passengers into more compact masses on the deck and her attention once +more centered on the matters of the moment. The building on the dock +shut off the free salt breeze and quickly the unclean breath of the +crowd distressed her lungs. The worried immigrants trod on one +another's heels, fell across their huddled trunks and bundles, +chattered, gayly or in fright, close in each other's ears. There was a +long delay, in which, if one of the poor throng dared move beyond the +boundaries set for them by the burly officers in charge, loud +language, not too nice to hear, was the result, and, even, once or +twice, a blow. She heard an English-speaking veteran of many voyages +explaining to his uncomfortable fellows what Vanderlyn had told his +mother about them: that because they had come in the steerage they +could not land upon the dock, as did the passengers of the +first-cabin, but would be borne to some far spot for further +health-inspection and examination as to their ability to earn their +livelihoods. + +This worried her, as it had Vanderlyn. Suppose her father should not +satisfy these stern examiners? Would the authorities consider that +ability to play a flute divinely was sufficient ground for thinking +that a man could earn his way? And, if they were landed in two +different places, how would the young man know just where to look for +her? She almost paled at thought that, possibly, she might be whisked +beyond his ken; but then there came the thought of his ability in an +emergency, as evidenced by his flying leap down to her rescue, and, +shyly smiling, she comforted herself with the reflection that that +wondrous youth could make no failures. That he thought of her she +could not doubt, for she had never missed one of his frank, admiring +glances, although, apparently, she had missed most of them. She +finally became quite sure he would not lose sight of her, and this was +comforting. + +For a full hour, after the ship had tied up to her dock, all on that +deck were forced to stand in stuffy quarters, odorous and almost dark. +Between Anna and her father huddled M'riar, frightened, now, and +snuffling, clinging desperately to the hand of the loved mistress she +had run away to serve. The flute-player, almost fainting from the heat +and weariness, strove bravely to conceal this from his daughter, and, +with pitiful assumption of fine strength, smiled down at her, through +the thick gloom, from time to time, with reassurance, attempting to +instill in her a courage which he, himself, she plainly saw, was +losing rapidly. + +Clearly some of his oldtime worry had returned to him. It might be, he +was reflecting, that this far America was not as far as he had +thought, and that he stood as much chance of encountering that danger +which had made him fly from London, as he had stood there! This +troubled her intensely. + +The odors of that crowded steerage gangway, the pressing of the weary +women, the wailing of the frightened babies, the cursing of the men, +as time passed, made the place seem an inferno. M'riar, weak from +seasickness, terrified by conversation which she heard around her +about the deportation of such immigrants as had no money or too +little, and fearful that she might be torn from the dear side of her +beloved mistress in spite of all which she had done to follow her, +shivered constantly and sometimes shook with a dry sob. The hours +were hours of nightmare. + +Many of the women were half-fainting when, at last, the barges of the +government were drawn up at the ship's side for the transfer of the +immigrants to Ellis Island, and across the narrow planks which +stretched from them to the dingy little liner the motley crowd trooped +wearily. Kreutzer was near to absolute exhaustion, and shouldered +their heavy trunk, lifted their heaviest bag, with difficulty. His +knees, it seemed to him, must certainly give way beneath him. Seeing +this gave M'riar something other than her fears to think of. + +"Gimme th' bag, now, guvnor," she said quietly, although both she and +Anna already were well burdened. + +"Nein," said the old man, gravely. "Child, you could not carry it." + +"_I_ could," said Anna, quickly, and tried to take it from his hand, +abashed that the small servant should have been more thoughtful of +him than she was. + +"Not much yer cawn't," said M'riar, positively. "I 'yn't goin' ter let +yer, miss. Ketch me! _Me_ let yer carry _bags_! My heye!" + +"But M'riarrr," Anna answered. "You are so very little and it iss so +very big!" + +"Carry ten of 'em," said M'riar, nonchalantly and nobly rose to the +occasion despite the protests of both Anna and the flute-player. + +There was little time for argument, for, an instant later, they were +forced forward irresistibly by the pressure of the crowd behind them +and soon found themselves, to their inexpressible relief, in the clear +air of an open-sided deck on one of the big barges. In another quarter +of an hour they had started on their little voyage to the landing +station upon Ellis Island, where Uncle Sam decides upon the fitness of +such applicants for admission to his domain as have reached his +shores "third-class." + +The ordeal at Ellis Island was less formidable, for Kreutzer and his +daughter, than the gossip of the steerage had led them to expect. Both +were in good health, he had the money which the law requires each +immigrant to bring with him, letters avowed his full ability to make a +living for himself and daughter, he had not come over under contract. +But poor M'riar! Her skinny little form, weak eyes, flat chest, barely +passed the medical examination; Herr Kreutzer did not understand some +of the questions put to her and thus she nearly went on record as +being without friends or means of winning her support. Indeed he did +not realize the situation until a uniformed official had begun to lead +the screaming child away and then he made things worse by letting his +rare German temper rise as he protested. Had not Anna laid restraining +fingers on his arm he might have found himself charged with a serious +offense, upon the very threshold of the new land he had journeyed to. + +They now formed a thoroughly dismayed, disheartened group of three +there under the high, girdered roof of Uncle Sam's reception chamber +for prospective children by adoption. Anna, alarmed for both the +threatened child and angry flute-player, stood, woefully distressed +between the two, a hand upon the arm of each and big, alarmed and +wondrously appealing eyes fixed on the gruff official, who stirred +uneasily beneath the power of their petition; Kreutzer was frightened, +also, now that his wrath was passing and he took time to reflect that +if he should involve himself with this new government inquiries would +certainly be started which would result in the revelation of his +whereabouts to those whom he had hoped utterly to evade; M'riar, the +cause of all the trouble, wept like a Niobe, quite soundlessly, +shaking like an aspen, managing to maintain her weight upon her +weakening knees with desperate effort only. + +"Sorry, Miss," said the official, with gruff kindness. "But law's law, +you know, and she's against it." + +"Little M'riarrr is against your laws?" said Anna, much surprised. + +"She's likely to become a public charge," the man said, anxious to +defend himself and his government before the lovely girl. "We've got +enough of European paupers to support, here in this country, now." + +"But she would live with us," said Anna. + +"Sure--until you fired her," said the man with a short laugh. + +"Firrred her?" Anna said, inquiringly, not guessing at his meaning. +"Firrred her? We should be very kind to her. We would not burn her, +hurt her in the slightes' way. I promise, sir; I promise." + +The official laughed again. "Oh, that's all right, Miss," he +explained. "I know you wouldn't hurt her. That ain't what I meant. I +meant until you let her go, discharged her, turned her off, decided +that you didn't need her help around the house, found somebody who'd +work better for you for less money, or something of that sort. She'd +never get another job. She's too skinny and too ignorant." + +"Hi'll fat up, 'ere, Hi swears Hi will," Maria interrupted hopefully. +"Hi'm _certain_ to fat up." + +"Yes, yes," said Anna, "I am certain that she will be very fat. She +will not have so much to do and will have much to eat. She shall fat +up at once." She spoke with honest earnestness. Could leanness be +against the law, too, here? + +And M'riar, also, had understood exactly what he meant when he had +said she was too ignorant. "An' Hi'm that quick to learn!" she said. +"You cawn't himagine! W'y, 'yn't Hi halmost learnt me letters off +from bundle carts an' 'oardings? M, he, hay, t--that spells 'beef.' +The bobby on hour beat, 'e told me, an' Hi 'yn't fergot a mite. T, +haych, he, hay, t, r, he, spells 'show.' 'E told me that, too. Hi +'yn't one as would _st'y_ hignorant, Hi 'yn't." + +"Fer Gawd's sake!" said the officer, entirely nonplussed by this +display of the girl's erudition. "Say--well--now--come here, Bill!" He +beckoned to another man in blue and shiny buttons. "Spell them words +ag'in, Miss, won't you?" he implored. + +Anna looked at him reproachfully. "No, no," she said, and made him +feel ashamed with her big eyes, "please, sir, not. It is not +funny--not for us. Please, please do not send our M'riarrr back to +England. It was her love which brought her with us. Real love. You +would not punish any one for being truly loving, eh?" + +Subdued and made, again, uneasy by her lovely eyes, the man did not +complete the exposition of the joke to the newcomer, but took refuge +in an attitude of most regretful, but impregnable officialism. "I +ain't got a word to say about it, Miss," he hurried to assure the +eyes. "Law's law, and law says that the likes of her has got to be +sent back. The only way that you could keep her here would be to put +up bonds to guarantee th' gover'ment against her goin' on th' town or +anything like that." + +She did not understand him in the least. "What is it that you mean?" +she asked. + +Laboriously he made things clear to her, Herr Kreutzer helping and +coming to an understanding just before she did. + +"Ach!" said the old flute-player, "We cannot. We have not so much." + +"Sure. I know that," the man replied. "That is why I say th' girl has +got to be sent back." + +Argument proved unavailing, and, ten minutes later, poor M'riar, +screaming as if red-hot irons were begrilling her most tender spots, +was being led into the "pen." + +"We'll keep her here a while," the man explained, as he endeavored to +avoid the child's astonishingly skilful and astonishingly painful +kicks. "Maybe you can find somebody to go bond for her. There ain't no +other way. There really ain't, Miss." + +During all this speech he still was under the strong influence of +Anna's wondrous eyes, else he would never have been able to articulate +with such unruffled calm. His charge was doing agonizing things to his +official shins, and even pinching him just over the short ribs on his +left side with a forefinger and a thumb which showed amazing strength +and malice quite infernal. + +Anna and her father turned away, perforce, to attend to their own +business, after having promised M'riar that they would never let her +be sent back; that they would come and take her from the pen tomorrow. +Neither had the least idea of a way in which to make this possible, +but both swore in their hearts that it should be accomplished. + +"Ach!" said Anna, "if only he had traveled in the third class, too! He +then would have been with us and would never have permitted it." + +"But who, mine liebschen?" + +Anna, realizing what she had been saying, colored vividly, but never +in her life had she deceived her father, hidden anything from him, or +in the slightest way evaded with him, so she summoned courage and said +softly: "Why, the--the young gentleman." + +"What gentleman?" + +"The one on the ship who sprang down when that wicked man caught me to +dance with him." + +Herr Kreutzer slowly nodded, seeing no significance in her quick +thought of Vanderlyn, save that the thought was rare good sense. Being +an American, the young man naturally would have been better able to +explain the matter to the officers, and, had the matter been enough +explained, he thought, they could not, possibly, have had the heart to +hold the child. "Ach, yes," said he. "If he was here! He certainly +would know." + +Luck, that day, as usually in his wealth-smoothed life, was with young +Vanderlyn, for, just as Anna and her father were regretting that he +was not there, lo, he appeared! It had been through his bull-dog +persistence that the elder Vanderlyn had won the wealth which son and +wife were spending now, since he had passed on to a shore where wealth +of gold may not be freighted. That same bull-dog persistence had the +son applied to the momentous problem which confronted him. Not only +had he won his difficult mother over to a friendly interest in the +lovely German girl who had so utterly enthralled him, but he had made +her eager to keep track of her, see more of her. Thus had he readily +been freed from the small services which a mother might expect of her +grown son on landing day; not only freed, but urged to go upon the +search for which his heart craved avidly. + +He had had some difficulty in obtaining, quickly, an official permit +to repair to Ellis Island, but an opened pocketbook had solved it, in +due course of time, and, now, here he was, trying to "frame up," as he +expressed it to himself, "some really fair reason for having followed +these whom he was seeking." + +The excitement of poor M'riar's sad predicament made it unnecessary +for him to present the reason which he had, with careful pains at +length devised. Kind Fate had wondrously well timed his eager coming. + +"What seems to be the trouble?" he asked easily, as he hurried forward +with his hat in hand, much comforted by seeing that there was a +trouble of some sort. + +The matter was explained to him. + +"That's easy," he said gaily. "Let me fix it;" and, forthwith, the +thing was fixed. Without the slightest hesitation he made himself +responsible for M'riar in every way which an ingenious government had +managed to devise through years of effort. + +The gratitude of the three travelers was earnest and was volubly +expressed in spite of his determined efforts to prevent them from +expressing it. M'riar would have thrown her arms about his neck and +kissed him had not Anna thoughtfully prevented it, after one quick +glance at the astonishing appearance of the delighted child's tear-and +lunch-stained face. + +And so it came about that the Herr Kreutzer and his daughter Anna, +with her humble slave and worshiper, M'riar, were ferried back from +Ellis Island to New York within a half-a-dozen hours of the moment +when they landed on it. As they went Moresco, himself, apparently a +citizen, and free to go at once, was still there in the building, +working with his boasted "pull" to help his countrymen. He shook his +fist at them as they departed and cried insults after them. Few +immigrants have ever been passed through in briefer time than was the +flute-player; few government inspectors at the landing station have +ever been enabled, by a stroke of good luck from a cloudless sky, to +take home to their wives, at night, as large a roll of crisp, new +money (yellow-backed) as an inspector took home to his wife that +night. + +"Gee, Bill!" the wife exclaimed when she had finished choking. "When +do you expect the cops?" + +"What cops?" he naturally asked. + +"Them that'll come to pinch you for bank-robbery," she answered, +fondling the certificates with reverent, delighted fingers. + +An episode of their return from Ellis Island to Manhattan much puzzled +Vanderlyn. Puffing and blowing from his hurry (which had been less +adroit than Vanderlyn's) they met Karrosch on the New York pier, +about to start in search of Kreutzer. + +"Ah," he said cordially, "I wish to talk with you. I have the largest +orchestra in all America and wish to offer you the place of my first +flute. You are very lucky to have had me on the ship with you. I shall +be glad to pay--" + +Kreutzer interrupted him with courteous shaking of the head. "I thank +you, sir," he said, with firm decision. "I cannot play first flute in +your large orchestra." + +"But," said the astonished Karrosch, "I will pay--" + +"I much regret," said Kreutzer, "that I cannot play first flute in +your large orchestra." + +Vanderlyn, not less than Karrosch, was bewildered by this episode. +Only Anna was not in the least surprised by it, although she did not +understand it. She knew that he had many times refused alluring +offers of the sort in London, always without an explanation of his +reasons for so doing. + +In the little rooms which they had found for temporary lodging place, +Herr Kreutzer sat that evening, with a well-cleaned M'riar standing by +and trying to devise some way of adding to his comfort. He had never +given much thought to the child, before, he realized; he had accepted +her as one of many facts of small importance. Now, though, he noted +the devoted gaze with which her eyes were following Anna as she moved +about the room, arranging little things. + +"You love her, eh?" he asked. + +"_Love_ 'er!" said M'riar, breathlessly. "My heye! Love _'er_! Ou, Hi, +sye!" + +Herr Kreutzer reached an arm out with a thrill of real affection and +drew the little waif close to him. Never in her life had she been +offered a caress, before, by anyone but Anna. It took her by surprise, +and, without the slightest thought of doing so, she burst into a +flood of tears. He did not fail to understand the workings of her +soul. He drew the tiny creature to him and softly pressed a kiss upon +her perfectly clean forehead. + +"You vould not want to leave her, M'riar?" + +"Hi'd die, Hi would," sobbed M'riar. + +Herr Kreutzer held her head back and smiled into her eyes with a good +smile which made her very happy. "Ach, liebling, do not worry." + +"W'y wouldn't yer go with the toff and pl'y in ther big horchestra?" +she made bold to ask. "You'd set 'em _cryzy_, you would! _My_ 'art +turns somersets, it does, w'en you pl'ys on yer flute." + +He pushed the child away, almost as if she angered him; then, seeing +her remorseful, frightened look, he took her back again and held her +close beside his knee. + +"I have no love for crowds, my M'riar," he said slowly. "No; not even +in America. I have no love for crowds." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Herr Kreutzer's little stock of money (depleted sadly by dishonest +exchange) sagged heavily in a small leather bag which he carried in a +carefully buttoned hip-pocket in his trousers. There it gave him +comfort, as, the day after he had landed in New York, it chinked and +thumped against him as he walked. There was so much of it! In this +land of gold and generous appreciation of ability, it would be far +more than enough to carry him and the two girls who were now dependent +on him until he should find a well paid, but not too conspicuous, +situation. He was sure of this. It had been the gossip of the little +orchestra in London that musicians, in New York, if worthy, were +always in demand; that when they played they were paid vastly. Tales +often had been told of money literally thrown to players by delighted +members of appreciative audiences--money in great rolls of bank-notes, +heavy gold-pieces, bank checks. Nowhere in the world, not even in the +music loving Fatherland, a wandering trombonist who had visited the +states had solemnly assured him, were expert performers on any sort of +instrument so well paid and so well beloved as in the city of New +York. + +"You, Kreutzer," this man had said (for when musicians lie the +cultivated and exotic fancy, essential to success in their profession, +makes them lie superbly) "could, past the shadow of a doubt, win a +real fortune in a season in New York." + +"Much work is waiting, eh?" said Kreutzer, eagerly. He did not wish to +win a fortune, for that would mean the larger orchestras, but he +wondered if the smaller organizations paid proportionally well. + +"For such as you," the man replied, maliciously--he was a +disappointed, vicious person--"there ever is demand from large and +small." + +"Why, then, did you come back to England?" the flute-player inquired. + +"I? Oh, I am not an artist--a real artist, as you are," was the +answer, flattering and vicious. The man had tried to get an +introduction to fair Anna and had been refused peremptorily, as all +had been refused. He planned to have revenge for it. "The man who +merely plays is not so vastly better off, there in the states, than +here; but to the _artist_--to the real artist, such as you--the states +will literally pay anything." + +That the man who had found failure was not a real musician Kreutzer +knew. Too often had his trombone trespassed, with its brazen bray, +upon the time which the composer had allotted to the soft, delightful +flute, to leave the slightest doubt of its performer's rank +incompetence. That he had failed was, therefore, easily understood; +in no way did it indicate that all he said about the chances of a real +musician in the land of skyscrapers and mighty distances (which he +also told about at length) was of necessity untrue. It had been the +talk of this man which had fascinated Kreutzer; it was the city of +this man's wild fancy which the flute-player expected to encounter +when he reached New York. + +The disillusionment came slowly at the start. Certainly the +skyscrapers were existent in a number and a grandeur which the man had +not been able to exaggerate; certainly the railway trains ran up and +down on iron stilts as he had said they did; certainly the crowds were +mighty and amazing both in their brutality and their good nature, just +as he had said they were. Many things there were which, for a time, +preserved the innocent flute-player's faith in his informant. But when +he came to look for work--ah, then vanished the first bubble. +Seemingly there was no place in all the city for an old performer on +the flute save that which Karrosch offered and which Kreutzer would +not take. + +Even in this new land, far from those he would avoid, the old +flute-player was determined not to go to the great orchestras, among +whose auditors were likely to be travelers. Thus he barred himself +from opera-houses, theatres and most of the hotels, by the towering +barrier of his own timidity. Nor did he wish to join a union (this +shut him out from many smaller orchestras) or even to enroll himself +at the employment agencies. He would not risk unwelcome prominence +even to that slight extent. Instead of doing these things, which would +at once have won him profitable work, he tramped the streets, looking +for various employment, at first with a resilient hope, then with a +careful industry, at the end of the first month with dogged +determination, finally with a desperation bordering upon despair. + +And there were other things to worry him. Early in his search for work +he had made a noontime pause, one day, in a quaint lager-beer saloon +much frequented by musicians. There, at the table where he sat, he had +encountered one who earnestly announced himself as a "wise guy" and +told him much about New York, all quite as pessimistic as the London +romancer's talk had been enthusiastic. He suffered from misfortune +which he blamed, unhesitatingly, to the vileness of the prosperous and +ranted endlessly without attracting much attention till he touched +upon the subject of the viciousness of the American rich man with +women. This roused Kreutzer fully, for one of the tales the babbler +told was of a gilded youth who had befriended poverty in order to +obtain the confidence of lowly beauty and then, of course, abused the +confidence. + +Herr Kreutzer's heart beat madly before the man had finished speaking. +Could it be possible that all Americans were of this ilk, as the +disgruntled one maintained? If so, then Vanderlyn--ah, it could not be +possible! The youth had been too kind to them during the few days of +his stay in New York city, before he had departed for the west on a +short trip; had promised too much kindness to be offered upon his +return! But--Anna! + +And so, that very night, he searched until he found another tenement, +and, with his own hands, moved their scanty household goods to it, +leaving behind him no address. Naturally a sweet and unsuspicious +soul, he had never dreamed of treachery upon the part of the +ingratiating youth; now suspicion's seeds were sown in his old mind +and fertilized by rising tears of disillusionment in most things which +he had found in New York, he was ready to be doubtful of the most +undoubtable. + +The new quarters were much less desirable, in every way, than those +they had abandoned, and the rent was higher; but they were quite the +best the old man could discover on short notice, and quite the lowest +priced. He never dreamed, as he argued with his new landlord over rent +that the old rental had been cut almost in half to him because young +Vanderlyn had made arrangements surreptitiously. He entered the new +tenement with the firm conviction that he had been swindled in the +rent which he had paid, "cash in advance," and, that night, was very +gloomy. + +So, also, were the bewildered Anna and M'riar. + +"Hi sye, Miss," said M'riar, when they were alone, while the +flute-player went out for the supper, "wot'll that young toff think, +comin' back an' findin' yer gone orf from there?" + +"Surely there was left behind the address of this place," said Anna, +with small confidence of this in her own heart. + +"Hi 'eard the lawst word said," said M'riar, with conviction, "an' +hall yer farther told th' geezer was that 'e was goin' to quit." + +"But, he would not possibly be so lacking in his courtesy! He--" + +Just then the flute-player returned and Anna asked him, boldly, but +with a studied air of carelessness, about the matter. It was the first +time in her whole life that she had ever tried to hide her real +emotions from her father. + +"Leave our address for Herr Vanderlyn?" said Kreutzer, who had been +waiting for the question and had schooled himself to answer it without +revealing the real facts. "Of course. Of course. Why not?" It was the +first time he had ever actually lied to Anna. Things, thus, were in a +bad way at the start in the new quarters. + +M'riar, after the first day there, did the marketing. The streets, +transformed into deep, narrow canons by the towering buildings +bordering them, swarming with the poor of every nationality on earth, +every block made into a most fascinating market by the push-cart +vendors with their varied wares, had, from the start, enthralled her. +She was uncannily acute at bargaining. Soon more than one red-headed +Jew had learned, in self-defense, to take out the stick which held up +one end of his cart, and move along, at sight of her. Too often she +had been the symbol of financial loss. Her "Hi sye!" and "My heye!" +became the keen delight of German maidens back of counters over which +cheap delicatessen was distributed. + +Beyond a doubt M'riar was in her element. She labored day and night. +Few tasks there were about the tiny three-room menage, save the actual +cooking, which she did not undertake and undertake with energy which +made up, largely, for her lack of skill. Herr Kreutzer, who had been +in doubt about the wisdom of engrafting her upon his little family +looked at her with amazement, sometimes lowering his flute, on which +he might be practicing, in the very middle of a bar, so that he might +better stare at her unbounded and unceasing physical activities. She +abandoned, as unworthy of her mistress, her old form of address and no +longer simply called her "Miss," but "Frow-_line_," after tutelage +from the small shop-woman who sold cheese to her in three-cent +packages. + +But, ere much time had passed, the day arrived when Herr Kreutzer +feared to have her even buy so much of luxury as cheese in three-cent +packages. The little bag of money which had chinked so bravely on his +hip when he had first arrived in New York city scarcely chinked at +all, these days. Everything was so expensive in this new land they had +come to! Not only must he pay as much rent for a three-room tenement, +with one room almost dark and one quite windowless, as he had had to +pay, in London, for the comfortable floor which they had occupied in +Soho, but food cost twice as much, he woefully declared--and played +the "Miserere" on his flute. He would not go to Karrosch, or any of +the large, important orchestras; none of the small ones wished a +flutist. He learned to loathe the mere word "phonograph"--in so many +places did it form a clock-work substitute to do the work he longed to +do. + +It was when want actually stared them in the face that he read an +advertisement in a German newspaper for a musician--flute or +clarinet--in a beer garden. The clock-hands had not yet reached eight +when he presented himself at the address, far uptown. He had been +unsuccessful, once or twice, in getting hearings because he had +arrived too late--these days he rose by four and had a paper fresh +and damp from the great presses, and every advertisement in it read by +five o'clock. + +There were many applicants for the position, and by ten o'clock when a +youth with a red face and a hoarse voice appeared behind the wicket at +the side of the main entrance, peered out curiously at the shabby, +anxious crowd and winked derisively before he let the door swing +inwards, Herr Kreutzer was as weary as he well could be and keep +upright upon his feet; but, notwithstanding this, he had not given +ground and still held first place in the line. He had arrived at a +decision which filled his soul with dread. If he failed to get this +place he would apply to one of the great orchestras! This possibility +he thought of with a desperate dismay, for, playing thus before the +prosperous public, some traveler would be sure to see him, recognize +him, send word back to Germany and then--ah, then the deluge! He had +been sadly disappointed when he had discovered that New York is not +remote from Europe, but as cosmopolitan, almost, as London. Here, as +there, asylum only could be found in the remote resorts, unfrequented +by those with means, by travelers, by those who know good music. Ah! +he shuddered at the thought of what might happen if, some night, +forgetting his surroundings, he should play as he _could_ play in +hearing of a connoisseur. Then, certainly, discovery. + +So he was very anxious to obtain this small position in the little, +far beer-garden. He was sorry for the others, but they could not have +necessities the least bit greater than his own. He must not yield to +them, so, in the eager crowd, he pushed and scrambled as the others +did, and always kept in front. + +"What kin yer play?" the fat and blear-eyed manager asked gruffly. + +"I play the flute." + +"Bring it along?" + +"Yah; surely." + +"Let 'er go, then. Give us something good and lively." + +With nervous hands Herr Kreutzer raised the old flute to his lips, +with fingers which put tremolos where none were written in the score; +but he made many of the notes dance joyously. Through anxious lips he +blew his soul into the instrument--his love of the pre-eminent +composer who had sung the song he played, his love of his sweet +daughter for whose sake he played--his love of her and fear for her if +he should fail to win the favor of his burly listener. The great +"Spring Song" of Mendelssohn has never been played on a flute as +Kreutzer played it, in the grey light of that morning in the +cheerless, bare beer-garden. When he had finished there was silence in +the crowd behind him. Not a man among the applicants for the position +was a real musician, but all knew, instinctively, that they had been +listening to a veritable artist. Then, after an awed moment, there +came a little spatter of applause. All these men were seeking for a +chance to earn the mere necessities of life; every one of them was +more than anxious, was pitifully eager for the small position which +was open; but, having heard Herr Kreutzer play, they hoped no +longer--and were generous. + +The owner of the beer-garden looked on them in surprise. + +"Got it all framed up," he said, "that Dutchy is to have the job, have +you?" He turned, then, to Kreutzer. "That's all right, too, I guess. +Showed you can play real fast and that is somethin' with a crowd, all +right, all right. But don't you know some really _good_ music?" + +"Good music!" Kreutzer faltered, at a loss. That which he had played +had been among the best the world has ever known. + +"Yes; rag-time stuff, an' such. Real pop'lar." + +"No," said Kreutzer, sadly, "I fear I do not know good music of the +kind you name." He made as if to turn away, but then bethought himself +and whirled back hopefully. "But I can learn," he said. "Simple +things, without a doubt, I could play on sight." + +"Off the notes, you mean?" + +"Yah; so." + +"Take this, then." The manager held toward him a thick book of +rag-time melodies. + +Kreutzer, too desperate to be disgusted, ran through half-a-dozen of +them rapidly. Now the manager beamed pleasantly. + +"Say, you'll do, all right, all right," he told the flute-player. +Then, turning to the rest he motioned them away. "Beat it, you guys," +he commanded. "Father Rhine here's got the job." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Down in the new tenement Anna and her little slave, M'riar, worked +hard, that day, at cleaning. + +"W'ere Hi wuz born," M'riar gravely commented, "we wuz brought up on +dirt an' liked hit, but we never wusn't greedy for hit, like th' way +these folks, 'ere, 'as been." + +Anna, in the next room, was for the first time in her life working +with a scrubbing-brush, and, presently, M'riar heard its swish. + +"Hi s'y!" she cried, and dashed into the gloomy cubby-hole. "Wot's +this? You scrubbin'? Drop it, now, you 'ear? Hit 'yn't fer me to show +no disrespeck, Frow_line_, but--drop it. Hi 'yn't a-goin' to have them +pretty 'ands hall spoilt." + +"But, M'riarrr, I just _love_ to scrub." + +"Don't love hanythink so vulgar," M'riar replied without a moment's +hesitation. "Don't _you_ bother lovin' hanythink but just the guvnor, +and--and--Mr. Vanderlyn." She looked down at blushing Anna who, upon +her knees, was astonished almost into full paralysis. And then she +shrilly laughed. + +"_Hi_ knows!" said she. "_Hi_ knows." + +"M'riarrr," said Anna slowly, rising, "you are crrazy." + +"Not so cryzy as a 'ackman 'ammerin' 'is 'ead hagainst a 'ouse." said +M'riar. "There's cryzier. Love mykes 'em that w'y." + +"Quite crrazy," Anna answered; but she was blushing furiously. + +"Blushin' red as beefstykes," M'riar commented as she took the brush +and started to do Anna's painfully accomplished task all over, from +the big crack by the door where she had started. "'Ow's 'e hever goin' +to know w'ere we 'ave moved to?" she asked her mistress, now. + +"Father left a word." + +"Ho, did 'e?" M'riar asked. + +"Yes; certainly." + +"Ho, _did_ 'e!" M'riar exclaimed again. "Wot mykes yer think 'e did?" + +"He told me so." + +M'riar sat back, astounded. She knew he had not done so, for she, +herself, had asked the landlord there and been assured that no hint +had been given. She did not know just what to do, but soon reached a +decision. + +"Hi'll tell yer, frow-line. I reckon 'e forgot or else th' toff there, +'e don't ricollick. Hi knows as 'e don't know w'ere 'tis we've come +to. 'E tol' me hit 'ad slipped 'is mind." + +"Oh," said Anna, in distress. + +"'Ow's Mr. Vanderlyn to find, then?" + +"Oh, I do not know," said Anna in dismay. + +"Hi do," said M'riar, scrubbing furiously toward Anna till that dainty +maiden fled before her and took refuge in the doorway. "Hi'm goin' +back there to leave word fer 'im." + +"Father might not wish--" Anna began doubtfully. + +"Mr. Vanderlyn--_'e_ would," said M'riar. + +"Perhaps--he might," said Anna. + +When Herr Kreutzer reached the tenement again he was both humbled and +elated. To have discovered any kind of work was fortunate, to have +found the only place available a cheap beer-garden was disheartening. +But work he had and they could live, which surely was a great deal to +be thankful for. + +"Ach, liebschen," he exclaimed on entering, anxious to apprise her of +his luck, loath to tell her all its details. "I have work. I play +first flute, from this time onwards, in a--pleasure park." He did not +tell her that there was no second flute or any other instrument save a +terrible piano, played by a black "professor"; he did not tell her +that "the park" was a beer-garden. + +She rushed to him and threw her arms about his neck. + +"We celebrate a little," he said grandly, and began to draw out of his +great-coat pockets the materials for a bona-fide dinner, for, knowing +that he could redeem it the next Saturday, he had put his watch in +pawn. They had not had real dinners lately. "M'riar, she will cook +it." + +"My heye!" said M'riar, taking the first package, and, when he +followed it with others: "Ho, Hi sye!" + +She had just come in from her uncannily quick dash across town--M'riar +had learned the simple key to New York's streets and rushed about them +without fear--to leave their new address for Mr. Vanderlyn. She felt, +therefore, that she had accomplished a good deed that day and was in +the very highest spirits. She went to work upon the supper with a will +and singing, which greatly distressed Kreutzer, although he would not +have expressed his pain for worlds. + +"I work from six to eleven," he told his daughter, in explaining the +arrangement he had made. The manager had said that at eleven all +sober folks had gone and that those who still remained were all too +drunk to know if there was music or was not; but the old man did not +tell his daughter this. He hoped that she would never know how humble +and unpleasant the work which he had found must be. + +The very next day Vanderlyn appeared, to M'riar's satisfaction and +Anna's fluttering joy. He was most respectful, plainly very anxious to +be of further service to her and her father. She felt a little guilty +because she had sent M'riar with the address--if her father had not +left it he certainly had failed to for no other purpose than +preventing Vanderlyn from getting it--but surely it was right for her +to be good friends with one who wished to be so kind to him and her! +An hour passed most delightfully in that earnest conversation about +little which engages young folk of their age and suffering from the +complaint which ailed them both. + +"But I really had a solemn, sober errand to attend to when I came," he +said, at length. "My mother fell in love with you." (He wished he +might have told her that her son had, also.) "She is anxious to see +more of you." (He did not tell her that the reason was his mother's +firm conviction that her father certainly was a distinguished person +in hard luck, incog.) "This summer, while she was in Europe, she found +that she was sadly handicapped by knowing almost nothing of the German +language. She wants to know if you won't come to her and teach her. +You could also be her friend, you know; a sort of young companion to a +lonely woman." He was making it sound as attractive as he could. He +had devised the scheme with earnest care, had brought his mother round +to eagerness for it with cautious difficulty, and now presented it +with diffidence and fear to the delightful girl he loved. + +"I teach?" said Anna, delighted by the thought of being able, thus, to +help her father, and, at the same time, not utterly averse to anything +which would make frequent glimpses of her knight-errant an easy +certainty. "I don't know if I _could_ teach." + +"Why, it's a cinch," said the enthusiastic lover. "I don't think she +will be slow to learn. She'll work hard, mother will; she didn't like +this summer's trip too well. The crowned-heads didn't tip their crowns +and bow as she went by." + +"You are mistake," said Anna gravely. "Kings do not wear their crowns +upon the streets." + +He laughed. "You see how much we've got to learn?" he asked. "May I +tell my mother that you'll come?" + +"I shall ask my father," Anna answered. + +Reluctantly, after a week, Herr Kreutzer gave consent. He was afraid +he might not hold the place in the beer-garden. He hated the cheap +rag-time music which the man insisted on and had held his temper with +much difficulty, when he had been reproved for playing "hymns" because +he had, for solos, interspersed a worthy number now and then. With his +tenure of that place uncertain, not sure that he could find another, +he felt that he would have no right to interpose too serious +objections to the highly flattering arrangement Mrs. Vanderlyn +proposed. His worry about Vanderlyn subsided, somewhat, when he found +the young man was away from town much of the time. + +The little tenement-house apartment was a lonely place, when he was +there, after Anna took up her new work and could come to it but once a +week and M'riar was a comfort to him. An astonishing companionship +grew up between the strangely differing pair. To save his ears he +taught her something about singing; to save her pride from gibings +from the other children in the block (who were irreverent and +sometimes made a little fun of Kreutzer) she saw to it that he was +always brushed when he went out. Indeed she made him very comfortable. + +Monday afternoons were what made life worth living, though, to him. On +Monday afternoons there was no music at the beer-garden and Mrs. +Vanderlyn gave Anna, also, that time to herself so they had these +hours together, reunited. + +Anna's absence from him among strangers was a constant worry and +humiliation to him. He reproached himself continually because his +poverty had made it necessary. She was at that age, he knew, when +maidens learn to love, and she must never learn to love until--until +he could go back, with her to his dear Germany, where were such men as +he would choose for her. And when would that be safe? Oh, when would +that be safe! + +He wondered if it was not yet time to trust her with the secret which +he had concealed from her her whole life long. The temptation was +tremendous. Some day she would know why he had lived, must live a +fugitive. Must he wait on, for other weary years? He sat immersed in +thought of these things, while M'riar worked at making everything as +near to neat perfection as her training in the London lodging-house +made possible. + +The old man's thoughts dwelt much upon young Vanderlyn. His Anna would +see much of him, ere long, when the young man's western trips were +ended. But she must not fall in love with him! It would not do for +Anna Kreutzer, daughter of the beer-garden flute-player, to marry an +American. But how, without revealing to her what he hid, could he be +certain that she understood this? He wondered if it had not been a +great mistake to let her go to Mrs. Vanderlyn, and then laughed +bitterly because he had not "let" her go; a grim necessity had forced +it--it, or something else which might have been much less desirable. + +It was almost dinner-time when Anna came--radiantly beautiful, with +her crisp color heightened by the rapid run from her employer's in the +Vanderlyn's great touring-car. She had not wished to ride in it, but +had been told to, so that she might have the time to do some errands +and still get to her home on time. + +"It is fine for you, up there, at the great house of Mrs. Vanderlyn, +eh, Anna?" said the old man after they had greeted one another +lovingly. + +"But yes," said Anna, "it is pleasant. She is kind--oh, ve-ry kind; +but, father, I miss you! I miss you every day and every hour. Of +mornings, when I rise, I wonder what it is that you are having, down +here in the little home, for breakfast. I wonder if M'riarrr still is +thoughtful and remembers all that she has learned about the sweeping +and the scrrrubbing. I wonder how things went with you the night +before, in that grreat orchestra at that amusement park. Do they still +think the first-flute a gr-r-reat musician, father?" + +He smiled. "At the garden none has, so far, made complaint about my +playing," he said slowly, "except that I am not quite willing, +sometimes, to play the music they seem best to like." He would not +have told her all the details of his battles against rag-time, for the +world. "It is music of the negroes, Anna. Er--er--syncopation. Ach! +_What_ syncopation! All right in its place, my dear, but a whole +evening of it! Ach, drives me--it grows tiresome, Anna." + +"Some day, father, you will not play there," she said with emphasis. +"Some day will come fortune to us--some day." + +"Yes; perhaps; some day. But there is something finer than a fortune, +Anna. I have been thinking, thinking, thinking, lately, of your +mother, Anna. How delighted she would be to see you, now, with your +dark hair! Why, Anna, it is almost black! So delighted she would be! +It was blonde when you were born--blonde, fair like mine, before mine +turned to white; but hers was dark, as yours is now, and I think that +when she saw that yours was light she was a little disappointed till +her old nurse told her that in early years her own hair had been as +yours was. You were one year old, my Anna, before your hair began to +show the brown." + +"Do you like it, father?" + +"Like it? Ah, I love it! But--I am worried." + +"Worried?" + +"Yes. Always in the past have I been with you. Now you are alone and +beautiful. And of life you know so little, while of love--you +know--ah, nothing!" + +Anna was not sure of this. She had been wondering, indeed, if she did +not know much of it. It startled her to have her father speak of it. +There had been tremors in her heart, hot flushes in her cheeks, dim +mists before her eyes when she had thought about young Vanderlyn, of +which she was suspicious--very. No; she was by no means sure that she +knew nothing about love--but she did not say this to her father. +Instead she pressed her dark head closer to his thick white mane. + +"Love!" said she. "It is such a pretty word. Tell me something of it, +father." + +He smiled down at her. "Ah, you have some interest! Well, I tell you." +Into his old eyes there came the deep and happy glow of reminiscence +of bright days. She knew the look--always was it in them when he was +thinking of her mother and never was it in them at any other time. + +"Love," said he, "it is life's spring-time. Ah, your mother, Anna! +Your dear mother! It is the splendor and the glory of the dawn." The +old man's head was back, his eyes were closed and on his face there +was a singularly sweet and simple smile, more like that of a youth +than that of one whose years stretch far behind him. "It is the light +that falls from heaven and turns this grim old world into a paradise. +It is the hand of fate that grips the heart till we must +follow--follow. We cannot hold back, my Anna; I could not hold back, +your lovely mother, she could not hold back. Ah, one must follow when +Love's hand is clasped about one's heart and leads! Some day you will +understand and many things will then be clear to you. It is the glow +of ardor in the eyes, reflected from the flame which burns deep in the +heart--the flame which melts, which welds a link, a mystic bond, to +bind for all eternity." He opened his eyes, now, and smiled at her. +"That, liebschen--that is love--ah, that is love. Your mother taught +me all about it. Be careful--careful, Anna--about love!" + +"It sounds so splendid as you speak of it! How shall I know when it +has come to me?" + +The old man's caution was all gone; his fears now all forgotten. He +was thinking of past days, dear days, young days. + +"How shall you know?" he asked, and smiled again, this time in soft, +affectionate derision. "You will not mistake. Mistake? It is +impossible. When your heart leaps at the sound of his dear footsteps; +when the world is empty till he comes and then is, ah, so full that +you are crowded out of it into the valleys of a paradise; when little +chills run over you one moment and the next the hot blood makes your +cheeks into twin roses! How shall you know? Ah, there are many signs!" + +"And do you think that such a love will ever come to me?" + +"To you? Of course." The old man caught himself up short, just there, +and lost his rapt expression. There were still hopes in his heart of +realization for his daughter of all the brilliant dreams of his own +youth--those dreams which had so sadly gone quite wrong. She must do +nothing which would shut her from it if ever it should become +possible. "Yes; it will come to you, of course; but not for a long +time, and you must be very careful," he added in a greatly altered, +less magnetic voice. "You must love no one until I tell you." + +"Can one make love wait?" + +"Ah--well--yes--one _must_!" + +"But father--" + +"Wait! You must not question me, mine liebschen; but, someday it may +be that I shall no longer flute-play in a garden. Someday, maybe, +things are better with us. You must wait a while, to see if that comes +true. Then--then, when it _is_ true, I pick out for you, ach! the +handsomest, the bravest gentleman that I can find. I bring him to you, +and I say: 'Anna, you love him!' That is all." + +She was dismayed. This was not to her taste at all! "But father--" + +The old German in his worry lest the life that she must lead as the +companion to the rich New Yorker might induce her to let down the +barriers of the exclusiveness which that which he could not, at +present name, implanted in his very soul, looked sternly at her. He +wished, now, to end the talk of it. "That, Anna," he said gravely, +"that is all." + +"But you tell me you will pick him out and bring him to me! Must he +not love me?" + +This again made him forget a little. It brought back other vivid +memories of those bygone days when, young and ardent, he had gone to +this girl's mother with his heart aflame. + +"Love you? Yah; of course he loves you. You think love is a game of +solitaire? But--he _will_ love you, liebschen. To fall very much in +love with you he has only once to see you. But, Anna, it is not with +women as it is with men. _You_ must _conceal_ your love, until he +speaks." + +She smiled. "And, father, what shall I do then?" + +"Do when he speaks? When comes the right man and tells you that he +loves you, asking you to be his wife, mine Anna, you must answer: 'For +this so great honor, sir, I thank you, and I give you in return my +heart and hand.'" + +Ah, the visions in his mind as he said this, of the far-off German +village, of the dainty maiden standing there before a gallant youthful +gentleman, trying to be as formal, when she placed her hand in his, as +lifelong training in the stiff formalities of life had made him, in +his embarrassment, while he told his great devotion to her! Thinking +back along the path of years that led to that bright garden, how Herr +Kreutzer smiled! + +"How beautiful that sounds!" said Anna, softly. "'For this so great +honor, I thank you, and I give you in return my heart and hand.'" + +It brought the old flute-player back from the far garden. + +"Do not practice on it yet," he said, without unkindness, but with a +firm tone which gave his words almost the stern significance of a real +order. "There is no hurry, liebschen, but, when the time is ripe for +it, ah, it will come. Yah; it will come." + +Her thoughts were full of all this talk of love and marriage as she +went to Mrs. Vanderlyn's next morning, to take up again her routine of +companion and instructor to the lady in the German language. She was +not so very fond of Mrs. Vanderlyn. That lady was too much absorbed in +her ambition to gain real importance in the social world to leave much +time for being lovable to anybody but her son. That she was fond of +him no one could doubt, but he was winning his own way, and did not +need her mother care. It left her free for other things; it made the +other things essential to her happiness. How empty is a mother's life +when from it, out into the world, her only son goes venturing, none +but a mother knows. Mrs. Vanderlyn had striven to fill hers with +social episodes and had not done so to her satisfaction. There were +things, she had discovered, which money, by itself, cannot accomplish +and the learning had astonished her. She had thought a golden key +would certainly unlock all gates. It had come to her as inspiration +that the easy way for an American to gain social favor in New York, +where, hitherto, gates have been closed to her, might be to purchase +social favor, first, in England or in Germany and then come back with +the distinction of it clinging like a perfume to her garments. But the +purchase had not been an easy matter. Abroad, to her amazement, money +had its mighty value, but only as a superstructure. There must be +firmer stuff for the foundation--family. Her family was traced too +easily--for the tracing was too brief. It ended with abruptness which +was startling, two generations back, in a far western mining camp. +Beyond that all the cutest experts in false genealogies had failed to +carry it convincingly. + +"Anna," she said to the attentive girl, "tell me about your family in +Germany." + +"My family?" said Anna. "There is no family of mine, now, left in +Germany. My father--he is here with me, my mother died when I was very +young. I can remember her a little, but _so_ little that it makes my +heart ache, for it is so ver-ry little." + +"I mean about your grandfather and grandmother. Who were they and what +were they? You are certainly well educated." + +"My father and an old woman whom he hired, in London, have taught me +what they could. I studied hard because I had so little else to do. +It helped me in my loneliness. Ah, I was ver-ry lonely, ach! in +London!" + +"Had you no friends?" + +"I had my father and my M'riarrr." + +"Did no one ever visit you from Germany?" + +"No one ever visited from anywhere." + +"What did your father do, there?" + +"He played first-flute in an orchestra--a theatre." + +"Did he never go back to his home--his native land--to Germany, you +know, to see his relatives?" + +"I think he has no relatives alive." + +"Did you never ask him about that?" + +"If he had wish to tell me--if there had been some for to tell +about--he would have told me without asking. I never thought of asking +questions about such a thing." + +"It's very funny!" Mrs. Vanderlyn said somewhat pettishly. "I could +have sworn, from the first time I saw your father on the steamer, +that he was a man of family." + +"Of family? No; Mrs. Vanderlyn, I think not so." + +"And he has never told you anything?" + +"He has told me, sometimes, that by and by, when something happens +which he never will explain, we would go back to Germany." + +The daily lesson in court German then went on. Mrs. Vanderlyn was +plainly disappointed at the meagreness of Anna's family history, and +did badly with her lesson; but she could not possibly complain. Anna +had made no claims. She had accepted her purely of her own--she did +not realize how much it, really, had been her son's--volition. Anna +had not asked for the position. + +"I wonder," she was thinking, when she should have been absorbed in +conjugations, "if there can be the slightest danger in my having this +girl here. She's pretty and she has most charming manners. That accent +is too fascinating, too. John might--but then, he is a boy of too +much sense. If she only had been what I hoped she was, when I saw them +on the steamer--but a mere flute-player's daughter! He would never be +so silly." + +On later days the lessons sometimes went with better speed and more +enthusiasm; but almost always Mrs. Vanderlyn was occupied with +thinking of the social life she knew and wished to know, so rapid +progress was not possible. + +John was out of town much of the time and when he came it was +impossible for him to see much of the little German maiden, and this +made Anna most unhappy. Deep in her heart she knew that what her +father had described had come to her--she knew she loved; but it was +all a mighty puzzle. Even if he loved her in return, of which she was +by no means certain, he was not at all the sort of man, she thought, +of whom her father would approve. Her father's notions were the +notions of the stiff old world. He had said that she must wait until +he was a flute-player no longer and that when that glad time came, he +would, himself, pick out for her the handsomest and bravest gentleman +whom he could find and bring him to her, ready-made, to love. She knew +he felt a great contempt for riches; she knew that his experience of +America had far from prepossessed him in favor either of the country +or the people in it. She was absolutely certain that the man whom he +would choose for her would be a very different sort of person from +John Vanderlyn. Handsome he was, for certain, strong he was, for sure; +but he was not a German and she knew that when her father spoke of +"gentlemen" he had in mind none but a well-bred, well-born German. + +It seemed to her, as she reflected on this matter, that she could not +possibly endure to wed a German. She was, indeed, a little frightened +by what her father had declaimed about her future and the matter of +her courtship. + +Then things happened, all at once, so suddenly that she could scarcely +credit her own knowledge of them. One morning, coming in with Mrs. +Vanderlyn from a long ride, she was informed that Herr Kreutzer had +just been there with M'riar, and had left a note for her upon her +dressing-table after having waited for a time. The note said that he +had an unexpected holiday and begged her to come home, if possible, to +spend it with him, and she was just coming out of Mrs. Vanderlyn's +boudoir, where she had gone to get permission, when she unexpectedly +met John. He had come home without notice and ahead of time from one +of his long journeys. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +"Has she not come then, yet, my child?" said Kreutzer to the busy +M'riar, as he returned. He had thought that Anna might have reached +the tenement by that time, for he had gone out a second time and made +a number of delightful, although meagre purchases. + +"No signs," said M'riar. "Yn't see a sign of 'er. But hit cawn't be +long before she'll be 'ere, can it?" + +"No, M'riar; not long." + +The place was poorly furnished. Marks of poverty, indeed, were +everywhere; but upon the little table with its oil-cloth cover, soon +began to show, as he brought package after package from his pockets, +an array of goodies which amazed M'riar greatly. From the little +gas-pipe chandelier which hung above the table (fly-specked and badly +rusted before M'riar's busy hands had done their best to polish it, +and still uncouth in its plain iron and sharp angles), he hung a +little wreath of evergreen. Out of a package, with the utmost care, he +produced a frosted cake. + +"See, M'riar!" he cried. + +"Hi sye!" said M'riar, examining it with distant care as if she feared +that it would either break or bite. "Won't she be took haback?" + +"And," said Herr Kreutzer, delving busily in a pocket of his long, +limp, overcoat, "a bottle of good wine." + +"My heye!" said M'riar, awed and gaping admiration. "She _will_ be +took haback!" + +"And, see again?" said Kreutzer, taking other treasures out of +packages and pockets, including a roast fowl, and celery and other +fixings. "It is not often, lately, that I have my Anna with me. When +she comes, then we must do what we can do to make her welcome." He +might have added that it was not often that a little stroke of luck +brought him in money for a celebration such as this, but did not. + +"_Such_ a feast!" said M'riar. + +"Ah, it is something," said the flute-player. "It is little I can do. +I earn so little in this country--less, even, than I earned in London; +and here all things cost so much--_more_, even, than they cost in +London." + +M'riar went to the window, after having seen the good things, while +his hands went to his pocket and brought from it the door-key and a +pocket-knife. He laughed a little bitterly. "The little feast has cost +the last cent in my pocket! When night comes I must walk back to the +Garden!... Well what matter? Anna is not suffering, and to-day she +will be happy here with me." + +"Hi, she's comin'," M'riar screamed and dashed out of the room. + +Herr Kreutzer gazed after her with a wide smile of toleration. She had +not been a nuisance; she had been very useful. "I worried when we +found her on the ship," said he, "and here she is, my housekeeper, +while Anna is more happy in the mansion of the Vanderlyns! So things +occur as we do not expect." + +There came to him the sound of chattering voices on the stair. He +hurried to the door. + +"Anna, Anna!" he called into the hallway. + +An instant later and she sprang up the last flight and ran into his +opened arms. "Father!" she cried happily. There was an unwonted flush +upon her cheeks, a new, soft glow within her eyes, a certain subtle +dignity about her bearing which he failed to note, but which she knew +was there and which the keener eyes of M'riar saw and were much +puzzled by. + +"Father!" she cried again, and held him in so close a clasp that his +face reddened quite as much because she choked him as because his +heart was beating high with happiness at sight of her. + +"Come, come," said he, and led her to a chair by the window which +commanded a small vista of back-yards--the only glimpse of +out-of-doors the tiny tenement apartment offered. "My liebling! My +little Anna! It is good to hold you so, again!" He clasped her in his +arms. + +"'Yn't it beautiful!" M'riar muttered, gazing at them. "W'ite as snow +'is 'air looks, w'en 'ers that is that dark, is hup hagainst it close, +like that!" + +"Dear old father!" Anna cried, as she drew back. She took him by the +shoulders, now, and, with her beautifully modelled, firm young arms, +held him away from her so that she might examine him. With loving +scrutiny she studied every line of the old face. Instantly she noted +the weary droop of tired eyelids. "Are you sure you are quite well?" + +He smiled. "Always I am well, when you are with me. Always well when +you are with me, Anna." + +"You look tired. Ah, it is not easy for you when you play--" + +His heart stood still for half-a-dozen beats. Could it be possible +that she had learned how he had lied to her about the place in which +he played? Had she learned that it was not a park of elegant +importance? + +"It is a fine, a splendid park," he interrupted. "Some day I shall +take you there, with M'riar, and shall show you. Not at once. At +present I must be quite sure to please and so must play without +distraction. Your presence might confuse me, so that I could not give +satisfaction; but, someday, when things are a little better--then I +take you with me." + +As he lied away her fears his soul was bitterly inquiring what his +daughter who had such respect for him and for his music, would think +if she could hear him as he stood upon a rough-board platform, or sat +beside a cheap piano, pounded by a colored youth who kept a glass of +beer on one end and a cigarette upon the other as he played. What +would Anna think of her old father if she heard him tootle on his +flute, with all the breath which he could muster, the strains of "Hot +Time," an old favorite, or "Waltz Me Around Again, Willie," not quite +so old, but infinitely more offensive than the frank racket of the +negro melody to his sensitive ear? How would her artistic soul revolt +if she should hear his flute--his precious flute!--inquiring if +anybody there had seen an Irishman named Kelly? + +"What do they like best, my father?" Anna asked him, still looking +searchingly into his face, as if she saw signs there which did not +reassure her. "Mozart, possibly, or Grieg?" + +"I think it is 'An Invitation to the Dance,'" said he, and smiled +again, more sweetly, more convincingly than ever. "'Around, around, +around!'" he muttered, bitterly, sarcastically, as he turned away from +her. + +"What, father?" + +"That melody, so sweet; those words, so full of lovely sentiment--they +cling in my old mind, my liebschen," said Herr Kreutzer, to cover up +his error. "They what you call it? Keep running in my head--ah, +around, around within my head, my liebschen." + +"Somehow, I am af-raid that you do not, really, like the place where +you are playing." + +"It is a fine, a splendid park, my Anna," Kreutzer cried in haste. "I +am a grumbler--an old grumbler. My only real cause for complaint is +that I must play so very loud for some" (his heart was sore with a +humiliation of the night before), "while, for others, it is necessary +that I plays so s-o-f-t-l-y--lest my flute disturb their +conversation. I am puzzled, Anna, that is all. Quite all. There is no +cause for you to worry." He placed his hand upon her shoulder, and, as +he sank wearily to the stiff, wooden chair which was as easy as the +room could boast, she dropped to her knees beside him. + +Her heart was very full. Vividly she longed to tell him that the love, +of which he had discoursed to her, had not come in the least as he had +said it would--summoned by his counsel after he had searched and found +the man whom he decided would be best for her to marry. No; love had +not approached her logically, rationally, as result of careful thought +by a third party; it had come, instead, as might a burglar, breaking +in; an enemy, making an assault upon an unsuspecting city in the +night. She had yielded up the treasures of the casket of her heart +without a murmur to the burglar; the city had capitulated without +fighting, without even protest. She was sure he would not find it +easy to approve of her selection. + +So she was not ready, yet, to tell him; she was not ready to destroy +the happiness of this, their day together, as she feared that such a +revelation must, inevitably. + +"Hard times, father!" she said, temporizing. "But perhaps, sometime, +they shall be changed. Perhaps _I_ shall be rich, some day." + +"Ah, Anna, no; such thoughts are what they call, up at the park, +the--the--what is it? Ah, I have it--dream of the pipe. Rich we shall +never be, my Anna." + +"But it's _so_ hard as it is. Only once-a-while can we be here +together." + +"Hard?" said he, and smoothed her hair. "You must not say that. It is +so sweet when once-a-while it comes! It makes me so happy--" + +"Dear!" + +Depression seized him, now. Fiercely the thought rose in his mind +that while he waited for these meetings with the keenest thoughts of +joy, she, on the other hand, must look forward to them with emotions +much less purely happy. That she was glad to be with him he did not +doubt; he could not doubt; but what a contrast must his poor rooms +offer to the luxurious surroundings of her other days! It would be +only human if she yielded to an impulse to be critical, only human if, +against her will, she felt contempt for his dire poverty. The black +thought filled his soul with bitterness. + +"Look," he said, and rose with a sudden gesture almost of despair. +"What must you think of me, my liebschen? Poor little rooms! They are +no place for you. Ah, no; for you the grand and beautiful home of Mrs. +Vanderlyn!" + +His scorn of self was written, now, so plainly on his face, in such +fierce lines of deep contempt and loathing, that, as she looked at +him, it frightened her. She, also, rose and lightly clasped her arms +about his neck in an appeal. + +"There, all the week," he went on with less virulence, "you have, as +her companion, the happy life I wish for you, Ah, your old father does +not grudge you that, my liebschen! And, after all, you do not falter +in your love. My poverty does not make you forget me--eh?" + +"Forget you, father? These hours are pleasantest of all! These hours +with you here in these rooms which you say are 'poor' are far, far +pleasanter to me than any hours at Mrs. Vanderlyn's." + +"Ah, so," said he. "Yes, you come back to me and we are happy--very +happy. It is my good luck--much better than I really deserve. Come, +now, come. A little cake, a little wine, in honor of your visit. +M'riar, M'riar--where have you gone, M'riar?" + +From the other room the slavey came with reddened eyes. + +"'Ere, sir; 'ere Miss." She was snuffling. + +"Why, M'riar," said Kreutzer, in dismay! "What is it? Why weep you?" + +"Ho, it allus mykes me snivel w'en I sees you two together, that w'y. +Hi cawn't _stand_ it. 'Ow you love! It mykes me _'ungry_. Yuss, fair +'ungry. Nobody ain't hever loved _me_ none--it mykes me 'ungry." + +Quick with remorse and sympathy Anna pounced upon her and enfolded her +in a great hug, realizing, for the first time, that, on entering, she +had been too anxious to show her affection for her father, too full of +worry over what she had, that day, to tell him, to remember M'riar. + +"_Dear_ M'riarrr!" she said softly. "Dear M'riarrr! We love you. Don't +we father--love her?" + +"Yah; sure we love her," Kreutzer answered heartily and patted the +child's head. "We love her much." + +"My heye!" said M'riar, happily, her sorrows quickly vanishing. "'Ow +much nicer New York his than Lunnon!" + +It was with the grace of an old cavalier that Kreutzer led his +daughter to the table, and called her attention to the little feast he +had prepared. + +The small display of goodies would have seemed poor enough had she +compared it to the everyday "light luncheons" at the Vanderlyns', but +she did not so compare it. Back to the old days of modest plenty which +they had known in London, to the days of almost actual need which they +had known in New York City, went her mind, for its comparison, and +thus she found the feast magnificent. With real fervor she exclaimed +above it. Her pleasure was so genuine that the old flute-player was +delighted. "How splendid!" she cried honestly. + +Having placed her in her chair he began, at once, in the confusion of +his joy, to cut the cake, ignoring, utterly, the chicken. She did not +call attention to his absent-mindedness. + +"It looks almost like a wedding cake!" said she and laughed--but then, +suddenly, there flooded back on her remembrance of the secret she must +tell him before she left the tenement that afternoon. It sobered her. +How would he take the news that she had not been content to wait for +him to bring to her his wonderful "brave gentleman?" + +"Ah, you are thinking about weddings!" he said genially, still cutting +at the cake. For an instant she imagined that she had aroused +suspicions, but, quickly, she saw plainly that he was but lightly +jesting. "Have a care, my Anna! Have a care!" + +Suddenly her heart was filled with resolution. When would there be a +better time than now in which to tell him her sweet secret? It could +not be that he would be so very angry. His love for her, his longing +that she might be happy, were, she knew, too great for that. And, +later, when he knew Jack Vanderlyn as well as she had come to know +him, he would realize, as she did, that nowhere in the world, not in +the castles of the barons on the Rhine, not in the palaces of kings, +could he or anyone find more genuine gentility than in this free-born +unpretending young American. + +"Father!" she said timidly. + +"My girl," said he, without the least suspicion that her heart could, +really, be touched by anyone in this cold land of crude democracy, +"you must always come and tell me if your heart begins to flutter like +a little bird. You--" + +"Of--course, my father." + +The matter had not in the least impressed him. As she turned and +re-turned something in her hand beneath the table, and tried to rouse +her courage to the point of making full confession, the old man +quietly dismissed the subject. + +"Now, a health to you, my Anna," he said gaily and raised high his +glassful of cheap wine. "May the good God give you all the happiness +your father wishes for you! More than that I cannot say, for I wish +you all the happiness in all the world. Ah, when I look at you I am so +full of joy! It is as if sweet birds were singing in my heart. +Wait--you shall hear!" + +Forgetting the great feast, as, seized by the impulse to express +himself in the completest way he knew he turned from her with a bright +smile, he crossed the tiny room and took down from the mantlepiece his +flute. + +"Ah, play for me!" she cried, delighted, both at the prospect of the +music, which she loved with a real passion, and at the prospect of the +brief reprieve the diversion would afford her from the revelation +which she had to make. + +[Illustration: It was as if the "sweet birds singing in his heart" had +risen and were perched, all twittering and cooing, chirping, carolling +upon his lips] + +He pretended shy reluctance. "No; in your heart you do not really wish +to hear. You have grown tired of the old flute, long ago." + +She laughed and rose and went to him. "Bad boy! He must be teased! I +am _not_ tired of it. To me it is in all the world, the sweetest +music. Must I say more? Come, come, for me!" + +"Ah, then--for you!" + +He raised the old flute to his lips and settled it beneath the thatch +of whitened hair which covered his large, sensitive mouth. He took a +little breath of preparation. Then he closed his eyes and played. + +Such music as came from that flute! It was as if the "sweet birds +singing in his heart" had risen and were perched, all twittering and +cooing, chirping, carolling upon his lips. And all they sang about was +love--love--love--a father's love for his delightful daughter. Sweet +and pure and wholly lovely was the melody which filled the room and +held the charming woman it was meant for spellbound; held the little +slavey from the grime of London as one hypnotized upon her chair; sang +its way out of the window, down into the grimy court between this +dingy tenement and the whole row of dingy tenements which faced the +other street, and made a dozen little slum-bred children pause there +in their play, in wonder and delight. Ah, how Kreutzer played the +flute, that day, for his beloved Anna! + +"Ah, when you play," said she, as with a smile, he laid the wonderful +old instrument upon the shelf again, "it is your life, your soul--you +put all into the old flute!" + +"Yes, Anna; and to-day it was far more. It was my love for you--that +was the greatest part of it; and there were sweet memories of my +native land." The fervor of his playing, more than the effort of it, +had exhausted him. He sat down somewhat wearily, with a long sigh. +"But we will not speak of our native land, my Anna," he said sadly. +"Ach! I am a little tired." He held his arms out to her. "But +happy--very happy," he said quickly when he saw the look of quick +compassion on her face. "And you?" + +The burden of her secret had grown heavy on her heart. It did not seem +a decent thing to wait a moment more before she told it to him. + +"I am happy, too--but--but--oh, my father, father!" + +She threw herself into his arms, bursting into tears. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The old flute-player looked down upon his lovely daughter as, sobbing, +she clung to him, with bewildered, utterly dismayed amazement. What +could be the matter with the child? He glanced about him helplessly. +It dazed him. Everything, a moment since, had been so bright and gay! +There had been a smile upon her lips, a soft glow of happiness alight +within her eyes. He could not understand this situation. He was +actually frightened. + +So, also, was M'riar, who stood gaping at the spectacle of her Miss +Anna's grief with wide, fear-stricken eyes. + +"Cawn't Hi do nothink for 'er, sir?" she said, approaching timidly. + +For the first time in his life he spoke almost harshly to the child, +in his excitement. "No," he said emphatically. "You will only stand +and say 'My heye! Hi sye! Hi sye! My heye!' You can do nothing. It +would be well for you to step into the kitchen, possibly. I smell me +that there may be something burning, there. And do not come again +until I call to you. If nothing burns there, now, then something might +burn, later. It would be well for you to stay and watch." He had no +wish to hurt the poor child's feelings--but his Anna! Surely none but +he must witness this completely inexplicable, this mad outburst of +wild woe. + +"What is this, my Anna?" he said softly to the weeping girl who clung +there in his arms when M'riar had left the room. "You are tear-ing, +Anna--you are tear-ing, child!" He was sure his English had escaped +him, but he could not stop to make correction. + +She looked up at him, at last. "'Tear-ing? Tear-ing?' Oh, crying! Yes, +I'm crying--because I am so happy, and because--" + +He was more puzzled by this extraordinary statement than he had been +by her tears. "Because you are so _happy_! Hein! A woman--she is +strange. So strange. She cries because she is so happy, then she cries +because she is so sorry. When she cries no one can tell which makes +her do it. You are sure it is the happiness, this time, that makes you +cry?" + +"Quite sure," said Anna, trying hard to stifle the great sobs. "Yes; I +am certain. It is because I am so happy, and--because--I am a little +bit--af-fraid!" + +"You are afraid, my child? What is it fears you?" + +She slipped out of his arms. There was no going back, she now must +tell him all. She knew that he would not be harshly angry, though she +greatly feared he would be sorely grieved. + +She held him, with a gentle hand, back in his chair as he would have +arisen, and sank down at his feet, her arm upon his knee, her face +upturned. "Come, father," she said simply. "I want to sit here at +your feet. I want to sit here at your feet just as I did when I was, +oh, a very little girl!" + +The old man was sorely puzzled, but he sank back in his chair and let +her take his hands--both of them. One of them she placed upon her +beautiful, dark hair; the other she held close clasped against her +bosom in her own. "Father, I have something to confess." + +He was amazed, but less distressed than he had been. His Anna, his +own, liebling Anna, could not have anything to confess which was so +very terrible. He looked down at her and smiled in reassurance. Her +wonderful, dark eyes were upturned, as he gazed, and, for an instant, +looked straight at his; but then the delicately veined lids drooped. + +"You have something to confess? What is it, Anna?" + +"I shall not go back again to Mrs. Vanderlyn's," she slowly answered. +"I have come home, my father; have come home to you--to stay." + +He was worried. Could she be satisfied, after what she had been having +there at Mrs. Vanderlyn's, with what his small purse had to offer her +in this unpleasant tenement? His heart leaped at the thought of having +her with him again; none but himself could know how greatly he had +missed her, and he could give her food and shelter. But would she, +now, be happy there with him, in all his poverty? + +"Ah; you have quarreled?" he ventured, hesitantly. + +"No," she faltered. + +His wrath rose. Ah, that was it! The woman had been unkind to her, had +asked of her some menial service, had presumed upon the fact that she +was but an employee! "She has mistreated you," he cried, in +indignation. "She has mistreated you! Well, here is--" + +Anna interrupted him by laying a soft hand upon his lips. She had to +stretch and strain a little to reach up so far, crouched low there, as +she was, quite at his feet. Her heart was beating very fast as came +the time for her confession. She hoped that he would not be very +angry, very greatly horrified. + +"No," she said slowly; "no, we have not quarreled, she has not +mistreated me; but--she will be very angry--she will not forgive me, +when she knows--" + +Kreutzer was affrighted. There seemed to him to be a hint of dreadful +revelations to be made in the soft droop of Anna's head, the trembling +of her little hand in his, the swift ebb and flow of the rich color in +the pink satin of her cheeks. + +"Anna," he said, aghast, "what is there for her to know? Oh, my +Anna--what is there for her to know? Fear not. Your old father--he +will understand and will forgive--will forgive anything in all this +world--no matter what. Remember that. Remember that, and tell me, +Anna, what is there for Mrs. Vanderlyn to pardon?" + +She did not lift her head. Her eyes flashed up at him in one quick +look of terror, but never by an inch did she raise toward her +father's, now, her pale, affrighted face. "It was a great temptation, +father," she said slowly. "A very great temptation." + +Now he was alarmed, indeed. "Anna," he demanded, in a voice that was +not like his own, "what have you done? What have you done?" + +Every horrid thought--but one--which could flash into being in the +human mind at such a time, rushed into his, in a terrific jumble of +mad speculations. + +For a moment Anna cowered, alarmed by what a quick glimpse of his face +had shown her. She had never seen a human face so--not whitened by his +fear, but greyed--greyed as if seared with fire and turned to carven +ashes. She could tell, by that, that he would never, really, forgive +her. Too firmly had his hopes been fixed upon the plans which he had +built in many long hours of reflections going back along the years, no +doubt, to that far time when she was lying, a mere babe, in her dear +mother's arms. How ardently she wished, now, at this crisis, that that +mother might be there to soften things for her; to turn his wrath, +explain, make clear to him the fact that there are impulses too strong +for women's hearts to put aside! + +She did not look at him again--she could not bear to see that face +again--but slowly rose and slowly crossed the little room to the crude +table and took from it her handbag, which, when M'riar had cleared off +the dinner things, she had replaced where it had been when she had +started, first, to lay the table. As she raised the bag her father's +eyes were fixed upon her in an agony of dread. + +Trembling with apprehension, her fingers shaking so that it was with +great difficulty that she managed the bag's clasp, she opened the +receptacle, and, with accelerating nervousness which made her feel and +fumble, took from it a small box--a jeweler's box. Slowly she returned +to him, her feet dragging as if weighted; slowly, as she stood before +him, drooping, frightened, she took off the cover of the little box, +her heart hammering till it seemed as if it must burst from her +breast; slowly, then, with trembling fingers, while her eyes remained +steadfastly downcast and the quick rising, falling, of her delicately +rounded, girlish bosom showed how keen her agitation was, she took +from the opened box a sparkling trinket. + +"You will understand me, father, when I show you--" + +She held the brilliant bauble towards him, and, as she stretched out +her hand a hundred little facets on the glittering thing caught light, +there in the gloomy tenement house room, and blazed and sparkled as +with inner fires. + +"Look, father." + +The old flute-player stretched a wondering hand to take the trinket. +He could not understand, at all, what all this meant. What had the +thing to do with her great agitation? How came she with so valuable a +jewel? What did it mean--all of it? What under heaven could it mean? + +"A ring? Ah," said he, "it is a beautiful ring set with a diamond. +Where did you get it, Anna?" He laid it upon the table quickly. He did +not seem to wish to hold it in his hand. + +This was the crucial moment and she looked at him with dumb appeal in +her fine eyes. Then, seeing nothing in his face to reassure her, she +dropped her gaze. Her chest heaved with a quick sob. + +"My dear, my dear," she now began, "I have a great confession. Do not, +please, be angry with me, father! I must tell you--" + +She was interrupted by a quick, sharp rap upon the door. There was in +it the abrupt demand of an official visitation, and it startled both +of them. + +Hastily she rose and stood gazing at the closed door; wonderingly he +rose, also, and, poised, ready to go and open it, waiting a second, to +see if there would be a repetition of the knock. + +"Who is there?" he called, at length. + +"I, Mrs. Vanderlyn," came the reply, in high-pitched, angry tones. + +"M'riar," the flute-player called loudly, "go to the door." + +Anna, now very plainly much alarmed, cowered back against the table, +her face turned toward the door, her two hands back of her, caught +desperately on the table and supporting her. Kreutzer looked at her +with new alarm--a dreadful apprehension. What could the girl have done +to be thus frightened by the coming of the woman whose employment she +had left? + +"Mrs. Vanderlyn!" the girl gasped, weakly. + +Then Kreutzer saw her do a thing which added to his great amazement, +his great worry. With a quick stride she crossed the little space +between her and the table, quickly snatched from it the box and ring, +put the cover on the box, and, hurriedly, with almost furtive gesture, +thrust the box into her handbag, being careful, he observed, to see to +it that in the bag it was well covered by a handkerchief and veil. + +"Why do you look so frightened?" he demanded, in a voice now hoarse +and painful. + +Anna was as pale as death as she replied: "I am afraid she has +discovered--" + +"Discovered?" said her father, a grim light breaking on his confused +faculties. Ah, this was terrible, but must be faced! Ah, God! His +little Anna! She had taken it--had stolen it--from Mrs. Vanderlyn! But +he would stand by her. Nothing should induce him to abandon her, no +matter what mad thing she had been tempted into doing. Doubtless it +had been his poverty (and was his poverty not direct result of his +incompetence?) which had led her into doing the dread thing which he +began to understand that she had done. + +Now, surely, was not the time for him to offer her reproaches. Now was +the time, when he, the best friend she had, could ever have, must +comfort her and shelter her. Later, if there were reproaches to be +offered, would be time enough to offer them. + +"Hush!" he said cautiously. "How you tremble! Anna--my little Anna! +She shall not see you like this. Go, liebling. I will first speak to +her. And ... whatever it may be ... fear not. Fear not." + +M'riar had come in, and, fascinated by the scene, began to dimly see +its awful import, also. Her training in the slums of London where a +knock like that upon the door meant but one thing--the law--made the +situation clear to her, at once, and, bewildered as she was by the +amazing fact that it was Anna--her Frow-line--who was involved, she +did not lose her head. + +"This w'y," she whispered, hoarsely. "This w'y, Frow-line! This w'y!" + +She hurried Anna out into the kitchen and the flute-player could hear +the key turn in the lock behind them. Sure that, for the moment, his +dear child was safe, he now went to the door, with measured, steady +tread, and opened it. + +"Come, Madame, come," he said to Mrs. Vanderlyn, who, flushed and +angry, waited with small patience at the threshold. + +The old flute-player caught the glint of polished buttons and a +polished shield upon the breast of a man's coat beyond her, and he +recognized the face above them as that of his old shipboard enemy, +Moresco, now policeman on this beat. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The superbly dressed visitor, wrapped in silk brocades and woven +feathers, seemed strangely out of place there in the doorway of the +dingy tenement apartment. That she felt herself so, also, was +apparent, for there was, upon her face, a look of high contempt and +keen distaste. She swept into the little room with all the majesty of +a proud queen, forced, by some untoward circumstance, to call at the +low hovel of a very, very humble, and, probably, unworthy subject. + +"Ah, Herr Kreutzer." + +The old flute-player, after a scared glance into the hallway, where he +had thought he saw the flash of brazen buttons, bowed low and +handsomely. Among all the millionaire male friends of Mrs. Vanderlyn +was not one who was half capable of such a bow, and, in a dim way she +appreciated this. She did not for a moment, though, think it marked +the aged man before her as a gentleman, and worthy, therefore, of +consideration from a lady. She was trying to feel certain, now, that +what she had believed an evidence of really high breeding, was, +really, mere clever sham. The old musician had lost all the glamor of +his mystery for her. Surely, had he really been what she suspected, +then his daughter would have been incapable of the offense which she, +its victim, had come there to punish. Now the old man's courtly grace +upon the ship, by which she had been fooled into believing him a +person of real eminence, was openly revealed to her as counterfeit and +worthless--he was a swindler, almost, indeed, as viciously dishonest +as the thing his daughter had been guilty of. Now his manner merely +sent a vague reflection through her brain that upon the ocean's other +side their peasants were well trained. Now she was bitterly resentful +of the fact that, on the ship, she had been fooled into thinking him a +person, possibly, of eminence. + +"So," said Kreutzer, offering her, with graceful courtesy which made +her falter in her new conviction, and a perfect ease, withal, which +much astonished her, the best chair in the room. "And you, Madame, are +Mrs. Vanderlyn?" + +"Yes," Mrs. Vanderlyn replied. "I'm Mrs. Vanderlyn. Your daughter, +till to-day, was--my companion." + +"Ah, Madame; I know," said the old man. "You wish to see her? Is that +the reason why you honor my so humble home, Madame?" + +Mrs. Vanderlyn, who had come to bluster, was a bit nonplussed, even a +bit abashed by the superb and easy manner of the man. Never in her +life had she been privileged, indeed, to meet with a reception so +graceful and so courteous. Could she, after all, be wrong? Here, at +last, in an apartment on the top floor of a New York tenement, had she +encountered what she had vainly searched for, elsewhere, even on her +travels in the European countries. This was the grace and courtesy +which she had read about. She really was much impressed, and, in her +heart, would have been pleased if she had had an errand there less +disagreeable. She wondered why she had not remembered with more +accuracy, the superb demeanor of this aged man on shipboard. If she +had only realized--she even might have dressed him up, she speculated, +and had him at her house for dinner! She could have introduced him to +her climbing friends as a musician of great eminence, abroad (she +remembered with regret, now, that he really played the flute +magnificently--so everyone on shipboard had exclaimed), and made them +envious to a degree. But now that she had started on this task, she +would not falter. She assured herself, indeed, that duty as a citizen +demanded that she should _not_ falter. + +"Yes," she said to him, with real regret, "I certainly must see your +daughter; but I am glad first to explain to you--" + +"The pleasure," said the courtly flute-player, "is mutual, Madame. May +I ask you what you must explain?" + +Mrs. Vanderlyn now summoned to her face a look of sympathy, lugubrious +and as sincere as she could make it. "It will be a blow, Herr +Kreutzer." + +The old man was uneasy, but he hid it as best he could, under a most +careful, unremitting courtesy. "A blow, Madame?" + +She did not speak, at once, but stood there looking at him with wide +eyes which she was very careful to make sad. It made him madly +nervous. + +"Well, I am ready," he protested, after the delay became intolerable. +"I beg of you do not delay." + +"First," said Mrs. Vanderlyn, not going to the heart of the unhappy +matter, as his whole soul begged of her to do, but paltering with an +unnecessary explanation, "you must understand the arrangement of my +house. My son's room adjoins my own; then comes the little boudoir I +assigned to Anna; then--" + +"Yes, Madame," said Kreutzer, unable to endure this any longer, "but +what of that? You said--" + +"I am positive that this afternoon no one was near those rooms but +Anna." + +Kreutzer was in agony. "Go on, Madame," he said, imploringly. "Do you +not see that this is torture? I cannot bear it longer." + +She looked at him again, with that assumed expression of compassion, +and he could have torn her secret from her with hooked fingers, so +exasperated, so intensely agonized was he by her delays. Finally he +made a desperate, downward, begging gesture with both hands, and, +understanding, she went on: + +"This afternoon my son returned from somewhere, and went into his +room. He did not come into my room to call me, as he sometimes does. +He was very quiet and it made me curious. I thought perhaps the boy +might be there suffering with some headache, or something, which he +did not wish to bother me about. A mother's heart, you know--" + +"Madame, I pray you, have some consideration for a father's heart, and +hasten." + +"I went into his room to speak to him and found that he had left it; +but on his table was a little jewel-box." + +The flute-player drew in his breath with a sharp hiss, so close set +were his teeth. Now she was coming to it! Now she was coming to the +accusation of his Anna--the accusation which--ah, God!--had been +preceded by the girl's own terrible confession. + +"Yes," said he, trying not to let his eyes turn toward the bag, which +still lay on the table, "a jewel-box. Well, Madame, what of that?" + +"Being a woman," Mrs. Vanderlyn said slowly, "I could not withstand +the temptation. I looked in. Within I saw--a magnificent diamond +ring." + +Still she had not reached the crux of what she had to say. Would the +woman never come to the great point--would she never make the charge +against his Anna definite and clear? "Well?" he said unhappily, and, +as he said the word a resolution found birth in his brain. His little +Anna! What if she had been tempted and had yielded? He would not let +her suffer for it, as this cold and haughty woman evidently wished to +have her suffer! He would ward disgrace from her--at any cost. + +Carefully, so that the movement could not rouse suspicion in the mind +of his exasperating visitor, he put his hand behind him and let it +fall on the bag upon the table. Once on it, his fingers worked with +skill and that precision which is natural to fingers trained by +practice on a musical instrument until they seem to have a real +intelligence, scarcely dependent on the brain. + +"I knew for whom the dear boy meant that jewel," Mrs. Vanderlyn went +on. "He had bought it as a present for me on my birthday, which occurs +tomorrow." + +Kreutzer nodded slowly, his fingers working, all the time, in Anna's +bag. "Presents are sometimes made on birthdays," he admitted. "Well?" + +"Happy in the thought that he had remembered me, I went out for my +drive, leaving the box there on his table, just where I had found it. +When I reached the house again I found a note left for me by your +daughter, saying that she had decided upon going from my house +forever, that someday she hoped I would forgive her--" + +"What had she done?" said Kreutzer, in a dry voice, full of misery. + +"Ah, that she did not say." Mrs. Vanderlyn paused now, with a fine +sense of the dramatic. "But immediately I looked again for that box +and ring and they--were gone!" + +Kreutzer, pale, his forehead damp from perspiration of pure agony, as +truly sweat of pain as any ever beaded on the brow of an excruciated +prisoner upon the rack, looked at her with pleading eyes. "Gone! +Madame, you do not think--" + +She smiled a bitter little smile. There was, also, just a touch of +triumph in it, such as small souls show when they are on the point of +proving to another, even though a stranger, that they have been wrong +in trusting someone, believing in some thing. "My dear sir," she said +slowly, not from unwillingness to speak but to give emphasis, "what +else can I think? No one but my son, myself and Anna had been near +that room--" + +Kreutzer straightened up as one whose shoulders have been stooped for +the reception of a mighty load which, finally, has been fixed upon +them. "You have told him?" + +"Not yet." + +"Ah, that is lucky.... I beg your pardon, Madame, you have dropped +your handkerchief." + +The handkerchief had fallen not less than a minute before, and, +instinctively, he had started forward, intending to restore it to her; +but by that time the situation had begun to be quite clear to him--ah, +deadly clear to him!--and, in a flash the strategy had come to him. +Knowing, then, that that dropped handkerchief would be essential to +its execution, he had let it lie. + +Mrs. Vanderlyn turned carelessly to raise the handkerchief, and, as +she turned, he carried out his plan. Quick as a flash, he slipped the +box which held the ring, out of the bag and into his own pocket. When +she straightened up again, after having (with a flush, for he had +seemed exceedingly polite, before) recovered her own handkerchief, she +found him standing as he had stood, only, possibly, a little more +erect than he had been, with some addition of calm dignity to his +carriage, with a calmer look in his old eyes. + +"Why is it lucky that I have not told him?" Mrs. Vanderlyn asked, now. +"Of course he'll have to know. Everyone must know." + +It broke his self-control. "That--my little girl is--no, no, no!" he +faltered. "Ah, it is not true! She is not guilty!" + +She tried to show a sympathetic smile, but in it there was little +actual sympathy. "Very natural that you should think so," she +admitted. "It came as a great shock--and a surprise--even to me. I had +thought she was unusually well-bred, refined." She sighed, as if the +world were rather hard on her, to fool her so in one she had believed +to be an admirable person. "But let me tell you that she has great +admiration for fine jewels. I have noted that, before. And--the +temptation was too strong for her. Weak spot, somewhere, in her, don't +you see? It was too strong for that weak spot." + +"Oh, Madame, I--" + +She raised her hand as if to ward away his protests. Clearly she +believed that having told him all about it, as gently as she had, she +had accomplished her whole Christian duty and was under not the +slightest further obligation to be merciful. "I may as well tell you," +she warned him, "that I brought an officer with me. To save your +natural feelings, I requested him to wait downstairs a moment and then +to come and wait outside the door--er--um--in case of trouble. Just a +little necessary precaution, my dear sir. A woman, coming to a place +like this, alone, you see--" + +He smiled. "Quite natural," he answered. "Why, I might have eaten +you!" But in the absorption of his talk with her he had forgotten +that, as he went to the door, he had seen a blue coat and brass +buttons, had recognized the face of his old enemy, Moresco. Now the +realization that, armed and uniformed, a minion of the forces of the +city's law and order, that cheap foe was actually waiting for his +little Anna--for his gentle, big-eyed, soft-voiced Anna!--came to him +with a new and dreadful shock. His frame stiffened and his poor old, +soft hands clenched into pathetic fists. "He shall not--" he began +with a brave bluster, but then stopped, realizing his own +helplessness. + +"What can you do?" asked Mrs. Vanderlyn, and smiled again that twisted +little smile which was her counterfeit of the sweet look of sympathy. +"I am only doing what is right and what is necessary. I am, +naturally, most indignant at this betrayal of my confidence. I will +not interfere to save the girl from justice!" + +From behind the kitchen door, at this, Herr Kreutzer thought he heard +a sound as of swift breath indrawn through tight-set, angry teeth, but +was not sure. It might have been his own. He was so terribly excited +that he did not know. Certainly, from now, his angry breathing was +quite audible. His little Anna taken to a prison! No! "She shall not +be punished!" he exclaimed in wrath. + +Mrs. Vanderlyn looked at him, for a second, as might one look at an +unpleasant child who is a disappointment. Then she for the first time +showed a little wrath towards him. Up to that moment her calm, +maddening attitude of skin-deep sympathy had been unbroken. She spoke +sharply, now, however, as she countered: "That will not depend on +you." + +"It _shall_ depend on me!" said Kreutzer, hotly. + +"There is but one thing which will lighten the severity of the bad +girl's punishment," said Mrs. Vanderlyn, didactically. + +"And that, Madame?" + +"The immediate restitution of the ring. She is here, now, is she not?" + +"Yes, she is here, but--" + +The poor old man looked helplessly around him. The whole thing seemed +too terrible to be believed. He wondered if some dreadful nightmare +did not hold him prisoner and half expected, as he let his agonized +old eyes roam round the room, to wake up, presently, and find the +episode was but a dreadful dream. + +"Call her; ask her to give it up--" + +"No," said the old man softly, careful that his voice should not rise +so that it could easily be audible in the adjoining room, "I will not +ask her to give up the ring, for the ring is not in her possession. +She would not know of what I spoke. She would look at me, my Anna +would, with soft reproach in her sad eyes and wonder if her poor old +father had gone mad to bring an accusation such as that against her +soul--so pure--so innocent--so--" + +"Certainly she has the ring." The woman, now, was definitely sneering +at his protestations of his daughter's worthiness. + +"No; she has not got the ring. I--have it--" + +From his pocket he drew forth his hand and in it lay the little box. +Out of the box, with trembling fingers, he removed the ring, and held +it up, smiling at her, as he did so, with a wondrous look of +triumph--not the look of one who has just placed his feet, quite +consciously, upon the road that leads to prison, but that of one who +has won victory against great odds. She could not understand that +look. + +And that was not so strange, for on the face of the old flute-player +the expression was like few this selfish old world ever sees--the +expression of complete self-abnegation, of absolute self-sacrifice for +pure and holy love. + +"The ring, Herr Kreutzer!" Mrs. Vanderlyn exclaimed, in relief, sure, +now, for the first time, of the recovery of the precious trinket. "The +ring! She's given it to you!" + +Herr Kreutzer laid the box upon the table and drew back with studied +calm to gaze at her reflectively, as is necessary to a man who, as he +stands and talks, must fashion from his fancy a cute fiction logical +enough and clear enough to save from overwhelming sorrow one whom he +loves better than he loves himself. "I tell you the whole truth," he +said, "on one condition. One condition, mind you, Madame--and that +condition must be kept. It is that she--my Anna--shall never be +disturbed, annoyed--" + +The woman shook her head with emphasis. Self-righteous and indignant, +feeling that her confidence had been betrayed as well as her ring +stolen, she was determined not to let the guilty girl escape. "I +cannot promise that," she said with emphasis, "for she is guilty." + +The German raised himself to his full height and stood there towering +over her, the very effigy of sublime fatherhood. "She is _not_ +guilty!" he exclaimed. "No; it is I--I--I!" + +"You!" Mrs. Vanderlyn fell back a step or two, staring at him in +amazement. Could the man be crazy? This unexpected turn of the affair +brought a gasp of sheer astonishment from her. + +From behind the door Herr Kreutzer thought he heard, again, a sound as +of swift breath drawn through tight shut teeth, but again he was not +sure--nor did it matter. When, an instant later, the door softly +opened, then as softly closed and left M'riar there in the room with +them, standing, for a second, with her back against the portal which +she had just come through, neither of them glanced at her. The +situation which involved them was too tense, too fiercely was their +full attention focussed upon one another. They scarcely noted that she +passed as she went through the room and out the other door. + +"Yes," said Herr Kreutzer, "it is I who took the ring." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +[Illustration: "She is not guilty! No; it is I--I--I!"] + + +"_You_ who took the ring!" said the astonished woman. "How utterly +absurd! You have not been in my house." She was so amazed by his +confession, which, she knew, could not have the least foundation, +that, for the moment, she forgot to pose, either as an injured +benefactress or as an avenging nemesis. + +Now Herr Kreutzer smiled. Having determined on the sacrifice, he was +delighted by this first error in her argument. "Yes, Madame," he said, +quite truthfully, "I _have_ been at your house. I called while you +were driving. M'riar will tell you. She went with me. I called there +to tell Anna that I should expect her here, this afternoon. A servant +showed me to her room--showed M'riar and me both to her room. I can +prove all of this by M'riar--by your own servants, Madame. I waited +for her, for a time, there in her room, and, as I walked to and fro, I +saw, through an open door, upon a table--that jewel-box." + +Mrs. Vanderlyn was looking at him in complete astonishment. Even in +her artificial soul there rose some admiration for the man who would +confess to felony, rather than submit his child to suffering. + +"And you--," she cried. + +He bowed before her, almost as he had, in bygone days, bowed low +before an appreciative audience. Was not this, as much as ever any +solo on the flute had been, a triumph of high art? And more! Was it +not the triumph of his love for Anna over, first, this hard-souled, +little-minded Mrs. Vanderlyn, and, second, the last selfish impulse +lingering within his own unselfish soul? + +"I am very, very poor, Madame," he said. "I am only a poor +flute-player. Things have not gone well with me since I have been in +your so great, so glorious country. No; they have gone very far from +well with me. If they had not gone most ill do you imagine that I ever +would have let my Anna go to you as your companion? Do you not imagine +that it cut my soul to have her separate from me, that it cut my pride +to have to tacitly admit that I was quite unable to provide for her? +Yes, Madame; it cut both soul and pride. But I am very poor. What +could I do? I am so poor that always I have little to wear--see, +Madame, this old suit is all that I possess! It prevents me, possibly, +from getting better wages than I might get if I were not so shabby. +Often, also, I do not have enough to eat. That, Madame, is true, +although my Anna does not know it. Well, glittering in that little box +upon the dresser, when I was there at your house, I saw so much +comfort, so much happiness." + +The old man's art had won, indeed. He had quite convinced the woman +that it had been he and not his daughter who had stolen the diamond. + +She was not exactly disappointed, although it robbed the crime of one +of its most dramatic elements--ingratitude. She was being quite as +well diverted by the old man's dignity and calm as she would have been +by his poor Anna's wild, hysterical grief. She was, perhaps, she +thought, a very lucky woman. She had not only had a valuable diamond +stolen, which, of itself, was entertaining, in a way, but she had +recovered it through such a strange experience as would furnish food +for tales to be told in boudoirs and over tea-cups for three months. + +"So it really was you!" + +"Yes, yes; have I not told you?" + +There was an inconsistency in this affair, however, and Mrs. Vanderlyn +thought herself a veritable Sherlock Holmes as she pounced on it. +"But that note from Anna?" she protested. + +Kreutzer had been thinking of that note from Anna, and, for a time, +had found the obstacle a hard one to surmount. At length, and in good +time to meet the question, he had, however, arranged an explanation, +which, if not too carefully looked into, would seem reasonable. + +"Oh, of course," said he. "You mean the note about her going away? +Why, that is easily to be understood. When she came I told her that I +have had luck. I told her that we have much money and we go to +Germany, at once. I was afraid that if she went back to your house +there would arise suspicions, so I said she must not go, but must be +content with just the note, alone, for her goodbyes. She did not wish +to do this, but consented, at the last, because I ordered her to do +it." + +Mrs. Vanderlyn was now entirely convinced. He had made the case +against himself so black she could not doubt it; but she determined +that if he thought he would gain clemency in payment for the frankness +of his full confession he would find himself to be mistaken. It was +her duty as a member of society, she told herself, to see to it that +the guilty poor who prey upon the helpless rich should not pass on +unpunished. + +"I understand," she said, "you are the guilty one. Your daughter is +quite innocent of this. It may be chance, alone, that keeps her so. +With such a father--but I will be merciful and will not show you what +a vile inheritance of wickedness you have prepared for the poor child. +Your conscience will do that, if you have any conscience. While you +are in prison you will have that to reflect upon." + +He was dismayed. The ring had been returned. Would she still--"I--I +must go to prison?" + +"Why, certainly. Don't you see how necessary that is? What would +happen to society if thieves were left unpunished?" + +"Thief!" The word fell on his ears with tragic force. A thief in +prison! Was this to be the end of all his striving? Were the high +hopes and ambitions of his splendid youth to end, at length, behind +the bars of a thief's cell? Ah, those happy, bygone days, when with +unbounded hope and confidence he had promised all things to the lovely +creature he had wooed and won and wed in that toy village far away in +the Black Forest! What was their fruition! Unhappiness, disgrace and +exile for her loveliness, and finally a child for whom she paid the +supreme price of death. His promises, breathed at her bedside of +unwavering care, unfaltering devotion, unfailing happiness for the wee +baby in the years to come--how had he kept them? Poverty, distress, +privation. With such commodities had he redeemed those promises, and, +finally, had driven the girl, naturally as sweet-souled as an angel, +as pure as the new-fallen snow, to vulgar crime to satisfy, no doubt, +those girlish and quite natural desires which it should have been his +duty and his pleasure to provide for. Oh, he had done well with life! +The soul within him writhed in agony as he reflected on the use which +he had made of it. His heart went sick from shame. And--what would +Anna do without him? + +"Ah, yes, Madame; I see," said he. "I see. Society must be protected +from such folk as I. Yes; that is very clear indeed. We menace it. The +place for us is where stone walls surround us--to protect society; +locks hold us--to protect society; death comes quickly to us--to +protect society. I see all that, Madame. I will go to prison as a +punishment, of course. But you will let me see my Anna for a +moment--you will let me say goodbye to Anna? She is here, in the next +room. I had hoped, you see, that I could make you think that prison +was not necessary; I had hoped that I could fool you into thinking +that I was not, very much, a danger to society. But you have found me +out. You realize how terrible I am. When I thought that I could fool +you I had her go to the next room, so that, perhaps, she might know +nothing of it. Now, of course, she will know all, but--you will let me +say goodbye to her? You will wait for me, out here?" + +Mrs. Vanderlyn was not too willing, but, as she thought of it, it +seemed quite safe, and she could tell her friends, she rapidly +reflected, that she had been swayed by irresistible impulse of mercy. +That would sound well, told dramatically. + +"I suppose so," she said grudgingly. "But any attempt at escape will +be useless. You--" + +He looked at her with a sad dignity. + +"I shall not try to escape," he said. "I only ask that if it can be +done, as long as it may be possible to do it, my Anna shall not know +about my sin, discovery, disgrace. Let her think, please, Madame, if +you will, that I have gone on a long journey." + +This, too, she granted grudgingly. "Oh, very well, if you imagine such +things _can_ be hidden. I won't tell her. Just as you wish." + +"You will wait here for me while I say goodbye to her?" + +"Well, don't be long." + +The old flute-player was turning towards the kitchen door, when a loud +rap upon the hall door halted him. + +"I suppose the officer has grown tired of waiting," Mrs. Vanderlyn +explained. + +"Come in," said Kreutzer, wonderingly. Few visitors had ever knocked +at his door since he had moved to that tenement. + +To Mrs. Vanderlyn's amazement, and his own, the door, when it had +opened, revealed John Vanderlyn. He was very plainly worried. He did +not even stop for greetings, but said, immediately, to his mother: + +"Well, mother, what are you doing here?" + +Mrs. Vanderlyn was quite as much surprised, apparently, to see him +there, as he was to discover her in the old flute-player's rooms. + +"My dear boy!" she cried. "How in the world did you learn that I had +come here? What do you want? Has something happened at the house?" + +Her son advanced into the room with a low bow to his host. It was +quite plain that, for some reason, he wished to show Herr Kreutzer +every courtesy; it was plain that he had reason to suspect that, +possibly, his mother had not done so and that this fact worried him. + +"The butler heard you give the order to the chauffeur to drive you to +Herr Kreutzer's home," he told his mother briefly. Then, turning to +Herr Kreutzer, he said earnestly: "My dear sir, if my mother has said +anything harsh or disagreeable to you--" + +Kreutzer was astonished, but had no complaint to make. His only wish +was, now, to have his opportunity to bid his girl farewell and then to +go to prison, where, as quickly as was possible, he might serve out +whatever sentence was imposed on him. After his release, if the +sentence was not of such duration that it spanned the few short years +of life remaining to him, he would once again work for his Anna and +endeavor to atone to her for the misfortunes which his own +incompetence, he argued, had oppressed her with. + +"Your mother," he assured the youth, so that the situation might not +be prolonged, "has been polite. Your mother has been most polite." + +The young man, with an expression of relief upon his face, turned +then, to his mother. "Tell me, mother, what has brought you here," he +said. + +She did not hesitate. The situation did not in the least depress her. +Rather was she somewhat proud of her own part in it. "It's really +painful, my dear boy," said she, "but I flatter myself that I've been +quite a Sherlock Holmes. I suppose you haven't even discovered, yet, +that the diamond ring is gone--is stolen." + +He looked at her in sheer amazement. It was clear enough that he did +not, immediately, know what she was talking of. "The ring gone? +Stolen, mother?" + +Suddenly he burst into a laugh--so hearty, so spontaneous, so wholly +foreign in its fine expression of good-natured raillery, to the tense +atmosphere of accusation on the part of Mrs. Vanderlyn and supreme +self-abnegation on the part of the old flute-player, which had, until +this time, been vibrant in the room, that it seemed strangely, +shockingly incongruous. + +"John!" said his mother, in a tone of stern reproof, demanding of her +son for the victim of misfortune consideration which she, herself, had +scarcely shown, "you must not laugh. It is too heartless--right in +this poor man's presence!" + +This stopped his laughter, for it puzzled him. He looked from one of +his companions to the other with an air of most complete bewilderment. +"What's Herr Kreutzer got to do with it?" he asked. + +"Why, he has just confessed." + +"Confessed to what?" + +"That he is guilty." + +Kreutzer interrupted earnestly and hastily. He did not wish to have +her even tell her son that Anna ever had been suspected. "Yes," he +assured him earnestly, "I--I alone am guilty." + +The youth's evident amazement doubled. Sinking into a chair he looked +from his mother to Herr Kreutzer, from Herr Kreutzer to his mother, +with an expression of bewilderment so genuine that, for the first +time, his mother was a bit in doubt about her cleverness, for the +first time Herr Kreutzer wondered if there might not, somewhere, be a +ray of hope for him and for his Anna. + +"Guilty of what?" said Vanderlyn, at length. "Of being the father of +the dearest girl in all the world, who has promised to become my +wife?" + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +"Your wife!" cried Mrs. Vanderlyn. "Good heavens!" She sank back in +her chair as much aghast as Kreutzer had been when she had amazed him +by accusing Anna. + +"And I bought that ring and gave it to her," John went on. "The dear +girl! It's our engagement ring." + +Kreutzer, who had been staring at him with the strained and anxious +look of one who sees salvation just in sight, but cannot understand +its aspect, quite, relaxed now and, also, sank into a chair. + +"Oh, mine Gott sie dank!" he fervently exclaimed. "Mine Gott sie dank! +You gave it to her! Oh, oh, oh, thank God!" + +"Why certainly I gave it to her. It's our engagement ring. Bless her +heart--she's promised me to wear it as soon as Herr Kreutzer gives +consent." + +Mrs. Vanderlyn found this too much for calm reception. She did not +wish to, she would not believe. + +"Why do you say such things?" she demanded of her son. "You're just +trying to save him. Why did he confess?" + +Kreutzer, now, looked at her with calm, cold dignity. His turn had +come. Had she been a man he would have taken it with vehemence and +pleasure; because she was not a man he took it with a careful +self-repression but no lack of emphasis. + +"I will tell you, Madame, why I made confession. It may be that you +will not understand, but so it is. I told you that it had been I who +stole the ring because I love my little girl so much that I would go +to prison--ah, Madame, I would die!--rather than permit that she +should suffer. For a mad moment, overborne by your amazing claims, I +did believe that she had taken that ring. I thought that she had taken +it to help her poor old father--the old flute-player who never has +been able to give to his daughter what he wished to give, or what she +deserved to have. I thought, perhaps, that Anna, swept away by sorrow +for my struggling, had yielded to temptation to help _me_--the +mistaken impulse of a loving child. No crime--no crime! I understand, +now, what she meant when she was speaking with me. Her 'secret!' Her +'temptation!'" + +He turned to John, now, and addressed him, solely. "Her 'temptation' +was to be your wife when I had made her promise that she would not +think of men until I came to her and told her that I had picked out +the one for her. I see it, now; I see it. Her 'temptation'--it was +only to become your wife!" + +John laughed. "I'm mighty glad it was!" said he. "Yes; that was it; +and it's all settled." + +Mrs. Vanderlyn now rose in wrath. Was it credible that her own son, +whom she had reared, as she had thought, to worship all the things +she worshiped, wealth, position, rank, could have conceived an actual +affection for this penniless, positionless, impossible flute-player's +daughter? + +"Settled that you marry her?" she cried. "The daughter of this old +musician? It's impossible! Impossible!" + +Her son looked at her deprecatingly. There was not a sign of yielding +on his face, but there was plainly written there a keen desire to win +her to his side. "Don't say that, mother," he implored, "I love--" + +But she was not so easily to be placated. She had an argument to use, +which, in her wrath, she fancied might be an effective one--and this +showed that the poor lady did not even know her son. + +"Your father left me all his money," she said viciously. "If you are +fool enough to marry this girl, you shall have nothing--nothing!" + +It did not seem to have, on the young man, the instantaneous effect +which she had thought it would have. He merely looked at her with a +grieved little frown, and, bending towards her, said with earnest +emphasis: "_That_ wouldn't make the slightest difference. I'm young +and strong. We'll get along somehow--and we shall be together." + +"You'll _starve_ together!" she said viciously. + +For a moment the two men remained in an embarrassed silence. Young +Vanderlyn, with downcast eyes, was feeling greater mortification than +he ever in his life had known before. Just then the loss of millions +did not matter to him--what really distressed him was that his mother +should make such an exhibition of cold-hearted snobbery before the +father of the girl he loved. + +"That wouldn't matter, mother, in the least," he said, at length. +"Money! Do you think it possible that it would sway me? We won't +starve together--quite. I'm strong--I am a man and I can do a man's +work in the world. But you--remember, mother, you will have to take +your choice between receiving Anna--and myself--together--or of being +left alone." + +Without another word he left the room--left it with an old man's +dimmed and misty eyes agaze upon him, full of love and admiration. + +Mrs. Vanderlyn rose, too, beside herself with shame and grief and +indignation. She turned upon the flute-player. + +"Alone!" she cried. "Did you hear that? Oh, the ingratitude, the +selfishness, of children!" + +"Madame," said Herr Kreutzer gravely, "do you not think he has a right +to his own life--his happiness?" + +"His happiness!" A rasping scorn was in the voice of the unhappy +woman. "Nobody thinks of mine! He is my only son. He knows quite well +that I can't live without him--that I could not give him up!" + +Kreutzer smiled--not with an air of triumph--the discomfiture of the +unhappy woman did not make him feel the least exultant. It was pure +happiness that made him smile--joy to think that Anna's wedding would +not, after all, be shadowed by her husband's sorrow for the loss of +mother-love. + +"Then Madame will yield?" he cried. "Madame will make the dear young +people happy?" + +"Upon one condition. Positively only upon one condition." + +"What is that, Madame?" + +"Your daughter, really, is charming." + +"There I agree with you." + +"She is wonderfully well-bred--I do not understand it. I could pass +her, anywhere, for a distinguished foreigner--a foreigner of noble +birth." + +The father of the subject of her praise smiled gravely. "That is very +true. She will--what you call it?--look the part." + +"But to be quite frank," the lady went on "you, yourself, are quite +impossible, Herr Kreutzer. Quite impossible, I must assure you." + +"I, impossible? I--you say that I am quite impossible?" + +She nodded very positively. "I don't like to hurt your feelings, my +dear man; but I must make you understand. I can't have people saying +that my dear son's father-in-law is a shabby old musician--a +flute-player in a theatre. You see that clearly, don't you. How could +I--" + +"It is quite true," Herr Kreutzer admitted humbly. "I am a shabby old +flute-player and you do not make it quite as bad as it is really, +Madame." He looked at her and smiled a rueful smile. "It is not even a +theatre in which I play, Madame, it is a beer-garden." + +"A beer-garden!" she cried in horror. "Oh--Herr Kreutzer! Worse and +worse!" Then, wheedlingly: "Listen. You say you love your daughter." + +"Yes; surely; I love my daughter very dearly--almost as much, perhaps, +as Madame loves her son. Almost. Almost." + +"You would have gone to prison for her." + +"Yes; to prison. Gladly would I go to prison for my Anna, if, by doing +so, I could save her one moment's pain." + +"Well, I'm going to suggest a thing not half so hard as that. I will +give consent to my son's marriage to your daughter if you will agree +to give her up entirely--to give her up _entirely_. You understand? +You must never see her any more." + +This was too much. The old man drew back with a cry of pain. "I give +my Anna up! I never see her any more! Madame, do you know what you +ask?" + +She was not vividly impressed. "I suppose it may be hard, at first," +she went on, casually, "but--" + +He interrupted. "Hard! I am old--and poor. I have +nothing--nothing--but that little girl. All my whole life long I work +for her. My love for her has grown so close--close--close around my +heart that from my breast you could not tear it out without, at the +same time, tearing from that breast the heart itself. You hear, +Madame? She is my soul--my life--all I have got--all--all--" + +"But am I not giving up a great deal, too? I had hoped my son would +marry well--perhaps, even, among the foreign nobility. That's what I +took him off to Europe with me for. I'm simply wild to be presented at +some court! Surely if I give all that up for my son's sake, you can do +as much, at least, for Anna's." + +"As much? Why, what you ask of me, Madame, is to abandon all!" + +Mrs. Vanderlyn became impatient. It seemed to her that he was most +unreasonable. + +"I tell you that unless you do, I shall do nothing for them," she +cried petulantly. "My son has no idea of money. He's never had to earn +a dollar and he don't know how. They'll starve, if you don't yield, +and it will be your fault--entirely your fault." + +Herr Kreutzer bowed his head. His heart cried out within him at the +horrible injustice of this woman, but, as he saw life, to yield was +all that he could do. To stand in Anna's light, at this late day, +when, all his life, he had, without the slightest thought of self, +made sacrifices for her, would be too illogical, too utterly absurd. +"Madame, I yield," he said. "I know too well what poverty can be--what +misery! Yes, Madame, I will go. But sometimes I shall see her." + +"Absolutely no!" said Mrs. Vanderlyn. "I'll run no risk of +disagreeable comment. I have social enemies who would be too glad to +pull me down. You must give her up to-day and go out of her life +forever." + +"I do not think she will consent to that. She, Madame--why, she loves +her poor old father just a little." + +"Of course, of course," she grudgingly admitted, "but she'll get over +it. Ah, wait! I have it. You must find some way to make her think it's +all your fault--that it's exactly what you want--" + +"What I want! To give my little Anna up?" + +"Certainly. If you are going to do it, you must burn your bridges +behind you." + +A big thought had been growing in Herr Kreutzer's mind. The execution +of the plan which it suggested would involve the breaking of a +resolution which had been unbroken for a score of years, but in +emergency like this-- + +"Very well," said he. "Madame, my bridges burn!" + +"You'll do it?" + +"You shall see." + +With a firm step and an erectness of fine carriage which surprised +the weak, self-centred woman who was watching him, he stepped, now, to +the door, and, opening it, called loudly: + +"Come, sir." + +For a moment, after he had reached it, he stopped to listen, for from +the lower hallway came the sounds of altercation. He waited till a +curse or two had died away, until the thudding of a heavy body on the +boards was heard. It merely meant a fight, and fights were not +uncommon in the tenement. He stepped out into the hall. "Come, sir," +he called into the darkness. + +A bounding step upon the stair responded and an instant later John +entered, anxious faced and fixing his entreating eyes immovably upon +his mother. He was a bit dishevelled. + +"Excuse me," he said nervously. "I had to settle with Moresco. He was +the officer you had. I'll have to pay a little fine, I guess; but it +was worth it. What have you--decided, mother?" + +"Your mother," Kreutzer said, before she had a chance to speak, "has +given her consent." + +John went to her with beaming face and caught her hands. "You're a +brick, mother." Gaily he caught her in his arms. + +His transport was rudely interrupted, though, by Kreutzer's voice, +this time so harsh, so stern, so utterly unlike the old flute-player's +usual genial tone that he was startled. + +"But I, sir," he said raspingly, "I--I have, myself, something to +say." + +Son and mother looked at the new Kreutzer (for, suddenly, an utter +change had come upon the man: he was majestic) with amazement, almost +with alarm. He paid no heed to them but went firmly to the kitchen +door. + +"Anna, Anna," he called sternly. "Come, I want you. I have something +which I wish to say." + +Hurriedly the girl came in, looking at him wonderingly. Never in her +life had she heard such a tone from her father's lips before. + +"Anna, you love this man--Herr Vanderlyn?" + +"Yes, father; I--I love him. Yes." + +"You love him very, very much?" His voice, now, softened somewhat. + +"More than I could ever tell you, father." + +She turned her eyes from the old flute-player's to those of the young +man, and smiled at him. + +"Anna!" he exclaimed, and started towards her from his mother's side. + +"Stop!" said Kreutzer and held up his hand. Then, turning again to +Anna: "You would not even give him up for me?" + +"You would not ask that of me, father," she said confidently, "for it +is my happiness." + +The old German nodded slowly, somewhat sadly. "No," he admitted, "no; +I would not ask it.... You shall have--your happiness." He +straightened, then, and looked as her so differently that it startled +her a little. "But I, Anna," he said sorrowfully, "I go from your +life--forever." + +She stood, amazed. What could this mean? At first she thought he might +be making game of her, but the look of bitter sorrow on his face +convinced her that this could not be. "You, father!" she exclaimed. +"No; I will not allow it! Why--why--" + +She made a move as if to cast her arms around his neck in her appeal. +He stepped back to avoid her and held his hand up warningly. + +"Do not touch me," he said, chokingly. "I must be strong--strong +enough, my little one, to tell you. Ah, my little girl, I go out of +your life; but I shall not forget! I shall remember all our songs, and +the old flute--when I play the old flute, Anna, always shall I think +of you." + +She would not be held back, but ran to him and put her hand upon his +arm and thus stood, looking up into his face with pleading eyes. + +"I will not give you up!" she cried. "You shall not go! Why ... why ..." + +Here was the opportunity for which the old man had been waiting; here +was his chance to pay in full for every pang, the haughty woman who +had so egregiously insulted his and him; here the chance to show a +parvenu her place--and yet to do these things without discourtesy. +Drawing himself up proudly, without the scornful look which one of +less fine sensibility might have thrown at her in similar +circumstances, he gave his calm and dignified explanation with the air +of a true prince. + +"It is because," said he, "that in my family no father ever has +allowed his daughter to marry any one who is not by birth her equal." + +There could be no mistaking the amazement which his words aroused +among his hearers. Anna and the youth who held her hand looked at him +in frank surprise; but it was on the face of Mrs. Vanderlyn that most +emotion showed. It was plain that the grand lady found it hard to +credit what her ears assured her they had heard. Upon the ship she had +remarked that Kreutzer looked as if he might belong to a distinguished +family. Now his attitude and carriage were the attitude and carriage +of a king--a dignified, but kind and gentle king; not arrogant, as her +instincts would have made her in like circumstances, but stately +and--decisive. The aristocracy of centuries expressed itself in his +straight back; his face was that of one born over-lord of thousands; +his steady and unwavering glance was that of a real Personage looking +kindly but not with any fellowship upon a commoner, as it calmly swung +from its intent pause on his daughter's face to hers. + +"Of equal birth!" said she, amazed. "Why, what--" + +"Madame," said he, with no abatement of his kindly dignity, "I must +explain some things. My life has been a very hard one and my Anna has +been all which made it livable. When her mother died--there were +objections to the marriage and I also had some wicked enemies--they +would have taken my dear child from me. Twenty years of dread of this, +of dodging and evasion like a fugitive, in humble places have +succeeded. Had they found me, then I might have lost my Anna, for her +mother's relatives, who hate me, they are very, very powerful. I have +worried, worried, worried, ever, lest I lose her. Even have I had to +hide my little artistry in my profession because, had I exploited it, +it would have told my enemies where they could find me. Such has been +the life which I have led because I loved my daughter. + +"Madame," he went on, not patronizingly but with a growing +consciousness of his own impregnable position which impressed even the +self-seeking woman he addressed, "to you I am only Kreutzer, the poor +flute-player; but in my native country I am more--Count Otto Von +Lichtenstahl." + +"Good heavens!" she cried. "The man is mad!" + +"No, Madame. I have been unfortunate. I have not even told my Anna of +my title, because I have not wished to make her feel unhappy. It is so +long since I have lived as would befit my rank, that, almost, I had +quite forgotten it; but always I have kept the proofs." + +From an inner pocket of his coat the old man drew a worn cloth +envelope which held long, folded papers. + +"Look, Madame." + +Almost as one who dreams she took the little packet from his hand and +hastily glanced through the papers which comprised it. Though +evidently somewhat impressed her doubts still remained. + +"It is easy to manufacture such documents," she said finally. "How am +I to know that these are genuine?" + +The old man, wounded to the quick, made no reply, but looked at her +with a silent dignity and stern reproof that affected her more than +any words could have. It was evident that his pent-up indignation, +however, was on the point of breaking forth; but what he might have +said must always remain mystery, for at that moment, M'riar entered, a +large, impressive envelope held in her hand. + +"Postman's bean 'ere," she explained, and held it toward the old +musician. + +As Herr Kreutzer saw this letter he gasped with astonishment and, +taking it eagerly from her hand, quickly tore it open. As he read it +great joy showed upon his face. He stood transfigured, speechless. At +last he handed it to Mrs. Vanderlyn. + +"Perhaps Madame will believe this," he said quietly. + +Mrs. Vanderlyn gave an ecstatic little cry after her first glance at +the imposing document. + +"The Imperial Seal!" she exclaimed. "A letter from the Emperor +himself! + +"But, what is this?" she continued, as she read farther. "He speaks +about a pardon. What have you done, Herr Kreutzer?" + +"It is very simple, Madame," he replied. "Now that I have this, now I +can tell all. It had been necessary, as I have explained, that my +marriage to my dear Anna's mother be kept secret. When, after one +short year, she died, as I have already told you, all came to light. + +"I was an officer in His Majesty's Imperial guards. One day a fellow +officer, an enemy who had always hated me, insulted me because of my +marriage--insulted the memory of my dead wife. There was a duel. He +fell, as I thought, mortally wounded. The law was strict against +participants in duels, and because I could not be parted from my +little Anna I took her in my arms and we left Prussia--I believed +forever. But at last the Emperor has relented and has pardoned me. He +calls me back to Prussia! Ah, it is like him! He has not forgotten!" + +"Were you such friends?" asked Mrs. Vanderlyn with awe. + +"We were schoolmates at the College in Bonn," he answered. "We have +drunk the hoffbrau together--in a beer garden." + +Gone was all the scorn of Mrs. Vanderlyn. Quite forgotten, to all +outward seeming, were her apprehensions lest the old musician's +daughter might be unworthy of her son, her fears lest the old man, +himself, should prove to be a handicap upon her social aspirations. +She was still running through the papers, and, it must be said, with +real intelligence and understanding, and her face was beaming with +delight. It was as if from the beginning she had favored him and Anna +and was now delighted to find confirmation of the confidence which she +had felt in them. + +"How absolutely splendid!" she exclaimed. "John, it is really true. I +know my Almanach de Gotha--all the titles." Turning, now, to Kreutzer, +she beamed upon him with a cordial smile which plainly took no count +of all the frowns which, in the past few minutes, she had sent in his +direction. "But Lichtenstahl is a magnificent estate. How does it +happen that you--" + +"The estate was lost to me, Madame, through the folly of my ancestors; +but--their pride I have inherited. Therefore, although I know that I +cannot prevent this marriage, I will not give consent to it." He +turned, now, to his daughter. "Rather, Anna, I go from your life +forever!" + +"You shall not!" the girl cried. "You are my dear, kind father. I +won't let you go alone. I'll stay with you, close beside you, while +you live." + +She threw herself into his arms and Kreutzer, there enfolding her, +looked proudly out above the wonderful bowed head of the distressed +and sobbing girl at Mrs. Vanderlyn. This time there was a note of +triumph in his voice--a note of triumph which had not been there, even +when he had made the announcement of the glory of his birth and +family. + +Mrs. Vanderlyn looked at them in chagrin. A slow flush spread upon her +face. + +"_Now_, mother," her son asked, "what have you to say?" + +She forced a sigh as of a self-effacing resignation, but upon her face +there lurked, in spite of her, a little smirk of satisfaction--of snobbery +which had been gratified, at last, after many disappointments. Her manner +had changed utterly. Her tones were honeyed, now; her glance was quite as +sweetly motherly as she could make it as she looked from Anna to her +questioner and back again. + +"What have I to say? My boy, I cannot let you lose your happiness.... +And the dear man's confession has made everything so different!" An +ecstatic smile spread on her face. "Why, John, he is a friend of the +dear Emperor!" She turned, now, again to Kreutzer. Everything +considered she made good weather of it on a difficult occasion. "My +dear Count," she pleaded, "won't you reconsider, please?" + +The old flute-player shook his head. "I do not wish to hurt your +feelings, Madame, but it is impossible--impossible." + +"Mother," said John Vanderlyn, not viciously, but, still, a little +wickedly, "you are up against it. He'll never reconsider." + +"But he must! He must!" said Mrs. Vanderlyn, entirely capitulating. +"There is nothing I won't do!" She turned, imploringly, to Kreutzer. +"Listen. To-night I hold a reception. It shall be in your daughter's +honor and I will, while it is going on, announce her engagement to my +son." She took the ring which the flute-player had passed over to her, +and, holding it between her thumb and forefinger, advanced towards +Anna with it. "See, I will, myself, put on the ring." + +John protested, though, at this. "No, mother," he said hastily, "I +will attend to that." + +He took the ring from her reluctant fingers, and, raising Anna's hand, +slipped it into place in open token of betrothal. Then, with an air of +manly resolution the young man turned to the father. "And I'll do +more," he said. "You and Anna shall not be parted. I'll buy the old +estate of Lichtenstahl and you shall be its master, as you ought to +be, as long as your life lasts. You'll let us be your guests, +perhaps, and there we'll all be happy. Eh?" + +"I beg you to consider the happiness of our children," Mrs. Vanderlyn +said humbly. + +Herr Kreutzer smiled. Conditions, now, were different indeed. No +longer was he scorned as a poor flute-player, unworthy to become +connected with the house of Vanderlyn by marriage. + +"Ah," said he, "you beg of me! Well, that is different. Your +happiness, my little Anna ... so ... I will see. Only give me just a +little time to think of it alone." + +"Of course," said Mrs. Vanderlyn, with a deep sigh of relief. "Come, +Anna darling, we must get home in time to dress for the reception. My +dear Count, I'll send the motor back for you. You'll surely come?" + +"Perhaps I come," said he indifferently. "Possibly." + +But he turned to Anna with a beaming face on which love shone, +triumphant. "At least, my Anna, it is not goodbye--and that is very +good. _Nichtwahr_?" + +"No, father; it could never be goodbye with us. Together always, +father--always--always--us--together." + +She ran to him and hid her head upon his breast. + +A moment later and the girl had been borne off by Mrs. Vanderlyn in +triumph. John gave his hand to Kreutzer and the aged flute-player +pressed it, smiling at him with approval. + +As his future son-in-law went out the old man stood and gazed long at +the open door. Upon his face there were the lines of happiness, not +worry, as there had been for so many years, not bitter grief as there +had been that day. + +There came a clatter on the stairs which broke the reverie which held +him, and he stepped forward to the door, peering out into the hall to +see the cause of the unusual noise. An officer approached, and, +tightly gripped by her right arm, he held M'riar. + +"Say," said he gruffly. "You Mr. Krootzer? Wot? Yes? Well, this kid +comes to the station-house and hollers that she's stole a ring and +somebody that ain't had anything to do with it is gettin' pinched fer +stealin' it. The kid acts plumb bug-house, but Sarge he says fer me to +come around and see wot's up. Wot is she, dippy? Did she re'ly steal a +di'mond? This don't look like wot you'd call a likely place to find a +di'mond." + +"No," said Herr Kreutzer, after he had had sufficient time to sense +the meaning of the officer's strange statement, "she did not steal a +diamond, or anything. It was good of you to bring her home to me. The +dear child--she suffers from,--er--what you call emotional insanity, I +think. A little too much love for an old man and his daughter, +possibly. That is what I think. It is nothing worse than that. Thank +you, very much, for bringing her to me. Take this, sir, for your +trouble." He handed him, with bland benevolence, his last dollar. + +"Say, I'm gettin' it a good deal better than the cop wot come here to +this house a while ago. He's bein' stuck together at the hospital in a +dozen places, they tell me. He's like a jig-saw puzzle." + +"Ah, I wonder what could have occurred to him." + +The officer went down the stairs. + +"Come in, my child," the flute-player invited M'riar. "Soon you will +be better, doubtless. Yes, I feel quite certain that you will be +better, soon." + +He softly closed the door behind them. + +"M'riar," he said slowly, "sit down by me. I think I play you +something--just a little something--on my flute." + +"My heye!" said M'riar, entranced. + +"But no," said Kreutzer. "First come to me. Ah, give me a kiss. Always +shall you have a home with me or with my Anna." + +Spellbound, after he had kissed her, she sat close by his feet upon +the floor until he finished playing and laid down the flute. "I s'y!" +she murmured, then. + + +THE END + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Flute-Player, by +Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FLUTE-PLAYER *** + +***** This file should be named 17841.txt or 17841.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/8/4/17841/ + +Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Sankar Viswanathan, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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