"I hope the night air hasn"t played havoc with my strings," breathed Phyllis. "I don"t dare try them. Are we ready?" She rapped softly on the face of her violin with the bow.
Followed the tense instant that always precedes the performance of an orchestra, then Phyllis and Robin began the world-known s.e.xtette from "Lucia." Robin had sung it so many times in private to the accompaniment of her cousin"s violin that the attack was perfect. The others took it up immediately, filling the night with echoing sweetness.
From their position at the next window the watchers saw the dark, solemn face of the Italian raised in bewildered amazement from his paper. Not quite comprehending at first the unbidden flood of music which met his ears, he listened for a moment in patent stupefaction. Soon a smile began to play about his tight little mouth. It widened into a grin of positive pleasure. Giuseppe understood that a great honor was being done him. He was not only being serenaded, but he was listening to the music of his native country as well.
His varying facial expressions, as the s.e.xtette rose and fell, showed his love of the selection. As it ended, he did an odd thing. He rose from his chair, bowed his profound thanks toward the window from whence came the singing, and sat down again, looking expectant.
"He knows very well he"s being watched," whispered Marjorie. "Doesn"t he look pleased? I"m so glad you thought of him, Lucy."
Lucy was also showing shy satisfaction at the success of her proposal.
She was secretly more proud of some small triumph of the kind on her part than of her brilliancy as a student.
Had Signor Baretti been attending a performance of grand opera, he could not have shown a more evident pleasure in the programme. He listened to the entertainment so unexpectedly provided him with the rapt air of a true music-lover.
"There!" softly exclaimed Phyllis, as she lowered her violin. "That"s the end of the programme, Signor Baretti. Now for that fresh peach ice cream. I shall have coffee and mountain cake with it. I am as hungry as the average wandering minstrel."
"Let"s walk in as calmly as though we had never thought of serenading Giuseppe," said Robin. "Oh, we can"t. I forgot. The orchestra part of this aggregation is a dead give-away."
"We don"t care. He will know it was we who were out there. There is no one else about but us. I hope he won"t think we are a set of little Tommy Tuckers singing for our suppers. That"s a horrible afterthought on my part," Elaine laughed.
"Come on." Jerry and her group had now joined the singers. "He saw us but not until you were singing that Nevin selection. He kept staring at the window where the sound came from. We had our faces right close to our window and all of a sudden he looked straight at us. You should have seen him laugh. His whole face broke into funny little smiles."
"He may have thought we were the warblers," suggested Muriel hopefully.
"We can parade into the inn on your glory. If I put on airs he may take me for the high soprano." She glanced teasingly at Robin.
"Oh, go as far as you like. It won"t be the first instance in the world"s history where some have done all the work and others have taken all the credit," Robin reminded.
In this jesting frame of mind the entire party strolled around to the inn"s main entrance. At the door they found Giuseppe waiting for them, his dark features wreathed in smiles.
"I wait for you here," he announced, with an eloquent gesture of the hand. "So I know som" my friendly young ladies from the college sing just for me. You come in. You are my com"ny. You say what you like. I give the best. Not since I come this country I hear the singing I like so much. The Lucia! Ah, that is the one I lov"!
"I tell you the little story while you stan" here. Then you come in.
When I come this country, I am the very poor boy. Come in the steerage.
No much to eat. I fin" work. Then the times hard, I lose work. All over New York I walk, but don"t fin". I have _no one cent_. I am put from the bed I rent. I can no pay. For four days I have the nothing eat. I say, "It is over." I am this, that I will walk to the river in the night an"
be no more.
"It is the very warm night and I am tired. I walk an" walk." His face took on a shade of his by-gone hopelessness as he continued. "Soon I come the river, I think. Then I hear the music. It is in the next street jus" I go turn into. It is the harp an" violin. Two my countrymen play the Lucia. I am so sad. I sit on a step an" cry. Pretty soon one these ask the money gif" for the music. He touch me on shoulder, say very kind in Italian, "_Che c"e mai?_" That mean, "What the matter?" He see I am the Italiano. We look each other. Both cry, then embrac". He is my oldes" brother. He come here long before me. My mother an" I, we don"t hear five years. Then my mother die. Two my brothers work in the _vigna_ for the rich vignaiuolo in my country. My father is dead long time. So I come here.
"My brother give me the eat, the clothes, the place sleep. He have good room. He work in the day for rich Italian importer. Sometimes he go out play at night for help his friend who play the harp. He is the old man an" don"t work all the time. So it is I lov" the Lucia. They don"t play that, mebbe I don"t sit on that step. Then never fin" my brother. An"
you have please me more than for many years you play the Lucia for me this night."
CHAPTER III-A VERANDA ENCOUNTER
It lacked but a few minutes of eleven o"clock when the serenading party said goodnight to Signor Baretti and trooped off toward the campus. The usually taciturn Italian had surprised and touched them by the impulsive story of his most tragic hour. He had afterward played host to his light-hearted guests with the true grace of the Latin. No one came to the inn for cheer after they entered in that evening, so they had the place quite to themselves. After a feast of the coveted peach ice cream and cakes, the obliging orchestra tuned up again at Giuseppe"s earnest request. Robin sang Shubert"s "Serenade" and "Appear Love at Thy Window." Phyllis played Raff"s "Cavatina" and one of Brahm"s "Hungarian Dances." Blanche Scott sang "Asleep in the Deep," simply to prove she had a masculine voice when she chose to use it.
"We"ll come and make music for you again sometime," promised kind-hearted Phyllis as they left their beaming host.
"I thank you. An" you forget you say you come an" play, I tell you "bout it sometime you come here to eat," he warned the party as they were leaving.
"Talk about truth being stranger than fiction, what do you think of Giuseppe"s story?" Jerry exclaimed as soon as they were well away from the inn. "Imagine how one would feel to meet one"s long-lost brother just as one was getting ready to commit suicide!"
"One half of the world doesn"t know how the other half lives," Ronny said with a shake of her fair head.
"To see Giuseppe today, successful and well-to-do, one finds it hard to visualize him as the poor, starved, despondent Italian boy who cried his heart out on the doorstep." Vera"s tones vibrated with sympathy. The Italian"s story had impressed her deeply.
The girls discussed it soberly as they wended a leisurely way across the campus. Even care-free Muriel, who seldom liked to take life seriously, remarked with becoming earnestness that it was such stories which made one realize one"s own benefits.
"Be on hand tomorrow night at eight-thirty sharp," was Phyllis"s parting injunction to the Wayland Hall girls as the Silvertonites left them to go on to their own house. "We have three fair ladies to sing to and we don"t want to slight any of them."
"I think we ought to get up some entertainments of our own this year. I never stopped to realize before how few clubs and college societies Hamilton has. There"s only the "Silver Pen",-one has to have high literary ability to make that,-the "Twelfth Night Club" and the "Fortnightly Debating Society." We haven"t a single sorority," Vera declared with regret.
"Miss Remson told me once of a sorority that Hamilton used to have called the "Round Table." It flourished for many years. Then all of a sudden she heard no more of it. She said Hamilton was very different even ten years ago from now. There was little automobiling and more sociability among the campus houses. There were house plays going on every week and different kinds of entertainments in which almost everyone joined."
"That"s the way college ought to be," commended Vera. "Even if Hamilton hasn"t yet won back to those palmy days, we had more fellowship here last year than the year before. Why, during Leila"s and my freshman year here we were seldom invited anywhere. We hardly knew Helen Trent until late in the year. Nella and Selma, Martha Merrick and Rosalind Black were our only friends."
"And now we are to lose Selma." Leila heaved an audible sigh. She had already informed the girls of Selma"s approaching marriage to a young naval officer.
"Did Selma know last year she was not going to finish college?" asked Muriel. "If I had gone through three years of my college course I wouldn"t give up the last and most important year just to be married."
"That is because you know nothing about love," teased Ronny.
"Do you?" challenged Muriel.
"I do not. I have a good deal more sentiment than you have though,"
retorted Ronny. "I can appreciate Selma"s sacrifice at the shrine of love."
"So could I if I knew more about it," Muriel flung back.
"Precisely what I said to you. So glad you agree with me," chuckled Ronny.
"I don"t agree with you at all. I meant if I knew more about what you were pleased to call "Selma"s sacrifice," not _love_." Muriel"s emphasis of the last word proclaimed her disdain of the tender pa.s.sion.
"Hear the geese converse," commented Leila. "Let me tell you both that Selma had to lose either college or her fiance for two years. He was ordered to the Philippines to take charge of a naval station on one of the islands. They were to have been married anyway as soon as she was graduated from Hamilton. As it was she chose to go with him. So Selma gained a husband and lost her seniorship and we lost Selma. I shall miss her, for a finer girl never lived."
"Nella will miss her most of all," Vera said quickly. "We must try to make it up to Nella by taking her around with us a lot."
They had by this time reached the Hall. Girl-like they lingered on the steps, enjoying the light night breeze that had sprung up in the last hour. Marjorie"s old friend, the chimes, had rung out the stroke of eleven before they reached the Hall. College having not yet opened officially, they claimed the privilege of keeping a little later hours.
As they loitered outside, conversing in low tones, the front door opened and a girl stepped out on the veranda. She uttered a faint sound of surprise at sight of the group of girls. She made a half movement as though to retreat into the house. Then, her face turned away from them, she hurried across the veranda and down the steps.
Though the veranda light was not switched on, the girls had seen her face plainly. To four of them she was known.
"Who was _she_ and what ailed her?" was Muriel"s light question. "She acted as though she were afraid we might eat her up."