"Oh! Cal, please don"t read your criticism aloud. I saw it hours ago,"
she implored,--her slightly protuberant, blue eyes were fixed steadily upon him.
"Why, what time is it?"
"Long past twelve."
"Phew! And I promised to be at the office at midday! Where"s my coat, my overshoes! Magda! Magda! Hang that girl, she"s always gadding with the elevator boy when I need her." Calcraft bustled about the room, rushed to his bedchamber, to the hall, and reappeared dressed for his trip down-town.
"Cal, I forgot to say that Hinweg called this morning and left his card.
Foreigners are so polite in these matters. He left cards for both of us."
"He did, did he?" answered Calcraft grimly. "Well, that won"t make him sing Wagner any better in the _Watchman_. And as a matter of politeness--if you will quote the polite ways of foreigners--he should have left cards here before he sang. What name is on his pasteboard?
I"ve heard that his real one is something like Whizzina. He"s a Croat, I believe."
She indifferently took some cards from a bronze salver and read aloud: "Adalbert Viznina, Tenor, Royal Opera, Prague."
"So-ho! a Bohemian. Well, it"s all the same. Croatia is Czech. Your Mr.
Viznina can"t sing a little bit. That vile, throaty German tone-production of his--but why in thunder does he call himself Hinweg?
Viznina is a far prettier name. Perhaps Viznina is Hinweg in German!"
Tekla shrugged her strong shoulders and gazed outdoors. "What a wretched day, and I have so much to do. Now, Cal, do come home early. We dine at seven. No opera to-night, you know. And come back soon. We never spend a night home alone together. What if this young man should call again?"
"Don"t stop him," her husband answered in good-humored accents as he bade her good-by. He was prepared to meet the world now, and in a jolly mood. "Tell your Hinweg or Whizzerina, or whatever his name is, to sing Tristan better to-morrow night than he did Siegmund, or there will be more trouble." He skipped off. She called after him:
"Cal, remember your promise!"
"Not a drop," and the double slamming of the street doors set Tekla humming Hunding"s motif in "Die Walkure."
II
Her morning-room was hung with j.a.panese umbrellas and, despite the warning of friends, peac.o.c.k-feathers hid from view the walls; this comfortable little boudoir, with its rugs, cozy Turkish corner, and dull sweet odors was originally a hall-bedroom; Tekla"s ingenuity and desperate desire for the unconventional had converted the apartment into the prettiest of the Calcraft flat. Here, and here alone, was the imperious critic forbidden pipe or cigar. Cigarettes he abhorred, therefore Tekla allowed her favorites to use them. She became sick if she merely lighted one; so her pet att.i.tude was to loll on a crimson divan and hold a freshly rolled Russian cigarette in her big fingers covered with opals. Her male friends said that she reminded them of a Frankish slave in a harem; she needed nothing more but Turkish-trousers, hoop ear-rings, and the sad, resigned smile of the captive maiden....
It was half-past five in the dark, stormy afternoon when the electric buzzer warned Tekla of visitors. A man was ushered into the drawing-room and Magda, in correct cap and ap.r.o.n, fetched his card to her mistress.
"Show him in here, Magda, and Magda"--there were languid intonations in the voice of this vigorous woman--"light that lamp with the green globe."
In the fast disappearing daylight Tekla peeped at herself in a rhomboid crystal mirror, saw her house frock, voluminously becoming, and her golden hair set well over her brow: she believed in the eternal charm of fluffiness. After the lamp was ready the visitor came in. He was a very tall, rather emaciated looking, blond young man, whose springy step and clear eyes belied any hint of ill-health. As he entered, the gaze of the two met in the veiled light of the green-globed lamp, and the fire flickered high on the gas-log hearth. He hesitated with engaging modesty; then Tekla, holding out a hand, moved in a large curved way, to meet him.
"Delighted, I am sure, my dear Herr Viznina, to know you! How good of you to call on such a day, to see a bored woman." He bowed, smiled, showing strong white teeth under his boyish moustache, and sat down on the low seat near her divan.
"Madame," he answered in Slavic-accented English, "I am happy to make your acquaintance and hope to meet your husband, M. Calcraft." She turned her head impatiently. "I only hope that his notice will not discourage you for Tristan to-morrow night. But Mr. Calcraft is really a kind man, even if he seems severe in print. I tell him that he always hangs his fiddle outside the door, as the Irish say, which means, my dear Herr Viznina, that he is kinder abroad than at home." Seeing the slightly bewildered look of her companion she added, "And so you didn"t mind his being cross this morning, did you?" The tenor hesitated.
"But he was not cross at all, Madame; I thought him very kind; for my throat was rough--you know what I mean! sick, sore; yes, it was a real sore throat that I had last night." It was her turn to look puzzled.
"Not cross? Mr. Calcraft not severe? Dear me, what do you call it, then?"
"He said I was a great artist," rejoined the other.
Tekla burst into laughter and apologized. "You have read the wrong paper, Herr Viznina, and I am glad you have. And now you must promise to stay and dine with us to-night. No, you sha"n"t refuse! We are quite alone and you must know that, as old married folks, we are always delighted to have some one with us. I told Mr. Calcraft only this morning that we should go out to dinner if he came home alone. Don"t ask for which paper he writes until you meet him. Nothing in the world could make me tell you." She was all frankness and animation, and her guest told himself that she was of a great charm. They fell into professional talk. She spoke of her husband"s talents; how he had played the viola in quartet parties; of his successful lecture, "The Inutility of Wagner,"
and his preferences in music.
"But if he does not care for Wagner he must be a Brahmsianer." The last word came out with true Viennese unction.
"He now despises Brahms, and thinks that he had nothing to say. Wagner is, for him, a decadent, like Liszt and the rest."
"But the cla.s.sics, Madame, what does M. Calcraft write of the cla.s.sics?"
demanded the singer.
"That they are all used-up romantics; that every musical dog has his day, and the latest composer is always the best; he voices his generation. We liked Brahms yesterday; to-day we are all for Richard Strauss and the symphonic poem."
"_We?_" A quizzical inflection was in the young man"s voice. She stared at him.
"I get into the habit of using the editorial "we." I do it for fun; I by no means always agree with my husband. Besides, I often write criticism for Mr. Calcraft when he is away--or lecturing." She paused.
"Then," he exclaimed, and he gazed at her tenderly, "if you like my Tristan you may, perhaps, write a nice little notice. Oh, how lovely that would be!"
The artist in him stirred the strings of her maternal lyre. "Yes, it would be lovely, but Mr. Calcraft is not lecturing to-morrow night, and I hope that--"
The two street doors banged out a half bar of the Hunding rhythm.
Calcraft was heard in the hall. A minute later he stood in the door of his wife"s retreat; there was a frown upon his brow when he saw her companion, but it vanished as the two men shook hands. Viznina asked him if he spoke German; Magda beckoned to Mrs. Calcraft from the middle of the drawing-room. When Tekla returned, after giving final instructions for dinner, she found critic and tenor in heated argument over Jean de Reszke"s interpretation of the elder Siegfried....
The dining-room was a small salon, oak-panelled, and with low ceilings.
A few prints of religious subjects, after the early Italian masters, hung on the walls. The buffet was pure renaissance. Comfortable was the room, while the oval table and soft leather chairs were provocative of appet.i.te and conversation.
"Very un-American," remarked the singer, as he ate his crab bisque.
"How many American houses have you been in?" irritably asked Calcraft.
Viznina admitted that he was enjoying his debut.
"I thought so." Calcraft was now as bland as a May morning, and his eyes sparkled. His wife watched Magda serve the fish and fowl, and her husband insisted upon champagne as the sole wine. The tenor looked surprised, and then amused.
"Americans love champagne, do they not? I never touch it."
"Would you rather have claret or beer?" hastily inquired the host.
"Neither; I must sing Tristan to-morrow."
"You singers are saints on the stage." The critic laughed. "I am old-fashioned enough to believe that good wine or beer will never hurt the throat. Now there was Karl Formes, and Niemann the great tenor--"
Tekla interrupted. "My dear Cal, pray don"t get on one of your interminable liquid talks. Herr Viznina does not care to drink, whether he is singing or not. I told him, too, that we always liked a guest at dinner, for we are such old married people."
Calcraft watched the pair facing one another. He was in a disagreeable humor because of his wife"s allusion to visitors; he liked to bear the major burden of conversation, even when they were alone. If Tekla began he had to sit still and drink--there was no other alternative. She asked Viznina where he was born, where he had studied, and why he had changed his name. The answers were those of a man in love with his art. Hinweg, he explained, was his mother"s name, and a.s.sumed because of the anti-Slav prejudice existing in Vienna.
Calcraft broke in. "You say you are Bohemian, Herr Viznina? You are really as Swedish looking as Mrs. Calcraft."
"What a Sieglinde she would make, with her beautiful blond complexion and grand figure," returned the tenor with enthusiasm.
Tekla sighed for the third time that day. She burned to become a Wagner singer. Had she not been a successful elocutionist in Minnesota? How this talented young artist appreciated her gift, intuitively understood her ambition! Calcraft noted that they looked enough alike to be brother and sister; tall, fair and blue-eyed as they were. He laughed at the conceit.