"Yes, and a fine musician," said the prince. "But he"s not at his best to-night."
As Von Barwig pa.s.sed through the artists" room, Poons approached him.
Anton motioned him away as if to say, "Don"t speak to me," and Poons walked sadly away.
The second part of the programme was to begin with Von Barwig"s latest work.
"Quick, put the score of the symphony on my desk," he said to the librarian, who happened to be pa.s.sing at the moment. "I intended to conduct it from memory; but I have forgotten."
As the librarian placed the score on the conductor"s desk, he thought it strange that a man who had been rehearsing from memory for weeks should so suddenly forget.
Von Barwig opened the score a few moments later, raised his baton, and the wood wind began the new work. He conducted as mechanically as before, for his dead heart could pump no enthusiasm into his work, and the audience suddenly felt a sense of disappointment. But after the first few pa.s.sages had been played the leader lost his self-consciousness and forgot his surroundings. He began to feel the music, to compose it again, and the mechanism of the conductor was lost in the inspiration of the composer. It was a beautiful movement marked _andante sostenuto_--pathos itself, and Von Barwig drew from his men their very souls, forcing them in turn to draw out of their strings all the suffering he had been going through for the past few days. Then a curious psychic phenomenon took place. Von Barwig completely forgot himself, his audience, his orchestra; he was living in his music, and the music took him back to the precise moment of inspiration. Once more he was in his studio, seated at his work table, looking up from his score into the face of his beloved Elene. She was smiling at him, encouraging him to go on with his work, the work that she had prophesied would make him famous and her the happiest of women. This dream had almost the appearance of reality to Von Barwig. Indeed it was real, as real as reality itself, until the wild applause of an enthusiastic audience awoke him alike to the consciousness of the success of his work and the hopeless misery of his present position; his success in his music only accentuating the failure his life had become.
The playing of this movement made such an impression that Von Barwig was compelled again and again to acknowledge the plaudits of the audience.
Indeed, they wanted him to repeat it, but this he steadfastly refused to do. There was a slight intermission between the playing of the first and the second parts of the symphony, and during this pause the librarian handed a note to Von Barwig, whispering to him, "You must read it. The woman is outside in hysterics."
"What woman?" demanded Von Barwig, his thoughts reverting to his wife.
Trembling and fearful of he knew not what the leader read the following hastily scrawled note:
"Come at once. The _Fraulein_ is gone. She has been stolen away.
Please come. GRETCHEN."
Von Barwig crushed the note in his hand and looked about helplessly, almost lurching forward in his bewilderment.
"Helene stolen? What did it mean?" He could not understand.
He knew instinctively it was time to go on with the next movement, and that he must make an effort for the sake of others. Already there were signs of impatience in the great audience. Slowly he stepped upon the dais, steadying himself by means of the music-stand. He raised his baton, his men played the opening bars, and as they did so the full meaning of the awful news he had just read flashed upon him. He realised suddenly that his men were no longer with him; the first violin looked up at him panic stricken. He sawed the air wildly as he felt the great audience surging around him and his orchestra swaying to and fro. Then he reeled, stumbled, clutching at the music-stand for support; and fell face forward upon the floor.
Some six weeks later loving friends had gently nursed him back to life and reason. It was slow work, but Von Barwig weathered the point of death and sailed slowly into the harbour of life. As he grew stronger, he realised by degrees all that had happened. One day he called for his beloved Poons, but they did not dare to tell him that his faithful friend was dead; the shock of that night had brought on a stroke from which Poons never recovered. When they did tell him long afterward, he only smiled, shook his head sadly, and said, "Why not? All is gone! Why should my old friend remain to me?"
When Von Barwig was strong enough he took the train to Berlin and consulted with the police authorities in reference to the whereabouts of his lost wife and child; but they had left no trace behind them except an indication that they had pa.s.sed through Paris on their way to some unknown destination. He called on Mr. Cruger, the American Amba.s.sador, who could throw no light on the subject. A search of the steamship lists failed to reveal their whereabouts; and at last, though Anton Von Barwig felt that they were hopelessly lost to him, he returned to Leipsic, more than ever determined to find them. It was the only idea he had: to find them--to find them--to find them. His other thoughts were without stimulating power--irresolute, vague, uncertain. This one idea grew and grew until it became an obsession. He could no longer bear the sound of music; so it was no sacrifice to him to give up his profession. He hated the very streets he walked in, for had Elene not walked in them? He must find her; he must find his child. He could hear the little girl calling for him, he kept telling himself. It was his only duty, his only object and mission in life; so it became an ideal, a religion. But where to go, where to go? Finally, he made up his mind to leave Leipsic for Paris and start from there. One day, after living in Paris for some months, the idea occurred to him to go to America, the place of the man"s birth. A week later he packed up all his effects and took pa.s.sage on a steamer sailing for the port of New York.
Chapter Four
It was a hot August afternoon in New York, especially hot in the downtown districts, where it was damp and muggy, for it had been drizzling all the morning. The sun blazing behind the thin vapour-like clouds had converted the rain into steam, and the almost complete absence of a breeze had added to the personal discomfort of those who were compelled to be out of doors. Altogether it was a most uncomfortable afternoon; and the task of running up and down stairs and answering the front door-bell increased the misery of the maid of all work in Miss Husted"s furnished-room establishment on Houston Street, near Second Avenue.
"Phew, ain"t it a scorcher?" muttered the young woman as she mounted the kitchen stairs in answer to some visitor"s second tug at the bell.
She walked across the hall that led to the front door.
"Don"t the dratted bell keep goin"," she went on as she tugged open the door, which the damp weather had caused to swell and stick to the door-jamb.
"Forgot your key?" she said as she recognised Signor Tagliafico, better known as Fico, the third-floor, hall-bedroom "guest," as Miss Husted insisted on calling her lodgers.
"Forgot your key?" repeated the girl, as the gentleman from Italy shrugged his shoulders and otherwise disported himself in an endeavour to convey to her the news that he had lost his key and felt extremely sorry to trouble her.
"Keys is made to open doors, not to forget," continued the girl, banging the door shut.
The noise brought Miss Husted out into the hall in less time than it takes to state the fact.
"What is it, Thurza?" she asked, showing evidence of being startled out of a doze by the noise.
"Third floor front forgot his key, Miss Houston," said the girl sulkily, as Fico trudged upstairs to his room.
"I wouldn"t mind if he wasn"t behind three weeks," said Miss Husted, who usually answered to the name of Miss Houston, chiefly because she lived in Houston Street.
"Well, _I_ mind it," muttered the girl to herself, "whether he"s behind or whether he isn"t. It makes work for me, and there ain"t enough time for regular, let alone extras," she went on, as she turned to go down stairs to the kitchen.
"Quite right," said Miss Husted, as she closed the door and returned to her room. Experience had taught her that it was useless to argue with Thurza. The girl was open to impression, but not to explanation; once an idea found lodgment in her brain it stayed there, despite all argument to the contrary. It was most mortifying to Miss Husted that Thurza had such deep-rooted prejudices against every guest that found his way into her establishment. Lodgers made work; the more lodgers the more work; ergo, lodgers were enemies, is the way Thurza reasoned it out; and she resumed her occupation of cleaning silver (save the mark) almost as cheerfully as she had left it to answer the door-bell.
"Dear me," sighed Miss Husted, "how hard it is to get help and how much harder it is to keep them! Back again already? Why, Jenny, you must have flown!" this last to a rather pretty little girl who had just entered the door.
"Yes, aunt," replied the girl, "I knew Thurza must be busy--so--I--I hurried."
"I can see that," her aunt said reprovingly, "you are dripping wet; you shouldn"t walk so fast in this hot weather."
Jenny was a thoughtful child. She had lived rather an unhappy existence with her parents, for her father had deserted her mother when she was three years old and after her mother"s death she had come to her aunt "for a few days" until a home could be found for her. The few days were over some years before, for Miss Husted loved the child far too well to let her go, and gladly made a home for her. Jenny loved her aunt and stayed on. Curiously enough, not a word had ever been spoken between them on the subject, and the little girl just fitted in, adapting herself to Aunt Sarah"s ways. Now this process of adjustment was by no means an easy accomplishment, for Aunt Sarah had no sense of time. She thought and felt herself to be just as young as she was years and years ago.
Her looking-gla.s.s must have given her several hard jolts, but she either believed a looking-gla.s.s to be an illusion or ignored its evidence altogether; for though it showed her the face of a woman near the danger line of fifty, she insisted on considering herself as in the neighbourhood of thirty. She carried herself with the dignity of a d.u.c.h.ess; that is, a conventional d.u.c.h.ess, and talked habitually with the hauteur and elegance of a stage queen. Her kingdom was the Houston Street establishment, her guests were her subjects, her aristocracy were the foreign gentlemen who occupied rooms in the various parts of her house, mostly hall bedrooms. She doted on fashion, refinement, pungent perfumery and expensive flowers; anything that to her mind suggested social grandeur appealed intensely to her. Even the old house, now situated in an exceedingly unfashionable quarter, held a place in her affections because years before it had been a part of fashionable New York, and she felt quite proud because she was known as Miss Houston of Houston Street. The name suggested a t.i.tle, and a t.i.tle of all things was dear to her heart. Perhaps her love for Jenny was stronger because her father was supposed--by his unfortunate wife at least--to have been the scion of a proud and aristocratic family, who had not been too proud, however, to leave her to starve.
Altogether, Miss Husted was an exceedingly romantic, high-strung, middle-aged spinster, miles and miles above her station in life, whose heart and purse were open to any foreigner who had discernment enough to see her weakness and tact enough to pander to it by hinting at his n.o.ble lineage. This love of things and beings aristocratic was more than a weakness. It was a disease, for it kept poor a good soul, who otherwise might have been, if not well-to-do, at least fairly prosperous.
Jenny, young as she was, knew all this. She knew that Fico, or Signor Tagliafico, was a struggling musician and not an artist in any sense of the word. She knew he was an ordinary Italian fiddler who preferred to fiddle for food rather than to work manually for it. And yet her aunt had confided to her that she was sure he was a count, because one day Miss Husted had asked him the question, and the man, not quite understanding, had smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Still, he had not denied it, so thenceforth was known as Count Fico.
And Pinac, the gentleman who occupied the other back room next to that of Fico? Miss Husted was sure that he was a descendant of the n.o.ble refugees from France, who emigrated during the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution. The romance of this appealed highly to her.
Monsieur Pinac was always silent when questioned on this point, but Miss Husted was much interested. His silence surely meant something, and besides, he looked every inch a n.o.bleman with his fashionably cut Van Dyck beard. There was a picture of the Duc de Guise in one of the bedrooms--Heavens only knows where Miss Husted got it, but there it was--and pointing to it with great pride, she defied Monsieur Pinac to deny his relationship to the defunct duke. Pinac did not take the trouble to deny it! As a matter of fact, he was simply an ordinary musician who continued to follow his profession because it paid him better than any other business he could embark in. Music is often the line of easiest resistance, and many there be that slide down its graceful curves. In more senses than one, it is easier to play than to work. But when Miss Husted conferred a patent of n.o.bility on a foreign gentleman, were he an Italian organ-grinder or a French waiter, that t.i.tle stood, his own protest to the contrary notwithstanding. In this particular view-point Miss Husted was completely opposite to her maid of all work.
Thurza"s mental att.i.tude was the socialistic slant that made for the destruction of aristocracy; Miss Husted"s system created one of her own. To Thurza foreigners were either "dagoes" or "Dutch"; to Miss Husted they were either "gentlemen" or "n.o.blemen" or both. In this way, perhaps, the balance of harmony was restored in Houston Mansion, as Miss Husted dearly loved to call her home. There was some foundation for believing that the name Houston Mansion was painted on the gla.s.s over the front door, but it was so worn that no one could decipher it.
A violent ring at the door-bell interrupted the conversation between Miss Husted and her niece.
"They"ll break the bell if they"re not careful," remarked the elder lady, arranging her ringlets in the event that it might be some one to see her.
"It"s a lady," whispered Jenny to her aunt a few moments later. "She wants a room."
Miss Husted sniffed. "I don"t like ladies; they"re twice the trouble that gentlemen are, and--I don"t know--I don"t like "em. Ladies looking for furnished rooms always have a history--and a past; I don"t like "em."
Jenny nodded without in the least understanding her aunt. She had heard this before, but she knew it was a peculiarity of Miss Husted always to say the same thing under the same circ.u.mstances, whether the occasion called for it or not.
"Shall I ask her in, or will you come out into the hall?" went on the child.
"Ask her kindly to step into the reception-room," said her aunt, kicking a feather duster under the sofa and generally tidying up a bit.
A large, stout person of uncertain age stood in the doorway.