I
The handsome Hungarian kept his brilliant glance fixed upon Lora Crowne; she sat with her Aunt Lucas and Mr. Steyle at a table facing the orchestra. His eyes were not so large as black; the intensity of their gaze further bewildered the young woman, whose appearance that evening at the famous cafe on the East Side was her initial one. The heat, the bristling lights, the terrific appealing clamour of the gypsy band, set murmuring the nerves of this impressionable girl. And the agility of the _cymbalom_ player, his great height, clear skin, and piercing eyes, quite enthralled her.
"It is the gypsy dulcimer, Lora; I read all about it in Liszt"s book on gypsy music," said Aunt Lucas, in an airy soprano.
Mr. Steyle was impressed. Lora paid no attention, but continued to gaze curiously at the antics of the player, who hammered from his instrument of wire shivering, percussive music. With flexible wrists he swung the felt-covered mallets that brought up such resounding tones; at times his long, apelike arms would reach far asunder and, rolling his eyes, he touched the extremes of his _cymbalom_; then he described furious arpeggios, punctuated with a shrill tattoo. And the crazy music defiled by in a struggling squad of chords; but Arpad Vihary never lifted his eyes from Lora Crowne....
The vibration ceased. Its withdrawal left the ear-drums buzzing with a minute, painful sensation, like that of moisture rapidly evaporating upon the naked skin. A battalion of tongues began to chatter as the red-faced waiters rushed between the tables, taking orders. It was after eleven o"clock, and through the swinging doors pa.s.sed a throng of motley people, fanning, gossiping, bickering--all eager and thirsty. Clarence Steyle pointed out the celebrities with conscious delight. Over yonder--that man with the mixed gray hair--was a composer who came every night for inspiration,--musical and otherwise, Clarence added, with a laugh. And there was the young and well-known decadent playwright who wore strangling high collars and transposed all his plays from French sources; he lisped and was proud of his ability to dramatize the latest mental disease. And a burglar who had written a famous book on the management of children during hot weather sat meekly resting before a solitary table.
The leader of the Hungarian band was a gypsy who called himself Alfa.s.sy Janos, though he lived on First Avenue, in a flat the door of which bore this legend: _Jacob Aron_. The rest of the band seemed gypsy. Who is the _cymbalom_ player? That is not difficult to answer; the programme gives it.
"There you are, Miss Lora."
She looked. "Oh, what a romantic name! He must be a count at least."
"Lora, dear, gypsies never bear t.i.tles," remarked Aunt Lucas, patronizingly.
"How about the Abbe Liszt?" triumphantly asked her charge.
Aunt Lucas laughed coldly. "Liszt was Hungarian, not Romany. But your artist with the drumsticks certainly is distinguished-looking. If he only would not wear that odious scarlet uniform. I wonder why he does not sit down, like the rest of his colleagues."
Arpad Vihary leaned against the panelled wall, his brow puckered in boredom, his long black mustaches drooping from sheer discouragement.
His was a figure for sculpture--a frame powerfully modelled, a bisque complexion. Thin as a cedar sapling, he preserved such an immovable att.i.tude that in the haze of the creamy atmosphere he seemed a carved, marmoreal image rather than a young man with devouring eyes.
The three visitors ate sandwiches and pretended to relish Munich beer served in tall stone mugs. Aunt Lucas, who was shaped like a "cello, made more than a pretence of sipping; she drank one entirely, regretting the exigencies of chaperonage: to ask for more might shock the proper young man.
"It"s horrid here, after all," she remarked discontentedly. "So many people--_such_ people--and very few nice ones. The Batsons are over there, Lora; but then you don"t care for them. O dear, I wish the band would strike up again."
It did. A vicious swirl of colour and dizzy, dislocated rhythms prefaced the incantations of the Czardas. Instantly the eating, gabbling crowd became silent. Alfa.s.sy Janos magnetized his hearers with cradling, caressing movements of his fiddle. He waved like tall gra.s.s in the wind; he twisted snakewise his lithe body as he lashed his bow upon the screaming strings; the resilient tones darted fulgurantly from instrument to instrument. After chasing in circles of quicksilver, they all met with a crash; and the whole tonal battery, reenforced by the throbbing of Arpad Vihary"s dulcimer, swept through the suite of rooms from ceiling to sanded floor. It was no longer enchanting music, but sheer madness of the blood; sensual and warlike, it gripped the imagination as these tunes of old Egypt, filtered through savage centuries, reached the ears. Lora trembled in the gale that blew across the Puzta. She imagined a determined Hungarian prairie, over which dashed disordered centaurs brandishing clubs, driving before them a band of satyrs and leaping fauns. The hoofed men struggled. At their front was a monster with a black goat-face and huge horns; he fought fiercely the half-human horses. The sun, a thin scarf of light, was eclipsed by earnest clouds; the curving thunder closed over the battle; the air was flame-sprinkled and enlaced by music; and most melancholy were the eyes of the defeated Pan--the melancholy eyes of Arpad Vihary....
Aunt Lucas was scandalized. "Do you know, Lora, that the impudent dulcimer virtuoso"--she prided herself on her musical terms--"actually stared you out of countenance during the entire Czardas?" And she could have added that her niece had returned the glance unflinchingly.
Mr. Steyle noticed Lora"s vacant regard when he addressed her and insisted on getting her away from the dangerous undertow of this "table d"hote music," as he contemptuously called it. He summoned the waiter.
Lora shed her disappointment. "Oh, let"s wait for the _cymbalom_ solo,"
she frankly begged.
Her aunt was unmoved. "Yes, Mr. Steyle, we had better go; the air is positively depressing. These slumming parties are delightful if you don"t overdo them--but the people!" Up went her lorgnon.
They soon departed. Lora did not dare to look back until she reached the door that opened on the avenue; as she did so her vibrant gaze collided with the Hungarian"s. She determined to see him again.
II
Nice Brooklyn girls always attend church and symphony concerts. This dual custom is considered respectable and cultured. Lora"s parents during their lifetime never missed the Theodore Thomas concerts and the sermons of a certain famous local preacher; but there were times when the young woman longed for Carmen and the delights of fashionable Bohemia. Carefully reared by her Aunt Lucas, she had nevertheless a taste for gypsy bands and "Gyp"s" novels. She read the latter translated, much to the disedification of her guardian, who was a linguist and a patron of the fine arts. This latter clause included subscriptions to the Inst.i.tute Course and several scientific journals.
If Lora were less romantic, all would be well. Once the careful chaperon had feared music and its disturbing influences; but after she had read an article about its healing effect upon the insane she felt that it could work no evil in Lora; indeed, it was an elevating art. She was fond of music herself, and, as dancing was strictly tabooed, there seemed little likelihood of the n.o.ble art of "sweet concordance"--Aunt Lucas had picked this quotation up somewhere--doing mischief to her impressionable niece.
Nearly all dwelling-houses look alike in Brooklyn, even at midday. The street in which the Crownes lived was composed of conventional brown-stone buildings and English bas.e.m.e.nts. Nielje, the Dutch maid, stood at the half-opened door, regarding with suspicion the big, dark man who had pulled the bell so violently. Aunt Lucas was in New York at the meeting of a society devoted to Ethical Enjoyment. Though Nielje had been warned secretly of an expected visitor, this wild-looking young man with long black hair, wearing a flaring coat of many colours and baggy Turkish trousers, gave her a shock. Why did he come to the bas.e.m.e.nt as if he were one of the cook"s callers? She paused. Then the door was shoved in by a muscular arm, and she was pushed against the wall.
"Don"t try that again, man," she protested.
He answered her in gibberish. "Mees, Mees Lora," he repeated.
"Ach!" she exclaimed.
Arpad Vihary gloomily followed her into the dining-room, where Lora stood trembling. This was the third time she had met the Hungarian, and fearing Prospect Park,--after two timid walks there, under the fiery-fingered leaves of early autumn,--she had been prevailed upon to invite Arpad to her home. She regretted her imprudence the moment he entered. All his footlight picturesqueness vanished in the cold, hard light of an unromantic Brooklyn breakfast-room. He seemed like a clumsy circus hero as he sc.r.a.ped his feet over the parquetry and attempted to kiss her hand. She drew away instantly and pointed to a chair. He refused to sit down; his pride seemed hurt.
Then he gave the girl an intense look, and she drew nearer.
"Oh, Arpad Vihary," she began.
He interrupted. "You do not love me now. Why? You told me you loved me, in the park, yesterday. I am a poor artist, that is the reason."
This speech he uttered glibly, and, despite the extraordinary p.r.o.nunciation, she understood it. She took his long hand, the fingers amazed her. He bent them back until they touched his wrist, and was proud of their flexibility. He walked to the dining-table and tossed its cover-cloth on a chair. Upon his two thumbs he went around it like an acrobat. "Shall I hold you out with one arm?" he softly asked. Lora was vastly amused; this was indeed a courtship out of the ordinary--it pleased her exotic taste.
"Hungarian gypsies are very strong, are they not?" she innocently asked.
"I am not gypsy nor am I Hungarian; I am an East Indian. My family is royal. We are of the Rajpoot tribes called Ranas. My father once ruled Roorbunder."
Lora was amazed. A king"s son, a Rana of Roorbunder! She became very sympathetic. Again she urged him to sit down.
"My nation never sits before a woman," he proudly answered.
"But I will sit beside you," she coaxed, pushing him to a corner. He resisted her and went to the window. Lora again joined him. The man piqued her. He was mysterious and very unlike Mr. Steyle--poor, sentimental Clarence, who melted with sighs if she but glanced at him; and then, Clarence was too stout. She adored slender men, believing that when fat came in at the door love fled out of the window.
"They put me in a circus at Buda-Pesth," remarked Arpad Vihary, as if he were making a commonplace statement about the weather.
She gave a little scream; he regarded her with Oriental composure. "In a circus! You! Did you ride?"
"I cannot ride," he said. "I played in a cage all day."
"Because you were wild?" She then went into a fit of laughter. He was such a funny fellow, though his ardent gaze made her blush. So blond and pink was Lora that her friends called her Strawberry--a delicate compliment in which she delighted. It was this golden head and radiant face, with implacably blue eyes, that set the blood pumping into Arpad"s brain. When he looked at her, he saw sunlight.
"Do you know, you absurd prince, that when you played the Czardas the other night I seemed to see a vision of a Hungarian prairie, covered with fighting centaurs and satyrs! I longed to be a _vivandiere_ among all those fauns. You were there--in the music, I mean--and you were big Pan--oh, so ugly and terrible!"
"Pan! That is a Polish t.i.tle," he answered quite simply.
"Stupid! The great G.o.d Pan--don"t you know your mythology? Haven"t you read Mrs. Browning? He was the G.o.d of nature, of the woods. Even now, I believe you have ears with furry tips and hoofs like a faun."
He turned a sickly yellow.
"Anyhow, why did they put you in a cage? Were you a wild boy?"
"They thought so in Hungary."
"But why?"
He stared at her sorrowfully, and was about to empty his soul; but she turned away with a shudder.