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She gave the impression of wearing a cargo of splendid
merchandise.
Mrs. Priest nodded graciously to Thea, coquettishly to
Bowers, and asked him to untie her veil for her. She
threw her splendid wrap on a chair, the yellow lining out.
Thea was already at the piano. Mrs. Priest stood behind
her.
"`Rejoice Greatly' first, please. And please don't hurry
it in there," she put her arm over Thea's shoulder, and
indicated the passage by a sweep of her white glove. She
threw out her chest, clasped her hands over her abdomen,
lifted her chin, worked the muscles of her cheeks back
and forth for a moment, and then began with conviction,
"Re-jo-oice! Re-jo-oice!"
Bowers paced the room with his catlike tread. When he
checked Mrs. Priest's vehemence at all, he handled her
roughly; poked and hammered her massive person with
cold satisfaction, almost as if he were taking out a grudge
on this splendid creation. Such treatment the imposing
lady did not at all resent. She tried harder and harder, her
eyes growing all the while more lustrous and her lips redder.
Thea played on as she was told, ignoring the singer's
struggles.
When she first heard Mrs. Priest sing in church, Thea
admired her. Since she had found out how dull the good-
natured soprano really was, she felt a deep contempt for
her. She felt that Mrs. Priest ought to be reproved and
even punished for her shortcomings; that she ought to
be exposed,--at least to herself,--and not be permitted
to live and shine in happy ignorance of what a poor thing
it was she brought across so radiantly. Thea's cold looks
of reproof were lost upon Mrs. Priest; although the lady
did murmur one day when she took Bowers home in her
carriage, "How handsome your afternoon girl would be
if she did not have that unfortunate squint; it gives her
that vacant Swede look, like an animal." That amused
Bowers. He liked to watch the germination and growth
of antipathies.
One of the first disappointments Thea had to face when
she returned to Chicago that fall, was the news that the
Harsanyis were not coming back. They had spent the
summer in a camp in the Adirondacks and were moving
to New York. An old teacher and friend of Harsanyi's,
one of the best-known piano teachers in New York, was
about to retire because of failing health and had arranged
to turn his pupils over to Harsanyi. Andor was to give
two recitals in New York in November, to devote him-
self to his new students until spring, and then to go on a
short concert tour. The Harsanyis had taken a furnished
apartment in New York, as they would not attempt to
settle a place of their own until Andor's recitals were over.
The first of December, however, Thea received a note
from Mrs. Harsanyi, asking her to call at the old studio,
where she was packing their goods for shipment.
The morning after this invitation reached her, Thea
climbed the stairs and knocked at the familiar door. Mrs.
Harsanyi herself opened it, and embraced her visitor
warmly. Taking Thea into the studio, which was littered
with excelsior and packing-cases, she stood holding her
hand and looking at her in the strong light from the big
window before she allowed her to sit down. Her quick eye
saw many changes. The girl was taller, her figure had be-
come definite, her carriage positive. She had got used to
living in the body of a young woman, and she no longer
tried to ignore it and behave as if she were a little girl.
With that increased independence of body there had come
a change in her face; an indifference, something hard and
skeptical. Her clothes, too, were different, like the attire of
a shopgirl who tries to follow the fashions; a purple suit, a
piece of cheap fur, a three-cornered purple hat with a
pompon sticking up in front. The queer country clothes
she used to wear suited her much better, Mrs. Harsanyi
thought. But such trifles, after all, were accidental and
remediable. She put her hand on the girl's strong shoulder.
"How much the summer has done for you! Yes, you are
a young lady at last. Andor will be so glad to hear about
you."
Thea looked about at the disorder of the familiar room.
The pictures were piled in a corner, the piano and the
CHAISE LONGUE were gone. "I suppose I ought to be glad you
have gone away," she said, "but I'm not. It's a fine thing
for Mr. Harsanyi, I suppose."
Mrs. Harsanyi gave her a quick glance that said more
than words. "If you knew how long I have wanted to get
him away from here, Miss Kronborg! He is never tired,
never discouraged, now."
Thea sighed. "I'm glad for that, then." Her eyes
traveled over the faint discolorations on the walls where
the pictures had hung. "I may run away myself. I don't
know whether I can stand it here without you."
"We hope that you can come to New York to study
before very long. We have thought of that. And you must
tell me how you are getting on with Bowers. Andor will
want to know all about it."
"I guess I get on more or less. But I don't like my work
very well. It never seems serious as my work with Mr.
Harsanyi did. I play Bowers's accompaniments in the
afternoons, you know. I thought I would learn a good
deal from the people who work with him, but I don't
think I get much."
Mrs. Harsanyi looked at her inquiringly. Thea took
out a carefully folded handkerchief from the bosom of
her dress and began to draw the corners apart. "Singing
doesn't seem to be a very brainy profession, Mrs. Har-
sanyi," she said slowly. "The people I see now are not a
bit like the ones I used to meet here. Mr. Harsanyi's
pupils, even the dumb ones, had more--well, more of
everything, it seems to me. The people I have to play
accompaniments for are discouraging. The professionals,
like Katharine Priest and Miles Murdstone, are worst of
all. If I have to play `The Messiah' much longer for Mrs.
Priest, I'll go out of my mind!" Thea brought her foot
down sharply on the bare floor.
Mrs. Harsanyi looked down at the foot in perplexity.
"You mustn't wear such high heels, my dear. They will
spoil your walk and make you mince along. Can't you at
least learn to avoid what you dislike in these singers? I
was never able to care for Mrs. Priest's singing."
Thea was sitting with her chin lowered. Without mov-
ing her head she looked up at Mrs. Harsanyi and smiled;
a smile much too cold and desperate to be seen on a young
face, Mrs. Harsanyi felt. "Mrs. Harsanyi, it seems to me
that what I learn is just TO DISLIKE. I dislike so much and
so hard that it tires me out. I've got no heart for any-
thing." She threw up her head suddenly and sat in defi-
ance, her hand clenched on the arm of the chair. "Mr.
Harsanyi couldn't stand these people an hour, I know he
couldn't. He'd put them right out of the window there,
frizzes and feathers and all. Now, take that new soprano
they're all making such a fuss about, Jessie Darcey. She's
going on tour with a symphony orchestra and she's work-
ing up her repertory with Bowers. She's singing some
Schumann songs Mr. Harsanyi used to go over with me.
Well, I don't know what he WOULD do if he heard her."
"But if your own work goes well, and you know these
people are wrong, why do you let them discourage you?"
Thea shook her head. "That's just what I don't under-
stand myself. Only, after I've heard them all afternoon, I
come out frozen up. Somehow it takes the shine off of
everything. People want Jessie Darcey and the kind of
thing she does; so what's the use?"
Mrs. Harsanyi smiled. "That stile you must simply
vault over. You must not begin to fret about the suc-
cesses of cheap people. After all, what have they to do
with you?"
"Well, if I had somebody like Mr. Harsanyi, perhaps I
wouldn't fret about them. He was the teacher for me.
Please tell him so."
Thea rose and Mrs. Harsanyi took her hand again. "I
am sorry you have to go through this time of discourage-
ment. I wish Andor could talk to you, he would under-
stand it so well. But I feel like urging you to keep clear of
Mrs. Priest and Jessie Darcey and all their works."
Thea laughed discordantly. "No use urging me. I don't
get on with them AT ALL. My spine gets like a steel rail when
they come near me. I liked them at first, you know. Their
clothes and their manners were so fine, and Mrs. Priest IS
handsome. But now I keep wanting to tell them how
stupid they are. Seems like they ought to be informed,
don't you think so?" There was a flash of the shrewd grin
that Mrs. Harsanyi remembered. Thea pressed her hand.
"I must go now. I had to give my lesson hour this morn-
ing to a Duluth woman who has come on to coach, and I
must go and play `On Mighty Pens' for her. Please tell
Mr. Harsanyi that I think oratorio is a great chance for
bluffers."
Mrs. Harsanyi detained her. "But he will want to know
much more than that about you. You are free at seven?
Come back this evening, then, and we will go to dinner
somewhere, to some cheerful place. I think you need a
party."
Thea brightened. "Oh, I do! I'll love to come; that will
be like old times. You see," she lingered a moment, soft-
ening, "I wouldn't mind if there were only ONE of them I
could really admire."
"How about Bowers?" Mrs. Harsanyi asked as they
were approaching the stairway.
"Well, there's nothing he loves like a good fakir, and
nothing he hates like a good artist. I always remember
something Mr. Harsanyi said about him. He said Bowers
was the cold muffin that had been left on the plate."
Mrs. Harsanyi stopped short at the head of the stairs
and said decidedly: "I think Andor made a mistake. I
can't believe that is the right atmosphere for you. It would
hurt you more than most people. It's all wrong."
"Something's wrong," Thea called back as she clattered
down the stairs in her high heels.
II
DURING that winter Thea lived in so many places that
sometimes at night when she left Bowers's studio and
emerged into the street she had to stop and think for a
moment to remember where she was living now and what
was the best way to get there.
When she moved into a new place her eyes challenged
the beds, the carpets, the food, the mistress of the
house. The boarding-houses were wretchedly conducted
and Thea's complaints sometimes took an insulting form.
She quarreled with one landlady after another and moved
on. When she moved into a new room, she was almost
sure to hate it on sight and to begin planning to hunt
another place before she unpacked her trunk. She was
moody and contemptuous toward her fellow boarders,
except toward the young men, whom she treated with a
careless familiarity which they usually misunderstood.
They liked her, however, and when she left the house
after a storm, they helped her to move her things and came
to see her after she got settled in a new place. But she
moved so often that they soon ceased to follow her. They
could see no reason for keeping up with a girl who, under
her jocularity, was cold, self-centered, and unimpression-
able. They soon felt that she did not admire them.
Thea used to waken up in the night and wonder why
she was so unhappy. She would have been amazed if she
had known how much the people whom she met in Bowers's
studio had to do with her low spirits. She had never been
conscious of those instinctive standards which are called
ideals, and she did not know that she was suffering for
them. She often found herself sneering when she was on a
street-car, or when she was brushing out her hair before
her mirror, as some inane remark or too familiar manner-
ism flitted across her mind.
She felt no creature kindness, no tolera...
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