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He snapped back the clasp and began turning over the
songs. "All very fine, but tame. What's he got you at this
Mozart stuff for? I shouldn't think it would suit your
voice. Oh, I can make a pretty good guess at what will
suit you! This from `Gioconda' is more in your line.
What's this Grieg? It looks interesting. TAK FOR DITT ROD.
What does that mean?"
"`Thanks for your Advice.' Don't you know it?"
"No; not at all. Let's try it." He rose, pushed open the
door into the music-room, and motioned Thea to enter be-
fore him. She hung back.
"I couldn't give you much of an idea of it. It's a big
song."
Ottenburg took her gently by the elbow and pushed her
into the other room. He sat down carelessly at the piano
and looked over the music for a moment. "I think I can
get you through it. But how stupid not to have the Ger-
man words. Can you really sing the Norwegian? What
an infernal language to sing. Translate the text for me."
He handed her the music.
Thea looked at it, then at him, and shook her head. "I
can't. The truth is I don't know either English or Swedish
very well, and Norwegian's still worse," she said confi-
dentially. She not infrequently refused to do what she
was asked to do, but it was not like her to explain her
refusal, even when she had a good reason.
"I understand. We immigrants never speak any lan-
guage well. But you know what it means, don't you?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then don't frown at me like that, but tell me."
Thea continued to frown, but she also smiled. She was
confused, but not embarrassed. She was not afraid of
Ottenburg. He was not one of those people who made her
spine like a steel rail. On the contrary, he made one ven-
turesome.
"Well, it goes something like this: Thanks for your ad-
vice! But I prefer to steer my boat into the din of roaring
breakers. Even if the journey is my last, I may find what I
have never found before. Onward must I go, for I yearn for
the wild sea. I long to fight my way through the angry waves,
and to see how far, and how long I can make them carry me."*
Ottenburg took the music and began: "Wait a moment.
Is that too fast? How do you take it? That right?" He
pulled up his cuffs and began the accompaniment again.
He had become entirely serious, and he played with fine
enthusiasm and with understanding.
Fred's talent was worth almost as much to old Otto
Ottenburg as the steady industry of his older sons. When
Fred sang the Prize Song at an interstate meet of the
TURNVEREIN, ten thousand TURNERS went forth pledged to
Ottenburg beer.
As Thea finished the song Fred turned back to the first
page, without looking up from the music. "Now, once
more," he called. They began again, and did not hear
Bowers when he came in and stood in the doorway. He
stood still, blinking like an owl at their two heads shining
in the sun. He could not see their faces, but there was
something about his girl's back that he had not noticed be-
fore: a very slight and yet very free motion, from the toes
up. Her whole back seemed plastic, seemed to be mould-
ing itself to the galloping rhythm of the song. Bowers
perceived such things sometimes--unwillingly. He had
known to-day that there was something afoot. The river
of sound which had its source in his pupil had caught him
two flights down. He had stopped and listened with a kind
of sneering admiration. From the door he watched her
with a half-incredulous, half-malicious smile.
When he had struck the keys for the last time, Otten-
burg dropped his hands on his knees and looked up with a
quick breath. "I got you through. What a stunning song!
Did I play it right?"
Thea studied his excited face. There was a good deal of
meaning in it, and there was a good deal in her own as she
answered him. "You suited me," she said ungrudgingly.
After Ottenburg was gone, Thea noticed that Bowers
was more agreeable than usual. She had heard the young
brewer ask Bowers to dine with him at his club that even-
ing, and she saw that he looked forward to the dinner
with pleasure. He dropped a remark to the effect that
Fred knew as much about food and wines as any man in
Chicago. He said this boastfully.
"If he's such a grand business man, how does he have
time to run around listening to singing-lessons?" Thea
asked suspiciously.
As she went home to her boarding-house through the
February slush, she wished she were going to dine with
them. At nine o'clock she looked up from her grammar to
wonder what Bowers and Ottenburg were having to eat.
At that moment they were talking of her.
IV
THEA noticed that Bowers took rather more pains with
her now that Fred Ottenburg often dropped in at
eleven-thirty to hear her lesson. After the lesson the young
man took Bowers off to lunch with him, and Bowers liked
good food when another man paid for it. He encouraged
Fred's visits, and Thea soon saw that Fred knew exactly
why.
One morning, after her lesson, Ottenburg turned to
Bowers. "If you'll lend me Miss Thea, I think I have an
engagement for her. Mrs. Henry Nathanmeyer is going to
give three musical evenings in April, first three Saturdays,
and she has consulted me about soloists. For the first
evening she has a young violinist, and she would be
charmed to have Miss Kronborg. She will pay fifty dollars.
Not much, but Miss Thea would meet some people there
who might be useful. What do you say?"
Bowers passed the question on to Thea. "I guess you
could use the fifty, couldn't you, Miss Kronborg? You
can easily work up some songs."
Thea was perplexed. "I need the money awfully," she
said frankly; "but I haven't got the right clothes for that
sort of thing. I suppose I'd better try to get some."
Ottenburg spoke up quickly, "Oh, you'd make nothing
out of it if you went to buying evening clothes. I've
thought of that. Mrs. Nathanmeyer has a troop of daugh-
ters, a perfect seraglio, all ages and sizes. She'll be glad to
fit you out, if you aren't sensitive about wearing kosher
clothes. Let me take you to see her, and you'll find that
she'll arrange that easily enough. I told her she must
produce something nice, blue or yellow, and properly cut.
I brought half a dozen Worth gowns through the customs
for her two weeks ago, and she's not ungrateful. When can
we go to see her?"
"I haven't any time free, except at night," Thea re-
plied in some confusion.
"To-morrow evening, then? I shall call for you at eight.
Bring all your songs along; she will want us to give her a
little rehearsal, perhaps. I'll play your accompaniments,
if you've no objection. That will save money for you and
for Mrs. Nathanmeyer. She needs it." Ottenburg chuckled
as he took down the number of Thea's boarding-house.
The Nathanmeyers were so rich and great that even
Thea had heard of them, and this seemed a very remarkable
opportunity. Ottenburg had brought it about by merely
lifting a finger, apparently. He was a beer prince sure
enough, as Bowers had said.
The next evening at a quarter to eight Thea was dressed
and waiting in the boarding-house parlor. She was ner-
vous and fidgety and found it difficult to sit still on the
hard, convex upholstery of the chairs. She tried them one
after another, moving about the dimly lighted, musty
room, where the gas always leaked gently and sang in the
burners. There was no one in the parlor but the medical
student, who was playing one of Sousa's marches so vigor-
ously that the china ornaments on the top of the piano
rattled. In a few moments some of the pension-office girls
would come in and begin to two-step. Thea wished that
Ottenburg would come and let her escape. She glanced
at herself in the long, somber mirror. She was wearing
her pale-blue broadcloth church dress, which was not un-
becoming but was certainly too heavy to wear to any-
body's house in the evening. Her slippers were run over
at the heel and she had not had time to have them mended,
and her white gloves were not so clean as they should be.
However, she knew that she would forget these annoying
things as soon as Ottenburg came.
Mary, the Hungarian chambermaid, came to the door,
stood between the plush portieres, beckoned to Thea, and
made an inarticulate sound in her throat. Thea jumped
up and ran into the hall, where Ottenburg stood smiling,
his caped cloak open, his silk hat in his white-kid hand.
The Hungarian girl stood like a monument on her flat heels,
staring at the pink carnation in Ottenburg's coat. Her
broad, pockmarked face wore the only expression of which
it was capable, a kind of animal wonder. As the young man
followed Thea out, he glanced back over his shoulder
through the crack of the door; the Hun clapped her hands
over her stomach, opened her mouth, and made another
raucous sound in her throat.
"Isn't she awful?" Thea exclaimed. "I think she's
half-witted. Can you understand her?"
Ottenburg laughed as he helped her into the carriage.
"Oh, yes; I can understand her!" He settled himself on
the front seat opposite Thea. "Now, I want to tell you
about the people we are going to see. We may have a
musical public in this country some day, but as yet there
are only the Germans and the Jews. All the other people
go to hear Jessie Darcey sing, `O, Promise Me!' The
Nathanmeyers are the finest kind of Jews. If you do any-
thing for Mrs. Henry Nathanmeyer, you must put your-
self into her hands. Whatever she says about music, about
clothes, about life, will be correct. And you may feel at
ease with her. She expects nothing of people; she has
lived in Chicago twenty years. If you were to behave
like the Magyar who was so interested in my buttonhole,
she would not be surprised. If you were to sing like Jessie
Darcey, she would not be surprised; but she would manage
not to hear you again."
"Would she? Well, that's the kind of people I want to
find." Thea felt herself growing bolder.
"You will be all right with her so long as you do not try
to be anything that you are not. Her standards have noth-
ing to do with Chicag...
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