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me. I suppose it depends somewhat on how things go Fri-
day afternoon."
"Oh, they'll go fast enough! That's better suited to
your voice than anything you've sung here. That gives
you every opportunity I've waited for." Ottenburg
crossed the room and standing beside her began to play
"DU BIST DER LENZ."
With a violent movement Thea caught his wrists and
pushed his hands away from the keys.
"Fred, can't you be serious? A thousand things may
happen between this and Friday to put me out. Some-
thing will happen. If that part were sung well, as well as
it ought to be, it would be one of the most beautiful things
in the world. That's why it never is sung right, and never
will be." She clenched her hands and opened them de-
spairingly, looking out of the open window. "It's inac-
cessibly beautiful!" she brought out sharply.
Fred and Dr. Archie watched her. In a moment she
turned back to them. "It's impossible to sing a part like
that well for the first time, except for the sort who will
never sing it any better. Everything hangs on that first
night, and that's bound to be bad. There you are," she
shrugged impatiently. "For one thing, they change the
cast at the eleventh hour and then rehearse the life out of
me."
Ottenburg put down his cup with exaggerated care.
"Still, you really want to do it, you know."
"Want to?" she repeated indignantly; "of course I want
to! If this were only next Thursday night-- But between
now and Friday I'll do nothing but fret away my strength.
Oh, I'm not saying I don't need the rehearsals! But I
don't need them strung out through a week. That sys-
tem's well enough for phlegmatic singers; it only drains
me. Every single feature of operatic routine is detri-
mental to me. I usually go on like a horse that's been
fixed to lose a race. I have to work hard to do my worst,
let alone my best. I wish you could hear me sing well,
once," she turned to Fred defiantly; "I have, a few times
in my life, when there was nothing to gain by it."
Fred approached her again and held out his hand. "I
recall my instructions, and now I'll leave you to fight it out
with Archie. He can't possibly represent managerial stu-
pidity to you as I seem to have a gift for doing."
As he smiled down at her, his good humor, his good
wishes, his understanding, embarrassed her and recalled
her to herself. She kept her seat, still holding his hand.
"All the same, Fred, isn't it too bad, that there are so
many things--" She broke off with a shake of the head.
"My dear girl, if I could bridge over the agony between
now and Friday for you-- But you know the rules of the
game; why torment yourself? You saw the other night
that you had the part under your thumb. Now walk, sleep,
play with Archie, keep your tiger hungry, and she'll spring
all right on Friday. I'll be there to see her, and there'll be
more than I, I suspect. Harsanyi's on the Wilhelm der
Grosse; gets in on Thursday."
"Harsanyi?" Thea's eye lighted. "I haven't seen him
for years. We always miss each other." She paused, hesi-
tating. "Yes, I should like that. But he'll be busy, may-
be?"
"He gives his first concert at Carnegie Hall, week after
next. Better send him a box if you can."
"Yes, I'll manage it." Thea took his hand again. "Oh,
I should like that, Fred!" she added impulsively. "Even
if I were put out, he'd get the idea,"--she threw back
her head,--"for there is an idea!"
"Which won't penetrate here," he tapped his brow and
began to laugh. "You are an ungrateful huzzy, COMME LES
AUTRES!"
Thea detained him as he turned away. She pulled a
flower out of a bouquet on the piano and absently drew
the stem through the lapel of his coat. "I shall be walking
in the Park to-morrow afternoon, on the reservoir path,
between four and five, if you care to join me. You know
that after Harsanyi I'd rather please you than anyone else.
You know a lot, but he knows even more than you."
"Thank you. Don't try to analyze it. SCHLAFEN SIE
WOHL!" he kissed her fingers and waved from the door,
closing it behind him.
"He's the right sort, Thea." Dr. Archie looked warmly
after his disappearing friend. "I've always hoped you'd
make it up with Fred."
"Well, haven't I? Oh, marry him, you mean! Perhaps
it may come about, some day. Just at present he's not
in the marriage market any more than I am, is he?"
"No, I suppose not. It's a damned shame that a man
like Ottenburg should be tied up as he is, wasting all the
best years of his life. A woman with general paresis ought
to be legally dead."
"Don't let us talk about Fred's wife, please. He had no
business to get into such a mess, and he had no business to
stay in it. He's always been a softy where women were
concerned."
"Most of us are, I'm afraid," Dr. Archie admitted
meekly.
"Too much light in here, isn't there? Tires one's eyes.
The stage lights are hard on mine." Thea began turning
them out. "We'll leave the little one, over the piano."
She sank down by Archie on the deep sofa. "We two have
so much to talk about that we keep away from it altogether;
have you noticed? We don't even nibble the edges. I wish
we had Landry here to-night to play for us. He's very
comforting."
"I'm afraid you don't have enough personal life, outside
your work, Thea." The doctor looked at her anxiously.
She smiled at him with her eyes half closed. "My dear
doctor, I don't have any. Your work becomes your per-
sonal life. You are not much good until it does. It's like
being woven into a big web. You can't pull away, because
all your little tendrils are woven into the picture. It takes
you up, and uses you, and spins you out; and that is your
life. Not much else can happen to you."
"Didn't you think of marrying, several years ago?"
"You mean Nordquist? Yes; but I changed my mind.
We had been singing a good deal together. He's a splendid
creature."
"Were you much in love with him, Thea?" the doctor
asked hopefully.
She smiled again. "I don't think I know just what that
expression means. I've never been able to find out. I
think I was in love with you when I was little, but not
with any one since then. There are a great many ways of
caring for people. It's not, after all, a simple state, like
measles or tonsilitis. Nordquist is a taking sort of man.
He and I were out in a rowboat once in a terrible storm.
The lake was fed by glaciers,--ice water,--and we
couldn't have swum a stroke if the boat had filled. If we
hadn't both been strong and kept our heads, we'd have
gone down. We pulled for every ounce there was in us,
and we just got off with our lives. We were always being
thrown together like that, under some kind of pressure.
Yes, for a while I thought he would make everything
right." She paused and sank back, resting her head on a
cushion, pressing her eyelids down with her fingers. "You
see," she went on abruptly, "he had a wife and two chil-
dren. He hadn't lived with her for several years, but
when she heard that he wanted to marry again, she began
to make trouble. He earned a good deal of money, but he
was careless and always wretchedly in debt. He came to
me one day and told me he thought his wife would settle
for a hundred thousand marks and consent to a divorce.
I got very angry and sent him away. Next day he came
back and said he thought she'd take fifty thousand."
Dr. Archie drew away from her, to the end of the sofa.
"Good God, Thea,"-- He ran his handkerchief over his
forehead. "What sort of people--" He stopped and shook
his head.
Thea rose and stood beside him, her hand on his shoul-
der. "That's exactly how it struck me," she said quietly.
"Oh, we have things in common, things that go away back,
under everything. You understand, of course. Nordquist
didn't. He thought I wasn't willing to part with the
money. I couldn't let myself buy him from Fru Nord-
quist, and he couldn't see why. He had always thought I
was close about money, so he attributed it to that. I am
careful,"--she ran her arm through Archie's and when
he rose began to walk about the room with him. "I
can't be careless with money. I began the world on six
hundred dollars, and it was the price of a man's life. Ray
Kennedy had worked hard and been sober and denied him-
self, and when he died he had six hundred dollars to show
for it. I always measure things by that six hundred dol-
lars, just as I measure high buildings by the Moonstone
standpipe. There are standards we can't get away from."
Dr. Archie took her hand. "I don't believe we should
be any happier if we did get away from them. I think it
gives you some of your poise, having that anchor. You
look," glancing down at her head and shoulders, "some-
times so like your mother."
"Thank you. You couldn't say anything nicer to me
than that. On Friday afternoon, didn't you think?"
"Yes, but at other times, too. I love to see it. Do you
know what I thought about that first night when I heard
you sing? I kept remembering the night I took care of you
when you had pneumonia, when you were ten years old.
You were a terribly sick child, and I was a country doctor
without much experience. There were no oxygen tanks
about then. You pretty nearly slipped away from me.
If you had--"
Thea dropped her head on his shoulder. "I'd have
saved myself and you a lot of trouble, wouldn't I? Dear
Dr. Archie!" she murmured.
"As for me, life would have been a pretty bleak stretch,
with you left out." The doctor took one of the crystal
pendants that hung from her shoulder and looked into it
thoughtfully. "I guess I'm a romantic old fellow, under-
neath. And you've always been my romance. Those
years when you were growing up were my happiest. When
I dream about you, I always see you as a little girl."
They paused by the open window. "Do you? Nearly
all my dreams, except those about breaking down on the
stage or missing trains, are about Moonstone. You tell
me the old house has been pulled down, but it stands in
my mind, every stick and timber. In my sleep I go all
about it, and look in the right d...
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