When Archie and Ottenburg dined with Thea on Saturday evening, they were served downstairs in the hotel dining-room, but they were to have their coffee in her own apartment. As they were going up in the elevator after dinner, Fred turned suddenly to Thea. “And why, please, did you break Landry’s amber1 elephant?”
She looked guilty and began to laugh. “Hasn’t he got over that yet? I didn’t really mean to break it. I was perhaps careless. His things are so over-petted that I was tempted2 to be careless with a lot of them.”
“How can you be so heartless, when they’re all he has in the world?”
“He has me. I’m a great deal of diversion for him; all he needs. There,” she said as she opened the door into her own hall, “I shouldn’t have said that before the elevator boy.”
“Even an elevator boy couldn’t make a scandal about Oliver. He’s such a catnip man.”
Dr. Archie laughed, but Thea, who seemed suddenly to have thought of something annoying, repeated blankly, “Catnip man?”
“Yes, he lives on catnip, and rum tea. But he’s not the only one. You are like an eccentric old woman I know in Boston, who goes about in the spring feeding catnip to street cats. You dispense3 it to a lot of fellows. Your pull seems to be more with men than with women, you know; with seasoned men, about my age, or older. Even on Friday afternoon I kept running into them, old boys I hadn’t seen for years, thin at the part and thick at the girth, until I stood still in the draft and held my hair on. They’re always there; I hear them talking about you in the smoking room. Probably we don’t get to the point of apprehending4 anything good until we’re about forty. Then, in the light of what is going, and of what, God help us! is coming, we arrive at understanding.”
“I don’t see why people go to the opera, anyway,—serious people.” She spoke6 discontentedly. “I suppose they get something, or think they do. Here’s the coffee. There, please,” she directed the waiter. Going to the table she began to pour the coffee, standing5. She wore a white dress trimmed with crystals which had rattled7 a good deal during dinner, as all her movements had been impatient and nervous, and she had twisted the dark velvet8 rose at her girdle until it looked rumpled9 and weary. She poured the coffee as if it were a ceremony in which she did not believe. “Can you make anything of Fred’s nonsense, Dr. Archie?” she asked, as he came to take his cup.
Fred approached her. “My nonsense is all right. The same brand has gone with you before. It’s you who won’t be jollied. What’s the matter? You have something on your mind.”
“I’ve a good deal. Too much to be an agreeable hostess.” She turned quickly away from the coffee and sat down on the piano bench, facing the two men. “For one thing, there’s a change in the cast for Friday afternoon. They’re going to let me sing Sieglinde.” Her frown did not conceal10 the pleasure with which she made this announcement.
“Are you going to keep us dangling11 about here forever, Thea? Archie and I are supposed to have other things to do.” Fred looked at her with an excitement quite as apparent as her own.
“Here I’ve been ready to sing Sieglinde for two years, kept in torment12, and now it comes off within two weeks, just when I want to be seeing something of Dr. Archie. I don’t know what their plans are down there. After Friday they may let me cool for several weeks, and they may rush me. I suppose it depends somewhat on how things go Friday 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. Something 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 clenched13 her hands and opened them despairingly, looking out of the open window. “It’s inaccessibly14 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 shrugged15 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 fret16 away my strength. Oh, I’m not saying I don’t need the rehearsals17! But I don’t need them strung out through a week. That system’s well enough for phlegmatic18 singers; it only drains me. Every single feature of operatic routine is detrimental19 to me. I usually go on like a horse that’s been fixed20 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 defiantly21; “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 stupidity 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, hesitating. “Yes, I should like that. But he’ll be busy, maybe?”
“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 impulsively22. “Even if I were put out, he’d get the idea,”—she threw back her head,—“for there is an idea!”
“Which won’t penetrate23 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 bouquet24 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 analyze25 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 meekly26.
“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 nibble27 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 personal 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............