Part 12

His meditations were cut short by Kathleen herself, who, supple as a snake, had glided unnoticed to his elbow.

“You are the only one among us who has a long face,” she said to him, softly, while across and around the table now resounded a fusillade of merry sayings and laughter. “Is it because you disapprove of my playing in public?”

“Disapprove of you? Oh! good gracious, no!” he answered, incoherently. “I am proud to the core of my heart. But that doesn’t mean I like to think of you on a platform. It makes me wretched, and that’s the honest truth. You ought to be shut in from vulgar gazers in a little world of your own; and the question of dirty money oughtn’t to enter into your art.”

“Perhaps not,” said the more practical Kathleen; “but, after all, ‘dirty money’ puts the hallmark upon accomplishment. And as to the vulgar gazers and hearers, they light the torch of genius. When I was last at the opera, in those good seats in the parquet Mr. Toner sent papa, I watched the artists closely, and saw that every one of them was working with all his or her might to do the best possible; and whenever there came a burst of real applause--not that little rainfall of claps one hears from the gallery alone, but the kind that comes, quick as near-by thunder after lightning, from the body of the house--the ease and spontaneity of the performance was increased. The very muscles of their bodies seem to feel the tension, and their faces to grow more luminous.”

“That may be true,” said poor Colin, who was again out of his depth; “but somehow, I don’t fancy you among them. I had rather see you in the boxes with those nice girls who sit up by their mammas, and have fellows dropping in to call on them.”

“Please don’t!” cried she, with unaffected earnestness. “I can’t imagine any life that would suit me less than theirs. Sometimes, on a winter’s night when daddy and I hurry by them in the lobby, on our way to catch a cable car to get home in, I think maybe I might enjoy wearing one of their long fluffy white wraps like plumage--that look like seraphs’ overcoats--and having a footman in a fur cape to call my carriage. But really, I don’t want riches or fashion; I want opportunity only, and travel, and all the music I can get, and flowers like those orchids, and a new evening frock--and such nice things as Mr. Thorndyke has been saying to me about my touch, and--and to see my parents take a little rest from work. But that’s what I talk about to Morry, not to you. When his ship and mine come in, you’ll see what we shall do with our cargoes.”

Thus it was always. While she filled every chink and cranny of Colin’s dreams of the future, he had no part in hers. Swallowing his pain, he tried to find something to say to her about his pleasure in her success. He dared not venture in this place to criticise their new guest.

“Oh! thank you,” she said, studying his appearance, apparently for the first time. “And to return the compliment, I ought to tell you that you look--really very nice.”

“Morry put me up to it,” he said, glowing with pleasure. “We had a council over my old evening rig that had been through three years of the University before it came to New York; and he decided I could no longer pass muster.”

“Yes, I like you in these clothes,” she said, critically. “But I think--though I’m not certain--your collar should not turn down so low--and I’m quite sure your hair is too long.”

“Really?” he exclaimed, smiling ecstatically. It was so precious to have her speak to him in this proprietary way, even though he knew, too well, alas! that she was inspired by less than the interest of a sister. He would have been thankful, indeed, to have a part of Maurice’s share in her regard.

“Yes, really,” she said. “But for those minor points, I believe you are smart enough to appear in the gilded halls of Mrs. Beaumoris, where, by the way, I am to make my début on the twenty-fifth as a paid performer.”

“You! oh, no!” he exclaimed, impetuously, his brown face reddening.

“And why not, pray?” she answered, proudly resentful of his protest. “What has become of your theories about the dignity of honest toil?”

“It’s not that--only--it is a chariot of fire that is coming to snatch you away from me,” he said, simply, and in spite of herself Kathleen was touched.

Colin, seeing his advantage, tried to follow it up. But it is the misfortune of those in his peculiar state, that the very force of their desire to be agreeable to the beloved object defeats their chances of success. He could find nothing appropriate to say, and felt as he looked--large, lumbering, disconsolate.

No wonder Kathleen flitted away from him to laugh and chaff lightly with the others. Even little Catullus, with his poses and bushy hair and solemn fripperies, made the time pass for her more trippingly than did Morry’s friend.

Terence, however, in his element as a host, presiding with rare grace and tact over their frugal feast, understood better than any one the art of amalgamating divers elements in a party. To their number was presently added Duval of the _Clarion_, who had just been writing his critique of the last new play at the ---- Theater, that would help to form opinion on the subject next morning at many breakfast tables. Talk took itself wings, and soon was stirring with mirthful impulse.

Then Terence, who possessed a tenor voice that might have coined ducats for his family where his pen won them a bare livelihood, sang some of his Irish melodies--not Tom Moore’s only, but Lover’s, and the like. Gazing for an inspiration at his pretty Kathleen, he trolled out the delicious by-gone serenade that carried his wife back many a long year, and brought to her eyes the tears of tenderest sentiment.

“Oh! Molly Bawn, why leave me pining, All lonely waiting here for you, When the stars above are brightly shining Because they’ve nothing else to do?

“The flowers late were open keeping, To try a rival blush with you; But their Mother Nature set them sleeping, With their rosy faces washed in dew.

“The wicked watch dog loud is growling; He takes me for a thief, you see; He knows I’d steal you, Molly darling, And then transported I should be.

“Oh! Molly Bawn, why leave me pining, All lonely waiting here for you, When the stars above are brightly shining, Because they’ve nothing else to do?”

Of all Mr. Blair’s listeners the only one who wore an expression not in sympathy with the pretty tuneful old song was Catullus; and even he, sitting in a Yellow Book attitude, exhibited the grace of magnanimous forbearance. So rapt were the others in the charm of listening, they paid no heed to “a new step on the floor” of the adjoining room. It was a pattering little step, much as if a mouse was scuttling through the house; and at once the door opened, and in came a tiny, bright-eyed old lady, fully dressed and wide-awake, although her cap was a tiny bit askew.

“Granny!” cried her family in a voice.

“You didn’t think, Terry, my boy, that I could stop upstairs in bed, and hear you sing the old songs down below,” answered Granny, unabashed.

“You’re like the ‘good ould Oirish gintlemen, all of the oulden toime,’ Granny,” said Maurice, bringing forward her especial chair. “Don’t you remember how he was supposed to be defunct, and his friends were ‘waking’ him, and the candles were lighted around his bed? The corpse stood all the rest, but when the whisky corks began to pop, he just sprang up and shouted, ‘Whoop! Murther! d’ye think I’ll be lying here dead, when such good stuff as that is flying around my head?’”

“For shame, saucy boy,” said Granny, giving her pet a little tap upon his hand that still clasped hers. “No supper, thanks; I couldn’t survive it, really; and not a wee drop of the punch, even. Just go on with your nonsense, good people, and let me listen. But first come here, Kathleen, child, and tell me how you stood your trial.”

“Let me settle your dear old cap, then,” replied Kathleen, proceeding to put her offer into execution. “It’s all right about me, Granny; I’m a gold mine, as you’ll say when you know what Mrs. Beaumoris is going to pay me for playing at her party. And as to what Herr Levitsky said, that will keep for to-morrow. Now, papa, we want ‘Widow Malone,’ as only you can sing it.”

“And afterward,” added Thorndyke, with effusion uncommon in that measured personage, “Miss Blair will surely not refuse to give us a taste of her quality on the violin.”

Therefore, in due course, Miss Blair, standing under the old clock, lifted her fiddle-bow, and lo! the air about them thrilled with exquisite sound. What she chose first to reproduce was the quaint German Christmas hymn, “Joseph, lieber, Joseph, mein,” written by Calvisius five hundred years before. Then without warning she broke into Granny’s favorite Irish jig, playing it with such resistless vim and merriment that every foot in the room began involuntarily to keep time, and every face wreathed itself into a smile. As quickly again the measure changed, and now Kathleen was back in Crichton’s studio, and her hour of triumph was lived again.

“You are a real witch,” said Colin, finding himself near her after this. “You have got all these people crazy about you. While you played, I was wondering if you’ll ever be satisfied with any one man for an audience.”

He turned, annoyed. There, behind him, stood Mr. Thorndyke, silent, inscrutable.

“Indeed, and I will!” Kathleen said, merrily.

“And what must he be or do to deserve it?”

“Be?” exclaimed the girl. “Like the donkey, all ears. And do? Give me a Stradivarius!”

A little later, when the company broke up and the guests went their several ways, Mackintosh, espying his forgotten flowers, had no longer the impulse to offer them to Kathleen. The events of the evening and the attentions of Thorndyke had made her recede further than ever from his reach.

“Will you ask your mother to have these lilies?” he said, awkwardly thrusting the box upon Maurice in the hall, and hurrying out of the house.

When Colin reached the spot he by courtesy called home he let himself in with a latch-key at a mean-looking door, and climbed three flights of stairs to his den. This was not exactly the traditional hall-bedroom of the struggling clerk, but a variant, in the shape of a middle room, lighted and aired by a small skylight in the roof only. In other respects it was as cheerless as a ragged carpet, lame furniture, and mismatched crockery could make it; but Colin thought little of personal comfort, and the gloom of his meditation as he threw himself upon a creaking chair beside his iron bed was not due to the young man’s meager surroundings. For almost the first time in his life, he felt a sense of impotency in meeting the future in fair fight; and his ordinary trustful spirit rebelled against thus leaving his affairs to “lie on the knees of the gods!”

“Give her a Stradivarius!” he said aloud, bitterly. And, somehow, with the phrase mingled a haunting thought of the man with the angel face, who had in Colin’s hearing spoken words concerning Kathleen that were not in the least angelic.

III

The words, “Give her a Stradivarius,” had hardly been spoken aloud by young Mackintosh when he was surprised by a knocking upon the board partition dividing his attic room from the one adjoining it. After a pause, during which he listened, the knocking was renewed.

Colin, remembering that his neighbor was an infirm and melancholy looking old fellow, whom he sometimes met wearily climbing the stairs with a loaf of bread and a brown paper bag of comestibles hugged to his breast, fancied himself called upon for help. He had but just removed his coat and, putting it on, hastily ran out into the entry, and tapped at the door of the next room.

A feeble voice called to him to come in. The interior resembled Colin’s own in lack of comfort. A gas-jet was burning, which revealed, lying dressed upon the bed close to the partition wall, the man he had often seen--gentle-faced, though hollow-eyed, and evidently racked by some chronic malady.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Colin’s neighbor, “but I must have been dreaming. I awoke suddenly, believing I heard some one distinctly say, ‘Give her a Stradivarius!’ And so I knocked on the wall, the way I used to call my nephew when he lived with me.”

“I did say those words,” answered Colin, blushing. “I was thinking aloud.”

“I beg pardon again, sir,” said the man, sitting up on the bed with an eager expression. “This is a coincidence I think you will agree is remarkable. I had fallen asleep thinking of a Stradivarius. I was dreaming of it. In fact, I rarely think of anything else, in these days. For to have owned something that in my present poverty would have been a little fortune, and to have had it stolen from me by my--Good God! I can’t speak of him. It’s too base for words. Mr. Mackintosh, I’m ashamed of myself. You see, I know your name. Mine is Rupert Thorndyke.”

“That seems somehow familiar,” said Colin, racking his brain to recall where he had heard the two names combined.

“No doubt, like most of us working folks, you read about the doings of the fine people who constitute high society in this town. Well, among them you have often seen that name. The other Rupert Thorndyke is as young and pushing and successful as I am old and timid and collapsed. He is away up among the tiptops, Mr. Mackintosh--dines and wines with the millionaires, and gives parties at his own rooms. I eat bread and ham out of a paper bag upon yonder table, and am thankful when I can afford a bottle of beer or Rhine wine to wash it down. But he’s of my own blood. My brother’s son, and my only living relative--named for me, to my sorrow. When his father was in business with me in musical instruments at--Broadway I was the senior partner, and we prospered for many years. Then my brother got into speculations, and I had to make good the money he lost. Rupert, who was a clever dog, had been sent by me to the University. Well, my brother died of a broken heart; and Rupert came to live with me for a while. Got me to send him to Europe once or twice, which I could ill afford to do. He was such a handsome fellow, had such a winning way with him, one could refuse him nothing. Then some of his former classmates at college voted him into a fashionable club. I paid the entrance fee and dues, keeping my homely self out of sight of his grand companions. Mr. Mackintosh, you will wonder at my want of self-control. But you’re a gentleman, and have got a heart, too--I can see it. I’ve often wanted to make your acquaintance.”

“Go on, if it relieves you, Mr. Thorndyke,” said the young man, dropping upon a chair beside the bed.

“Then you will honor me by drinking a glass of claret,” said the other, arising with some difficulty from his recumbent position. “I am rather stiff with rheumatic pains, as you see. I lay down here before dinner to rest a while, and must have slept till now. Pray share my good luck. My employer--for I am serving where I once ruled, Mr. Mackintosh--gave me a bottle of Pontet Canet in honor of his birthday.”

“I have just supped, thank you,” said Colin, unwilling to hurt him by refusal. “But I’ll have a glass of wine with you with pleasure.”

The old man, shuffling about, produced glasses and a bottle, together with a Bologna sausage and some biscuits. As he sat munching and sipping opposite Colin at table, his dull eyes brightened with the feast.

“Good stuff, this,” he went on. “I’ll warrant the great Mr. Rupert Thorndyke has no more relish for his supper with the rich and exclusive Mrs. Beaumoris after the theater to-night! My employer gives me his morning paper when he has done with it, Mr. Mackintosh, and I bring it home, and under this gas-jet read the fashionable intelligence. I always know what’s going on in society. Look at this old ledger; I have cut out and pasted in it all that is said about my namesake--where he goes, and what he does. Rupert is a musical virtuoso--hand in glove with all the artists, who sing and play at his rooms for nothing. The fine ladies attend, too, and admire the beautiful upholstery and decorations that I paid for when I was flush. Rupert has a collection of musical instruments, ‘small but unrivaled,’ so the papers say. Mr. Mackintosh, I’d give a year of my life to look over that collection and make sure of my--my--lost Stradivarius.”

“Do you mean to say--” began Colin, indignantly.

“When I failed in business I had saved that violin to be sold only in case of dire emergency. Rupert, better than another, knew its value. He always coveted it, but though I had squeezed myself dry to supply him, I would not give this up. For a long time, I should tell you, I kept on terms with my nephew. I never obtruded myself, but I saw him from time to time, taking a fool’s pride in the grand gentleman I had created.”

His head drooped forward. He seemed lost in reverie. Colin, who had begun this adventure with indifference, felt his suspicions awaken and grow keen with the man’s story.

“A pride I am afraid your nephew did not appreciate, Mr. Thorndyke,” said the young man finally, to arouse him.

“Eh! Oh! of course not,” exclaimed the instrument-maker, coming out of his trance. “I was thinking of what a handsome fellow Rupert is. His eyes are so blue, his smile so open, his manner so winning, no one under God’s heaven would take him to be a--oh! _is_ he that? Has my brother’s boy fallen so low? He might have turned on the hand that fed and reared him; he might have shaken me off because I am poor and commonplace and rusty; but I can’t believe--yet what must I believe? Listen, Mr. Mackintosh, to the proofs. After my failure, as I said, I had put away my precious Stradivarius in its case, in a trunk in the one room I kept--better than this, but still, one room only. I had to go over to Philadelphia, once, to see a man from whom I hoped to collect a few hundreds owing me. I came back rejoiced because I had got nearly the whole sum. The maid at the boarding-house said nobody had called or asked for me in my absence. I went straight to the trunk, and opened it to put away my cash. I found the violin-case empty--the treasure gone! Just as I was about to give the alarm to the house, I saw on the floor under the edge of the trunk, this--”

He took from his pocket an unset scarabeus, jade-green in hue, that might have been worn in a man’s ring or pin.

“It was his. I had often seen him wear it in a scarf. He had showed it to me on his first return from Cairo. How could I alarm the boarding-house, or set the police upon the track of Rupert? Rupert a th-- Oh, no! I won’t say the word! Not till it’s proved will I call him so. I found traces of wax on my latch-key of the house door, that I had been in the habit of throwing, with my other keys, on the dressing-table every night. Rupert had recently sent a man there with a note enclosing me a present of twenty-five dollars. While I wrote the answer the man must have taken the impression of my keys. Mr. Mackintosh, I had mistrusted that gift of money, though I kept it to pay my way to Philadelphia, and my board. Although I had given Rupert all, it was the first he had given me. I returned it to him the day after my discovery of the loss, with two lines, “Take your money, and give me back my Stradivarius.” He answered in such a brutal tone it makes me sick to think of it, disclaiming all knowledge of my Stradivarius. I burnt his letter, but these words are sunk into my heart, ‘From this time forth I refuse to see or to speak to one who has done me this foul wrong.’ That was two years ago, Mr. Mackintosh--two years ago. I have not prospered since; I am living on a pittance of pay because the times are hard, and my employer has nothing like the business _we_ used to have. Are you cold, sir? If so, I can light the gas-stove. I keep it for _very_ cold weather generally. My nephew, as I said, has gone to a play to-night, to see Sara Bernhardt, with a party invited by Mrs. Beaumoris. His friends are very exclusive, and he is a great favorite--or perhaps it was last night he went to the theater; I am losing my memory, you see.”

“How does he continue to cut such a dash without fortune?” asked Colin, anxious to satisfy himself without exciting the poor old fellow’s suspicion.

“Nobody knows exactly. He was always lucky in speculation, and very daring. I gave him money to start with--all I could spare--and he went on and on. Yes, he must have a good purse to live as he does. I don’t envy Rupert; but oh! if I had the courage to go to-night and try to get into his rooms--to say I am his uncle and could wait till he came in--and then search there, and find out--”

“Perhaps he has sold the Stradivarius,” said Colin.

“Oh, don’t say that, Mr. Mackintosh. I hope against hope that he’s keeping it as the gem of his collection--that I may one day look at it again. I’d know it in a hundred. There is a tiny vein of color in the wood, that looks like a hand with an outstretched finger, on the right side, near the bridge of the instrument. Enough for any one--for you, for instance, who know nothing of violins, to identify it by. But I’d know my beauty, as far as I could see her!”

As he filled a cracked glass with grape-juice for the third time and tossed it off, Colin saw that unusual treat had affected his poor old brain.

“_In vino veritas_, Mr. Mackintosh,” he resumed, smiling wistfully. “I’ve told you my story as it hasn’t passed my lips since I got my death wound. You go into society, don’t you? I judge from this,” touching the sleeve of Colin’s evening coat.

“To a very limited degree,” said Mackintosh, feeling much abashed.

“Because, I thought if you do, it might come in your way to help me.” But in the act of making this suggestion the instrument-maker forgot what he had begun to say. He wandered, grew drowsy; and Colin, soon aiding him to bed, left him there sound asleep.

The pathos of this incident dwelt with Mackintosh for days. He longed to tell Kathleen, whose interest, he knew, would be keenly aroused in view of the object of the old artisan’s mania. But in one way or another Colin failed to see any of the Blair family. He continued to meet Thorndyke on the stairs, and to exchange greetings with him. There was, however, no repetition of the first attempt at confidence. Thorndyke, as if aware that he had betrayed too much, looked shy of further converse with his stalwart and friendly young neighbor. Colin had almost begun to think the whole story a dream.

At last, when the need to look upon Kathleen’s bright face became overpowering, Colin turned, late one afternoon, through a softly falling veil of snow in the direction of the Blairs’ house. As he shook off the feathered flakes upon their door mat, he pleased himself by believing he would be asked to walk at once into the cosy intimacy of the family room, where at that hour Kathleen and her mother were wont to meet for tea.

Kathleen would be wearing her gown of brown serge, with the slashes of crimson, that so well became her glowing brunette beauty--looking like the genius of home! Mrs. Blair would put away her galley slips and blue pencil, and come over to the tea-table beside the coal fire. Both of these gentle creatures would turn upon him the gaze of friendliest interest.

Colin’s gateway of hope, in the shape of Mr. Blair’s front door, moved inward. Behind it stood an elderly woman, endeavoring to dry her parboiled hands upon a checked apron before receiving the visitor’s card between thumb and finger.