"Yes, yes; but what am I to do for _you?"_ asked Ina, getting a little uneasy and suspicious.

"What! didn't I tell you?" said Ashmead, with cool effrontery. "Why, only to sing for me in this little opera, that is all." And he put his hands in his pockets, and awaited thunder-claps.

"Oh, that is all, is it?" said Ina, panting a little, and turning two great, reproachful eyes on him.

"That is all," said he, stoutly. "Why, what attracted him at first?

Wasn't it your singing, the admiration of the public, the bouquets and bravas? What caught the moth once will catch it again 'moping' won't. And surely you will not refuse to draw him, merely because you can pull me out of a fix into the bargain. Look here, I have undertaken to find a singer by to-morrow night; and what chance is there of my getting even a third-rate one? Why, the very hour I have spent so agreeably, talking to you, has diminished my chance."

"Oh!" said Ina, "this is _driving_ me into your net."

"I own it," said Joseph, cheerfully; "I'm quite unscrupulous, because I know you will thank me afterward."

"The very idea of going back to the stage makes me tremble," said Ina.

"Of course it does; and those who tremble succeed. In a long experience I never knew an instance to the contrary. It is the conceited fools, who feel safe, that are in danger."

"What is the part?"

"One you know--Siebel in 'Faust,' with two new songs."

"Excuse me, I do not know it."

"Why, everybody knows it."

"You mean everybody has heard it sung. I know neither the music nor the words, and I cannot sing incorrectly even for you."

"Oh, you can master the airs in a day, and the cackle in half an hour."

"I am not so expeditious. If you are serious, get me the book--oh! he calls the poet's words the cackle--and the music of the part directly, and borrow me the score."

"Borrow you the score! Ah! that shows the school you were bred in. I gaze at you with admiration."

"Then please don't, for we have not a moment to waste. You have terrified me out of my senses. Fly!"

"Yes; but before I fly, there is something to be settled--salary!"

"As much as they will give."

"Of course; but give me a hint."

"No, no; you will get me some money, for I am poor. I gave all my savings to my dear mother, and settled her on a farm in dear old Denmark. But I really sing for _you_ more than for Homburg, so make no difficulties.

Above all, do not discuss salary with me. Settle it and draw it for me, and let me hear no more about that. I am on thorns."

He soon found the director, and told him, excitedly, there was a way out of his present difficulty. Ina Klosking was in the town. He had implored her to return to the opera. She had refused at first; but he had used all his influence with her, and at last had obtained a half promise on conditions--a two months' engagement; certain parts, which he specified out of his own head; salary, a hundred thalers per night, and a half clear benefit on her last appearance.

The director demurred to the salary.

Ashmead said he was mad: she was the German Alboni; her low notes like a trumpet, and the compa.s.s of a mezzo-soprano besides.

The director yielded, and drew up the engagement in duplicate. Ashmead then borrowed the music and came back to the inn triumphant. He waved the agreement over his head, then submitted it to her. She glanced at it, made a wry face, and said, "Two months! I never dreamed of such a thing."

"Not worth your while to do it for less," said Ashmead. "Come," said he, authoritatively, "you have got a good bargain every way; so sign."

She lifted her head high, and looked at him like a lioness, at being ordered.

Ashmead replied by putting the paper before her and giving her the pen.

She cast one more reproachful glance, then signed like a lamb.

"Now," said she, turning fretful, "I want a piano."

"You shall have one," said he coaxingly. He went to the landlord and inquired if there was a piano in the house.

"Yes, there is one," said he.

"And it is mine," said a sharp female voice.

"May I beg the use of it?"

"No," said the lady, a tall, bony spinster. "I cannot have it strummed on and put out of tune by everybody."

"But this is not everybody. The lady I want it for is a professional musician. Top of the tree."

"The hardest strummers going."

"But, mademoiselle, this lady is going to sing at the opera. She _must_ study. She _must_ have a piano.

"But [grimly] she need not have mine.

"Then she must leave the hotel."

"Oh [haughtily], _that_ is as she pleases."

Ashmead went to Ina Klosking in a rage and told her all this, and said he would take her to another hotel kept by a Frenchman: these Germans were bears. But Ina Klosking just shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Take me to her."

He did so; and she said, in German, "Madam, I can quite understand your reluctance to have your piano strummed. But as your hotel is quiet and respectable, and I am unwilling to leave it, will you permit me to play to you? and then you shall decide whether I am worthy to stay or not."

The spinster drank those mellow accents, colored a little, looked keenly at the speaker, and, after a moment's reflection, said, half sullenly, "No, madam, you are polite. I must risk my poor piano. Be pleased to come with me."

She then conducted them to a large, unoccupied room on the first-floor, and unlocked the piano, a very fine one, and in perfect tune.

Ina sat down, and performed a composition then in vogue.

"You play correctly, madam," said the spinster; "but your music--what stuff! Such things are null. They vex the ear a little, but they never reach the mind."

Ashmead was wroth, and could hardly contain himself; but the Klosking was amused, and rather pleased. "Mademoiselle has positive tastes in music,"

said she; "all the better."