"But Molly isn't your niece, auntie."

"Never mind; she insists on keeping company with you. Under those circ.u.mstances she must expect to take home to herself most of the things I say about you."

"I'm not worried," said Molly. "I suppose we are all you say we are, and more, Mrs. Calvert."

"That's a charitable view to take of it," said Dr. Sterling.

The engines were working so well that before they realized it the _Nautilus_ was lying snugly moored to her wharf in the North River.

Mr. Ronald's guests bade him good-by and left the boat, after making him promise to be at Dorothy's concert in the evening.

At the hotel, early as was the hour, Dorothy found Herr Deichenberg and Mr. Ludlow in conference over her continued absence.

"My goodness! My goodness!" cried the music master. "Would you drive us crazy, Miss Dorothy, that you stay avay all night and make us believe you are lost in the storm?"

"I did not make you believe anything, Herr Deichenberg. You took that upon yourself. And perhaps I was lost in the storm, sir," replied the girl, then extended her hand to Mr. Ludlow.

"I forgive you, Miss Calvert, and trust you have not so impaired your faculties that your work will fall below its usual standard to-night," said the manager.

"I have not, I a.s.sure you. We were very comfortable in the berths, and put in some good time sleeping between midnight and morning.

Molly will tell you that we have no reason for feeling badly."

"Indeed, no, and Dorothy will be in perfect trim, Mr. Ludlow."

"Your a.s.surance makes my mind perfectly easy," was his reply.

"But vhy didn't you let us know?" Herr Deichenberg asked excitedly.

"Vhy? Vhy?"

"Because the yacht was not equipped with a wireless apparatus, I suppose," Jim Barlow put in, rather testily. "She has done the best she knew how, sir, and that's all anyone can do."

"Truly spoken, my boy," replied the Herr, laying a kindly hand on his shoulder. "You must not mind me; I am a little nervous--dat iss all."

"The nervousness will pa.s.s away now the truant has returned," Aunt Betty a.s.sured him.

Frau Deichenberg, who approached at that moment, nodded, smiling:

"Ah, madame, dat iss true. You must not mind him. He iss like dat vhenever anyt'ing goes wrong. But he means not'ing--not'ing!" She extended her hand. "I am glad to see you safely back."

a.s.suring Mr. Ludlow that she would be on hand in the evening without fail, and promising to see him during the afternoon if he called, Dorothy went up to her room, where a hot bath and a nap of several hours' duration put her in excellent physical trim for the ordeal that night--for an ordeal she knew it was to be--an ordeal that would be the making or the breaking of her career.

CHAPTER XV

DOROTHY'S TRIUMPH

At last the hour was approaching when Dorothy would make her appearance before a metropolitan audience. As evening drew near she felt a nervous sensation, mingled with a faint suspicion of nausea, and wondered at it. Upon the occasion of her appearance in Baltimore not even a tremor of excitement had possessed her; yet, the very thought of appearing in the glare of the footlights in this great New York theater gave her an almost uncontrollable desire to fly away--anywhere--away from the people of this city whose opinions seemed to mean so much to the followers of music and the drama.

Arriving at the theater early, just as she had on the occasion of her appearance in her home city, Dorothy again peeped through a small hole in the curtain, to find the great gold-and-green auditorium a perfect blaze of light.

To her right, in the stage box, sat Aunt Betty, Molly, the Judge, Frau Deichenberg, Mr. Ronald and Jim Barlow chatting gayly, and awaiting the time when the curtain should rise for Dorothy's opening number.

The murmur of many voices reached the girl, as she looked. It was an audience of taste and culture. Mr. Ludlow had seen to that. His affairs were looked upon by music lovers as distinctly out of the ordinary, hence the better cla.s.s of people attended them--even sought eagerly for seats.

By the time Herr Deichenberg appeared on the stage to flash the orchestra a signal for the overture, the house was packed almost to the doors. People were even standing three deep in the back, apparently in the best of humor and seeming not to mind in the least the discomforts attending "standing room only."

Dorothy sought her dressing-room, a great lump in her throat, and taking her violin from the case, nervously thumbed the strings. It was so unusual--this feeling of helplessness--the feeling that she was but an unimportant atom in this great sea of people who were waiting for her to appear that they might subject her to scathing criticism.

Herr Deichenberg smiled in at the door a moment later.

"Und how iss my little lady?" he inquired.

"Oh, Herr, I have such a strange sensation. It seems as if my heart is going to stop beating."

"Ah, ha! You t'ink so, but it iss not so, Miss Dorothy. De heart has changed its place of residence--dat iss all. It is now lodged in de mouth, vhere it vill stay until you get before de audience und realize dat you vill have to play. Den it vill leave you."

"If I could only be sure!"

"Vhat I tell you iss true. I have been there, many iss de time. You vill find dat de audience vill be your inspiration."

Shortly after, when the orchestra was in the last bars of the overture, the music master hurried Dorothy out of her dressing-room to her place in the wings. The sinking feeling grew more intense. She could not get her mind off the ordeal which was before her. If she had only agreed not to come, she argued with herself, she might have saved her reputation. But now the merciless critics of the metropolis would subject her to comparisons with greater and more famous artists, and she would surely be the loser thereby. Strange she had not thought of that before!

She was startled out of her meditation by Herr Deichenberg, who cried:

"Ready, now, young lady! Look your prettiest! Valk out as you did before, und forget there iss an audience. Take your time und vait till de orchestra iss t'rough with de introduction."

She nodded, her lower lip trembling visibly. Then, with a sudden shake of her head, she forced a smile and stepped out into view of the audience!

And as those staid old New Yorkers saw this slim, young girl advancing, violin in hand, toward the footlights, while the great orchestra roared and thundered through the introduction to Rubenstein's "Barcarole," they burst into a round of applause. And Dorothy, surprised at the reception thus accorded her, when she had expected nothing but silence and curious stares, all but stopped in the center of the stage and forgot what she was doing.

Then, realizing that the orchestra was rapidly approaching the place where she was to begin playing, she had the presence of mind to bow and smile. And just back of the footlights, with the faces of her auditors but a blurred spot on her vision, the girl put her violin under her chin and gently drew the bow across the strings.

As the orchestra played a low accompaniment, there suddenly filled the air a sound of deep melody, which swept down the aisles and filled with melodious sweetness every corner of the big theater. It was a melody such as sets the heart beating--a melody full of the most witchingly sweet low notes.

Dorothy swayed back and forth to the rhythm of the music, and the audience listened spellbound. To Aunt Betty and the other attentive auditors it seemed that all the world was music--that, as played by this young girl, it was the greatest and best of all earthly things.

As she played on, by, as it seemed to her, some strange miracle, all her fears and tremblings vanished. Herr Deichenberg had been right, and now her only thought was for her work--how best to do it to the satisfaction of those who had honored her with their presence.

When it was finished and she had bowed herself off into the first entrance, applause such as she had never heard before, thundered through the building. Out she stepped and bowed, but still the plaudits continued, and finally, walking out, she signified with a nod of her head her willingness to respond with an encore.

She played a simple little piece far removed from the great Rubenstein melody, and it went straight to the hearts of the audience, as Herr Deichenberg, keen old musician that he was had intended that it should. From that moment Dorothy Calvert had her audience with her heart and soul.

As she swept into the concluding bars of the melody, the audience fairly rose to its feet and applauded. She took seven bows before the curtain was allowed to descend. The first part of the entertainment was over and Dorothy sought her dressing-room to rest, closing and locking the door so that no one might intrude on her privacy.

There she lay, eyes half-closed, breathing rather heavily, more from excitement than from actual physical exertion, while the popular tenor whom Mr. Ludlow had engaged to a.s.sist in the concert was singing a song from "Lucia." She heard his encore but faintly--enough, however, to recognize one of the solos from a popular comic opera, then someone rapped on her door and bade her be ready for her second turn.