"Ah! dear master, I hope you are not sick," said the faithful fellow, dropping his feather-duster and running to Mychowski, who stood still and only stared.

"Who was playing the piano?" he demanded. "The piano?" quoth Daniel.

"Yes, the piano. Was any one here?"

"No one has called this morning," answered Daniel, "except M. Dufour, the patron of the cafe, who came to inquire after your health." "It's none of his business," snapped Mychowski, whose nerves were on edge. "I heard piano playing and I wasn't dreaming. Come, no nonsense, Daniel, who was it?"

Just then his eyes fell on the desk; he strode to it and s.n.a.t.c.hed the music. "There," he hoa.r.s.ely said, "there is d.a.m.ning proof that you have lied to me; there is the Ballade in F minor by Chopin, and who, in the name of Beelzebub, was playing it? Not you?"

Daniel turned white, then pink, and trembled like a cat. Mychowski, his own face white, with cold shivers playing zither-wise up and down his back, looked at the servant and, in a feeble voice, asked him, "Who are you, man?" Daniel recovered himself and said in soothing tones, "Cher maitre, you were up too late last night and you are nervous, agitated. I ask your pardon, but I never did tell you that I drum a little on the piano, and thinking you fast asleep I ventured on the liberty, and--"

"Drum a little! You call that drumming?" said Mychowski slowly. The two men looked into each other's eyes and Daniel's drooped. "Don't do it again; that's all. You woke me up," said Mychowski roughly, and he went out of the room without hearing Daniel reply:

"No, Monsieur Mychowski, I will not do it again." ...

From that time on Mychowski was obsessed. He weighed the evidence and questioned again and again the validity of his dream, in the margin between sleep and waking. During the daytime he was inclined to think that it had been an odd trance, music and all; but when he had drunk brandy he grew superst.i.tious and swore to himself that he really had heard Daniel play; and he became so nervous that he never took his man about with him. He drank too much, and kept such late hours that Daniel gently scolded him; finally he played badly in public and then the critical press fairly pounced upon him. Too long had he been King Pianist, and his place was coveted by the pounding throng below. He drank more, and presently there was talk of a decadence in the marvellous art of M. Mychowski, the celebrated interpreter of Chopin.

All this time Mychowski watched Daniel, watched him in the day, watched him in the night. He would prowl about his apartment after midnight, listening for the tone of a piano, and, after telling Daniel that he would be gone for the day, he would sneak back anxious and expectant.

But he never heard any music, and this, instead of calming his nerves, made him sicker. "Why," he would ask himself, "if the fellow can play as he does, why in the name of Chopin does he remain my servant? Is it because his servant blood rules, or--His servant blood? Why, he may have Polish blood in his veins, and such Polish!" Mychowski grew white at the idea. He could not sleep at night for he felt lonely, and drank so much that his manager declined to do business with him. Daniel prayed, expostulated and even threatened to leave; but Mychowski kept on the broad, downward path that leads to the mirage called Thirst.

One afternoon Mychowski sat at his accustomed table in the cafe. He was sick and sullen after a hard night of drinking, and as he saw himself in the mirror he bitterly thought, "He has the face, he has the figure, and, by G.o.d, he plays like Chopin." A voice interrupted him.

"Bon jour, Monsieur Mychowski; but how can you duplicate yourself, for just a minute ago I pa.s.sed your apartment and heard such delicious piano playing?"

"The devil!" cried Mychowski, jumping up, and meeting the gaze of one of the six original Chopin pupils. "No, not the devil," said the other; "but Chopin. Surely you could not have been playing the F minor Ballade so marvellously and so early in the day? Now, Chopin always a.s.serted that the F minor Ballade was for the dusk--"

"No," interrupted Mychowski, "it was not I; it was only Daniel, my valet, and my pupil. The lazy scamp! If I catch him at the piano instead of at his work I'll break every bone in his body." Mychowski's eyes were evil.

"But I a.s.sure you, cher monsieur, this was no servant, no pupil; this sounded as if the master had come back." "You once said that of me,"

returned the pianist moodily, and as he got up, his face ugly with pa.s.sion, he reiterated:

"I tell you it was Daniel Chopin. But I'll answer for his silence after I've finished with him."

Mychowski hurried home....

THE WEGSTAFFES GIVE A MUSICALE

I had promised Mrs. Wegstaffe and so there was no escape; not that my word was as good as my bond--in the matter of invitations it was not--but I liked Edith Wegstaffe, who was pretty, even if she did murder Bach. Hence the secret of my acceptance of Mrs. Wegstaffe's rather frigid inquiry as to whether I was engaged for the fourteenth. I am a bachelor, and next to cats, hate music heartily. Almost any other form of art appeals to my aestheticism, which must feed upon form, color, substance, but not upon impalpabilities. Silly sound waves, that are said to possess color, form, rhythm--in fact, all attributes of the plastic arts. "Pooh! What nonsense," I cried on the evening of the fourteenth, as I cursed a wretched collar that would not be coerced....

When I reached the Wegstaffe mansion I found my progress r.e.t.a.r.ded by half a hundred guests, who fought, but politely, mind you, for precedence. At last, rumpled and red, I reached the men's dressing room, and the first person I encountered was Tompkins, Percy Tompkins, a man I hated for his c.o.c.ksure manner of speech and know-it-all style on the subject of music. Often had he crushed my callow musical knowledge by an apt phrase, and thinking well of myself--at least Miss Edith says I do--I disliked Tompkins heartily. "h.e.l.lo!" with a perceptible raising of his eyebrows, "what are you doing here?" "The same as yourself," I tartly answered, for he was not l'ami de la maison any more than I, and I didn't purpose being sat upon, that night at least. "My good fellow, I'm here to listen and--to be bored," he replied in his wittiest way.

"Indeed! well I'm in the same boat about the music, but I hope I sha'n't be bored."

"But good heavens, man, it's an amateur affair--musicale, as the Wegstaffes call it in true barbarous American jargon--and I fear Edith Wegstaffe will play Chopin!"

This angered me; I had long suspected Tompkins of entertaining a sneaking admiration for Edith, and resolved to tell her of this slur at the first opportunity. I didn't have a chance to answer him; a dozen men rushed into the room, threw their hats and coats on the bed and rushed out again.

"They're in a hurry for a drink before the music begins," said Tompkins....

Going slowly down the long staircase we found a little room on the second floor crowded with men puffing cigarettes and drinking brandy and soda. Old Wegstaffe was a generous host, and knew what men liked best at a musicale. On the top floor four or five half-grown boys were playing billiards, and the ground floor fairly surged with women of all ages, degrees and ugliness. To me there was only one pretty girl in the house, Edith Wegstaffe; but of course I was prejudiced.

It was nine o'clock before Mrs. Wegstaffe gave the signal to begin. The three long drawing-rooms were jammed with smart looking people, a fair sprinkling of Bohemians, and a few professionals, whose hair, hands and gla.s.ses betrayed them. The latter stood in groups, eying each other suspiciously, while regarding the rest of the world with that indulgent air they a.s.sume at musicales. Everything to my unpractised eye seemed in hopeless disorder; a frightful buzz filled the air, and a blond girl at the big piano was trying to disentangle a lot of music. Near her stood a long-haired young man who perspired incessantly. "Ah!" I gloated.

"Nervous! serves him right; he should have stayed at home!"

Just then Mrs. Wegstaffe saw me. "You're just the man I'm looking for,"

said she hurriedly. "Now be a good fellow; do go and tell all those people in the other room to stop talking. It's nine o'clock, and we're a half hour behind time." Before I could expostulate she had gone, leaving me in the same condition as the long-haired young man I had just derided.

"How tell them to stop talking?" I madly asked myself. Should I go to each group and politely say: "Please stop, for the music is about to begin," or should I stand in a doorway and shout:

"Say, quit gabbling, will you? the parties in the other room are going to spiel." My embarra.s.sment was so hideous that the latter course would probably have been adopted, but Miss Edith touched me on the arm and I followed her to the hall.

"Oh, Mr. Trybill!" she gasped; "I'm so nervous that I shall surely faint when it comes my turn. Won't you please turn the music for me? I shall really feel better if some one is near me."

I looked at the sweet girl. There was not a particle of coquetry in her request. Dark shadows were under her eyes, two pink spots burnt in her pretty cheeks and her hands shook like a cigarette-smoker's.

"But think, think of your technique, your mamma, your guests," I blurted out desperately. She shook her head sadly and I shuddered. Are all amateur musicales such torturing things?...

The house was packed. A strong odor of flowers, perfumes and cooking mingled in the air; one stout woman fought her way to a window and put her head out gasping. It was Madame Bujoli, the famous vocal teacher, three of whose crack pupils were on the programme. Not far from her sat Frau Makart, the great instructor in the art of German Lieder interpretation, a hard-featured woman who sneered at Italians, Italian methods and Italian music. Two of her pupils were to appear, and I saw trouble ahead in the superheated atmosphere.

Crash! went the piano. "They're off!" hoa.r.s.ely chuckled a sporting man next to me, with a wilted collar, and Moszkowski's "Nations" welled up from the vicinity of the piano, two young women exploiting their fingers in its delivery. The talking in the back drawing-rooms went on furiously, and I saw the hostess coming toward me. I escape her by edging into the back hall, despite the smothered complaints of my displaced neighbors.

I got into the doorway, or rather into the angle of a door leading into the back room. The piano had stopped; while wondering what to do next my attention was suddenly attracted by a conversation to which I had to listen; it was impossible to move away. "So she is going to sing, is she? Well, we will see if this great and only true Italian method will put brains into a fool's head or voice into her chest." This was said in a guttural voice, the accent being quite Teutonic. A soprano voice was heard, and I listened as critically as I could. The voice sang the Jewel Song from "Faust," and it seemed to me that its owner knew something about singing. I understood the words. She sang in English, and what more do you want in singing?

But the buzz at my left went on fiercely. "So the Bujoli calls _that_ voice-production, does she? Humph! In Germany we wouldn't call the cows home with such singing." It was surely Frau Makart who spoke. There was a huge clapping of hands, fans waved, and I heard whispers, "Yes, rather pretty; but dresses in bad taste; good eyes; walks stiffly. Who is she?

What was it she sang?"

More chatter. I wriggled away to my first position near the piano, but not without much personal discomfort. I was allowed to pa.s.s because, for some reason or other, I was supposed to be running the function. Upon reaching the piano Edith beckoned to me rapidly, and I slid across the polished floor, where she was talking to that hated Tompkins, and asked what I could do for her.

"Hold my music until I play; that's a good fellow." I hate to be considered a "good fellow," but what could I do? Edith, who seemed to have recovered her aplomb, continued her conversation with Percy Tompkins.

"You know, Mr. Tompkins, Chopin is for me the only composer. You know, his nocturnes fill me with a sense of nothingness--the divine _neant_, _nirvana_, you call it. Now, Grunfeld--"

Tompkins interrupted rudely: "Grunfeld can't play Chopin. Give me the 'Chopinzee.' He plays Chopin. As Schumann says: 'The Chopin polonaises are cannon buried in flowers,' Now, Grunfeld is a--"

"No poet!" said I, indignantly, for I never could admire the chubby Viennese pianist. Tompkins turned and looked at me, but never noticed my correction.

"Oh, Miss Wegstaffe," he continued vivaciously--how I hated that vivacity--"did you hear that new story about a wit and the young man who asked him to define George Meredith's position in literature?

'Meredith,' said the other, pompously, 'Meredith is a prose Browning,'

and the young man thanked the great man for this side light thrown on English letters, when the poet added with a twinkle in his eye, 'Browning himself was a prose Browning.' Now, isn't that delicious, Miss Wegstaffe; isn't that--"

A volley of _hists-hists_ and _hushes_ came over the room as I vainly tried to see the point of Tompkins' story. Every one laughed at his jokes, but to me they seemed superficial and flippant.

The piano by this time was being manipulated by a practical hand. Herr Wunderheim, a Bulgarian pianist, was playing what the programme called a sonata in X dur, by Tschakowsky, op. 47, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. I listened: I didn't understand it all, but I was sitting next to Edith and would have endured the remainder of the alphabet rather than let Tompkins gain one point.

The piano thundered and roared; lightning flew over the keys, and we were of course electrified. Herr Wunderheim jammed the notes in an astounding manner, and when he reached the letter G the sporting man said to me in a pious whisper, "Thank G.o.d! we didn't go to H---- altogether, but near it, my boy, near it!" I shrugged my shoulders and longed for my club.