"But what has this to do with me?" peevishly asked Fridolina, who was tired and sleepy. "If ever I marry it must be a man who will let me sing Isolde. Most foreign husbands hide their wives away like a dog its bone." She beamed on Wenceslaus. "Then you will never marry a foreign husband," returned the sculptor, irritably.

IV

"You must know, Mr. Arthmann, that my girl is a spoilt child, as innocent as a baby, and has everything to learn about the ways of the world. Remember, too, that I first posed her voice, taught her all she knew of her art before she went to Parchesi. What you ask--taking into consideration that we, that _I_, hardly know you--is rather premature, is it not?" They were walking in the cool morning down the green alleys of the Hofgarten, where the sculptor had asked Mrs. Fridolin for her daughter. He was mortified as he pushed his crisp beard from side to side. He felt that he had been far from proposing marriage to this large young woman's mother; something must have driven him to such a crazy action. Was it Caspar Dennett and his cla.s.sic profile that had angered him into the confession? Nonsense! The conductor was a married man with a family. Despite her easy, unaffected manner, Margaret Fridolin was no fool; she ever observed the ultimate proprieties, and being dangerously unromantic would be the last woman in the world to throw herself away.

But this foolish mania about Isolde. What of that? It was absurd to consider such a thing.... Her mother would never tolerate the attempt--

"Don't you think my judgment in this matter is just, Mr. Arthmann?" Mrs.

Fridolin was blandly observing him. He asked her pardon for his inattention; he had been dreaming of a possible happiness! She was very amiable. "And you know, of course, that Margaret has prospects"--he did not, and was all ears--"if she will only leave the operatic stage. Her career will be a brilliant one despite her figure, Mr. Arthmann; but there is a more brilliant social career awaiting her if she follows her uncle's advice and marries. My brother is a rich man, and my daughter may be his heiress. Never as a singer--Job is prejudiced against the stage--and never if she marries a foreigner." "But I shall become a citizen of the United States, madame." "Where were you born?" "Bergen; my mother was from Warsaw," he moodily replied. "It might as well be Asia Minor. We are a stubborn family, sir, from the hills of New Hampshire. We never give in. Come, let us go back to the Hotel Sonne, and do you forget this foolish dream. Margaret may never leave the stage, but I'm certain that she will never marry _you_." She smiled at him, the thousand little wrinkles in her face making a sort of reticulated map from which stared two large, blue eyes--Margaret's eyes, grown wiser and colder.... "Now after that news I'll marry her if I have to run away with her!"--resolved the sculptor when he reached his bleak claustral atelier, and studied the model of her head. And how to keep that man Dennett from spoiling the broth, he wondered....

In the afternoon Arthmann wrote Margaret a letter. "Margaret, my darling Margaret, what is the matter? Have I offended you by asking your mother for you? Why did you not see me this morning? The atelier is wintry without you--the cold clay, corpse-like, is waiting to revive in your presence. Oh! how lovely is the garden, how sad my soul! I sit and think of Verlaine's 'It rains in my heart as it rains in the town.' Why won't you see me? You are mine--you swore it. My sweet girl, whose heart is as fragrant as new-mown hay"--the artist pondered well this comparison before he put it on paper; it evoked visions of hay bales. "Darling, you must see me to-morrow. To the studio you must come. You know that we have planned to go to America in October. Only think, sweetheart, what joy then! The sky is aflame with love. We walk slowly under the few soft, autumn, prairie stars; your hand is in mine, we are married! You see I am a poet for your sake. I beg for a reply hot from your heart.

Wenceslaus." ...

He despatched this declaration containing several minor inaccuracies. It was late when he received a reply. "All right, Wenceslaus. But have I _now_ the temperament to sing Isolde?" It was unsigned. Arthmann cursed in a tongue that sounded singularly like pure English.

V

That night, much against his desire, he dressed and went to a reception at the Villa Wahnfried. As this worker in silent clay disliked musical people, the buzz and fuss made him miserable. He did not meet Fridolina, though he saw Miss Bredd arm-in-arm with Cosima, Queen Regent of Bayreuth. The American girl was eloquently exposing her theories of how Wagner should be sung and Arthmann, disgusted, moved away. He only remembered Caspar Dennett when in the street. That gentleman was not present either; and as the unhappy lover walked down the moonlit Lisztstra.s.se he fancied he recognized the couple he sought. Could it be!

He rushed after the pair to be mocked by the slamming of a gate, he knew not on what lonely street....

The next afternoon the duel began. Fridolina did not return for a sitting as he had hoped; instead came an invitation for a drive to the Hermitage. It was Mrs. Fridolin who sent it. Strange! Arthmann was surprised at this renewal of friendly ties after his gentle dismissal in the Hofgarten. But he dressed in his most effective clothes and, shining with hope, reached the Hotel Sonne; two open carriages stood before its arched doorway. Presently the others came downstairs and the day became gray for the sculptor. Caspar Dennett, looking like a trim Antinous with a fashionable tailor, smiled upon all, especially Miss Bredd. Mrs.

Fridolin alone did not seem at ease. She was very friendly with Arthmann, but would not allow him in her carriage. "No," she protested, "you two men must keep Margaret company. I'll ride with my bright little Louie and listen to her anti-Wagner blasphemies." She spoke as if she had fought under the Wagner banner from the beginning.

Margaret sat alone on the back seat. Although she grimaced at her mother's suggestion, she was in high spirits, exploding over every trivial incident of the journey. Arthmann, as he faced her, told himself that he had never seen her so giggling and commonplace, so unlike an artist, so bourgeois, so fat. He noticed, too, that her lovely eyes expanded with the same expression, whether art or eating was mentioned.

He hardly uttered a word, for the others discussed "Tristan und Isolde"

until he hated Wagner's name. She was through with her work at Bayreuth and Frau Cosima had promised her Isolde--positively. She meant to undergo a severe _Kur_ at Marienbad and then return to the United States. Mr. Grau had also promised her Isolde; while Jean de Reszke--dear, wonderful Jean vowed that he would sing Tristan to no other Isolde during his American tournee! So it was settled. All she needed was her mother's consent--and that would not be a difficult matter to compa.s.s. Had she not always wheedled the mater into her schemes, even when Uncle Job opposed her? She would never marry, never--anyhow not until she had sung Isolde--and then only a Wagner-loving husband.

"And the temperament, the missing link--how about that?" asked Arthmann sourly; he imagined that Dennett was exchanging secret signals with her.

She bubbled over with wrath. "Temperament! I have temperament enough despite my size. If I haven't any I know where to find it. There is no sacrifice I'd not make to get it. Art for art is my theory. First art and then--the other things." She shrugged her ma.s.sive shoulders in high bad humor. Arthmann gloomily reflected that Dennett's phrases at the Sammett Garden were being echoed. Mrs. Fridolin continually urged her driver to keep his carriage abreast of the other. It made the party more sociable, she declared, although to the sculptor it seemed as if she wished to watch Margaret closely. She had never seemed so suspicious.

They reached the Hermitage.

Going home a fine rain set in; the hoods of the carriage were raised, and the excursion ended flatly. At the hotel, Arthmann did not attempt to go in. Mrs. Fridolin said she had a headache, Miss Bredd must write articles about Villa Wahnfried, while Dennett disappeared with Margaret.

The drizzle turned into a downpour, and the artist, savage with the world and himself, sought a neighboring cafe and drank till dawn....

He called at the hotel the following afternoon. The ladies had gone away. How gone away? The portier could not tell. Enraged as he saw his rich dream vanishing, Arthmann moved about the streets with lagging, desperate steps. He returned to the hotel several times during the afternoon--at no time was he very far from it--but the window-blinds were always drawn in the Fridolin apartment and he began to despair. It was near sunset when his _Hausfrau_, the disappearing chaperon, ran to him red-faced. A letter for Herr Arthmann! It was from her: "I've gone in search of that temperament. _Auf Wiedersehen._ Isolde." Nothing more.

In puzzled fury he went back to the hotel. Yes, Madame Fridolin and the young lady were now at home. He went to the second landing and without knocking pushed open the door. It was a house storm-riven. Trunks bulged, though only half-packed, their contents straggling over the sides. The beds were not made, and a strong odor of valerian and camphor flooded the air. On a couch lay Mrs. Fridolin, her face covered with a handkerchief, while near hovered Miss Bredd in her most brilliant and oracular att.i.tude. She was speaking too loudly as he entered: "There is no use of worrying yourself sick about Meg, Mrs. Fridolin. She's gone for a time--that's all. When she finds out what an idiotically useless sacrifice she has made for art and is a failure as Isolde--she can no more sing the part than a sick cat--she will run home to her mammy quick enough."

"Oh, this terrible artistic temperament!" groaned the mother apologetically. The girl made a cautious movement and waved Arthmann out of the room. Into the hall she followed, soft-footed, but resolute. He was gaunt with chagrin. "Where is she?"--he began, but was sternly checked:

"If you had only flattered her more, and married her before her mother arrived, this thing wouldn't have happened."

"What thing?" he thundered.

"There! don't be an ox and make a stupid noise," she admonished. "Why, Meg--she is so dead set on getting that artistic temperament, that artistic thrill you raved about, that she has eloped."

"Eloped!" he feebly repeated, and sat down on a trunk in the hallway. To her keen, unbia.s.sed vision Arthmann seemed more shocked than sorrowful.

Then, returning to Isolde's mother, she was not surprised to find her up and in capital humor, studying the railway guide.

"He believes the fib--just as Dennett did!" Miss Bredd exclaimed, triumphantly; and for the first time that day Mrs. Fridolin smiled.

THE RIM OF FINER ISSUES

I

There seemed to be a fitting dispensation in the marriage of Arthur Vibert and Ellenora Bishop. She was a plain looking girl of twenty-four--even her enemies admitted her plainness--but she had brains; and the absence of money was more than compensated by her love for literature. It had been settled by her friends that she would do wonderful things when she had her way. Therefore her union with Arthur Vibert was voted "singularly auspicious." He had just returned from Germany after winning much notice by his talent for composition. What could be more natural than the marriage of these two gifted persons?

Miss Bishop had published some things--rhapsodic prose-poems, weak in syntax but strong in the quality miscalled imagination. Her pen name was George Bishop: following the example of the three Georges so dear to the believer in s.e.xless literature--George Sand, George Eliot and George Egerton. She greatly admired the latter.

Ellenora was a large young woman of more brawn than tissue; she had style and decision, though little amiability. Ugly she was; yet, after the bloom of her ugliness wore off, you admired perforce the full iron-colored eyes alive with power, and wondered why nature in dowering her with a big brain had not made for her a more refined mouth. The upper part of her face was often illuminated; the lower narrowly escaped coa.r.s.eness; and a head of rusty red hair gave a total impression of strenuous brilliancy, of keen abiding vitality. A self-willed New York girl who had never undergone the chastening influence of discipline or rigorously ordered study--she averred that it would attenuate the individuality of her style; avowedly despising the cla.s.sics, she was a modern of moderns in her tastes.

She had nerves rather than heart, but did not approve of revealing her vagaries in diary form. Adoring Guy de Maupa.s.sant, she heartily disliked Marie Bashkirtseff. The Frenchman's almost Greek-like fashion of regarding life in profile, his etching of its silver-tipped angles, made an irresistible appeal to her; and she vainly endeavored to catch his crisp, restrained style, his masterly sense of form. In the secrecy of her study she read Ouida and asked herself why this woman had not gone farther, and won first honors in the race. Her favorite heroines were Ibsen's Nora, Rebecca and Hedda. Then, bitten by the emanc.i.p.ation craze, she was fast developing into one of the "shrieking sisterhood" when Arthur Vibert came from Berlin.

A Frenchman has said that the moment a woman occupies her thoughts with a man, art ceases for her. The night Ellenora Bishop met the young pianist in my atelier, I saw that she was interested. Arthur came to me with letters from several German critics. I liked the slender, blue-eyed young fellow who was not a day over twenty-one. His was a true American type tempered by Continental culture. Oval-faced, fair-haired, of a rather dreamy disposition and with a certain austerity of manner, he was the fastidious puritan--a puritan expanded by artistic influences.

Strangely enough he had temperament, and set to music Heine and Verlaine. A genuine talent, I felt a.s.sured, and congratulated myself on my new discovery; I was fond of finding lions, and my Sunday evenings were seldom without some specimen that roared, if somewhat gently, yet audibly enough, for my visitors. When Arthur Vibert was introduced to Ellenora Bishop, I recognized the immediate impact of the girl's brusque personality upon his sensitized nature.

She was a devoted admirer of Wagner, and that was bond enough to set reverberating other chords of sympathy in the pair. I do not a.s.sert in cold blood that the girl deliberately set herself to charm the boyish-looking composer, but there was certainly a basking allurement in her gaze when her eyes brushed his. With her complicated personality he could not cope--that was only too evident; and so I watched the little comedy with considerable interest, and not without misgiving.

Arthur fell in love without hesitation, and though Ellenora felt desperately superior to him--you saw that--she could not escape the bright, immediate response of his face. The implicated interest of her bearing--though she never lost her head--his unconcealed adoration, soon brought the affair to the altar--or rather to a civil ceremony, for the bride was an agnostic, priding herself on her abstention from established religious forms.

Her clear, rather dry nature had always been a source of study to me.

What could she have in common with the romantic and decidedly shy youth?

She was older, more experienced--plain girls have experiences as well as favored ones--and she was not fond of matrimony with poverty as an obbligato. Arthur had prospects of pupils, his compositions sold at a respectable rate, but the couple had little money to spare; nevertheless, people argued their marriage a capital idea--from such a union of rich talents surely something must result. Look at the Brownings, the Sh.e.l.leys, the Schumanns, not to mention George Eliot and her man Lewes!

They were married. I was best man, and realized what a menstruum is music--what curious trafficking it causes, what opposites it intertwines. And the overture being finished the real curtain arose, as it does on all who mate....

I did not see much of the Viberts that winter. I cared not at all for society and they had moved to Harlem; so I lost two stars of my studio receptions. But I occasionally heard they were getting on famously.

Arthur was composing a piano concerto, and Ellenora engaged upon a novel--a novel, I was told, that would lay bare to its rotten roots the social fabric; and knowing the girl's inherent fund of bitter cleverness I awaited the new-born polemic with gentle impatience. I hoped, however, like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine asperity would be tempered by the suavities of married life.

One afternoon late in March Arthur Vibert dropped in as I was putting the finishing touches on my portrait of Mrs. Beacon. He looked weary and his eyes were heavily circled.

"h.e.l.lo, my boy! and how is your wife, and how is that wonderful concerto we've all been hearing about?"

He shrugged his shoulders and asked for a cigarette.

"Shall I play you some bits of it?" he queried in a gloomy way. I was all eagerness, and presently he was absently preluding at my piano.

There was little vigor in his touch, and I recalled his rambling wits by crying, "The concerto, let's have it!"

Arthur pulled himself together and began. He was very modern in musical matters and I liked the dynamic power of his opening. The first subject was more ma.s.sive than musical and was built on the architectonics of Liszt and Tschakowsky. There was blood in the idea, plenty of nervous fibre, and I dropped my brushes and palette as the unfolding of the work began with a logical severity and a sense of form unusual in so young a mind.

This first movement interested me; I almost conjured up the rich instrumentation and when it ended I was warm in my congratulations.

Arthur moodily wiped his brow and looked indifferent.