You are sure it is not the fever come back?"

"Feel my hands," said Kaya, "Is that fever?" Then she shut her eyes.

She heard clumsy footsteps descending the stairs, and then a pause; and after a moment or two steps coming back, but they were firm and quick, and her heart kept time to them.

"What did I say in my ravings?" she cried to herself, "What did he hear?"

"Nun?" said the Kapellmeister.

"I see now what hurt you," said Kaya, without raising her eyes, "You thought I wanted to repay your kindness that can never be repaid; that I was narrow and little, and was too proud to take from your hands what you gave me. Forgive me."

The Kapellmeister crossed the room and sat down on the chair that the nurse had left. He said nothing, and Kaya felt through her closed lids that he was looking at her. "How shall I ask him?" she was saying to herself, "How shall I put it into words when perhaps he understood nothing after all?"

"If you think your voice is there," said the Kapellmeister, "fresh, and not too strained for the high notes, why you can try it now. If it goes all right, I daresay we could announce 'Siegfried' for the end of the week."

"Will you give me the note?" said Kaya, "Is it F#, or G, I forget?"

"I will hum you the preceding bars where Siegfried first hears the bird." Ritter began softly, half speaking, half singing the words in his deep voice, taking the tenor notes falsetto. "Now--on the F#. The bird must be heard far away in the branches, and you must move your head so--as it flutters from leaf to leaf."

Kaya lifted herself from the pillows until she sat upright, supporting herself with one hand. She began to sing, and then she stopped and gave a cry. "It is there!" she said pitifully, "I feel it, but it won't come!--I can't make it come! It is as if there were a gate in my throat and it was barred!"

Tears sprang to her eyes. She opened her lips farther, but the sound that came was strange and m.u.f.fled; and she listened to it as if it were some changeling given to her by a mischievous demon in exchange for her own.

"That isn't my voice," she said, "You know as well as I--it never sounded like that before! What is it? Tell me--"

The Kapellmeister laughed a little, mockingly: "I told you, child," he said, "I warned you. Don't look like that! When you are stronger, it will come with a burst, and be bigger and fresher than ever before.

Siegfried must wait for his bird, that is all."

Kaya clasped her throat with both hands as if to tear away the obstruction: "I will sing--I will!" she cried, "It is there--I feel it!

Why won't it come out?" She gave a little moan, and threw herself back on the pillows.

The Kapellmeister stooped suddenly; a look half fierce, half pitying came in his face. He bent over her until his eyes were close to hers, and he forced her to look at him:

"What is that word you say? When you were raving, you repeated it again and again: 'Velasco--Velasco.' There is a violinist by that name, a musician."

"A--musician!" stammered Kaya. She was staring at him with eyes wide-open and frightened.

"His name is Velasco."

"Ve--las--co?"

The syllables came through her lips like a breath. "No--no!" she cried suddenly, hoa.r.s.ely, "I don't know him! I--I never saw him!"

She struggled with the lie bravely, turning white to the lips and gazing. "It was some one I knew in Russia; some one I--I loved." She sat up suddenly and wrung her hands together: "You don't believe me?"

"No," said the Kapellmeister, "You can't lie with eyes like that."

Kaya gazed at him desperately: "Don't tell him," she breathed, "Ah--don't let him know--I implore you!"

Ritter gave a sharp exclamation and caught the little figure in his arms. "She has fainted!" he cried, "Potztausend, what a brute I was!"

He laid her back on the pillow and stood staring down at her, breathing heavily and clenching his hands.

"If I were Velasco!" he muttered, "Ah Gott--I am mad! Marta--Marta!"

CHAPTER XVIII

The day was very warm and sultry, and the visitors, who flocked to Ehrestadt for the opera season, fanned themselves resignedly as they sat in the shaded gardens, drinking beer and liqueurs, and gossiping about the singers. The performance of 'Siegfried' was to be given that night for the second time, and they discussed it together.

"The tenor--ah, what a voice he had, and what acting, but Brunnhilde--bah!" They shook their heads. "The Schultz was growing old, and her voice was thin in the upper register; it struck against the roof of her mouth when she forced it, and sounded like tin. In the love-scene, when Brunnhilde wakes from her sleep--Tschut! What a pity a singer should ever grow old; and a still greater pity--a Jammerschade that she should go on singing!"

"The Conductor was in despair, and so were the Directors; but the contract was signed, it was too late. Ach bewahre, poor Ritter! He was in such a pique," they said, "der Arme! The bird--that was poor too, shrill and cheap! Die Neumann, who was she? Someone out of the chorus perhaps. But the Mime was splendid."

And then they went back to the great Siegfried again and praised him--"Perron! He was worth the rest of the performance together, he and the orchestra; but when he had sung it with the Lehmann last year, ach--that was a different matter. He had gone through the part like a Siegfried inspired, and she--ah divine! There was no Brunnhilde to compare with her now. What a night it had been! Do you recall it?"

they said--"Do you remember it?" And then the opera-goers closed their eyes ecstatically.

"The season before was better, far better!--Tschut!" And then they went on drinking their beer and liqueurs, and fanning themselves resignedly. "If the heat did not break before night-fall there would be a thunder-storm." The clouds were gathering far in the West, and the insects were humming. The air was heavy with the scent of blossoms; and the waitresses ran to and fro, dressed in Tyrolese costume; the prettier they were the more they ran.

"One beer!--Three liqueurs!" "Sogleich, meine Herren!" The garden was shady, and the gla.s.ses clinked; the tongues wagged.

"You are not afraid; you are comfortable, child, swung up there in the tree-tops?"

Kaya's eyes shone like two stars down from the green. "My heart beats," she said, "but it is only stage fright; it will pa.s.s. Is the House full?"

"Packed to the roof!"

"I am only a bird," said Kaya softly, "They won't think of me. It is Siegfried they have come to hear, and Brunnhilde. How glorious to be a Brunnhilde!"

The Kapellmeister took out his watch: "I must go," he said, "Good-bye, little one; remember what I told you, and let your voice come out without effort; not too loud, or too soft! When your part is over, one of the stage-hands will let you down again."

Kaya nodded, swinging herself childishly. "It is sweet to be a bird,"

she said, "I think I shall stay here always, and Siegfried will never find me."

"No--he shall never find you!" said the Kapellmeister suddenly and sharply. Their eyes met for a moment. "Are you all right?" he repeated, "You are pale."

Kaya shrank back into the leaves that were painted, and they trembled slightly as if a breeze had pa.s.sed; and the great drop-curtain blew out, bulging.

"Keep the windows shut," called the voice of the stage manager, "Quick--before the curtain goes up. A storm is coming, and the draughts--oh Je!" He went hurrying past.

Ritter glanced at his watch again mechanically; then he crossed the stage to the left, and hurried down a small, winding stair-case to the pit, where the orchestra waited. A sharp tap of the baton--a glance over his men--then the second Act began.

Kaya sat very still under the leaves with the painted branches about her. She was perched on a swing, high aloft in the flies; and when she looked up, she saw nothing but ropes, and machinery, and darkness; and when she looked down, there was Mime below her, crouched by a stone; the sun was rising, the shadows were breaking, and Siegfried lay stretched at the foot of the Linden. He had long, light hair and fur about his shoulders, and he was big and splendid to look at in his youth and his wrath. He was threatening Mime, and the dwarf was muttering and cursing. Beyond was the pit with the orchestra, the footlights, the House.

Kaya listened, and her thoughts went back to St. Petersburg and the cla.s.s of Helmanoff. She was singing to him, and when she had finished, he had taken her hands. "If you were not a Countess," he said, "you could be a Lehmann in time, another Lehmann." Kaya leaned her curls against the rope of the swing dreamily. "How long ago that seems," she said to herself, "before--before I--"

Then she thought of the weeks since her illness, and how her voice had come back suddenly, over night as it were, only bigger and fuller; and how she had worked and studied, day after day, rehearsing with Ritter.