"Nowhere near. I'd much rather sing some of yours, if that's what you're getting at.... They're not quite _jeune fille_, either; I just discovered that to-day."

"There's a great deal in this show that isn't. We've cut most of it, but there's a good bit left, only no one who hasn't studied the period can spot it.... You needn't tell any one that.--Well, let's see about some words. 'Can love be controlled by advice, will Cupid our mothers obey'--we'll keep that, I think ..."

He produced a sc.r.a.p of paper from his pocket and scribbled rapidly on it. In a minute or two he had evolved the following stanzas, retaining the first four lines of Gay's original song:

Can love be controlled by advice?

Will Cupid our mothers obey?

Though my heart were as frozen as ice At his flame 'twould have melted away.

Now love is enthroned in my heart All your threats and entreaties are in vain; His power defies all your art, And chiding but adds to my pain.

Ah, mother! if ever in youth Your heart by love's anguish was wrung; If ever you thrilled with its truth Too sweet to be spoken or sung; If ever you've longed for life's best, Nor reckoned the issue thereof; If heart ever beat in your breast Have pity on me--for I love!

"There!" said he, handing it to the prima donna; "see what you think of that."

"Oh ... much better! There'll be much more fun in singing it."

"It isn't much in the way of poetry," explained Harry, "but it gives a certain dramatic interest to the song, which is the main thing. You can change anything you want in it, of course; I daresay some of those words are quite unsingable on the notes of the song."

"No--I think they'll be all right. Thank you very much; it was hard to make anything out of the other words. Also, I shall be able to tell Mama that you've cut out some of Gay's naughty words and put in some innocent ones of your own instead. She's been just a little worried lately, I think; she seems to have an idea that 'The Beggar's Opera' isn't quite a nice play for a young lady to act in!"

"Well, one can hardly blame her...." This sentence trailed off into inaudibility as Harry turned to give his attention to some one else coming up with a question at the moment. Perhaps Miss Elliston did not even hear the beginning of the sentence; it is easier to believe that she did not, in view of what followed. Certainly every extenuating circ.u.mstance is needed, on both sides, to help account for the fact that so trivial conversation as that which just took place should have led directly to unpleasantness and indirectly to consequences of a far-reaching kind. It is easier to comprehend, also, if one remembers that Miss Elliston's thoughts when she was left alone by Harry occupying the position of the trombone, remained on, or at any rate quite near, the point at which the conversation broke off, whereas Harry's had flown far from it. So that when, after an interval of a few minutes, Harry's voice again became articulate to her in the single isolated sentence "given her something to say to her old frump of a mother," addressed to the leader of the orchestra, she at first misconstrued his meaning, interpreting his remark not as he meant it, as referring to her stage mother, Mrs. Peachum, but as referring to quieting the puritanical scruples of her own mother, Mrs. Elliston.

The whole affair hung on an incredibly slender thread of coincidence. If Harry had not unconsciously raised his voice somewhat on that one phrase, if he had not happened to use the word "frump," which might conceivably be twisted into applying to either mother, Miss Elliston would never, even for a moment, have been tempted to attribute the baser meaning to his words. As it was the thought did not remain in her head above five seconds, at the outside; she knew Harry better than to believe seriously that he would say such a thing. But by another unfortunate chance Harry happened to be looking her way during those few seconds, and marked her angry flush and the instantaneous glance of indignation and contempt that she shot toward him. He saw her flush die down and her expression soften again, but the natural quickness that had made him realize her state of mind was not long in giving him an explanation of it.

All might yet have been well had not Harry's sense of humor played him false. As usually happened at these evening rehearsals he escorted Miss Elliston home, her house lying on the way to his. In the course of the walk an unhappy impulse made him refer to the little incident, which had struck him as merely humorous.

"By the way," said he "your sense of filial duty almost led you astray to-night, didn't it?"

"Filial duty?"

"Yes--you thought I was making remarks about your mother to-night when I was talking to Cosgrove about Mrs. Peachum and that song...."

"Oh, that--!" Any one who knew her might have expected Miss Elliston to laugh and continue with something like "Yes, I know; wasn't it ridiculous of me?" since she really knew perfectly well that Harry was talking about Mrs. Peachum. That she did not is due partly to the fatigue incident to rehearsing a leading part in an opera in addition to teaching school from nine till one every day, and partly to the eternally inexplicable depths of the feminine nature. She had been very much ashamed of herself for having even for a moment done that injustice to Harry, and she wished intensely that the affair might be buried in the deepest oblivion. Harry's opening of the subject, consequently, seemed to her tactless and a trifle brutal. She had done penance all the evening for her after all very trifling mistake; why should he insist upon humiliating her this way?... Obviously she was very tired!

"Yes," went on Harry, "don't expect me to believe that you were angry on behalf of Mrs. Peachum!"

"No. I suppose I had a right to be angry on behalf of my own mother, if I wanted to, though."

"But I wasn't talking about your mother--you know that!"

"Oh, weren't you?"

"Well, do you think so?"

"How should I know? I was only eavesdropping, of course, I have no right to think anything about it."

"Madge, don't be silly."

"Well?"

"Do you really, honestly think that I am guilty of having spoken slightingly of your mother? Just answer me that, yes or no."

"As I say, I have no right to any opinion on the subject. I only heard something not intended--"

"Oh, the--" The remainder of this exclamation was fortunately lost in the collar of Harry's greatcoat. "You had better give me back that song--I presume you won't want to sing it now."

"Why not? Art is above all personal feelings." It was mere wilfulness that led her to utter this cynical remark. What she really wanted to say was "Of course I want to sing it, and I know you meant Mrs. Peachum,"

but somehow the other answer was given before she knew it.

"Madge, you may not know it, but you are positively insulting."

"Oh, Harry--! Who began being insulting? Not that I mind your insulting me...."

"Oh. That's the way it is, is it? I see." They were now standing talking at the foot of Madge's front steps. Harry continued, very quietly: "Now perhaps you'd better give me back that song."

"I don't see the necessity."

"I'll be d.a.m.ned if you shall sing it now!" His voice remained low, but pa.s.sion sounded in it as unmistakably as if he had shouted. The remark was, in fact, made in an uncontrollable burst of anger, necessitating the severing of all diplomatic relations.

"Just as you like, of course." Madge's tone, cold, expressionless, hopelessly polite, is equivalent to the granting of a demanded pa.s.sport.

"Here it is. Good-night."

"Good-night."

So they parted, in a white heat of anger. But being both fairly sensible people, in the main, beside being the kind of people whose anger however violently it may burn at first, does not last long, they realized before sleep closed their eyes that night that the quarrel would not last over another day.

Morning brought to Harry, at any rate, a complete return of sanity, and before breakfast he sat down and wrote the following note:

Dear Madge:

I send back the song merely as a token of the abjectness of my submission--I don't suppose you will want to sing it now. I can't tell you how sorry I am about my behavior last night; I can only ask you to attribute as much, of it as possible to the fatigue of business and forgive the rest!

HARRY.

which he enclosed in an envelope with the words of the song and sent to Madge by a messenger boy.

Madge received it while she was at breakfast. She went out and told the boy to wait for an answer, and went back and finished her breakfast before writing a reply. Her face was noticeably grave as she ate, and it became even graver when at last she sat down at her desk and started to put pen to paper. She wrote three pages of note-paper, read them, and tore them up. She then wrote a page and a half, taking more time over them than over the three. This she also tore up. Then she sat inactive at her desk for several minutes, and at last, seeing that she was due at her school in a few minutes, she took up another sheet of paper and wrote: "All right--my fault entirely. M. E.," and sent it off by the boy.

When Harry saw her at the rehearsal that evening she greeted him exactly as if nothing had happened. She had rather less to say to him than was customary during rehearsals, but Harry was so busy and preoccupied he did not notice that. He did notice that she sang the original words to the disputed song, which, as he told himself, was just what he expected.

For the next two days he was fairly buried in responsibility and detail and hardly conscious of any feeling whatever beyond an intense desire to have the performance over. It was not until this desire was partially fulfilled, the curtain actually risen on the Friday night and the performance well under way, that he was able to sit back and draw a free breath. The moment came when, having seen that all was well behind the scenes, he dropped into the back of the box occupied by Aunt Selina and one or two chosen friends to watch the progress of the play from the front.

Then, for the first time, he was able to look at it more from the point of view of a spectator than that of a creator. Now that his work was completed and must stand or fall on its own merit, he could watch from a wholly detached position. On the whole, he rather enjoyed the sensation.

It occurred to him, for instance, as quite a new thought, that the excellent make-up of the stolid Mr. Dawson in the part of Peachum very largely counteracted his vocal "dulness"; and that Mrs. Smith as Mrs.

Peachum, in spite of the innumerable sillinesses and bad tricks that had been his despair for weeks, was making an extremely good impression upon the audience.

Then Madge made her entrance, and he saw at a glance, as he had never seen it before, just how good Madge was. She had a certain way of carrying her head, a certain sureness in adjusting her movements to her speech, a certain judgment in projecting her voice that went straight to the spot. Madge was a born actress, that was all there was to it; she ought to have made the stage her profession. He smiled inwardly as he thought how many people would make that remark after this performance.

Then his amus.e.m.e.nt gave place to a sudden and strange resentment against the very idea of Madge's going on the stage; a resentment he made no effort either to understand or account for....