The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (best reads .TXT) 📕

of sound which had its source in his pupil had caught him two flights down. He had stopped and listened with a kind of sneering admiration. From the door he watched her with a half-incredulous, half-malicious smile.

When he had struck the keys for the last time, Ottenburg dropped his hands on his knees and looked up with a quick breath. “I got you through. What a stunning song! Did I play it right?”

Thea studied his excited face. There was a good deal of meaning in it, and there was a good deal in her own as she answered him. “You suited me,” she said ungrudgingly.

After Ottenburg was gone, Thea noticed that Bowers was more agreeable than usual. She had heard the young brewer ask Bowers to dine with him at his club that evening, and she saw that he looked forward to the dinner with pleasure. He dropped a remark to the effect that Fred knew as much about food and wines as any man in Chicago. He said this boastfully.

“If he’s such a grand business man, how does he have time to run around listening to singing-lessons?” Thea asked suspiciously.

As she went home to her boardinghouse through the February slush, she wished she were going to dine with them. At nine o’clock she looked up from her grammar to wonder what Bowers and Ottenburg were having to eat. At that moment they were talking of her.

IV

Thea noticed that Bowers took rather more pains with her now that Fred Ottenburg often dropped in at eleven-thirty to hear her lesson. After the lesson the young man took Bowers off to lunch with him, and Bowers liked good food when another man paid for it. He encouraged Fred’s visits, and Thea soon saw that Fred knew exactly why.

One morning, after her lesson, Ottenburg turned to Bowers. “If you’ll lend me Miss Thea, I think I have an engagement for her. Mrs. Henry Nathanmeyer is going to give three musical evenings in April, first three Saturdays, and she has consulted me about soloists. For the first evening she has a young violinist, and she would be charmed to have Miss Kronborg. She will pay fifty dollars. Not much, but Miss Thea would meet some people there who might be useful. What do you say?”

Bowers passed the question on to Thea. “I guess you could use the fifty, couldn’t you, Miss Kronborg? You can easily work up some songs.”

Thea was perplexed. “I need the money awfully,” she said frankly; “but I haven’t got the right clothes for that sort of thing. I suppose I’d better try to get some.”

Ottenburg spoke up quickly, “Oh, you’d make nothing out of it if you went to buying evening clothes. I’ve thought of that. Mrs. Nathanmeyer has a troop of daughters, a perfect seraglio, all ages and sizes. She’ll be glad to fit you out, if you aren’t sensitive about wearing kosher clothes. Let me take you to see her, and you’ll find that she’ll arrange that easily enough. I told her she must produce something nice, blue or yellow, and properly cut. I brought half a dozen Worth gowns through the customs for her two weeks ago, and she’s not ungrateful. When can we go to see her?”

“I haven’t any time free, except at night,” Thea replied in some confusion.

“Tomorrow evening, then? I shall call for you at eight. Bring all your songs along; she will want us to give her a little rehearsal, perhaps. I’ll play your accompaniments, if you’ve no objection. That will save money for you and for Mrs. Nathanmeyer. She needs it.” Ottenburg chuckled as he took down the number of Thea’s boardinghouse.

The Nathanmeyers were so rich and great that even Thea had heard of them, and this seemed a very remarkable opportunity. Ottenburg had brought it about by merely lifting a finger, apparently. He was a beer prince sure enough, as Bowers had said.

The next evening at a quarter to eight Thea was dressed and waiting in the boardinghouse parlor. She was nervous and fidgety and found it difficult to sit still on the hard, convex upholstery of the chairs. She tried them one after another, moving about the dimly lighted, musty room, where the gas always leaked gently and sang in the burners. There was no one in the parlor but the medical student, who was playing one of Sousa’s marches so vigorously that the china ornaments on the top of the piano rattled. In a few moments some of the pension-office girls would come in and begin to two-step. Thea wished that Ottenburg would come and let her escape. She glanced at herself in the long, somber mirror. She was wearing her pale-blue broadcloth church dress, which was not unbecoming but was certainly too heavy to wear to anybody’s house in the evening. Her slippers were run over at the heel and she had not had time to have them mended, and her white gloves were not so clean as they should be. However, she knew that she would forget these annoying things as soon as Ottenburg came.

Mary, the Hungarian chambermaid, came to the door, stood between the plush portieres, beckoned to Thea, and made an inarticulate sound in her throat. Thea jumped up and ran into the hall, where Ottenburg stood smiling, his caped cloak open, his silk hat in his white-kid hand. The Hungarian girl stood like a monument on her flat heels, staring at the pink carnation in Ottenburg’s coat. Her broad, pockmarked face wore the only expression of which it was capable, a kind of animal wonder. As the young man followed Thea out, he glanced back over his shoulder through the crack of the door; the Hun clapped her hands over her stomach, opened her mouth, and made another raucous sound in her throat.

“Isn’t she awful?” Thea exclaimed. “I think she’s half-witted. Can you understand her?”

Ottenburg laughed as he helped her into the carriage. “Oh, yes; I can understand her!” He settled himself on