The Dominant Strain Part 14

"Precious little. A fellow has got to have good lungs for blowing his own horn, else he is drowned in the general chorus. That's the worst of music as a profession; personality is everything. You must be perfect or peculiar. The latter alternative is the greater help. If Arlt would grow a head of hair, or wear a dinner napkin instead of a necktie, it would improve his chances wonderfully."

"But, if the right people would take him up?" Thayer suggested.

"They won't; or, if they do, they'll drop him as a monkey drops a hot chestnut. Arlt plays like an artist; but he blushes, and he forgets to keep his cuffs in sight. He is as unworldly as he is conventional.

Society doesn't care to fuss with him."

Thayer looked grave.

"I am having my own share of good times, Dane. It seems as if I ought to be able--"

Bobby interrupted him.

"You can't. No man can hoist his brother into success. It is bound to be every man for himself. You can work over Arlt till the crack of doom, and that's all the good it will do him. People will say 'How n.o.ble of Mr. Thayer!' and they will burn moral tapers about your feet; and meanwhile they'll leave Arlt sitting on the floor alone in the dark."

"Nevertheless, I think I shall keep on with the experiment," Thayer said stubbornly.

"Good luck go with you! But it won't. You can't make the next man's reputation; he must do it for himself. All art is bound to be a bit selfish; but music is the worst of the lot. I don't mean composing, of course, but the interpreting end of it. It's such beastly personal work; all the nooks and corners of your individuality show up across the footlights. They are commented upon, and they have to pa.s.s muster.

Artistically, you and Arlt are as alike as two peas; personally, you are positive, he is negative.'"

There was a pause. Then Thayer said quietly,--"I think I shall sing the Damrosch _Danny Deever_. It has a stunning accompaniment."

The committee of the Fresh Air Fund concert showed themselves a potent trio, and their concert became recognized as the official finale of the musical season. Their meetings had been fraught with interest, for time, place and programme all came under detailed discussion. It must be at a time neither too soon after Easter to collide with it, nor too late to have a place in the season's gayety. The place must be lofty enough to lure the world of fas.h.i.+on; yet not so lofty as to deter the simpler folk to whom the white and gold of the Waldorf ballroom was a mere name, as remote from their lives as the _Pet.i.t Trianon_. The programme must be cla.s.sic enough to satisfy the critic; yet tuneful enough not to bore the amateur, and accordingly it roamed from Brahms to Molloy, and included that first Slavonic Dance of Dvorak which sets the pulses of Pagan and Philistine alike to tingling with a barbarous joy in the mere consciousness of living. Thayer alone had refused to accept dictation at the hands of the committee.

"If I consent to sing, I must choose my own songs," he had said quietly to Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, when she had suggested a modern French love song in place of the Handel aria he had selected.

"Oh, but it is so late in the season, and everybody is tired," she had urged gayly. "If we give them too heavy things on a warm night, they may go to sleep."

"Then I shall proceed to wake them up," he replied. "And, for the second number, the _Danny Deever_, I think."

"Mr. Thayer! That grewsome thing! Why don't you sing _My Desire_, if you are so anxious for an American song?"

"I think _Danny_ will be better. Then we will consider it settled." And it was not until she was out on the stairs that Mrs. Lloyd Avalons realized she had been defeated and then dismissed by the man whose patroness she was a.s.suming to be.

"No matter," she reflected; "we've got to pay Signora Cantabella, and we can insist upon her singing something a little more digestible. Mr.

Thayer is cranky; but we get him and that little Arlt for nothing, so I suppose we mustn't be too critical."

For once, Mrs. Lloyd Avalons showed her good sense. In all truth, beggars should not be choosers, whether the alms be of bread crusts or of high art.

Lorimer dined with Beatrix, that night. Contrary to the custom of the Danes, they did not linger over the meal; and, as soon as they left the table, Beatrix and Lorimer strolled away to the conservatory at the back of the house. The yellow sunset light was still gilding the place, and through the wide-open windows the night breeze crept in, softly stirring the heavy palm leaves and scattering the scent of a few late violets over all the air.

Refusing the seat which Lorimer silently pointed out to her, Beatrix paced restlessly up and down the broad middle walk.

"I think I am nervous, to-night," she said, with an odd little laugh. "I have been feeling, all day long, as if things were going to happen."

"Things generally do happen," Lorimer said lightly, as he sauntered along by her side.

"Yes; but something unusual, something uncanny."

Lorimer threw back his head and laughed.

"I thought you derided presentiments, Beatrix."

She bit her lip.

"I do," she said, after a pause. "I know it is foolish, and I am ashamed of myself; but I dread this recital, to-night, and I dread that hateful Lloyd Avalons supper after it. Let's not go, Sidney."

"Oh, but we must. Why not?"

"They are such impossible people."

"I know; but everyone will understand that it is on Thayer's account that we go, Beatrix. And he made such a point of it."

She drew a long breath.

"If we must--But I dread it. Do keep Mr. Avalons away from me, then."

As he looked down at the brown head which scarcely rose above his lips, Lorimer's smile ceased to be whimsical and became inexpressibly tender and winning.

"Count on me, dear girl. He is a brute; but I won't let him go near you."

Impulsively she turned and faced him.

"Sidney," she said, with a breathless catch in her voice; "Sidney--"

Then, while she hesitated, she raised her hands and rested them on his broad shoulders. "Sidney dearest, do you know what it is to love as I love you? It would kill me to have anything come in between us."

Startled by her overwrought nerves, he put his arm around her and drew her head against his shoulder.

"I know only one thing, Beatrix," he said gravely; "nothing now can come between us but death."

Diamond aigrettes and critical ears both were at the concert, that night, mingled with a fair sprinkling of those to whom the charity appealed far more than did the mere musical and worldly phases of the affair. The little folded programmes were in a way typical of the whole situation: one page containing the modest announcement of the Fresh Air Fund concert, the next one the simple statement of the numbers of the programme, while the third, in full-faced type bore the majestic list of patronesses. Between his German and Italian fellow artists and his polysyllabic Dutch sponsors, Thayer's name stood out in all the aggressiveness of Puritan simplicity.

As a whole, the concert was as frothy as was the audience. The songs glittered like the diamonds, and the orchestra played the _Valkyries'

Ride_ with a cheerful abandonment of mirth.

"Thayer is the only dignified member of the company," Bobby growled into Sally's ears, as the last note of his aria died away. "The rest of them are doing tricks like a set of vaudeville artists. I expected that violinist to play cadenzas with his violin held in the air above his head. You don't catch Thayer dropping into such trick work."

"He doesn't need to; he can 'scorn such a foe' to his heart's content, for he is getting the applause of the evening. Does he sing again?"

"The very last number. It is an unusual place, to wind up a programme after the orchestra is through; but I think he is equal to it."

Beatrix felt every nerve in her body tingling and throbbing, when Thayer came out on the stage for the second time. As a whole, the concert had not been inspiring to her; it had been too obviously popular. Yet, at least, it had tended to relax her strained nerves. Gade concertos are a species of mental gruel, easy to a.s.similate and none too stimulating; but all the innate barbarism of humanity, all of her nervous force responded to the clas.h.i.+ng rhythm of the Slavonic Dance, and the swift color came into her face and focussed itself in a tiny circle in either cheek, as she listened. For the moment, she was as fiercely defiant of fate as a Valkyrie flying forth to battle.

The mood was still upon her, as Thayer came striding out across the stage. Arlt was beside him, for Thayer had refused an orchestral accompaniment and had left _Danny Deever_ in the hands of a pianist. His choice had been a wise one for Arlt. The two of them had spent hours over the song, and the young German surpa.s.sed himself in the swift changes of _motif_ until, as he left _Danny's_ soul freeing itself from the swinging body and took up the cheery theme of the quickstep once more, even Thayer was relegated momentarily to the background, as a mere librettist to the pa.s.sionate fury of the accompaniment.

Again and again the applause broke out; again and again Thayer insisted upon leading Arlt before the audience to make his bow; but still the audience refused to be satisfied. Even the most graceful of bows is not enough, when one is thoroughly aroused.

"Play something, Arlt," Thayer ordered him at last.