The Old Flute-Player Part 11

He was more puzzled by this extraordinary statement than he had been by her tears. "Because you are so _happy_! Hein! A woman--she is strange. So strange. She cries because she is so happy, then she cries because she is so sorry. When she cries no one can tell which makes her do it. You are sure it is the happiness, this time, that makes you cry?"

"Quite sure," said Anna, trying hard to stifle the great sobs. "Yes; I am certain. It is because I am so happy, and--because--I am a little bit--af-fraid!"

"You are afraid, my child? What is it fears you?"

She slipped out of his arms. There was no going back, she now must tell him all. She knew that he would not be harshly angry, though she greatly feared he would be sorely grieved.

She held him, with a gentle hand, back in his chair as he would have arisen, and sank down at his feet, her arm upon his knee, her face upturned. "Come, father," she said simply. "I want to sit here at your feet. I want to sit here at your feet just as I did when I was, oh, a very little girl!"

The old man was sorely puzzled, but he sank back in his chair and let her take his hands--both of them. One of them she placed upon her beautiful, dark hair; the other she held close clasped against her bosom in her own. "Father, I have something to confess."

He was amazed, but less distressed than he had been. His Anna, his own, liebling Anna, could not have anything to confess which was so very terrible. He looked down at her and smiled in rea.s.surance. Her wonderful, dark eyes were upturned, as he gazed, and, for an instant, looked straight at his; but then the delicately veined lids drooped.

"You have something to confess? What is it, Anna?"

"I shall not go back again to Mrs. Vanderlyn's," she slowly answered.

"I have come home, my father; have come home to you--to stay."

He was worried. Could she be satisfied, after what she had been having there at Mrs. Vanderlyn's, with what his small purse had to offer her in this unpleasant tenement? His heart leaped at the thought of having her with him again; none but himself could know how greatly he had missed her, and he could give her food and shelter. But would she, now, be happy there with him, in all his poverty?

"Ah; you have quarreled?" he ventured, hesitantly.

"No," she faltered.

His wrath rose. Ah, that was it! The woman had been unkind to her, had asked of her some menial service, had presumed upon the fact that she was but an employee! "She has mistreated you," he cried, in indignation. "She has mistreated you! Well, here is--"

Anna interrupted him by laying a soft hand upon his lips. She had to stretch and strain a little to reach up so far, crouched low there, as she was, quite at his feet. Her heart was beating very fast as came the time for her confession. She hoped that he would not be very angry, very greatly horrified.

"No," she said slowly; "no, we have not quarreled, she has not mistreated me; but--she will be very angry--she will not forgive me, when she knows--"

Kreutzer was affrighted. There seemed to him to be a hint of dreadful revelations to be made in the soft droop of Anna's head, the trembling of her little hand in his, the swift ebb and flow of the rich color in the pink satin of her cheeks.

"Anna," he said, aghast, "what is there for her to know? Oh, my Anna--what is there for her to know? Fear not. Your old father--he will understand and will forgive--will forgive anything in all this world--no matter what. Remember that. Remember that, and tell me, Anna, what is there for Mrs. Vanderlyn to pardon?"

She did not lift her head. Her eyes flashed up at him in one quick look of terror, but never by an inch did she raise toward her father's, now, her pale, affrighted face. "It was a great temptation, father," she said slowly. "A very great temptation."

Now he was alarmed, indeed. "Anna," he demanded, in a voice that was not like his own, "what have you done? What have you done?"

Every horrid thought--but one--which could flash into being in the human mind at such a time, rushed into his, in a terrific jumble of mad speculations.

For a moment Anna cowered, alarmed by what a quick glimpse of his face had shown her. She had never seen a human face so--not whitened by his fear, but greyed--greyed as if seared with fire and turned to carven ashes. She could tell, by that, that he would never, really, forgive her. Too firmly had his hopes been fixed upon the plans which he had built in many long hours of reflections going back along the years, no doubt, to that far time when she was lying, a mere babe, in her dear mother's arms. How ardently she wished, now, at this crisis, that that mother might be there to soften things for her; to turn his wrath, explain, make clear to him the fact that there are impulses too strong for women's hearts to put aside!

She did not look at him again--she could not bear to see that face again--but slowly rose and slowly crossed the little room to the crude table and took from it her handbag, which, when M'riar had cleared off the dinner things, she had replaced where it had been when she had started, first, to lay the table. As she raised the bag her father's eyes were fixed upon her in an agony of dread.

Trembling with apprehension, her fingers shaking so that it was with great difficulty that she managed the bag's clasp, she opened the receptacle, and, with accelerating nervousness which made her feel and fumble, took from it a small box--a jeweler's box. Slowly she returned to him, her feet dragging as if weighted; slowly, as she stood before him, drooping, frightened, she took off the cover of the little box, her heart hammering till it seemed as if it must burst from her breast; slowly, then, with trembling fingers, while her eyes remained steadfastly downcast and the quick rising, falling, of her delicately rounded, girlish bosom showed how keen her agitation was, she took from the opened box a sparkling trinket.

"You will understand me, father, when I show you--"

She held the brilliant bauble towards him, and, as she stretched out her hand a hundred little facets on the glittering thing caught light, there in the gloomy tenement house room, and blazed and sparkled as with inner fires.

"Look, father."

The old flute-player stretched a wondering hand to take the trinket.

He could not understand, at all, what all this meant. What had the thing to do with her great agitation? How came she with so valuable a jewel? What did it mean--all of it? What under heaven could it mean?

"A ring? Ah," said he, "it is a beautiful ring set with a diamond.

Where did you get it, Anna?" He laid it upon the table quickly. He did not seem to wish to hold it in his hand.

This was the crucial moment and she looked at him with dumb appeal in her fine eyes. Then, seeing nothing in his face to rea.s.sure her, she dropped her gaze. Her chest heaved with a quick sob.

"My dear, my dear," she now began, "I have a great confession. Do not, please, be angry with me, father! I must tell you--"

She was interrupted by a quick, sharp rap upon the door. There was in it the abrupt demand of an official visitation, and it startled both of them.

Hastily she rose and stood gazing at the closed door; wonderingly he rose, also, and, poised, ready to go and open it, waiting a second, to see if there would be a repet.i.tion of the knock.

"Who is there?" he called, at length.

"I, Mrs. Vanderlyn," came the reply, in high-pitched, angry tones.

"M'riar," the flute-player called loudly, "go to the door."

Anna, now very plainly much alarmed, cowered back against the table, her face turned toward the door, her two hands back of her, caught desperately on the table and supporting her. Kreutzer looked at her with new alarm--a dreadful apprehension. What could the girl have done to be thus frightened by the coming of the woman whose employment she had left?

"Mrs. Vanderlyn!" the girl gasped, weakly.

Then Kreutzer saw her do a thing which added to his great amazement, his great worry. With a quick stride she crossed the little s.p.a.ce between her and the table, quickly s.n.a.t.c.hed from it the box and ring, put the cover on the box, and, hurriedly, with almost furtive gesture, thrust the box into her handbag, being careful, he observed, to see to it that in the bag it was well covered by a handkerchief and veil.

"Why do you look so frightened?" he demanded, in a voice now hoa.r.s.e and painful.

Anna was as pale as death as she replied: "I am afraid she has discovered--"

"Discovered?" said her father, a grim light breaking on his confused faculties. Ah, this was terrible, but must be faced! Ah, G.o.d! His little Anna! She had taken it--had stolen it--from Mrs. Vanderlyn! But he would stand by her. Nothing should induce him to abandon her, no matter what mad thing she had been tempted into doing. Doubtless it had been his poverty (and was his poverty not direct result of his incompetence?) which had led her into doing the dread thing which he began to understand that she had done.

Now, surely, was not the time for him to offer her reproaches. Now was the time, when he, the best friend she had, could ever have, must comfort her and shelter her. Later, if there were reproaches to be offered, would be time enough to offer them.

"Hus.h.!.+" he said cautiously. "How you tremble! Anna--my little Anna!

She shall not see you like this. Go, liebling. I will first speak to her. And ... whatever it may be ... fear not. Fear not."

M'riar had come in, and, fascinated by the scene, began to dimly see its awful import, also. Her training in the slums of London where a knock like that upon the door meant but one thing--the law--made the situation clear to her, at once, and, bewildered as she was by the amazing fact that it was Anna--her Frow-line--who was involved, she did not lose her head.

"This w'y," she whispered, hoa.r.s.ely. "This w'y, Frow-line! This w'y!"

She hurried Anna out into the kitchen and the flute-player could hear the key turn in the lock behind them. Sure that, for the moment, his dear child was safe, he now went to the door, with measured, steady tread, and opened it.

"Come, Madame, come," he said to Mrs. Vanderlyn, who, flushed and angry, waited with small patience at the threshold.

The old flute-player caught the glint of polished b.u.t.tons and a polished s.h.i.+eld upon the breast of a man's coat beyond her, and he recognized the face above them as that of his old s.h.i.+pboard enemy, Moresco, now policeman on this beat.