The Old Flute-Player Part 14

"Ah, yes, Madame; I see," said he. "I see. Society must be protected from such folk as I. Yes; that is very clear indeed. We menace it. The place for us is where stone walls surround us--to protect society; locks hold us--to protect society; death comes quickly to us--to protect society. I see all that, Madame. I will go to prison as a punishment, of course. But you will let me see my Anna for a moment--you will let me say goodbye to Anna? She is here, in the next room. I had hoped, you see, that I could make you think that prison was not necessary; I had hoped that I could fool you into thinking that I was not, very much, a danger to society. But you have found me out. You realize how terrible I am. When I thought that I could fool you I had her go to the next room, so that, perhaps, she might know nothing of it. Now, of course, she will know all, but--you will let me say goodbye to her? You will wait for me, out here?"

Mrs. Vanderlyn was not too willing, but, as she thought of it, it seemed quite safe, and she could tell her friends, she rapidly reflected, that she had been swayed by irresistible impulse of mercy.

That would sound well, told dramatically.

"I suppose so," she said grudgingly. "But any attempt at escape will be useless. You--"

He looked at her with a sad dignity.

"I shall not try to escape," he said. "I only ask that if it can be done, as long as it may be possible to do it, my Anna shall not know about my sin, discovery, disgrace. Let her think, please, Madame, if you will, that I have gone on a long journey."

This, too, she granted grudgingly. "Oh, very well, if you imagine such things _can_ be hidden. I won't tell her. Just as you wish."

"You will wait here for me while I say goodbye to her?"

"Well, don't be long."

The old flute-player was turning towards the kitchen door, when a loud rap upon the hall door halted him.

"I suppose the officer has grown tired of waiting," Mrs. Vanderlyn explained.

"Come in," said Kreutzer, wonderingly. Few visitors had ever knocked at his door since he had moved to that tenement.

To Mrs. Vanderlyn's amazement, and his own, the door, when it had opened, revealed John Vanderlyn. He was very plainly worried. He did not even stop for greetings, but said, immediately, to his mother:

"Well, mother, what are you doing here?"

Mrs. Vanderlyn was quite as much surprised, apparently, to see him there, as he was to discover her in the old flute-player's rooms.

"My dear boy!" she cried. "How in the world did you learn that I had come here? What do you want? Has something happened at the house?"

Her son advanced into the room with a low bow to his host. It was quite plain that, for some reason, he wished to show Herr Kreutzer every courtesy; it was plain that he had reason to suspect that, possibly, his mother had not done so and that this fact worried him.

"The butler heard you give the order to the chauffeur to drive you to Herr Kreutzer's home," he told his mother briefly. Then, turning to Herr Kreutzer, he said earnestly: "My dear sir, if my mother has said anything harsh or disagreeable to you--"

Kreutzer was astonished, but had no complaint to make. His only wish was, now, to have his opportunity to bid his girl farewell and then to go to prison, where, as quickly as was possible, he might serve out whatever sentence was imposed on him. After his release, if the sentence was not of such duration that it spanned the few short years of life remaining to him, he would once again work for his Anna and endeavor to atone to her for the misfortunes which his own incompetence, he argued, had oppressed her with.

"Your mother," he a.s.sured the youth, so that the situation might not be prolonged, "has been polite. Your mother has been most polite."

The young man, with an expression of relief upon his face, turned then, to his mother. "Tell me, mother, what has brought you here," he said.

She did not hesitate. The situation did not in the least depress her.

Rather was she somewhat proud of her own part in it. "It's really painful, my dear boy," said she, "but I flatter myself that I've been quite a Sherlock Holmes. I suppose you haven't even discovered, yet, that the diamond ring is gone--is stolen."

He looked at her in sheer amazement. It was clear enough that he did not, immediately, know what she was talking of. "The ring gone?

Stolen, mother?"

Suddenly he burst into a laugh--so hearty, so spontaneous, so wholly foreign in its fine expression of good-natured raillery, to the tense atmosphere of accusation on the part of Mrs. Vanderlyn and supreme self-abnegation on the part of the old flute-player, which had, until this time, been vibrant in the room, that it seemed strangely, shockingly incongruous.

"John!" said his mother, in a tone of stern reproof, demanding of her son for the victim of misfortune consideration which she, herself, had scarcely shown, "you must not laugh. It is too heartless--right in this poor man's presence!"

This stopped his laughter, for it puzzled him. He looked from one of his companions to the other with an air of most complete bewilderment.

"What's Herr Kreutzer got to do with it?" he asked.

"Why, he has just confessed."

"Confessed to what?"

"That he is guilty."

Kreutzer interrupted earnestly and hastily. He did not wish to have her even tell her son that Anna ever had been suspected. "Yes," he a.s.sured him earnestly, "I--I alone am guilty."

The youth's evident amazement doubled. Sinking into a chair he looked from his mother to Herr Kreutzer, from Herr Kreutzer to his mother, with an expression of bewilderment so genuine that, for the first time, his mother was a bit in doubt about her cleverness, for the first time Herr Kreutzer wondered if there might not, somewhere, be a ray of hope for him and for his Anna.

"Guilty of what?" said Vanderlyn, at length. "Of being the father of the dearest girl in all the world, who has promised to become my wife?"

CHAPTER X

"Your wife!" cried Mrs. Vanderlyn. "Good heavens!" She sank back in her chair as much aghast as Kreutzer had been when she had amazed him by accusing Anna.

"And I bought that ring and gave it to her," John went on. "The dear girl! It's our engagement ring."

Kreutzer, who had been staring at him with the strained and anxious look of one who sees salvation just in sight, but cannot understand its aspect, quite, relaxed now and, also, sank into a chair.

"Oh, mine Gott sie dank!" he fervently exclaimed. "Mine Gott sie dank!

You gave it to her! Oh, oh, oh, thank G.o.d!"

"Why certainly I gave it to her. It's our engagement ring. Bless her heart--she's promised me to wear it as soon as Herr Kreutzer gives consent."

Mrs. Vanderlyn found this too much for calm reception. She did not wish to, she would not believe.

"Why do you say such things?" she demanded of her son. "You're just trying to save him. Why did he confess?"

Kreutzer, now, looked at her with calm, cold dignity. His turn had come. Had she been a man he would have taken it with vehemence and pleasure; because she was not a man he took it with a careful self-repression but no lack of emphasis.

"I will tell you, Madame, why I made confession. It may be that you will not understand, but so it is. I told you that it had been I who stole the ring because I love my little girl so much that I would go to prison--ah, Madame, I would die!--rather than permit that she should suffer. For a mad moment, overborne by your amazing claims, I did believe that she had taken that ring. I thought that she had taken it to help her poor old father--the old flute-player who never has been able to give to his daughter what he wished to give, or what she deserved to have. I thought, perhaps, that Anna, swept away by sorrow for my struggling, had yielded to temptation to help _me_--the mistaken impulse of a loving child. No crime--no crime! I understand, now, what she meant when she was speaking with me. Her 'secret!' Her 'temptation!'"

He turned to John, now, and addressed him, solely. "Her 'temptation'

was to be your wife when I had made her promise that she would not think of men until I came to her and told her that I had picked out the one for her. I see it, now; I see it. Her 'temptation'--it was only to become your wife!"

John laughed. "I'm mighty glad it was!" said he. "Yes; that was it; and it's all settled."

Mrs. Vanderlyn now rose in wrath. Was it credible that her own son, whom she had reared, as she had thought, to wors.h.i.+p all the things she wors.h.i.+ped, wealth, position, rank, could have conceived an actual affection for this penniless, positionless, impossible flute-player's daughter?

"Settled that you marry her?" she cried. "The daughter of this old musician? It's impossible! Impossible!"