The Old Flute-Player Part 15

Her son looked at her deprecatingly. There was not a sign of yielding on his face, but there was plainly written there a keen desire to win her to his side. "Don't say that, mother," he implored, "I love--"

But she was not so easily to be placated. She had an argument to use, which, in her wrath, she fancied might be an effective one--and this showed that the poor lady did not even know her son.

"Your father left me all his money," she said viciously. "If you are fool enough to marry this girl, you shall have nothing--nothing!"

It did not seem to have, on the young man, the instantaneous effect which she had thought it would have. He merely looked at her with a grieved little frown, and, bending towards her, said with earnest emphasis: "_That_ wouldn't make the slightest difference. I'm young and strong. We'll get along somehow--and we shall be together."

"You'll _starve_ together!" she said viciously.

For a moment the two men remained in an embarra.s.sed silence. Young Vanderlyn, with downcast eyes, was feeling greater mortification than he ever in his life had known before. Just then the loss of millions did not matter to him--what really distressed him was that his mother should make such an exhibition of cold-hearted sn.o.bbery before the father of the girl he loved.

"That wouldn't matter, mother, in the least," he said, at length.

"Money! Do you think it possible that it would sway me? We won't starve together--quite. I'm strong--I am a man and I can do a man's work in the world. But you--remember, mother, you will have to take your choice between receiving Anna--and myself--together--or of being left alone."

Without another word he left the room--left it with an old man's dimmed and misty eyes agaze upon him, full of love and admiration.

Mrs. Vanderlyn rose, too, beside herself with shame and grief and indignation. She turned upon the flute-player.

"Alone!" she cried. "Did you hear that? Oh, the ingrat.i.tude, the selfishness, of children!"

"Madame," said Herr Kreutzer gravely, "do you not think he has a right to his own life--his happiness?"

"His happiness!" A rasping scorn was in the voice of the unhappy woman. "n.o.body thinks of mine! He is my only son. He knows quite well that I can't live without him--that I could not give him up!"

Kreutzer smiled--not with an air of triumph--the discomfiture of the unhappy woman did not make him feel the least exultant. It was pure happiness that made him smile--joy to think that Anna's wedding would not, after all, be shadowed by her husband's sorrow for the loss of mother-love.

"Then Madame will yield?" he cried. "Madame will make the dear young people happy?"

"Upon one condition. Positively only upon one condition."

"What is that, Madame?"

"Your daughter, really, is charming."

"There I agree with you."

"She is wonderfully well-bred--I do not understand it. I could pa.s.s her, anywhere, for a distinguished foreigner--a foreigner of n.o.ble birth."

The father of the subject of her praise smiled gravely. "That is very true. She will--what you call it?--look the part."

"But to be quite frank," the lady went on "you, yourself, are quite impossible, Herr Kreutzer. Quite impossible, I must a.s.sure you."

"I, impossible? I--you say that I am quite impossible?"

She nodded very positively. "I don't like to hurt your feelings, my dear man; but I must make you understand. I can't have people saying that my dear son's father-in-law is a shabby old musician--a flute-player in a theatre. You see that clearly, don't you. How could I--"

"It is quite true," Herr Kreutzer admitted humbly. "I am a shabby old flute-player and you do not make it quite as bad as it is really, Madame." He looked at her and smiled a rueful smile. "It is not even a theatre in which I play, Madame, it is a beer-garden."

"A beer-garden!" she cried in horror. "Oh--Herr Kreutzer! Worse and worse!" Then, wheedlingly: "Listen. You say you love your daughter."

"Yes; surely; I love my daughter very dearly--almost as much, perhaps, as Madame loves her son. Almost. Almost."

"You would have gone to prison for her."

"Yes; to prison. Gladly would I go to prison for my Anna, if, by doing so, I could save her one moment's pain."

"Well, I'm going to suggest a thing not half so hard as that. I will give consent to my son's marriage to your daughter if you will agree to give her up entirely--to give her up _entirely_. You understand?

You must never see her any more."

This was too much. The old man drew back with a cry of pain. "I give my Anna up! I never see her any more! Madame, do you know what you ask?"

She was not vividly impressed. "I suppose it may be hard, at first,"

she went on, casually, "but--"

He interrupted. "Hard! I am old--and poor. I have nothing--nothing--but that little girl. All my whole life long I work for her. My love for her has grown so close--close--close around my heart that from my breast you could not tear it out without, at the same time, tearing from that breast the heart itself. You hear, Madame? She is my soul--my life--all I have got--all--all--"

"But am I not giving up a great deal, too? I had hoped my son would marry well--perhaps, even, among the foreign n.o.bility. That's what I took him off to Europe with me for. I'm simply wild to be presented at some court! Surely if I give all that up for my son's sake, you can do as much, at least, for Anna's."

"As much? Why, what you ask of me, Madame, is to abandon all!"

Mrs. Vanderlyn became impatient. It seemed to her that he was most unreasonable.

"I tell you that unless you do, I shall do nothing for them," she cried petulantly. "My son has no idea of money. He's never had to earn a dollar and he don't know how. They'll starve, if you don't yield, and it will be your fault--entirely your fault."

Herr Kreutzer bowed his head. His heart cried out within him at the horrible injustice of this woman, but, as he saw life, to yield was all that he could do. To stand in Anna's light, at this late day, when, all his life, he had, without the slightest thought of self, made sacrifices for her, would be too illogical, too utterly absurd.

"Madame, I yield," he said. "I know too well what poverty can be--what misery! Yes, Madame, I will go. But sometimes I shall see her."

"Absolutely no!" said Mrs. Vanderlyn. "I'll run no risk of disagreeable comment. I have social enemies who would be too glad to pull me down. You must give her up to-day and go out of her life forever."

"I do not think she will consent to that. She, Madame--why, she loves her poor old father just a little."

"Of course, of course," she grudgingly admitted, "but she'll get over it. Ah, wait! I have it. You must find some way to make her think it's all your fault--that it's exactly what you want--"

"What I want! To give my little Anna up?"

"Certainly. If you are going to do it, you must burn your bridges behind you."

A big thought had been growing in Herr Kreutzer's mind. The execution of the plan which it suggested would involve the breaking of a resolution which had been unbroken for a score of years, but in emergency like this--

"Very well," said he. "Madame, my bridges burn!"

"You'll do it?"

"You shall see."

With a firm step and an erectness of fine carriage which surprised the weak, self-centred woman who was watching him, he stepped, now, to the door, and, opening it, called loudly:

"Come, sir."