The Story Book Girls Part 36

"Hn? Then I haf her, a flower, a bud unplucked!"

Herr Slavska grew excited.

"No nasty finger mark, no petal fallen. Ah! it is luck, it is luck for mademoiselle. Come, mademoiselle."

He struck a note.

"Will you sing ze!"

Jean sang "ze." She sang "zo." Then he ran her voice into the top and bottom registers.

"You have the comprehension. It is the great matter," said Herr Slavska.

Then he blazed at her.

His "the," quite English when he remained polished and firm, degenerated into a "ze" at times such as these.

"You haf not ze breath, none," said he, as though Jean had committed an outrage.

Jean, however, had begun to glow with the ardour of future accomplishment.

"That's what I came to learn," she said promptly.

"Aha, she has charac*tere*."

Herr Slavska was delighted, but Jean found this constant dissection of herself trying.

Then the real work began. Herr Slavska breathed, made Jean breathe, hammered at her, expostulated, showed his own ribs rising and falling while his voice remained even, tender, beautiful.

Mabel sat clasping her hands over one another.

"Oh, Herr Slavska, what a beautiful voice you have," she burst out at last.

He looked at her with the greatest surprise.

"Ah! You are her sister? Hn? And you sit there listening to us?"

He had forgotten her existence.

"And you are not of the stupids, no! You say I haf a beautiful voice?

Hn? It is ze art, mademoiselle, zat you hear now. Sixty-five, I am zat age! And I still fight for ze stomach wit my beautiful voice. But you are of ze few, is it not? I vil sing to you, mademoiselle, just once.

Your sister goes. Ten minutes, mademoiselle--only ten minutes. Zen a rest. And every day to me for two weeks! Hn? Is it not so?"

Then he cast up his arms in despair.

"Helas! It is my accompaniste. He _is_ not!"

Jean the direct stepped in.

"Oh, Mabel will play," she said.

Herr Slavska took one of his deepest breaths.

"I say I shall sing to you--I Herr Slavska. Ant you say 'Mabel will play.' Hn? Mabel? Who is dis grand Mademoiselle Mabel?"

The humour of it suddenly appeared to come upper-most, and Herr Slavska became wickedly, cunningly suave.

"Ah yes, then if mademoiselle will," he said blandly.

He produced music.

Mabel was rooted with fear to the couch. Never in her life before had she been nervous.

"Jean, how could you," whispered she.

Oh, fortune and the best of luck! He turned to a song of Brahms'. How often had Mabel tried to drum that song into the willing but uncultured Robin! That Robin in his lame way should help her now seemed the funniest freak of fate. She played the first bars hopefully, joyfully.

She _knew_ she couldn't do anything silly there.

"But what!"

Herr Slavska had caught her by the shoulders, and looked in her eyes.

"Mademoiselle Mabel! From ze country! Mademoiselle plays like zat!

Hn?"

He bowed grandly.

"My apologies, Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. We vill haf a rehearsal."

He sang through part of his programme for a concert. Mabel energetically remarked afterwards to Jean that she had never really felt heavenly in her life before.

"Oh, Jean," she said, "_Jean._"

"What would you," said Herr Slavska. "You must also study a little Mees Mademoiselle Mabel. You have great talent. Ah, if you could study in ze Bohemian school, Mees Mademoiselle. Hav I not said for years to these stupids stupids public, there is no school like to that of Prague?

Now all ze violinists tumble tumble over ze one another to Sevcik to go.

See, it is ze fate. If you could go to Prague, mademoiselle. Prague would make a great artiste of you."

Here was living, wonderful life for Mabel! If Herr Slavska thought so much of her, why should she not have lessons in London?

Mr. Leighton never received such a letter as he had from her next day.

If was full of thanks for his having made her play so much and go to concerts when she was young. "Now I really know the literature of music. It's the little slippy bits of technique that I'm not up in. I saw every one of them come out and hit me in the eye when I played for Herr Slavska. Do you think I could really stay and take lessons, dear papa? It would prime me for such a lot. I've often thought about Cuthbert for instance, that it must be so jolly for him to feel primed.

And after knowing life here, I'd only be more contented at home. It isn't that one can't be bored in London. I think you can far far more than anywhere. If you saw that girl with the pink bow! She only dresses and dresses, one costume for the morning, another for the afternoon and so on. I suppose she has been taught to be a perfect lady. The girls in our house aren't the crowd that believe in being like men or anything of that sort. They want to get married if they meet a nice enough husband. But n.o.body wants to get left, and it's so nice to be primed for that. I've sometimes felt I might one day be 'left,' and it's awful. I shouldn't mind so much if I had a profession.

Jean is like a new girl. She's full of breathings and 'my method' and all that kind of thing. And she has to have an egg flip every morning at eleven if you please. I'm longing to have a master who orders me egg flip, but they don't do that for piano, do they?

"Oh, please, papa, say you don't care for us for six months, and let us do you some credit at last. We were just little _potty_ players at Ridgetown...."

Mr. Leighton took a mild attack of influenza on the strength of this, but he was infinitely pleased at the enthusiasm of Mabel. Mrs. Leighton got into the Aunt Katharine mood, where such "goings on" seemed iniquitous.