The Old Flute-Player | Page 3

her to an attaché of the establishment. Once, after she had grown into
magnificent young womanhood, he very angrily refused an earnest
supplication for an introduction from the manager, himself. On the
nights when she came to the theatre he took her to the box, before the
overture began, and she sat there, quite alone, until he went to her after
the audience had been "played out."
His own exclusiveness was very nearly as complete. He formed no
intimacies among the members of the orchestra with whom he played
eight times a week, although his face showed, sometimes, that he
yearned to join their gossip, in the stuffy little room beneath the stage,
which housed them when they were not in their places in the crowded
space "in front" allotted to them.
"Tiens!" said the Frenchman who played second-violin. "Ze ol' man
have such fear zat we should wiss to spik us wiz 'is daughtaire, zat 'e
trit us lak we 'ave a seeckness catchable!"
It was almost true. He did avoid the chance of making her acquainted
with any of the folk with whom his daily routine threw him into contact,
with a care which might suggest a fear of some sort of contagion for
her. But not all the members of the orchestra resented it. The drummer
(who also played the triangle and tambourine when need was, imitated
railway noises with shrewd implements, pumped an auto-horn when
motor-cars were supposed to be approaching or departing "off-stage"
and made himself, in general, a useful man on all occasions) was his
firm friend and partisan.
"Garn, Frawgs!" he sneered, to the resentful Frenchman. "Yer 'yn't fit
ter sye ther time o' dye ter 'er; yer knows yer 'yn't."
"Wat? To ze daughtaire of a flute!" the Second-Violin replied. "W'y--"
"Garn!" said the drummer. "Sye, yer myke me sick! You, with yer
black-'aired fyce an' paytent boots! Hi bean 'ammerin' 'ide in

horchestras since me tenth birthdye, but Hi knows a hangel w'en Hi
sees one, an' lawst night Hi missed a 'ole bar on the snare fer lookin' up
at 'er just once. Hi never see a brunette look so habsolutely hinnocent.
Th' Ol' Nick's peekin' out o' brunettes' faces, somew'eres, mostly. Don't
know w'at she myde me think of--m'ybe wreaths o' roses red an' pink,
an' m'ybe crowns o' di'mun's--but Hi missed a 'ole bar on th' snare fer
thinking somethink."
"Tiens!" the Frenchman began scornfully. "He is too much--"
"Garn!" said the drummer, threateningly, and it may be that the tinkle
of the "ready" bell prevented something more than words between them,
for the drummer, at the time, was holding the bass-drum-stick. He
could have struck a mighty blow with it.
Just when the thought of leaving for America first began to grow in
Kreutzer's mind, it would be hard to say, but it took definite form
immediately subsequent to the London visit of a Most Exalted
Personage from Prussia. On the last day of this Most Exalted
Personage's stay Herr Kreutzer was enjoying, with his Anna, the long
Sunday twilight in Hyde Park. They often strolled there of a Sunday
evening. The Most Exalted Personage, being in a democratic mood and
wishful of seeing London and its people quietly, was also strolling in
Hyde Park and met the father and the daughter, face to face.
There was nothing, so far as Anna saw, about the stranger in plain mufti,
to make her father drop his head, pull down his hat and hurry on,
almost as if in sudden panic, dragging her by a slender wrist clasped in
a hand which trembled; but he did do all these things, while the queer
gentleman with the upturned moustaches (Anna had no notion who he
was) stopped stonestill in his stroll and gazed after them with puzzled
eyes in which a semi-recognition and a very lively curiosity seemed
growing.
"Who is he, father?" Anna asked, in English, which the father much
preferred to German from her lips and which she spoke with carefully
exact construction, but with charming rolling of the r's and hissing of
the s's. Her accent was much more pronounced than his, due, doubtless,

to the fact that while he went daily to his little corner of the English
world to earn their living, her seclusion was complete. She saw few
English save M'riar and the landlady--whose accent never tempted her
to imitation. "He seemed to know you," she went on. "He seemed to
wish, almost, to speak with you, but seemed to feel not positive that
you were you."
Kreutzer gave her a quick glance, then seemed to pull himself together
with an effort. He assumed a carefully surprised air. "Who is he? Who
is who, mine liebschen?"
"The gentleman from whom you ran away?"
"I run!" said