III

Not only that morning, but every morning for two weeks, did Marco Davos visit Alt-Aussee. He came down from Ischl on the earliest train, and some nights he stopped at the hotel near his new friends. After a few visits he saw little of the father and uncle, and he was not sorry—they were old bores with their archaic anecdotes of dead pianists. Two maniacs on the subject of music, Davos wished them to the devil after he had known them twenty-four hours. His passion had reached the acute key. He could not eat or drink in normal fashion, and no sooner had he left the girl than the sky became sombre, his pulse weakened, and he longed to return to her side to tell her something he had forgotten. He did this several times, and hesitated in his speech, reddened, and left her, stumbling over the grass like a lame man. Never such a crazy wooer, never a calmer maiden. She looked unutterable sentiment, but spoke it not.

When he teased her about her music, she became a statue. She was too timid to play before artists; her only master had been her father. Once more he had heard the piano as he returned unexpectedly, and almost caught her; he saw her at the instrument, but some instinct must have warned her that she was being spied upon. She stopped in the middle of a phrase from a Mendelssohn song, and even to his prejudiced ears her touch had seemed commonplace. Yet he loved her all the more despite her flat refusal to play. The temptation to his excited artistic temperament was removed. He played, often, gloriously. His nerves were steel. This was a cure his doctor had not foreseen. What did it matter, anyhow?—he was near Constantia daily, and the sunshine was royal. Only—why did her relatives absent themselves so obstinately! She told him, with her secret smile, that she had scolded them for talking so much; but when he played they were never far away, she assured him. Nor was the Japanese woman, Cilli—what a name! A nickname given by Constantia in her babyhood. Cilli was a good soul. He hoped so—her goodness was not apparent. She had a sneering expression as he played. He never looked up from the keyboard that he did not encounter her ironical gaze. She was undoubtedly interested. Her intensity of pose proved it; but there was no sympathy in her eyes. And she had a habit of suddenly appearing in door or window, and always behind her mistress. She ended by seriously annoying him, though he did not complain. It was too trivial.

One afternoon he unfolded his novel views on touch. If the action of the modern pianoforte could be made as sensitive in its response as the fingerboard of a fiddle.... Constantia listened with her habitual gravity, but he knew that she was bored. Then he shifted to the subject of fingers. He begged to be allowed the privilege of examining hers. At first she held back, burying her hand in the old Mechlin lace flounce of her sleeves. He coaxed. He did not attempt to conceal his chagrin when he finally saw her fingers. They were pudgy, good-humoured, fit to lift a knife and fork, or to mend linen. They did not match her cameo-like face, and above all they did not reveal the musical soul he knew her to possess. For the first time since he met her she gave evidence of ill humour. She sharply withdrew her hand from his, and as she did so a barbaric croon was heard, a sort of triumphant wailing, and Constantia, without making an excuse, hurriedly left the room. The singing stopped.

"It's that devil of a Japanese woman," he muttered testily. He waited for nearly an hour, and in a vile temper took up his hat and stick and went away. Decidedly this was his unlucky day, he grumbled, as he reached the water. He saw Grabowski and Pelletier, arm in arm, trudging toward the villa, but contrived to evade them. In ten minutes he found himself spying on the house he had quitted. He skirted a little private way back of the villa, and to his amazement father, uncle, and Constantia came out and hailed the omnibus which travelled hourly to Aussee. Davos was furious. He did not risk following them, for he realized he had been treated shabbily. His wrath softened as he reflected; perhaps Constantia, agitated by his rudeness,—had he been rude?—persuaded her family to follow him to Ischl. The sky cleared. That was the solution—Marco Davos straightened himself—his pride was no longer up in arms. Poor child—she was so easily wounded! How he loved her!

His body trembled. He could not believe he was awake. Incredible music was issuing from behind the closed blinds of the villa. Music! And the music he had overheard that first night. But Constantia had just gone away; he had seen her. There must be some mistake, some joke. No, no, by another path she had managed to get back to the house. Ay! but what playing. Again came that purling rush of notes, those unison passages, as if one gigantic hand grasped them—so perfect was the tonal accord. He did not hesitate. At a bound he was in the corridor and pushed open the door of the drawing-room....

At first the twilighted room blinded him. Then to his disgust and terror he saw the apelike features of the squat Japanese governess. She sat at the piano, her bilious skin flushed by the exertion of playing.

"You—you!" he barely managed to stammer. She did not reply, but preserved the immobility of a carved idol.

"You are a wonderful artiste," he blurted, going to her. She stolidly answered:—

"The Japanese have the finest sense of touch in the world. I was once a pupil of Karl Tausig." Involuntarily he bowed his head to the revered name of the one man he had longed to hear. Then his feelings almost strangled him; his master passion asserted itself.

"Your fingers, your fingers—let me see them," he hoarsely demanded. With a malicious grin she extended her hands—he groaned enviously. Yes, they were miracles of sculpture, miracles of colour and delicacy, the slender tips well-nigh prehensile in their cunning power. And the fingers of Constantia, of his love, of the woman who loved Chopin—that Chopin whose first passion was for her grandmother, the opera singer Constantia Gladowska!

The knowledge of her cruel deception crept into his consciousness. He was chilled for several seconds. Grief at his lost love, implacable anger at her trickery, crowded into his unhappy brain. But he only bowed to Cilli, and summoning all his will he politely said:—

"It is quite true that when the Japanese choose to play the piano, we Europeans must shut up shop." He hurried out to the road and walked desperately....

The next morning, as he nervously paced the platform of the Ischl railway station, he encountered his old friend Alfred Brünfeld, the jovial Viennese pianist.

"Hullo!"

"Not going back to Vienna?"

"Yes—I'm tired of the country."

"But, man, you are pale and tired. Have you been studying up here after your doctor bade you rest?" The concern in Brünfeld's voice touched Davos. He shook his head, then bethought himself of something.

"Alfred, you are acquainted with everybody in Europe. How is it you never told me about that strange Grabowski crowd—you know, the granddaughter of Chopin's first love?" Brünfeld looked at him with instant curiosity.

"You also?" he said. The young man blushed. After that he could never forgive! The other continued:—

"Granddaughter, fiddlesticks! They are not Poles, those Grabowskis, but impostors. Their real name is—is—" Davos started.

"What, you have met them?"

"Yes, the stupid father, the odious uncle, the fair Constantia—what a meek saint!—and that diabolical Japanese, who plays the piano like a house on fire." Tears came to the eyes of Marco Davos.

"Did they—I mean, did she take you in, too?"

"Here, at Ischl, last summer," was the grim reply.