Carstairs played other music, composition after composition, many of them his own, but all the while he waited to hear Erna ask him to repeat her composition. She did not do so at once, but eventually, bored—to tell the truth—by the incessant flow of music, she made the request. Overjoyed, he repeated the work, and every measure lingered, breathed and swayed with the mood of its creator. Near the close, Erna succeeded in stifling a yawn.
It was after nine o’clock when Carstairs conducted her down the three flights. He would receive a reprimand and fine when he reported at the music hall. But what did he care?
The young composer did not return to his sanctum until eleven thirty. He quickly lit the gas. At the theatre, a thought had come to torment him, as he had rehearsed the evening’s doings and joys many times over. He went to the piano and took down the picture of the girl. Presently, he buried it under a heap of odds and ends that littered the drawer of a bureau, and said to himself for at least the fiftieth time: “What a careless damned fool I am!”
VI
It was early the next afternoon. Breen and Nielsen were arguing in the former’s studio: a large unusually well furnished and attractively decorated West Fourteenth Street skylight room.
“Now, you clear out of here!” Breen was commanding. “She’ll be here right away.”
“Sure she won’t disappoint thee?” Nielsen mocked pleasantly.
“No, I saw her this morning and this noon for a moment, and she intends keeping her royal promise.”
“How about the rouge garment?”
“She hasn’t had time to alter it.”