"Mein Gott in Himmel!" Fritz exclaimed, after the fourth glass had been emptied, "but she blayed mit such feelin's und such eyes dot mit me made such strangeness feels. Ach, but she vas a vonder!"
And as time passed on, each of the two days a week when Mona came to take her lesson only served to increase that "vonder," for now that her timidity had worn away, the genius that lurked in her fingers asserted itself. In technical art she was as yet a pupil, but in the far more impressive art of inspiration and expression, so natural to her, she had naught to learn.
"She blays mit her heart und all ofer, und vorgets all I tells her of bosition und oxecution," explained Fritz to his cronies, "und ven she looks at me I forgets meinself."
Then as the weeks went by, a new idea came to Fritz, who seldom had any; and straightway he began to nurse it.
"Ef she so blays mit mein violin, ven I haf heard dat music all mein life, vot vill beoples dinks who vash to hear her on de stage?" he said to himself. "I vill say nodding und make some surbrises by and by."
That Mona had the same secret ambition he knew not, and most likely it were as well he did not. But the long upward path to her goal was not an easy one, for if Fritz had lacked emotion, he excelled in detail; and each time Mona forgot, as she so often did, it provoked expressions from him that tinged her cheeks with humiliation.
"I have much to learn," she answered almost pitifully, whenever her uncle asked of her progress, "and so much to unlearn, it seems discouraging."
"It'll come easier bimeby, girlie," he would respond cheerfully, "the fust lesson in anything is allus the hardest."
But the vexations of tuition were only a small part of Mona's burden; for as the weeks went by, and she became accustomed to her new life and surroundings, the old heartache returned, and as her uncle often insisted that she and her mother go out to some evening entertainment as a break in the quiet boarding-house life they led, a new fear assailed her. What if on street car or in theatre lobby she should suddenly meet Winn Hardy! His name had not been mentioned for many months, and it was as if he were dead.
And now Mona was unlearning the sad lesson of loving, and in its place came a new inspiration, an ambition so broad, so uplifting, so full of possibilities, that even the voice of love was stilled. At times the face of Winn would return to her, however, and always bringing a thorn.