“That would mean long walks instead of sleeping until nine o’clock—eleven, I am told, it used to be.”
“But everybody will be leaving Munich soon and I shall not be sitting up so late. Do take me with you—at any hour.”
“But you will be following—not? They will all ask you to visit them. Poor German!”
He hesitated. “Shall you stay here?”
“I seldom go away except for a few days at a time, for I no longer sing in Bayreuth; Frau Cosima and I do not agree on the subject of Brünhilde, whom I interpret for myself. Moreover the King has often private representations in the Hof. It is as well, for I am never so happy as in Munich, and Bayreuth is not the same to me now that The Master is gone. Late in August and in September I must go on my Gastspiel—concert engagements in several German cities and in Vienna—but that is all; I never visit.”
“I think I should remain here all summer and study with Fräulein Lutz. I should like to pass my examinations this year. But perhaps Fräulein Lutz takes a vacation?”
“I will see that she does not. Yes—stay and study. It is so fatally easy when one is young and heedless to be caught in the maelstrom of insignificance; and two years—what are they? You have the rest of your life to visit country houses.”
“You have a way of phrasing truths that makes it quite impossible to forget them.” He spoke dryly, but his face had flushed. “ ‘Caught in the maelstrom of insignificance.’ I shall stay here and alternate the delights of Adam Smith with Fräulein Lutz, burn my candle over Blackstone and Hallam, when I might be sneezing in some draughty castle or accumulating typhoid germs. That is to say, if you will let me walk with you—and come here often. My virtues, at least, need admiration and encouragement. May I?”
Styr had made up her mind: having delivered him from wreck, she would lead him to the threshold of his future, then return to her solitudes, pluming herself upon her successful rôle of a kindly fate in the life of a fellow-mortal so much more interesting than the musical fledglings that came to her for advice and help. For a few months she would indulge herself in the luxury and novelty of a friendship, give her mind a companion; later on, vary her isolation with a permanent interest in the career of another. She made no doubt that were Ordham carried safely over this critical interval there was a reasonable chance of his attaining a high and useful eminence. It was a strange rôle for her to be contemplating, that of becoming a deliberate factor in the life of a man with no thought save his own good; but the more she had meditated upon it the more irresistibly had it appealed to her. She was honest enough, however, to admit that had she not liked him so thoroughly her philanthropic tendencies might have slept on undiscovered.
“I will strike a bargain with you,” she said. “If you will promise not to leave town except from Saturday noon until Sunday night, and take a daily lesson with Lutz until you are obliged to leave for England, you may come and go here as you please.”