LOOKING TOWARDS SUMMER CREEK GAP FROM LOGANTON
On a centre table, with a top of brown onyx, on which were also several bisque ornaments, lay an ancient violin and bow, a veritable Joseph Guarnerius. It was made of a curious piece of spruce which, when growing in some remote forest of Northern Italy, had been punctured by a “Gran Pico” or large green woodpecker, and the wood stained, giving a unique and picturesque touch to this specimen of the skill of the old master of Cremona.
“I have determined to go home tonight,” said the dark girl, with decision, “and nothing can stop me. When any of our family see the face of Jacob Mintges, it means disaster to some one near to us; my mother and her old parents, whom I left so suddenly, may be grieving to death; I will go to them tonight.”
The tall man fumbled with his long fingers among the tassels on the back of a chair in front of him, as if trying to frame up a decisive answer. “This is what I call base ingratitude,” he faltered at length, in high, almost feminine tones. “Just when I have had your musical talent developed, turning you from a common fiddler to a finished artiste, and having you almost ready to make your stage debut as a popular juvenile, you leave me in the lurch, and all because you imagined you saw a ghost–imagined, I say, for there are no such things.”
The dark girl sat perfectly still, biting her full red lips, her immoble face as if made of ivory.
“What are you, anyway?” she finally responded; “nothing but what my father called a mountebank; he hated them, an actor, and I owe you nothing but contempt for having brought me here to be your plaything while my youth and good looks last.”
Then, as she got up and started towards a door, the tall man darted after her.
“I’ll not let you make a fool of yourself,” he hissed, theatrically. Catching her by the wrists, he attempted to detain her.
“Sit down; we must have this out.”
She was almost as tall as he, and very muscular, and the Jewish strain in her blood was hot. The pair struggled about the room, until the man in his anger seized the old violin and hit her a heavy blow over the head. She sank down on the floor in a limp mass, and the man, picking up his brown Fedora, ran out of the room and down the long flight of stairs and out into the street. The girl was not badly hurt, only stunned, and came to herself in about fifteen minutes. She saw that she was alone, and the Guarnerius was around her neck.