She caught herself analyzing, and stopped with a guilty feeling. Yes, Dearest was beginning to look old. The stress and strain of Wagner was showing. In a few years, when her voice—Hilda closed her eyes determinedly and tried to shut out a picture. But then she was not sure, not sure of herself.
She began thinking of Albert. His swarthy face forced itself upon her, and her mother's image grew faint. Why did he kiss her, why? Surely it must have been some mistake—it was dark; perhaps he mistook her. Here her heart began beating so that it tolled like a bell in her brain—mistook her, oh, God, for her mother! No! no! That could never be. Had she not caught him watching her very often? But then why should her mother have kissed him—perhaps merely a motherly interest.
Hilda sat upright and tried to discern some expression on her mother's face. But it was too dark. The train rattled on toward Berlin....
The next day at the Hôtel Bellevue there was much running to and fro. Musical managers went upstairs smiling and came down raging; musical managers rushed in raging and fled roaring. Madame Stock drove a hard bargain, and, during the chaffering and gabble about dates and terms, Hilda went out for a long walk. Unter den Linden is hardly a promenade for privacy, but this girl was quite alone as she trod the familiar walk, alone as if she were the last human on the pave. She did not notice that she was being followed; when she turned homeward she faced Herr Albert, the famous Wagnerian tenor.
She felt a little shocked, but her placidity was too deep-rooted to be altogether destroyed. And so Albert found himself looking into two large eyes the persistency of whose gaze disconcerted him.
"Ach, Fräulein Hilda, I'm so glad. How are you, and when did you return?"
She had a central grip on herself, and regarded him quite steadily.
He noticed it and became abashed—he, the hero of a hundred footlights. He could not face her pure, threatening eyes.
"Herr Albert, we got back last night. Herr Albert, why did you kiss me in the theatre?"
He looked startled and reddened.