"But I assure you, cher monsieur, this was no servant, no pupil; this sounded as if the master had come back." "You once said that of me," returned the pianist moodily, and as he got up, his face ugly with passion, he reiterated:
"I tell you it was Daniel Chopin. But I'll answer for his silence after I've finished with him."
Mychowski hurried home....
THE WEGSTAFFES GIVE A MUSICALE
I had promised Mrs. Wegstaffe and so there was no escape; not that my word was as good as my bond—in the matter of invitations it was not—but I liked Edith Wegstaffe, who was pretty, even if she did murder Bach. Hence the secret of my acceptance of Mrs. Wegstaffe's rather frigid inquiry as to whether I was engaged for the fourteenth. I am a bachelor, and next to cats, hate music heartily. Almost any other form of art appeals to my æstheticism, which must feed upon form, color, substance, but not upon impalpabilities. Silly sound waves, that are said to possess color, form, rhythm—in fact, all attributes of the plastic arts. "Pooh! What nonsense," I cried on the evening of the fourteenth, as I cursed a wretched collar that would not be coerced.... When I reached the Wegstaffe mansion I found my progress retarded by half a hundred guests, who fought, but politely, mind you, for precedence. At last, rumpled and red, I reached the men's dressing room, and the first person I encountered was Tompkins, Percy Tompkins, a man I hated for his cocksure manner of speech and know-it-all style on the subject of music. Often had he crushed my callow musical knowledge by an apt phrase, and thinking well of myself—at least Miss Edith says I do—I disliked Tompkins heartily. "Hello!" with a perceptible raising of his eyebrows, "what are you doing here?" "The same as yourself," I tartly answered, for he was not l'ami de la maison any more than I, and I didn't purpose being sat upon, that night at least. "My good fellow, I'm here to listen and—to be bored," he replied in his wittiest way.
"Indeed! well I'm in the same boat about the music, but I hope I sha'n't be bored."
"But good heavens, man, it's an amateur affair—musicale, as the Wegstaffes call it in true barbarous American jargon—and I fear Edith Wegstaffe will play Chopin!"
This angered me; I had long suspected Tompkins of entertaining a sneaking admiration for Edith, and resolved to tell her of this slur at the first opportunity. I didn't have a chance to answer him; a dozen men rushed into the room, threw their hats and coats on the bed and rushed out again.