For the first time in her life she was self-conscious: “I will wait for a more opportune time to tell him,” she thought.
In the scheme of Diotti’s appearance in New York there were to be two more concerts. One was to be given that evening. Mildred coaxed her father to accompany her to hear the violinist. Mr. Wallace was not fond of music; “it had been knocked out of him on the farm up in Vermont, when he was a boy,” he would apologetically explain, and besides he had the old puritanical abhorrence of stage people—putting them all in one class—as puppets who danced or played or talked for an idle and unthinking public.
So it was with the thought of a wasted evening that he accompanied Mildred to the concert.
The entertainment was a repetition of the others Diotti had given, and at its end, Mildred said to her father: “Come, I want to congratulate Signor Diotti in person.”
“That is entirely unnecessary,” he replied.
“It is my desire,” and the girl led the unwilling parent back of the scenes and into Diotti’s dressing-room.
Mildred introduced Diotti to her father, who after a few commonplaces lapsed into silence. The daughter’s enthusiastic interest in Diotti’s performance and her tender solicitude for his weariness after the efforts of the evening, quickly attracted the attention of Mr. Wallace and irritated him exceedingly.
When father and daughter were seated in their carriage and were hurriedly driving home, he said: “Mildred, I prefer that you have as little to say to that man as possible.”
“What do you object to in him?” she asked.
“Everything. Of what use is a man who dawdles away his time on a fiddle; of what benefit is he to mankind? Do fiddlers build cities? Do they delve into the earth for precious metals? Do they sow the seed and harvest the grain? No, no; they are drones—the barnacles of society.”