Margery's heart went out to Mrs. Stewart more than ever when this story had been learned piecemeal. She and Happie discussed it night after night when they should have been asleep. Happie was enraged by it and pointed out to Margery the dangers of marriage, but Margery wept over it without so much indignation. She could not help pitying the man who had been guilty of thus wronging such a lovable creature as Mrs. Stewart. Both girls wondered, but never discovered, whether he were alive or dead. Margery felt sure he must be dead, or he would have returned, but Happie was equally certain that he was alive, basing her opinion on the general feeling that an out-and-out wretch is likely to be long for this world.
One thing was clear: if her husband had been a German Mrs. Stewart's name could not be Stewart. What, then, was it? It was most interesting, and rather exciting, to feel that they knew the heroine of a pathetic story, a story that included an incognita for its heroine!
In the meantime this heroine was preparing for the Eastertide exhibition of her school. Little Serena's death cast a shade of melancholy over the remaining weeks. Mistress and pupils alike, missed and mourned the exquisite little child whose pretty ways had pervaded every hour of the winter. Serena was to have danced the solo dance, and now the honor was to be Penny's. Penny was beside herself with delight. There hardly could have been a sharper contrast to ethereal Serena than Penny was, Penny, all color and life and decision. She danced well, with animation, gaiety, abandonment, to the pleasure of the moment. Serena had danced like the milkweed silk to which Laura had compared her, floatingly, dreamily, as if swayed by the breeze. Dear little white Serena, who had floated away as softly as the milkweed floats heavenward in the soft winds of September!
The tea room seemed to be more popular than it had been during the winter, now that the warm days made people weary, ready to rest and to sip tea on the slightest pretext. The girls were so much interested in the preparations up-stairs that it was a trial to them to be kept from slipping up to the rehearsals. Only Laura contrived to go, no matter how busy they were in the tea room. It was Laura's way to do precisely what she pleased, though the sky fell.
It was the Wednesday after Easter, and the exhibition was to be on Friday afternoon. Polly and Penny were up-stairs with Mrs. Stewart, having come down with the older girls that morning for the last rehearsal of their dances. The tea room was unusually full for a forenoon. Gretta and Happie were flying about, while Margery was patiently discussing novels with a succession of people who wanted to borrow—not merely a book from the shelves, but guidance from the Six Maidens as to their choice. It was somewhat trying to be forced to meet book talk so early in the morning, to match adjective with adjective, and to respond interestedly to commonplaces. Margery acquitted herself perfectly, but Happie caught her eye and nearly upset her with the gleam in her own, as, passing, she heard a lady declare for modern writers in preference to mid-Victorian novelists—"Thackeray and Dickens were so tiresome!" she said.
Herr Lieder came in just then, and Happie surprised herself by hailing him with sincere pleasure. He wore his great coat thrown far back because of the heat, but he atoned for this by having his hat more than ever drooping over his face. A look of gloom, beyond the ordinary, he wore, and he went straight to the piano as if for that only he were there.
Laura followed him, inevitably. He threw down hat and cloak tragically, and seated himself without a morning salutation to his "little Clara Schumann."
Bending over the keys he sat in silence for a few moments, then he began to play Chopin's Marche Funèbre, played it as it is rarely played, until the awful throbs of the first theme seemed to his hearers like the suffocating beating of their own hearts.
As he ended his head fell forward again upon his breast, and Laura, turning to him with her face as pale as emotion could make it, cried: "Herr Lieder, Herr Lieder, don't play—like that!"