The tea was cleared away. And presently the three others had disappeared. Otto and Constance were left alone.
“I have been reading so much about Poland lately,” said Constance suddenly. “Oh, Otto, some day you must show me Cracow!”
His face darkened.
“I shall never see Cracow again. I shall never see it with you.”
“Why not? Let’s dream!”
The smiling tenderness in her eyes angered him. She was treating him like a child; she was so sure he never could—or never would—make love to her!
“I shall never go to Cracow,” he said, with energy, “not even with you. I was to have gone—a year from now. It was all arranged. We have relations there—and I have friends there—musicians. The chef d’orchestre—at the Opera House—he was one of my teachers in Paris. Before next year, I was to have written a concerto on some of our Polish songs—there are scores of them that Liszt and Chopin never discovered. Not only love-songs, mind you!—songs of revolution—battle-songs.”
His eyes lit up and he began to hum an air—to Polish words—that even as given out in his small tenor voice stirred like a trumpet.
“Fine!” said Constance.
“Ah, but you can’t judge—you don’t know the words. The words are splendid. It’s ‘Ujejski’s Hymn’—the Galician Hymn of ’46.” And he fell to intoning.