The tears rose slowly into Kaya's eyes, and she hid her face in the pillow.
"You didn't believe me," said the Kapellmeister, "but you see I was better than my word—I have come myself. Why do you suppose I have come?"
She lay silent.
"If I hadn't come," he said grimly, "You would be lying in that pool yonder, by now, broken to pieces against the wheel; and I should have sought for my bird in vain." He saw how the pillow rose and fell with her breath, and how she listened.
"I wanted a bird for my Siegfried on Saturday," he went on, "Some one to sit far aloft in the flies and sing, as you sang this morning, high and pure, in the middle of the tone. Helmanoff has trained you well, child, you take the notes as if nature herself had been your teacher. Neumann is gone; she screeches like an owl! Elle a son congé!" He continued to look at the pillow and the gold curls spread across it.
"Will you come and be my bird, child? I suppose you can't act as yet; but up in the flies you will be hidden, and only your prototype will flutter across the stage on its wires. When I heard you this morning, I said to myself: 'Ha—my bird at last! Siegfried's bird!'"
He laughed softly, and bent over and stroked the curls: "I came to-night because the Neumann went off in a huff. She made a scene at rehearsal, or rather I did. I told her to go and darn stockings for a living, and she seemed to resent it!" He paused for a moment. "Saturday is only day after to-morrow—and we have no bird!"
The girl lay motionless, and the Kapellmeister went on stroking her curls. "If you sing, you will be paid, you know!" he said, "and then you need not try to kill the poor bird for lack of a crumb. Why didn't you tell me this morning, little one?"
Kaya raised her head feebly and gazed at him: "My voice is gone!" she said, "My voice is—gone!"
"Bah!" said the Kapellmeister, "With a throat like that! It is only beginning to come. The Lehmann's voice was as yours in her youth, light at first and colorature; and it grew! Mein Gott, how it grew and deepened, and swelled, and soared!—Get strong, child, and your voice will ripen like fruit in the sun."