Mr Saltzburg obviously weakened. His fingers touched the keys irresolutely.
“But, childrun!”
“I am sure it would be a great pleasure to all of us,” said the duchess graciously, “if you would play it. There is nothing I enjoy more than a good varlse.”
Mr Saltzburg capitulated. Like all musical directors he had in his leisure moments composed the complete score of a musical play and spent much of his time waylaying librettists on the Rialto and trying to lure them to his apartment to listen to it, with a view to business. The eternal tragedy of a musical director’s life is comparable only to that of the waiter who, himself fasting, has to assist others to eat, Mr Saltzburg had lofty ideas on music, and his soul revolted at being compelled perpetually to rehearse and direct the inferior compositions of other men. Far less persuasion than he had received today was usually required to induce him to play the whole of his score.
“You wish it?” he said. “Well, then! This waltz, you will understand, is the theme of a musical romance which I have composed. It will be sung once in the first act by the heroine, then in the second act as a duet for heroine and hero. I weave it into the finale of the second act, and we have an echo of it, sung off stage, in the third act. What I play you now is the second-act duet. The verse is longer. So! The male voice begins.”
A pleasant time was had by all for ten minutes.
“Ah, but this is not rehearsing, childrun!” cried Mr Saltzburg remorsefully at the end of that period. “This is not business. Come now, the opening chorus of act one, and please this time keep on the key. Before, it was sour, sour. Come! La-la-la …”
“Mr Thalzburg!”
“Miss Trevor?”
“There was an awfully thweet fox-trot you used to play us. I do wish …”