“You see? We must not hate those people. We must love them, help them, so they steal no more.”
Sydney looked up quickly. “That’s what you did for Max; you trusted him first.”
“You have said it. Trust helps to success. You can make a man fail by telling him he will; you can also make a man succeed by telling him he will. After success comes plenty friends. Friends! That kind are like flies, much in the way.”
Sydney laughed, and just then the five o’clock whistle blew.
“Mine gracious! So late already. Come. We’ll have dinner soon ant then be ready for the musicale. Good iss Mrs. Wright to ask me. It iss living once more to be mit people who make the music. Mine father was forty years Herr Kapellmeister, ant he wrote much music.”
They went in. All through the dinner and while dressing Sydney pondered her life in the old country, wondering if, as Max believed, she really had played before vast audiences, perhaps before crowned heads. Not that crowned heads made any difference to democratic Sydney; but in Europe that is often made the test of highest excellence.
They found the Wright home lovely and fragrant as spring fields, banked with wild green things the boys had brought from the woods, and starred with dogwood blossoms and spirea.
The night was warm enough for open windows, and when the three from the nursery arrived many guests were present; and looking in from the outside the scene must have reminded Mrs. Schmitz of something in her past, for she stood still a moment on the porch, holding up her hand for silence.
“It iss beautiful! Ant see! Miss Jones—she looks lovely in the efening gown. Ah! She iss a goot girl! I know it!”
Ida was near a window, wearing the same frock she had worn at Bess’s party.