Fred approached her. “My nonsense is all right. The same brand has gone with you before. It’s you who won’t be jollied. What’s the matter? You have something on your mind.”
“I’ve a good deal. Too much to be an agreeable hostess.” She turned quickly away from the coffee and sat down on the piano bench, facing the two men. “For one thing, there’s a change in the cast for Friday afternoon. They’re going to let me sing Sieglinde.” Her frown did not conceal the pleasure with which she made this announcement.
“Are you going to keep us dangling about here forever, Thea? Archie and I are supposed to have other things to do.” Fred looked at her with an excitement quite as apparent as her own.
“Here I’ve been ready to sing Sieglinde for two years, kept in torment, and now it comes off within two weeks, just when I want to be seeing something of Dr. Archie. I don’t know what their plans are down there. After Friday they may let me cool for several weeks, and they may rush me. I suppose it depends somewhat on how things go Friday afternoon.”
“Oh, they’ll go fast enough! That’s better suited to your voice than anything you’ve sung here. That gives you every opportunity I’ve waited for.” Ottenburg crossed the room and standing beside her began to play “Du bist der Lenz.”
With a violent movement Thea caught his wrists and pushed his hands away from the keys.
“Fred, can’t you be serious? A thousand things may happen between this and Friday to put me out. Something will happen. If that part were sung well, as well as it ought to be, it would be one of the most beautiful things in the world. That’s why it never is sung right, and never will be.” She clenched her hands and opened them despairingly, looking out of the open window. “It’s inaccessibly beautiful!” she brought out sharply.
Fred and Dr. Archie watched her. In a moment she turned back to them. “It’s impossible to sing a part like that well for the first time, except for the sort who will never sing it any better. Everything hangs on that first night, and that’s bound to be bad. There you are,” she shrugged impatiently. “For one thing, they change the cast at the eleventh hour and then rehearse the life out of me.”
Ottenburg put down his cup with exaggerated care. “Still, you really want to do it, you know.”
“Want to?” she repeated indignantly; “of course I want to! If this were only next Thursday night—But between now and Friday I’ll do nothing but fret away my strength. Oh, I’m not saying I don’t need the rehearsals! But I don’t need them strung out through a week. That system’s well enough for phlegmatic singers; it only drains me. Every single feature of operatic routine is detrimental to me. I usually go on like a horse that’s been fixed to lose a race. I have to work hard to do my worst, let alone my best. I wish you could hear me sing well, once,” she turned to Fred defiantly; “I have, a few times in my life, when there was nothing to gain by it.”