WHILE her living arrangements were so casual and
fortuitous, Bowers's studio was the one fixed thing
in Thea's life. She went out from it to uncertainties, and
hastened to it from nebulous confusion. She was more
influenced by Bowers than she knew. Unconsciously she
began to take on something of his dry contempt, and to
share his grudge without understanding exactly what it
was about. His cynicism seemed to her honest, and the
amiability of his pupils artificial. She admired his drastic
treatment of his dull pupils. The stupid deserved all they
got, and more. Bowers knew that she thought him a very
clever man.
One afternoon when Bowers came in from lunch Thea
handed him a card on which he read the name, "Mr.
Philip Frederick Ottenburg."
"He said he would be in again to-morrow and that he
wanted some time. Who is he? I like him better than the
others."
Bowers nodded. "So do I. He's not a singer. He's a
beer prince: son of the big brewer in St. Louis. He's been
in Germany with his mother. I didn't know he was
back."
"Does he take lessons?"
"Now and again. He sings rather well. He's at the
head of the Chicago branch of the Ottenburg business, but
he can't stick to work and is always running away. He
has great ideas in beer, people tell me. He's what they call
an imaginative business man; goes over to Bayreuth and
seems to do nothing but give parties and spend money, and
brings back more good notions for the brewery than the
fellows who sit tight dig out in five years. I was born too
long ago to be much taken in by these chesty boys with
flowered vests, but I like Fred, all the same."
"So do I," said Thea positively.
Bowers made a sound between a cough and a laugh.
"Oh, he's a lady-killer, all right! The girls in here are al-
ways making eyes at him. You won't be the first." He
threw some sheets of music on the piano. "Better look
that over; accompaniment's a little tricky. It's for that
new woman from Detroit. And Mrs. Priest will be in this
afternoon."
Thea sighed. "`I Know that my Redeemer Liveth'?"
"The same. She starts on her concert tour next week,
and we'll have a rest. Until then, I suppose we'll have
to be going over her programme."
The next day Thea hurried through her luncheon at a
German bakery and got back to the studio at ten minutes
past one. She felt sure that the young brewer would come
early, before it was time for Bowers to arrive. He had
not said he would, but yesterday, when he opened the door
to go, he had glanced about the room and at her, and some-
thing in his eye had conveyed that suggestion.
Sure enough, at twenty minutes past one the door of the
reception-room opened, and a tall, robust young man with
a cane and an English hat and ulster looked in expect-
antly. "Ah--ha!" he exclaimed, "I thought if I came
early I might have good luck. And how are you to-day,
Miss Kronborg?"
Thea was sitting in the window chair. At her left elbow
there was a table, and upon this table the young man sat
down, holding his hat and cane in his hand, loosening his
long coat so that it fell back from his shoulders. He was a
gleaming, florid young fellow. His hair, thick and yellow,
was cut very short, and he wore a closely trimmed beard,
long enough on the chin to curl a little. Even his eye-
brows were thick and yellow, like fleece. He had lively
blue eyes--Thea looked up at them with great interest
as he sat chatting and swinging his foot rhythmically.
He was easily familiar, and frankly so. Wherever people
met young Ottenburg, in his office, on shipboard, in a
foreign hotel or railway compartment, they always felt
(and usually liked) that artless presumption which seemed
to say, "In this case we may waive formalities. We
really haven't time. This is to-day, but it will soon be
to-morrow, and then we may be very different people,
and in some other country." He had a way of floating
people out of dull or awkward situations, out of their
own torpor or constraint or discouragement. It was a
marked personal talent, of almost incalculable value in
the representative of a great business founded on social
amenities. Thea had liked him yesterday for the way in
which he had picked her up out of herself and her German
grammar for a few exciting moments.
"By the way, will you tell me your first name, please?
Thea? Oh, then you ARE a Swede, sure enough! I thought
so. Let me call you Miss Thea, after the German fashion.
You won't mind? Of course not!" He usually made his
assumption of a special understanding seem a tribute to the
other person and not to himself.
"How long have you been with Bowers here? Do you
like the old grouch? So do I. I've come to tell him about
a new soprano I heard at Bayreuth. He'll pretend not to
care, but he does. Do you warble with him? Have you
anything of a voice? Honest? You look it, you know.
What are you going in for, something big? Opera?"
Thea blushed crimson. "Oh, I'm not going in for any-
thing. I'm trying to learn to sing at funerals."
Ottenburg leaned forward. His eyes twinkled. "I'll
engage you to sing at mine. You can't fool me, Miss Thea.
May I hear you take your lesson this afternoon?"
"No, you may not. I took it this morning."
He picked up a roll of music that lay behind him on the
table. "Is this yours? Let me see what you are doing."
He snapped back the clasp and began turning over the
songs. "All very fine, but tame. What's he got you at this
Mozart stuff for? I shouldn't think it would suit your
voice. Oh, I can make a pretty good guess at what will
suit you! This from `Gioconda' is more in your line.
What's this Grieg? It looks interesting. TAK FOR DITT ROD.
What does that mean?"
"`Thanks for your Advice.' Don't you know it?"
"No; not at all. Let's try it." He rose, pushed open the
door into the music-room, and motioned Thea to enter be-
fore him. She hung back.
"I couldn't give you much of an idea of it. It's a big
song."
Ottenburg took her gently by the elbow and pushed her
into the other room. He sat down carelessly at the piano
and looked over the music for a moment. "I think I can
get you through it. But how stupid not to have the Ger-
man words. Can you really sing the Norwegian? What
an infernal language to sing. Translate the text for me."
He handed her the music.
Thea looked at it, then at him, and shook her head. "I
can't. The truth is I don't know either English or Swedish
very well, and Norwegian's still worse," she said confi-
dentially. She not infrequently refused to do what she
was asked to do, but it was not like her to explain her
refusal, even when she had a good reason.
"I understand. We immigrants never speak any lan-
guage well. But you know what it means, don't you?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then don't frown at me like that, but tell me."
Thea continued to frown, but she also smiled. She was
confused, but not embarrassed. She was not afraid of
Ottenburg. He was not one of those people who made her
spine like a steel rail. On the contrary, he made one ven-
turesome.
"Well, it goes something like this: Thanks for your ad-
vice! But I prefer to steer my boat into the din of roaring
breakers. Even if the journey is my last, I may find what I
have never found before. Onward must I go, for I yearn for
the wild sea. I long to fight my way through the angry waves,
and to see how far, and how long I can make them carry me."*
Ottenburg took the music and began: "Wait a moment.
Is that too fast? How do you take it? That right?" He
pulled up his cuffs and began the accompaniment again.
He had become entirely serious, and he played with fine
enthusiasm and with understanding.
Fred's talent was worth almost as much to old Otto
Ottenburg as the steady industry of his older sons. When
Fred sang the Prize Song at an interstate meet of the
TURNVEREIN, ten thousand TURNERS went forth pledged to
Ottenburg beer.
As Thea finished the song Fred turned back to the first
page, without looking up from the music. "Now, once
more," he called. They began again, and did not hear
Bowers when he came in and stood in the doorway. He
stood still, blinking like an owl at their two heads shining
in the sun. He could not see their faces, but there was
something about his girl's back that he had not noticed be-
fore: a very slight and yet very free motion, from the toes
up. Her whole back seemed plastic, seemed to be mould-
ing itself to the galloping rhythm of the song. Bowers
perceived such things sometimes--unwillingly. He had
known to-day that there was something afoot. The river
of sound which had its source in his pupil had caught him
two flights down. He had stopped and listened with a kind
of sneering admiration. From the door he watched her
with a half-incredulous, half-malicious smile.
When he had struck the keys for the last time, Otten-
burg dropped his hands on his knees and looked up with a
quick breath. "I got you through. What a stunning song!
Did I play it right?"
Thea studied his excited face. There was a good deal of
meaning in it, and there was a good deal in her own as she
answered him. "You suited me," she said ungrudgingly.
After Ottenburg was gone, Thea noticed that Bowers
was more agreeable than usual. She had heard the young
brewer ask Bowers to dine with him at his club that even-
ing, and she saw that he looked forward to the dinner
with pleasure. He dropped a remark to the effect that
Fred knew as much about food and wines as any man in
Chicago. He said this boastfully.
"If he's such a grand business man, how does he have
time to run around listening to singing-lessons?" Thea
asked suspiciously.
As she went home to her boarding-house through the
February slush, she wished she were going to dine with
them. At nine o'clock she looked up from her grammar to
wonder what Bowers and Ottenburg were having to eat.
At that moment they were talking of her.
Read next: PART III. STUPID FACES#Chapter 4
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