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The orchestra was already seated, and as Norma stood awed and ecstatic in the front of the Von Behrens box, the conductor came in, and was met with a wave of applause, which had no sooner died away than the lights fanned softly and quickly down, there was the click of a baton on wood, and in the instantly ensuing hush the first quivering notes of the opera began. "Sit down, you web-foot!"
Behrens did not see the others, she only saw her sister's son who was coming rapidly toward her. He hastened over the bridge, ran along the bank, sprang to her side, and threw his arms round her neck, exclaiming: "Sweet angel!" "Oh you wicked little wretch!" cried his aunt trying to seize him in the way Bräsig had desired her, but instead of that she only caught hold of the collar of his coat.
The most eminent choral leaders in Norway have been Johan D. Behrens, F.A. Reissinger, and O.A. Gröndahl. The Norwegian Musical Union has also been active in the development of tonal ideals. Its aim has been to provide chamber concerts of a high order. Grieg and Svendsen were its first conductors.
She headed committees and boards, knew hundreds of working girls by name, kept a secretary and a stenographer, and mentioned topics at big dinners that would not have shocked either old Goodwife Melrose of Boston, or Vrouw von Behrens of Nieu Amsterdam, for neither had the faintest idea that such things, or their names, existed.
Then she and Chris were on their way again, and the legitimate delights of being young and correctly dressed and dining with the great Mrs. von Behrens, and going to Grand Opera at the Metropolitan, might begin. Norma had perhaps never in her life been in such wild spirits as she was to-night.
"What had Mr. von Rambow to do with it?" "He caught your gray-hound by the scruff of the neck, and perhaps threw me into the water by accident." "What had Fred Triddelfitz to do with it?" asked Hawermann impressively, "and what had Louisa's hat and shawl got to do with it?" "Nothing more than that they didn't fit Mrs. Behrens at all, for she's far too stout to wear them."
Mrs. von Behrens was on the directorate of a working girls' club that needed special funds every winter, and this year the money was to be raised by an immense entertainment, at which generous professional singers were to be alternated on a brilliant programme with society girls and men, in tableaux and choruses.
"And you gave him a regular good scolding, I suppose," said Bräsig. "Not I indeed," said Mrs. Nüssler decidedly. "I wasn't going to put my finger in that pie. His father is coming today and he is 'the nearest' to him, as Mrs. Behrens would say; and I've told Joseph that he's not to mix himself up in the affair or to talk about it at all. He's quite changed latterly.
That is a difficult question, and I didn't get on far enough with the water-science to be able to answer it. Perhaps you think that parson Behrens could explain the matter to me, but no, when I asked him yesterday he said that he knew nothing about it. And now, Charles, you'll see that I've still got the black carbon in me, and that I shall have that beastly gout again."
And as he spoke he looked as innocently surprised at her displeasure as if he had proposed the best possible way out of the difficulty. Mrs. Behrens looked at him dubiously, and then said, folding her hands on her lap: "Bräsig, I'll trust to you to say nothing you ought not to say. But Bräsig dear Bräsig, do nothing absurd. And * and * come and sit down, and drink a cup of coffee."
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