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Neroda struck into the accompaniment and Broussard's voice, a tenor, with the strength and feeling of a baritone, took up the song, while the music of Anita's violin delicately threaded the harmonies, ever following and responding to Broussard's voice. All of Anita's coldness vanished at the first strain of the music; Broussard's voice penetrated her heart and inspired her hand.
She did it beautifully, and Mrs. Fortescue kissed the girl's glowing cheek when the music was through. Kettle, who was himself a fiddler, at that moment poked his head in at the door. He had a fellow artist's jealousy of Neroda but he was forced by his artistic conscience to say: "Lord, Miss 'Nita, you cert'ny kin make a fiddle talk!" It was noon before the lesson was over and Neroda left.
But she could make nothing of it; and Mrs. Lawrence, the soldier's wife, became at once an object of interest, of mystery, almost of jealousy, to Anita. The little boy she noticed, as did all who saw him, and like everybody else, she was won by him. The morning of the great dinner at the Fortescues', Neroda, the Italian band-master, came to give Anita her violin lesson. Mrs.
Fortescue would have been affable with an ogre "I must ask you to come this evening and play my daughter's accompaniments. We are having a large dinner and I should like Anita to play for us after dinner." "Certainly, madam," answered Neroda, who, like everybody else, was anxious to do Mrs. Fortescue's smiling bidding, "I am proud of the signorina's playing." "Mr.
"I believe you could, almost," replied Neroda, smiling. "I, who had been a concert master in Italy, was only too glad to get three dollars for fiddling from eight in the evening until three in the morning; but they were happy nights, because I was young and strong and full of hope and loved my fiddle.
Fortescue noticed this little trick of Anita's and looked at each other in silent pity for the girl. She suddenly developed amazing energy, working hard at her violin lessons and delighting Neroda by her progress, reading and studying until Mrs. Fortescue took the books away from her, going to all the dances, doing everything that her young companions did, and many things which they did not.
Usually she did it with beautiful accuracy, but on this evening it was utterly inharmonious. As she drew her bow across the strings Neroda jumped as if he were shot. "Great God! Signorina," he shouted, "every string is swearing at the G-string! The spirit of music will not come to you to-night unless you tune your violin better."
If I wish you to talk Brahms, you shall talk Brahms; if I wish you to be sad, I will make you sad with funeral marches. You shall speak Italian, German, French or English, as I tell you." Neroda laughed with delight.
Anita practised on her violin nearly the whole afternoon, and, not satisfied with that, sent a message to Neroda asking him to come at six o'clock, when she would have returned from her ride, and rehearse with her once more the obligatos she was to play to Broussard's singing. Anita's spirits rose as she rode by her father's side in the biting cold of the wintry afternoon.
It grew more of a miracle to Neroda than ever to watch Anita's slender bow-arm flashing back and forth, drawing out, with amazing force, the soul of the violin, her slender figure erect and poised high, vibrating with the strings, and her eyes darkening and lightening as the music grew deeply passionate or brilliantly gay.
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