"He has not eaten," thought Poons. "Of course she is not here! Oh, G.o.d! that is the tragedy of it! The empty chair, always the empty chair--it is like death!"

As the nursery door opened Poons heard the sound of voices and laughter and, to his utter astonishment, saw his friend Von Barwig on the floor playing with little Helene's dolls' house. Helene was shrieking with childish laughter because Von Barwig pretended to be angry with one of her dolls which would not eat the cake he tried to make it swallow.

As Von Barwig saw his friend, a look of intense pain crossed his face, but he forced himself to smile and say:

"Come in, Herr Doctor Poons, and mend this little girl's eye. See, I've given her cake to eat, but it won't do her eye any good!"

Helene laughed gleefully at the idea of cake being good for a broken eye.

"Good gracious, how did the eye fall out?" said Dr. Poons, shaking his head gravely.

"She fell down and I kicked it," lisped the little one. "I kicked it,"

she laughed, unconscious that she had committed an unprovoked a.s.sault on her plaything. "Mend it; oh, please mend it!"

Poons shook his head gravely. The child mistook this for a confession of his inability to do what she wished.

"Mamma 'll fix it when she comes home. She won't be long, will she?"

said the child, somewhat tearfully. She had asked the question many times, and her father seemed unable to answer her.

"I am trying to make her forget," said Anton savagely to Poons, in answer to his look of painful inquiry. "She must forget soon; I've been with her ever since you left me this morning." His arm stole around the child's neck, and drawing her to him gently, he kissed her again and again with such sad, lingering tenderness that the ever-ready tears welled up into Poons's eyes, and he turned his head to conceal them. The child struggled to free herself.

"Papa so rough, eh? Well, he won't be, or Herr Poons will beat him, eh?"

"Surely," a.s.sented Poons.

"Papa will be so gentle and so kind," went on Von Barwig tenderly.

"He'll love his little girl as no little girl in this wide, wide world was ever loved before, eh?"

Little Helene did not understand, and as she had nothing at this precise moment to occupy her attention, she answered him by asking the one question that absorbed her mind, "Where's mamma?"

Von Barwig and Poons looked at each other helplessly. Apart from the tragedy of two men trying to comfort a little child that had lost its parent, there remained in Von Barwig's mind a sense of the utter inability of the masculine individuality to fill the place of mother in the child's heart. In after years, Von Barwig always remembered the sinking sensation he felt when this fact came home to him in full force.

"Well, one thing," said Anton, as he swallowed something that came in his throat and threatened to choke him, "one thing, she was kind to the little one; the was a kind mother, eh?"

"Kind? kind?" began Poons fiercely. "Is it kind to----"

Von Barwig silenced him with a look.

"Yes, she was a good mother," he admitted conciliatingly. "But, by G.o.d, if we don't go we shall be late! Phew!" he whistled as he looked at his watch, "half past seven." Von Barwig sat still for a moment.

"Half past seven? Yes." Then, as if it were slowly dawning upon him that he had duties, he arose, dusting his knees mechanically.

"Half past seven, yes. It begins at eight, eh? and I must dress. Yes, I suppose I must dress!"

The little girl was now putting her dolls back into the dolls' house; the doorway was blocked up and she was pushing one through a broken window in the little house as Von Barwig caught her in his arms and caressed her.

"How can I leave her? Good G.o.d, how can I leave her?" he groaned. He stroked her face, her hair, and kissed her again and again.

"She's all I have, all; she's all I want. I won't go to-night, I won't leave her, do you hear? Let Ruhlmeyer conduct to-night. I can't go, I can't leave her alone! Suppose something were to happen to her?"

"But you must go!" said Poons firmly; desperation had given him courage. "You must go!"

Von Barwig looked at him in surprise; Poons's tone sobered him a little.

"For her sake you must work," went on Poons, gaining courage as he saw that his words had an effect on his friend.

"Yes, I must work," a.s.sented Von Barwig, feeling the force of Poons's words. "Shall I go, little Helene, my little darling? Shall I go?"

"Yes, go and tell mamma to come," was the little one's reply.

"Come, hurry, Anton! You must dress, you have barely five minutes: five to dress, ten to get to the Gewandhaus."

"Ha! they can wait!" said Von Barwig grimly. "Prince Mecklenburg Strelitz, the Kaiser, all Germany can wait, while I mend the strings of my heart!"

The nurse-maid came in and suggested that it was time to put little _Fraulein_ to bed. Poons looked at her closely; her eyelids were red, for she had been crying.

"Take good care of the little _Fraulein_," said Von Barwig as he handed her over to the maid. It was long past her bedtime, and the little child had almost fallen asleep in her father's arms.

"Let me kiss her just once more; I won't wake her up!"

The girl burst into tears as Von Barwig bent over the child, kissing her tenderly; then she hurried into the next room with her precious charge.

"She knows?" inquired Poons.

"Yes," nodded Von Barwig; and then, with a sigh, "She knows."

Five minutes later, Von Barwig, accompanied by Poons, left the house and hurriedly took a cab to the concert hall.

Chapter Three

It was noticed by more than one member of the Leipsic Philharmonic Orchestra that Herr Director Von Barwig was in unusually high spirits that evening. Many attributed it to the fact that he was nervous because of the first production of his new symphony. Karlschmidt hinted to his deskmate that Von Barwig was nervous and was trying to conceal it by pretending to be delighted with everything and everybody. This was probably true in a measure; at all events, when he came into the artists'

room at the Gewandhaus at about five minutes to eight, he shook hands with everybody, joked with his men, and talked almost incessantly, as if he wanted to keep at high pressure. Poons watched him closely. Von Barwig was unusually pale, and as he slapped his concert meister on the back Poons noticed that, though his face wore a smile, his lips quivered.

"For heaven's sake," he heard him say to the leader of the second violins, "don't play the _pizzicato_ in the third movement as if you were picking up eggs!" Poons rejoiced that his friend could forget so easily.

It was, however, when Von Barwig walked out on the platform to the dais, bowed to the immense audience, and turned to his men, that the deadly pallor of his face was most apparent. Some of the audience noticed it as he acknowledged the applause he received. There was not a tremor of hand or muscle, not an undecided movement; merely a deadly pallor of countenance as if he no longer had blood in his veins, but ice. The men felt the absence of the compelling force that always emanated from him, that seemed to ooze from his baton; that psychic something that compelled the player to feel as his director felt--the force we call magnetism.

The firmness of mouth showed that the determination to dominate was still there, but the absence of that mental power left only the automatic rhythm and swing, sans heart, sans soul, sans feeling. The beat was the beat of the finely trained academic conductor, but the genius of it was gone. The ghost of a departed Von Barwig was beating time for the Von Barwig that had lived and died that night.

Perhaps the audience did not feel this as much as the men did, for they applauded heartily at the end of the opening number. They did notice that Von Barwig did not acknowledge their applause and seemed to be oblivious of their presence. The fact that an ultra-fashionable audience was present, including a prince and princess of the Royal Family, and the _elite_ of Leipsic, to say nothing of the American Amba.s.sador, Mr.

Cruger, apparently did not affect Von Barwig in the least. This appealed very much to the democratic instinct of Mr. Cruger, and at the end of the first part he asked his friend, Prince Holberg-Meckstein, to present him to the conductor.

"I will present him to _you_," said his highness, carefully readjusting the p.r.o.nouns; and he sent for Von Barwig.

"A curious personality!" remarked Mr. Cruger to the prince as Von Barwig bowed himself out of the box a few minutes later.