The Fifth String Part 8

"Great country for girls!" said Sanders, pouring a liberal quant.i.ty of Old Tom gin in the gla.s.s and placing it where it gradually would get warm.

"And for men!" responded Diotti, enthusiastically.

"Men don't amount to much here, women run everything," retorted the elder, while he repeated the process of preparing the sugar and gin in the second gla.s.s. The kettle began to sing.

"That's music for you," chuckled the old man, raising the lid to see if the water had boiled sufficiently. "Do you know I think a dinner horn and a singing kettle beat a symphony all hollow for real down-right melody," and he lifted the kettle from the fire-place.

Diotti smiled.

With mathematical accuracy the old man filled the two tumblers with boiling water.

"Try that," handing a gla.s.s of the toddy to Diotti; "you will find it all right," and the old man drew an armchair toward the fire-place, smacking his lips in antic.i.p.ation.

The violinist placed his chair closer to the fire and sipped the drink.

"Your country is noted for its beautiful women?"

"We have exquisite types of femininity in Tuscany," said the young man, with patriotic ardor.

"Any as fine looking as--as--as--well, say the young lady we dined with to-night?"

"Miss Wallace?" queried the Tuscan.

"Yes, Miss Wallace," this rather impatiently.

"She is very beautiful," said Diotti, with solemn admiration.

"Have you ever seen any one prettier?" questioned the old man, after a second prolonged sip.

"I have no desire to see any one more beautiful," said the violinist, feeling that the other was trying to draw him out, and determined not to yield.

"You will pardon the inquisitiveness of an old man, but are not you musicians a most impressionable lot?"

"We are human," answered the violinist.

"I imagined you were like sailors and had a sweetheart in every port."

"That would be a delightful prospect to one having polygamous aspirations, but for myself, one sweetheart is enough," laughingly said the musician.

"Only one! Well, here's to her! With this nectar fit for the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of Olympus, let us drink to her," said old Sanders, with convivial dignity, his gla.s.s raised on high. "Here's wishing health and happiness to the dreamy-eyed Tuscan beauty, whom you love and who loves you."

"Stop!" said Diotti; "we will drink to the first part of that toast,"

and holding his gla.s.s against that of his bibulous host, continued: "To the dreamy-eyed women of my country, exacting of their lovers; obedient to their parents and loyal to their husbands," and his voice rose in sonorous rhythm with the words.

"Now for the rest of the toast, to the one you love and who loves you," came from Sanders.

"To the one I love and who loves me, G.o.d bless her!" fervently cried the guest.

"Is she a Tuscan?" asked old Sanders slyly.

"She is an angel!" impetuously answered the violinist.

"Then she is an American!" said the old man gallantly.

"She is an American," repeated Diotti, forgetting himself for the instant.

"Let me see if I can guess her name," said old Sanders. "It's--it's Mildred Wallace!" and his manner suggested a child solving a riddle.

The violinist, about to speak, checked himself and remained silent.

"I sincerely pity Mildred if ever she falls in love," abstractedly continued the host while filling another gla.s.s.

"Pray why?" was anxiously asked.

The old man shifted his position and a.s.sumed a confidential tone and att.i.tude: "Signor Diotti, jealousy is a more universal pa.s.sion than love itself. Environment may develop our character, influence our tastes and even soften our features, but heredity determines the intensity of the two leading pa.s.sions, love and jealousy. Mildred's mother was a beautiful woman, but consumed with an overpowering jealousy of her husband. It was because she loved him. The body-guard of jealousy--envy, malice and hatred--were not in her composition.

When Mildred was a child of twelve I have seen her mother suffer the keenest anguish because Mr. Wallace fondled the child. She thought the child had robbed her of her husband's love."

"Such a woman as Miss Wallace would command the entire love and admiration of her husband at all times," said the artist.

"If she should marry a man she simply likes, her chances for happiness would be normal."

"In what manner?" asked the lover.

"Because she would be little concerned about him or his actions."

"Then you believe," said the musician, "that the man who loves her and whom she loves should give her up because her chances of happiness would be greater away from him than with him?"

"That would be an unselfish love," said the elder.

"Suppose they have declared their pa.s.sion?" asked Diotti.

"A parting before doubt and jealousy had entered her mind would let the image of her sacrificing lover live within her soul as a tender and lasting memory; he always would be her ideal," and the accent old Sanders placed on _always_ left no doubt of his belief.

"Why should doubt and jealousy enter her life?" said the violinist, falling into the personal character of the discussion despite himself.

"My dear sir, from what I observed to-night, she loves you. You are a dangerous man for a jealous woman to love. You are not a cloistered monk, you are a man before the public; you win the admiration of many; some women do not hesitate to show you their preference. To a woman like Mildred that would be torture; she could not and would not separate the professional artist from the lover or husband."

And Diotti, remembering Mildred's words, could not refute the old man's statements.

"If you had known her mother as I did," continued the old man, realizing his argument was making an impression on the violinist, "you would see the agony in store for the daughter if she married a man such as you, a public servant, a public favorite."

"I would live my life not to excite her suspicions or jealousy," said the artist, with boyish enthusiasm and simplicity.

"Foolish fellow," retorted Sanders, skeptically; "women imagine, they don't reason. A scented note unopened on the dressing table can cause more unhappiness to your wife than the loss of his country to a king.

My advice to you is: do not marry; but if you must, choose one who is more interested in your gastronomic felicity than in your marital constancy."

Diotti was silent. He was pondering the words of his host. Instead of seeing in Mildred a possibly jealous woman, causing mental misery, she appeared a vision of single-hearted devotion. He felt: "To be loved by such a one is bliss beyond the dreams of this world."