The Master's Violin Part 7

"Pray wait a moment, Doctor. Let me offer you some refreshment before you begin that long walk. Iris?"

"Yes, Aunt Peace." The girl knew very well what was expected of her, and dimples came and went around the corners of her mouth.

"Those little cakes that we had for tea--perhaps there may be one or two left, and is there not a little wine?"

"I'll see."

Smiling at the pretty comedy, she went out into the kitchen, where Doctor Brinkerhoff's favourite cakes, freshly made, had been carefully put away. Only one of them had been touched, and that merely to make sure of the quality.

With the Royal Worcester plate, generously piled with cakes, a tray of gla.s.ses, and a decanter of Miss Field's famous port, she went back into the parlour.

"This is very charming," said the Doctor. He had made the same speech once a week for ten years. Aunt Peace filled the gla.s.ses, and when all had been served, she looked at him with a rare smile upon her beautiful old face.

Then the brim of his gla.s.s touched hers with the clear ring of crystal.

"To your good health, madam!"

"And to your prosperity," she returned. The old toast still served.

"And now, my dear Miss Iris," he said, "may we not hope for a song?"

"Which one?"

"'Annie Laurie,' if you please."

She sang the old ballad with a wealth of feeling in her deep voice, and even Lynn, who was listening critically, was forced to admit that she did it well.

At eleven, the guest went away, his hostess cordially inviting him to come again.

"What a charming man," said Margaret.

"An old brick," added Lynn, with more force than elegance.

"Yes," replied Aunt Peace, concealing a yawn behind her fan, "it is a thousand pities that he has no social position."

V

The Light of Dreams

"How do you get on with the Master?" asked Iris.

"After a fashion," answered Irving; "but I do not get on with Fraulein Fredrika at all. She despises me."

"She does not like many people."

"So it would seem. I have been unfortunate from the first, though I was careful to admire 'mine crazy jug.'"

"It is the apple of her eye," laughed Iris, "it means to her just what his Cremona means to him."

"It is a wonderful creation, and I told her so, but where in the d.i.c.kens did she get the idea?"

"Don't ask me. Did you happen to notice anything else?"

"No--only the violin. Sometimes I take my lesson in the parlour, sometimes in the shop downstairs, or even in Herr Kaufmann's bedroom, which opens off of it. When I come, he stops whatever he happens to be doing, sits down, and proceeds with my education."

"On the floor," said Iris reminiscently, "she has a gold jar which contains cat tails and gra.s.ses. It is Herr Kaufmann's silk hat, which he used to have when he played in the famous orchestra, with the brim cut off and plenty of gold paint put on. The gilded potato-masher, with blue roses on it, which swings from the hanging lamp, was done by your humble servant. She has loved me ever since."

"Iris!" exclaimed Lynn, reproachfully. "How could you!"

"How could I what?"

"Paint anything so outrageous as that?"

"My dear boy," said Miss Temple, patronisingly, with her pretty head a little to one side, "you are young in the ways of the world. I was not achieving a work of art; I was merely giving pleasure to the Fraulein.

Much trouble would be saved if people who undertake to give pleasure would consult the wishes of the recipient in preference to their own.

Tastes differ, as even you may have observed. Personally, I have no use for a gilded potato-masher--I couldn't even live in the same house with one,--but I was pleasing her, not myself."

"I wonder what I could do that would please her," said Lynn, half to himself.

"Make her something out of nothing," suggested Iris. "She would like that better than anything else. She has a wall basket made of a fish broiler, a chair that was once a barrel, a dresser which has been evolved from a packing box, a sofa that was primarily a cot, and a match box made from a tin cup covered with silk and gilded on the inside, not to mention heaps of other things."

"Then what is left for me? The desirable things seem to have been used up."

"Wait," said Iris, "and I'll show you." She ran off gaily, humming a little song under her breath, and came back presently with a clothes-pin, a sheet of orange-coloured tissue paper, an old black ostrich feather, and her paints.

"What in the world--" began Lynn.

"Don't be impatient, please. Make the clothes-pin gold, with a black head, and then I'll show you what to do next."

"Aren't you going to help me?"

"Only with my valuable advice--it is your gift, you know."

Awkwardly, Lynn gilded the clothes-pin and suspended it from the back of a chair to dry. "I hope she'll like it," he said. "She pointed to me once and said something in German to her brother. I didn't understand, but I remembered the words, and when I got home I looked them up in my dictionary. As nearly as I could get it, she had characterised me as 'a big, lumbering calf.'"

"Discerning woman," commented Iris. "Now, take this sheet of tissue paper and squeeze it up into a little ball, then straighten it out and do it again. When it's all soft and crinkly, I'll tell you what to do next."

"There," exclaimed Lynn, finally, "if it's squeezed up any more it will break."

"Now paint the head of the clothes-pin and make some straight black lines on the middle of it, cross ways."

"Will you please tell me what I'm making?"

"Wait and see!"