II
DURING that winter Thea lived in so many places that
sometimes at night when she left Bowers's studio and
emerged into the street she had to stop and think for a
moment to remember where she was living now and what
was the best way to get there.
When she moved into a new place her eyes challenged
the beds, the carpets, the food, the mistress of the
house. The boarding-houses were wretchedly conducted
and Thea's complaints sometimes took an insulting form.
She quarreled with one landlady after another and moved
on. When she moved into a new room, she was almost
sure to hate it on sight and to begin planning to hunt
another place before she unpacked her trunk. She was
moody and contemptuous toward her fellow boarders,
except toward the young men, whom she treated with a
careless familiarity which they usually misunderstood.
They liked her, however, and when she left the house
after a storm, they helped her to move her things and came
to see her after she got settled in a new place. But she
moved so often that they soon ceased to follow her. They
could see no reason for keeping up with a girl who, under
her jocularity, was cold, self-centered, and unimpression-
able. They soon felt that she did not admire them.
Thea used to waken up in the night and wonder why
she was so unhappy. She would have been amazed if she
had known how much the people whom she met in Bowers's
studio had to do with her low spirits. She had never been
conscious of those instinctive standards which are called
ideals, and she did not know that she was suffering for
them. She often found herself sneering when she was on a
street-car, or when she was brushing out her hair before
her mirror, as some inane remark or too familiar manner-
ism flitted across her mind.
She felt no creature kindness, no tolerant good-will for
Mrs. Priest or Jessie Darcey. After one of Jessie Dar-
cey's concerts the glowing press notices, and the admiring
comments that floated about Bowers's studio, caused
Thea bitter unhappiness. It was not the torment of per-
sonal jealousy. She had never thought of herself as even
a possible rival of Miss Darcey. She was a poor music
student, and Jessie Darcey was a popular and petted
professional. Mrs. Priest, whatever one held against her,
had a fine, big, showy voice and an impressive presence.
She read indifferently, was inaccurate, and was always
putting other people wrong, but she at least had the
material out of which singers can be made. But people
seemed to like Jessie Darcey exactly because she could
not sing; because, as they put it, she was "so natural and
unprofessional." Her singing was pronounced "artless,"
her voice "birdlike." Miss Darcey was thin and awkward
in person, with a sharp, sallow face. Thea noticed that
her plainness was accounted to her credit, and that
people spoke of it affectionately. Miss Darcey was sing-
ing everywhere just then; one could not help hearing
about her. She was backed by some of the packing-house
people and by the Chicago Northwestern Railroad. Only
one critic raised his voice against her. Thea went to
several of Jessie Darcey's concerts. It was the first time
she had had an opportunity to observe the whims of the
public which singers live by interesting. She saw that
people liked in Miss Darcey every quality a singer ought
not to have, and especially the nervous complacency that
stamped her as a commonplace young woman. They
seemed to have a warmer feeling for Jessie than for Mrs.
Priest, an affectionate and cherishing regard. Chicago
was not so very different from Moonstone, after all, and
Jessie Darcey was only Lily Fisher under another name.
Thea particularly hated to accompany for Miss Darcey
because she sang off pitch and didn't mind it in the least.
It was excruciating to sit there day after day and hear her;
there was something shameless and indecent about not
singing true.
One morning Miss Darcey came by appointment to go
over the programme for her Peoria concert. She was such
a frail-looking girl that Thea ought to have felt sorry for
her. True, she had an arch, sprightly little manner, and
a flash of salmon-pink on either brown cheek. But a nar-
row upper jaw gave her face a pinched look, and her eye-
lids were heavy and relaxed. By the morning light, the
purplish brown circles under her eyes were pathetic enough,
and foretold no long or brilliant future. A singer with a
poor digestion and low vitality; she needed no seer to cast
her horoscope. If Thea had ever taken the pains to study
her, she would have seen that, under all her smiles and
archness, poor Miss Darcey was really frightened to death.
She could not understand her success any more than Thea
could; she kept catching her breath and lifting her eye-
brows and trying to believe that it was true. Her loqua-
city was not natural, she forced herself to it, and when she
confided to you how many defects she could overcome by
her unusual command of head resonance, she was not so
much trying to persuade you as to persuade herself.
When she took a note that was high for her, Miss Darcey
always put her right hand out into the air, as if she were
indicating height, or giving an exact measurement. Some
early teacher had told her that she could "place" a tone
more surely by the help of such a gesture, and she firmly
believed that it was of great assistance to her. (Even when
she was singing in public, she kept her right hand down
with difficulty, nervously clasping her white kid fingers
together when she took a high note. Thea could always
see her elbows stiffen.) She unvaryingly executed this
gesture with a smile of gracious confidence, as if she were
actually putting her finger on the tone: "There it is,
friends!"
This morning, in Gounod's "Ave Maria," as Miss Dar-
cey approached her B natural,--
DANS---NOS A--LAR-- -- --MES!
out went the hand, with the sure airy gesture, though it
was little above A she got with her voice, whatever she
touched with her finger. Often Bowers let such things
pass--with the right people--but this morning he
snapped his jaws together and muttered, "God!" Miss
Darcey tried again, with the same gesture as of putting
the crowning touch, tilting her head and smiling radiantly
at Bowers, as if to say, "It is for you I do all this!"
DANS--NOS A--LAR------MES!
This time she made B flat, and went on in the happy belief
that she had done well enough, when she suddenly found
that her accompanist was not going on with her, and this
put her out completely.
She turned to Thea, whose hands had fallen in her lap.
"Oh why did you stop just there! It IS too trying! Now
we'd better go back to that other CRESCENDO and try it
from there."
"I beg your pardon," Thea muttered. "I thought you
wanted to get that B natural." She began again, as Miss
Darcey indicated.
After the singer was gone, Bowers walked up to Thea
and asked languidly, "Why do you hate Jessie so? Her
little variations from pitch are between her and her public;
they don't hurt you. Has she ever done anything to you
except be very agreeable?"
"Yes, she has done things to me," Thea retorted hotly.
Bowers looked interested. "What, for example?"
"I can't explain, but I've got it in for her."
Bowers laughed. "No doubt about that. I'll have to
suggest that you conceal it a little more effectually. That
is--necessary, Miss Kronborg," he added, looking back
over the shoulder of the overcoat he was putting on.
He went out to lunch and Thea thought the subject
closed. But late in the afternoon, when he was taking his
dyspepsia tablet and a glass of water between lessons, he
looked up and said in a voice ironically coaxing:--
"Miss Kronborg, I wish you would tell me why you
hate Jessie."
Taken by surprise Thea put down the score she was
reading and answered before she knew what she was say-
ing, "I hate her for the sake of what I used to think a singer
might be."
Bowers balanced the tablet on the end of his long fore-
finger and whistled softly. "And how did you form your
conception of what a singer ought to be?" he asked.
"I don't know." Thea flushed and spoke under her
breath; "but I suppose I got most of it from Harsanyi."
Bowers made no comment upon this reply, but opened
the door for the next pupil, who was waiting in the recep-
tion-room.
It was dark when Thea left the studio that night.
She knew she had offended Bowers. Somehow she had
hurt herself, too. She felt unequal to the boarding-house
table, the sneaking divinity student who sat next her and
had tried to kiss her on the stairs last night. She went
over to the waterside of Michigan Avenue and walked
along beside the lake. It was a clear, frosty winter night.
The great empty space over the water was restful and
spoke of freedom. If she had any money at all, she would
go away. The stars glittered over the wide black water.
She looked up at them wearily and shook her head. She
believed that what she felt was despair, but it was only one
of the forms of hope. She felt, indeed, as if she were bid-
ding the stars good-bye; but she was renewing a promise.
Though their challenge is universal and eternal, the stars
get no answer but that,--the brief light flashed back to
them from the eyes of the young who unaccountably
aspire.
The rich, noisy, city, fat with food and drink, is a
spent thing; its chief concern is its digestion and its little
game of hide-and-seek with the undertaker. Money and
office and success are the consolations of impotence. For-
tune turns kind to such solid people and lets them suck
their bone in peace. She flecks her whip upon flesh that
is more alive, upon that stream of hungry boys and girls
who tramp the streets of every city, recognizable by their
pride and discontent, who are the Future, and who possess
the treasure of creative power.
