A tumult of hearty applause followed, and then he cried, "Gentlemen, this old man fought for the land of our birth. He is dying of hunger," and into the old man's hat he dropped a bill and then handed it round to millionaire and workingman alike. Ethel's purse was in her hand. As he passed along the curb at which her carriage stood, he looked at her eager face, and with a smile held out the battered hat. She, also smiling, dropped her purse into it. In a few moments the hat was nearly full; the old man and the money were confided to the care of an hotel officer, the stream of traffic and pleasure went on its usual way, and the musician disappeared.
All that evening the conversation turned constantly to this event. Mostyn was sure he was a member of some operatic troupe.
"Voices of such rare compass and exceptional training were not to be found among non-professional people," he said, and Judge Rawdon was of his opinion.
"His voice will haunt me for many days," he said. "Those two lines, for instance--
'Tis the home of our childhood, that beautiful spot Which memory retains when all else is forgot.
The melody was wonderful. I wish we could find out where he is singing. His voice, as Isaid, haunts my ear."
Ethel might have made the same remark, but she was silent. She had noticed the musician more closely than her father or Fred Mostyn, and when Ruth Bayard asked her if his personality was interesting, she was able to give a very clear description of the man.
"I do not believe he is a professional singer; he is too young," she answered. "Ishould think he was about twenty-five years old, tall, slender, and alert. He was fashionably dressed, as if he had been, or was going, to an afternoon reception. Above all things, I should say he was a gentleman."Oh, why are our hearts so accessible to our eyes? Only a smiling glance had passed between Ethel and the Unknown, yet his image was prisoned behind the bars of her eyelids.
On this day of days she had met Love on the crowded street, and he had "But touched his lute wherein was audible The certain secret thing he had to tell;Only their mirrored eyes met silently"; and a sweet trouble, a restless, pleasing curiosity, had filled her consciousness. Who was he? Where had he gone to? When should they meet again? Ah, she understood now how Emmeline Labiche had felt constrained to seek her lover from the snows of Canada to the moss-veiled oaks of Louisiana.
But her joyous, hopeful soul could not think of love and disappointment at the same moment.
"I have seen him, and I shall see him again. We met by appointment. Destiny introduced us. Neither of us will forget, and somewhere, some day, I shall be waiting, and he will come."Thus this daughter of sunshine and hope answered herself; and why not? All good things come to those who can wait in sweet tranquillity for them, and seldom does Fortune fail to bring love and heart's-ease upon the changeful stream of changeful days to those who trust her for them.
On the following morning, when the two girls entered the parlor, they found the Judge smoking there. He had already breakfasted, and looked over the three or four newspapers whose opinions he thought worthy of his consideration. They were lying in a state of confusion at his side, and Ethel glanced at them curiously.
"Did any of the papers speak of the singing before the Holland House?" she asked.
"Yes. I think reporters must be ubiquitous.
All my papers had some sort of a notice of the affair.""What do they say?"
"One gave the bare circumstances of the case; another indulged in what was supposed to be humorous description; a third thought it might have been the result of a bet or dare;a fourth was of the opinion that conspiracy between the old beggar and the young man was not unlikely, and credited the exhibition as a cleverly original way of obtaining money.
But all agreed in believing the singer to be a member of some opera company now in the city."Ethel was indignant. "It was neither `bet' nor `dare' nor `conspiracy,'" she said. "I saw the singer as he came walking rapidly down the avenue, and he looked as happy and careless as a boy whistling on a country lane. When his eyes fell on the old man he hesitated, just a moment, and then spoke to him. I am sure they were absolute strangers to each other.""But how can you be sure of a thing like that, Ethel?""I don't know `how,' Ruth, but all the same, I am sure. And as for it being a new way of begging, that is not correct. Not many years ago, one of the De Reszke brothers led a crippled soldier into a Paris cafe, and sang the starving man into comfort in twenty minutes.""And the angelic Parepa Rosa did as much for a Mexican woman, whom she found in the depths of sorrow and poverty--brought her lifelong comfort with a couple of her songs.
Is it not likely, then, that the gallant knight of the Holland House is really a member of some opera company, that he knew of these examples and followed them?""It is not unlikely, Ruth, yet I do not believe that is the explanation.""Well," said the Judge, throwing his cigarette into the fire, "if the singer had never heard of De Reszke and Parepa Rosa, we may suppose him a gentleman of such culture as to be familiar with the exquisite Greek legend of Phoebus Apollo--that story would be sufficient to inspire any man with his voice. Do you know it?"Both girls answered with an enthusiastic entreaty for its recital, and the Judge went to the library and returned with a queer-looking little book, bound in marbled paper.
"It was my father's copy," he said, "an Oxford edition." And he turned the leaves with loving carefulness until he came to the incident. Then being a fine reader, the words fell from his lips in a stately measure better than music:
"After Troy fell there came to Argos a scarred soldier seeking alms. Not deigning to beg, he played upon a lyre; but the handling of arms had robbed him of his youthful power, and he stood by the portico hour after hour, and no one dropped him a lepton.
