Part 5 (2/2)
”What, what?” called Herr Liesecke, overhearing. ”The 'Pomp and Circ.u.mstance' will not be fine?”
”Oh, Margaret, you tiresome girl!” cried her aunt.
”Here have I been persuading Herr Liesecke to stop for 'Pomp and Circ.u.mstance,' and you are undoing all my work. I am so anxious for him to hear what WE are doing in music. Oh,--you musn't run down our English composers, Margaret.”
”For my part, I have heard the composition at Stettin,” said Fraulein Mosebach, ”on two occasions. It is dramatic, a little.”
”Frieda, you despise English music. You know you do. And English art.
And English literature, except Shakespeare, and he's a German. Very well, Frieda, you may go.”
The lovers laughed and glanced at each other. Moved by a common impulse, they rose to their feet and fled from ”Pomp and Circ.u.mstance.”
”We have this call to pay in Finsbury Circus, it is true,” said Herr Liesecke, as he edged past her and reached the gangway just as the music started.
”Margaret--” loudly whispered by Aunt Juley.
”Margaret, Margaret! Fraulein Mosebach has left her beautiful little bag behind her on the seat.”
Sure enough, there was Frieda's reticule, containing her address book, her pocket dictionary, her map of London, and her money.
”Oh, what a bother--what a family we are! Fr--frieda!”
”Hus.h.!.+” said all those who thought the music fine.
”But it's the number they want in Finsbury Circus.”
”Might I--couldn't I--” said the suspicious young man, and got very red.
”Oh, I would be so grateful.”
He took the bag--money clinking inside it--and slipped up the gangway with it. He was just in time to catch them at the swing-door, and he received a pretty smile from the German girl and a fine bow from her cavalier. He returned to his seat upsides with the world. The trust that they had reposed in him was trivial, but he felt that it cancelled his mistrust for them, and that probably he would not be ”had” over his umbrella. This young man had been ”had” in the past badly, perhaps overwhelmingly--and now most of his energies went in defending himself against the unknown. But this afternoon--perhaps on account of music--he perceived that one must slack off occasionally or what is the good of being alive? Wickham Place, W., though a risk, was as safe as most things, and he would risk it.
So when the concert was over and Margaret said, ”We live quite near; I am going there now. Could you walk round with me, and we'll find your umbrella?” he said, ”Thank you,” peaceably, and followed her out of the Queen's Hall. She wished that he was not so anxious to hand a lady downstairs, or to carry a lady's programme for her--his cla.s.s was near enough her own for its manners to vex her. But she found him interesting on the whole--every one interested the Schlegels on the whole at that time--and while her lips talked culture, her heart was planning to invite him to tea.
”How tired one gets after music!” she began.
”Do you find the atmosphere of Queen's Hall oppressive?”
”Yes, horribly.”
”But surely the atmosphere of Covent Garden is even more oppressive.”
”Do you go there much?”
”When my work permits, I attend the gallery for the Royal Opera.”
Helen would have exclaimed, ”So do I. I love the gallery,” and thus have endeared herself to the young man. Helen could do these things. But Margaret had an almost morbid horror of ”drawing people out,” of ”making things go.” She had been to the gallery at Covent Garden, but she did not ”attend” it, preferring the more expensive seats; still less did she love it. So she made no reply.
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