cornfully over the
stage and the singers. "Now ladies, attention if you please! Look at
me--keep your eyes on my baton! Now--piano!"

The voices of the sopranos rose softly.

"Crescendo!" They increased.

"Donnerwetter! May the devil take you! Crescendo, I say! Crescendo!
Do you need all day to make crescendo?" He shrieked at them; and then,
in a tempest of rage, he flung the baton down and leaped from the
platform.

"Enough!" he said, "My teeth are on edge; my ears burn! Sit down.--Is
Fraulein Neumann here?"

A stout woman in a red blouse stepped timidly forward.

"Oh, you are, are you? Well, Madame, you haven't distinguished
yourself so far; perhaps you will do better alone. Have you the score?"

"Yes, Herr Kapellmeister."

"Begin then."

The soprano took a long breath and her cheeks grew red like her blouse.
She watched the eyes of the leader, and there was a light in them that
she mistrusted, a reddish glimmer that boded evil to any who crossed
him.

She began tremulously.

"Stop."

She started again.

"Your voice quavers like a jews'-harp. What's the matter with you?"

"I don't know, Herr Kapellmeister, it was all right when I tried it
this morning."

"Well, it's all wrong now."

The soprano bit her lips: "I am doing my best, Herr Kapellmeister," she
said, "It is very difficult to take that high A without the orchestra."
Her tone was slightly defiant, but she dropped her eyes when he stared
at her.

"Humph!" he said, "Very difficult! You expect the orchestra to cover
your shake I suppose. Go home and study it, Madame. Siegfried would
listen in vain for a bird if you were in the flies. He would never
recognize that--pah!" He waved his hand:

"Where is the Fraulein who wanted her voice tried?" he said curtly, "If
she is present she may come forward." He took out his watch and
glanced at it. "The chorus may wait," he said, "Look at your scores
meanwhile, meine Herren, meine Damen--and notice the marks!

"Ah, Madame."

A slim figure with a cloak about her shoulders, bareheaded, approached
from the wings; her curls, cut short like a boy's, sparkled and
gleamed. The Kapellmeister surveyed her coldly as she drew nearer, and
then he turned and seated himself at the piano.

"Your voice," he said shortly, "Hm--what?"

"Soprano, Monsieur."

"We have enough sopranos--too many now! We don't know what to do with
them all."

The girl shivered a little under the cloak.

"Oh!