htly harsh voice filled the salon. She dropped her arms over the
back of the chair, moving her lean hands from the wrists. We were
thrilled and silent. The Herr Professor, beside me, abnormally serious,
his eyes bulging, pulled at his moustache ends. Frau Godowska adopted
that peculiarly detached attitude of the proud parent. The only soul who
remained untouched by her appeal was the waiter, who leaned idly
against the wall of the salon and cleaned his nails with the edge of a
programme. He was "off duty" and intended to show it.

"What did I say?" shouted the Herr Professor under cover of tumultuous
applause, "tem-per-ament! There you have it. She is a flame in the
heart of a lily. I know I am going to play well. It is my turn now. I am
inspired. Fraulein Sonia"--as that lady returned to us, pale and draped
in a large shawl--"you are my inspiration. To-night you shall be the
soul of my trombone. Wait only."

To right and left of us people bent over and whispered admiration down
Fraulein Sonia's neck. She bowed in the grand style.

"I am always successful," she said to me. "You see, when I act I AM. In
Vienna, in the plays of Ibsen we had so many bouquets that the cook
had three in the kitchen. But it is difficult here. There is so little
magic. Do you not feel it? There is none of that mysterious perfume
which floats almost as a visible thing from the souls of the Viennese
audiences. My spirit starves for want of that." She leaned forward, chin
on hand. "Starves," she repeated.

The Professor appeared with his trombone, blew into it, held it up to
one eye, tucked back his shirt cuffs and wallowed in the soul of Sonia
Godowska. Such a sensation did he create that he was recalled to play
a Bavarian dance, which he acknowledged was to be taken as a breathing
exercise rather than an artistic achievement. Frau Godowska kept time to
it with a fan.

Followed the very young gentleman who piped in a tenor voice that he
loved somebody, "with blood in his heart and a thousand pains." Fraulein
Sonia acted a poison scene with the assistance of her mother's pill vial
and the arm-chair replaced by a "chaise longue"; a young girl scratched
a lullaby on a young fiddle; and the Herr Professor performed the last
sacrificial rites on the altar of the afflicted children by playing the
National Anthem.

"Now I must put mamma to bed," whispered Fraulein Sonia. "But afterwards
I must take a walk. It is imperative that I free my spirit i