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A Window Of Music
by
A young man, standing in the shadow of the trees, smiled to himself as he watched her. He stepped from beneath the trees and crossed the open space between them.
The girl watched him come without surprise.
“It is a beautiful night, Herr Schubert,” she said quietly as he stood beside her.
“A wonderful night, my lady,” he answered softly.
She looked down at him.
“Why are you not in the castle, playing?” she demanded archly.
“The night called me,” he said.
She half turned away.
He started forward.
“Do not go,” he breathed.
She paused, looking at him doubtfully.
“I came to walk,” she said. She moved away a few steps and paused again, looking back over her shoulder. “You can come—-“
He sprang to her side, and they paced on in silence.
She glanced at him from under her lids.
His big face wore a radiant, absent-minded look. The full lips moved softly.
“What are you thinking of?” she said swiftly.
He flushed and came back to her.
“Only a little song; it runs in my head.”
“Hum it to me,” she commanded.
He flushed again and stammered:
“Nein, nein; it is not yet born.”
Her eyes were on the shifting light.
“Will you play it to me when it is done?” she asked softly.
“You know that I will.”
She waited a moment.
“You have never dedicated a song to me,” she said slowly. “There are the four to my father–but he is the count; and the one last year for Marie–why to Marie?–and one for them all. But not one least little song for me!” The words had dropped under her breath. Her dark eyes were veiled. No one could say whether they laughed now.
He looked up with a swift, brusque gesture.
“They are all yours; you know it.” The low voice rebuked her gently. “For six years they are yours–all that I have done.” The face was turned toward her. It was filled with pleading and a kind of gentle beauty, clumsy and sweet.
She did not look at it.
“There is one that I should like to hear,” she said musingly. “You played it once, years ago, on a comb. I have not heard it since.” She laughed sweetly.
Schubert smiled. The hurt look stole from his eyes.
“You will hear it–my ‘Erlkoenig’?” he demanded.
She nodded.
“I will play it to you when I come back,” he said contentedly.
She stopped short in the path.
“When you come back!” The subtle eyes were wide. They were not laughing.
“Ja, I shall—-“
“Where are you going?”
He rubbed his great nose in the moonlight.
“Nein, I know not. I know I must go—-“
She stopped him impatiently.
“You will not go!” she said. He turned his eyes and looked at her. After a moment her own fell. “Why will you go?” she asked.
The face with its dumb look was turned toward her.
“That little song–it calls me,” he said softly. “When it is done I will come back again–to you.”
She smiled under the lids.
“That little song–is it for me?” she asked sweetly.
“Ja, for you.” He looked pleadingly at the downcast face. “The song–it is very sweet; it teases me.”
The lids quivered.
“It comes to me so close, so close!” He was silent, a rapt look of listening in his face. It broke with a swift sigh. “Ach! it is gone!”
She glanced at him swiftly.
“I thought the songs came quickly.”
He shook his head.
“The others, yes; but not this one. It is not like the others. It is so sweet and gentle–far away–and pure like the snow…. It calls me–” He broke off, gazing earnestly at the beautiful, high-bred face, with its downcast eyes.
“Nein! I cannot speak it,” he said softly. “But the song it will speak it for me–when I come.”
She lifted her head, and held out her hand with a gesture half shy and very sweet.
The moonlight veiled her. “I shall wait,” she said gently–“for the song.”
He held the slender hand for a moment in his own; then it was laid lightly against his lips, and turning, he had disappeared among the shadows.
V
“Hallo, Franz! Hallo–there!”
Two young men, walking rapidly along the low hedge that shuts in the Zum Biersack from the highway, lifted heated faces and glanced toward the enclosure, where a youth seated at one of the tables had half risen from his place, and was gesticulating with the open book in his hand to vacant seats beside him.