第124章 CHAPTER XXIII MR. MUNSON'S LOST FOIL(6)

A certain curiosity took possession of the room, quite distinct from the spirit of merriment which had characterized it before. Many of the men now left their seats and began crowding about the piano--red cardinals, cavaliers, nobles, and black-coated guests looking over each other's shoulders. Everybody was getting more and more mystified.

"Really, Fred," whispered Waller, who still sat quietly watching the two visitors--he had not taken his eyes from them since Richard in his enthusiasm sprang forward to grasp Simmons's hand--,"this is the most ridiculous thing I ever saw in my life.

First comes this fossil thoroughbred who outplays Simmons, and now comes this old nut-cracker with his white tow-hair sticking out in two straight mops, who is going to play the flute! What in thunder is coming next? Pretty soon one of them will be pulling rabbits out of somebody's ears, or rubbing gold watches into canary birds."

Nathan took the flute from Oliver's outstretched hand, bowed in a timid way like a school-boy about to speak a piece, turned it over carefully, tried the silver keys to see that they responded easily to the pressure of his fingers, and raised it to his lips.

Richard picked up the violin and whispered to Munson, with whom he had been talking--the one member who could play the piano as well as he could paint or fence--who nodded his head in assent.

Then, with Richard leading, the four--one of the guests a 'cellist of distinction took Max Unger's place--began Max's arrangement of the overture to "Fidelio"; the one Richard and Nathan had played so often together in the old parlor in Kennedy Square, with Miss Clendenning and Unger: an arrangement which had now become known to most musical amateurs.

There is not a man yet alive who has forgotten the tones of Nathan's flute as they soared that night through the clouds of tobacco-smoke that filled the great banquet-hall. Every shade and gradation of tone was a delight. Now soft as the cooing of doves, now low as the music of a brook rippling over the shallows and again swelling into song like a chorus of birds rejoicing in the coming of spring.

Not until the voice in the slender instrument had become silent and the last note of Richard's bow had ceased reverberating--not in fact, until both men had laid down their instruments, and had turned from the piano--did the room seem to recover from the spell that had bound it. Even then there was no applause; no clapping of hands nor stamping of feet.

There followed, from members and guests alike, only a deep, pent-up sigh and a long breath of relief, as if from a strain unbearable. Simmons, who had sat with his head buried in his hands, gave no other sign of his approval than by rising from his chair, taking Nathan's thin hand in his own and grasping it tightly, without a word. Stedman blurted out, in a low voice to himself: "My God! Who ever heard anything like that?" and remained fixed to his seat. As for Richard and Nathan, they resumed their places on the divan as men who had read a message not their own to willing ears.

Another, and quite a different mood now took possession of the room. Somehow the mellow tones of Nathan's flute had silenced the spirit of the rollicking buffoonery which had pervaded the evening.

The black-coated guests, with superlative praise of the good time they had had, and with renewed thanks for the privilege, began to bid Fred, the Master of Ceremonies, good-night. Soon only the costumed members, with Richard and Nathan, were left. So far from being tired out with the night's diversion, these two old gentlemen seemed to have just wakened up.

Those remaining drew their chairs together, lighted fresh cigars, and sat down to talk over the events of the evening. Richard related an anecdote of Macready when playing the part of Hamlet; Stedman told of the graceful manner, in which Booth, a few months before, in the same part, had handed the flageolet to the musicians, and the way the words fell from his lips, "You would play upon me "; Oliver, addressing his words rather to his father than to the room--acting the scene as he talked, and in his tight-fitting doublet, looking not unlike the tragedian himself, cut in with a deion of the great tragedian's first night at the Winter Garden after his seclusion--a night when the whole house rose to greet their favorite and cheered and roared and pounded everything within reach of their hands and feet for twenty minutes, while Booth stood with trembling knees, the tears rolling down his cheeks. Munson remarked with some feeling--he was an intimate friend of the actor--that he remembered the night perfectly, having sat behind Oliver, and that Booth was not only the most accomplished actor but the best swordsman ever seen on the American or any other stage. Munson was an expert fencer himself, as was evidenced by the scar on his left cheek, received when be was a student at Heidelberg, and so thought himself competent to judge.

While Munson was speaking the great Waller had risen from his seat for the first time, gathered his gorgeous raiment closer about him, crossed the room, and now stood filling a thin glass from a Venetian flagon that graced the demoralized table.