CHAPTER V

One night, as she waited between songs, Marie let her eyes wander about the smoke-filled room and wondered, as she heard the occasional bursts of laughter, if these people who came here voluntarily were really enjoying life. She wondered if this meant happiness to them.

The ideas of right and wrong which had been learned in the convent and at home with her father, seemed so absolutely apart from what surrounded her now, that she had not even a means of comparison. This was simply different.

The young officer over whose boot she had stumbled that first night, was sitting sullenly at the table near her, and her glance wandered from him to the man at his elbow, the same who had reprimanded him for his rudeness.

He was a tall, thin man, older than the boy at his side, and wore the handsome uniform of a captain of cavalry. She was impressed by the straight, unbending attitude of his shoulders. The thin, hard mouth of the supersensualist somehow frightened her, although she was too inexperienced to know why. She was trying to analyze this fear, this aversion for a stranger, when she became conscious that he was staring at her, and for a moment she stared back fascinated into the brilliant eyes that held her own even against her will. With an effort, she turned away hastily, and busied herself with the piece of music she was holding.

Several times during the evening, she was conscious of those magnetic eyes which she avoided with a curious flutter at her heart. She had taken her seat beside the piano, when she saw Brower standing at the edge of the platform, beckoning to her.

Hesitatingly, she rose and went to him.

"Fräulein," he said with his oily smile, "my wife is here with some friends. We want you to join us for a little while."

Schultz swung around on the piano stool.

"No," he said, emphatically.

Brower shot him a glance charged with venom, a burst of rage trembling on his lips, which he controlled with an effort.

"What's the matter?" he growled. "My wife wants to meet her. Anything wrong with that?"

There was the look in Schultz's eyes of a faithful dog which cannot express the love it feels.

"She should not----" he began, "she----"

Brower turned to Marie.

"Don't you want to come, Fräulein?" he asked.

The girl was pathetically eager to give a sufficient measure of service for the compensation she received.

"I'll go," she said, timidly.

Brower's wife was a large, boldly handsome woman of about thirty-five. She had been a very pretty girl, and in spite of the artificial yellow of her carefully dressed hair, the over-red of her lips, the paint on her cheeks, she still bore some traces of her vanished beauty. She blazed with jewels which were obviously not all that their glitter proclaimed. To the observer it was very apparent that everything about her was a sham. It was even whispered that her marriage came under the same heading.

She greeted Marie with an over-effusiveness.

"Do sit down, _Liebchen_. My friends all like your singing so much." With a wave of her plump, bejeweled hand, she introduced the others at her table. "Herr Kranz, meet Fräulein Helmar; Herr Schnitzer, Fräulein Pragt."

Marie slipped into the chair Brower pulled out for her.

"I certainly like your singing, Fräulein," boomed Herr Kranz, in a voice that Marie felt certain must penetrate to every corner of the room; "but I like you better," and he smiled a broad smile, that lifted his heavy black mustache and showed an uneven row of discolored teeth. His prominent eyes took in her slender prettiness with an evident relish, and his thick bull-neck settled consciously into his collar as he pulled down a brilliant vest over his round paunch.

The other man who had been introduced as Herr Schnitzer, was stoop-shouldered and pale haired. His prominent Adam's apple slid up and down grotesquely as he ate the cheese sandwich that was before him.

"We like little blond singers," he said with his mouth full, but his eyes were fixed fatuously on Fräulein Pragt who simpered coyly. She was over-dressed, and over-plump, her empty, common face shone fair and bland, and her silly little red mouth was always half open.

Marie looked from one to the other with a feeling half of disgust, and half of pride in herself that she was different.

Brower patted her familiarly on the shoulder as he hailed a passing waiter.

"Fritz, bring Fräulein Helmar a sandwich and some beer," and he moved away to another table.

"Nothing for me, please," began Marie.

"Come, _Herzchen_, just a little something! One glass of beer," urged her hostess.

"I don't wish anything, thank you," said Marie, with quiet finality.

Frau Brower laughed loudly.

"No wonder you're so thin," she said, "a little more flesh on your bones wouldn't hurt you, Fräulein."

Kranz leaned toward her admiringly.

"You're young yet," he said, "you'll be just right in a year or so," and he put a moist hand over hers.

Marie shrank away, and Frau Brower laughed again offensively.

"She should have a sweetheart, Kranz, that's what she needs," she said. "Have you got one, _Liebchen_?"

Marie's face flushed.

"No," she said.

There was something about this girl's manner Frau Brower resented. She experienced the feeling all women of her type do, in the presence of one who is everything they are not. What right had she, a little singer in Brewer's café, to give herself airs? She'd put her in her proper place.

"Can't you get one?" she sneered.

Marie lifted her head proudly.

"I don't believe I want one," she said simply. "I'm here to sing, I haven't time for anything else!"

Kranz was eyeing her with open admiration, his prominent, dull eyes, looking ludicrously like a fish's. The other two were deep in a conversation that consisted mainly of guttural monosyllables from Schnitzer and conscious giggles from Fräulein Pragt.

Frau Brower looked at her insolently.

"I advise you to drop that stand-offish manner. It won't pay here. A _fesches Mädel_ like you ought to have a dozen lovers! I'm going to bring a friend around to meet you!"

Marie flushed at the open coarseness in her voice. She shook her head.

"Thank you, but I'd rather not meet anyone," she said. "Herr Schultz takes me home every evening. He doesn't like me to meet strangers. I don't want to do anything to offend him."

This time the laughter was general.

"What do you care what that old fossil says?" began Frau Brower, and her husband, who had joined them again, frowned darkly as he looked toward the platform.

"Look here," he growled, "what's this? Am I paying you to be a fine lady? Do you think you're an opera singer?"

Marie's lips trembled. She rose to her feet.

"Please," she faltered, "I--I think I'd better go back." She was looking into Brewer's scowling face. She saw his eyes shift, and suddenly, a great change came over him. His anger seemed to vanish almost by magic, and an oily smile spread over his features.

"Never mind, Fräulein," he said, and she thought she saw him glance warningly at his wife, "we will excuse you if you want to go."

Marie turned to see the cause for this sudden change, and found herself looking straight into the burning eyes of the man who once before had come to her assistance.

He bowed slightly, with a smile that was so encouraging that the girl knew instinctively she owed Brewer's change of front to his interference. Trembling, she started back to the platform, the Captain standing aside and bowing his acknowledgment of her timid smile of thanks.

This man with his polished manner, his fine carriage, his trim uniform was more like the men she had met at her father's home, more her own class. His thin, aquiline face had smiled on her with what, in her ignorance of the world, she took to be kindly, fraternal interest.

Frau Brower, meanwhile, had watched this little by-play. Her face reddened under its coat of rouge.

"Brower," she choked, "are you going to be browbeaten in your own café?"

Her husband tried to stop her, a curious look of fear coming into his eyes as he glanced hurriedly at the Captain's table, but she went on angrily.

"Aren't you master in your own house? I wouldn't be ordered around by any----"

The man put a heavy hand on her arm.

"_Halt's Maul_, you fool," he said. "You don't know what you're saying, he's----" He bent and whispered something in her ear. What he said had the effect of instantly dissipating her wrath, and she, too, turned and glanced fearfully in the direction of the tall officer.

Brower swore under his breath and turned heavily away, leaving the others to comfort his spouse.

This was the beginning of Marie's visits among the tables. Once, Brower called her to explain one of her songs to a "particular friend" of his. Another time, she must go and ask some officers what they wanted her to sing next. Schultz, with a heavy heart had to let her go.

The Captain, whose friendly smile had struck an answering note in her heart, came sometimes three or four nights consecutively. Then, perhaps a week or ten days would elapse during which Marie looked in vain for the tall, lean figure. She forgot her vague fears of his cruel mouth anl brilliant eyes. Her heart was so sore and lonely in this unaccustomed place that it was a disappointment to her when she missed him. She had a curious sense of protection and security whenever the bright note of his uniform came through the green swinging-door, and he made his way to his usual table.

There was an undefinable air of reticence, a touch of the mystic about him, which aroused a feeling of interested curiosity in the girl's heart.

As she waited between songs, her naturally active mind amused itself by trying to read the different faces she saw before her. This man was the only one of whom she could form no conception. All the others were obviously what they were, he alone was different. And because it is the unknown which attracts, and because he had on several instances shielded her from rudeness, she began to think of him as a friend.

There was no one to point out to her that the brilliant eyes were cold and calculating, that the lines about the thin mouth and between his brows, were those experience writes. There was no one to tell her that this face which seemed to smile so kindly into hers, was that of a man who knows his ability to judge and compare the values of sophistication and inexperience, and who has used this knowledge for the domination and destruction of those weaker than himself.

One evening as she sat watching him, he glanced about the room in a coldly speculative fashion, as one who sees a vision that includes those about him. If she were privileged to see the picture in his mind she would have seen the gay uniforms about her changed into a dull gray, the jauntily set caps replaced by spiked helmets. A cold smile played about the thin lips, and his hand resting on the table unconsciously clinched as though it grasped the hilt of a sword. But she saw only the smile and not its meaning.

Gradually, she began under Brower's careful maneuvering, to go about among the tables. At first, her visits were very brief, but sometimes, some particular friend of the proprietor's detained her longer. On these occasions there was much laughter, jokes whose point she did not always see, and many rather rough compliments, but on the whole, nothing that offended her. Brower had seen to that. He knew that the watchful eyes of the old pianist followed Marie about the room, and it suited his purpose to see that both his fears and hers should be laid to rest.

To the Captain's table, however, she was never invited. There was only the friendly nod in passing, the kindly smile that said, "I know; I understand how out of place you are here, how different you are from the rest!"

And old Schultz, seeing the flutter in the laces of the girl's breast when the Captain came in, watching the flush on her cheek, when their eyes met, noting too, with a pang in his heart, the evident disappointment when he failed to appear, shook his head sadly.