Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/405

 glass eyes of a fine wildcat over one of the bookcases. You 've never heard her at all, have you?" he asked reflectively. "Curious, when this is her second season in New York."

"I was going on last March. Had everything arranged. And then old Cap Harris thought he could drive his car and me through a lamp-post and I was laid up with a compound fracture for two months. So I did n't get to see Thea."

Ottenburg studied the red end of his cigarette attentively. "She might have come out to see you. I remember you covered the distance like a streak when she wanted you."

Archie moved uneasily. "Oh, she could n't do that. She had to get back to Vienna to work on some new parts for this year. She sailed two days after the New York season closed."

"Well, then she could n't, of course." Fred smoked his cigarette close and tossed the end into the fire. "I 'm tremendously glad you 're going now. If you 're stale, she 'll jack you up. That 's one of her specialties. She got a rise out of me last December that lasted me all winter."

"Of course," the doctor apologized, "you know so much more about such things. I 'm afraid it will be rather wasted on me. I 'm no judge of music."

"Never mind that." The younger man pulled himself up in his chair. "She gets it across to people who are n't judges. That 's just what she does." He relapsed into his former lassitude. "If you were stone deaf, it would n't all be wasted. It 's a great deal to watch her. Incidentally, you know, she is very beautiful. Photographs give you no idea."

Dr. Archie clasped his large hands under his chin. "Oh, I 'm counting on that. I don't suppose her voice will sound natural to me. Probably I would n't know it."

Ottenburg smiled. "You 'll know it, if you ever knew it. It 's the same voice, only more so. You 'll know it."