Page:Willa Cather - The Song of the Lark.djvu/462

. Probably we don't get to the point of apprehending anything good until we 're about forty. Then, in the light of what is going, and of what, God help us! is coming, we arrive at understanding."

"I don 't see why people go to the opera, anyway,—serious people." She spoke discontentedly. "I suppose they get something, or think they do. Here 's the coffee. There, please," she directed the waiter. Going to the table she began to pour the coffee, standing. She wore a white dress trimmed with crystals which had rattled a good deal during dinner, as all her movements had been impatient and nervous, and she had twisted the dark velvet rose at her girdle until it looked rumpled and weary. She poured the coffee as if it were a ceremony in which she did not believe. "Can you make anything of Fred's nonsense, Dr. Archie?" she asked, as he came to take his cup.

Fred approached her. "My nonsense is all right. The same brand has gone with you before. It 's you who won't be jollied. What 's the matter? You have something on your mind."

"I 've a good deal. Too much to be an agreeable hostess." She turned quickly away from the coffee and sat down on the piano bench, facing the two men. "For one thing, there 's a change in the cast for Friday afternoon. They 're going to let me sing Sieglinde." Her frown did not conceal the pleasure with which she made this announcement.

"Are you going to keep us dangling about here forever, Thea? Archie and I are supposed to have other things to do." Fred looked at her with an excitement quite as apparent as her own.

"Here I 've been ready to sing Sieglinde for two years, kept in torment, and now it comes off within two weeks, just when I want to be seeing something of Dr. Archie. I don't know what their plans are down there. After Friday they may let me cool for several weeks, and they may rush