Books › Blue Book v25 n01 [1917-05], 1917 › scan 57
Scan 57
Blue Book v25 n01 [1917-05], 1917
40 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Alias Mrs. Blair Coulter
3bring Alice to a sense of the reality about her. She saw the black eyes relax and smile down at her.
5"You verra grand-a lady—no?" he asked in a voice that was as soft and rich and musical as the notes of a 'cello. "You leeve in da beeg-a house on Pine Street?"
7She nodded, wondering if this soulmate had loved her long in silence and in secrecy. They did that often in the books she read.
9"But I'm not really a grand lady," she said, "—that is, not very grand."
11He smiled again.
13"I see you two—t'ree time," he said. "You leeve in da verra grand-a house. I see you gone in two—t'ree time."
15So he knew who she was! He had watched her! Had watched her, perhaps, with the love-light burning in his eyes, and she had not known it!
17She looked at him, utterly spellbound with the magic of it. Again Marie came to her rescue with a repeated regret that they had left their purses behind them. He was all glittering smiles. He bowed and shrugged in his expressive Latin way, as though the financial phase were the least important part of his meeting with them.
19"Mebbe t'morr'," he said, "mebbe t'morr' you breeng da nickel—da dime—eh?"
21They said yes, to-morrow they would certainly bring a dime, and he smiled again and bowed and was gone.
23THEY watched him rejoin the older man, who had finished turning the weary crank of the organ. They watched him take the strap and help tow the lumbering contraption away until it rounded the corner of the church, and then he looked back and took off his cap and waved it gayly to them while his white teeth flashed in another of his brilliant smiles.
25The second day following they saw him again; and they gave him their dime. They had got the dime by their very first business transaction—the sale of an old pair of shoes that Alice had outgrown, to a colored woman who raised eight children and considerable trouble in the little street that flanked the rear of the Pine Street mansions.
27And the two girls talked to the Italian. While the older man rested under the shade of a tree, Luigi sat upon the bench with them and talked to them in his pretty Italian dialect, while his eyes looked unutterable things into the deep brown eyes of this daughter of the Texlers and his smile beamed upon mistress and maid with a most engaging impartiality.
29He confessed that organ-grinding was not the career that he had chosen for himself. He wanted to play the violin, to go to Europe and study with the great masters, and then—ah, then they should see the artist!
31They listened spellbound as he talked. He had a violin, he said, and he played as his soul dictated—entirely without lessons, without other guide than the divine spirit that coursed through him whenever he took the bow in his hands. They should see! Some day he would bring his violin to their very grand house on Pine Street, and they should hear him play.
33But ah! if he could go to Europe and study!
35It was then that Alice thought of her grim old Uncle Elias. She had heard that Uncle Elias had spent fabulous sums of money in sending poor young men and women to Europe to study art or music. She would take Luigi to him and explain it all, and then Luigi would play, and old Uncle Elias, swept into uncontrollable enthusiasm by the wonderful genius of the lad, would—
37True, Alice had never met Uncle Elias; but she was his own niece, his brother's daughter; and in spite of the terrifying things she had heard about the crabbed old man and his crotchety temper, she felt that the claim of the genius of Luigi would make him overlook for the moment his notorious hatred of all Langwells and Texlers.
39But this reported hatred did not terrify her. She would take Luigi to him. They talked of it several afternoons, and Luigi's white teeth gleamed in his radiant smile, and the fire blazed out in his eyes, and he stood proud and erect and straightened his fine young shoulders until Alice Texler thought that in all the realm of romance there had never been such a hero as Luigi.
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