"Genius"

Two men were waiting at the door of the narrow slip of a house: the tall, thin one with his overcoat still buttoned up to his chin, and another fat and shining, with a top-hat, black frock-coat, and white spats.

"About that concert----" said the first man.

"We were thinking that if we could persuade you to play----" put in the other.

"There was no one there," interrupted Ben roughly. His shoulders were bent, his head dropped forward on his chest, poking sideways, his eyes sullen as a child's.

"I was there," put in the first man, "and I must say, impressed----"

"Very deeply impressed," added the other; but once again Ben brushed him aside.

"You were there--at my concert!" Jenny, standing a little back--for they were all three crowded upon the tiny door-step--saw him glance up at the speaker with something luminous shining through the darkness of his face. "At my concert----! And you liked it? You liked it?"

"'Like' is scarcely the word."

"We feel that if you could be persuaded to give another concert," put in the stout man, blandly, "and would allow----"

"I shall never play again--never--never!" cried Ben, harshly; but this time the other went on imperturbably: "--allow us to make all arrangements, take all responsibility: boom you; see to the advertising and all that--we thought if we were to let practically all the seats for the first concert go in complimentary tickets; get a few good names on the committee--perhaps a princess or something of that sort as a patroness--a strong claque"

"Of course, playing Beethoven--playing him as you played him the other night. Grand-magnificent!" put in the first man realising the weariness, the drop to blank indifference in the musician's face. "The 'Hammerclavier' for instance----"

It was magical.--"Oh, yes, yes--that--that!" Ben's eyes widened, his face glowed. He hummed a bar or so. "Was there ever anything like it? My God! was there ever anything like it!"

Jenny, who had the key, squeezed past them at this, and ran through the kitchen to the scullery, where she filled the kettle and put it upon the gas-ring to boil; looked round her for a moment, with quick, darting eyes--like a small wild animal at bay in a strange place--then drew a bucketful of water, turned up her sleeves, the skirt of her new black frock, tied on an old hessian apron of Mrs. Cohen's, with a savage jerk of the strings, and dropping upon her knees, started to scrub the floor, the rough stone floor.

"Men!--trapsin' in an' out, muckin' up a place!"

She could hear the murmur of men's voices in the kitchen, and through it that "trapsin'" of other men struggling with a long coffin on the steep narrow stairs.

On and on it went--the agonised remembrance of all that banging, trampling; the swish of her own scrubbing-brush; the voices round the table where old Mrs. Cohen had stood ironing for hours and hours upon end.

Then the door into the scullery was opened. For a moment or so she kept her head obstinately lowered, determined that she would not look up. Then, feeling her own unkindness, she raised it and smiled upon Ben, who stood there, flushed, glowing, and yet too shame-faced to speak--smiled involuntarily, as one must smile at a child.

"Well?"

"That--that--music stuff--I suppose it's burnt?" he began, fidgeting from one foot to another, his head bent, ducking sideways, his shoulder to his ear.

Her glance enwrapped him--smiling, loving, bitter-sweet. Things were not going to be as she had thought; none of that going out regularly to work, coming home to tea like other men; none of that safe sameness of life. At the back of her calm was a fierce battle; then she rose to her feet, wiped her hands upon her apron, stooped to the lowest shelf of the cupboard, and drew out a pile of music.

"There you are, my dear. I didn't not burn it, a'cause Well, I suppose as I sorter knowed all the time as you'd be wantin' it."

Children! Well, one knew where one was with children--real children. But men, that was a different pair of shoes altogether--something you could never be sure of--unless you remembered, always remembered, to treat them as though they were grown-up, think of them as children.

"Now you taeke that an' get along back to yer friends an' yer playin', and let me get on with my work. It'll be dark an' tea-time on us afore ever I've time ter so much as turn round."

"That woman," said the fat, shining man, as they moved away down the street, greasy with river-mist.--"Hang it all! where in the world are we to get a taxi?--Common-place little thing; a bit of a drag on him, I should think."

"Don't you believe it, my friend--that's the sort to give 'em--some'un who will sort of dry-nurse 'em--feed em--mind 'em. That's the wife for a genius. The only sort of wife--mark my word for it."

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