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54
THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE
tons and shoestrings, his eyes grew dreamy, and he began to play, slowly and softly, like one who wanders in dreamland, and voices the visions he sees there.
"I wish I had a mama to stay with me!" The words kept echoing in his brain. He lifted his eyes to a picture that stood on the mantelpiece, where the glowing flames leaped beneath it. Ah ! that lovely, smiling, but treacherous face; those eyes, with the wilfulness hidden in their laughing depths ; the hair, curling so softly around the perfect forehead! Where was she ? Why had she fled from him and from her child, to return to the stage, from which he had taken her when they were married, five years ago?
"I was too old for her, ',' he sighed. "All her chorus-girl friends told her so — they coaxed her away. But how could she leave her child — her babe ? The ungrateful wretch ! After all I did for her — teaching her to sing, training her voice and educating her — to think that she would desert me and go back to the stage! Oh! it is unbearable ! Wretched, wretched world — cruel, heartless, detestable woman ! ' '
The child was lingering over her undressing. Her fair face lifted as the music ceased, and she crept closer to her father, clad now in her snowy nightgown, but he did not notice ; his brow was furrowed with deep wrinkles, and his jaw was set. He gently waved the child aside. He wanted to think. The fire burned low, and outside the wind began to howl, sending the huge snowflakes whirling against the windows like dancing sprites.
I WISH I HAD A MAMA
' * Where is she ? ' ' his thoughts were asking ceaselessly. ' ' Anyway, she will never come back, and if she did, I would treat her as I would a serpent — crush her beneath my heel, the mean, heartless wretch/ '
Then the musician passed his hand across his brow, as if to shut out his wretched thoughts. Taking up his violin again, he played a merry air, in an effort to forget, but he soon settled into his natural, dreamy mood, the violin responding to his sentiments like the voice of his soul,
A childish voice took up the refrain he was playing. Leaning against his knee, Madeleine was singing softly :
Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low,
And the flickering shadows softly come and go.
"Why should I always come back to that piece," he thought, "the piece she used to sing?"
How much
Madeleine 's eyes
were like her
mother 's ! They
were looking at
him now with the same expression
that he had seen in those other eyes
so many times.
Tho the heart be weary, sad the day, and
long, Still to us, at twilight, comes love's old,
sweet song, Comes love's old, sweet song !
He stopped abruptly, an almost intolerable pain darkening his eyes, and laid the violin carefully in its case.
Something in his face hushed Madeleine 's prattle, and she went to bed quietly, only asking, as he bent to kiss her, if Santa Claus could surely get in when he came.