"There, my child," he would say at the end, "that is music--
that is art! What I was playing before was mere rubbish--trash,
unworthy of me and of my violin."
"And why do you play it?" asks Madelon, simply.
"Ah! why indeed?" said the violinist--"because one must live,
my little Frauelein; and since they will play nothing else at
the theatre, I must play it also, or I should be badly off."
"You are not rich, then?" said Madelon.
"Rich enough," he answered. "I gain enough to live upon, and I
ask no more."
"Why don't you make money like papa?" says Madelon; "then you
could play what you liked, you know. We are very rich
sometimes."
The old German screwed up his queer, kind, ugly face.
"It--it's not my way," he said drily. "As for money, I might
have had plenty by this time, if I had not run away from home
when I was a boy, because I preferred being a poor musician to
a rich merchant. Money is not the only nor the best thing in
the world, my little lady."
M. Linders apparently saw no danger to Madelon's principles in
these new friendships, or else, perhaps, he was bent on
carrying out his plan of letting her get used to things; at
any rate, he did not interfere with her spending as much time
as she liked with both painter and musician; and every day
through the winter she grew fonder of the society of the old
violinist.
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