THE SECOND FIDDLE
BY PHYLLIS BOTTOME
Author of "The Dark Tower," "The Derelict and Other Stories," etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
NORMAN PRICE
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1917
Copyright, 1917, by
The Century Co.
Published, October, 1917
TO
MARGUERITE and LILIAN
TWO SISTERS WHO, ALIKE IN JOY
AND SORROW, ARE A LIGHT
TO THEIR FRIENDS
"Then have the kindness to inform me ... why Marian hasconsented to marry me."
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE SECOND FIDDLE
CHAPTER I
On the whole, Stella preferred the Cottage Dairy Company to the People'sRestaurant. It was a shade more expensive, but if you ate less and likedit more, that was your own affair. You were waited on with morearrogance and less speed, but you made up for that artistically by anevasion of visible grossness.
Stella had never gone very much further than a ham sandwich in eitherplace. You knew where you were with a ham sandwich, and you coulddisguise it with mustard.
On this occasion she took a cup of tea and made her meal anamalgamation. She hoped to leave work early, and she would have no timefor tea. She was going to hear Chaliapine.
All London—all the London, that is, which thinks of itself asLondon—was raving about Chaliapine; but Stella in general neither knewnor cared for the ravings of London. They reached her as vaguely as thesound of breaking surf reaches the denizens of the deeper seas.
It was her sister Eurydice who had brought Chaliapine home to her. Shehad said quite plainly, with that intensity which distinguished both