Edna Ferber: Fanny Herself

5. CHAPTER FIVE (continued)

"I want to talk to Mr. Schabelitz and Mr. Bauer, alone." She patted his shoulder, and the last pat ended in a gentle push. "Run along."

"I'll work, Mother. You know perfectly well I'll work." But he looked so startlingly like his father as he said it that Mrs. Brandeis felt a clutching at her heart.

Theodore out of the way, they seemed to find very little to discuss, after all. Schabelitz was so quietly certain, Bauer so triumphantly proud.

Said Schabelitz, "Wolfsohn, of course, receives ten dollars a lesson ordinarily."

"Ten dollars!"

"But a pupil like Theodore is in the nature of an investment," Bauer hastened to explain. "An advertisement. After hearing him play, and after what Schabelitz here will have to say for him, Wolfsohn will certainly give Theodore lessons for nothing, or next to nothing. You remember" -- proudly-- "I offered to teach him without charge, but you would not have it."

Schabelitz smote his friend sharply on the shoulder "The true musician! Oh, Bauer, Bauer! That you should bury yourself in this----"

But Bauer stopped him with a gesture. "Mrs. Brandeis is a busy woman. And as she says, this thing needs thinking over."

"After all," said Mrs. Brandeis, "there isn't much to think about. I know just where I stand. It's a case of mathematics, that's all. This business of mine is just beginning to pay. From now on I shall be able to save something every year. It might be enough to cover his musical education. It would mean that Fanny--my daughter-- and I would have to give up everything. For myself, I should be only too happy, too proud. But it doesn't seem fair to her. After all, a girl----"