to
herself, though she had but ten dollars left in the world, as she showed
me with a smile that made her beautiful as an angel.

I can see that shabby little purse yet with its one poor greasy bill;--a
sum to her but to me the price of a luncheon or a gift of flowers. How
I longed, as I looked at it to tear every jewel from my poor, bedecked
body and fling them one and all into her lap. I had worn them in
profusion, though carefully hidden under my coat, in the hope that she
would accept one of them at least, But she refused all, even such as had
been gifts of friends and schoolmates, only humouring me this far, that
she let me hang them for a few minutes about her neck and in her hair
and then pull them all off again. But this one vision of her in the
splendour she was born to comforted me. Henceforth in wearing them it
would be of her and not of myself I should think.

Well, I had to leave her and go home to my French and Italian lessons,
my music-masters and all the luxuries of our father's house. Should I
ever see her again? I did not know; she had not promised. I could not go
often into the quarter where she lived, without rousing suspicion;
and she had bidden me not to come again for a month. So I waited, half
fearing she would flit again before the month was up. But she did not.
She was still there when--

But I am going too fast. The meeting I was about to mention was a very
memorable one to me, and I must describe it from the beginning. I had
ridden in my own car as near as I dared to the street where she lived;
the rest of the way I went on foot with one of the servants--a new
one--following close behind me. I was not exactly afraid, but the
actions of some of the people I had encountered at my former visit
warned me to be a little careful for my father's sake if not for my own.
Her room--she had but one--was high up in a triangular court it was
no pleasure to enter. But love and loyalty heed nothing but the object
sought, and I was hunting about for the dark doorway which opened upon
the staircase leading to her room when--and this was the great moment of
my life--a sudden stream of melody floated down into that noisome court,
which from its clearness, its accuracy, its richness, and its feeling
startled me as I had never before been startled even by the first notes
of the world's greatest singers. What a voice for a place like this!
What a voice for any place! Whose could it be? With a start, I stopped