r months, he had been in the hands of
the _maestro_ universally acknowledged to be the dean of his art. The
_maestro_ was an old man and chary of his words; yet even he was stirred
to enthusiasm.

"My son, it is time for you to go," he said, as he rose from the piano
and took Thayer's hands into his own fragile, elderly fingers. "I can
teach you nothing more. It is now for you to work out your own
reputation. Not much more of life is left in me; but, before it is
ended, I shall hear your name spoken, both often and with praise. While
I live, my house will hold a welcome to you. _Auf wiedersehen!_"

As Thayer went out into the sunshine, the glitter and the brightness of
it all, of the day and of the future, dazzled him and made him afraid.
Then of a sudden the blood of the Thayers, in abeyance during those mad,
sad, glad years of study and of striving, asserted itself again. Obeying
its behest, he turned abruptly from the street where he was seeking the
impresario to whom his master had sent him. In that instant, he turned
his back for many a long month upon opera and upon all that followed in
its train.

One clean, cold night in mid-February, Thayer came down the steps of his
club, where he had been dining with Bobby Dane. At the foot of the steps
he halted long enough to button his coat to the chin and pull his hat
over his eyes, preparatory to facing the cutting wind. Then, turning
southward, he went striding away down the Avenue with the vigorous,
alert tread of the well-fed, contented man. It was still early, so early
that the pavements were dotted with theatre-going groups. He strode
through and beyond them, along the lower end of the Avenue, and came
under the arch, standing in chill, austere dignity at the edge of the
wind-swept square. Over its fretted surface the electric lights shone
coldly, and the deserted benches beyond brought to Thayer, fresh from
the glow and good-fellowship of the club, a sudden depressing sense of
his own aloofness from his kind. The club and Bobby were incidental
points of contact, pleasant, but not permanent. Like the arch, he was
alone, outside the rushing life of the busy town, something to be
watched and commented upon, but never destined to be really in the heart
of things. Bobby was a part of it, and Bobby had held out to him a
welcoming hand. He had taken the hand, and had dropped it again. It was
of no use. He did not belong. The sensation was not a new one to him.
He had m