Mademoiselle Celaire exclaimed, "you permit me that I
present to you my dear friend, well known in Paris--alas! many years
ago--Monsieur le Baron de Grost. Monsieur le Baron was kind enough to
pay his respects to me this evening, and I have induced him to become my
escort here."

"It was my good fortune," Peter remarked, smiling, "that I saw
Mademoiselle Celaire's name upon the bills this evening--my good
fortune, since it has procured for me the honor of an acquaintance with
a musician so distinguished."

"You are very kind, Monsieur le Baron," Korust replied.

"You stay here, I regret to hear, a very short time?"

"Alas!" Andrea Korust admitted, "it is so. For myself I would that it
were longer. I find your London so attractive, the people so friendly.
They fall in with my whims so charmingly. I have a hatred, you know, of
solitude. I like to make acquaintances wherever I go, to have delightful
women and interesting men around, to forget that life is not always gay.
If I am too much alone, I am miserable, and when I am miserable I am in
a very bad way indeed. I cannot then make music."

Peter smiled gravely and sympathetically.

"And your brother? Does he, too, share your gregarious instincts?"

Korust paused for a moment before replying. His eyes were quite wide
open now. If one could judge from his expression, one would certainly
have said that the Baron de Grost's attempts to ingratiate himself with
his host were distinctly unsuccessful.

"My brother has exactly opposite instincts," he said slowly. "He finds
no pleasure in society. At the sound of a woman's voice, he hides."

"He is not here, then?" Peter asked, glancing around.

Andrea Korust shook his head.

"It is doubtful whether he joins us this evening at all," he declared.
"My sister, however, is wholly of my disposition. Monsieur le Baron will
permit that I present him."

Peter bowed low before a very handsome young woman with flashing
black eyes, and a type of features undoubtedly belonging to one of the
countries of eastern Europe. She was picturesquely dressed in a gown
of flaming red silk, made as though in one piece, without trimming or
flounces, and she seemed inclined to bestow upon her new acquaintance
all the attention that he might desire. She took him at once into a
corner and seated herself by his side. It was impossible for Peter not
to associate the empressement of her manner with the few words which
Andrea Korust had whispered i