hining,
and the right arm and high-curved wrist managing the bow with a grace
born of knowledge and fine training.

'Very much improved, eh?' said an English professional to a German
neighbour, lifting his eyebrows interrogatively.

The other nodded with the business-like air of one who knows. 'Joachim,
they say, _war darueber entzueckt_, and did his best vid her, and now
D---- has got her'--naming a famous violinist--'she vill make fast
brogress. He vill schtamp upon her treecks!'

'But will she ever be more than a very clever amateur? Too pretty, eh?'
And the questioner nudged his companion, dropping his voice.

Langham would have given worlds to get on into the room, over the
prostrate body of the speaker by preference, but the laws of mass and
weight had him at their mercy, and he was rooted to the spot.

The other shrugged his shoulders. 'Vell, vid a bretty
woman--_ueberhaupt_--it _dosn't_ mean business! It's zoziety--the dukes
and the duchesses--that ruins all the yong talents.'

This whispered conversation went on during the andante. With the scherzo
the two hirsute faces broke into broad smiles. The artist behind each
woke up, and Langham heard no more, except guttural sounds of delight
and quick notes of technical criticism.

How that Scherzo danced and coquetted, and how the Presto flew as though
all the winds were behind it, chasing its mad eddies of notes through
listening space! At the end, amid a wild storm of applause, she laid
down her violin, and, proudly smiling, her breast still heaving with
excitement and exertion, received the praises of those crowding round
her. The group round the door was precipitated forward, and Langham with
it. She saw him in a moment. Her white brow contracted, and she gave him
a quick but hardly smiling glance of recognition through the crowd. He
thought there was no chance of getting at her, and moved aside amid the
general hubbub to look at a picture.

'Mr. Langham, how do you do?'

He turned sharply and found her beside him. She had come to him with
malice in her heart--malice born of smart and long smouldering pain; but
as she caught his look, the look of the nervous short-sighted scholar
and recluse, as her glance swept over the delicate refinement of the
face, a sudden softness quivered in her own. The game was so
defenceless!

'You will find nobody here you know,' she said abruptly, a little under
her breath. 'I am morally certain you never saw a single pe