hich Mela showed; and he would have gone back to
the library, if he could, without being discovered.

But Beaton had seen him, and Dryfoos, with a nonchalant nod to the young
man, came forward. "What you got there, Christine?"

"A banjo," said the girl, blushing in her father's presence.

Mela gurgled. "Mr. Beaton is learnun' her the first position."

Beaton was not embarrassed. He was in evening dress, and his face,
pointed with its brown beard, showed extremely handsome above the
expanse of his broad, white shirt-front. He gave back as nonchalant a
nod as he had got, and, without further greeting to Dryfoos, he said to
Christine: "No, no. You must keep your hand and arm so." He held them in
position. "There! Now strike with your right hand. See?"

"I don't believe I can ever learn," said the girl, with a fond upward
look at him.

"Oh yes, you can," said Beaton.

They both ignored Dryfoos in the little play of protests which followed,
and he said, half jocosely, half suspiciously, "And is the banjo the
fashion, now?" He remembered it as the emblem of low-down show business,
and associated it with end-men and blackened faces and grotesque
shirt-collars.

"It's all the rage," Mela shouted, in answer for all. "Everybody plays
it. Mr. Beaton borrowed this from a lady friend of his."

"Humph! Pity I got you a piano, then," said Dryfoos. "A banjo would have
been cheaper."

Beaton so far admitted him to the conversation as to seem reminded of
the piano by his mentioning it. He said to Mela, "Oh, won't you just
strike those chords?" and as Mela wheeled about and beat the keys he
took the banjo from Christine and sat down with it. "This way!" He
strummed it, and murmured the tune Dryfoos had heard him singing from
the library, while he kept his beautiful eyes floating on Christine's.
"You try that, now; it's very simple."

"Where is Mrs. Mandel?" Dryfoos demanded, trying to assert himself.

Neither of the girls seemed to have heard him at first in the chatter
they broke into over what Beaton proposed. Then Mela said, absently,
"Oh, she had to go out to see one of her friends that's sick," and she
struck the piano keys. "Come; try it, Chris!"

Dryfoos turned about unheeded and went back to the library. He would
have liked to put Beaton out of his house, and in his heart he burned
against him as a contumacious hand; he would have liked to discharge him
from the art department of 'Every Other Week' at once. But he w