girls who were
grouped about the dim warm-colored room, lighting up a golden head or
the gleam of some piece of polished furniture or glass, picking out the
faces of some of the intent listeners and flinging a ruddy shadow over
others, flickering over the grand piano and the figure seated before it.

Patricia had cried out her "Oh" at the sight of this figure. It was so
very different from her idea of what a countess--and a Polish one, at
that--should be that it gave her quite a shock, and for the tiniest
fraction of a second made her forget even the Grieg music.

The little woman at the piano was small and rather wrinkled, and was
wearing an old-fashioned ulster which fitted her small form rather
carelessly. The small sealskin cap on her drab hair did not even pretend
to be a stylish one. It was rather worn, even in the kindly firelight,
and gave an emphasis to the shabbiness of the whole figure.

Patricia sank down beside Rita Stanford and stared under cover of the
fire-flicker. How disappointing some countesses were!

But she did not stare long. She soon forgot there was a shabby figure at
the big piano, because she was seeing the butterfly soaring up and up in
the sunshine, with the jewels glowing on his gorgeous wings, wings that
were soon to be broken and trailing. She saw the pulsing of the broken
wings, and felt the pity that was pulsing through the sunny world at
this darkening tragedy. The wings pulsed slower and slower. The
butterfly was dead!

Patricia found her eyes wet, and she heard the soft applause in a sort
of daze--the music that melted her also always intoxicated her--and she
sat without a word till the countess began again.

It was Shubert's Fantasia Impromptu this time, and there was absolute
silence as it ended.

The little shabby countess gave them a moment for recovery, and then,
whirling about on the stool, she said, with only a trace of accent:

"That is my farewell. Tomorrow I leave for the home-land."

There was a chorus of questions at this and that ended the music.
Patricia enjoyed the humorous chatter of the experienced, happy-go-lucky
countess, and she laughed over her accounts of her travels and
privations while lecturing in the West and writing books at odd times,
but she did not want to rub out the "Papillion" and she soon left the
Red Salon and took her way to her own room, thinking of a number of
things.

"She's had a hard time, too," she thought. "I suppose she'd never