f the window and given them a good
airing?"

"I have." Calcraft laughed rudely.

"Then for goodness' sake hurry in to breakfast, if you are cooled off;
the eggs are." Mrs. Calcraft sighed. It was their usual conversation;
thus the day began.... Her husband entered the room. Of a thick-set,
almost burly figure, Calcraft was an enormously muscular man. His broad
shoulders, powerful brow, black, deep-set eyes, inky black hair and
beard--the beard worn in Hunding fashion--made up a personality slightly
forbidding. The suppleness of his gait, the ready laughter and bright
expression of the eye, soon corrected this aversion; the critic was
liked, and admired,--after the critical fashion. Good temper and wit in
the evening ever are. The recurring matrimonial duel over the morning
teacups awoke him for the day's labors; he actually profited from the
verbal exercising of Tekla's temper.

"After what you promised!" she inquired in her most reproachful manner.
Calcraft smiled. "And your story in the _Watchman_. Now, Cal, aren't you
a bit ashamed? We have heard much worse Siegmunds."

"Not much," he grunted, swallowing a huge cup of tea at a draught.

"Yet you roasted the poor boy as you would never dare roast a singer
with any sort of reputation. Hinweg's Siegmund was--"

"Like himself, too thin," said her husband; "fancy a thin Siegmund!
Besides, the fellow doesn't know how to sing, and he can't act."

"But his voice; it has all the freshness of youth." ... She left the
table, and lounging to the window regarded the streets and sky with a
contemptuous expression. Tekla was very tall, rather heavy, though well
built, with hair and skin of royal blond. She looked as Scandinavian as
her name.

"My dear Tek, you are always discovering genius. You remember that young
pianist with a touch like old gold? Or was it smothered onions? I've
forgotten which." He grinned as he spilled part of an egg on his beard.

She faced him. "If the critics don't encourage youthful talent, who
will? But they never do." Her voice took on flat tones: "I wonder, Cal,
that you are not easier as you grow older, for you certainly do not
improve with age, yourself. Do you know what time you got in this
morning?"

"No, and I don't want to know." The man's demeanor was harsh; there were
deep circles under his large eyes; his cheeks were slightly puffed, and,
as he opened his newspaper, he looked like one who had not slept.

Tekla sighed again and stir