ce and stir with his art's hypnosis an audience of
the smartest men and women in town, was meat and drink to his soul--was
his soul's vanity. Of all his vanities it was the least weak--because
the most sincere.

To see faces awaken from ennui and kindle into attentiveness, then
soulfulness as he swayed them with the touch of his fingers on the keys
was no mean triumph. To draw men out of lolling ease into tense and
unconsidered attitudes; to cause women's lips to part and their pupils
to grow misty as he carried them with him,

"Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,
To the land where the dead dreams go"

--these were his delights. There are meaner pleasures.

But when he had played a little while, the composite pattern of faces
always faded and darkened into a blur and he forgot them: forgot
himself, forgot everything except the instrument that had become the
mouthpiece of his soul. Then he, like his audience, was swept away into
an impalpable world where nothing remained save the marvelous cascading
and crushing tides which were the tides of golden sound. At such moments
Paul Burton was almost a master.

This evening it was a benefit recital at the Plaza. He did not recall
precisely to what worthy cause he was dedicating his gifted services,
but that did not matter. He was bowing with a winning and boyish smile
on his cameo features. Such fashionables as lingered in town so late as
June were there to do homage; and other anonymous human units drawn from
the millions followed where the fashionables led.

As Paul Burton looked out over the seated humanity, secretly searching
for Loraine Haswell, he became conscious of another face near the front.
It was that of a woman, who seemed quite alone and who was simply
dressed. Paul wondered why the features held his interest. It was not
precisely a beautiful face, but in its gray-green eyes dwelt a
distinctive quality and as some thought parted the lips in a smile there
came a sudden flooding of light which was better than ordinary beauty.
This girl was frankly looking forward to the evening, for her expression
mirrored that rapt anticipation which comes only to the eyes of the true
music-lover. The small head under its brown hair was modeled as though a
sculptor had spent loving care upon it, and Paul Burton thought that she
was inwardly purring with the expectation of pleasure. A responsive glow
at once awakened in him. He was sub