tly flattered because he recognized
in that attitude of mind a tribute to his art for its own sake.

Then he began, and as the tide of his emotion swelled and lifted him out
of himself, individual countenances grew misty--yet, for some reason
this face stood out clear and single for a moment or two after the rest
had faded.

Afterward he was told that even he had not played so well before.

As he turned from a congratulatory group when the recital was ended, one
of the women whom he knew only by reason of her activity in arranging
the entertainment, stopped him. "Mr. Burton," she said, "I want you to
meet Miss Terroll." It was a general form of introduction and the man
turned to bow--and recognized the face that had been the last to fade.
The girl gave him a small and well-gloved hand. She smiled, but said
nothing, and her sponsor talked on rapidly.

"I was in the midst of a heated suffrage discussion when you began," she
declared. "But of course it was forgotten--at once."

"I'm sorry," laughed Paul Burton, "if I broke up a good argument."

"Oh," she assured him with a prepared quotation, "'I can always leave
off talking, when I hear a master play.'"

When Paul Burton reached the street most of the private motors had been
summoned and dispatched by the starter. He stood for a little while
looking up at the stars and breathing deeply the grateful night air. The
moon-mist made a shadowy lacework of the trees in the park, and the dark
contours of the avenue's mansions were silhouetted beyond the lights of
the Savoy and Netherland. The expenditure of so much of his emotional
self always left him strangely restless, and made him crave a brief
aftermath of solitude. So he sent his car away and turned down the
avenue.

But at Fifty-eighth street, under one of the light-clusters, he
encountered a slender and solitary figure, and as he approached, he
recognized the girl to whom he had so recently been introduced. The
pianist had just been thinking of her, pondering why her face had stood
out in the mist, when other faces had been swallowed, and why, although
her eyes had confessed the delight of anticipation, she had later
vouchsafed no word of commendation. Surely he had not played badly
tonight and he was accustomed to ready praise. When the older woman who
had presented him had spoken of him as a master he had laughed
deprecatingly, but his eyes had gone half-questioningly to the girl, as
if seeking corroboration th