h cabaret places and false gaiety.
Here was one who called upon him to discard preconceived ideas and begin
anew. On every topic he broached he encountered intelligent discussion
and untrammeled originality of thought. In the back of his brain lurked
the feeling that when he had broached all the topics upon which he could
talk, he would still have touched on only a part of those at her
command.

But between these moments of surprise were others of restful delight
when she made him forget everything except that he was talking with a
charming woman who saw in the opera a pleasure equal to his own.

And though he did not know it, Marcia Terroll, even this soon, saw in
him a nature full of tuneful sweetness, but very weak, and realized that
he was an instrument upon which a strong hand could play to an end of
harmony or discord--an instrument upon which his great brother had
already played, and which his great brother did not in the least
comprehend. Paul's frequent allusions, tinged with hero-worship, had
given her that understanding.

"I saw you in your box," she told him with a smile.

"And I saw you in yours," he laughed back at her.

The girl raised her brows, and he explained. "I ran away from the
chatterboxes and came up to your gallery." They had almost reached the
arch when he earnestly asked: "I wonder if you will go to the opera with
me some evening? It would be wonderful to have someone who really cared
for it."

Once more she laughed, but this time it was rather seriously. "We
inhabit rather different worlds, you and I."

"I want you to let me be an explorer into yours--and your guide into
mine," he declared. After a moment's hesitation she gravely answered:
"It might not hurt you to know something of my world after all. It's
rather humanizing for an artist to free himself from a single
environment. It is possible to suffocate on incense."

Paul Burton smiled. "But you know," he said, "until I was twelve I never
wore a pair of trousers that hadn't been bequeathed to me by my older
brother--and when they reached me they were always liberally patched."

She was alighting from his car and her smile flashed on him as she held
out a small, white-gloved hand. "And I," she retorted, "at that age was
being tricked out in Paris finery. Time brings changes, doesn't it?" It
was the first flash of self-revelation she had given him. But after that
Paul Burton saw Marcia Terroll more than occasionally, and admitted