Excited, exuberant, bubbling over with that very emotionalism at which
he had scoffed a few minutes earlier, Felix leaned back in his chair and
sang a quatrain in his singularly sweet and penetrating tenor.

Instantly every head was turned and necks were craned. A waiter, serving
coffee, was so electrified that he poured no small quantity into the lap
of an indignant German. Joan, too wrathful for mere words, dared not
rush away instantly to her compartment, though she would have given a
good deal at that moment to be safe in its kindly obscurity. And the
worst thing was that she saw the coffeepot incident, and was forced to
laugh till the tears came.

Cries of "Bravo!" "Again!" mingled with the iron-clamped syllables of
Teutonic protest, and she distinctly heard a well bred English voice
say:

"Foreign music hall artists! I told you so, though the girl looks an
American. But, by gad! can't that humpbacked johnny sing!"

"Felix, how could you?" she managed to gasp at last.

"I'm sorry. I forgot we were not in Paris. But there are some here who
appreciate good music. If you don't mind, I'll give them Beranger's
'Adieu to Mary Stuart.' You remember, it goes this way--"

Joan fled, making play with her handkerchief. The fast speeding train
threw her from side to side of the corridor during a hurried transit;
but the exquisite lines followed her clearly.

Felix sang like a robin till the mood exhausted itself. Then, deaf to
enthusiastic plaudits and cries for "More!" he lit a long thin cigar and
smoked furiously. Passing Joan's berth later, he knocked.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"I, the Humming Bee."

"Leave me to-night, Felix. I must think."

"Better sleep. Thinking creates wrinkles. Look on me as a horrible
example."

He went away, bassooning some lively melody, but grinning the while, and
if his thoughts took shape they would run:

"The struggle has ended ere it began, sweet maid. You are in love; but
have not yet waked up to that astonishing fact. Now, why did the good
God give me a big heart and a small head and a twisted spine? Why not
have made me either a man or an imp?"

Joan could not face strangers in the dining car after Poluski's strange
outburst. She remained in her own cramped quarters all next day, ate
some meals there as best she could, and kept Felix at arm's length so
far as confidence or counsel was concerned. On the platform at Vienna,
where the train was made up afresh, she encountere