ting was at a tea given by the Haatstaedts,
with whom the Cowperwoods were still friendly, and Harold played.
Aileen, who was there alone, seeing a chance to brighten her own life a
little, invited the Sohlbergs, who seemed rather above the average, to
her house to a musical evening. They came.

On this occasion Cowperwood took one look at Sohlberg and placed him
exactly. "An erratic, emotional temperament," he thought. "Probably
not able to place himself for want of consistency and application." But
he liked him after a fashion. Sohlberg was interesting as an artistic
type or figure--quite like a character in a Japanese print might be.
He greeted him pleasantly.

"And Mrs. Sohlberg, I suppose," he remarked, feelingly, catching a
quick suggestion of the rhythm and sufficiency and naive taste that
went with her. She was in simple white and blue--small blue ribbons
threaded above lacy flounces in the skin. Her arms and throat were
deliciously soft and bare. Her eyes were quick, and yet soft and
babyish--petted eyes.

"You know," she said to him, with a peculiar rounded formation of the
mouth, which was a characteristic of her when she talked--a pretty,
pouty mouth, "I thought we would never get heah at all. There was a
fire"--she pronounced it fy-yah--"at Twelfth Street" (the Twelfth was
Twalfth in her mouth) "and the engines were all about there. Oh, such
sparks and smoke! And the flames coming out of the windows! The flames
were a very dark red--almost orange and black. They're pretty when
they're that way--don't you think so?"

Cowperwood was charmed. "Indeed, I do," he said, genially, using a
kind of superior and yet sympathetic air which he could easily assume
on occasion. He felt as though Mrs. Sohlberg might be a charming
daughter to him--she was so cuddling and shy--and yet he could see that
she was definite and individual. Her arms and face, he told himself,
were lovely. Mrs. Sohlberg only saw before her a smart, cold, exact
man--capable, very, she presumed--with brilliant, incisive eyes. How
different from Harold, she thought, who would never be anything
much--not even famous.

"I'm so glad you brought your violin," Aileen was saying to Harold, who
was in another corner. "I've been looking forward to your coming to
play for us."

"Very nize ov you, I'm sure," Sohlberg replied, with his sweety drawl.
"Such a nize plaze you have here--all these loafly books, and jade, and
glass."

He had an