estranged. He passed Denver now with eyes fixed
straight ahead, refusing even to recognize his presence; and, cut off
for the time from all human intercourse, Denver turned at last to his
phonograph.

The stars had come out in the velvety black sky, the hot stillness of
evening had come, and from the valley below no sound came up but the
eerie, _eh_, _eh_, _eh_, of tree toads. They were sitting
by the stream and in cracks among the rocks, puffing out their pouched
throats like toy balloons and raising, a shrill, haunting chorus. Their
thin voices intermingled in an insistent, unearthly refrain as if the
spirits of the dead had come again to gibber by the pool. Even the
scales and trills of Drusilla had ceased, so hot and close was the
night.

Denver set up his phonograph with its scrollwork front and patent filing
cases and looked over the records which he had bought at great expense
while the other boys were buying jazz. He was proud of them all but the
one he valued most he reserved for another time. It was the "Barcarolle"
from "Les Contes D' Hoffmann," sung by Farrar and Scotti, and he put on
instead a tenor solo that had cost him three dollars in Globe. Then a
violin solo, "Tambourin Chinois," by some man with a foreign name; and
at last the record that he liked the best, the "Cradle Song," by
Schumann-Heink. And as he played it again he saw Drusilla come out and
stand in the doorway, listening.

It was a beautiful song, very sweet, very tender, and sung with the
feeling of an artist; yet something about it seemed to displease
Drusilla, for she turned and went into the house. Perhaps, hearing the
song, she was reminded of the singers, stepping forward in a blare of
trumpets to meet the applause of vast audiences; or perhaps again she
felt the difference between her efforts and theirs; but all the next
day, when she should have been practicing, Drusilla was strangely
silent. Denver paused in his work from time to time as he listened for
the familiar roulades, then he swung his heavy sledge as if it were a
feather-weight and beat out the measured song of steel on steel. He
picked and shoveled, tearing down from above and building up the trail
below; and as he worked he whistled the "Cradle Song," which was running
through his brain. But as he swung the sledge again he was conscious of
a presence, of someone watching from the sycamores; and, glancing down
quickly he surprised Drusilla, looking up from among the tre