Every now and then nature--to prove that while she
provided laws for humanity she obeyed none herself--nature produced the
prodigy. Ancestry was nothing; habits, intelligence, physical appearance
counted for naught. Harrigan was a fine specimen of the physical man, yes;
but to be the father of a woman who was as beautiful as the legendary
goddesses and who possessed a voice incomparable in the living history of
music, here logic, the cold and accurate intruder, found an unlockable
door. He liked the ex-prizefighter, so kindly and wholesome; but he also
pitied him. Harrigan reminded him of a seal he had once seen in an
aquarium tank: out of his element, but merry-eyed and swimming round and
round as if determined to please everybody.

"It will be a fine night," said the Italian, pausing at Harrigan's bench.

"Every night is fine here, Barone," replied Harrigan. "Why, they had me up
in Marienbad a few weeks ago, and I'm not over it yet. It's no place for a
sick man; only a well man could come out of it alive."

The Barone laughed. Harrigan had told this tale half a dozen times, but
each time the Barone felt called on to laugh. The man was her father.

"Do you know, Mr. Harrigan, Miss Harrigan is not herself? She is--what do
you call?--bitter. She laughs, but--ah, I do not know!--it sounds not
real."

"Well, she isn't over that rumpus in Paris yet."

"Rumpus?"

"The abduction."

"Ah, yes! Rumpus is another word for abduction? Yes, yes, I see."

"No, no! Rumpus is just a mix-up, a row, anything that makes a noise,
calls in the police. You can make a rumpus on the piano, over a game of
cards, anything."

The Barone spread his hands. "I comprehend," hurriedly. He comprehended
nothing, but he was too proud to admit it.

"So Nora is not herself; a case of nerves. And to think that you called
there at the apartment the very day!"

"Ah, if I had been there the right time!"

"But what puts me down for the count is the action of the fellow. Never
showed up; just made her miss two performances."

"He was afraid. Men who do cowardly things are always afraid." The Barone
spoke with decided accent, but he seldom made a grammatical error. "But
sometimes, too, men grow mad at once, and they do things in their madness.
Ah, she is so beautiful! She is a nightingale." The Italian looked down on
Como whose broad expanse was crisscrossed by rippled paths made by
arriving and departing steamers. "It is not a wonder that some m