t; but over here, where these inventions
were unknown, a wash-tub had a peculiar significance: that a man should be
found in his money through its services left persons in doubt as to his
genealogical tree, which, as a matter of fact, was a very good one. As a
boy his schoolmates had dubbed him "The Sweep" and "Suds," and it was only
human that he should wish to forget.

His earnings (not inconsiderable, for tourists found much to admire in
both the pictures and the artist) he spent in gratifying his mild
extravagances. So there were no lines in his handsome, boyish, beardless
face; and his eyes were unusually clear and happy. Perhaps once or twice,
since his majority, he had returned to America to prove that he was not an
expatriate, though certainly he was one, the only tie existing between him
and his native land being the bankers who regularly honored his drafts.
And who shall condemn him for preferring Italy to the desolate center of
New York state, where good servants and good weather are as rare as are
flawless emeralds?

Half after three, on Wednesday afternoon, Abbott stared moodily at the
weather-tarnished group by Dalou in the Luxembourg gardens--the _Triumph
of Silenus_. His gaze was deceptive, for the rollicking old bibulous
scoundrel had not stirred his critical sense nor impressed the delicate
films of thought. He was looking through the bronze, into the far-away
things. He sat on his own folding stool, which he had brought along from
his winter studio hard by in the old Boul' Miche'. He had arrived early
that morning, all the way from Como, to find a thunderbolt driven in at
his feet. Across his knees fluttered an open newspaper, the Paris edition
of the New York _Herald_. All that kept it from blowing away was the tense
if sprawling fingers of his right hand; his left hung limply at his side.

It was not possible. Such things did not happen these unromantic days to
musical celebrities. She had written that on Monday night she would sing
in _La Boheme_ and on Wednesday, _Faust_. She had since vanished, vanished
as completely as though she had taken wings and flown away. It was unreal.
She had left the apartment in the Avenue de Wagram on Saturday afternoon,
and nothing had been seen or heard of her since. At the last moment they
had had to find a substitute for her part in the Puccini opera. The maid
testified that her mistress had gone on an errand of mercy. She had not
mentioned where, but she had sai