s speech, inter-posed to turn it from the lady by
his side. "And you're the man who's opposed on principle to sweeping
generalizations!" he said in cheerful rebuke.

"Ah, I've just come from a gathering of the Clan Kennedy," repeated
the older man. "I defy anybody to produce a more successfully
predatory family than mine. The fortunes of the present generation of
Kennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise
in the value of real estate, as my own ill-owned money does. No, sir;
the good, old, well-recognized, red-blooded method of going out and
taking it away from people not so smart as they are, is good enough
for them, if you please. And my woman relatives--" He swept them away
with a gesture. "When I--"

Mrs. Marshall cut him short resolutely. "Are you going to have any
music tonight, or aren't you?" she said.

He looked at her with a sudden, unexpected softening of his somber
eyes. "Do you know, Barbara Marshall, that there are times when you
keep one unhappy old misanthrope from despairing of his kind?"

She had at this unlooked-for speech only the most honest astonishment.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said bluntly.

Judith stirred in her sleep and woke up blinking. When she saw that
Professor Kennedy had come in, she did what Sylvia would never have
dared do; she ran to him and climbed up on his knee, laying her
shining, dark head against his shoulder. The old man's arms closed
around her. "Well, spitfire," he said, "_comment ca roule_, eh?"

Judith did not trouble herself to answer. With a gesture of
tenderness, as unexpected as his speech to her mother, her old friend
laid his cheek against hers. "You're another, Judy, _You'll_ never
marry a dolichocephalic blond and make him pull the chestnuts out of
the fire for you, will you?" he said confidently.

Mrs. Marshall rose with the exasperated air of one whose patience is
gone. She made a step as though to shield her husband's sister from
the cantankerous old man. "If I hear another word of argument in this
house tonight--" she threatened. "Mr. Reinhardt, what are these people
_here for_?"

The musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled contemplation of
his host's sister, and looked about him. "Ach, yes! Ach, yes!"
he admitted. With a glance of adoration at the visitor, he added
impressively what to his mind evidently signified some profoundly
significant tribute, "Dis night we shall blay only Schubert!"

Sylvia