ck-bone, the back-bone--we shall improve that. Now,
four hours a day for six weeks--and we shall have something again."

Gyp said softly:

"I have a baby, Monsieur Harmost."

Monsieur Harmost bounded.

"What! That is a tragedy!" Gyp shook her head. "You like it? A baby!
Does it not squall?"

"Very little."

"Mon Dieu! Well, well, you are still as beautiful as ever. That is
something. Now, what can you do with this baby? Could you get rid of it
a little? This is serious. This is a talent in danger. A fiddler, and a
baby! C'est beaucoup! C'est trop!"

Gyp smiled. And Monsieur Harmost, whose exterior covered much
sensibility, stroked her hand.

"You have grown up, my little friend," he said gravely. "Never mind;
nothing is wasted. But a baby!" And he chirruped his lips. "Well;
courage! We shall do things yet!"

Gyp turned her head away to hide the quiver of her lips. The scent of
latakia tobacco that had soaked into things, and of old books and
music, a dark smell, like Monsieur Harmost's complexion; the old brown
curtains, the sooty little back garden beyond, with its cat-runs, and
its one stunted sumach tree; the dark-brown stare of Monsieur Harmost's
rolling eyes brought back that time of happiness, when she used to
come week after week, full of gaiety and importance, and chatter away,
basking in his brusque admiration and in music, all with the glamourous
feeling that she was making him happy, and herself happy, and going to
play very finely some day.

The voice of Monsieur Harmost, softly gruff, as if he knew what she was
feeling, increased her emotion; her breast heaved under the humming-bird
blouse, water came into her eyes, and more than ever her lips quivered.
He was saying:

"Come, come! The only thing we cannot cure is age. You were right to
come, my child. Music is your proper air. If things are not all what
they ought to be, you shall soon forget. In music--in music, we can
get away. After all, my little friend, they cannot take our dreams from
us--not even a wife, not even a husband can do that. Come, we shall have
good times yet!"

And Gyp, with a violent effort, threw off that sudden weakness. From
those who serve art devotedly there radiates a kind of glamour. She
left Monsieur Harmost that afternoon, infected by his passion for music.
Poetic justice--on which all homeopathy is founded--was at work to try
and cure her life by a dose of what had spoiled it. To music, she
now gave all the ho