o up
in the boudoir.

Mrs. Mendoza played with a passionateness which was quite out of keeping
with her mask-like expression. It was like finding a pearl in an oyster,
hearing her at the piano. She played certain airs from _Fra Diavolo_ so
skilfully that she seemed to be letting bandits into the house; and when
she saw that Sylvia was following with deep appreciation she passed on to
the _Tower Scene_, giving to the minor chords a quality of massiveness.
Her expression changed oddly. There was color in her cheeks and a stancher
adjustment of the lines of her face. She suggested a good woman struggling
through flames to achieve safety. When she played from _Il Trovatore_ you
did not think of a conservatory, but of a prison.

She stopped after a time and the color swiftly receded from her cheeks.
"I'm afraid I've been rather in earnest," she said apologetically. "I
haven't played on a good piano for quite a long time." She added, as if
her remark might seem an appeal for pity, "the climate here injures a
piano in a year or so. The fine sand, you know."

"You must come and use mine whenever you will," said Sylvia heartily. "I
love it, though I've never cared to play myself."

"I wonder why?"

"Ah, I could scarcely explain. I've been too busy living. It has always
seemed to me that music and pictures and books were for people who had
been caught in an eddy and couldn't go on with the stream." She realized
the tactlessness of this immediately, and added: "That's just a silly
fancy. What I should have said, of course, is that I haven't the talent."

"Don't spoil it," remonstrated the other woman thoughtfully. "But you must
remember that few of us can always go on with the stream."

"Sometimes you get caught in the whirlpools," said Sylvia, as they were
going down the stairs, "and then you can't stop, even if you'd like to."

I doubt if either woman derived a great deal of benefit from this visit.
They might have become helpful friends under happier conditions; but
neither had anything to offer the other save the white logic of untoward
circumstances and defeat.

The wife of Jesus Mendoza did not know Sylvia well enough to perceive that
a certain blitheness and faith had abandoned her, never to return.
Nevertheless, the fact of her visit has its place in this chronicle, since
it had a cruel bearing upon a day which still lay in Sylvia's future.

Sylvia's caller went home; and, as it chanced, she never called again at