saying to an
open-eyed _ingenue_ beside him,--

'Oh, my literary baggage is small as yet. I have only done, perhaps,
three things that will live.'

'Oh, Mr. Wood!' said the maiden, mildly protesting against so much
modesty.

He smiled, thrusting his hand into the breast of the velvet coat. 'But
then,' he said in a tone of the purest candor, 'at my age I don't think
Shelley had done more!'

Langham, who, like all shy men, was liable to occasional explosions,
was seized with a convulsive fit of coughing and had to retire from the
neighborhood of the bard, who looked round him, disturbed and slightly
frowning.

At last he discovered a point of view in the back room whence he could
watch the humors of the crowd without coming too closely in contact with
them. What a miscellaneous collection it was! He began to be irritably
jealous for Rose's place in the world. She ought to be more adequately
surrounded than this. What was Mrs. Leyburn--what were the Elsmeres
about? He rebelled against the thought of her living perpetually
among her inferiors, the centre of a vulgar publicity, queen of the
second-rate.

It provoked him that she should be amusing herself so well. Her
laughter, every now and then, came ringing into the back room. And
presently there was a general hubbub. Langham craned his neck forward,
and saw a struggle going on over a roll of music, between Rose and the
long-haired, long-nosed violoncellist. Evidently, she did not want to
play some particular piece, and wished to put it out of sight. Whereupon
the Hungarian, who had been clamoring for it, rushed to its rescue and
there was a mock fight over it. At last, amid the applause of the room,
Rose was beaten, and her conqueror, flourishing the music on high,
executed a kind of _pas seul_ of triumph.

'_Victoria!_' he cried. 'Now denn for de conditions of peace. Mees Rose,
vill you kindly tune up? You are as moch beaten as the French at Sedan.'

'Not a stone of my fortresses, not an inch of my territory!' said Rose,
with fine emphasis, crossing her white wrists before her.

The Hungarian looked at her, the wild poetic strain in him, which was
the strain of race, asserting itself.

'But if de victor bows,' he said, dropping on one knee before her. 'If
force lay down his spoils at de feet of beauty?'

The circle round them applauded hotly, the touch of theatricality
finding immediate response. Langham was remorselessly conscious of the
man's absurd _ch