atrical illusion admits.

Margaret Donne, disgusted with Cordova, said that her voice was about
as well adapted for one of those parts as a sick girl's might be for
giving orders at sea in a storm. Cordova could not deny this, and fell
back upon the idea of having an opera written for her, expressly to
show off her voice, with a _crescendo_ trill in every scene and a high
D at the end; and Margaret Donne, who loved music for its own sake,
was more disgusted than ever, and took up a book in order to get rid
of her professional self, and tried so hard to read that she almost
gave herself a headache.

Pompeo Stromboli was really the most sweet-tempered creature in the
world, and called during the afternoon with the idea of apologising
for having eclipsed her, but was told that she was resting and would
see no one. Fraeulein Ottilie Braun also came, and Margaret would
probably have seen her, but had not given any special orders, so the
kindly little person trotted off, and Margaret knew nothing of her
coming; and the day wore on quickly; and when she wanted to go out, it
at once began to rain furiously; and, at last, in sheer impatience at
everything, she telephoned to Logotheti, asking him to come and dine
alone with her if he felt that he could put up with her temper, which,
she explained, was atrocious. She heard the Greek laugh gaily at the
other end of the wire.

'Will you come?' she asked, impatient that anybody should be in a good
humour when she was not.

'I'll come now, if you'll let me,' he answered readily.

'No. Come to dinner at half-past eight.' She waited a moment and then
went on. 'I've sent down word that I'm not at home for any one, and I
don't like to make you the only exception.'

'Oh, I see,' answered Logotheti's voice. 'But I've always wanted to be
the only exception. I say, does half-past eight mean a quarter past
nine?'

'No. It means a quarter past eight, if you like. Good-bye!'

She cut off the communication abruptly, being a little afraid that if
she let him go on chattering any longer she might yield and allow him
to come at once. In her solitude she was intensely bored by her own
bad temper, and was nearer to making him the 'only exception' than she
had often been of late. She said to herself that he always amused her,
but in her heart she was conscious that he was the only man in the
world who knew how to flatter her back into a good temper, and would
take the trouble to do so. It was