hat Daniel liked her--and perhaps he himself was offended because she
never called.

Eleanore thought it all over, and from then on visited her sister more
frequently. But if it did not look as though Daniel did everything in
his power to avoid her, this much was certain: he never said a word to
her more than human decency required, and was an expert at finding
reasons why he had to leave the room when she was there. Eleanore was
gainfully conscious of this; it hurt her.

IX

One morning Gertrude returned from the market, carrying a heavy basket
full of things she had bought. As she came in the front door she heard
Daniel playing. She noticed at once that he was not improvising; that he
was playing a set piece, the tones of which were quite unfamiliar to
her.

As she came up the steps, the basket no longer seemed like a burden.
She went quietly into the living room and listened. Something drew her
closer and closer to the piano. Daniel had not noticed that she had
entered the room and sat down. He was wholly lost in what he was doing;
he never took his rapt and wondering eyes from the music before him.

It was his draft of the "Harzreise im Winter." For a year and a half,
since the time he had composed it in Ansbach, he had never again thought
of it; it had lain untouched. Suddenly the fire of creation had flamed
up in him; he could once more bind the incoherent, and make what had
been merely implied or indicated take definite shape.

He would play a movement again and again, trying to connect it with what
went before or came after; he would take his pencil and write in a few
notes here or there; then he would try it again, and smile to himself in
a strange, confused, and yet enchanted way, when he saw that the motif
was complete, perfect. Gertrude was drawn still closer to him. In her
awe-struck admiration she crouched on the floor beside him. She would
have liked to creep into the piano, and give her soul the opportunity it
sought to express itself in the tones that came from the strings. When
Daniel had finished, she pressed her head to his hips, and reached her
hot hands up to him.

Daniel was terrified; for he recalled instantaneously another occasion
on which another woman had done precisely the same thing. His eye
involuntarily fell on the mask of Zingarella. He was not conscious of
the connection; there was no visible bridge between the two incidents;
Gertrude's face w