much a personage that no disguise could have been wholly
effective.

The dining-rooms, frescoed with conventional Italian scenes, were built
round a court. The orchestra was playing as we entered and selected
our table. It was not a bad orchestra, and we were no sooner seated than
the first violin began to speak, to assert itself, as if it were suddenly
done with mediocrity.

"We have been recognized," Cressida said complacently. "What a good tone
he has, quite unusual. What does he look like?" She sat with her back to
the musicians.

The violinist was standing, directing his men with his head and with the
beak of his violin. He was a tall, gaunt young man, big-boned and rugged,
in skin-tight clothes. His high forehead had a kind of luminous pallour,
and his hair was jet black and somewhat stringy. His manner was excited
and dramatic. At the end of the number he acknowledged the applause, and
Cressida looked at him graciously over her shoulder. He swept her with a
brilliant glance and bowed again. Then I noticed his red lips and thick
black eyebrows.

"He looks as if he were poor or in trouble," Cressida said. "See how
short his sleeves are, and how he mops his face as if the least thing
upset him. This is a hard winter for musicians."

The violinist rummaged among some music piled on a chair, turning over
the sheets with flurried rapidity, as if he were searching for a lost
article of which he was in desperate need. Presently he placed some
sheets upon the piano and began vehemently to explain something to the
pianist. The pianist stared at the music doubtfully--he was a plump old
man with a rosy, bald crown, and his shiny linen and neat tie made him
look as if he were on his way to a party. The violinist bent over him,
suggesting rhythms with his shoulders and running his bony finger up and
down the pages. When he stepped back to his place, I noticed that the
other players sat at ease, without raising their instruments.

"He is going to try something unusual," I commented. "It looks as if it
might be manuscript."

It was something, at all events, that neither of us had heard before,
though it was very much in the manner of the later Russian composers who
were just beginning to be heard in New York. The young man made a
brilliant dash of it, despite a lagging, scrambling accompaniment by the
conservative pianist. This time we both applauded him vigorously and
again, as he bowed, he swept us with his eye.

Th