arm, she begged him to go at once
to the dentist.

Then some of the musicians said that they could hardly read the music,
so effectually had they scratched it out.

"If the musicians cannot play the music, we had better go home," said
Evelyn.

"But the opera is announced for to-morrow night," Mr. Hermann Goetze
replied dolefully.

Mr. Wheeler suggested that they might go on with the rehearsal; the cut
could be discussed afterwards. Groups formed, everyone had a different
opinion. At last the conductor took up his stick and cried, "Number 105,
please."

"They are going back," thought Ulick; "she held her ground capitally.
She has more strength of character than I thought. But Hermann Goetze
has upset her; she won't be able to sing."

And it was as he expected; she could not recapture her lost inspiration;
mood, Ulick could see, was the foundation and the keystone of her art.

"No," she said, "I sang it horribly, I am all out of sorts, I don't feel
what I am singing, and when the mood is not upon me, I am atrocious.
What annoyed me was his attributing such selfishness to me, and such
vulgar selfishness, too--"

"However, you had your way about the cut."

"Yes, they'll have to sing the whole of the finale. But I am sorry about
his tooth; I know that it is dreadful pain."

Ulick told an amusing story how he had once called on Hermann Goetze to
ask if he had read the book of his opera.

"He'd just gone into an adjoining room to fetch a clothes-brush--he had
taken off his coat to brush it--but the moment he saw me, he whipped out
his handkerchief and said that he must go to the dentist."

"And when I asked him to engage Helbrun to sing Brangaene, and give her
eighty pounds a week if she wouldn't sing it for less, he whipped out
his handkerchief as you say, and asked me if I knew a dentist."

"The idea of Wagner without cuts always brings on a violent attack," and
Ulick imitated so well the expression of agony that had come into the
manager's face that Evelyn exploded with laughter. She begged Ulick to
desist.

"I shan't be able to sing at all. But I have not told you of my make up.
I don't look at all pretty; the ugly curls I wear come from an old
German print, and the staid, modest gown. But it is very provoking; I
was singing well till that fiend began to argue. Don't make me laugh
again."

He became very grave.

"I can only think of the joy you gave me."

His praise brightened her face, and she liste