came to him, the farther he seemed from her. Can we more easily
read a form that flees from us than one that approaches us? He talked with
her constantly of music. She asked him his interpretation of this or that
sonata. She betrayed to him the impression he had made with this or that
fantasie. It was astonishing how closely she appreciated the vague changes
of tones and words of music.

But with Laura he never ventured to speak of music. Whenever he played
now, he played as if for her; and yet he never ventured to ask her to
listen.

"It seems to me sometimes," said Caroline to him once, "as though you were
playing to some one person. Your music is growing to have a beseeching
tone; there is something personal in it."

"It must always be so," replied Arnold, moodily; "can my music answer its
own questions?"

The spring days were opening into summer, the vines were coming into full
leaf, the magnolias were in blossom, the windows to the conservatories at
the street-corners were thrown open, and let out to sight some of the
gorgeous display of bright azaleas and gay geraniums.

Arnold sat with Caroline at an Opera Matinee. A seat had been left for him
near her. In an interval, she began to speak to him again of her weariness
of life; the next week was going on precisely as the last had gone, in the
same round of engagements.

"You will envy me my life," said Arnold. "I am going out West. I am going
to build my own house."

"You are joking; you would not think of it seriously," said Caroline.

"I planned it long ago," answered Arnold; "it was to be the next act after
New York,--the final act, perhaps. Scene I: The Log Cabin."

"How can you think of it?" exclaimed Caroline. "Give up everything? your
reputation, fortune, everything?"

"New York, in short," added Arnold.

"Very well, then,--New York, in short; that is the world," said Caroline.
"And your music, who is to listen to it?"

"My music?" asked Arnold; "that is of a subjective quality. A composer,
even, need not hear his own music."

"I don't understand you," said Caroline; "and I dare say you are insane."

"You do not understand me?" asked Arnold, "yet you could read to me all
that fantasie I played to you last night. It was my own composition, and I
had not comprehended it in the least."

"Now you are, satirical," said Caroline.

"Because you are inconsistent," pursued Arnold; "you wonder I do not stay
here, because my fortune can buy me a hand