his divinity was merely tired, or, for some inexplicable reason, offended. She was not very strong, he knew; yet a moment before she had seemed in the highest spirits. But how could he have displeased her? If Mrs. Burnham had been rude about him, as he was keen enough to guess, why must Margery lay his enemy's sins on his shoulders?

By turns, his mind supported each possibility, as a juggler tosses yet another and another ball. He might have distracted himself for hours over the problem, but that, as he neared his house, old habit appealed to the ruling passion of his life-concern for Maurice Tolna. "I need n't have sent him home alone, and I ought n't to," he thought, as he visualized the tenor's carriage wrecked by a trolley-car. "And how could I have let him stand indoors with his fur coat on?" A sudden apprehension of hazard to the singer's wonderful high C smote him with a physical pang.

Convinced that something must have gone wrong, since to acknowledge that all might go right, was to deny the indispensability of Mr. Denys Alden,- he crossed Park Avenue and turned down his own block. There were few lamp-posts, and most of the houses were

dark. Suddenly he quickened his pace, as he detected, across the way, the figure of a man lounging against an area railing, apparently in deep study of the building that sheltered the eminent Tolna.

"Burglar or reporter?" wondered Denys, just as the policeman on the beat neared the lurking prowler. His hand rested easily on his night-stick as he said with jaunty politeness, "Good avenin'."

"Good evening, Dillon," came the ready answer. "Easy with that plaything; I'm just taking my evening stroll."

The lounger slid off the rail, removing his hat.

Dillon exclaimed, "Mr. Tolna! Well, I'm dommed! To hear you talk United States!"

"WHY

CHAPTER III

MAURICE

'HY not? I was n't born in County Clare," the tenor retorted, as Denys

seized his arm.

"Maurice, art thou mad, then?" he said in "Come into the house and

rapid French.

hold thy tongue, idiot that thou art!"

"All right," acquiesced the Hungarian patriot. "Come along, Dillon, and have a drink."

"An' I med a shtep forward to accept his invitation," Mr. Dillon explained, some days later, to an enterprising reporter, “whin I see Mr. Alden's face under the gas-light. Well, you bet I did n't go. I says, "Thankin' ye kindly, sor, but I can't lave me bate.' An' he says, the dago, I mane,-'Nayther can I, worse luck! Good-night, Mr. Dillon.'

On their own steps, out of the policeman's hearing, Denys burst out, "In the name of common sense, why English?"

34

Before Tolna could answer, the door was flung open by an agitated valet.

"Ah, Monsieur Aldanne, how I am glad that you arrive. My monsieur, I could do nothing with him. He would stand himself in the snow-the melting snow, monsieur."

"The snow melts-I don't," the guilty one retorted, as François rid him of fur coat and overshoes.

"No, monsieur! But if monsieur's voice melts, and then monsieur's dollars?"

"Then I will go valeting some other poor devil of a singer, and make his life a burden, as François has taught me how."

"The first thing," announced Denys, who, not being a celebrated singer, had taken off his own coat and overshoes-"the first thing on the program is to make you a hot Scotch."

Half-way up the stairs the other turned with a flashing smile. "Oh, Denys, let it be the last, too!"

His keeper sprang after him. Tolna cleared the rest of the flight four steps at a time, at the top suddenly letting out the full volume of his magnificent voice:

"Oh, let me the cannikin clink, clink,

And let me the cannikin clink!"

The chandelier in the library shook, and all its old-fashioned prisms rang. Denys flung himself on the singer.

"Stop it, you loon! They'll hear you in the next house."

Never mind me,

"Be a treat for 'em. Denny; hurry up that Scotch.

"The tenor 's a man

Man's life 's but a span:

Why, then let the tenor drink."

"He seems not to have waited for leave. Maurice's beautiful, mournful face might have melted the heart of a gargoyle.

"Commentary on the life of a much-envied singer! Whenever he shows the least indication of good spirits, his friends conclude them to be alcoholic. Oh, mine is a gay life! No, father confessor; I have touched not, tasted not, handled not. But, beginning with the pleasant poison you thrust upon me, henceforth do I drown my sorrows in the bowl! A good scheme, eh, François?" And he repeated the proposition in laborious French. François smiled, as one humors a child's vagaries.

"It might be agreeable. Monsieur's career, however-"