"Oh, no; it is n't that sort of collapse. I am simply overcome with a sense of my own conceit in attempting to play Hungarian airs before Monsieur Tolna. What an imbecile!"

"But my dear-Miss Fanning," Denys protested warmly, "that 's the thing of all others to please him. Wonderful musician though he is, he does n't play himself,—or thinks he does n't,-and he loves to be played to. Of course, Hungarian airs-why, your choice was inspired!"

"But to murder his gipsy-music!" Margery cried tragically, fluttering in aimless nervousness about the room. “Of course I meant to pay him a particular compliment, but when he hears me he 'll think it a particular affront."

Margery paused to look about the room and then at Denys, in elaborately dramatized surprise.

66

'Are you soliloquizing, Mr. Alden?"

"I must have been, Miss Fanning. As you kindly point out, I could not possibly have been addressing that stately young lady, Miss Fanning. Though why, my dear Miss Fanning, I should be forced to call you Miss

Fanning, when your mother lets me call her Aunt-"

"You have known my mother-how many years? You two had an old friendship when you first met me. We began at the beginning."

"May I hope to have the honor of winning your-friendship?"

"It is not hard to win, Mr. Alden; but neither is it to be taken for granted. I do like you, of course," she reassured him; "but suppose I had n't? You would have begun by calling me Margery."

"Is that libellous?"
"Worse-lèse-majesté."

It was always delightful to Denys to see Margery unbend from icy dignity to a jest. He loved her very scorn and floutings for the sake of that moment when the twinkle of fun danced into her violet eyes and, for no discernible reason, her whole mood changed. Though her transparency often made her mother uncomfortable, Margery regarded herself as a paragon of artfulness. Nor could her lover, with his merely masculine perceptions, ever understand why he was alternately welcomed as Denys and repelled as Mr. Alden. Her real sentiments were a riddle to

him. He only knew that she had frowned and now she smiled. And he basked contented in the smile.

66

"But my dear-Miss Fanning, I don't want to call you Margery. I want to call you- Well, never mind. But I see that I must tell you again what I 've told you before -that you have real musical genius. Therefore, of course, you play unequally. But you could n't play badly to save your life."

The girl's face was all care again.

"I can to-night. Mr. Alden, honestly, I feel as if I'd rather jump out on those stones than get up on that platform."

"Good! Your type will always do its best just after it threatens its worst.'

66

'Oh, I am going to play. I won't be a coward. But poor Monsieur Tolna will suffer tortures.'

"Poor Monsieur Tolna will have the greatest pleasure that has fallen to him since he crossed the ocean."

Her face softened again, her eyes grew dreamy.

66

Mr. Alden, if I could give him pleasure! That is my only justification. I thought of how much pleasure he scatters right and left, of how much happiness he has

given me, and I wanted to do something just for him. I ought to have known I could n't." You can."

66

"No, I am like Icarus: I attempt too fine a flight." She was silent a moment, to continue in another voice, half dreamy, half eager: "And yet, what a chance to do what nobody ever dreamed I could! Tolna! Not only the prince of artists, but the prince of men. The beauty of his voice and the beauty of his life! His talents, and the consecration of them to liberty and justice. Denys, a clod ought to break into music before Tolna. A musician might be happy to play for him, and die!"

She was speaking to herself rather than to him, in an enthusiasm too absorbing for any self-consciousness. Theoretically, Denys knew that he should have been delighted at this high tribute to the success of his invention. Actually, he felt, for the first time, qualms of conscience and almost of regret. That the dear public should accept an imaginary being was an exquisite jest. That Margery should be deceived suddenly revolted him. He said to himself that when he built up the Tolna myth, he had not expected her to take it so seriously. It would have been truer to admit that he had not then expected to take her so seriously.

While he pondered in silence this new aspect of his perfidy, she spoke again, more quietly, somewhat chilled by his strange unresponsive

ness.

But you, of all men,

"Do I rhapsodize? ought to understand. For I know of your Tolna only what you have told me, admire what you have showed me to admire. He is the only man I ever saw who was somehow apart from the hurly-burly, the common frets of life. All the rest of us live for the little incidents of a day, but he lives for a principle. One feels as if he were truth and justice and high ideals personified."

Denys began to be frightened. Visions of a dreadful possibility put an edge to his tongue.

'A sort of walking allegory? After all, Miss Fanning, you must remember that he is not an apotheosis. He is just a man."

For an instant she was amazed that he could speak thus of the idol whose worship she had learned from him. Then she thought she understood, and her eyes danced.

“Yes, I am glad to remember that.— Here is Hyacinth to say that they are ready for our number. Can you believe that she is really Jessie Burnham's sister?"