Mr. Van Torp knew no more about Bayreuth than about Samarkand, beyond the fact that at certain stated times performances of Wagner's operas were given there with as much solemnity as great religious festivals, and that musical people spoke of the Bayreuth season in a curiously reverent manner. He would have been much surprised if any one had told him that he often whistled fragments of Parsifal to himself and liked the sound of them; for he had a natural ear and a good memory, and had whistled remarkably well when he was a boy.

The truth about this seemingly impossible circumstance was really very simple. In what he called his cow-punching days, he had been for six months in company with two young men who used to whistle softly together by the hour beside the camp fire, and none of the other 'boys' had ever heard the strange tunes they seemed to like best, but Van Torp had caught and remembered many fragments, almost unconsciously, and he whistled them to himself because they gave him a sensation which no 'real music' ever did. Extraordinary natures, like his, are often endowed with unnoticed gifts and tastes quite unlike those of most people. No one knew anything about the young men who whistled Wagner; {131} the 'Lost Legion' hides many secrets, and the two were not popular with the rest, though they knew their business and did their work fairly well. One of them was afterwards said to have been killed in a shooting affray and the other had disappeared about the same time, no one knew how, or cared, though Mr. Van Torp thought he had recognised him once many years later. They were neither Americans nor Englishmen, though they both spoke English well, and never were heard to use any other language. But that is common enough with emigrants to the United States and elsewhere. Every one who has been to sea in an American vessel knows how the Scandinavian sailors insist on speaking English amongst themselves, instead of their own language.

Mr. Van Torp was fond of music, quite apart from his admiration for the greatest living lyric soprano, and since it was his fancy to go to Bayreuth in the hope of seeing her, he meant to hear Wagner's masterpiece, and supposed that there would not be any difficulty about such a simple matter, nor about obtaining the sort of rooms he was accustomed to, in the sort of hotel he expected to find where so many rich people went every other year. Any one who has been to the holy place of the Wagnerians can imagine his surprise when, after infinite difficulty, he found himself, his belongings and his man deposited in one small attic room of a Bavarian tanner's house, with one feather-bed, one basin and one towel for furniture.

'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'this is a heathen town.'

'Yes, sir.' {132}

'I suppose I'm thought close about money,' continued the millionaire, thinking aloud, 'but I call five dollars a day dear, for this room, don't you?'

'Yes, sir, I do indeed! I call it downright robbery. That's what I call it, sir.'

'Well, I suppose they call it business here, and quite a good business too. But I'd like to buy the whole thing and show 'em how to run it. They'd make more in the end.'

'Yes, sir. I hope you will, sir. Beg pardon, sir, but do you think it would cost a great deal?'

'They'd ask a great deal, anyway,' answered the millionaire thoughtfully. 'Stemp, suppose you get me out some things and then take a look around, while I try to get a wash in that—that tea-service there.'

Mr. Van Torp eyed the exiguous basin and jug with some curiosity and much contempt. Stemp, impassive and correct under all circumstances, unstrapped a valise, laid out on the bed what his master might need, and inquired if he wished anything else.

'There isn't anything else,' answered Mr. Van Torp, gloomily.

'When shall I come back, sir?'

'In twenty-five minutes. There isn't half an hour's wash in that soup-plate, anyway.'

He eyed the wretched basin with a glance that might almost have cracked it. When his man had gone, he proceeded to his toilet, such as it was, and solaced himself by softly whistling as much of the 'Good Friday' music as he remembered, little dreaming what it was, or {133} that his performance was followed with nervous and almost feverish interest by the occupant of the next room in the attic, a poor musician who had saved and scraped for years to sit at the musical feast during three days.

'E sharp!' cried an agonised voice on the other side of the closed door, in a strong German accent. 'I know it is E sharp! I know it!'

Mr. Van Torp stopped whistling at once, lowered his razor, and turned a mask of soapsuds in the direction whence the sound came.

'Do you mean me?' he inquired in a displeased tone.

'I mean who whistles the "Good Friday" music,' answered the voice. 'I tell you, I know it is E sharp in that place. I have the score. I shall show you if you believe not.'

'He's mad,' observed Mr. Van Torp, beginning to shave again. 'Are you a lunatic?' he asked, pausing after a moment. 'What's the matter with you anyhow?'

'I am a musician, I tell you! I am a pianist!'

'It's the same thing,' said Mr. Van Torp, working carefully on his upper lip, under his right nostril.

'I shall tell you that you are a barbarian!' retorted the voice.

'Well, that doesn't hurt,' answered Mr. Van Torp.

He heard a sort of snort of scorn on the other side and there was silence again. But before long, as he got away from his upper lip with the razor, he unconsciously began to whistle again, and he must have made the same mistake as before, for he was interrupted by a deep groan of pain from the next room. {134}

'Not feeling very well?' he inquired in a tone of dry jocularity. 'Stomach upset?'

'E sharp!' screamed the wretched pianist.

Van Torp could hear him dancing with rage, or pain.

'See here, whoever you are, don't call names! I don't like it. See? I've paid for this room and I'm going on whistling if I like, and just as long as I like.'

'You say you make noises you like?' cried the infuriated musician. 'Oh, no! You shall not! There are rules! We are not in London, sir, we are in Bayreuth! If you make noises, you shall be thrown out of the house.'

'Shall I? Well, now, that's a funny sort of a rule for a hotel, isn't it?'

'I go complain of you,' retorted the other, and Mr. Van Torp heard a door opened and shut again.

In a few minutes he had done all that the conditions would permit in the way of making himself presentable, and just as he left the room he was met by Stemp, the twenty-five minutes being just over.

'Very good, sir. I'll do what I can, sir,' said the excellent man, as Mr. Van Torp pointed to the things that lay about.

As he went out, he recognised the voice of his neighbour, who was talking excitedly in voluble German, somewhere at the back of the house.

'He's complaining now,' thought Mr. Van Torp, with something like a smile.

He had already been to the best hotel, in the hope of obtaining rooms, and he had no difficulty in finding it again. He asked for Madame da Cordova. She was at {135} home, for it was an off-day; he sent in his card, and was presently led to her sitting-room. Times had changed. Six months earlier he would have been told that there had been a mistake and that she had gone out.

She was alone; a letter she had been writing lay unfinished on the queer little desk near the shaded window, and her pen had fallen across the paper. On the round table in the middle of the small bare room there stood a plain white vase full of corn-flowers and poppies, and Margaret was standing there, rearranging them, or pretending to do so.

She was looking her very best, and as she raised her eyes and greeted him with a friendly smile, Mr. Van Torp thought she had never been so handsome before. It had not yet occurred to him to compare her with Lady Maud, because for some mysterious natural cause the beautiful Englishwoman who was his best friend had never exerted even the slightest feminine influence on his being; he would have carried her in his arms, if need had been, as he had carried the Tartar girl, and not a thrill of his nerves nor one faster beat of his heart would have disturbed his placidity; she knew it, as women know such things, and the knowledge made her quite sure that he was not really the coarse-grained and rather animal son of nature that many people said he was, the sort of man to whom any one good-looking woman is much the same as another, a little more amusing than good food, a little less satisfactory than good wine.

But the handsome singer stirred his blood, the touch of her hand electrified him, and the mere thought {136} that any other man should ever make her his own was unbearable. After he had first met her he had pursued her with such pertinacity and such utter ignorance of women's ways that he had frightened her, and she had frankly detested him for a time; but he had learned a lesson and he profited by it with that astounding adaptability which makes American men and women just what they are.

Margaret held out her hand and he took it; and though its touch and her friendly smile were like a taste of heaven just then, he pressed her fingers neither too much nor too little, and his face betrayed no emotion.

'It's very kind of you to receive me, Miss Donne,' he said quietly.

'I think it's very kind of you to come and see me,' Margaret answered. 'Come and sit down and tell me how you got here—and why!'

'Well,' he answered slowly, as they seated themselves side by side on the hard green sofa, 'I don't suppose I can explain, so that you'll understand, but I'll try. Different kinds of things brought me. I heard you were here from Lady Maud, and I thought perhaps I might have an opportunity for a little talk. And then—oh, I don't know. I've seen everything worth seeing except a battle and Parsifal, and as it seemed so easy, and you were here, I thought I'd have a look at the opera, since I can't see the fight.'

Margaret laughed a little.

'I hope you will like it,' she said. 'Have you a good seat?' {137}

'I haven't got a ticket yet,' answered Mr. Van Torp, in blissful ignorance.

'No seat!' The Primadonna's surprise was almost dramatic. 'But how in the world do you expect to get one now? Don't you know that the seats for Parsifal are all taken months beforehand?'

'Are they really?' He was very calm about it. 'Then I suppose I shall have to get a ticket from a speculator. I don't see anything hard about that.'

'My dear friend, there are no speculators here, and there are no tickets to be had. You might as well ask for the moon!'

'I can stand, then. I'm not afraid of getting tired.'

'There are no standing places at all! No one is allowed to go in who has not a seat. A week ago you might possibly have picked up one in Munich, given up by some one at the last moment, but such chances are jumped at! I wonder that you even got a place to sleep!'

'Well, it's not much of a place,' said Mr. Van Torp, thoughtfully. 'There's one room the size of a horsebox, one bed, one basin, one pitcher and one towel, and I've brought my valet with me. I've concluded to let him sleep while I'm at the opera, and he'll sit up when I want to go to bed. Box and Cox. I don't know what he'll sit on, for there's no chair, but he's got to sit.'

Margaret laughed, for he amused her.

'I suppose you're exaggerating a little bit,' she said. 'It's not really quite so bad as that, is it?'

'It's worse. There's a lunatic in the next room who {138} calls me E. Sharp through the door, and has lodged a complaint already because I whistled while I was shaving. It's not a very good hotel. Who is E. Sharp, anyway? Maybe that was the name of the last man who occupied that room. I don't know, but I don't like the idea of having a mad German pianist for a neighbour. He may get in while I'm asleep and think I'm the piano, and hammer the life out of me, the way they do. I've seen a perfectly new piano wrecked in a single concert by a fellow who didn't look as if he had the strength to kick a mosquito. They're so deceptive, pianists! Nervous men are often like that, and most pianists are nothing but nerves and hair.'

He amused her, for she had never seen him in his present mood.

'E sharp is a note,' she said. 'On the piano it's the same as F natural. You must have been whistling something your neighbour knew, and you made a mistake, and nervous musicians really suffer if one does that. But it must have been something rather complicated, to have an E sharp in it! It wasn't "Suwanee River," nor the "Washington Post" either! Indeed I should rather like to know what it was.'

'Old tunes I picked up when I was cow-punching, years ago,' answered Mr. Van Torp. 'I don't know where they came from, for I never asked, but they're not like other tunes, that's certain, and I like them. They remind me of the old days out West, when I had no money and nothing to worry about.'

'I'm very fond of whistling, too,' Margaret said. {139} 'I study all my parts by whistling them, so as to save my voice.'

'Really! I had no idea that was possible.'

'Quite. Perhaps you whistle very well. Won't you let me hear the tune that irritated your neighbour the pianist? Perhaps I know it, too.'

'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I suppose I could. I should be a little shy before you,' he added, quite naturally. 'If you'll excuse me, I'll just go and stand before the window so that I can't see you. Perhaps I can manage it that way.'

Margaret, who was bored to the verge of collapse on the off-days, thought him much nicer than he had formerly been, and she liked his perfect simplicity.

'Stand anywhere you like,' she said, 'but let me hear the tune.'

Van Torp rose and went to the window and she looked quietly at his square figure and his massive, sandy head and his strong neck. Presently he began to whistle, very softly and perfectly in tune. Many a street-boy could do as well, no doubt, and Mrs. Rushmore would have called it a vulgar accomplishment, but the magnificent Primadonna was too true a musician, as well as a singer, not to take pleasure in a sweet sound, even if it were produced by a street-boy.

But as Mr. Van Torp went on, she opened her eyes very wide and held her breath. There was no mistake about it; he was whistling long pieces from Parsifal, as far as it was possible to convey an idea of such music by such means. Margaret had studied it before {140} coming to Bayreuth, in order to understand it better; she had now already heard it once, and had felt the greatest musical emotion of her life—one that had stirred other emotions, too, strange ones quite new to her.

She held her breath and listened, and her eyes that had been wide open in astonishment, slowly closed again in pleasure, and presently, when he reached the 'Good Friday' music, her own matchless voice floated out with her unconscious breath, in such perfect octaves with his high whistling that at first he did not understand; but when he did, the rough hard man shivered suddenly and steadied himself against the window-sill, and Margaret's voice went on alone, with faintly breathed words and then without them, following the instrumentation to the end of the scene, beyond what he had ever heard.

Then there was silence in the room, and neither of the two moved for some moments, but at last Van Torp turned, and came back.

'Thank you,' he said, in a low voice.

Margaret smiled and passed her hand over her eyes quickly, as if to dispel a vision she had seen. Then she spoke.

'Do you really not know what that music is?' she asked. 'Really, really?'

'Oh, quite honestly I don't!'

'You're not joking? You're not laughing at me?'

'I?' He could not understand. 'I shouldn't dare!' he said. {141}

'You've been whistling some of Parsifal, some of the most beautiful music that ever was written—and you whistle marvellously, for it's anything but easy! Where in the world did you learn it? Don't tell me that those are "old tunes" you picked up on a Californian ranch!'

'It's true, all the same,' Van Torp answered.

He told her of the two foreigners who used to whistle together in the evenings, and how one was supposed to have been shot and the other had disappeared, no one had known whither, nor had cared.

'All sorts of young fellows used to drift out there,' he said, 'and one couldn't tell where they came from, though I can give a guess at where some of them must have been, since I've seen the world. There were younger sons of English gentlemen, fellows whose fathers were genuine lords, maybe, who had not brains enough to get into the army or the Church. There were cashiered Prussian officers, and Frenchmen who had most likely killed women out of jealousy, and Sicilian bandits, and broken Society men from New York. There were all sorts. And there was me. And we all spoke different kinds of English and had different kinds of tastes, good and bad—mostly bad. There was only one thing we could all do alike, and that was to ride.'

'I never thought of you as riding,' Margaret said.

'Well, why should you? But I can, because I was just a common cow-boy and had to, for a living.'

'It's intensely interesting—what a strange life you have had! Tell me more about yourself, won't you?' {142}

'There's not much to tell, it seems to me,' said Van Torp. 'From being a cow-boy I turned into a miner, and struck a little silver, and I sold that and got into nickel, and I made the Nickel Trust what it is, more by financing it than anything else, and I got almost all of it. And now I've sold the whole thing.'

'Sold the Nickel Trust?' Margaret was quite as much surprised as Lady Maud had been.

'Yes. I wasn't made to do one thing long, I suppose. If I were, I should still be a cow-boy. Just now, I'm here to go to Parsifal, and since you say those tunes are out of that opera, I daresay I'm going to like it very much.'

'It's all very uncanny,' Margaret said thoughtfully. 'I wonder who those two men were, and what became of the one who disappeared.'

'I've a strong impression that I saw him in New York the other day,' Van Torp answered. 'If I'm right, he's made money—doing quite well, I should think. It wouldn't surprise me to hear he'd got together a million or so.'

'Really? What is he doing? Your stories grow more and more interesting!'

'If he's the fellow we used to call Levi Longlegs on the ranch, he's a Russian now. I'm not perfectly sure, for he had no hair on his face then, and now he has a beard like a French sapper. But the eyes and the nose and the voice and the accent are the same, and the age would about correspond. Handsome man, I suppose you'd call him. His name is Kralinsky just at present, and he's found a whole mine of rubies somewhere.' {143}

'Really? I love rubies. They are my favourite stones.'

'Are they? That's funny. I've got an uncut one in my pocket now, if you'd like to see it. I believe it comes from Kralinsky's mine, too, though I got it through a friend of yours, two or three days ago.'

'A friend of mine?'

He was poking his large fingers into one of the pockets of his waistcoat in search of the stone.

'Mr. Logotheti,' he said, just as he found it. 'He's discovered a handsome young woman from Tartary or somewhere, who has a few rubies to sell that look very much like Kralinsky's. This is one of them.'

He had unwrapped the stone now and he offered it to her, holding it out in the palm of his hand. She took it delicately and laid it in her own, which was so white that the gem shed a delicate pomegranate-coloured light on the skin all round it. She admired it, turned it over with one finger, held it up towards the window, and laid it in her palm again.

But Van Torp had set her thinking about Logotheti and the Tartar girl. She put out her hand to give back the ruby.

'I should like you to keep it, if you will,' he said. 'I shan't forget the pleasure I've had in seeing you like this, but you'll forget all about our meeting here—the stone may just make you remember it sometimes.'

He spoke so quietly, so gently, that she was taken off her guard, and was touched, and very much surprised to feel that she was. She looked into his eyes rather {144} cautiously, remembering well how she had formerly seen something terrifying in them if she looked an instant too long; but now they made her think of the eyes of a large affectionate bulldog.

'You're very kind to want to give it to me,' she answered after a moment's hesitation, 'but I don't like to accept anything so valuable, now that I'm engaged to be married. Konstantin might not like it. But you're so kind; give me any little thing of no value that you have in your pocket, for I mean to remember this day, indeed I do!'

'I gave nothing for the ruby,' said Van Torp, still not taking it from her, 'so it has no value for me. I wouldn't offer you anything that cost me money, now, unless it was a theatre for your own. Perhaps the thing's glass, after all; I've not shown it to any jeweller. The girl made me take it, because I helped her in a sort of way. When I wanted to pay for it she tried to throw it out of the window. So I had to accept it to calm her down, and she went off and left no address, and I thought I'd like you to have it, if you would.'

'Are you quite, quite sure you did not pay for it?' Margaret asked. 'If we are going to be friends, you must please always be very accurate.'

'I've told you exactly what happened,' said Van Torp. 'Won't you take it now?'

'Yes, I will, and thank you very much indeed. I love rubies, and this is a beauty, and not preposterously big. I think I shall have it set as it is, uncut, and only polished, so that it will always be itself, just as you {145} gave it to me. I shall think of the "Good Friday" music and the Chimes, and this hideous little room, and your clever whistling, whenever I look at it.'

'You're kind to-day,' said Mr. Van Torp, after a moment's debate as to whether he should say anything at all.

'Am I? You mean that I used to be very disagreeable, don't you?' She smiled as she glanced at him. 'I must have been, I'm sure, for you used to frighten me ever so much. But I'm not in the least afraid of you now!'

'Why should any one be afraid of me?' asked Van Torp, whose mere smile had been known to terrify Wall Street when a 'drop' was expected.

Margaret laughed a little, without looking at him.

'Tell me all about the Tartar girl,' she said, instead of answering his question.

She would not have been the thoroughly feminine woman she was—far more feminine, in the simple human sense, than Lady Maud—if she had not felt satisfaction in having tamed the formidable money-wolf so that he fawned at her feet; but perhaps she was even more pleased, or amused, than she thought she could be by any such success. The man was so very much stronger and rougher than any other man with whom she had ever been acquainted, and she had once believed him to be such a thorough brute, that this final conquest flattered her vanity. The more dangerous the character of the wild beast, the greater the merit of the lion-tamer who subdues him. {146}

'Tell me about this handsome Tartar girl,' she said again.

Van Torp told her Baraka's history, as far as he knew it from Logotheti.

'I never heard such an amusing set of stories as you are telling me to-day,' she said.

'That particular one is Logotheti's,' he answered, 'and he can probably tell you much more about the girl.'

'Is she really very pretty?' Margaret asked.

'Well,' said Van Torp, quoting a saying of his favourite great man, 'for people who like that kind of thing, I should think that would be the kind of thing they'd like.'

The Primadonna smiled.

'Can you describe her?' she asked.

'Did you ever read a fairy story about a mouse that could turn into a tiger when it liked?' inquired the American in a tone of profound meditation, as if he were contemplating a vision which Margaret could not see.

'No,' said she, 'I never did.'

'I don't think I ever did, either. But there might be a fairy story about that, mightn't there?' Margaret nodded, with an expression of displeased interest, and he went on: 'Well, it describes Miss Barrack to a T. Yes, that's what I call her. She's put "Barak" on her business card, whatever that means in a Christian language; but when I found out it was a girl, I christened her Miss Barrack. People have to have names of {147} some kind if you're going to talk about them. But that's a digression. Pardon me. You'd like a description of the young person. I'm just thinking.'

'How did you find out she was a girl?' Margaret asked, and her tone was suddenly hard.

Mr. Van Torp was not prepared for the question, and felt very uncomfortable for a moment. In his conversation with women he was almost morbidly prudish about everything which had the remotest connexion with sex. He wondered how he could convey to Margaret the information that when he had been obliged to carry the pretended boy across the room, he had been instantly and palpably convinced that he was carrying a girl.

'It was a question of form, you see,' he said awkwardly.

'Form? Formality? I don't understand.' Margaret was really puzzled.

'No, no!' Mr. Van Torp was actually blushing. 'I mean his form—or her form——'

'Oh, her figure? You merely guessed it was a girl in boy's clothes?'

'Certainly. Yes. Only, you see, he had a kind of fit—the boy did—and I thought he was going to faint, so I picked him up and carried him to a sofa, and—well, you understand, Miss Donne. I knew I hadn't got a boy in my arms, that's all.'

'I should think so!' assented the Englishwoman—'I'm sure I should! When you found out she was a girl, how did she strike you?' {148}

'Very attractive, I should say; very attractive,' he repeated with more emphasis. 'People who admire brunettes might think her quite fascinating. She has really extraordinary eyes, to begin with, those long fruity Eastern eyes, you know, that can look so far to the right and left through their eyelashes. Do you know what I mean?'

'Perfectly. You make it very clear. Go on, please.'

'Her eyes—yes.' Mr. Van Torp appeared to be thinking again. 'Well, there was her complexion, too. It's first-rate for a dark girl. Ever been in a first-class dairy? Do you know the colour of Alderney cream when it's ready to be skimmed? Her complexion's just like that, and when she's angry, it's as if you squeezed the juice of about one red currant into the whole pan of cream. Not more than one, I should think. See what I mean?'

'Yes. She must be awfully pretty. Tell me more. Has she nice hair? Even teeth?'

'I should think she had!' answered Mr. Van Torp, with even more enthusiasm than he had shown yet. 'They're as small and even and white as if somebody had gone to work and carved them all around half a new billiard ball, not separate, you understand, but all in one piece. Very pretty mouth they make, with those rather broiled-salmon-coloured lips she has, and a little chin that points up, as if she could hold her own. She can, too. Her hair? Well, you see, she's cut it short, to be a boy, but it's as thick as a beaver's fur, I should say, and pretty black. It's a silky kind of hair, {149} that looks alive. You know what I mean, I daresay. Some brunettes' hair looks coarse and dusky, like horsehair, but hers isn't that kind, and it makes a sort of reflection in the sun, the way a young raven's wing-feathers do, if you understand.'

'You're describing a raving beauty, it seems to me.'

'Oh, no,' said the American innocently. 'Now if our friend Griggs, the novelist, were here, he'd find all the right words and things, but I can only tell you just what I saw.'

'You tell it uncommonly well!' Margaret's face expressed anything but pleasure. 'Is she tall?'

'It's hard to tell, in men's clothes. Three inches shorter than I am, maybe. I'm a middle-sized man, I suppose. I used to be five feet ten in my shoes. She may be five feet seven, not more.'

'But that's tall for a woman!'

'Is it?' Mr. Van Torp's tone expressed an innocent indifference.

'Yes. Has she nice hands?'

'I didn't notice her hands. Oh, yes, I remember!' he exclaimed, suddenly correcting himself. 'I did notice them. She held up that ruby to the light and I happened to look at her fingers. Small, well-shaped fingers, tapering nicely, but with a sort of firm look about them that you don't often see in a woman's hands. You've got it, too.'

'Have I?' Margaret looked down at her right hand. 'But, of course, hers are smaller than mine,' she said.

'Well, you see, Orientals almost all have very small {150} hands and feet—too small, I call them—little tiny feet like mice.'

Margaret's own were well-shaped, but by no means small.

'The girl is in London, you say?' Her tone made a question of the statement.

'She was there two days ago, when I left. At least, she had been to see me that very morning. Almost as soon as she was gone I went out, and in the first shop I looked into I met Logotheti. It was Pinney's, the jeweller's, I remember, for I bought a collar stud. We came away together and walked some time, and he told me the Tartar girl's story. I asked him to dine to-day, but I was obliged to leave town suddenly, and so I had to put him off with a note. I daresay he's still in London.'

'I daresay he is,' Margaret repeated, and rising suddenly she went to the window.

Mr. Van Torp rose too, and thought of what he should say in taking his leave of her, for he felt that he had stayed long enough. Strange to say, too, he was examining his not very sensitive conscience to ascertain whether he had said anything not strictly true, but he easily satisfied himself that he had not. If all was fair in love and war, as the proverb said, it was certainly permissible to make use of the plain truth.

The Primadonna was still looking out of the window when the door opened and her English maid appeared on the threshold. Margaret turned at the sound. {151}

'What is it?' she asked quietly.

'There's Mr. Van Torp's man, ma'am,' answered Potts. 'He wants to speak to his master at once.'

'You had better tell him to come up,' Margaret answered. 'You may just as well see him here without going all the way downstairs,' she said, speaking to Van Torp.

'You're very kind, I'm sure,' he replied; 'but I think I'd better be going anyway.'

'No, don't go yet, please! There's something else I want to say. See your man here while I go and speak to Mrs. Rushmore. Send Mr. Van Torp's man up, Potts,' she added, and left the room.

The American walked up and down alone for a few moments. Then the impassive Stemp was ushered in by the maid, and the door was shut again.

'Well?' inquired Mr. Van Torp. 'Has anything happened?'

'Yes, sir,' Stemp answered. 'They have turned us out of the house, sir, and your luggage is in the street. Where shall I have it taken, sir?'

'Oh, they've turned us out, have they? Why?'

'Well, sir, I'm afraid it's partly my fault, but there must be some misunderstanding, for I'm quite sure I didn't whistle in your room, sir.'

'So am I, Stemp. Quite sure. Go on. What happened?'

'Well, sir, you hadn't been gone more than ten minutes when somebody knocked, and there was the landlord, if that's what he calls himself, and a strange {152} German gentleman with him, who spoke English. Rather shabby-looking, sir, I thought him. He spoke most uncivilly, and said I was driving him half crazy with my whistling. I said I hadn't whistled, and he said I had, and the landlord talked German at me, as it were, sir. I said again I hadn't whistled, and he said I had, the shabby gentleman, I mean, speaking most uncivilly, sir, I assure you. So when I saw that they doubted my word, I put them out and fastened the door, thinking this was what you would have ordered, sir, if you'd been there yourself, but I'm afraid I did wrong.'

'No, Stemp. You didn't do wrong.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'I suppose, though, that when you put them out they didn't exactly want to go, did they?'

'No, sir, but I had no trouble with them.'

'Any heads broken?'

'No, sir, I was careful of that. I sent the landlord downstairs first, as he was a fat man and not likely to hurt himself, and the shabby gentleman went down on top of him quite comfortably, so he did not hurt himself either. I was very careful, sir, being in a foreign country.'

'What happened next? They didn't come upstairs again and throw you out, I suppose.'

'No, sir. They went and got two of these German policemen with swords, and broke into the room, and told me we must move at once. I didn't like to resist the police, sir. It's sometimes serious. The German {153} gentleman wanted them to arrest me, so I offered to pay any fine there was for having been hasty, and we settled for two sovereigns, which I thought dear, sir, and I'd have gone to the police station rather than pay it, only I knew you'd need my services in this heathen town, sir. I'm highly relieved to know that you approve of that, sir. But they said we must turn out directly, just the same, so I re-packed your things and got a porter, and he's standing over the luggage in the street, waiting for orders.'

'Stemp,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'I'd been whistling myself, before you came in, and the lunatic in the next room had already been fussing about it. It's my fault.'

'Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.'

'And it will be my fault if we have to sleep in a cab to-night.'

The door opened while he was speaking, and Margaret heard the last words as she entered the room.

'I'm sorry,' she said, 'I thought you had finished. I could not help hearing what you said about sleeping in a cab. That's nonsense, you know.'

'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, 'they've just turned us out of the one room we had because I whistled Parsifal out of tune.'

'You didn't whistle it out of tune,' Margaret answered, to Stemp's great but well-concealed astonishment. 'I know better. Please have your things brought here at once.'

'Here?' repeated Mr. Van Torp, surprised in his turn. {154}

'Yes,' she answered, in a tone that forestalled contradiction. 'If nothing else can be had you shall have this room. I can do without it.'

'You're kindness itself, but I couldn't do that,' said Mr. Van Torp. 'Bring our things to this hotel, anyway, Stemp, and we'll see what happens.'

'Yes, sir.'

Stemp disappeared at once, and his master turned to Margaret again.

'Nothing will induce me to put you to such inconvenience,' he said, and his tone was quite as decided as hers had been.

She smiled.

'Nothing will induce me to let a friend of mine be driven from pillar to post for a lodging while I have plenty of room to spare!'

'You're very, very kind, but——'

'But the mouse may turn into a tiger if you contradict it,' she said with a light laugh that thrilled him with delight. 'I remember your description of the Tartar girl!'

'Well, then, I suppose the hyÆna will have to turn into a small woolly lamb if you tell him to,' answered Mr. Van Torp.

'Yes,' laughed Margaret. 'Be a small, woolly lamb at once, please, a very small one!'

'Knee-high to a kitten; certainly,' replied the millionaire submissively.

'Very well. I'll take you with me to hear Parsifal to-morrow, if you obey. I've just asked Mrs. Rushmore {155} if it makes any difference to her, and she has confessed that she would rather not go again, for it tires her dreadfully and gives her a headache. You shall have her seat. What is it? Don't you want to go with me?'

"Margaret gazed at him in surprise while she might have counted ten."