"Mia cara," he said, making great efforts to be calm, "this is the end. I am a broken and a ruined man. I have been all my life waiting for this chance—this gift of inspiration. I thought that it would never come; it tarried so long, and I grew so old. At last it came, but only just in time. I have never written anything like this music, and never shall again. Now it is stopped. I must go. I cannot stay where it must not be played; I must go somewhere, and take my music with me. It will not be for long. The Prince will not leave Vienna. He is pleased with the city and with his reception. I must leave you all."

The girl was on her feet before him, with flashing eyes which were full of tears.

"Maestro!" she said; "what mean you to talk in this way? Do you suppose that I will ever leave you, that I will stay if you go? I owe everything to you. I cannot sing without you. I will follow you to Paris—anywhere. Whatever fortune awaits you shall await us both."

"Ah, Tina," said the old man, "you are very good, but you mistake. I am not the great master you suppose. I know it too well. There is always something wanting in my notes. When you sing them, well and good. Even as they are they never would have been scored but for you. When I leave you the glamour will be taken out of them. They will be cold and dead: no one will think anything of them any more."

"If this be true," said the girl, almost fiercely, "it is all the more reason why I will never leave you! You have made me, as the Prince said; I am yours for life. Wherever you go I will go; whatever you write I will sing. If we fail, we fail together. If we succeed, the success is yours."

She paused for a moment, and then, with a deeper flush and a tender confidence which seemed inspired:

"And we shall succeed! I have not yet sung my best. I, too, know it. You have not yet made me all you may. Whatever you teach me I will sing!"

The old man looked at her, as well he might, deeply moved, but he shook his head.

"Tina," he said, "I will not have it. You must not be ruined for me. You must not go. Other masters, greater than I, will finish what it is my happiness to have begun. The world will ring with your name. Art will be enriched with your glorious singing. I shall hear of it before I die. The old Maestro will say, 'Ah, that is the girl whom I taught.'"

The girl was standing now quite calm, all trace of emotion even had past away. She looked at him with a serene smile that was sublime in its rest. It was not worth while even to say a word.

The decision of the Maestro and the Signorina filled the princely household with distress. Tina had been, at Joyeuse, the light and joy of a joyful place; and, although the household saw much less of her at Vienna, yet the charm of her presence and of her triumphs was still their own. The Prince heard the news with absolute dismay. It was not only that he had begun to love the girl, he conceived that she belonged to him of right. The Maestro was his; he had assisted, maintained, and patronised him; by his encouragement and in his service he had discovered the girl and trained her in music. They were both part of his scheme, of his art of life. It was bad, doubtless, that, when he had attempted still higher flights, when he had wished to bring, and, as he had once thought, succeeded in bringing, religion, faith, and piety, with all their delicate loveliness, to grace the abundance of his life's feast—it was bad, doubtless, that, at the moment of success, a terrible catastrophe should have cruelly broken this lovely plaything, and left him with a haunting conscience as of well-nigh a deliberate murderer. All this was bad, but now he seemed about to fail, not only in these original and high efforts, which perhaps had never been attempted before, but in the simplest schemes of art; and to fail, to be foiled by the perversity of a girl! He had great influence in Vienna; he doubted not but that he could soon overcome the opposition of interested rivals, or, if not exactly this, there were other masters besides this one, there was other music for the Signorina to sing. He believed with him that her future would be brilliant, and he considered himself the rightful possessor of her triumph and of her charm. He imperiously ordered the Maestro to remain.

The old man begged to be excused.

He was old and broken down, he said; he had taught the Signorina all he knew. Henceforward he must pass her on to abler teachers. It was no wish of his that she should accompany him, he had urged her to remain.

In truth, as was not wonderful, his whole heart was in this last music of his; as a matter of selfish pride and enjoyment even, apart from his narrow, though to some extent real, conceptions of art, he must hear it again performed in a great theatre, and that soon.

The vexation of the Prince became excessive. He lost his habitual ease and serenity of tone. He sent for Carricchio.

The Princess Isoline was with him.

"Let the girl go, Ferdinand," she was saying. "Let her go for a time. She will improve by travel, and by singing in other cities. She is of a grateful and affectionate nature; be sure that she will never forget you: she will return when you send for her."

Then, as Carricchio was announced, the Princess rose and left the room.

"Carricchio," said the Prince impetuously, "you must stop this nonsense of the Banti's leaving Vienna. If the Maestro chooses to stay, well and good. If he chooses to go, also good. He will be a stupid old fool! But it is his own business. I have nothing to do with it; but Tina shall not go. She belongs to me. I will not have it. You have influence with her, and must stop it."

"Highness," said Carricchio, "she will not go for long. The Maestro is old and broken; he will be helpless among strangers, hostile or indifferent. She will be friendless; she will be glad to come back;" and there passed over Carricchio's face an unconscious habitual grimace.

"I tell you," said the Prince, "she shall not go at all. She belongs to me: voice and body and soul, she belongs to me."

He was flushed with excitement. In spite of the habitual dignity of manner and of gesture which he could not wholly lose, his appearance, as he stood in the centre of the room before Carricchio, was so strange, so different from its usual lofty quiet, that the latter looked at him with surprise, and even apprehension.

"Mon Prince," he said at last, "beware! Take the warning of an old man. Let her alone. God warns every man once—sometimes twice—seldom a third time. My Prince, let her alone!"

"What, Carricchio!" said the Prince lightly. "Are you also one of us? Are we all in love with a little singing-girl?"

"My Prince," said Carricchio, "it matters little what an old fool like me loves or does not love. I am a broken old Arlecchino, you a Prince. She will have none of us. She alone of all of us—Prince and Princess and clown alike—has solved the riddle which that boy, whom we killed, was sent to teach us. She alone has made her life an art, for she alone has found that art is capable of sacrifice. She alone of all of us has based her art upon nature and upon love. She is passionately devoted to her master—her father in art and life, for he rescued her from poverty and shame. She will follow him through the world. Mon Prince, let her alone."

"To let her go," said the Prince, "would be to spoil everything. Shall I give up a deliberate plan of life, finely conceived and carefully carried out, to gratify the whims of a foolish girl? Why is religion to interfere always with art? Why is sacrifice always to be preached to us? Life is not sacrifice: it is a morbid, monkish idea. Life is success, fruition, enjoyment. Life is an art—religion also should be an art."

"Where there is love," said Carricchio, "there must be sacrifice, and no life is perfect without love. There are only two things capable of sacrifice—nature and love. When art is saturated with nature and elevated by love, it becomes a religion, but religion never becomes an art; for art without nature and without love is partial and selfish, and cannot include the whole of life. You will find, believe me, that if you follow art apart from these two, you have indeed only been following a deception, for it has not only been irreligion, it has been bad art."

"The sphere of religion," said the Prince, "is the present, and its scope the whole of human life. It is, therefore, an art. If art is selfish, so is religion. The most disinterested martyr is selfish, for he is following the dictates of his higher self. I tell you Tina is mine, I want her. She shall not go!"

"You said the same of the boy, Highness," said Carricchio gravely; "yet he went—went a long journey from us all. Mon Prince, beware!"