The Piper piped tunes into Anne-Marie's ear, tunes that she had to hum, and to sing, and to play; tunes that enraptured her when she created them, and hurt her when she forgot them. So Bemolle had to write them down. Everything she heard wandered off into melodies, melted into harmonies, divided itself up into rhythms. Mother Goose rhymes and Struwwelpeter were put to music, and all the favourites in Andersen's MÄrchen—the Princess and the Mermaid, the Swineherd and the Goblins—corresponded to some special bars of music in Anne-Marie's mind. "She has the sense of the Leitmotiv," said Bemolle, with awestruck eyes and oracular forefinger.

It had been arranged that Bemolle should have his mornings to himself for his own compositions. He had, two years before, by dint of much scraping, paid five hundred francs to secure a good libretto for his much-dreamed-of opera, of which he had already composed the principal themes when he first went with the Professor to play for Anne-Marie; he was also half-way through a tone-poem on Edgar Allan Poe's "Eldorado." He played it occasionally to Anne-Marie; frequently to Nancy:

"Gaily bedight, a gallant Knight,
In sunshine and in shadow——"

"Do you hear?" he would say, playing with much pedal, while his rough black head bounced and dipped. "Do you hear the canter and gallop and thump? It is the Horse, and the Heart, and the Hope of the Knight!"

Yes; Nancy could hear the Horse, and the Heart, and the Hope quite clearly.

"Now!" Bemolle's curly black mat would swoop over the keys and stay there quite near to his fingers, "Now—the Hag appears! Do you hear the Hag murmur and mumble? This is the Hag murmuring and mumbling."

"I should make her mumble in D flat," said Anne-Marie airily. And then she trotted out of the room, leaving in Bemolle's heart a vague sense of dissatisfaction with his Hag, because she was mumbling in A natural.

Soon, as there was much to do, programmes to prepare, letters to answer, engagements to accept, tours to refuse, and they were all four rather unbusiness-like and confusionary, Bemolle had to put aside his opera and his tone-poem, and dedicate himself exclusively to the business arrangements of the party.

They frequently got confused in their dates. "The Costanzi in Rome has telegraphed, asking for three concerts in February, and I have accepted!" cried Bemolle triumphantly, when Nancy and Anne-Marie returned from one of the dreaded and inevitable afternoon receptions given in their honour.

"I thought we had accepted Stockholm for February," said Nancy, with troubled brow.

"So we had!" exclaimed Bemolle. "Oh dear! Now we must cancel it."

"Oh, don't cancel Rome! Cancel Stockholm," said Nancy.

And so they cancelled Stockholm with great difficulty, promising Stockholm a date in March, immediately after Rome, and immediately before Berlin, where Anne-Marie was to play for the Kaiserfest the Max Bruch Concerto, accompanied by the great composer himself.

A week later, Nancy, looking at Bemolle's little book of dates and engagements, said: "How can we get from Rome to Stockholm, and from Stockholm to Berlin in six days, and give three concerts in between?"

"We cannot do so," said FrÄulein. "From Berlin to WarnemÜnde—"

"Oh, never mind details, FrÄulein," sighed Nancy. "It cannot be done."

"We must cancel Rome," said FrÄulein.

"No, you can't do that," said Bemolle.

"Well, then, we must cancel Berlin," said Nancy.

"Impossible!"

"Then I suppose we must cancel Stockholm again."

So they cancelled Stockholm again, by telegrams that cost one hundred and fifty francs, and by paying damages to the extent of two thousand francs, and by swallowing and ignoring threats of lawsuits and acrimonious letters.

"I think we ought to have an impresario," said Nancy. "We do not seem to manage our business affairs well."

So they decided to have an impresario. After wavering for a long time between a little black man from Rome, who had followed them all over the Continent, and a great Paris impresario who had only telegraphed twice, they decided on a nice-looking man in Vienna, who had seemed honest, and had promised them many things. He was telegraphed for—nobody ever wrote letters if it could be helped; indeed, the correspondence which flowed in on them from all parts of the world was only half read and a quarter answered. The impresario from Vienna replied, asking for two hundred kronen for travelling expenses. These were sent to him by telegraph. And then he did not come. "We must not put up with it," said FrÄulein. So they did not put up with it. They went to a solicitor, who asked for the correspondence and ten pounds for preliminary expenses, which were given to him. And that was all—except that about a year afterwards, when they had forgotten all about it, a bill from the solicitor for four pounds two shillings followed them across Europe, and finally reached them in St. Petersburg. And they paid it.

But meanwhile they decided upon the Paris impresario. He was a great man, and had "launched" everybody who was anybody in the artistic world. He needed no travelling expenses. He arrived, gorgeous of waistcoat, resplendent of hat. He said he had already fixed up two Colonne concerts in Paris for Anne-Marie. He was none of your slow, sleepy, impresarios. Here was a contract in duplicate ready for them to sign. His bright brown eye wandered critically over Bemolle. Then he took FrÄulein in at a glance, and looking at Nancy's helpless and bewildered face he seemed to be satisfied with Anne-Marie's surroundings. To Anne-Marie herself he paid no attention. He had heard her play twice. That was enough. Anne-Marie, as Anne-Marie, interested him not at all. Anne-Marie as artist still less. Anne-Marie was a musical-box, ten years old, with yellow hair, whom he had wanted to get hold of for the last six months.

Here was the contract. No father? Well, Nancy could sign it in the father's stead.

Nancy, Bemolle, and FrÄulein read the contract over very carefully, while the impresario drank claret and smoked cigarettes. He had a way of sniffing the air up through his nostrils, and of swallowing with his lips turned up at the corners in an expectant, self-satisfied manner that distracted Nancy, and interfered with her understanding of the contract.

There were fourteen clauses. "It seems all right," said Nancy softly to Bemolle. Bemolle frowned a businesslike frown, and FrÄulein said, "Sprechen wir Deutsch," which they did, to the placid amusement of the Paris impresario, who was born in Klagenfurt.

After much reading and considering, Bemolle turned with his business frown to the impresario. "You say forty per cent to the artist?"

The impresario sniffed and swallowed. "That's right," he said. "I have the risks and the expenses."

"Of course," said Nancy.

Bemolle touched her arm lightly and warningly.

"Forty per cent of the gross receipts?" asked Bemolle suspiciously.

"Of the net receipts," said the impresario.

"Ah, that is better!" said the unenlightened FrÄulein. And Bemolle put out his foot gently and kicked her.

"Now, what is this clause about three years?"

"That's right," said the impresario. "You do not think I am to have all the trouble of launching her for you to take her away after six months, while I sit sucking my fingers."

"Gemeiner Kerl!" said FrÄulein to Nancy.

But Nancy said: "She is already launched."

"Is she?" said the impresario. "I don't think so." And he sniffed and swallowed. "She must make about two million francs in the next two years. Otherwise she may as well quit."

"Zwei Millionen!" gasped FrÄulein, under her breath.

Bemolle kicked her again. "And what does this mean? Clause eight. 'The party of the second part agrees to give a minimum of one hundred and forty concerts per year for three years'?"

"That is a matter of form," said the impresario. "We put that into all contracts lest we should feel inclined to sit about with our hands in our pockets doing nothing. Now, if you don't like it, you can leave it. I've not come over for this. I have a contract with the biggest star singer in Europe to sign here to-day. That is what I came for. Look at it." And he pulled out a contract made in the name of a world-famed tenor, and dotted over with tens of hundreds of pounds as a field is with daisies.

FrÄulein was much impressed. "Better take him quick," she said in German. "He might go." So they took him quick, and signed the contract. And Bemolle was careful to have it stamped.

"Und nun ist Alles in Ordnung," said the "gemeiner Kerl," grinning at FrÄulein. And then he sniffed and swallowed.

They soon found out what Clause eight meant. The party of the second part was bound to give a minimum of one hundred and forty concerts a year—and the party of the second part was Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie was certainly not to be allowed to sit about with her hands in her pockets. In sixteen days she gave twelve concerts with eleven journeys between. She went from town to town, from platform to platform, looking like a little dazed seraph playing in its dreams. FrÄulein broke down on the sixth journey, and was left behind, half-way between Cologne and Mainz. Bemolle said nothing. He could only look at Anne-Marie dozing in the train, and great tears would gather in his round black eyes, linger and roll down, losing themselves in his dark moustache, that drooped over his mouth like a seal's. When the impresario travelled with them, smoking cigarettes in their faces, and going to sleep with his hands in his pockets, and his long legs stretched across the compartment, there was murder—black and scarlet murder—in Bemolle's eyes, and his gaze would wander from the impresario's flowered waistcoat to his blond, pointed beard, searching for a place.

During the concerts the impresario was everywhere to be seen, with his hands in his pockets and his legs wide apart. Between the pieces he sat in the artists' room and talked to everyone who came in to see Anne-Marie, scenting out the journalists with the flair of a dog. Nancy could hear him inventing startling anecdotes about Anne-Marie. He talked to the enthusiastic musicians and the tearful ladies that came to congratulate, and always could Nancy hear him recounting the same untrue and unlikely anecdotes. Yes, this child he had discovered playing the piano when she was three years old. When she was five she had, with the aid of her little brother, built a violin out of a soap-box. She had been kidnapped by some Nihilists in Russia, and had been kept by them three weeks in a kind of vault, where she had to play to them for hours when they asked her to. She had jewels and decorations worth ten thousands pounds. She had three Strads; one of them had belonged to Wagner and the other to the Tsar.

At the end of the concerts the impresario got into the carriage with them. The impresario bore Anne-Marie through the clapping crowds. The impresario carried her flowers and her violin, and waved his hand out of the window to the people when Anne-Marie was too tired to do so. Anne-Marie sat in her corner of the carriage and fell asleep. Nancy bit her lips and tried not to cry. And Bemolle sat outside on the box, thinking evil Italian thoughts, and murmuring old Italian curses that had never been known to fail.

This lasted just a fortnight. On the fifteenth day Anne -Marie said: "I don't want to see that man any more. And I want to have a picnic in the grass," she added, "with things to eat in parcels, and milk in a bottle."

"Very well, dear," said Nancy. "You shall have it." And they had it. And it was very nice.

When the impresario came that evening Anne-Marie was not to be seen. She was in bed and asleep, rosy and worn out by her long day in the open air.

"Are you ready?" said the impresario, looking round. Nancy said: "Anne-Marie cannot play to-night. She is tired. I did not know where to find you, or I should have let you know before."

"Oh, indeed!" said the impresario. And he sniffed and swallowed.

"And really," said Nancy. "I have come to the conclusion that this won't do. Anne-Marie must play only when she wants to. One or two concerts in a month, if she feels like it, and not more. She shall not play because she must, but because she loves to."

"Gelungen!" said the impresario, sitting down and taking out his cigarette case.

"So I think you had better just pay for the concerts she has given, and let us go."

The impresario laughed long and loud. His shoulders shook with amusement.

"Na, gelungen!" he said again, leaving off laughing to light his cigarette, and stretching out his long legs. "How much did you say I was to pay?" And he shook with laughter again.

"Well, our share, I suppose," said Nancy timidly.

"That's right," said the impresario, and he stopped laughing suddenly, and looked at his watch. "Now hurry up and come along. It is time to start."

"Anne-Marie is asleep," said Nancy.

"Then wake her," said the impresario.

Nancy felt herself turning pale.

"Get on," said the impresario; "it won't kill her to play to-night. And the concert-hall is sold out."

"I am sorry," said Nancy; "but Anne-Marie never plays when she is tired."

"That is foolish, my dear woman," said the impresario, getting up. "I shall be obliged to wake her myself if you don't." And he took a step towards the closed door which led into the room where Anne-Marie was sleeping.

Now Anne-Marie's sleep was a sacred thing. A thing watched over and hallowed, approached on tip of toe, spoken of with finger on lip and bated breath. If Anne-Marie slept perfect silence was kept, and the world must stop. If Bemolle chanced to open a door or creak a careless shoe, he was frowned at with horrified brows. Anne-Marie's sleep was a thing inviolate and sacrosanct.

Bemolle had been standing near the window looking out into the darkness while the impresario spoke to Nancy; but with the first step in the direction of the closed door Bemolle darted forward with a growl like that of a angry dog. Bemolle was short and stout, but his long accumulated anger and hatred stood him in lieu of height and muscles. He jumped at the impresario, he pulled his beard, he scratched his face, he pummelled him in the chest, and with short, excited legs he kicked him. When the big man recovered from the amazement caused by this unexpected onslaught, he lifted Bemolle off his legs and sat him on the floor. The he took his hat and his umbrella and walked out of the room, and out of the hotel.

"Has he gone?" said Bemolle, after a while, sitting up, with papery cheeks and a reddened eye.

"Yes, he has gone," said Nancy. "Poor Bemolle! Did he hurt you?"

Bemolle did not rise from the floor. He shook his head, and muttered hoarsely:

"He wanted to wake Anne-Marie. He actually wanted to wake Anne-Marie!"

... It cost them twenty-five thousand francs to annul the contract, and five hundred francs in legal expenses. But they considered that it was cheap for the joy of having got rid of the impresario.

They had picnics and played about until FrÄulein was well enough to join them again, and then they went to Rome, where they arrived with a fortnight to spare before the orchestral concerts at the Teatro Costanzi.

Thither from Milan came Aunt Carlotta, bent and wrinkled, and Zio Giacomo, trembling and slow; and AdÈle and Nino and Carlo and Clarissa in a noisy and affectionate group. Many tender tears were shed in memory of Valeria, who had not lived to see her little grandchild's fame. "But she saw your glory, Nancy," said Nino.

They lived again in memory Nancy's visit to the Queen with her little volume of poems, as they all went one sunshiny afternoon up the hill of the Quirinal and past the Palace. Nino, whose hair was quite grey, and who, according to Aunt Carlotta, was rather difficult to please and easy to irritate, walked in front of them, and Anne-Marie trotted beside him, holding his hand. He told her interesting tales about a pink pinafore her mother had worn when she was eight years old, and what FrÄulein looked like when she was apple-cheeked and twenty-five. FrÄulein, who really did not show the twenty years' difference very much, walked beside them, deeply moved by these reminiscences; and Bemolle, who was to go and visit his lonely old mother as soon as the Costanzi concerts were over, walked behind them all, tearful on general principles.

"By the way," said Nino to Nancy, "I saw the dear old Grey House again. I went to England on Carlo's affairs two months ago. I ran down to Hertfordshire and looked at it. It seemed to be empty."

"Oh," said FrÄulein, "what a beautiful place it was! Don't you remember it, Nancy?"

"I remember the garden," said Nancy, with vague eyes, "and the swing——"

"What swing?" said Anne-Marie, taking an interest.

Nancy told her about the swing in the orchard of that far-away home, where she had stood swinging and singing in the placid English sunshine when she was a little girl.

... After a very few days the well-remembered envelope with the golden arms of the Royal House was put into Anne-Marie's small hands. On the following evening, AdÈle, Carlotta, and Clarissa were in a flutter preparing Nancy and Anne-Marie for their audience at the Quirinal. Bemolle was fevered with excitement, for he was to play Anne-Marie's accompaniments on the piano. He walked, pale and happy, carrying the violin and the music, behind Nancy and Anne-Marie, as they passed, with right hands bared, through the red room, and the yellow room, and the blue room, and at last into the white and gold room where the King and the Queen and many officers and ladies were waiting for them. The Queen was not the same Queen whom Nancy had known, and whose name—the name of a flower—was written on the first page of her old diary. But the little boy whose picture, framed in diamonds, Nancy had received on her wedding-day, was King.

The Queen embraced Anne-Marie many times, and laughed when Anne-Marie talked, and wept when Anne-Marie played. Anne-Marie gazed at the tall, dark-eyed Queen with adoration, sparing a glance or two for a gorgeous man in scarlet tunic, with many decorations, whom she took to be the King.

As the Adagio of Mendelssohn's concerto ended, a stern-faced man in plain evening-dress, sitting slightly apart from the others, said: "I do not care much for music, but this music I love." The Queen turned to him with a smile on her beautiful face—a smile that startled Anne-Marie. Anne-Marie followed the track of that shining smile, and her eyes fastened on the face of the stern man. Where had she seen that face before? Why was it so dear and familiar? Why did it make her think of New York, and her mother weeping over letters from home. Stamps! She had seen it on stamps! He was the King of Italy! How could she have looked at that silly, yellow-haired man in the red tunic! Anne-Marie's small loyal heart prostrated itself in penitence before him who did not care for music. And as she played, he smiled back at her with piercing, friendly eyes.

Bemolle, who had made his deep obeisance on entering the door, and had then stopped beside the piano, bent under the awful joy of the majestic presence, never straightened himself out again, but sat down and stood up when spoken to, in a tense curvilinear posture that was painful to look upon. He also played many wrong notes in the accompaniments, and could feel the anger of Anne-Marie flashing upon him, even though her small blue back was turned. Nancy sat beside the Queen, smiling through tear-lit eyes, replying to the many intimate and kindly questions the beautiful lips asked. The Queen addressed her by her maiden name that was famous, and quoted her poems to her with softly cadenced voice; and the past and the present melted into one in Nancy's heart, and she could not separate their beauty.

They drove back to the hotel in moved and grateful spirit. Anne-Marie, fluffy and feathery in her mother's arms, chatted all the way home, for she had much to say.