little bell-shaped things in pale hues, ranged in perfect gradation. The walls abounded in pictures, and two luxuriant couches, in green velvet, wooed you to their dreamy depths, when you fell into a languid, after-dinner mood.

The neatness and richness impressed you at once with a sense of the host's exquisite taste. Not the least observable was the quiet that reigned through the house and the street. Tresorier could hardly fancy himself in the most fashionable part of the great city.

The waiter was also unexceptionable. Claude paused now and then to watch his graceful motions. A slender, lithe figure, with Egyptian blood mantling warm beneath his dusky skin, and large Oriental eyes, heavy-lidded, and swimming in lakes of pale, pellucid amber. An air of quiet, sumptuous life that inthralled; a picture so completely harmonious, that one could not question, only enjoy.

Dana placed his friend at ease immediately. He possessed that fine breeding that could lift others, when he so chose, to his own level. Wonderfully attractive, he could also repel with equal grace and suavity. A cut from him was no rough thrust, but so daintily keen that the victim was hardly aware of the wound at the first moment. The gay world which he frequented occasionally, for he was no misanthrope, allowed him to pass unchallenged. Few dared subject him to any test. What he gave of his affluent nature they received gladly; when he withheld, they did not venture to question. There was some occult and magical charm about him. It was well for those whom he met that his soul was pure and lofty, for with his peculiar endowments he would have proved dangerous indeed.

He entertained Claude royally, in a mental as well as material sense. Some little foreign reminiscence started him. He had been an indefatigable traveller, and his mind was richly stored. He held his guest captive by a few glowing touches, that were brilliant as a fine picture, and warmed Claude to the farthest pulse; brought him out of the reserve in which he had

fancied himself permanently enshrouded. First, he listened with intense interest, then he dared to share it, and straightway it became conversation.

Dana watched the light dawning slowly in the artist's eyes. It was as if there had been some inner struggle, and he had yielded almost against his will, swayed by a power he could not resist; and then throwing off restraint with a desperate resolve, had blossomed like an arctic summer into late beauty, but clear cold.

With the dessert came wine. They had lingered over their creams, and jellies lovely in hue, and fresh from daintiest moulds. Now the table was arrayed in luscious fruits and tempting berries, that seemed to have imprisoned summer's glow and beauty in their scarlet tints.

"And now your favorite wine. Let your artistic mind take in a view of clustering grapes, purpling through the long midsummer as they swung on low terraces by a murmurous sea, drinking in the dews of heaven, and ripening slowly to the ambrosia of the old gods. Though we lack the Ganymede." "Hardly," said Claude, with a smile, and then he made a sudden pause.

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Let me fill for you."

‘Do not think me insensible to your eloquence if I refuse; and Claude's voice faltered slowly over the words.

"No. I cannot take a denial. One glass at least. A pledge to your success."

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Do not urge me. It pains me to deny you."

The voice was steadied to a measured simplicity, but the eyes were turned away, the face slightly flushed, and there was more emotion than a mere refusal needed to call forth.

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sweet.

If you have any scruples, believe that I shall respect them," Dana said, in the tones that could be so dangerously "The wishes of a friend are always sacred to me." The graceful readiness with which he yielded his point moved Claude more powerfully than any persuasion could have

done. I think Dana saw his victory, for a satisfied light played about his eyes that were too wise to smile.

"Tresorier," he said, presently, "you have seen but little of the world."

"Very little."

"And it would seem as if your calling, above that of many others, required a rare experience. You have a warm and genial nature. I think you have lived too much alone."

"The years to come may have something different in them," Claude said, evasively.

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A truthful nature," Dana thought, "but not frank. Or else some hidden chain wears upon him."

The sun dropped down behind the distantly outlined hills, leaving in its wake a rosy glow. The whole atmosphere was filmed with golden motes, undulating like an ethereal sea. The two left the dining-room, and began to stray among the treasures of art, Dana revolving how he could best lead Claude to talk of himself, his hopes, his aspirations, and perhaps most of all, his feelings. He had never met with a soul so difficult to fathom. Most of his guild were free enough about their inner lives, but this one seemed to have no vanity that could be allured forth by even the most delicate flattery. As if in some strange way he preferred to be misunderstood.

V.

SOUL TO SOUL.

WHEN a tinge of purple came in the waning light, a new thought entered Dana's mind. He might evoke the spirit by the mighty spell of music. Something in the secret depths of the artist's nature must reply to this, an underlying want that could not be first told in words. If he could obtain the key to this peculiar soul, he could trust himself to thread its intricate mazes. So he paused and opened the piano.

"I need not ask if you are fond of music; your face answers that. But do you play?"

"Not at all."

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Enough to amuse yourself, surely? I cannot fancy any one living without music.'

"No. I do not think I have any genius beyond listening." "You love to listen?"

"I can fancy music being full of delight; nay, more, that it might interpret the needs of the heart as nothing else could do. I have heard very little, and my pleasure would be more in the impression than in any correct understanding of it." "What have you heard?"

"Do not ask me! Five hours would compass all the music to which I have really listened in my whole life. Not because I am insensible to its charms, but it has not come in my way, and I could not afford the luxury of going to it."

"How rare to find a person so entirely new to any sensation!"

Dana's voice was almost cold, so afraid was he of betraying the wild delight that thrilled him, and brought a consciousness of triumph.

"You think me shockingly ignorant, almost obtuse; " Claude rejoined, deprecatingly.

"May I play for you?"

"If you will, after such a confession. But if one could put in one's own life all these dreamed of and impossible delights, it would be too rich, too full, for endurance. It is the rugged highway that calls out one's strength, not the valleys of sensuous ease."

The voice fell insensibly, and made the last sentence seem a mere thought. For an instant Claude was unconscious of having uttered it.

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'Don't think it because I am unmoved if I keep quiet,” he added, after a pause.

"I want you to be quiet. Noisy admiration quenches my enthusiasm at once. And sit here by the window. It is just music time, when the day is dying. It stirs the soul so much more than at any other hour. As you are not much acquainted, I shall make my own selections."

Claude thanked him with a grateful look. He did not dream that he had been placed in this peculiar position that Dana might the better study his face. The high, luxuriant chair of crimson made the artist positively pale, but brought out the deep tone of the clustering hair, softened the features, and rendered the eyes more luminous. On one side of him the window, whose light would betray every emotion that ventured up to the surface, and Dana in range to translate it all.

"What do you know about

any of these rare souls who have he asked.

wedded themselves to music? "A little about their lives Mozart, with his wonderful childhood, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. That of the last seems such an idyl, when you think of his home, his sister, and the friends who loved him. His rambles through Italy and Switzerland are my delight. And then the crowning glories of his later life, too brief, alas! yet terminating in a manner so fitting translation, as it were."