Part 2

"There are souls that have no motive low enough for earth, but only high enough for heaven," he said, with evident intention, looking almost directly at her.

"Then one must come who speaks in nature's tongue," she continued.

"And the soul will then awake," he added earnestly.

"But is there such a one?" she asked.

"Perhaps," he almost whispered, his thought father to the wish.

"I am afraid not," she sighed. "I studied drawing, worked diligently and, I hope, intelligently, and yet I was quickly convinced that a counterfeit presentment of nature was puny and insignificant. I painted Niagara. My friends praised my effort. I saw Niagara again--I destroyed the picture."

"But you must be prepared to accept the limitations of man and his work," said the philosophical violinist.

"Annihilation of one's own identity in the moment is possible in nature's domain--never in man's. The resistless, never-ending rush of the waters, madly churning, pitilessly dashing against the rocks below; the mighty roar of the loosened giant; that was Niagara. My picture seemed but a smear of paint."

"Still, man has won the admiration of man by his achievements," he said.

"Alas, for me," she sighed, "I have not felt it."

"Surely you have been stirred by the wonders man has accomplished in music's realm?" Diotti ventured.

"I never have been." She spoke sadly and reflectively.

"But does not the passion-laden theme of a master, or the marvelous feeling of a player awaken your emotions?" persisted he.

She stood leaning lightly against a pillar by the fountain. "I never hear a pianist, however great and famous, but I see the little cream-colored hammers within the piano bobbing up and down like acrobatic brownies. I never hear the plaudits of the crowd for the artist and watch him return to bow his thanks, but I mentally demand that these little acrobats, each resting on an individual pedestal, and weary from his efforts, shall appear to receive a share of the applause.

"When I listen to a great singer," continued this world-defying skeptic, "trilling like a thrush, scampering over the scales, I see a clumsy lot of ah, ah, ahs, awkwardly, uncertainly ambling up the gamut, saying, 'were it not for us she could not sing thus--give us our meed of praise.'"

Slowly he replied: "Masters have written in wondrous language and masters have played with wondrous power."

"And I so long to hear," she said, almost plaintively. "I marvel at the invention of the composer and the skill of the player, but there I cease."

He looked at her intently. She was standing before him, not a block of chiseled ice, but a beautiful, breathing woman. He offered her his arm and together they made their way to the drawing-room.

"Perhaps, some day, one will come who can sing a song of perfect love in perfect tones, and your soul will be attuned to his melody."

"Perhaps--and good-night," she softly said, leaving his arm and joining her friends, who accompanied her to the carriage.

The intangible something that places the stamp of popular approval on one musical enterprise, while another equally artistic and as cleverly managed languishes in a condition of unendorsed greatness, remains one of the unsolved mysteries.

When a worker in the vineyard of music or the drama offers his choicest tokay to the public, that fickle coquette may turn to the more ordinary and less succulent concord. And the worker and the public itself know not why.

It is true, Diotti's fame had preceded him, but fame has preceded others and has not always been proof against financial disaster. All this preliminary,--and it is but necessary to recall that on the evening of December the twelfth Diotti made his initial bow in New York, to an audience that completely filled every available space in the Academy of Music--a representative audience, distinguished alike for beauty, wealth and discernment.

When the violinist appeared for his solo, he quietly acknowledged the cordial reception of the audience, and immediately proceeded with the business of the evening. At a slight nod from him the conductor rapped attention, then launched the orchestra into the introduction of the concerto, Diotti's favorite, selected for the first number. As the violinist turned to the conductor he faced slightly to the left and in a direct line with the second proscenium box. His poise was admirable. He was handsome, with the olive-tinted warmth of his southern home--fairly tall, straight-limbed and lithe--a picture of poetic grace. His was the face of a man who trusted without reserve, the manner of one who believed implicitly, feeling that good was universal and evil accidental.

As the music grew louder and the orchestra approached the peroration of the preface of the coming solo, the violinist raised his head slowly. Suddenly his eyes met the gaze of the solitary occupant of the second proscenium box. His face flushed. He looked inquiringly, almost appealingly, at her. She sat immovable and serene, a lace-framed vision in white.

It was she who, since he had met her, only the night before, held his very soul in thraldom.

He lifted his bow, tenderly placing it on the strings. Faintly came the first measures of the theme. The melody, noble, limpid and beautiful, floated in dreamy sway over the vast auditorium, and seemed to cast a mystic glamour over the player. As the final note of the first movement was dying away, the audience, awakening from its delicious trance, broke forth into spontaneous bravos.

Mildred Wallace, scrutinizing the program, merely drew her wrap closer about her shoulders and sat more erect. At the end of the concerto the applause was generous enough to satisfy the most exacting virtuoso. Diotti unquestionably had scored the greatest triumph of his career. But the lady in the box had remained silent and unaffected throughout.