The girl smiled and rippled into a Chopin Valse, under cover of which those who cared to could talk in low tones.  Afterwards the musician dashed into the brilliant movement of a Beethoven Sonata.

It was just as she was beginning Rubinstein’s exquisite tone portrait, Kamennoi-Ostrow, that the gentlemen came in.

Tryon Dunham had had his much desired talk with the famous judge, but it had not been about law.

They had been drawn together by mutual consent, each discovering that the other was watching the young stranger as she left the dining-room.

“She is charming,” said the old man, smiling into the face of the younger.  “Is she an intimate friend?”

“I—­I hope so,” stammered Dunham.  “That is, I should like to have her consider me so.”

“Ah!” said the old man, looking deep into the other’s eyes with a kindly smile, as if he were recalling pleasant experiences of his own.  “You are a fortunate fellow.  I hope you may succeed in making her think so.  Do you know, she interests me more than most young women, and in some way I cannot disconnect her with an occurrence which happened in my office this afternoon.”

The young man showed a deep interest in the matter, and the Judge told the story again, this time more in detail.

They drew a little apart from the rest of the men.  The host, who had been warned by his wife to give young Dunham an opportunity to talk with the Judge, saw that her plans were succeeding admirably.

When the music began in the other room the Judge paused a moment to listen, and then went on with his story.

“There is a freight elevator just opposite that left door of my office, and somehow I cannot but think it had something to do with the girl’s disappearance, although the door was closed and the elevator was down on the cellar floor all the time, as nearly as I can find out.”

The young man asked eager questions, feeling in his heart that the story might in some way explain the mystery of the young woman in the other room.

“Suppose you stop in the office to-morrow,” said the Judge.  “Perhaps you’ll get a glimpse of her, and then bear me out in the statement that she’s like your friend.  By the way, who is making such exquisite music?  Suppose we go and investigate.  Mr. Bowman, will you excuse us if we follow the ladies?  We are anxious to hear the music at closer range.”

The other men rose and followed.

The girl did not pause or look up as they came in, but played on, while the company listened with the most rapt and wondering look.  She was playing with an empressement which could not fail to command attention.

Tryon Dunham, standing just behind the Judge, was transfixed with amazement.  That this delicate girl could bring forth such an entrancing volume of sound from the instrument was a great surprise.  That she was so exquisite an artist filled him with a kind of intoxicating elation—­it was as though she belonged to him.