Through the babble of many voices in many keys, talk mingling with laughter more or less melodiously subdued, he made his way up the great staircase.  As he neared the landing, there sounded the shrill squeak of a violin and a ’cello’s deep harmonic growl.  His hostess, small, slender, fair, and not yet forty, a jewel-flash upon her throat and in the tiara above her smooth low forehead, took a step forward to greet him.

’Really?  How delightful!  I shot at a venture, and it was a hit after all!’

‘They are just beginning?’

‘The quartet —­ yes.  Herr Wilenski has promised to play afterwards.’

He moved on, crossed a small drawing-room, entered the larger room sacred to music, and reached a seat in the nick of time.  Miss Frothingham, the violin against her shoulder, was casting a final glance at the assembly, the glance which could convey a noble severity when it did not forthwith impose silence.  A moment’s perfect stillness, and the quartet began.  There were two ladies, two men.  Miss Frothingham played the first violin, Mr. AEneas Piper the second; the ’cello was in the hands of Herr Gassner, and the viola yielded its tones to Miss Dora Leach.  Harvey knew them all, but had eyes only for one; in truth, only one rewarded observation.  Miss Leach was a meagre blonde, whose form, face, and attitude enhanced by contrast the graces of the First Violin.  Alma’s countenance shone —­ possibly with the joy of the artist, perhaps only with gratified vanity.  As she grew warm, the rosy blood mantled in her cheeks and flushed her neck.  Every muscle and nerve tense as the strings from which she struck music, she presently swayed forward on the points of her feet, and seemed to gain in stature, to become a more commanding type.  Her features suggested neither force of intellect or originality of character:  but they had beauty, and something more.  She stood a fascination, an allurement, to the masculine sense.  Harvey Rolfe had never so responded to this quality in the girl; the smile died from his face as he regarded her.  Of her skill as a musician, he could form no judgment; but it seemed to him that she played very well, and he had heard her praised by people who understood the matter; for instance, Herr Wilenski, the virtuoso, from whom —­ in itself a great compliment —­ Alma was having lessons.

He averted his eyes, and began to seek for known faces among the audience.  His host he could not discover; Mr. Frothingham must be away from home this evening; it was seldom he failed to attend Alma’s concerts.  But near the front sat Mrs. Ascott Larkfield, a dazzling figure, and, at some distance, her daughter Mrs. Carnaby, no shadow of gloom upon her handsome features.  Hugh was not in sight; probably he felt in no mood for parties.  Next to Mrs. Carnaby sat ‘that fellow’, Cyrus Redgrave, smiling as always, and surveying the people near him from under drooping brows, his head slightly bent.  Mr. Redgrave had thin hair, but a robust moustache and a short peaked beard; his complexion was a rifle sallow; he lolled upon the chair, so that, at moments, his head all but brushed Mrs. Carnaby’s shoulder.