sound could carry.  He could afford to be generous, and when he rose to play La Lettre d’Amour it was with the elation of a knight entering the lists, with the ardor of a lover singing beneath his lady’s window.  La Lettre d’Amour is a composition written to a slow measure, and filled with chords of exquisite pathos.  It comes hesitatingly, like the confession of a lover who loves so deeply that he halts to find words with which to express his feelings.  It moves in broken phrases, each note rising in intensity and growing in beauty.  It is not a burst of passionate appeal, but a plea, tender, beseeching, and throbbing with melancholy.  As he played, Edouard stepped down from the dais on which the musicians sat, and advanced slowly between the tables.  It was late, and the majority of those who had been dining had departed to the theatres.  Those who remained were lingering over their coffee, and were smoking; their voices were lowered to a polite monotone; the rush of the waiters had ceased, and the previous chatter had sunk to a subdued murmur.  Into this, the quivering sigh of Edouard’s violin penetrated like a sunbeam feeling its way into a darkened room, and, at the sound, the voices, one by one, detached themselves from the general chorus, until, lacking support, it ceased altogether.  Some were silent, that they might hear the better, others, who preferred their own talk, were silent out of regard for those who desired to listen, and a waiter who was so indiscreet as to clatter a tray of glasses was hushed on the instant.  The tribute of attention lent to Edouard an added power; his head lifted on his shoulders with pride; his bow cut deeper and firmer, and with more delicate shading; the notes rose in thrilling, plaintive sadness, and flooded the hot air with melody.

Edouard made his way to within a short distance of the table at which Miss Warriner was seated, and halted there as though he had found his audience.  He did not look at her, although she sat directly facing him, but it was evident to all that she was the one to whom his effort was directed, and Corbin, who was seated with his back to Edouard, recognized this and turned in his chair.

The body of the young musician was trembling with the feeling which found its outlet through the violin.  He was in ecstasy over his power and its accomplishment.  The strings of the violin pulsated to the beating of his heart, and he felt that surely by now the emotion which shook him must have reached the girl who had given it life—­ and, for one swift second, his eyes sought hers.  What he saw was the same beautiful face which had inspired him, but unmoved, cold, and unresponsive.  As his eyes followed hers she raised her head and looked, listlessly, around the room, and then turned and glanced up at him with a careless and critical scrutiny.  If his music had been the music of an organ in the street, and he the man who raised his hat for coppers, she could not have been less moved.  The discovery struck