d not hide. "Is this music of such exceptional merit?" he asked with
an attempt at indifference.

Louise Taine--sensing that the performances of the unnamed violinist had
been acceptable to Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King--the two representatives
of the world to which she aspired--could not let the opportunity slip. She
fairly deluged them with the spray of her admiring ejaculations in praise
of the musician--employing, hit or miss, every musical term that popped
into her vacuous head.

"Indeed,"--said the critic,--"I seem to have missed a treat." Then,
directly to the artist,--"And you say the violinist is wholly unknown to
you?"

"Wholly," returned the painter, shortly.

Conrad Lagrange saw a faint smile of understanding and disbelief flit for
an instant over the heavy face of James Rutlidge.

When the automobile, at last, was departing with the artist's guests; the
two friends stood for a moment watching it up the road to the west, toward
town. As the big car moved away, they saw Mrs. Taine lean forward to speak
to the chauffeur while James Rutlidge, who was in the front seat, turned
and shook his head as though in protest. The woman appeared to insist. The
machine slowed down, as though the chauffeur, in doubt, awaited the
outcome of the discussion. Then, just in front of that neighboring house,
Rutlidge seemed to yield abruptly, and the automobile turned suddenly in
toward the curb and stopped. Mrs. Taine alighted, and disappeared in the
depths of the orange grove.

Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange looked at each other, for a moment, in
questioning silence. The artist laughed. "Our poor little mystery," he
said.

But the novelist--as they went toward the house--cursed Mrs. Taine, James
Rutlidge, and all their kin and kind, with a vehement earnestness that
startled his companion--familiar as the latter was with his friend's
peculiar talent in the art of vigorous expression.

After dinner, that evening, the painter and the novelist sat on the
porch--as their custom was--to watch the day go out of the sky and the
night come over valley and hill and mountain until, above the highest
peaks, the stars of God looked down upon the twinkling lights of the towns
of men. At that hour, too, it was the custom, now, for the violinist
hidden in the orange grove, to make the music they both so loved.

In the music, that night, there was a feeling that, to them, was new--a
vague, uncertain, halting undertone that was born, t