ied
brokenly, much as a little girl tells of the theft of her doll.

"Nonsense," he said, smiling, "that is all part of my profession; it
is not me they care for, it is the music I give that makes them happy.
If, in my playing, I achieve results out of the common, they admire
me!" and he kissed away the unwelcome tears.

"I know," she continued, "but lately, since we have loved each other,
I can not bear to see a woman near you. In my dreams again and again
an indefinable shadow mockingly comes and cries to me, 'he is not to
be yours, he is to be mine.'"

Diotti flushed and drew her to him. "Darling," his voice carrying
conviction, "I am yours, you are mine, all in all, in life here and
beyond!" And as she sat dreaming after he had gone, she murmured
petulantly, "I wish there were no other women in the world."

Her father was expected from Europe on the succeeding day's steamer.
Mr. Wallace was a busy man. The various gigantic enterprises he served
as president or director occupied most of his time. He had been absent
in Europe for several months, and Mildred was anxiously awaiting his
return to tell him of her love.

When Mr. Wallace came to his residence the next morning, his daughter
met him with a fond display of filial affection; they walked into the
drawing-room, hand in hand; he saw a picture of the violinist on the
piano. "Who's the handsome young fellow?" he asked, looking at the
portrait with the satisfaction a man feels when he sees a splendid
type of his own sex.

"That is Angelo Diotti, the famous violinist," she said, but she could
not add another word.

As they strolled through the rooms he noticed no less than three
likenesses of the Tuscan. And as they passed her room he saw still
another on the _chiffonnier_.

"Seems to me the house is running wild with photographs of that
fiddler," he said.

For the first time in her life she was self-conscious: "I will wait
for a more opportune time to tell him," she thought.

In the scheme of Diotti's appearance in New York there were to be two
more concerts. One was to be given that evening. Mildred coaxed her
father to accompany her to hear the violinist. Mr. Wallace was not
fond of music; "it had been knocked out of him on the farm up in
Vermont, when he was a boy," he would apologetically explain, and
besides he had the old puritanical abhorrence of stage people--putting
them all in one class--as puppets who danced or played or talked for
an idle a