te, perhaps greater than himself, rather dampened
his passion. She was adorable as she returned without coquetry his
ardent gaze; but she was--he had to admit it--a rival. This composite
feeling he inwardly wrestled with as the conversation placidly
proceeded. They only spoke of Poland, of Chopin. Once the name of
Emilia Plater, the Polish Joan of Arc, was mentioned--she, too, was a
distant connection. The young pianist hinted that more music would be
agreeable, but there was no response. He was quite alone with
Constantia, and they talked of Poland's tone-poet. She knew much more of
Chopin than he did, and she recited Mickiewicz's patriotic poems with
incomparable verve.

"Do you believe in heredity?" he cried, as the father entered with the
tea. "Do you believe that your love of Chopin is inherited? Chopin
composed that wonderful slow movement of the F minor concerto because of
his love for your grandmother. How I wish I could have seen her, heard
her."

The girl, without answering him, detached from her neck a large brooch
and chain. Davos took it and amazedly compared the portrait with the
living woman.

"You _are_ Constantia Gladowska." She smiled.

"Her love of Chopin--she must have loved her youthful adorer--has been
transmitted to you. Oh, please play me that movement again, the one
Rubinstein called 'the night wind sweeping over the churchyard graves.'"
Constantia blushed so deeply that he knew he had offended her. She had
for him something of the pathos of old dance music--its stately
sweetness, its measured rhythms. After drinking a cup of tea he drifted
to the instrument--flies do not hanker after honey as strongly as do
pianists in the presence of an open keyboard. A tactful silence ensued.
He began playing, and, as if exasperated at the challenge implied by her
refusal, he played in his old form. Then he took the theme of Chopin's E
flat minor Scherzo, and he juggled with it, spun it into fine fibres of
tone, dashed it down yawning and serried harmonic abysses. He was
magnificent as he put forth all the varied resources of his art.
Constantia, her cheeks ablaze, her lips parted, interposed a fan between
her eyes and the light. There was something dangerous and passionate in
her regard. In all the fury of his play he knew that he had touched her.
Once, during a pause, he heard her sigh. As he finished in a thunderous
crash he saw in the doorway the figure of the Japanese maid--an ugly,
gnarled idol wit