comprehension opened out before me.

'Oh, do go on,' I entreated him. 'Tell me more about music. Do you not
think Chopin the greatest composer that ever lived? You must do, since
you always play him.'

He smiled.

'No,' he said, 'I do not. For me there is no supremacy in art. When
fifty artists have contrived to be supreme, supremacy becomes
impossible. Take a little song by Grieg. It is perfect, it is supreme.
No one could be greater than Grieg was great when he wrote that song.
The whole last act of _The Twilight of the Gods_ is not greater than a
little song of Grieg's.'

'I see,' I murmured humbly. '_The Twilight of the Gods_--that is Wagner,
isn't it?'

'Yes. Don't you know your Wagner?'

'No. I--'

'You don't know _Tristan_?'

He jumped up, excited.

'How could I know it?' I expostulated. 'I have never seen any opera. I
know the marches from _Tannhaeuser_ and _Lohengrin_, and "O Star of Eve!"'

'But it is impossible that you don't know _Tristan_!' he exclaimed. 'The
second act of _Tristan_ is the greatest piece of love-music--No, it
isn't.' He laughed. 'I must not contradict myself. But it is
marvellous--marvellous! You know the story?'

'Yes,' I said. 'Play me some of it.'

'I will play the Prelude,' he answered.

I gulped down the remaining drops in my glass and crossed the room to a
chair where I could see his face. And he played the Prelude to the most
passionately voluptuous opera ever written. It was my first real
introduction to Wagner, my first glimpse of that enchanted field. I was
ravished, rapt away.

'Wagner was a great artist in spite of himself,' said Diaz, when he had
finished. 'He assigned definite and precise ideas to all those melodies.
Nothing could be more futile. I shall not label them for you. But perhaps
you can guess the love-motive for yourself.'

'Yes, I can,' I said positively. 'It is this.'

I tried to hum the theme, but my voice refused obedience. So I came to
the piano, and played the theme high up in the treble, while Diaz was
still sitting on the piano-stool. I trembled even to touch the piano in
his presence; but I did it.

'You have guessed right,' he said; and then he asked me in a casual tone:
'Do you ever play pianoforte duets?'

'Often,' I replied unsuspectingly, 'with my aunt. We play the symphonies
of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and overtures, and so on.'

'Awfully good fun, isn't it?' he smiled.

'Splendid!' I said.

'I've got _Tristan_