; but to deceive
one who has trusted--to desert one who has loved and been loyal! God!
There is no worse crime than that, or more despicable! Can one love,
or hate, where there is only contempt?"

He clenched his fist, and his eyes were like two sword points boring
into the face opposite.

"Contempt--" he said, "It has eaten into my heart like a poisonous drug
and killed all else. There is nothing left."

The Kapellmeister took a long breath, then he continued hoarsely: "But
I am a man; with a woman it is different. Her heart is young and she
knows nothing of the world. It is like a stab in the dark from a hand
she loves, and her heart is torn. If she is brave, facing the world
with a smile on her lips, she bleeds inwardly. She is like a swan,
swooping in circles lower and lower, with a song in her throat, until
the great wings droop, and the eyes grow dim, and she falls finally,
and the song is stilled. But the last beat of her heart and the last
echo of her voice is for him--for him who fired the shot in her breast!"

He half rose in his seat with his hands trembling, and then sank back
again.

"Have you ever loved a woman and left her, Velasco? Tell me--have you
a deed like that on your conscience?"

"I--?" The Musician laughed aloud and took his hand from his face:
"You are talking in riddles, Kapellmeister! The beer has gone to your
head, and you are drunk! Look at the clock over yonder!-- What is
love? A will-o'-the-wisp! You chase it and it eludes you; you clasp
it and it melts into air! There is nothing in life, I tell you, but
music and work."

He poured out another glass of the wine: "Here's to your health,
Kapellmeister! Prosit--my friend! Put those grim thoughts from your
mind, and women from your heart. We must be off."

He was quaffing the liquor at a gulp.

"Prosit, Kapellmeister!"

Ritter made no answer. He sat staring moodily down at the table. "You
are young, Velasco, to be bitter. Is it music, or work, that has
carven those lines in your face?"

There was a sting in his voice.

The Violinist threw back his head like a horse at the touch of the
spur. His eyes blazed defiantly at the Kapellmeister for a moment, and
then the light went out of them as flame from a coal. The glass fell
from his hand and lay shattered in fragments on the floor. He stood
looking down at them wearily:

"That is my life," he said, "It is broken like the glass; and the wine
is my love.