of Beethoven's could compare with this?
Clink-clink! Three hundred and ninety, four hundred, four hundred and
ten; clink-clink! And Hillard, turning restlessly on his pillow, heard
this harsh music away into the small hours of the morning.

In the meantime the lamps in and about the Casino had been extinguished,
and the marble house of the whirligig and the terraces lay in the pale
light of the moon. Only the cafes remained open, and none but stragglers
loitered there. The great rush of the night was done with, and the
curious had gone away, richer or poorer, but never a whit the wiser. In
the harbor the yachts stood out white and spectral, and afar the sea
ruffled her night-caps. The tram for Nice shrieked down the incline
toward the promontory, now a vast frowning shadow. At the foot of the
road which winds up to the palaces the car was signaled, and two women
boarded. Both were veiled and exhibited signs of recent agitation. They
maintained a singular silence. At Villefranche they got out, and the car
went on glowingly through the night. The women stopped before the gates
of a villa and rang the porter's bell. Presently he came down the path
and admitted them, grumbling. Once in the room above, the silence
between the two women came to an end.

"Safe! I am so tired. What a night!" the elder of the two women sighed.

"What a night, truly! I should like to know what it has all been about.
To run through dark streets and alleys, to hide for hours, as if I were
a thief or a fugitive from justice, is neither to my taste nor to my
liking."

"Kitty!" brokenly.

"I know! In a moment I shall be on my knees to you, but first I must
speak out my mind. Why did you lose your head? Why did you not stand
perfectly still when you saw that we were followed from the Casino? He
would not have dared to molest us in the open. No, you had to run!"

"He would have entered the car with us, he would have known where we
were going, he would have had the patience to wait till he saw beneath
our veils. I know that man!" with a hopeless anger.

"It was your flight. It told him plainly that you recognized him."

"I was afraid, Kitty. It was instinct which caused me to fly, blindly."

"And there you left me, standing like a fool, wondering whether to run
or not." Kitty was angry for half a dozen reasons. "And why should you
run from any man?"

La Signorina did not reply, preferring to hold her tongue, lest it
overthrow her. She unwound