, and you must become great and famous in that; and then
some day, when you meet this beautiful woman and ask her to be your
wife, she will be bound to do that, and you will confer honor on her
as well as secure happiness to yourself. Now, if you were to fall in
love with some coquettish girl like her you were singing about, you
would have no more ambition to become famous, you would lose all
interest in everything except her, and she would be able to make you
miserable by a single word. When you have made a name for yourself,
and got a good many more years, you will be better able to bear
anything that happens to you in your love or in your marriage."

"You are very kind to take so much trouble," said young Mosenberg,
looking up with big, grateful eyes. "Perhaps, madame, if you are not
very busy during the day, you will let me call in sometimes, and if
there is no one here I will tell you about what I am doing, and play
for you or sing for you, if you please."

"In the afternoons I am always free," she said.

"Do you never go out?" he asked.

"Not often. My husband is at his studio most of the day."

The boy looked at her, hesitated for a moment, and then, with a sudden
rush of color to his face, "You should not stay so much in the house.
Will you sometimes go for a little walk with me, madame, to Kensington
Gardens, if you are not busy in the afternoon?"

"Oh, certainly," said Sheila, without a moment's embarrassment. "Do
you live near them?"

"No: I live in Sloane street, but the underground railway brings me
here in a very short time."

That mention of Sloane street gave a twinge to Sheila's heart. Ought
she to have been so ready to accept offers of new friendship just as
her old friend had been banished from her?

"In Sloane street? Do you know Mr. Ingram?"

"Oh yes, very well. Do you?"

"He is one of my oldest friends," said Sheila bravely: she would not
acknowledge that their intimacy was a thing of the past.

"He is a very good friend to me--I know that," said young Mosenberg,
with a laugh. "He hired a piano merely because I used to go into his
rooms at night; and now he makes me play over all my most difficult
music when I go in, and he sits and smokes a pipe and pretends to like
it. I do not think he does, but I have got to do it all the same; and
then afterward I sing for him some songs that I know he likes. Madame,
I think I can surprise you."

He went suddenly to the piano and began to sing,