t the moment; possibly for other good and equally
sufficient reasons. You asked where I studied music? Mainly in New York
and Munich."

"You have been abroad, then?"

"Years; as companion to an invalid aunt, thanks to whom I saw very
little of foreign countries, and but for whom I would have seen
nothing."

"You changed the subject abruptly, a moment ago, Miss Forrest. You were
speaking of your relations with the ladies here. Forgive me if I refer
to it, for I was interested in what you told me. Surely a woman as
gifted as you are can never lack friends among her own sex. Have you
never sought to win Miss Bayard, for instance?"

There was a moment's pause. Then she looked full up into his face, her
fingers rippling over the keys as she spoke.

"Mr. Holmes, has it never occurred to you that in friendship, as in
love, a girl of Nellie Bayard's age would prefer some one much nearer
her own years?"

He drew slowly back from the piano and stood at his full height.

"The doctor is calling us to the dining-room, Miss Forrest; may I offer
my arm?" was his only reply, and she arose and went with him.

They found the entire party grouped about the table, which was now
decked with a great punch-bowl of beautiful workmanship. A present, the
doctor explained with evident pride, from Baron Wallewski, of the
Russian Legation at Washington, whom he had had the honor of pulling
through a siege of insomnia two years before. It was more than anything
else to display the beauty of this costly gift that he had called them
once more around his board, but, since they were there, he would beg
them to fill their glasses with a punch of his own composition,--"there's
not a headache in a Heidelberg tun of it,"--and pledged with them the
health of the distinguished donor.

A ring came at the front door as Robert was standing, tray in hand, at
his master's elbow. "Say I'm engaged, if any one inquires for me," said
Bayard, and launched forth into some reminiscence of the days when he
and Wallewski and Bodisco and others of that ilk were at Old Point
Comfort for a week together. Robert, returning from the front hall,
stood in silence, like the well-trained menial he was, until his master
finished his narration and the guests had sipped the toast. It was a
performance of some minutes' duration, and at last the doctor turned.

"Who was it?" he said.

"Mr. McLean, sah."

"Wanted to see me."

"No, sah. The commanding officer, sah. He wou