s night garments, and his
mustache bandage gave him a sinister expression, rather augmented
when he smiled at her. The Portier liked Harmony in spite of the early
morning practicing; she looked like a singer at the opera for whom he
cherished a hidden attachment. The singer had never seen him, but it was
for her he wore the mustache bandage. Perhaps some day--hopefully! One
must be ready!

The Portier gave Harmony a tiny candle and Harmony held out his tip, the
five Hellers of custom. But the Portier was keen, and Rosa was a niece
of his wife and talked more than she should. He refused the tip with a
gesture.

"Bitte, Fraulein!" he said through the bandage. "It is for me a pleasure
to admit you. And perhaps if the Fraulein is cold, a basin of soup."

The Portier was not pleasant to the eye. His nightshirt was open over
his hairy chest and his feet were bare to the stone floor. But to
Harmony that lonely night he was beautiful. She tried to speak and could
not but she held out her hand in impulsive gratitude, and the Portier in
his best manner bent over and kissed it. As she reached the curve of the
stone staircase, carrying her tiny candle, the Portier was following her
with his eyes. She was very like the girl of the opera.

The clang of the door below and the rattle of the chain were comforting
to Harmony's ears. From the safety of the darkened salon she peered out
into the garden again, but no skulking figure detached itself from the
shadows, and the gate remained, for a marvel, closed.

It was when--having picked up her violin in a very passion of
loneliness, only to put it down when she found that the familiar sounds
echoed and reechoed sadly through the silent rooms--it was when she was
ready for bed that she found the money under her pillow, and a scrawl
from Scatchy, a breathless, apologetic scrawl, little Scatchett having
adored her from afar, as the plain adore the beautiful, the mediocre the
gifted:--

DEAREST HARRY [here a large blot, Scatchy being addicted to blots]: I am
honestly frightened when I think what we are doing. But, oh, my dear, if
you could know how pleased we are with ourselves you'd not deny us this
pleasure. Harry, you have it--the real thing, you know, whatever it
is--and I haven't. None of the rest of us had. And you must stay. To go
now, just when lessons would mean everything--well, you must not think
of it. We have scads to take us home, more than we need, both of us, or
at least