ittle street, a man, lurching somewhat, almost collided
with Harmony. He was a short, heavy-set person with a carefully curled
mustache, and he was singing, not loudly, but with all his maudlin
heart in his voice, the barcarolle from the "Tales" of Hoffmann. He saw
Harmony, and still singing planted himself in her path. When Byrne would
have pushed him aside Harmony caught his arm.

"It is only the Portier from the lodge," she said.

The Portier, having come to rest on a throaty and rather wavering note,
stood before Harmony, bowing.

"The Fraulein has gone and I am very sad," he said thickly. "There is no
more music, and Rosa has run away with a soldier from Salzburg who has
only one lung."

"But think!" Harmony said in German. "No more practicing in the early
dawn, no young ladies bringing mud into your newscrubbed hall! It is
better, is it not? All day you may rest and smoke!"

Byrne led Harmony past the drunken Portier, who turned with caution and
bowed after them.

"Gute Nacht," he called. "Kuss die Hand, Fraulein. Four rooms and the
salon and a bath of the finest."

As they went up the Hirschengasse they could hear him pursuing his
unsteady way down the street and singing lustily. At the door of the
Pension Schwarz Harmony paused.

"Do you mind if I ask one question?"

"You honor me, madam."

"Then--what is the name of the girl back home?"

Peter Byrne was suddenly conscious of a complete void as to feminine
names. He offered, in a sort of panic, the first one he recalled:--

"Emma."

"Emma! What a nice, old-fashioned name!" But there was a touch of
disappointment in her voice.

Harmony had a lesson the next day. She was a favorite pupil with the
master. Out of so much musical chaff he winnowed only now and then a
grain of real ability. And Harmony had that. Scatchy and the Big Soprano
had been right--she had the real thing.

The short half-hour lesson had a way with Harmony of lengthening itself
to an hour or more, much to the disgust of the lady secretary in the
anteroom. On that Monday Harmony had pleased the old man to one of his
rare enthusiasms.

"Six months," he said, "and you will go back to your America and show
them how over here we teach violin. I will a letter--letters--give you,
and you shall put on the programme, of your concerts that you are my
pupil, is it not so?"

Harmony was drawing on her worn gloves; her hands trembled a little with
the praise and excitement.

"If I ca