n stay so long," she answered unsteadily.

"You must stay. Have I so long labored, and now before it is finished
you talk of going! Gott im Himmel!"

"It is a matter of money. My father is dead. And unless I find something
to do I shall have to go back."

The master had heard many such statements. They never ceased to rouse
his ire against a world that had money for everything but music. He
spent five minutes in indignant protest, then:--

"But you are clever and young, child. You will find a way to stay.
Perhaps I can now and then find a concert for you." It was a lure he
had thrown out before, a hook without a bait. It needed no bait, being
always eagerly swallowed. "And no more talk of going away. I refuse to
allow. You shall not go."

Harmony paid the lady secretary on her way out. The master was
interested. He liked Harmony and he believed in her. But fifty Kronen
is fifty Kronen, and South American beef is high of price. He followed
Harmony into the outer room and bowed her out of his studio.

"The Fraulein has paid?" he demanded, turning sharply to the lady
secretary.

"Always."

"After the lesson?"

"Ja, Herr Professor."

"It is better," said the master, "that she pay hereafter before the
lesson."

"Ja, Herr Professor."

Whereupon the lady secretary put a red-ink cross before Harmony's name.
There were many such crosses on the ledger.

CHAPTER VII

For three days Byrne hardly saw Harmony. He was off early in the
morning, hurried back to the midday meal and was gone again the moment
it was over. He had lectures in the evenings, too, and although he
lingered for an hour or so after supper it was to find Harmony taken
possession of by the little Bulgarian, seized with a sudden thirst for
things American.

On the evening of the second day he had left Harmony, enmeshed and
helpless in a tangle of language, trying to explain to the little
Bulgarian the reason American women wished to vote. Byrne flung down the
stairs and out into the street, almost colliding with Stewart.

They walked on together, Stewart with the comfortably rolling gait of
the man who has just dined well, Byrne with his heavy, rather solid
tread. The two men were not congenial, and the frequent intervals
without speech between them were rather for lack of understanding than
for that completeness of it which often fathers long silences. Byrne was
the first to speak after their greeting.

"Marie all right?"

"Fine. Said i