ad accompaniments?" he asked, flashing the question at her
with his usual abruptness.

"Yes." Sara's answer came simply, minus the mock-modest tag: "A little,"
or "I'll do my best," which most people seem to think it incumbent on
them to add, in the circumstances.

It is one of the mysteries of convention why, when you are perfectly
aware that you can do a thing, and do it well, you are expected to
depreciate your capability under penalty of being accounted overburdened
with conceit should you fail to do so.

"Good." Trent pulled out an armful of music from the cabinet and looked
through it rapidly.

"We'll have some of these." ("These" being several suites for violin and
piano.)

Sara's lips twitched. He was testing her rather highly, since the
pianoforte score of the suites in question was by no means easy. But,
thanks to the wisdom of Patrick Lovell, who had seen to it that she
studied under one of the finest masters of the day, she was not
a musician by temperament alone, but had also a surprisingly good
technique.

At the close of the second suite, Trent turned to her enthusiastically,
his face aglow. For the moment he was no longer the hermit, aloof
and enigmatical, but an eager comrade, spontaneously appealing to a
congenial spirit.

"That went splendidly, didn't it?" he exclaimed. "The pianoforte score
is a pretty stiff one, but I was sure"--smilingly--"from the downright
way you answered my question about accompaniments, that you'd prove
equal to it."

Sara smiled back at him.

"I didn't think it necessary to make any conventional professions of
modesty--to you," she said. "You don't--wrap things up much--yourself."

He leaned against the piano, looking down at her.

"No. Nothing I say can make things either better or worse for me, so I
have at least gained freedom from the conventions. That is one of my few
compensations."

"Compensations for what?" The question escaped her almost before she
was aware, and she waited for the snub which she felt would inevitably
follow her second indiscretion that afternoon.

But it did not come. Instead, he fenced adroitly.

"Compensation for the limitations of a hermit's life," he said lightly.

"The life is your own choice," she flashed back at him.

"Oh, no, we're not always given a choice, you know. This world isn't a
kind of sublimated children's party."

She regarded him thoughtfully.

"I think," she said gravely, "we always get back out of life j