might as well be
Asia Minor. We are a stubborn family, sir, from the hills of New
Hampshire. We never give in. Come, let us go back to the Hotel Sonne,
and do you forget this foolish dream. Margaret may never leave the
stage, but I'm certain that she will never marry _you_." She smiled at
him, the thousand little wrinkles in her face making a sort of
reticulated map from which stared two large, blue eyes--Margaret's eyes,
grown wiser and colder.... "Now after that news I'll marry her if I have
to run away with her!"--resolved the sculptor when he reached his bleak
claustral atelier, and studied the model of her head. And how to keep
that man Dennett from spoiling the broth, he wondered....

In the afternoon Arthmann wrote Margaret a letter. "Margaret, my darling
Margaret, what is the matter? Have I offended you by asking your mother
for you? Why did you not see me this morning? The atelier is wintry
without you--the cold clay, corpse-like, is waiting to revive in your
presence. Oh! how lovely is the garden, how sad my soul! I sit and think
of Verlaine's 'It rains in my heart as it rains in the town.' Why won't
you see me? You are mine--you swore it. My sweet girl, whose heart is as
fragrant as new-mown hay"--the artist pondered well this comparison
before he put it on paper; it evoked visions of hay bales. "Darling, you
must see me to-morrow. To the studio you must come. You know that we
have planned to go to America in October. Only think, sweetheart, what
joy then! The sky is aflame with love. We walk slowly under the few
soft, autumn, prairie stars; your hand is in mine, we are married! You
see I am a poet for your sake. I beg for a reply hot from your heart.
Wenceslaus." ...

He despatched this declaration containing several minor inaccuracies. It
was late when he received a reply. "All right, Wenceslaus. But have I
_now_ the temperament to sing Isolde?" It was unsigned. Arthmann cursed
in a tongue that sounded singularly like pure English.

V

That night, much against his desire, he dressed and went to a reception
at the Villa Wahnfried. As this worker in silent clay disliked musical
people, the buzz and fuss made him miserable. He did not meet Fridolina,
though he saw Miss Bredd arm-in-arm with Cosima, Queen Regent of
Bayreuth. The American girl was eloquently exposing her theories of how
Wagner should be sung and Arthmann, disgusted, moved away. He only
remembered Caspar Dennett when in the street. That gen