" She paused.

"Then," he exclaimed, and he gazed at her tenderly, "if you like my
Tristan you may, perhaps, write a nice little notice. Oh, how lovely
that would be!"

The artist in him stirred the strings of her maternal lyre. "Yes, it
would be lovely, but Mr. Calcraft is not lecturing to-morrow night, and
I hope that--"

The two street doors banged out a half bar of the Hunding rhythm.
Calcraft was heard in the hall. A minute later he stood in the door of
his wife's retreat; there was a frown upon his brow when he saw her
companion, but it vanished as the two men shook hands. Viznina asked him
if he spoke German; Magda beckoned to Mrs. Calcraft from the middle of
the drawing-room. When Tekla returned, after giving final instructions
for dinner, she found critic and tenor in heated argument over Jean de
Reszke's interpretation of the elder Siegfried....

The dining-room was a small salon, oak-panelled, and with low ceilings.
A few prints of religious subjects, after the early Italian masters,
hung on the walls. The buffet was pure renaissance. Comfortable was the
room, while the oval table and soft leather chairs were provocative of
appetite and conversation.

"Very un-American," remarked the singer, as he ate his crab bisque.

"How many American houses have you been in?" irritably asked Calcraft.
Viznina admitted that he was enjoying his debut.

"I thought so." Calcraft was now as bland as a May morning, and his eyes
sparkled. His wife watched Magda serve the fish and fowl, and her
husband insisted upon champagne as the sole wine. The tenor looked
surprised, and then amused.

"Americans love champagne, do they not? I never touch it."

"Would you rather have claret or beer?" hastily inquired the host.

"Neither; I must sing Tristan to-morrow."

"You singers are saints on the stage." The critic laughed. "I am
old-fashioned enough to believe that good wine or beer will never hurt
the throat. Now there was Karl Formes, and Niemann the great tenor--"

Tekla interrupted. "My dear Cal, pray don't get on one of your
interminable liquid talks. Herr Viznina does not care to drink, whether
he is singing or not. I told him, too, that we always liked a guest at
dinner, for we are such old married people."

Calcraft watched the pair facing one another. He was in a disagreeable
humor because of his wife's allusion to visitors; he liked to bear the
major burden of conversation, even when they were alone. If Tekla bega