nd she would begin to
do all that he had been for weeks telling her to do, without realizing
that he had ever told her.

To-night Thea forgot Harsanyi and his finger. She finished the song only
to begin it with fresh enthusiasm.

"UND DAS HAT MIT IHREM SINGEN DIE LORELEI GETHAN."

She sat there singing it until the darkening room was so flooded with it
that Harsanyi threw open a window.

"You really must stop it, Miss Kronborg. I shan't be able to get it out
of my head to-night."

Thea laughed tolerantly as she began to gather up her music. "Why, I
thought you had gone, Mr. Harsanyi. I like that song."

That evening at dinner Harsanyi sat looking intently into a glass of
heavy yellow wine; boring into it, indeed, with his one eye, when his
face suddenly broke into a smile.

"What is it, Andor?" his wife asked.

He smiled again, this time at her, and took up the nutcrackers and a
Brazil nut. "Do you know," he said in a tone so intimate and
confidential that he might have been speaking to himself,--"do you know,
I like to see Miss Kronborg get hold of an idea. In spite of being so
talented, she's not quick. But when she does get an idea, it fills her
up to the eyes. She had my room so reeking of a song this afternoon that
I couldn't stay there."

Mrs. Harsanyi looked up quickly, "'Die Lorelei,' you mean? One couldn't
think of anything else anywhere in the house. I thought she was
possessed. But don't you think her voice is wonderful sometimes?"

Harsanyi tasted his wine slowly. "My dear, I've told you before that I
don't know what I think about Miss Kronborg, except that I'm glad there
are not two of her. I sometimes wonder whether she is not glad. Fresh as
she is at it all, I've occasionally fancied that, if she knew how, she
would like to--diminish." He moved his left hand out into the air as if
he were suggesting a DIMINUENDO to an orchestra.

V

BY the first of February Thea had been in Chicago almost four months,
and she did not know much more about the city than if she had never
quitted Moonstone. She was, as Harsanyi said, incurious. Her work took
most of her time, and she found that she had to sleep a good deal. It
had never before been so hard to get up in the morning. She had the
bother of caring for her room, and she had to build her fire and bring
up her coal. Her routine was frequently interrupted by a message from
Mr. Larsen summoning her to sing at a funeral. Every funeral took half