y, one cannot uncover THAT until
one is sure. One can fail one's self, but one must not live to see that
fail; better never reveal it. Let me help you to make yourself sure of
it. That I can do better than Bowers."

Thea lifted her face and threw out her hands.

Harsanyi shook his head and smiled. "Oh, promise nothing! You will have
much to do. There will not be voice only, but French, German, Italian.
You will have work enough. But sometimes you will need to be understood;
what you never show to any one will need companionship. And then you
must come to me." He peered into her face with that searching, intimate
glance. "You know what I mean, the thing in you that has no business
with what is little, that will have to do only with beauty and power."

Thea threw out her hands fiercely, as if to push him away. She made a
sound in her throat, but it was not articulate. Harsanyi took one of her
hands and kissed it lightly upon the back. His salute was one of
greeting, not of farewell, and it was for some one he had never seen.

When Mrs. Harsanyi came in at six o'clock, she found her husband sitting
listlessly by the window. "Tired?" she asked.

"A little. I've just got through a difficulty. I've sent Miss Kronborg
away; turned her over to Bowers, for voice."

"Sent Miss Kronborg away? Andor, what is the matter with you?"

"It's nothing rash. I've known for a long while I ought to do it. She is
made for a singer, not a pianist."

Mrs. Harsanyi sat down on the piano chair. She spoke a little bitterly:
"How can you be sure of that? She was, at least, the best you had. I
thought you meant to have her play at your students' recital next fall.
I am sure she would have made an impression. I could have dressed her so
that she would have been very striking. She had so much individuality."

Harsanyi bent forward, looking at the floor. "Yes, I know. I shall miss
her, of course."

Mrs. Harsanyi looked at her husband's fine head against the gray window.
She had never felt deeper tenderness for him than she did at that
moment. Her heart ached for him. "You will never get on, Andor," she
said mournfully.

Harsanyi sat motionless. "No, I shall never get on," he repeated
quietly. Suddenly he sprang up with that light movement she knew so
well, and stood in the window, with folded arms. "But some day I shall
be able to look her in the face and laugh because I did what I could for
her. I believe in her. She will do nothing common