ges always had for him. The soloist
chanced to be a German woman, by no means in her first youth, and the
mother of many children; but she wore an elaborate gown and a tiara, and
above all she had that indefinable air of achievement, that world-shine
upon her, which, in Paul's eyes, made her a veritable queen of Romance.

After a concert was over Paul was always irritable and wretched until he
got to sleep, and tonight he was even more than usually restless. He had
the feeling of not being able to let down, of its being impossible to
give up this delicious excitement which was the only thing that could
be called living at all. During the last number he withdrew and, after
hastily changing his clothes in the dressing room, slipped out to the
side door where the soprano's carriage stood. Here he began pacing
rapidly up and down the walk, waiting to see her come out.

Over yonder, the Schenley, in its vacant stretch, loomed big and square
through the fine rain, the windows of its twelve stories glowing like
those of a lighted cardboard house under a Christmas tree. All the
actors and singers of the better class stayed there when they were in
the city, and a number of the big manufacturers of the place lived there
in the winter. Paul had often hung about the hotel, watching the people
go in and out, longing to enter and leave schoolmasters and dull care
behind him forever.

At last the singer came out, accompanied by the conductor, who
helped her into her carriage and closed the door with a cordial _auf
wiedersehen_ which set Paul to wondering whether she were not an old
sweetheart of his. Paul followed the carriage over to the hotel, walking
so rapidly as not to be far from the entrance when the singer alighted,
and disappeared behind the swinging glass doors that were opened by a
Negro in a tall hat and a long coat. In the moment that the door was
ajar it seemed to Paul that he, too, entered. He seemed to feel himself
go after her up the steps, into the warm, lighted building, into an
exotic, tropical world of shiny, glistening surfaces and basking ease.
He reflected upon the mysterious dishes that were brought into the
dining room, the green bottles in buckets of ice, as he had seen them in
the supper party pictures of the _Sunday World_ supplement. A quick
gust of wind brought the rain down with sudden vehemence, and Paul was
startled to find that he was still outside in the slush of the gravel
driveway; that his boot