, her face turned to look
at him, on her lips a mocking, contemplative smile that was almost a
superior sneer. It was this that shocked him into consciousness of the
orgy his imagination had been playing him. From the wall above her, the
stiff portraits of Isaac and Eliza Travers looked down like reproachful
spectres. Infuriated, he left the room. He had never dreamed such
potencies resided in music. And then, and he remembered it with shame,
he had stolen back outside to listen, and she had known, and once more
she had devilled him.

When Mary asked him what he thought of Polly's playing, an unbidden
contrast leaped to his mind. Mary's music reminded him of church. It was
cold and bare as a Methodist meeting house. But Polly's was like the mad
and lawless ceremonial of some heathen temple where incense arose and
nautch girls writhed.

"She plays like a foreigner," he answered, pleased with the success and
oppositeness of his evasion.

"She is an artist," Mary affirmed solemnly. "She is a genius. When does
she ever practise? When did she ever practise? You know how I have. My
best is like a five-finger exercise compared with the foolishest thing
she ripples off. Her music tells me things--oh, things wonderful and
unutterable. Mine tells me, 'one-two-three, one-two-three.' Oh, it is
maddening! I work and work and get nowhere. It is unfair. Why should she
be born that way, and not I?"

"Love," was Frederick's immediate and secret thought; but before he
could dwell upon the conclusion, the unprecedented had happened and Mary
was sobbing in a break-down of tears. He would have liked to take her in
his arms, after Tom's fashion, but he did not know how. He tried, and
found Mary as unschooled as himself. It resulted only in an embarrassed
awkwardness for both of them.

The contrasting of the two girls was inevitable. Like father like
daughter. Mary was no more than a pale camp-follower of a gorgeous,
conquering general. Frederick's thrift had been sorely educated in the
matter of clothes. He knew just how expensive Mary's clothes were, yet
he could not blind himself to the fact that Polly's vagabond makeshifts,
cheap and apparently haphazard, were always all right and far more
successful. Her taste was unerring. Her ways with a shawl were
inimitable. With a scarf she performed miracles.

"She just throws things together," Mary complained. "She doesn't even
try. She can dress in fifteen minutes, and when she goes swimmi