g. It doesn't seem altogether like real music to me. It
fails to get hold of me, just as I fail to get hold of it."

"Yet you like MacDowell," I challenged.

"Y. . . es," she admitted grudgingly. "His New England Idylls and
Fireside Tales. And I like that Finnish man's stuff, Sibelius, too,
although it seems to me too soft, too richly soft, too beautiful, if you
know what I mean. It seems to cloy."

What a pity, I thought, that with that noble masculine touch of hers she
is unaware of the deeps of music. Some day I shall try to get from her
just what Beethoven, say, and Chopin, mean to her. She has not read
Shaw's _Perfect Wagnerite_, nor had she ever heard of Nietzsche's _Case
of Wagner_. She likes Mozart, and old Boccherini, and Leonardo Leo.
Likewise she is partial to Schumann, especially Forest Scenes. And she
played his Papillons most brilliantly. When I closed my eyes I could
have sworn it was a man's fingers on the keys.

And yet, I must say it, in the long run her playing makes me nervous. I
am continually led up to false expectations. Always, she seems just on
the verge of achieving the big thing, the super-big thing, and always she
just misses it by a shade. Just as I am prepared for the culminating
flash and illumination, I receive more perfection of technique. She is
cold. She must be cold . . . Or else, and the theory is worth
considering, she is too healthy.

I shall certainly read to her _The Daughters of Herodias_.

CHAPTER XVIII

Was there ever such a voyage! This morning, when I came on deck, I found
nobody at the wheel. It was a startling sight--the great _Elsinore_, by
the wind, under an Alpine range of canvas, every sail set from skysails
to try-sails and spanker, slipping across the surface of a mild trade-
wind sea, and no hand at the wheel to guide her.

No one was on the poop. It was Mr. Pike's watch, and I strolled for'ard
along the bridge to find him. He was on Number One hatch giving some
instructions to the sail-makers. I awaited my chance, until he glanced
up and greeted me.

"Good morning," I answered. "And what man is at the wheel now?"

"That crazy Greek, Tony," he replied.

"A month's wages to a pound of tobacco he isn't," I offered.

Mr. Pike looked at me with quick sharpness.

"Who is at the wheel?"

"Nobody," I replied.

And then he exploded into action. The age-lag left his massive frame,
and he bounded aft along the deck at a speed no