melody meant to him. But at the end, when he came to himself again, and
sat with dropped hands waiting for Falbe's verdict, he remembered how
his heart seemed to hang poised until it came. He had rehearsed again
to himself his fixed determination that he would play and could play,
whatever his friend might think about it; but there was no doubt that he
waited with a greater suspense than he had ever known in his life before
for that verdict to be made known to him.

Next day came their journey to Munich, and the installation in the
best hotel in Europe. Here Michael was host, and the economy which he
practised when he had only himself to provide for, and which made him
go second-class when travelling, was, as usual, completely abandoned now
that the pleasure of hospitality was his. He engaged at once the best
double suite of rooms that the hotel contained, two bedrooms with
bathrooms, and an admirable sitting-room, looking spaciously out on
to the square, and with brusque decision silenced Falbe's attempted
remonstrance. "Don't interfere with my show, please," he had said, and
proceeded to inquire about a piano to be sent in for the week. Then he
turned to his friend again. "Oh, we are going to enjoy ourselves," he
said, with an irresistible sincerity.

Tristan und Isolde was given on the third day of their stay there, and
Falbe, reading the morning German paper, found news.

"The Kaiser has arrived," he said. "There's a truce in the army
manoeuvres for a couple of days, and he has come to be present at
Tristan this evening. He's travelled three hundred miles to get here,
and will go back to-morrow. The Reise-Kaiser, you know."

Michael looked up with some slight anxiety.

"Ought I to write my name or anything?" he asked. "He has stayed several
times with my father."

"Has he? But I don't suppose it matters. The visit is a
widely-advertised incognito. That's his way. God be with the
All-highest," he added.

"Well, I shan't" said Michael. "But it would shock my father dreadfully
if he knew. The Kaiser looks on him as the type and model of the English
nobleman."

Michael crunched one of the inimitable breakfast rusks in his teeth.

"Lord, what a day we had when he was at Ashbridge last year," he said.
"We began at eight with a review of the Suffolk Yeomanry; then we had a
pheasant shoot from eleven till three; then the Emperor had out a steam
launch and careered up and down the river till six, asking a thousand