He turned back to the piano, adjusting and smoothing it. His broad back
was an effective screen. The group waited, a look of interest on their
faces.

Suddenly he wheeled about, his hands raised to his mouth, the comb,
thinly covered with tissue-paper, at his lips, and his fat cheeks
distended. His eyes behind the big spectacles glowed portentously.

They gazed at him in astonishment.

He drew a full breath and drove it forth, a lugubrious note. With
scowling brows and set face he darted the instrument back and forth
across his puckered lips. It wailed and shrieked, and out of the noise
and discord emerged, at a galloping trot, "Der Erlkoenig!"

The child, who had been regarding him intently, threw back her head, and
a little laugh broke from her lips. Her face danced. She came and stood
by the player, her hand resting on his knee.

Herr Schubert puffed and blew, and "The Erlking" pranced and thumped.
Now and then he stumbled and fell, and the fugitives flew fast ahead.

The player's face was grave beyond belief, filled with a kind of fat
melancholy, and tinged with tragic intent.

The faces watching it passed from question to amusement, and from
amusement to protest.

"Nein, nein, mein Herr!" said the countess, as she wiped her mild blue
eyes and shook her blond curls. "Nicht mehr! nicht mehr!"

With a deep, snorting sob the sound ceased. The comb dropped from his
lips, and the player sat regarding them solemnly. A smile curved his big
lips.

"Ja," he said simply, "that was great music. I have made it myself, that
music."

With laughter and light words the party broke up. At a touch from the
count the musician lingered. The others had left the room.

The count walked to the open window and stood for a moment staring into
the darkness. Then he wheeled about.

"What was it you played?" he said swiftly.

"A Hungarian air," replied Schubert briefly.

The count looked incredulous.

"It was your own," he said.

"Partly," admitted the musician.

The count nodded.

"I thought so." He glanced toward the piano. "It is not too late----"

Schubert shrugged his shoulders.

"I told the child--you heard--I cannot play it again, that music."

The count laughed lightly.

"As you like." He held out a hand. "Good night, my friend," he said
cordially. "You are a strange man."

The grotesque, sensitive face opposite him quivered. The big lips
trembled a little as they opened.

"I am _not_ a strange man," s