He smiled.

‘No,’ he said, ’I do not.  For me there is no supremacy in art.  When fifty artists have contrived to be supreme, supremacy becomes impossible.  Take a little song by Grieg.  It is perfect, it is supreme.  No one could be greater than Grieg was great when he wrote that song.  The whole last act of The Twilight of the Gods is not greater than a little song of Grieg’s.’

‘I see,’ I murmured humbly. ’The Twilight of the Gods—­that is Wagner, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.  Don’t you know your Wagner?’

‘No.  I—­’

‘You don’t know Tristan?’

He jumped up, excited.

‘How could I know it?’ I expostulated.  ’I have never seen any opera.  I know the marches from Tannhaeuser and Lohengrin, and “O Star of Eve!"’

‘But it is impossible that you don’t know Tristan!’ he exclaimed.  ’The second act of Tristan is the greatest piece of love-music—­No, it isn’t.’  He laughed.  ’I must not contradict myself.  But it is marvellous—­marvellous!  You know the story?’

‘Yes,’ I said.  ‘Play me some of it.’

‘I will play the Prelude,’ he answered.

I gulped down the remaining drops in my glass and crossed the room to a chair where I could see his face.  And he played the Prelude to the most passionately voluptuous opera ever written.  It was my first real introduction to Wagner, my first glimpse of that enchanted field.  I was ravished, rapt away.

‘Wagner was a great artist in spite of himself,’ said Diaz, when he had finished.  ’He assigned definite and precise ideas to all those melodies.  Nothing could be more futile.  I shall not label them for you.  But perhaps you can guess the love-motive for yourself.’

‘Yes, I can,’ I said positively.  ‘It is this.’

I tried to hum the theme, but my voice refused obedience.  So I came to the piano, and played the theme high up in the treble, while Diaz was still sitting on the piano-stool.  I trembled even to touch the piano in his presence; but I did it.

‘You have guessed right,’ he said; and then he asked me in a casual tone:  ‘Do you ever play pianoforte duets?’

‘Often,’ I replied unsuspectingly, ’with my aunt.  We play the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and overtures, and so on.’

‘Awfully good fun, isn’t it?’ he smiled.

‘Splendid!’ I said.

‘I’ve got Tristan here arranged for pianoforte duet,’ he said.  ’Tony, my secretary, enjoys playing it.  You shall play part of the second act with me.’

‘Me!  With you!’

‘Certainly.’

‘Impossible!  I should never dare!  How do you know I can play at all?’

‘You have just proved it to me,’ said he.  ’Come; you will not refuse me this!’

I wanted to leave the vicinity of the piano.  I felt that, once out of the immediate circle of his tremendous physical influence, I might manage to escape the ordeal which he had suggested.  But I could not go away.  The silken nets of his personality had been cast, and I was enmeshed.  And if I was happy, it was with a dreadful happiness.