The others owned up to their mental darkness; but Theodora said vaguely,—­

“Seems to me I met him once.  The name is half-way familiar.”

Cicely groaned.

“Half-way familiar!  I should rather say it was.”

“Who is he, anyway?” Allyn demanded.

“Who?  Why, he wrote the Alan Breck Overture.”

“What’s that?”

“Allyn!  When I have played it on an average of twice a day, ever since I came here!  Haven’t you any ears?”

“Not for your kind of music,” Allyn returned bluntly.  “I want a little tune in mine.”

“Who is the man?” Billy asked.  “Is he really of any account, Cis?”

“I should think he was.  Mr. Paulson, my teacher in New York, said he is the greatest American composer,” she returned triumphantly.

“A genuine lion, not a duke,” Hubert observed.  “But I thought composers always wore their hair in flowing ringlets, Cicely.  This man is too well groomed to be really inspired.”

Theodora laughed suddenly.

“Hu, you remind me of Mrs. Benson.  The day after I came, she asked me whether Miss Greenway didn’t write books; she thought all people who wrote books were generally a little untidy.”

“Did you enlighten her?”

“I couldn’t, for I had just ripped my jacket sleeve open for more than two inches.  ’Twas made with one of those insidious one-thread machines, and I tried to pull out a loose stitch.  Since then, she has avoided the subject of Miss Greenway, and I have spent a good share of my energy in mending the more visible portions of my attire.  I didn’t know before that the eyes of the world were upon us, as upon a peculiar people.”

But Cicely had returned to the charge.

“Cousin Hubert, how long is he going to be here?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Who is he here to see?”

“Nobody, apparently, unless his own fair face,” Billy answered irreverently.

“Cousin Ted, did you say you knew him?”

“I’m not sure; but it seems to me I met him once.”

“Oh, I do hope so.  I want just once to meet him and hear him talk.”

“Even if his voice has a falsetto crack in it?” Billy inquired.

“Even if he’s—­dumb!” Cicely’s climax was lost in a burst of laughter, in the midst of which she fled from the table.

“Never you mind!” she proclaimed from the doorway.  “I’ll find a way to meet him yet.  You needn’t laugh at me, either, for you’re every one of you hero-worshippers, if you’d only own it.”  Then she crossed over to the piazza of Valhalla, where Phebe was drying her hair in the sunshine.  Phebe received the great news disdainfully.

“Oh, that man!” she said, with something that came dangerously near to being a sniff.  “I saw him.  After most of the people were gone, he came down and went into the water.”

“Really?” Cicely’s tone was rapt.  “I wish I’d seen him.  How did he look?”