But she had called him by his own name:  that had moved him.  And now that another voice had given the words a tone he had not before detected in them, he began to question their meaning.  Could Caroline put as much heart into her voice as this golden-haired Laura had shown?  Could Caroline have exposed herself to danger as that girl had done?  Perhaps any woman would have done it.  Perhaps the princess would have ventured so, to save a child’s life.  Would he have ventured to do it himself?  It could not have been a pleasant thing to walk on a pointed roof, with some half-broken spikes to catch one, in case of missing one’s footing, or escaping the fall of thirty feet below.  And that little frightened-looking, timid Laura, if he could only see her again!

He questioned whether this were not a possible thing.  He had formed a slight acquaintance with Mrs. Ashton, who was occupying the rooms below; he had met her on the stairs, had exchanged some words with her.  It struck him it would be a proper thing to offer her some tickets to his next concert.  At this moment he was interrupted, was summoned away, and he deferred his intention until the next day.

The next day he presented himself at the door of Mrs. Ashton’s parlor.  She invited him to come in, cordially, and he was presented to her niece, who sat in the window with her work.  Laura scarcely looked up as he entered, and went on with her crochet.

Presently Arnold opened his business.

“Would Mrs. Ashton accept some tickets for his concert that evening?”

Mrs. Ashton looked pleased, thought him very kind.

Arnold took out the tickets for herself, for Mr. Ashton.  He offered another.

“Would her niece be pleased to go? would Miss”—­

Laura looked up from her work and hesitated.

“She was much obliged, she didn’t know, but she had promised her cousin to go to the theatre with him.”

Mrs. Ashton, thinking the musician looked displeased, attempted to explain.

“Laura was not very fond of music.  She did not like concerts very well.  She seldom came to New York, and the theatre was a new thing to her.”

“I do not wonder,” said Arnold, withdrawing his ticket.  “I sympathize with Mademoiselle in her love for the theatre; and concert-music is but poor stuff.  If one finds a glimpse there of a higher style, a higher art, it is driven away directly by the recurrence of something trifling and frivolous.”

Mrs. Ashton did not agree with the musician.  She could not understand why Laura did not like concerts.  For herself, she liked the variety:  the singing relieved the piano, and one thing helped another.

Arnold looked towards Laura for a contradiction; he wanted to hear her defence of her philosophy, for he was convinced she had some in not liking music.  To him every one had expressed a fondness for music; and it was a rarity, an originality, to find some one who confessed she did not like it.