Oh, no,—­Laura did not care; only she was sorry she had been so stupid.

She was very much surprised, when, in the evening, towards the end of the performance at the theatre, the musician came and joined her party, and talked most agreeably with them.  Even her cousin George did not resent his intrusion, and on the way home imparted to Laura that he had no doubt the musician’s talk was pleasanter than his music.

Laura did not agree with him.  She met with the musician frequently now, and his talk only made her more and more desirous to hear his music.  He came frequently to her aunt’s room; he joined her and her aunt at the Academy of Fine Arts many times.  Here he talked to her most charmingly of pictures, as a musician likes to talk about pictures, and as a painter discusses music,—­as though he had the whole art at his fingers’ ends.  It was the opening of a new life to Laura.  If he could tell her so much of painting and sculpture, what would she not learn, if he would only speak of music?  But he never did, and he never offered to play to them.  She was very glad her aunt never suggested it.  The piano in the drawingroom must be quite too poor for him to touch.  But he never offered her another concert-ticket.  She did not wonder that he never did, she had been so ungracious at first.  She was quite ashamed that he detected her once in going to the Horse-Opera, he must think her taste so low.  She wanted to tell him it was her cousin George’s plan; but then she did enjoy it.

Arnold found himself closely studying both Caroline and Laura now.  “Carl would be pleased at my microscopic examinations,” he thought.

Frequently as he visited Laura, as frequently he saw Caroline.  He was constantly invited to her house,—­to meet her at other places.  Yet the nearer she came to him, the farther he seemed from her.  Can we more easily read a form that flees from us than one that approaches us?  He talked with her constantly of music.  She asked him his interpretation of this or that sonata.  She betrayed to him the impression he had made with this or that fantasie.  It was astonishing how closely she appreciated the vague changes of tones and words of music.

But with Laura he never ventured to speak of music.  Whenever he played now, he played as if for her; and yet he never ventured to ask her to listen.

“It seems to me sometimes,” said Caroline to him once, “as though you were playing to some one person.  Your music is growing to have a beseeching tone; there is something personal in it.”

“It must always be so,” replied Arnold, moodily; “can my music answer its own questions?”

The spring days were opening into summer, the vines were coming into full leaf, the magnolias were in blossom, the windows to the conservatories at the street-corners were thrown open, and let out to sight some of the gorgeous display of bright azaleas and gay geraniums.

Arnold sat with Caroline at an Opera Matinee.  A seat had been left for him near her.  In an interval, she began to speak to him again of her weariness of life; the next week was going on precisely as the last had gone, in the same round of engagements.