grateful as soft fingers on a cat’s back held no letters patent on charm or cultivation and yet his own mind had catalogued women of the stage, off-stage, under a general heading, in some way associated with cabaret places and false gaiety.  Here was one who called upon him to discard preconceived ideas and begin anew.  On every topic he broached he encountered intelligent discussion and untrammeled originality of thought.  In the back of his brain lurked the feeling that when he had broached all the topics upon which he could talk, he would still have touched on only a part of those at her command.

But between these moments of surprise were others of restful delight when she made him forget everything except that he was talking with a charming woman who saw in the opera a pleasure equal to his own.

And though he did not know it, Marcia Terroll, even this soon, saw in him a nature full of tuneful sweetness, but very weak, and realized that he was an instrument upon which a strong hand could play to an end of harmony or discord—­an instrument upon which his great brother had already played, and which his great brother did not in the least comprehend.  Paul’s frequent allusions, tinged with hero-worship, had given her that understanding.

“I saw you in your box,” she told him with a smile.

“And I saw you in yours,” he laughed back at her.

The girl raised her brows, and he explained.  “I ran away from the chatterboxes and came up to your gallery.”  They had almost reached the arch when he earnestly asked:  “I wonder if you will go to the opera with me some evening?  It would be wonderful to have someone who really cared for it.”

Once more she laughed, but this time it was rather seriously.  “We inhabit rather different worlds, you and I.”

“I want you to let me be an explorer into yours—­and your guide into mine,” he declared.  After a moment’s hesitation she gravely answered:  “It might not hurt you to know something of my world after all.  It’s rather humanizing for an artist to free himself from a single environment.  It is possible to suffocate on incense.”

Paul Burton smiled.  “But you know,” he said, “until I was twelve I never wore a pair of trousers that hadn’t been bequeathed to me by my older brother—­and when they reached me they were always liberally patched.”

She was alighting from his car and her smile flashed on him as she held out a small, white-gloved hand.  “And I,” she retorted, “at that age was being tricked out in Paris finery.  Time brings changes, doesn’t it?” It was the first flash of self-revelation she had given him.  But after that Paul Burton saw Marcia Terroll more than occasionally, and admitted to himself an interest which he did not seek to analyze.

* * * * *

J.J.  Malone returned from the opera that evening for a consultation in his study with Harrison and Meegan.