This evening it was a benefit recital at the Plaza.  He did not recall precisely to what worthy cause he was dedicating his gifted services, but that did not matter.  He was bowing with a winning and boyish smile on his cameo features.  Such fashionables as lingered in town so late as June were there to do homage; and other anonymous human units drawn from the millions followed where the fashionables led.

As Paul Burton looked out over the seated humanity, secretly searching for Loraine Haswell, he became conscious of another face near the front.  It was that of a woman, who seemed quite alone and who was simply dressed.  Paul wondered why the features held his interest.  It was not precisely a beautiful face, but in its gray-green eyes dwelt a distinctive quality and as some thought parted the lips in a smile there came a sudden flooding of light which was better than ordinary beauty.  This girl was frankly looking forward to the evening, for her expression mirrored that rapt anticipation which comes only to the eyes of the true music-lover.  The small head under its brown hair was modeled as though a sculptor had spent loving care upon it, and Paul Burton thought that she was inwardly purring with the expectation of pleasure.  A responsive glow at once awakened in him.  He was subtly flattered because he recognized in that attitude of mind a tribute to his art for its own sake.

Then he began, and as the tide of his emotion swelled and lifted him out of himself, individual countenances grew misty—­yet, for some reason this face stood out clear and single for a moment or two after the rest had faded.

Afterward he was told that even he had not played so well before.

As he turned from a congratulatory group when the recital was ended, one of the women whom he knew only by reason of her activity in arranging the entertainment, stopped him.  “Mr. Burton,” she said, “I want you to meet Miss Terroll.”  It was a general form of introduction and the man turned to bow—­and recognized the face that had been the last to fade.  The girl gave him a small and well-gloved hand.  She smiled, but said nothing, and her sponsor talked on rapidly.

“I was in the midst of a heated suffrage discussion when you began,” she declared.  “But of course it was forgotten—­at once.”

“I’m sorry,” laughed Paul Burton, “if I broke up a good argument.”

“Oh,” she assured him with a prepared quotation, “’I can always leave off talking, when I hear a master play.’”

When Paul Burton reached the street most of the private motors had been summoned and dispatched by the starter.  He stood for a little while looking up at the stars and breathing deeply the grateful night air.  The moon-mist made a shadowy lacework of the trees in the park, and the dark contours of the avenue’s mansions were silhouetted beyond the lights of the Savoy and Netherland.  The expenditure of so much of his emotional self always left him strangely restless, and made him crave a brief aftermath of solitude.  So he sent his car away and turned down the avenue.