“Dear old father!” Anna cried, as she drew back.  She took him by the shoulders, now, and, with her beautifully modelled, firm young arms, held him away from her so that she might examine him.  With loving scrutiny she studied every line of the old face.  Instantly she noted the weary droop of tired eyelids.  “Are you sure you are quite well?”

He smiled.  “Always I am well, when you are with me.  Always well when you are with me, Anna.”

“You look tired.  Ah, it is not easy for you when you play—­”

His heart stood still for half-a-dozen beats.  Could it be possible that she had learned how he had lied to her about the place in which he played?  Had she learned that it was not a park of elegant importance?

“It is a fine, a splendid park,” he interrupted.  “Some day I shall take you there, with M’riar, and shall show you.  Not at once.  At present I must be quite sure to please and so must play without distraction.  Your presence might confuse me, so that I could not give satisfaction; but, someday, when things are a little better—­then I take you with me.”

As he lied away her fears his soul was bitterly inquiring what his daughter who had such respect for him and for his music, would think if she could hear him as he stood upon a rough-board platform, or sat beside a cheap piano, pounded by a colored youth who kept a glass of beer on one end and a cigarette upon the other as he played.  What would Anna think of her old father if she heard him tootle on his flute, with all the breath which he could muster, the strains of “Hot Time,” an old favorite, or “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie,” not quite so old, but infinitely more offensive than the frank racket of the negro melody to his sensitive ear?  How would her artistic soul revolt if she should hear his flute—­his precious flute!—­inquiring if anybody there had seen an Irishman named Kelly?

“What do they like best, my father?” Anna asked him, still looking searchingly into his face, as if she saw signs there which did not reassure her.  “Mozart, possibly, or Grieg?”

“I think it is ‘An Invitation to the Dance,’” said he, and smiled again, more sweetly, more convincingly than ever. “’Around, around, around!’” he muttered, bitterly, sarcastically, as he turned away from her.

“What, father?”

“That melody, so sweet; those words, so full of lovely sentiment—­they cling in my old mind, my liebschen,” said Herr Kreutzer, to cover up his error.  “They what you call it?  Keep running in my head—­ah, around, around within my head, my liebschen.”

“Somehow, I am af-raid that you do not, really, like the place where you are playing.”

“It is a fine, a splendid park, my Anna,” Kreutzer cried in haste.  “I am a grumbler—­an old grumbler.  My only real cause for complaint is that I must play so very loud for some” (his heart was sore with a humiliation of the night before), “while, for others, it is necessary that I plays so s-o-f-t-l-y—­lest my flute disturb their conversation.  I am puzzled, Anna, that is all.  Quite all.  There is no cause for you to worry.”  He placed his hand upon her shoulder, and, as he sank wearily to the stiff, wooden chair which was as easy as the room could boast, she dropped to her knees beside him.