a few lazily enunciated words, delivered with a perfectly high-bred accent.  There are the miserly woman, who look after cheese-parings and candle-ends, and lock up the soap.  There are the spiteful women whose very breath is acidity and venom.  There are the frivolous women whose chitter-chatter and senseless giggle are as empty as the rattling of dry peas on a drum.  In fact, the delicacy of women is extremely overrated—­their coarseness is never done full justice to.  I have heard them recite in public selections of a kind that no man would dare to undertake—­such as Tennyson’s ‘Rizpah,’ for instance.  I know a woman who utters every line of it, with all its questionable allusions, boldly before any and everybody, without so much as an attempt at blushing.  I assure you men are far more delicate than women—­far more chivalrous—­far larger in their views, and more generous in their sentiments.  But I will not deny the existence of about four women in every two hundred and fifty, who may be, and possibly are, examples of what the female sex was originally intended to be—­pure-hearted, self-denying, gentle and truthful—­ filled with tenderness and inspiration.  Heaven knows my own mother was all this and more!  And my sister is—.  But let me speak to you of yourself.  You love music, I understand—­you are a professional artist?”

“I was,” I answered, “till my state of health stopped me from working.”

Heliobas bent his eyes upon me in friendly sympathy.

“You were, and you will be again, an improvisatrice” he went on.  “Do you not find it difficult to make your audiences understand your aims?”

I smiled as the remembrance of some of my experiences in public came to my mind.

“Yes,” I said, half laughing.  “In England, at least, people do not know what is meant by improvising.  They think it is to take a little theme and compose variations on it—­the mere ABC of the art.  But to sit down to the piano and plan a whole sonata or symphony in your head, and play it while planning it, is a thing they do not and will not understand.  They come to hear, and they wonder and go away, and the critics declare it to be clap-trap.”

“Exactly!” replied Heliobas.  “But you are to be congratulated on having attained this verdict.  Everything that people cannot quite understand is called clap-trap in England; as for instance the matchless violin-playing of Sarasate; the tempestuous splendor of Rubinstein; the wailing throb of passion in Hollmann’s violoncello—­ this is, according to the London press, clap-trap; while the coldly correct performances of Joachim and the ‘icily-null’ renderings of Charles Halle are voted ‘magnificent’ and ‘full of colour.’  But to return to yourself.  Will you play to me?”

“I have not touched the instrument for two months,” I said; “I am afraid I am out of practice.”

“Then you shall not exert yourself to-day,” returned Heliobas kindly.  “But I believe I can help you with your improvisations.  You compose the music as you play, you tell me.  Well, have you any idea how the melodies or the harmonies form themselves in your brain?”