several times did the wearied, but ever affable, maestro ascend the platform to bow and smile his graceful acknowledgments, till the audience, satisfied with having thoroughly emphasized their hearty appreciation of his genius, permitted him to finally retire.  Then the people flocked out of the hall in crowds, talking, laughing, and delightedly commenting upon the afternoon’s enjoyment, the brief remarks exchanged by two Americans who were sauntering on immediately in front of Heliobas and Alwyn being perhaps the very pith and essence of the universal opinion concerning the great artist they had just heard.

“I tell you what he is,” said one, “he’s a demi-god!”

“Oh, don’t halve it!” rejoined the other wittily, “he’s the whole thing anyway!”

Once outside the hall and in the busy street, now rendered doubly brilliant by the deep saffron light of a gloriously setting sun, Heliobas prepared to take leave of his somewhat silent and preoccupied companion.

“I see you are still under the sway of the Ange-Demon,” he remarked cheerfully, as he shook hands, “Is he not an amazing fellow?  That bow of his is a veritable divining-rod, it finds out the fountain of Elusidis [Footnote:  A miraculous fountain spoken of in old chronicles, whose waters rose to the sound of music, and, the music ceasing, sank again.] in each human heart,—­it has but to pronounce a note, and straightway the hidden waters begin to bubble.  But don’t forget to read the newspaper accounts of this concert!  You will see that the critics will make no allusion whatever to the enthusiasm of the audience, and that the numerous encores will not even be mentioned!”

“That is unfair,” said Alwyn quickly.  “The expression of the people’s appreciation should always be chronicled.”

“Of course!—­but it never is, unless it suits the immediate taste of the cliques.  Clique-Art, clique-Literature, clique-Criticism, keep all three things on a low ground that slopes daily more and more toward decadence.  And the pity of it is, that the English get judged abroad chiefly by what their own journalists say of them,—­ thus, if Sarasate is coldly criticised, foreigners laugh at the ‘UNmusical English,’ whereas, the fact is that the nation itself is not unmusical, but its musical critics mostly are.  They are very often picked out of the rank and file of the dullest Academy students and contrapuntists, who are incapable of understanding anything original, and therefore are the persons most unfitted to form a correct estimate of genius.  However, it has always been so, and I suppose it always will be so,—­don’t you remember that when Beethoven began his grand innovations, a certain critic-ass-ter wrote of him, ’The absurdity of his effort is only equalled by the hideousness of its result’.”

He laughed lightly, and once more shook hands, while Alwyn, looking at him wistfully, said: 

“I wonder when we shall meet again?”