appealing quality--the heart-touching quality of the mezzo-soprano--while
through the music ran the same unsatisfied cry as in her setting of the
old Tentmaker's passionate words--a terrible demand for those things that
life sometimes withholds.

As she ceased playing Maryon Rooke spoke musingly.

"It's a queer world," he said. "What a man wants he can't have. He sees
the good gifts and may not take them. Or, if he takes the one he wants
the most--he loses all the rest. Fame and love and life--the great god
Circumstance arranges all these little matters for us. . . . And mighty
badly sometimes! And that's why I can't--why I mustn't--"

He broke off abruptly, checking what he had intended to say. Nan felt as
though a door had been shut in her face. This man had a rare faculty for
implying everything and saying nothing.

"I don't understand," she said rather low.

"An artist isn't a free agent--not free to take the things life offers,"
he answered steadily. "He's seen 'the far Moon' with the Dreamer's eyes,
and that's probably all he'll ever see of it. His 'empty hands' may not
even grasp at the star."

He had adapted the verses very cleverly to suit his purpose. With a
sudden flash of intuition Nan understood him, and the fear which had
knocked at her heart, when Penelope had assumed that there was a definite
understanding between herself and Rooke, knocked again. Poetically
wrapped up, he was in reality handing her out her congé--frankly
admitting that art came first and love a poor second.