small manager, who was paying but a pittance for his splendid work.

So anxious did Herr Kreutzer seem to be to keep from winning notice
from the outside world, indeed, that when a stranger who might
possibly be one of those explorers after merit in dim places appeared
there in the little theatre, the other members of the orchestra felt
quite sure of wretched playing from the grey-haired flutist. If it
chanced that they had noticed no such stranger, but yet Herr Kreutzer
struck false notes persistently, they all made sure that they had
missed the entrance of the "cruiser," searched the audience for him
with keen and speculative eyes and played their very best, certain
that the man was there and hopeful of attracting the attention and the
approbation which the old flute-player shunned. More than one had thus
been warned, to their great good.

And Herr Kreutzer, on such evenings, was privileged to strike false
notes with painful iteration, even to the actual distress of auditors,
without a word of criticism from the leader or the manager.
Excruciating discord from the flute, on three or four nights of a
season, was accepted as part payment for such playing, upon every
other night, as seldom had been heard from any flute in any orchestra
in London or elsewhere.

The theatre saw very little of the daughter. Once at the beginning of
the run of every fit new play, the flute-player requested of the
manager a box and always got it. In this box, on such occasions, his
daughter sat in solitary state, enjoying with a childish fervor the
mumming of the actors on the stage, the story of the play, the music
of the orchestra. Such glimpses, only, had the theatre of her. Her
father never introduced her to an attaché of the establishment. Once,