I

Alixe Van Kuyp sat in the first-tier box presented to her husband with
the accustomed heavy courtesy of the Société Harmonique. She went early
to the hall that she might hear the entire music-making of the
evening--Van Kuyp's tone-poem, Sordello, was on the programme between a
Weber overture and a Beethoven symphony, an unusual honour for a young
American composer. If she had gone late, it would have seemed an
affectation, she reasoned. Her husband kept within doors; she could tell
him all. And then, was there not Elvard Rentgen?

She regretted that she had invited the Parisian critic to her box. It
happened at a _soirée_, where he showed his savage profile among
admiring musical lambs. But he was never punctual at musical affairs.
This consoled Alixe.

Perhaps he would forget her impulsive, foolish speech,--"without him the
music would fall upon unheeding ears,--he, who interpreted art for the
multitude, the holder of the critical key that unlocked masterpieces."
She had felt the banality of her compliment as she uttered it, and she
knew the man who listened, his glance incredulous, his mouth smiling,
could not be deceived. Rentgen had been too many years in the candy shop
to care for sweets. She recalled her mean little blush as he twisted his
pointed, piebald beard with long, fat fingers and leisurely
traversed--his were the measuring eyes of an architect--her face, her
hair, her neck, and finally, stared at her ears until they burned like a
child's cheek in frost time.

Alixe Van Kuyp was a large woman, with a conscientious head and gray