silver. He walked through the hall on tiptoe, taking care to step
upon the much stained and worn strip of "Turkish" carpet, and not
upon the more resonant wooden floor. The music had ceased long
since.

The open doorway was like a brilliantly painted picture hung upon
the darkness of the hall, though its human centre of interest was
no startling bit of work, consisting of Mr. Madison pottering
aimlessly about the sun-flooded, unkempt lawn, fanning himself,
and now and then stooping to pull up one of the thousands of
plantain-weeds that beset the grass. With him the little spy had
no concern; but from a part of the porch out of sight from the
hall came Cora's exquisite voice and the light and pleasant
baritone of the visitor. Hedrick flattened himself in a corner
just inside the door.

"I should break any engagement whatsoever if I had one," Mr.
Corliss was saying with what the eavesdropper considered an
offensively "foreign" accent and an equally unjustifiable
gallantry; "but of course I haven't: I am so utterly a stranger
here. Your mother is immensely hospitable to wish you to ask me,
and I'll be only too glad to stay. Perhaps after dinner you'll be
very, very kind and play again? Of course you know how remarkable
such----"

"Oh, just improvising," Cora tossed off, carelessly, with a
deprecatory ripple of laughter. "It's purely with the mood, you
see. I can't make myself do things. No; I fancy I shall not play
again today."