Both men drew breath slowly, and their eyes were hard. The stillness
became painful; all were possessed by the grim spirit of Chance. . . .
The Tall Master won. He came to his feet, his shambling body drawn
together to a height. Pierre rose also. Their looks clinched. Pierre
stretched out his hand. "You are my master at this," he said.

The other smiled sadly. "I have played for the last time. I have not
forgotten how to win. If I had lost, uncommon things had happened.
This,"--he laid his hand on the bundle and gently undid it,--"is my
oldest friend, since the warm days at Parma . . . all dead . . . all
dead." Out of the velvet wrapping, broidered with royal and ducal arms,
and rounded by a wreath of violets--which the Chief Factor looked at
closely--he drew his violin. He lifted it reverently to his lips.

"My good Garnerius!" he said. "Three masters played you, but I am chief
of them all. They had the classic soul, but I the romantic heart--'les
grandes caprices.'" His head lifted higher. "I am the master artist of
the world. I have found the core of Nature. Here in the North is the
wonderful soul of things. Beyond this, far beyond, where the foolish
think is only inviolate ice, is the first song of the Ages in a very
pleasant land. I am the lost Master, and I shall return, I shall return
. . . but not yet . . . not yet."

He fetched the instrument to his chin with a noble pride. The ugliness
of his face was almost beautiful now.

The Chief Factor's look was fastened on him with bewilderment; he was
trying to remember something: his mind went feeling, he knew not why,
for a certain day, a quarter of a century before, when he unpacked a box