see me; meanwhile he sends me two tickets to his father's concert day after to-morrow--the concert for which there is not a seat to be had in all Paris, either for good words or for money. So you can rejoice with me."

"Over what?"

"You will go with me to the concert?"

"I?--no."

"But, Nita, what are you thinking of?"

"I really cannot; I have no time. Go with the Countess d'Olbreuse, who hurried here from Madrid and missed a bull-fight in order to be present at Lensky's concert, and who appeals by turns to the Russian ambassador and her music-teacher to coax a ticket."

But Sophie shook her head. "I would rather burn the ticket than give it to any one but you. I do not understand you, Nita--you who are so musical that you attend every concert that is worth the while. You do not wish to hear Boris Lensky? What is the reason?"

Nita tapped her little foot vexedly on the floor, and said: "When not long ago a sceptical old Frenchman, who had nothing to do with death, learned from his physician that his last hour had come, he said: 'Well, it is not agreeable to me, but still I have one consolation: I shall, at least, when I am dead, hear nothing more of Sarah Bernhardt and the great French nation'--he could have added, and of Boris Lensky!"

III.

"You will certainly not run into the foyer after him?" asks Nita, dryly.

"I am not thinking of it," Sophie assures her.

"Well, I only thought that you are one of his relatives," says Nita.

"Since his wife's death I have had no intercourse with him," Sophie confides to her friend. "He cannot bear me, thinks me narrow and prudish. As a man, I have never been in sympathy with him; he treated my dear cousin, his wife, much too badly for me to ever pardon him. But as an artist--as artist--he stands alone. I have heard other wonderful violinists, but it is only he that sends such hot and cold shudders over one's back at each stroke of his bow."

"Yes, he is a great artist," says Nita. Her voice sounds weary and hoarse, and the words fall slowly, syllable for syllable, from her lips, as if they were forced from her in a magnetic sleep. She looks pale, and her eyes again have their mysterious look. After much coaxing and pleading from Sophie, she has at length resolved to go with her friend to Lensky's concert, announced for that afternoon, and now seems to regret her decision.

"I think that we have a great musical treat before us," remarks Sophie, after a while. "Lensky has an uncommonly fine programme to-day. The first number is a trio of Schumann; then his accompanist plays a couple of little things; then comes a saraband, by Bach; something by Paganini, I do not know what; then a melody by Lensky himself--'La Legende' is the name, I think. It is dedicated to his wife."

"Ah! he plays that also?" asks Nita, shortly.

"Have you already heard him play it?" asks Sophie.

"Yes, once, a few years ago," replies Nita, without looking up.

"I am usually not very fond of his compositions, but I know of nothing that goes to one's heart more than this melody when he plays it," says Sophie. Nita is silent.

"You seem tired and ill, my heart," says Sophie, after a pause. "If you really do not want to go to the concert, if you were really going merely on my account, I would rather stay at home."

"No," says Nita, gloomily. "I have said it. I will go."

Lensky's concert is to take place at four o'clock. About half-past three Nita and Sophie, in a rattling fiacre, roll out of the quiet Rue Murillo into the noisy heart of the city. All at once the cab slows its pace. "What is the matter?" asks Sophie, putting her head out of the window.

"I cannot go on. The row of carriages blocks the way," answers the coachman. The horses stop. Nita also looks out. "What a tumult!" says she. "One carriage crowds another; it is as if a celebrity was to be buried."

Meanwhile the rain pours down on the roofs of the carriages, on the hard macadam, on the umbrellas of the pedestrians, who remorselessly push each other forward on the sidewalks. The coachmen crack their whips, cry out, curse; the horses stamp and press against each other.

At last, with difficulty enough, the carriage with the two girls pushes forward a few steps. Sonia looks at her watch. Four o'clock! With a start, she remembers Lensky's fabulous punctuality. "Nita, if we do not wish to miss the beginning, we must get out and walk."

And they get out. They are not the only ones. The most distinguished ladies get out of the prettiest coupés, thread their way between the muddy carriage wheels, crowd on the slippery sidewalk between piano teachers with waterproofs and overshoes, musicians with turned-up coat collars and dented silk hats, and among them the Countess d'Olbreuse, with a great bundle of music under her arm.

The young girls' places are on the stage. They go, or rather are pushed forward by the crowd, through an endless length of corridors smelling of gas and sawdust.

All the places on the stage Lensky has given to acquaintances. There is no more generous artist than he--none who, with such an immense crowding, and with doubled prices, still continues to keep hundreds of free tickets for his personal disposal. In consequence, all kinds of people are crowded together on the stage--ladies of every age and quite every rank in life, music teachers, conservatorists, ladies from the highest society, people who speak Spanish, French, Russian, or English.

"Where are our two places?" asks Sophie, looking round attentively--"24, 25, 24, 25."

"Here, Sonia," says a gentle, good-natured man's voice.

Sonia suddenly becomes fiery red. Her blue eyes sparkle. She stands as if rooted to the ground. A young man, tall, broad-shouldered, under whose severely English exterior something of his true Russian bearishness is betrayed, with an oval, rather yellow, unusually regular face, sympathetic, almond-shaped eyes, and thick brown hair, comes up to her and gives her his hand. "These are the places," says he, "here in the third row. I only came day before yesterday; my father had no better ones to give away."

"But, I beg you, we are splendidly placed. It was so nice in you to think of me," Sophie assures him cordially.

"Well, the time has not yet come when I have forgotten you!" Suddenly his glance rests on Nita, and remains fixed on her face.

"Have the kindness to introduce me, Sonitschka," asks he. His voice trembles a little.

"My cousin, Nikolai Lensky," says Sophie, in a tone which betrays that this cousin is not merely a cousin for her.

"Fräulein von Sankjéwitch," she adds, explanatorily. "But what is the matter, my heart, you look so faint?" This turning to Nita.

"It is nothing; it will pass off," murmurs Nita, and sits down.

Nikolai's features take on a truly anxious expression, and he cannot take his eyes from off her. Why does she, just she, please him, before she has exchanged a word with him, better than formerly any woman has pleased him? She looks unusually attractive to-day, besides. The weary fever which quite weighs her down to the ground takes from her appearance the harshness which often makes her somewhat cold. The outline of her face is much softer than formerly. A mysterious light shines from her large eyes, the eyes in which a strange grief lies buried, and round her mouth trembles an expression as of