Shakespeare of late--I laughed so at that!"-- Then, as other guests entered, "pray, endeavor to make the 'eighth wonder' comfortable, de Sterny, you are entirely at home here." This was the princess's manner of dealing carefully with a sensitive "eighth wonder."

De Sterny placed the boy temporarily in a corner, out of which he soon drew him forth to be presented to several ladies and gentlemen. Gesa assumed a haughty bearing. The ladies especially were very friendly, and very patronizing, only it scarcely occurred to one of them to address a word to the boy himself. They all talked about him, in his presence, as if he were a picture, or as if he could not understand French. They wondered, and praised and then forgot him while he stood before them, and talked among themselves of other things. It grew more and more uncomfortable for him, and as his embarrassment increased he felt as if he were walking painfully upon smooth thin ice. He shivered a little. Everything around him was so bright and cold. The soft, fine, flute-like voices of good society hurt him. Light and stinging as snowflakes, their words flew against his burning cheeks. He would have liked to weep. He was an "eighth world-wonder"--they stared at him through a lorgnette, discussed him,--and cared for him no further. Listening he heard the words "comes from the Rue Ravestein."--"What is that, the Rue Ravestein?" "What is it? That is difficult to explain to a lady,"--"vraiment?" "But he gives a perfectly amazing impression of good breeding." "Il n'a pas du tout e' air peuple!" "But since he is a gipsy,"--Gesa felt his throat tighten.

"Shall we not hear you to-day?" asked the ladies who crowded around de Sterny.

"Me?" he replied, with a laugh, "me? I am only manager to-day--and besides I suffer horribly from stage fright."

The moment had come! Gesa must play: his heart beat to suffocation. It was not he, but a stolid clod stiffened with bashfulness who stood up and laid his fingers on the strings. In the middle of Mendelssohn's G minor Concerto he stuck fast, stumbled over himself, picked up, and scrambled painfully through to the end. The composition was never worse played. De Sterny was beside himself. Gesa would have liked to sink through the floor.

A few people applauded because they did not know any better, and a few others because they had not been listening at all. But the greater part shrugged their shoulders, and said "de Sterny is an enthusiast."

And when the virtuoso tried to say a word in excuse for his protégé and declared he had never heard him play so ill, they answered "Bah! we don't blame you for anything, de Sterny. We know you are an enthusiast."

The company chatted and laughed, and nibbled a little refreshment in their careless fashion. Then came a deputation of the handsomest women and begged de Sterny to play, whereupon he seated himself at the piano with his usual good-humored readiness, and smiling consciousness of success. After he had played he went to Gesa and said:

"My dear boy, collect yourself! Could you not forget that any one heard you but me, and improvise something? Try to remember the theme you last played to me. Your future depends upon it. And I would so like to be proud of you!"

These last words worked a miracle.

"I will play--only--only--that I may not shame you!" murmured Gesa.

The boy was deathly pale, and trembled all over as he raised his violin, his eyes lighted up--and then hid themselves behind their dark lashes.

A rain of fire fell before his vision, a whirl of emotion filled his breast, wild passionate melodies sounded in his ears. Had he dreamed them, or had a complaining autumn storm driven them hither from the land of his father? Were they echoes of the songs his mother had listened to from her lover, and later had hushed her child to sleep with them, as she rocked him on the threshold of the house in the shabby little street, where the sad Saviour looked hopelessly down from the Crucifix on the grey church wall? Who knows! His violin sang and sobbed as only a Hungarian gipsy-violin can; harsh modulations, piercing melodies, a mad tempest of passion,--then one last burst of wild, reckless hilarity--and he broke off, breathless, and gazing fixedly before him. He knew he had done his best. His ears listened greedily. If they expected a storm of applause as at his public debut, they were disappointed. Only a little hum, like the dry leaves that an east wind is rustling, buzzed through the room, and as if afar off he heard the words "Charmant, magnifique, original, tsigane"--His head sank, a black cloud floated before his eyes. De Sterny came up and clapped him on the shoulder. "Bravo! Bravo!" he cried, "we are rehabilitated!" and turning to the company with a triumphant smile,

"Now did I exaggerate?"

But Gesa listened no longer for the answer of the salon. He pressed de Sterny's hand to his hot lips, and burst into tears. The virtuoso was his heaven, his God. "Mais voyons! grand enfant!" said his patron soothingly. And the "world" was enchanted, even more of course by the generosity of the great pianist than by the talent of his protégé!

* * * * *

"What is a chimera?" asked the little Gipsy of his great friend one day.

It was in the forenoon. Gesa had been turning over the leaves of a French book which he did not understand, "Les Fleurs du Mal," by Baudelaire. De Sterny meanwhile had been writing letters. He wore a yellow dressing gown of Japanese silk, in which he looked like a large mullein. He yawned and stretched himself, looked pale and used up. That he had not slept regularly for fifteen years was very evident from his appearance.

"What is a chimera?" asked Gesa.

"A chimera--a chimera--it is a siren with wings," defined the virtuoso, turning round.

"H'm!" Gesa lowered his eyes thoughtfully, then raised them inquiringly. "An ennobled siren then?"

"Yes,--as one takes it."

De Sterny sat down by the chimney to warm his feet. "Deuced cold!--hand me the chartreuse, so--Yes, a refined siren if you like," he continued. "The siren has soft human arms with which she draws us into destructive pleasures, the chimera has claws with which she tears our heart. The siren entices us into the mire, the chimera lures us toward heaven,--only we don't reach the heaven, and we often find ourselves very well off in the mire,--deucedly well off! But saperment! you don't understand that yet." And he pulled Gesa's ear.

The boy looked rather confused: he certainly had not understood a word of his patron's tirade. "But some of us reach heaven, the heaven of Art, the Walhalla, the Pantheon," cried he, eagerly, with the bombast of a very young person who has read more than he has understood, and likes to display his little knowledge--"If only one sets out early enough on the way."

"Oh yes, a few!" murmured the virtuoso with a queer smile.

"Michael Angelo, Raphael, Beethoven," cried the boy.

"Shakespeare, Milton, Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci," de Sterny laughed aloud as he continued the litany. "But I assure you a man must have quite astounding powers to reach that heaven, and lungs constructed expressly for the purpose in order to feel comfortable after he gets there." The pianist yawned slightly. He belonged among those who amuse themselves with the sirens without permitting them to acquire too much power, and who avoid chimeras on principle. But Gesa was not yet satisfied.

"Have all chimeras wings?" he asked, thoughtfully.

"God forbid!" cried de Sterny.

"But"--