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I will say of Lady Greville that, in spite of her frivolity and affectations, she does love music at the bottom of her soul, with the absorbing passion that in my eyes would absolve a person for committing all the sins in the Decalogue. If her heart could be taken out and examined I can fancy it as a shield, divided into equal fields. Perhaps, as her friends declare, one of these might bear the device ‘Modes et Confections’; but I am sure that you would see on the other, even more deeply graven, the divine word ‘Music.’

She is one of the few persons whose praise of any of my compositions gives me real satisfaction; and almost alone, when everybody is running, in true goose fashion, to hear my piano recitals, she knows and tells me to stick to my true vocation–the violin.

‘My dear Baron,’ she said, ‘why waste your time playing on an instrument which is not suited to you, when you have Stradivarius waiting at home for the magic touch?’

She was right, though it is the fashion to speak of me now as a second Rubenstein. There are two or three finer pianists than I, even here in England. But I am quite sure, yes, and you are sure, too, oh my Stradivarius, that in the whole world there is nobody who can make such music out of you as I can, no one to whom you tell such stories as you tell to me. Any one, who knows, could see by merely looking at my hands that they are violin and not piano hands.

‘Will you come and live with me, Anton?’ said Lady Greville, more calmly. ‘I am rich, and childless; you shall live just as if you were my child. The best masters in Europe shall teach you. Tell me where to find your parents, Anton, and I will see them to-night.’

‘I have no parents,’ I said, ‘only Ninette. I cannot leave Ninette.’

‘Shade of Musset, who is Ninette?’ asked Felix, turning round from the window.

I told him.

‘What is to be done?’ cried Lady Greville in perplexity. ‘I cannot have the girl here as well, and I will not let my Phoenix go.’

‘Send her to the Soeurs de la Misericorde,’ said the young man carelessly; ‘you have a nomination.’

‘Have I?’ said Lady Greville, with a laugh. ‘I am sure I did not know it. It is an excellent idea; but do you think he will come without the other? I suppose they were like brother and sister?’

‘Look at him now,’ said Felix, pointing to where I stood caressing the precious wood; ‘he would sell his soul for that fiddle.’

Lady Greville took the hint. ‘Here, Anton,’ said she, ‘I cannot have Ninette here–you understand, once and for all. But I will see that she is sent to a kind home, where she will want for nothing and be trained up as a servant. You need not bother about her. You will live with me and be taught, and some day, if you are good and behave, you shall go and see Ninette.’

I was irresolute, but I only said doggedly, feeling what would be the end, ‘I do not want to come, if Ninette may not.’

Then Lady Greville played her trump card.

‘Look, Anton,’ she said, ‘you see that violin. I have no need, I see, to tell you its value. If you will come with me and make no scene, you shall have it for your very own. Ninette will be perfectly happy. Do you agree?’

I looked at my old fiddle, lying on the floor. How yellow and trashy it looked beside the grand old Cremona, bedded in its blue velvet.

‘I will do what you like, Madame,’ I said.

‘Human nature is pretty much the same in geniuses and dullards,’ said Felix. ‘I congratulate you, Auntie.’

And so the bargain was struck, and the new life entered upon that very day. Lady Greville sought out Ninette at once, though I was not allowed to accompany her.