At this moment the door, which led to some inner room, opened, and a boy appeared on the threshold. 'My great-nephew, lady,' said the Jewess; 'his mother is my niece. He can sing like the heavenly seraphim, and great beauty of body is his as well.' She whispered the last statement in that fatal whisper wherewith the aged often give conceited self-consciousness to children. The boy advanced: graceful, perfect in line, glowing in his Jewish youthful beauty, which is usually over-bold, a trifle insolent and hard. He approached Wilhelmine, and bent before her in a salute so ceremonious that it was at once strangely appealing from a child, and yet unctuous and unnatural. Wilhelmine gave him her hand and inquired his name. 'Joseph Suess Oppenheimer, musician,' he replied gravely. 'Indeed? Musician!' she said, laughing. 'Thy profession already fixed and entitled.' 'My father is a musician; he sings before courts, and I shall do the same,' he added proudly. Wilhelmine laughed. The boy's calm assurance of success pleased her, and his unusual beauty attracted her, as all personal comeliness invariably did. 'He knows what he wants, this Joseph Suess,' she said; 'and to know what one wants, to know it decidedly, is the first step to achievement. Grasp success firmly and it is yours!' The boy looked at her, fascinated by her loveliness, dominated by her voice and the creed which she enunciated. The old Jewess sent the boy to fetch his guitar, and when he returned she desired him to sing for her guest's entertainment. Joseph Suess, with the too precocious manner of the Jewish child, inquired with another elaborate bow if Wilhelmine would care to hear his voice. She begged him to let her hear the seraphim sing. The boy caught the note of irony in her phrase; flushing deeply, he laid aside his guitar and would have run away had not Wilhelmine, with her easy self-indulgent kindness of heart to those who did not get in her way, called him back and propitiated him with smiling reassurances. The boy seated himself near her and sang. His voice was deliciously fresh and clear, and Wilhelmine, delightedly, made him sing again and again till the child's repertory was exhausted. She praised him and fondled him, and taking from her breast a small jewelled pin, engraved with her initials, she fastened it in his coat. 'A remembrance, dear musician,' she said laughing. She was destined to see that jewel again after long years, when humiliation and defeat came to her, striking her down at the zenith of her brilliant career. CHAPTER IX 'SHE COMES TO STAY THIS TIME'