Mrs. Gaston laid her novel by on Margaret’s entrance, and gave her young cousin a cordial welcome. The two sat talking busily until General Gaston came up to his dressing-room to prepare for a lecture to which he was going, and to which he offered to take Margaret. His wife put her veto on that plan, however, pronouncing it a stupid affair, and saying that Margaret would be better entertained at home. “But you are not to stay up here with me, my dear,” she said. “Go down stairs. Some one will be coming in by-and-by, I dare say, and you must not think of coming back to entertain me. I am bent on seeing how this absurd story ends; it’s the most deliciously preposterous thing I ever read,--so bad, that it’s good! Say good-night now, dear. I know you are never dull; so I dismiss you to your own devices. I don’t know where Louis is, but he may come and join you after a while. There’s never much counting on him, however.” When Margaret descended to the drawing-room, the library doors were thrown apart, and through them she could see Louis Gaston bending over some large sheets of heavy paper, on which he was drawing lines by careful measurement. He looked up at the sound of her footsteps, and, as she took a magazine from the table, and seated herself in a large chair before the fire, he came in with his pencil in his hand, and leaning his back against the end of the mantel, said: “Eugenia tells me you have never seen _Favorita_, and I so rejoiced to put an end to that state of affairs! You don’t know what an absolute refreshment it has been to me to observe your enjoyment of the music you have heard since you have been here. I don’t think I have ever received from any one such an impression of a true appreciation of music. It seems rather odd, as you neither play nor sing yourself.” “It pleases me to think that my own incapacity does not interfere in the least with my enjoyment of music,” Margaret said. “When I hear beautiful music my pleasure in it is not impaired by any feeling of regret that I cannot produce such a thing myself. It no more occurs to me to long for that, than to long to create a beautiful sunset when I see one.” “The fact that one is attainable, while the other is not, would make a difference, I think.” He paused a moment, and then went on with his pleasant smile: “Do you know this discovery of mine--that of your fastidious appreciation of music--has been the thing that deterred me from inflicting any of my own upon you? I was so set against this that I made Eugenia promise not to acquaint you with the fact that I can sing a little.”