“Well, but your interest is only platonic, you know.” “Perhaps,” answered Hugh. “Oh, perhaps,” repeated Mrs. Osborn, as she elevated her eyebrows and smiled bewitchingly at him. Hugh, however, made no reply, and Mrs. Osborn’s nerves received a shock by his silence as well as by the turn affairs were taking. She mentally resolved to wire Lord Avondale, on the next day, to hasten his coming. Returning to the drawing-room, Captain Osborn pushed aside the heavy hangings that separated it from Mrs. Osborn’s music-room. “Lucy, my dear,” said he, “I am sure Miss Marie and Mr. Stanton would enjoy some music.” “By all means,” said Marie, “I have often wished to hear you play, Mrs. Osborn.” “Captain, what shall I play?” asked his wife, seating herself languidly at the piano. “Oh, anything,” replied the jovial old captain, “anything from ‘Old Dan Tucker’ to the ‘Fisher’s Hornpipe.’.rdquo; “You will observe,” said Mrs. Osborn, looking back at Hugh over her shoulder, and smiling, “that my husband is quite primitive in his musical tastes.” Then followed several selections. She played mechanically, however, and with little expression. There was no soul to rebound from the strings of the instrument. In the very middle of a classical piece, which was beyond her, she suddenly stopped playing, and, turning to Hugh, said: “Excuse me, but did you not, on one occasion, speak of Miss Hampton’s playing?” “I doubtless have mentioned it,” replied Hugh. “Ah, you naughty girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Osborn, laughing, “why did you not tell me? Come, Marie, you must help me entertain these American financiers—these men of affairs. I promise you,” she went on, patronizingly, “that they will not know whether you play excellently or otherwise.” CHAPTER XXV.—ALMOST A TRAGEDY I CAN’. speak for Captain Osborn,” said Marie, as she seated herself before the piano, “but I fear, Mrs. Osborn, that you misjudge Mr. Stanton.” “Oh, thank you,” said Hugh, bowing at the compliment. “Papa insists,” Marie went on, as she looked at Hugh with her laughing eyes, “that you are wonderfully appreciative, and, doubtless, critical.” “Indeed,” interposed Mrs. Osborn, with some surprise, “well, had I known that, I would have been more careful in the selections I played.” Marie turned to the instrument, softly fingering the keys and striking a chord here and there until finally she drifted into Chopin’s Fifth Nocturne. Her interpretation was that of a born artist. The music fairly rippled from her deft fingers, as she glided on and on from one beautiful cadence to another, until at last—note by note—as if sobbing a farewell, the melody died away. Then striking a few chords sharply, she took up a lively refrain, which gradually materialized into Rubinstein’s Melody in F. There was a wild abandon and rare power in her playing that appealed to Hugh Stanton’s soul like the wild sweep and rush of sighing winds in a primeval forest.