“With all my heart,” said Mr. Bult, willing to be gracious. “I was sure he had too much talent to be a mere musician.” “Ah, sir, you are under some mistake there,” said Klesmer, firing up. “No man has too much talent to be a musician. Most men have too little. A creative artist is no more a mere musician than a great statesman is a mere politician. We are not ingenious puppets, sir, who live in a box and look out on the world only when it is gaping for amusement. We help to rule the nations and make the age as much as any other public men. We count ourselves on level benches with legislators. And a man who speaks effectively through music is compelled to something more difficult than parliamentary eloquence.” With the last word Klesmer wheeled from the piano and walked away. Miss Arrowpoint colored, and Mr. Bult observed, with his usual phlegmatic stolidity, “Your pianist does not think small beer of himself.” “Herr Klesmer is something more than a pianist,” said Miss Arrowpoint, apologetically. “He is a great musician in the fullest sense of the word. He will rank with Schubert and Mendelssohn.” “Ah, you ladies understand these things,” said Mr. Bult, none the less convinced that these things were frivolous because Klesmer had shown himself a coxcomb. Catherine, always sorry when Klesmer gave himself airs, found an opportunity the next day in the music-room to say, “Why were you so heated last night with Mr. Bult? He meant no harm.” “You wish me to be complaisant to him?” said Klesmer, rather fiercely. “I think it is hardly worth your while to be other than civil.” “You find no difficulty in tolerating him, then?—you have a respect for a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he can’t turn into political capital. You think his monumental obtuseness suited to the dignity of the English gentleman.” “I did not say that.” “You mean that I acted without dignity, and you are offended with me.” “Now you are slightly nearer the truth,” said Catherine, smiling. “Then I had better put my burial-clothes in my portmanteau and set off at once.” “I don’t see that. If I have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you should not mind my criticism of your impatience.” “But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant impertinence about a ‘mere musician’ without letting him know his place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But I beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even you can’t understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste for you.” “That is true,” said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. “He is of a caste to which I look up—a caste above mine.” Klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up and walked to a little distance, from which he said,