'Your own!' She clapped her jewelled hands in girlish delight. 'Oh, where can I get it?' 'East Side,' some mocking demon tried to reply; but he crushed her down, and replied uneasily: 'You can't get it. It just came to me this afternoon. It came--and it has gone.' 'What a pity!' But she was visibly impressed by this fecundity and riotous extravagance of genius. 'I do hope you will try to remember it.' 'Impossible--it was just a mood.' 'And to think of all the other moods I seem to have missed! Why have I not heard you in America?' He grew red. 'I--I haven't been playing there,' he murmured. 'You see, I'm not much known outside a few European circles.' Then, summoning up all his courage, he threw down his name 'Rozenoffski' like a bomb, and the red of his cheeks changed to the pallor of apprehension. But no explosion followed, save of enthusiasm. Evidently, the episode so lurid to his own memory, had left no impress on hers. 'Oh, but America _must_ know you, Herr Rozenoffski. You must promise me to come back in the fall, give me the glory of launching you.' And, seeing the cloud on his face, she cried: 'You must, you must, you must!' clapping her hands at each 'must.' He hesitated, distracted between rapture and anxiety lest she should remember. 'You have never heard of me, of course,' she persisted humbly; 'but positively everybody has played at my house in Chicago.' '_Ach so!_' he muttered. Had he perhaps misinterpreted and magnified the attitude of these Americans? Was it possible that Mrs. Wilhammer had really been too ill to see him? She looked frail and feverish behind all her brilliant beauty. Or had she not even seen his letter? had her secretary presumed to guard her from Semitic invaders? Or was she deliberately choosing to forget and forgive his Jewishness? In any case, best let sleeping dogs lie. He was being sought; it would be the silliest of social blunders to recall that he had already been rejected. 'It is years since Chicago had a real musical sensation,' pleaded the temptress. 'I'm afraid my engagements will not permit me to return this autumn,' he replied tactfully. 'Do you take sugar?' she retorted unexpectedly; then, as she handed him his cup, she smiled archly into his eyes. 'You can't shake me off, you know; I shall follow you about Europe--to all your concerts.'