One day he went to a _matinee_ at one of the finest and most fashionable houses in the place. There were beautiful women elegantly dressed, very exquisite men walking up and down the magnificently furnished drawing-rooms. The air was subdued, the voices were low, the wit was quiet, the motion was full of repose, the repose breathed grace. Arnold seated himself at the Steinway, at the half-expressed request of the hostess, and partly from the suggestions of his own mood. He began with dreamy music; it was heavy with odors, at first, drugged with sense, then spiritualizing into strange, delicate fancies. Then came strength with a sonata of Beethoven's; then the strains died back again into a song singing without words. "You would like some dance-music now," said Arnold to the beautiful Caroline, who stood by his side. "Shall I play some music that will make everybody dance?" "Like the music in the fairy-tale," said Caroline; "oh, I should like that! I often hear such dance-music, that sets me stirring; it seems as if it ought to move old and young." "There are no old people here," said Arnold. "I have not seen any." "It seems to me there are no young," answered Caroline. "There are neither young nor old," said Arnold; "that is the trouble." But he began to play a soft, dreamy waltz. It was full of bewitching invitation. No one could resist it. It passed into a wild, stirring polka, into a maddening galop, back again to a dreamy waltz. Now it was dizzying, whirling; now it was languishing, full of repose. Now it was the burst and clangor of a full orchestra; now it was the bewitching appeal of a single voice that invited to dance. Up and down the long room, across the broad room, the dancers moved. The room, that had been so full of quiet, was swaying with motion. Caroline seized hold of the back of a chair to stay herself. "It whirls me on; how dizzying it is! And you, would you not like to join in the dance? I would be your partner." "The piano is my partner," answered Arnold. "Do you not see how it whirls with me?"