They listened—with ears, with eyes, with every faculty strained to its utmost. And _nothing_ happened!—positively nothing—beyond a few wheezing or creaking sounds. The haggard inventor, in despair, chased everybody out of the room, and sat looking at the thing, wondering whether to smash it or kill himself. Then an idea struck him. In feverish haste he took the whole mechanism to pieces again, sitting up all night. And as the morning sun rose he discovered in the very heart of the creature, to which by now he attributed an uncanny and independent life, the most elementary blunder,—a vital connection missed between the power-supplying mechanism and the cylinders containing the records. He set it right; and nearly dead with fatigue and excitement, unlocked his door, and called his family back. Then what triumph! What falling on each other’s necks—and what a _déjeuner_ in the Palais Royal—children and all—paid for by the inventor’s last napoleon! All this Falloden told, and told well. Connie could not restrain her pleasure as he came to the end of his tale. She clapped her hands in delight. ‘And when—_when_ will it come?’ ‘I must go over again—but I think the first days of January will see it here. I’ve only told you half—and the lesser half. It’s you that have done most—far most.’ And he took out a little note-book, running through the list of visits he had paid to her friends and correspondents in Paris, among whom the rolls were being collected, under Chaumart’s direction. The ‘Orpheus’ already had a large musical library of its own—renderings by some of the finest artists of some of the noblest music. Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Brahms, Schumann—all Otto’s favourite things, as far as Connie had been able to discover them, were in the catalogue. Suddenly, her eyes filled with tears. She put down the note-book, and spoke in a low voice, as though her girlish joy in their common secret had suddenly dropped. ‘It must give him some pleasure—it _must_!’ she said, slowly, piteously, as though she asked a question. Falloden did not reply immediately. He rose from his seat. Nora, under a quick impulse, gathered up a letter she had been writing, and slipped out of the room. ‘At least—’ he looked away from her, straight out of window—‘I suppose it will please him—that we tried to do something.’ ‘How is he—really?’ He shrugged his shoulders. Connie was standing, looking down, one hand on her chair. The afternoon had darkened; he could see only her white brow, and the wealth of her hair which the small head carried so lightly. Her childishness, her nearness, made his heart beat. Suddenly she lifted her eyes. ‘I wish you knew’—it seemed to him her voice choked a little—‘how much—you matter to him. Mrs. Mulholland and I couldn’t keep him cheerful while you were away.’ He laughed. ‘Well, I have only just escaped a catastrophe to-day.’ She looked alarmed. ‘How?’