Andrea Korust advanced from a little group to meet his guests. Off the stage he seemed at first sight frailer and slighter than ever. His dress coat had been exchanged for a velvet dinner jacket, and his white tie for a drooping black bow. He had a habit of blinking nearly all the time, as though his large brown eyes, which he seldom wholly opened, were weaker than they appeared to be. Nevertheless, when he came to within a few paces of his newly arrived visitors, they shone with plenty of expression. Without any change of countenance, however, he held out his hand. "Dear Andrea," Mademoiselle Celaire exclaimed, "you permit me that I present to you my dear friend, well known in Paris--alas! many years ago--Monsieur le Baron de Grost. Monsieur le Baron was kind enough to pay his respects to me this evening, and I have induced him to become my escort here." "It was my good fortune," Peter remarked, smiling, "that I saw Mademoiselle Celaire's name upon the bills this evening--my good fortune, since it has procured for me the honour of an acquaintance with a musician so distinguished." "You are very kind, Monsieur le Baron," Korust replied. "You stay here, I regret to hear, a very short time?" "Alas!" Andrea Korust admitted, "it is so. For myself, I would that it were longer. I find your London so attractive, the people so friendly. They fall in with my whims so charmingly. I have a hatred, you know, of solitude. I like to make acquaintances wherever I go, to have delightful women and interesting men around, to forget that life is not always gay. If I am too much alone I am miserable, and when I am miserable I am in a very bad way indeed. I cannot then make music." Peter smiled gravely and sympathetically. "And your brother? Does he, too, share your gregarious instincts?" Korust paused for a moment before replying. His eyes were quite wide open now. If one could judge from his expression, one would certainly have said that the Baron de Grost's attempts to ingratiate himself with his host were distinctly unsuccessful. "My brother has exactly opposite instincts," he said slowly. "He finds no pleasure in society. At the sound of a woman's voice he hides." "He is not here, then?" Peter asked, glancing around. Andrea Korust shook his head. "It is doubtful whether he joins us this evening at all," he declared. "My sister, however, is wholly of my disposition. Monsieur le Baron will permit me that I present her."