"Then you are impertinent!" he cried brutally. "For unless you are a consummate actress, you are beginning to care for me, me personally, more than for any fiddling I ever have or am ever likely to do!" A marble goddess looked suddenly forth from Anne's stony face. "If you were not ill, and only a boy, I would send you away for saying that!" Her voice was metallic. The icy tones congealed his blood. In an excess of remorse, he fell down at her feet and hid his face on the chaise-longue. "Forgive me," he muttered. "But if you only knew how much it means to have someone take an interest in me outside of my music! To feel that I myself mean something to someone! My music has always been first with everyone. I have been like a rich man's son, who is afraid to believe that anyone cares for anything except his millions." Raising his face, he looked pleadingly into her eyes. His misery melted her heart, but her tone remained cold. "I think you are forgetting your wife," she said quietly. "Surely you cannot believe that your music came first with her!" He evaded her reproachful gaze. "Poor Claire, yes she did care!" His voice was at once reassured and remorseful. Anne smiled down upon him ironically. The colossal egotism of these geniuses! But her voice was unruffled as she proceeded. "Does care, you mean! Alexis, look at me." She sat up and took his reluctant face into her hands. "I want you to go back to Claire. I want you to make up to her for all your past unkindness. Will you do it to please me?" He jerked his head away violently and rose to his feet. "No, ten thousand times no," he cried. "Does a prisoner ever return to his dungeon? How can you ask such a thing? It is only because you are tired of me. Want to get rid of me. Well, I am going any time you say. This minute, if you wish!" She shook her head with a low laugh. "What, in all this rain?" she asked, as a sudden gust of wind tore at the windows. "You are so excitable, my poor Alexis! Come, you know I don't want you to go. I shall miss you sadly. But I can't help thinking how much happier you might be if you only would." She looked wistfully into the angry face. He returned her glance with scorn. "Happier? There's no such thing as happiness. At least for me; I'm not so exacting as to demand it! But at least I can be free, and I shall!" "There is nothing to prevent you, poor Alexis," she replied gently. He hung his head and the light suddenly went out of his face. "You are offended with me? I don't blame you----" his voice was low and broken. "I suppose this is good-bye?" A new pain bit into Anne's heart. "Oh no, Alexis, no! How can you say so?" she broke in contritely. "If you don't feel you can go back to the others"--she hesitated uncertainly for a moment, "you may remain here with me. I have taken the lodge until the first of November. There still remain almost ten days. Do you think you could bear it?"