“That?” queried Desirée. “It’s just the Vanderdecken motive from _The Flying Dutchman_. And I used to be able to play the whole Spinning Song; but I’ve forgotten most of it.” “H’m!” murmured Caleb, who found her words as unmeaning as her music. “I _thought_ I remembered that one. ‘Spinning Song,’ hey?” “Yes,” she said absently. “It starts out with lots of bizzy, purry little notes too fast for me to play. I never could learn the piano.” “You bet you could!” cried Caleb, at once afire with contradiction. “I’ve heard a lot of crackajack piano players an’ never one of ’em could hold a candle to you. Why, there was Blink Snesham--the feller they called Ragtime King,--down to Kerrigan’s. You’ve got him beat a block.” “You dear old loyal idiot!” laughed Desirée, lifting one hand from the keys to rumple his stiff red hair with a gesture as affectionate as it was discomfiting. “I believe you think I’m the wonderfullest person on earth.” “I _know_ you are,” he answered simply, his big body a-thrill with half-holy joy at her touch. “What’s the one you’re playing now with your other hand. Ain’t so very long, but it’s kind of sprightly.” “It’s Siegfried’s horn-call. See how it changes to four-time and loses all its buoyancy, in the _Goetterdaemmerung_ funeral march.” Solemnly, hopelessly, the transformed, distorted horn-call crashed out. “That ain’t the same thing you played just now, is it?” he asked in doubt. “Sounds sort of like the toons the bands play at Masonic fun’rals.” “Same notes. Different tempo. One is the motive of the boy who starts out through the forest of life sounding a joy-challenge to everything and everybody. The other is woven into the dead hero’s mourning chant. In _Goetterdaemmerung_, you know.” “Oh, yes. I remember now,” said Caleb, hastily. “It’d just slipped my mind for the minute. I’ve got so many things to think of, you know.” “Caleb Conover!” Down came both little hands with a reproving bang on the keyboard, as the girl started out of her rhapsody. “Caleb Conover, you’re being that way _again_! And after all I’ve told you. How am I going to cure you of pretending?” “But, Dey!” he declared. “Honest I--I thought--I did.” “You know very well you were pretending. You don’t know whether _Goetterdaemmerung_ is a dog, a bird, or a patent medicine. Now confess. _Do_ you?” “From the sound,” floundered Caleb, in all seriousness, “I’d put my money on the dog. But then, maybe--” Desirée leaned back and laughed long and delightedly. “Oh, _Caleb_!” she gasped. “_What_ am I going to do with you? Are you never going to grow up?”