“Oh, Mr. Mills is an interesting man, and he worships Leila; but she worries and puzzles him. It isn’t just the difference between age and youth----” She paused, conscious perhaps of the impropriety of discussing her neighbor with a comparative stranger, but Bruce’s gravely attentive face prompted her to go on. “He’s one of those people we meet sometimes who don’t seem--how can one put it?--they don’t seem quite at ease in the world.” “Yes,” he said slowly, “but--where all the conditions of happiness are given--money, position, leisure to do as you please--what excuse has anyone for not finding happiness? You’d conclude that there was some fundamental defect----” “And when you reach that conclusion you’re not a bit better off!” she interrupted. “You’re back where you started. Oh, well!” she said, satisfied now that she had said quite enough about her neighbor and regretting that she had mentioned him at all, “it’s too bad happiness can’t be bought as you buy records to play on a machine and have nothing to do but wind it up and listen. You have to do a little work yourself.” “We’ve all got to play in the band--that’s the idea!” he laughed, and to escape from the thought of Mills, asked her whether she ever played for an ignorant heathen like himself. “You’re probably a stern critic,” she replied, “but I’ll take a chance. If you don’t mind I’ll try the organ. Papa and Mamma always like me to play some old pieces for them before they go to bed. Afterwards I’ll do some other things.” In a moment she was in the balcony with the knight towering above her, but he faded into the shadows as she turned off the lights in the studio below. Bruce’s eyes at once became attentive to her golden head and clearly limned profile defined by the lamp over the music rack. She seemed suddenly infinitely remote, caught away into a world of legendary and elusive things. The first reedy notes of the organ stole eerily through the room as though they too were evoked from an unseen world. The first things she played were a concession to her parents’ taste, but she threw into them all the sentiment they demanded--the familiar airs of “Annie Laurie,” “Ben Bolt,” and “Auld Lang Syne.” She played them without flourishes, probably in deference to the preferences of the father and mother who were somewhere listening. To these she added old revival songs--“Beulah Land,” and “Pull for the Shore”--these also presumably favorites of the unseen auditors. He watched her aureoled head, the graceful movement of her arms and shoulders as she gave herself to her task with complete absorption. She was kind to these parents of hers; possibly it was through her music that she really communicated with them, met them on ground of their simpler knowledge and aspirations.