"Faustina," he said, "you are a fool. I have told you already that I intend to travel, without thinking of work or of pay. You must stay here. I shall not want you. You have everything here you can wish. The Prince is your lover. You have a brilliant future before you. Don't let me have any more trouble about you." Still the girl could not believe that her friend and teacher meant to cast her off. She was looking at him wonderingly and sadly. "Maestro," she said, "you are not well. You are cross and tired; we will not speak of this any more to-night. This worry has made you ill. To-morrow you will see quite differently. You can never leave your art--and Tina." This feminine persistency, as it seemed to him--this leaving a discussion open which it was absolutely necessary should be closed that night--was too much for the Maestro. "I leave Vienna," he said brutally, "the day after to-morrow. I suppose that you will not insist on following me uninvited. If so, I shall know what to do." This tone and look revealed to the girl, at last, that she was cast off and discarded by the only man for whom she really cared. She threw herself on her knees beside his chair, and caught his hand. "Maestro," she said passionately, "you will not be so cruel! You will not leave me! What can I do? How can I live, without you? I cannot sing without you. I am your child. You took me out of the gutter; you taught me all I know; you made me all I am. I will do anything you tell me. I will not trouble you. I will not speak even! I care for no one except for you. I know you better, I can care for you, can serve you better, than they all. You will not be so cruel! You will not send me away from you." The more passionately she spoke, the more rapid and fervent her utterance, the more fretful and irritated did the old man become. He pushed her roughly from him. "Tina," he said again, "you are a fool. Get up from your knees. I don't want any of this stage-acting here." He rose himself, and began to wander about the room, muttering and grumbling. As he pushed her rudely from him, the girl rose and, retreating some steps from the table, gazed at him with a dazed, wondering look, as of one before whose eyes some strange unaccountable thing was happening. She was standing, in her brilliant beauty and in her delicate and fantastic dress, her hands clasped before her. The jewels on her fingers and on her breast paled before the solemn glow of her wonderful eyes, which were dry, only from the intensity of her thought. "No," she said at last, as it would seem in answer to some unspoken question. "No. There is nothing strange in this. A woman's heart is easily won. I am not the first, by many, who has found that out, too late."