But the careful directions of Mr. Fritz Braun had given Lilienthal his cue. The dealer babbled on of pleasant trivial things as they stemmed the tide of the crowded streets. "I hope that Fraeulein Gluyas will soon appear in opera and achieve the success which she deserves. She is really here incognito, and spends all her time in private musical practice at Chickering Hall and the study of languages." "Why this secrecy?" asked Clayton. "Ah! My dear sir! These are the ways of impresarios. If Grau does not secure a certain great operatic star with whom he has quarrelled, then Fraeulein Gluyas will be brought out with a great flourish of trumpets under a stage name to be selected later. She will then be heralded as a 'wonder of the world.' It will pay Grau, and he will also have his revenge!" "And if the great star relents?" smilingly asked Clayton, as they neared the Restaurant Bavaria. "Then," cheerfully answered the dealer, "the lady will make a grand concert tour, adequately supported. It is for that contingency she is studying English ballads and the language." Clayton suddenly remembered the unromantic address of 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn. "Fraeulein Gluyas resides in Brooklyn?" he said, with a fine air of carelessness. Lilienthal's eyes swept obliquely the young man's distrustful face. "Fraeulein Gluyas ordered the picture sent to the rooms of her music master, 192 Layte Street, Brooklyn. Poor old Raffoni was once a world-wide star, a velvet tenor. Now he is literally a voice maker, a master of technique for Maurice Grau. The Hungarian nightingale studies there, and only takes her hall practice here in the off season, in Chickering's empty salon. There is a jealous professional mystery in this secrecy. The summer is the opera's off season, just as the winter is the same for the great circus and travelling shows. The hardest work is thus veiled from the public. The impresario is always a wily individual." "And the lady's real residence?" impatiently queried the budding lover. "That is an absolute secret, for Grau carefully hides away his coming stars. Somewhere on Long Island an old Hungarian noble family have had a retreat since the days of Kossuth. "The Fraeulein is their guest, and, for other reasons than complete faith with Grau, she receives no one. She is as proud and haughty as she is beautiful, and rumor has it that the pursuit of an Austrian Archduke drove her to the safety of our shores. All this I have gathered from my old friend, Signore Raffoni." Clayton mutely followed Lilienthal to the door of a private room in the "Bavaria" and, with a wildly beating heart, was bowing low before the woman whose shining eyes had brought to his bosom such strange unrest. "It is like a page from a novel," the flute-like voice murmured, "that this lucky picture should have brought us together again, as it strangely did once face to face."