"I guess it's every quality now," said Rose, "but it started with me the first time I heard you play, and knew that, whatever you'd been and done, and were planning to do, you had a soul above it all. And I knew that if your soul had ever had a fair chance you'd have been more like a god than a man." "Well, well," said Blizzard after a long silence, "perhaps. Who knows! And so it was the music that changed your heart? Well, why not? Nobody makes better music--unless it's Hofman." The idea of appealing to the heart of quite another girl through his music filled the legless man with a wild hoping. Why not? If he could play himself clean out of hell whenever he pleased, why not another? He would not tell her the possibilities of nobility that yet remained in him. He would play them to her. "Rose," he said, "you're the best pedaller I ever had. You've got music in you. We'll practise up and give a concert. I'll ask some nobs in. We'll turn the piano so that seeing how the pedalling is done won't distract their attention from the music. But they won't hear our music, Rose. It will be better than that. They shall roll in it, bathe in it, see heaven!" "That's what I saw." Blizzard's agate eyes glinted with a strange light. It was as if the beast in him was fighting with the God. But gradually all mercifulness, all-pity, went out, and the fires which remained were not good to see. He kissed her and she kissed him back. XX Feeling that she had been working too hard, being in much distress about Harry West, and in some for herself, and learning that Wilmot Allen was to be of the party, Barbara told Blizzard, at the end of his sitting on Friday, that he need not come Saturday, as she was going to spend the week-end with the Bruces at Meadowbrook. "I'm dog-tired," she said, "and that's the same as being discouraged. We both need a rest. Things have been at a stand-still nearly all the week." "I think you are right about yourself," said Blizzard, "but won't your gay friends keep you up till all hours?" "They will _not_" said Barbara, "and it won't be gay. During a falling market there are never more than two happy people at the largest Long Island house-party. The men will sit by themselves and drink very solemnly. The women will sit by themselves and yawn till ten o'clock. It will be very boring and very restful." "Speaking of falling markets, is my friend Mr. Allen to be among those present? I understand that he has been very hard hit." "I don't know about that," said Barbara. "He often is. Yes, he is to be among those present, and I'm really going just to have a chance to talk to him." "_With_ him or _to_ him?" asked Blizzard with one of his sudden, dazzling smiles. "_To_ him," said Barbara, also smiling, "I, too, have listened to tales out of school, and since he is my oldest friend, and probably my best, he must be straightened out." "A little absence from New York, perhaps," suggested Blizzard, and watched her face closely.