Looking at unseen bricks through a small window-pane was little consolation. Mechanically he rose and went to a grand piano, his one possession of price, which, with an old horsehair sofa, an oval table covered with a maroon cloth, and a chair or two, congested the tiny room, and, sitting down, began to play one of Stephen Heller's _Nuits Blanches_. You see, Angelo Fardetti was an old-fashioned musician. Suddenly a phrase arrested him. He stopped dead, and remained staring out over the polished plane of the piano. For a few moments he was lost in the chain of associated musical ideas. Then suddenly his swarthy, lined face lit up, and he twirled his little white moustache and began to improvise, striking great majestic chords. Presently he rose, and from a pile of loose music in a corner drew a sheet of ruled paper. He returned to the piano, and began feverishly to pencil down his inspiration. His pulses throbbed. At last he had got the great andante movement of his sonata. For an hour he worked intensely; then came the inevitable check. Nothing more would come. He rose and walked about the room, his head swimming. After a quarter of an hour he played over what he had written, and then, with a groan of despair, fell forward, his arms on the keys, his bushy white head on his arms. The door opened, and Sonia, comely and shapely, entered the room, carrying a tray with food and drink set out on a white cloth. Seeing him bowed over the piano, she put the tray on the table and advanced. "Dear godfather," she said gently, her hand on his shoulder. He raised his head and smiled. "I did not hear you, my little Sonia." "You have been composing?" He sat upright, and tore the pencilled sheets into fragments, which he dropped in a handful on the floor. "Once, long ago, I had a dream. I lost it. To-day I thought that I had found it. But do you know what I did really find?" "No, godfather," replied Sonia, stooping, with housewifely tidiness, to pick up the litter. "That I am a poor old fool," said he. Sonia threw the paper into the grate and again came up behind him. "It is better to have lost a dream than never to have had one at all. What was your dream?" "I thought I could write the Song of Life as I heard it--as I hear it still." He smote his forehead lightly. "But no! God has not considered me worthy to sing it. I bow my head to His--to His"--he sought for the word with thin fingers--"to His decree." She said, with the indulgent wisdom of youth speaking to age: "He has given you the power to love and to win love." The old man swung round on the music-stool and put his arm round her waist and smiled into her young face. "Geoffrey is a very fortunate fellow." "Because he's a successful composer?" He looked at her and shook his head, and Sonia, knowing what he meant, blushed very prettily. Then she laughed and broke away.