The Argosy — page 385: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ee oe Lost Harmony. 37% me, who hardly knew a symphony from a sonata or a fugue from a fantasia. Another quiet step across the hall, and the closing of Heinrich’s music-room door. He had dined then in these few minutes, and had never missed me. Why Aad I learnt that programme off by heart; and dipped so eagerly into the life of Beethoven that I might talk a little with Heinrich of the man he loved—a most uninteresting life, I thought it, rapt and full of dreams like Heinrich’s; oh, so sad? so sad! If I thought that Heinrich’s life could ever be so——I don’t think I finished the thought : it was too desolate a one. I took my work in my hand, smiled away all signs of tears and discontent, and went in to Heinrich with every appearance of utter light-heartedness. ‘‘ Herr Heinrich, now tell me about the concert,” I said, and took a seat near him in the easiest manner possible. Of course he would be glad to talk of what he had enjoyed. Of course he would be glad of my sympathy. ~ “What could I tell you, Phyllis?” he asked, glancing up from his writing for just one moment. “ There is nothing to tell.” ‘‘Why, there were grand performances,” I said, strong in my lately- acquired knowledge. ‘‘ There was a concerto of—of—” ‘Nothing you would have cared for, Phyllis.” A lump, of huge dimensions, rose in my throat, and my eyes smarted unbearably with the tears which should #of come. It was only bya mighty effort that I could quite calmly rise and leave the room again. _ How dare he treat me so, just because he knew I was not learned and talented, as he was, and could not help hating music because it was his idol ! - I did not stir again from my work and my loneliness until Aunt Anna came in ;and when, at eleven o'clock, Herr Werkle joined us for prayers, I would not look at him—at least, not when he could see. He still wore his concert dress, with a foreign order on his breast, and Aunt Anna had told me he was the handsomest man not only in the orchestra but even in the whole concert-room—as if she need have chosen just that mortifying time to say it | I took the new blue ribbons out of my hair and hid them away. It was always the same—nothing new and pretty that I ever wore won a word or glance of admiration from him. Had he not once described a dress he liked, and had I not, as soon as I could, and with infinite labour, got that very dress? Had I not appeared first before him, full of suppressed excitement as to what he might say, and had he not gone on singing to himself just where he stood at the window? No, it did not signify how I looked: though perhaps if he saw me dismal and depressed———almost as quickly as the thought framed itself, my plan was formed. } I had always been early in the mornings ; always busy and healthy- COMIC MOOOlKS.,.CO