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"Dear me!" said Miss Desmond, "it's time already;" and as she dropped upon the piano-stool she called to Miss Axewright with an authority of tone which Gaites thought augured well for her success as a teacher, "Millicent!" The next morning when Gaites came down to breakfast he had a question which solved itself contrary to his preference as he entered the dining-room.
Miss Desmond would never have played here intends to take pupils in Portland in the winter if Miss Axewright hadn't come," and the pleasant old tabby purred on, with a velvety pat here, and a delicate scratch there. But Gaites heard with one ear only; the other was more devotedly given to the orchestra, which also claimed both his eyes.
What remained for him to do was to arrange for his departure by the first train in the morning; and he was subjectively accounting to the landlord for his abrupt change of mind after he had engaged his room for a week, while he was intent with all his upper faculties upon the graceful poses and movements of Miss Axewright.
"Oh," the approachable tabby answered, "it's the one at the piano. The violinist is Miss Axewright, of South Newton. They were at the Conservatory together in Boston, and they are such friends!
While he learned, as with the mind of some one else, that the Desmonds had been very much opposed to Phyllis's playing at the Inn, but had consented partly with their poverty, because they needed everything they could rake and scrape together, and partly with their will, because Miss Axewright was such a nice girl, he was painfully adjusting his consciousness to the fact that the girl at the piano was not the girl whom he had seen at Boston and whom he had so rashly and romantically decided to be Miss Phyllis Desmond.
He was so early that the head waiter had to jump from his own unfinished meal, and run to pull out his chair; and Gaites saw that he left at his table the landlord's family, the clerk, the housekeeper, and Miss Axewright. It appeared that she was not only staying in the hotel, but was there on terms which indeed held her above the servants, but separated her from the guests.
The pianist was indeed Miss Desmond, but to no purpose, if the violinist was some one else; it availed as little that the violinist was the illusion that had lured him to Lower Merritt in pursuit of Miss Desmond's piano, if she were really Miss Axewright of South Newton.
"Miss Axewright and I stopped at the S. B. & H. C. freight-depot to see that your piano started off all right." He explained himself further, and, "Well, I don't see what you did to it," Miss Desmond pouted. "It just got here this afternoon." "Probably they 'throwed a spell' on it, as the country people say," suggested the master of ceremonies. "But all's well that end's well.
She now wheeled upon the stool, and struck some chords. "I wish you'd thought to bring your fiddle, Millicent. I should like to try this piece." The piece lay on the music-rest before her. "I will go and get it for her," said the ex-master of ceremonies. "Do," said Miss Desmond. "No, no," Gaites protested. "I brought Miss Axewright, and I have the first claim to bring her fiddle."
"I'm afraid you couldn't either of you find it," Miss Axewright began. "We'll both try," said the ex-master of ceremonies. "Where do you think it is?" "Well, it's in the case on the piano." "That doesn't sound very intricate," said Gaites, and they all laughed. As soon as the two men were out of the house, the ex-master of ceremonies confided: "That name is a very tender spot with Miss Desmond.