Mabel met one of the keenest enthusiasts of her life when she met Mr. Green.
"Isn't it queer," said Jean afterwards, who, in spite of egg flips and methods, was in a dejected mood that day, "isn't it queer that an old boy like Herr Slavska and a young one like Mr. Green should both have the same delusions. About music, I mean, being so keen on it."
"You can't call that voice of Herr Slavska's a delusion."
Mabel had been much impressed by what Mr. Green had said.
"Mark you, at such an age, there is no voice like Slavska's in existence. Your sister is fortunate in learning his method."
"That's what Mr. Slavska said," Jean had answered amiably, and it had started Mr. Green off on his lessons with Mabel in a cheerful mood.
"The Herr is not sparing of his compliments when it is himself that is concerned," he said, laughing loudly. "But he can afford to tell the truth."
It seemed lovely to Mabel, this tribute from one man to another.
"More than your old Slavska said of my man," she told Jean.
Mr. Green was a distracting teacher. He pulled Mabel's playing down to decimals. Where she had formerly found her effects by merely feeling them, he subtracted feeling until she imagined she could not play piano at all. Then he began to build up her technique like a builder adding bricks to a wall.