"You are the happiest man I know, Maestro," he said; "you are truly a creative artist, for you not only create melodious sounds and spirit-stirring ideas, but you actually create flesh and blood sirens and human creatures as lovely as your sounds, and far more real. The Signorina is your work, and see, as is natural, how devoted she is to her maker."
"Every one thinks others happier than himself, Prince," said the old man, still gloomy. "As for the Signorina, she has much more made me than I her. I shall only injure and cripple her."
The girl looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"The Maestro is not well," she said to the Prince; "he will be more cheerful to-morrow. Success frightens him. It is often more terrible than failure."
"He fears that you will forsake him, when you are courted and praised so much," said the Prince in a low voice, for the old man seemed scarcely to notice what passed; "he fears you will forsake him," and as he spoke the Prince kept his eyes fixed inquiringly on the girl's face.
The Signorina said nothing. She turned her dark great eyes full on the old man, and the Prince wanted no more than what the eyes told him.
"She is a glorious creature," he said to himself.
VI.
The next morning the crash came. The Maestro was informed that only one more performance could be allowed at the Imperial Theatre, and that, further, there were difficulties in the way of the performance being permitted in any theatre in Vienna. The old man was crushed: he came to the Signorina with the notice in his hand.