A woman’s love—to the despairing suitor there was one and only one in this wide, wide world, and her words, burning their way into his heart, had made this temptation possible: “No drooping Clytie could be more constant than I to him who strikes the chord that is responsive in my soul.”
Holding the violin aloft, he cried exultingly: “Henceforth thou art mine, though death and oblivion lurk ever near thee!”
VII
Perkins, seated in his office, threw the morning, paper aside. “It’s no use,” he said, turning to the office boy, “I don’t believe they ever will find him, dead or alive. Whoever put up the job on Diotti was a past grand master at that sort of thing. The silent assassin that lurks in the shadow of the midnight moon is an explosion of dynamite compared to the party that made way with Diotti. You ask, why should they kill him? My boy, you don’t know the world. They were jealous of his enormous hit, of our dazzling success. Jealousy did it.” The “they” of Perkins comprised rival managers, rival artists, newspaper critics and everybody at large who would not concede that the attractions managed by Perkins were the “greatest on earth.”
“We’ll never see his like again—come in!” this last in answer to a knock.
Diotti appeared at the open door. Perkins jumped like one shot from a catapult, and rushing toward the silent figure in the doorway exclaimed: “Bless my soul, are you a ghost?”
“A substantial one,” said Diotti with a smile.
“Are you really here?” continued the astonished impresario, using Diotti’s arm as a pump handle and pinching him at the same time.
When they were seated Perkins plied Diotti with all manner of questions: “How did it happen?” “How did you escape?” and the like, all of which Diotti parried with monosyllabic replies, finally saying: “I was dissatisfied with my playing and went away to study.”