'My dear Baron,' she said, 'why waste your time playing on an instrument
which is not suited to you, when you have Stradivarius waiting at home for
the magic touch?'
She was right, though it is the fashion to speak of me now as a second
Rubenstein. There are two or three finer pianists than I, even here
in England. But I am quite sure, yes, and you are sure, too, oh my
Stradivarius, that in the whole world there is nobody who can make such
music out of you as I can, no one to whom you tell such stories as you tell
to me. Any one, who knows, could see by merely looking at my hands that
they are violin and not piano hands.
'Will you come and live with me, Anton?' said Lady Greville, more calmly.
'I am rich, and childless; you shall live just as if you were my child. The
best masters in Europe shall teach you. Tell me where to find your parents,
Anton, and I will see them to-night.'
'I have no parents,' I said, 'only Ninette. I cannot leave Ninette.'
'Shade of Musset, who is Ninette?' asked Felix, turning round from the
window.
I told him.
'What is to be done?' cried Lady Greville in perplexity. 'I cannot have the
girl here as well, and I will not let my Phoenix go.
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