"Still, fate can rob us of our patrimony," she replied, after a pause.
"Not while life is here and eternity beyond," he said, reassuringly.
"What if a soul lies dormant and will not arouse?" she asked.
"There are souls that have no motive low enough for earth, but only high enough for heaven," he said, with evident intention, looking almost directly at her.
"Then one must come who speaks in nature's tongue," she continued.
"And the soul will then awake," he added earnestly.
"Perhaps," he almost whispered, his thought father to the wish.
"I am afraid not," she sighed. "I studied drawing, worked diligently and, I hope, intelligently, and yet I was quickly convinced that a counterfeit presentment of nature was puny and insignificant. I painted Niagara. My friends praised my effort. I saw Niagara again--I destroyed the picture."
"But you must be prepared to accept the limitations of man and his work," said the philosophical violinist.
"Annihilation of one's own identity in the moment is possible in nature's domain--never in man's. The resistless, never-ending rush of the waters, madly churning, pitilessly dashing against the rocks below; the mighty roar of the loosened giant; that was Niagara. My picture seemed but a smear of paint."
"Still, man has won the admiration of man by his achievements," he said.
"Alas, for me," she sighed, "I have not felt it."
"Surely you have been stirred by the wonders man has accomplished in music's realm?" Diotti ventured.
"I never have been." She spoke sadly and reflectively.
"But does not the passion-laden theme of a master, or the marvelous feeling of a player awaken your emotions?" persisted he.
She stood leaning lightly against a pillar by the fountain. "I never hear a pianist, however great and famous, but I see the little cream-colored hammers within the piano bobbing up and down like acrobatic brownies. I never hear the plaudits of the crowd for the artist and watch him return to bow his thanks, but I mentally demand that these little acrobats, each resting on an individual pedestal, and weary from his efforts, shall appear to receive a share of the applause.
"When I listen to a great singer," continued this world-defying skeptic, "trilling like a thrush, scampering over the scales, I see a clumsy lot of ah, ah, ahs, awkwardly, uncertainly ambling up the gamut, saying, 'were it not for us she could not sing thus--give us our meed of praise.'"