One sultry Sunday afternoon they sat within the vine-clad veranda, the strains of the violin and guitar blending on the languorous, perfumed air. As the last notes died away Kate exclaimed,—
"I never had any one accompany me who played with so much expression. You give me an altogether different conception of a piece of music; you seem to make it full of new meaning."
"And why not?" Darrell inquired. "Music is a language of itself, capable of infinitely more expression than our spoken language."
"Who is speaking, then, when you play as you did just now—the soul of the musician or your own?"
"The musician's; I am only the interpreter. The more perfect the harmony or sympathy between his soul, as expressed in the music, and mine, the truer will be the rendering I give. A fine elocutionist will reveal the beauties of a classic poem to hundreds who, of themselves, might never have understood it; but the poem is not his, he is only the poet's interpreter."
"If you call that piece of music which you have just rendered only an interpretation," Kate answered, in a low tone, "I only wish that I could for once hear your own soul speaking through the violin!"
Darrell smiled. "Do you really wish it?" he asked, after a pause, looking into the wistful brown eyes.
"I do."
She was seated in a low hammock, swinging gently to and fro. He sat at a little distance from her feet, on the topmost of the broad stairs, his back against one of the large, vine-wreathed columns, Duke stretched full length beside him.