"I shall have to dress now. I've told Simms that I'm at home this afternoon...."
She went out.
Loring stood a moment, looking at the telegram which he still pinched and twisted in his cold fingers. All at once he sank down, laying his face on his arm and his arm on the little table. His hands were tight-clenched.
"Oh, Lord, what a fool I've been!..." he groaned. "What a double-damned fool!..."
But he did not believe for one instant that Sophy's words were final. He did not for the most fleeting atom of time give credence to the idea that she meant to break with him entirely and for good.
Sophy waited for Amaldi in the "little music-room." It was nearly September. In the last two days the mornings and evenings had grown chilly, so she had had a log fire kindled in the big chimney-place. The shadows leaped elfishly upon the bare, clear walls, as though shaken with silent laughter. The fire-gleams flickered over the glossy case of the piano until it glowed like a black opal. White chrysanthemums thrust their pretty dishevelled heads into the dance of gloom and shine. The room was fresh with their bitter-sweet, autumn scent.
Sophy loved this room. She looked around it with regret, as she stood waiting for Amaldi. Bit by bit she had thought it out. She had spent many hours alone in it. Here Amaldi had made that wonderful music for her. She tried to recall it as she waited for him. Phrases came ... melted away. It was like trying to hold snow-crystals in one's hands. Then his words came back to her:
".... By the window of a Castle on the North Sea, sits a beautiful, ill woman.... Love brought her to the Castle ... then Love died ... but Love's ghost wanders through the empty halls...."
Had Amaldi really guessed?... Did he know?... Had he known when he said those words—when he played that music to her? She stood gazing into the spark-broidered violet of the flames from the driftwood fire. How much had he divined? Somehow, she felt that he knew.