Maurice did not fight beside him; but he was an affectionate troubadour, who looked on at the combat and chanted it, often with friendly irony. He was much like a dependent and devoted younger brother. Geoffrey did not argue about him, and was fonder of him than of anything else in the world. He was glad of the restful week after a fatiguing session, and looked to see Maurice’s future settled, the arabesque engraved upon a good, solid blade of prosperity, before he left Trensome Hall.
CHAPTER VII
FELICIA was up early in the morning after her arrival, and while she made a leisurely toilet she was thinking, smiling as she thought, about the last evening. An altogether novel one in her experience.
She had never before been conscious of being interested in so many people, and, especially, she had never before been conscious of interesting anybody. Now she was almost sure that last night she had much interested one person. The brightest spot in this consciousness had been after her own performance at the piano. Various young women played and sang; Felicia’s place among them was an unimportant one. Miss Bulmer, as usual, distinguished herself in a passionate ballad, her eyes fixed on the cornice, her meagre white satin form swayed by emotions strangely out of keeping with the appearance of the singer. Miss Bulmer’s shouts of despair and yearning stirred, as usual, all the enthusiasm of which her audience was capable; and Felicia, when she sat down to the piano, was accustomed to the subsequent torpor, to the undercurrent of talk while she played, and to having Miss Bulmer, flushed and generous in her own triumph, lean over her and watch her fingering with an air of much benignity. But it was a new experience when she rose, among cool expressions of pleasure, while Miss Bulmer said, “You really do improve so much,” to have some one, some one who knew, and that some one Maurice Wynne, come forward all radiant with recognition, clapping his hands and crying, “Magnificent, simply magnificent! Where did you learn to play Brahms like that? I didn’t know that you really were a musician—I thought you merely played the piano!”
He stood, excited, delighted, smiling at her, and his enthusiasm went, an uncomprehended thrill round the room. Every eye turned on Felicia with a new discernment.
“But you mustn’t stop,” said Maurice; “she mustn’t stop, must she, Mrs. Merrick? Why didn’t you prepare us for this treat? You never told us that your niece was a genius.”
Mrs. Merrick, her square of pale mauve bosom, in its frame of yellow satin, deepening its tint, hastened to add her urgency to Maurice’s. “Is she not wonderful? We expect great things of her,” she said, for Mrs. Merrick was quick at adjustments.
Felicia’s placid eyes dwelt on her for a moment.
Maurice had taken Miss Bulmer’s place, for even Miss Bulmer felt that benignity was misapplied, and had looked at Felicia, not at her fingering, while she played.
It had been to Felicia a delightful, almost a bewildering experience.