It was only humorously that he resented his slow advance to a more individual standing. He could hardly himself measure it; and yet he felt that he was being observed, weighed, thought over, and, almost imperceptibly, that her smile for him gained in meaning.
VII
She turned her head with her smile of welcome, and, as he drew a chair near hers, lightly touched a harp-string. The throb of the vibrant note echoed in the young man’s heart. For the first time, after a winter of patient waiting, he was alone with his mystery, alone with the woman he adored; for that he adored this cold, sweet, faded woman, with her fragrant life blossoming on its black background, was as much a fact of his existence as that he had seen her photograph on that distant sunny day.
“My work is over,” she said. “I am feeling indolent. Ah, you have brought the book; thank you. Will you read it now to me—a little?” She leaned back, smiling still; her eyes, he felt, studying him more openly, yet more kindly, than ever before. “Will you ring for the candles then, or would you rather sit on for a little while in this blindman’s holiday?”
“I would rather sit on, and have you play to me, if you are not too tired.”
“I am tired of teaching—of listening, not of playing.” She at once adjusted her foot, stretched her arms, bending to the instrument, and played an old and plaintive melody.
“Exquisite,” said Damier, when it ended. “It is so staid in form, yet so melancholy in feeling.”
“Yes; like the melancholy of a sad heart, whispering its sorrow to itself under the lace and brocade of a long-dead epoch.” She went on to a joyous little pastoral, and said, smiling at him, that that was like a bank of primroses; and, after the next, “And that all innocent solemnity and sweetness, like a nun’s prayer.” And when she had finished they sat in silence for some time.
“Have you always played?” he asked her at last, seeing her suddenly as a young girl in a white dress, with a green ribbon around her waist, an emerald locket at her throat, sitting at her harp.