“I came because I could not work,” he said.
“Because you couldn’t work? Why couldn’t you work?” There was no yielding in her hard voice.
“I don’t know! I don’t know! I suppose it is because you are not there, because you have made yourself necessary to me; or,” he corrected quickly, “because I have made you necessary to myself. Oh! I can practise for so many hours per day. But it is useless. It is not authentic practice. I think not of the music. It is as if some other person was playing, with my arm, on my violin. I am not there. I am with you, where you are. It is the same day after day, every day, every day. I am done for. I am convinced that I am done for. These concerts will infallibly be my ruin, and I shall be shamed before all Paris.”
“And did you come to England to tell me this?”
“Yes.”
She was relieved, for she had thought of another explanation of his escapade, and had that explanation proved to be the true one, she was very ready to make unpleasantness to the best of her ability. Nevertheless, though relieved in one direction, she was gravely worried in another. She had undertaken the job of setting Musa grandiosely on his artistic career, and the difficulties of it were growing more and more complex and redoubtable.
She said:
“But you seemed so jolly when you arrived last night. Nobody would have guessed you had a care in the world.”
“I had not,” he replied eagerly, “as soon as I saw you. The surprise of seeing you—it was that.... And you left Paris without saying good-bye! Why did you leave Paris without saying good-bye? Never since the moment when I learnt that you had gone have I had the soul to practise. My violin became a wooden box; my fingers, too, were of wood.”
He stopped. The dog sniffed round.