Surely she could not render this grand strain if her soul was in fierce rebellion; and, with strained ears and hushed breath, Dr. Grey listened to the closing
| “Dona nobis pacem,—pacem,—pacem.” |
It was a passionate, wailing prayer, and the only one that ever crossed her lips, yet his heart throbbed with pleasure, as he noted the tremor that seemed to shiver her voice into silvery fragments; and as she ended, he knew that tears were not far from her eyes.
When he entered the room, she had left the piano, and wheeled a sofa in front of the grate, where she sat gazing, vacantly into the fiery fretwork of glowing coals.
A copy of Turner’s “Liber Studiorum,” superbly bound in purple velvet, lay on her knee, and into a corner of the sofa she had tossed a square of canvas almost filled with silken Parmese violets.
“Good-evening, Mrs. Gerome; I hope I do not interrupt you.”
Dr. Grey removed the embroidery to the table, and seated himself in the sofa corner.
“Good evening. Interruption argues occupation and absorbed attention, and the term is not applicable to me. I 345 who live as vainly, as uselessly, as fruitlessly, as some fakir twirling his thumbs and staring at his beard, have little right to call anything an interruption. My existence here is as still, as stagnant, as some pool down yonder in the sedge which last week’s waves left among the sand hillocks, and your visits are like pebbles thrown into it, creating transient ripples and circles.”
“You have gone back to the God of your æsthetic idolatry,” said he, touching the “Liber Studiorum.”
“Yes, because ‘Beauty pitches her tents before him,’ and his pencil is more potent in conjuring visions that enchant my wearied mind, than Jemschid’s goblet or Iskander’s mirror.”