“What is time to me, sir?”
He said it without affectation. It had seemed less touching otherwise.
“Well,” said Bannister, “it must be a Lydian measure, lest those more concerned with sleep than we resent it. Lie still, child, while I drug thy tired brain.”
He knew his own power in that way which is the last from vainglory. True genius has no self-consciousness. It was his soul that played, his fingers obeying; and what conceit can there be in immortality? Seated, he touched the strings, and his soul spoke—spoke all the pity and soft sympathy which were its burden. It was tender music, sighing, sweetly subdued to the occasion. And as he proceeded he lost himself in it, lost all but the sense of that divine compassion which was moving and inspiring him. Still, the sure instinct of the artist came presently to decree a period; and ending, short of surfeit, on a dying note, he came to earth.
The child was lying with closed lids, heavy tears trickling from them upon the pillow; the woman stood in the shadows, one hand placed over her eyes. What faint, angelic melodies must have stricken, half fearfully, half joyfully, the ears of dark watchers in the streets that night! Stepping very gently, the musician bent above the boy.
“Good-night, Colin,” he whispered. “And shall I come again anon?”
With a convulsive movement, two thin arms were flung about his neck.
“O, come, come again and play to me!”
“I will come. But now, my child, I am very weary. See, I will leave my harp to stand with you all night in earnest of my promise.”
As he opened the door a gaunt and ghastly apparition faced him. It was the father himself, awakened, and brought from his bed in doubt and trembling. He closed the latch, and, turning on the musician, seized him by the arms in a fierce and strenuous grip.