“Yes, three or four years; but not like this. It beats me! He's all upset over Miss Sherwood, I think. Old enough to be her grandfather, too, the old——”
His companion stopped him, dropping a hand on his shoulder.
“Listen!”
They were at the corner of the Briscoe picket fence, and a sound lilted through the stillness—a touch on the keys that Harkless knew. “Listen,” he whispered.
It was the “Moonlight Sonata” that Helen was playing. “It's a pretty piece,” observed Lige after a time. John could have choked him, but he answered: “Yes, it is seraphic.”
“Who made it up?” pursued Mr. Willetts.
“Beethoven.”
“Foreigner, I expect. Yet in some way or another makes me think of fishing down on the Wabash bend in Vigo, and camping out nights like this; it's a mighty pretty country around there—especially at night.”
The sonata was finished, and then she sang—sang the “Angel's Serenade.” As the soft soprano lifted and fell in the modulations of that song there was in its timbre, apart from the pure, amber music of it, a questing, seeking pathos, and Willetts felt the hand on his shoulder tighten and then relax; and, as the song ended, he saw that his companion's eyes were shining and moist.