Winn said nothing. He stuck his hands into his pockets, and stood in front of the fireplace in a horribly British manner while she turned over her songs. Estelle sang rather prettily. She preferred songs of a type that dealt with bitter regret over unexplained partings. She sang them with a great deal of expression and a slight difficulty in letting go of the top notes. After she had sung two or three, Lionel said:
“Now, Winn, you sing.”
Estelle started. She had never before heard of this accomplishment of her husband’s. It occurred to her now that Lionel would think it very strange she hadn’t, but he need never know unless Winn gave her away. She need not have been afraid. Winn said quietly, as if he said it to her every evening, “D’you mind playing for me, Estelle?” Then he dragged out from under her music a big black book in which he had painstakingly copied and collected his selection of songs.
He had a high, clear baritone, very true and strangely impressive; it filled the little room. When he had finished, Lionel forgot to ask Estelle to sing again. Winn excused himself; he said he had a letter or two to write and left them.
“It’s jolly, your both singing,” Lionel said, looking at her with the same admiring friendliness he had shown her before. She guessed then that Winn had said nothing against her. After all, at the bottom of her heart she had known he wouldn’t. You can’t live with a man for five months and not know where you are safe.
Estelle smiled prettily.
“Yes,” she said gently, “music is a great bond,” and then she began to talk to Lionel about himself.
She had a theory that all men liked to talk exclusively about themselves, and it is certain that most men enjoyed their conversation with her; but in this particular instance she made a mistake. Lionel did not like talking about himself, and above all he disliked sympathetic admiration. He was not a conceited man, and it had not occurred to him that he was a suitable subject for admiration. Nor did he see why he should receive sympathy. He had had an admirably free and happy life with parents who were his dearest friends, and with a friend who was to him a hero beyond the need of definition.
Still, he wouldn’t have shrunk from talking about Winn with Estelle. It was her right to talk about him, her splendid, perfect privilege. He supposed that she was a little shy, because she seemed to slip away from their obvious great topic; but he wished, if she wasn’t going to talk about Winn, she would leave his people alone.
She tried to sympathize with him about his home difficulties, and when she discovered that he hadn’t any, her sympathy veered to the horrible distance he had to be away from it.