"You play?" he inquired.
"A little."
"Play for me." The words came almost unbidden. It was an impulse to which he responded because he could not help it. "Play for me," he pleaded.
She ran her hands idly over the keys. "I ought to be angry," she thought, "he, a mere music master, to ask me to play for him as if he were an equal."
But the gentle expression on the old man's face as he regarded her with a tender smile was so full of hallowed affection and respect that she could not utter the words which came to her lips. She merely looked at him and returned his smile with one of her own and Heaven opened for the old man. She began to play.
"You know I play very little," she said.
"I love to hear music from your fingers," was all he could say.
Miss Stanton listened a moment.
"What music is that?" She heard the men upstairs playing. "It's very pretty," she added. They both listened for a few moments. "It's really beautiful! Can I get it? I'd like to know that melody."
"I make for you a piano score. It's the music they played the night that she, that she—" his breath came quickly. "Lieber Gott! Elene; so like Elene, so like!" he said, as he gazed at her.