'Only that it would be a queer way to welcome Cherry's guest,' said Clement, in reprobation.
'As if you liked her yourself, Clem!' exclaimed Angela, 'when Stoneborough is altogether in the rear, and not one of the whole crew belongs to the E.C.U.'
'Is it impossible to be courteous to any one out of the E.C.U.?' said Clement so gravely, that the laughter was renewed; but Cherry had the uncomfortable certainty that if there had been a show of hands it would have been on Bernard's side. Clement and the Mays had never harmonized; and Lance, who was always reluctant to face his sister's young-lady associates, now had no escape, and was ready to feel everything an oppression, so that his silence was an act of forbearance.
It was a good sign, that when Clement came in unobserved from Evensong, he found Lance at the piano, making twilight beautiful with something wonderfully yearning and mournful, but with a deep underkey of resolution ever waxing stronger and stronger. Clement leant on the settee, listening till his eyes grew moist; and when the cough forced the musician to desist, and come back exhausted to the sofa, he asked, 'Where did that come from?'
'It is a Largo of Beethoven's in C Major. I fell in love with it when we had C—— at Minsterham.'
'Dr. May has done you good.'
'I don't know. I see he thinks my voice done for.'
'I would sooner have your fingers than your voice, Lance,' said Clement, appreciating the grief as Dr. May could not, never having heard those notes.
Lance shook his head. The trouble was too deep and real for speech.
'Sooner or later we shall have our voices in perfection,' said Clement. 'Meantime, who knows how good it may be for you to be parted from that beautiful thing!'