“She also dead—?”
“Yes, five years ago.”
They went to the drawing-room. He laid his hand on the keys of the piano, sounding a chord.
“Play,” she said.
He shook his head, smiling slightly. But he wished her to play. She sat and played one of Kishwégin’s pieces. He listened, faintly smiling.
“Fine piano—eh?” he said, looking into her face.
“I like the tone,” she said.
“Is it yours?”
“The piano? Yes. I suppose everything is mine—in name at least. I don’t know how father’s affairs are really.”
He looked at her, and again his eye wandered over the room. He saw a little coloured portrait of a child with a fleece of brownish-gold hair and surprised eyes, in a pale-blue stiff frock with a broad dark-blue sash.