“My sermon?” cried Mr. Beebe. “Why ever did she listen to it?”
When he was introduced he understood why, for Miss Honeychurch, disjoined from her music stool, was only a young lady with a quantity of dark hair and a very pretty, pale, undeveloped face. She loved going to concerts, she loved stopping with her cousin, she loved iced coffee and meringues. He did not doubt that she loved his sermon also. But before he left Tunbridge Wells he made a remark to the vicar, which he now made to Lucy herself when she closed the little piano and moved dreamily towards him:
“If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her.”
Lucy at once re-entered daily life.
“Oh, what a funny thing! Some one said just the same to mother, and she said she trusted I should never live a duet.”
“Doesn’t Mrs. Honeychurch like music?”
“She doesn’t mind it. But she doesn’t like one to get excited over anything; she thinks I am silly about it. She thinks—I can’t make out. Once, you know, I said that I liked my own playing better than any one’s. She has never got over it. Of course, I didn’t mean that I played well; I only meant—”
“Of course,” said he, wondering why she bothered to explain.
“Music—” said Lucy, as if attempting some generality. She could not complete it, and looked out absently upon Italy in the wet. The whole life of the South was disorganized, and the most graceful nation in Europe had turned into formless lumps of clothes.
The street and the river were dirty yellow, the bridge was dirty grey, and the hills were dirty purple. Somewhere in their folds were concealed Miss Lavish and Miss Bartlett, who had chosen this afternoon to visit the Torre del Gallo.