Aloud she said: “I’m very fond of music. Have you learnt long?”
“I don’t remember learning, but I suppose I must have done.”
She led the way along the corridor, down the slippery stairs, and turned in at the glass door leading from the central hall towards Mr. Barringcourt’s study; but she did not go there. Instead, she paused at a door next to it on the same side. She passed in, and held the door for Rosalie to follow. The room within was dark, but it must have overlooked the Avenue, for lights from the outside shone weirdly in through the long windows, lighting up short lines of furniture, half a grand piano, a strip of table, an ottoman, and a piece of wall.
Mariana turned on one light. It was soft and shaded, but had not strength enough to illuminate the whole room. The farther corners were entirely in the shade.
“Will you not turn on more lights?” asked Rosalie.
“No; I like the twilight best. I can think and feel better when the light is low.”
Then she uncased the violin which she had brought down with her, and tried the strings, testing them by the piano, which was now a little better brought to view.
Rosalie went over to a window—it was the natural instinct of a prisoner—and looked out of it with hungry eyes.
Passing, passing, never ceasing, went the traffic, and through the closed windows came the muffled sound of horses’ feet, and wheels, and voices. Feverishly she scanned each face as closely as she could in the distance; but she read nothing on them but what one reads on a hundred faces every day. Her heart beat with an aching longing to touch the pavement again with free feet. Three years! It was a lifetime. One day in a house like this contained an agony of years.
“I am impatient,” she said, and closed her lips patiently and tight.