Mrs. Sturgis's feelings, on reading this production, may be imagined. She wept a little, being still not herself, and found heart, for the first time, to notice that a robin was singing outside her own window. There is no question but that Kirk's days were really the busiest of the Sturgis family's. For no sooner did the Three R's loose their hold on him at noon, than the Maestro claimed him for music after lunch, three times a week. Rather tantalizing music, for he wasn't to go near the piano yet. No, it was solfeggio, horrid dry scales to sing, and rhythm, and notation. But all was repaid when the Maestro dropped to the piano-stool and filled a half-hour with music that made Kirk more than ever long to master the scales. And there was tea, always, and slow, sun-bathed wanderings in the garden, hand in hand with the Maestro.
He must hear, now, all about the Sturgis Water Line, and Ken's yachting cap with the shiny visor, and how Kirk had taken the afternoon trip three times, and how--if the Maestro didn't know it already--the sound of water at the bow of a boat was one of the nicest noises there was.
"There are those who think so," said the old gentleman. "Kirk, tell Ken not to let the sea gain a hold on him. He loves it, does he not?"
"Yes," said Kirk, aghast at the sudden bitter sorrow in the gentle voice. "Why?"
"The sea is a tyrant. Those she claims, she never releases. I know."
He stood among the gently falling blossoms of the big quince-tree by the terrace. Then he suddenly drew Kirk to him, and said:
"I spoke of the garden being filled, to me, with the memory of children; did I not?"
Kirk remembered that he had--on May-day.
"A little boy and a little girl played here once," said the Maestro, "when the pools were filled, and the garden paths were trim. The little girl died when she was a girl no longer. The boy loved the sea too well. He left the garden, to sail the seas in a ship--and I have never seen him since."
"Was he your little boy?" Kirk hardly dared ask it.