Billy frowned.
“But you are so accurate, Marie, and you can read at sight so rapidly!”
“Oh, yes, like a little machine, I know!” scorned the usually gentle Marie, bitterly. “Don't they have a thing of metal that adds figures like magic? Well, I'm like that. I see g and I play g; I see d and I play d; I see f and I play f; and after I've seen enough g's and d's and f's and played them all, the thing is done. I've played.”
“Why, Marie! Marie, my dear!” The second exclamation was very tender, for Marie was crying.
“There! I knew I should some day have it out—all out,” sobbed Marie. “I felt it coming.”
“Then perhaps you'll—you'll feel better now,” stammered Billy. She tried to say more—other words that would have been a real comfort; but her tongue refused to speak them. She knew so well, so woefully well, how very wooden and mechanical the little music teacher's playing always had been. But that Marie should realize it herself like this—the tragedy of it made Billy's heart ache. At Marie's next words, however, Billy caught her breath in surprise.
“But you see it wasn't music—it wasn't ever music that I wanted—to do,” she confessed.
“It wasn't music! But what—I don't understand,” murmured Billy.
“No, I suppose not,” sighed the other. “You play so beautifully yourself.”
“But I thought you loved music.”