“After all, judging from what Billy tells me,” resumed Bertram, cheerfully, “what I've said won't be so important to you, for you aren't the kind that scorches soups or uses salt for sugar. So maybe I'd better put it to you this way: if you want a new sealskin coat or an extra diamond tiara, tackle him when he plays like this!” And with a swift turn Bertram dropped himself to the piano stool and dashed into a rollicking melody that half the newsboys of Boston were whistling.
What happened next was a surprise to every one. Bertram, very much as if he were a naughty little boy, was jerked by a wrathful brother's hand off the piano stool. The next moment the wrathful brother himself sat at the piano, and there burst on five pairs of astonished ears a crashing dissonance which was but the prelude to music such as few of the party often heard.
Spellbound they listened while rippling runs and sonorous harmonies filled the room to overflowing, as if under the fingers of the player there were—not the keyboard of a piano—but the violins, flutes, cornets, trombones, bass viols and kettledrums of a full orchestra.
Billy, perhaps, of them all, best understood. She knew that in those tripping melodies and crashing chords were Cyril's joy at the presence of Marie, his wrath at the flippancy of Bertram, his ecstasy at that for which the rug and curtains stood—the little woman sewing in the radiant circle of a shaded lamp. Billy knew that all this and more were finding voice at Cyril's finger tips. The others, too, understood in a way; but they, unlike Billy, were not in the habit of finding on a few score bits of wood and ivory a vent for their moods and fancies.
The music was softer now. The resounding chords and purling runs had become a bell-like melody that wound itself in and out of a maze of exquisite harmonies, now hiding, now coming out clear and unafraid, like a mountain stream emerging into a sunlit meadow from the leafy shadows of its forest home.
In a breathless hush the melody quivered into silence. It was Bertram who broke the pause with a long-drawn:
“By George!” Then, a little unsteadily: “If it's I that set you going like that, old chap, I'll come up and play ragtime every day!”
Cyril shrugged his shoulders and got to his feet.
“If you've seen all you want of the rug we'll go down-stairs,” he said nonchalantly.
“But we haven't!” chorussed several indignant voices. And for the next few minutes not even the owner of the beautiful Kirman could find any fault with the quantity or the quality of the attention bestowed on his new possession. But Billy, under cover of the chatter, said reproachfully in his ear: