“It was beautiful!” the old lady corrected her, rather severely.
She went on talking, but Mrs. Holland no longer heard her, for some one had touched the piano in the drawing-room—a little chain of arpeggios like a sweet and drawling voice. It hurt her to hear it, for she did not want any one else to touch that piano. She remembered Joyce, so straight and correct, her long braid hanging down her back, playing her new pieces for her mother and father. Such funny, sprightly[Pg 412] pieces they were—“The Bullfrogs’ Carnival,” “The Elfin Schottische,” “Romping in the Barn”; and so earnestly, so heavily, so determinedly were they played by the blunt little fingers!
No, that surely was not Joyce’s touch. Madeline wanted to know who it could be, sitting there in Joyce’s place.
Skillfully she maneuvered the talkative old lady to the center of the room, where she could look through the open doorway into the drawing-room, and there she saw her—a little blond creature with the fragile figure of a child. She was a pretty girl, very young, and a little pitiful in her flimsy silk dress, sleeveless and short-skirted; but Mrs. Holland saw no pathos in her at that minute, for Frank Holland was standing beside her, looking down at her with an air of bland indulgence.
The blond girl touched the keys again, and then she raised her eyes to Frank’s face with a languishing smile. She spoke, and he raised his hand to his mustache with that familiar gesture.
“He’s flattered!” thought Mrs. Holland.
She forgot all about Mrs. Marriott, and stood staring over the old lady’s head at the pitiful scene—Frank so pleased and flattered by that silly, vulgar little thing.
“Madeline,” said old Mrs. Marriott, “who’s that young woman talking to Frank? I never set eyes on her before.”
“She’s poor Stella’s daughter,” replied Mrs. Holland. “I thought I ought to ask them.”
“Humph!” said the old lady thoughtfully. “Stella here?”