"The prime of life," Veronica repeated.
She was asked to play, and immediately went to the piano. Strange girl; her music was so filled with a wild lament that I again fathomed my desires and my despair. Her eyes wandered toward me, burning with the fires of her creative power, not with the feelings which stung me to the quick. Her face was calm, white, and fixed. She stopped and touched her eyelids, as if she were weeping, but there were no tears in her eyes. They were in mine, welling painfully beneath the lids. I turned over the music books to hide them.
"That is a singular piece," said one. "Now, Cassandra, will you favor us? We expect to find you highly accomplished."
"I sang myself out before you came in."
In the bustle of their going, Veronica stooped over my hand and kissed it, unseen. It was more like a sigh upon it than a kiss, but it swept through me, tingling the scars on my face, as if the flesh had become alive again.
"Take tea with us soon, do. We do not see you in the street or at church. It must be dull for you after coming from a boarding-school. Still, Surrey has its advantages." And the doors closed on them.
"Still, Surrey has its advantages," Veronica repeated.
"Yes, the air is sleepy; I am going to bed."
I made resolutions before I slept that night, which I kept, for I said, "Let the dead bury its dead."