"We can't do anything at this minute. We'll have to learn whether Richard has gone any farther than to play the piano a few times with this young lady and I'll find out about these plans and intentions of his."
"His plans and intentions!" repeated Mrs. Lister.
"He's old enough to have them, my dear. I think we'd better let him have his music, don't you?"
Mrs. Lister gave her husband another long, level, and astonished glance. Then she sought her own room.
Richard came downstairs for lunch, white and with dark-rimmed eyes. But he was clean and his eyes shone. Faversham had accepted him, had said he would be glad to have him. He had sent messages to Miss Thomasina; he had said a hundred things which she must hear at once.
"He talked about her as though he were in love with her," thought Richard whose thoughts ran in one channel.
Faversham had played for him, had talked about Beethoven and John Sebastian Bach. Faversham had heard and had torn up his small compositions and had put them into the wastebasket, smiling.
"You don't want those to appear in collections of your works, my boy!" he had said.
Richard would not have exchanged places with the Queen of England, or the Czar of all the Russias, who still held enviable positions in those days, or with any great character of history past or present. As for the future, he intended to be one of the great characters.
And there was sweet Eleanor, waiting, perhaps even at this instant, for him to come up the little walk.