“I wish you, Miss Murray, to play for this gentleman. Play the piece you last learnt.”
Without the slightest shyness, Clara obeyed, seating herself at the piano, and performing Schubert’s delectable “Lob der Throenen,” (Eulogy of Tears,) with Liszt’s arrangement. This she did with an executive facility and precision of touch that would have charmed a competent judge, which Ratcliff was not.
And yet astonishment made him speechless. He had expected an undeveloped, awkward, homely girl. Lo a beautiful young woman whose perfect composure and grace were such as few queens of society could exhibit! And all that youth and loveliness were his!
He looked at his watch. Not another moment could he remain. He drew near to Clara and took her hand, which she quickly withdrew. “Only maiden coyness,” thought he, and said: “We must be better acquainted. But I must now hasten from your dangerous society, or I shall miss the steamer. Good by, my dear. Good by, Mrs. Gentry. You shall hear from me very soon.”
And Mrs. Gentry rang the bell, and black Tarquin opened the door for Ratcliff. As it closed upon him, “Who is that old man?” asked Clara.
“Old? Why, he does doesn’t look a year over forty,” replied Mrs. Gentry. “That’s the rich Mr. Ratcliff.”
“Well, I detest him,” said Clara, emphatically.
“Detest!” exclaimed Mrs. Gentry, horror-stricken; for it was not often that Clara condescended to speak her mind so freely to that lady. “Detest? Is this the end of all my moral and religious teachings? O, but you’ll be come up with, if you go on in this way. Retire to your room, Miss.”
Swiftly and gladly Clara obeyed.
Apropos of the aforesaid teachings, Ratcliff was very willing that his predestined victim should be piously inclined. It would rather add to the piquancy of her degradation. He wavered somewhat as to whether she should be a Protestant or a Catholic, but finally left the whole matter to Mrs. Gentry. That profound theologian had done her best to lead Clara into her own select fold, and, as she thought, had succeeded; but Clara was pretty sure to take up opinions the reverse of those held by her teacher. So, after sitting in weariness of spirit under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Palmer in the morning, the perverse young lady would ventilate her religious conceptions by reading Fenelon, Madame Guyon, or Zschokke in the evening.