Papa was too absorbed in his terrapin soup to answer.
Let us follow Vance to the little house, scene of his brief, fugitive days of delight. He stood under the old magnolia in the tender moonlight. The gas was down in Clara’s room. She was at the piano, extemporizing some low and plaintive variations on a melody by Moore, “When twilight dews are falling soft.” Suddenly she stopped, and put up the gas. There was a knock at her door. She opened it, and saw Vance. They shook hands as if they were old friends.
“Where are the Bernards?”
“They are out promenading. I told them I was not afraid.”
“How have you passed your time, Miss Perdita?”
“O, I’ve not been idle. Such choice books as you have here! And then what a variety of music!”
“Have you studied any of the pieces?”
“Not many. That from Schubert.”
“Please play it for me.”
Tacitly accepting him as her teacher, she played it without embarrassment. Vance checked her here and there, and suggested a change. He uttered no other word of praise than to say: “If you’ll practise six years longer four hours a day, you’ll be a player.”