In spite of herself, Maud smiled in answer. "But why did you pretend you weren't at home?" she said, in a voice of protest.
He laughed as he took her hand. "But I wasn't," he said. "I motored down on purpose to receive you. Are you so disappointed?"
She shook her head, but she still looked at him somewhat dubiously. "You know, Charlie," she said, "I like people to behave quite straightforwardly, and to tell the truth."
"Heavens above!" laughed Saltash. "Why so grievously moral? Well, look here, let me be quite, quite honest, and admit that it was wholly by chance that I came down here to-day. Chance or the beneficent will of the gods! Call it what you will! And, my dear girl, don't be prudish now you are married! Remember, that though it is a state of bondage there are certain liberties attached that are well worth having. Now, you are going to play and sing to me while I smoke and admire."
He turned from her and threw himself upon a low settee in the window embrasure. The scent of his cigarette came to her, aromatic, Eastern, fragrant of many subtleties. She breathed it as one who inhales the magic of the gods.
"Now, play!" he commanded, his strange, restless eyes upon her. "Play as the spirit moves you! Never mind me! I am of no account."
She had done it often before in the old days. It was not difficult to do it now, with the spell of his personality upon her. Her own spirit responded instinctively to the call of his. The sympathy between them became communion. She began to play, and, playing, lost herself in the music as one inspired.
Saltash lay without moving, as if half-asleep. He also seemed as one under a charm.
And Maud played on and on, seeing visions, steeping her soul in romance, forgetful wholly of the chain by which she was bound; forgetful also of her companion, or perhaps so merged in his individuality as to be unaware of any dividing line. It was the old, sweet dreamland that had always held them both.
Time passed, and the red sun with it. The early dark began to fall, the shining visions to wane. She came out of her trance at last with a deep sigh, and suffered her hands to fall.