Had he thought-read from his 'cello the happenings of a century before? Had it transmitted to his over-wrought brain, the scene in which it had once played so prominent a part?
Had it, before then, in the Leipzig flat, imparted to Aubrey Treherne—unconsciously to himself—an accurate mental picture of its former owner?
Ronnie mused on this, and wondered. Then the desire rose strong within him to hear once more the golden voice of the Infant, even at the risk of calling up again those ghostly phantoms of a vanished past.
He drew the Florentine chair into the centre of the room.
He took his seat on the embossed leather of crimson and gold.
He glanced at his reflection. His face was whiter than it had been five weeks ago, when he returned, deep bronzed, from Africa. His hair, too, was longer than it ought to be; though not so long as the heavy black locks of the 'cellist of that past reflection.
Ronnie's rough tweed suit and shooting boots, were a curious contrast to the satin knee-breeches, silken hose, and diamond shoe-buckles he remembered in his vision; yet his manner of holding the 'cello, assumed without conscious thought, and the positions of his knees and feet, were so precisely those of that quaint old-time figure, that Ronnie never doubted that when he raised the bow and his fingers bit into the strings, the flood of harmony would be the same.
He waited for the strong tremor to seize his wrist.
It did not come.
He sounded the four open strings, slowly, one after the other.