It was a perfect apology. It must be confessed, this woman so dreadful of speech was delicately cognisant of the language of the soul. Had she been playing for a lover, she could not have done better. But she was scarcely conscious of love for Rudolph. Her thirty-five years of wretched hilarity and miserable sadness had left her heart untouched until now, but she was too proud to acknowledge even to herself the steadily growing interest and yearning awakened in her by the innocent eyes of a lad, and while she played she resolutely kept her face averted from Rudolph’s. So she saw nothing of the varying emotions that swept across it as the notes at her magic touch rose and fell. First his eyes closed, then opened and rested upon her profile eagerly; a feverish red burnt in his cheeks, and his breath came hurriedly. A sense of ecstasy oppressed him, and he drew near her as if impelled by a force independent of his control. She looked up, and saw that his eyes were wet, and he burst out:—
“Oh, it is dreadful, I can’t bear it, but I love you!”
Before she could make answer to this unflattering and anguished declaration, the door opened, and Andromache Karapolos stood upon the threshold. Rudolph moved hastily back, and met her glance of pleased surprise with one of almost passionate gratitude. The spell and its compelling influences had ceased with Photini’s last note, and now he was only dreading the consequences of his insane avowal, and patiently awaited the inevitable scene.
But for the first time in her life, Photini showed an amiable front to an intruder. She looked gently at Andromache, turned with a commanding gesture to Rudolph, and stood for the girl to take her place at the piano. Though wishing to escape, Rudolph felt that the words he had just uttered laid him under a new obligation of obedience, and he went and stood at the window, with his forehead pressed dejectedly against the pane, looking down on the bright street, while he speculated drearily on what was going to happen to him.
Andromache’s slim brown fingers ran swiftly up and down the piano several times before a word was uttered. Photini watched them attentively, and then said, very graciously:
“That is much better. But your thumb is still too exposed, and you sway your body too much. You are not supposed to play from the waist. You must give another week to scales, and then we’ll see about exercises.”
Andromache rose, and said her brother was waiting downstairs for her. Rudolph looked round at the sound of her voice, and thought her prettier than before.
“Why, Mademoiselle Veritassi would seem plain beside her,” he said to himself, but his fastidious eyes, running over her dress found it common and ill-cut.
The March-violet eyes rested a moment on his, and were lovely indeed by charm of dewy freshness and girlish timidity. Andromache blushed to the roots of her hair, and the blush was reflected on the young man’s face.
In her nervous tremour she dropped one of her gloves, which he hastened to pick up, and when he handed it to her, they exchanged another glance of mutual admiration, and blushed again more eloquently than before. This short pantomime of two susceptible young creatures was unheeded by Photini, who was tranquilly lighting a cigarette, and when Andromache with a low inclusive bow and a soft “Καλἡ μἑγχ σας,” departed, Rudolph stood in silence at the window to catch a glimpse of her down the street. He saw her cross in the direction of the Academy with a tall military man, in whose black uniform and crimson velvet collar, he recognized an artillery officer. For some foolish undefined reason he rejoiced in this evidence of respectability in her brother.