"The Berceuse?" seating herself at the piano.
The twilight of winter was fast settling down. The house across the way began to glow at various windows. Still she played. From Chopin she turned to Schumann, from Schumann to Rubinstein, back to Chopin's polonaise and the nocturne in E flat major.
"You play those with a livelier spirit than usual," was the general's only comment. How these haunting melodies took him back to the past, when the girl's mother played them in the golden courting days! He could not see the blush his comment had brought to his daughter's cheek. "My dear, my dear!" he said, with great tenderness, sliding his arm around her waist, "I know that I'm cross at times, but I'm only an old barking dog; don't do any harm. I'll tell you what, if my leg's all right next Saturday I'll ride out to the Country Club with you, and we'll have tea together."
She leaned toward him and kissed him. "Daddy, what makes you think so meanly of the rector? I was thinking of him when you came in."
"I don't think meanly of him; but, hang it, Carol, he always says 'Yes' when I want him to say 'No,' and vise versa. He's too complacent. I like a man who's a human being to kick once in a while, a man who's got some fight in him.... What are you laughing at, you torment?"
"At something which just occurred to me. There goes the gong for dinner. I am ravenous."
"By the way, I forgot to tell you what I saw in the evening edition of the Post. Your parson is going to report the prize-fight to-night. He'll be frightened out of his shoes. I'm going up to the club; going to play a few rubbers. It'll make me forget my grumbling leg. You run over to Cathewe's or telephone Mrs. Cathewe to run over here."
"Can't you stay in to-night? I don't want anybody but you."
"But I've half promised; besides, I'm sort of blue. I need the excitement."
"Very well; I'll telephone Nan. Mr. Cathewe will probably go to that awful fight in the interests of his new book. She'll come."