“It has to be the universal habit,” answered Rutherford. “We simply can't help ourselves. We could get no one at all to wait upon us if we didn't conform to it. The—the—and the—are the only people in town who are known to have late dinners and that's because, hopelessly Europeanised, they don't care what they pay their girls, and keep a butler. Even they are obliged to dine at seven;—besides,” laughed Rutherford, “late dinners ain't 'ealthy!”
“After all,” said Ruth, thoughtfully, “the custom is primitive, not to say Puritan; I think it suits Oldbridge. Our forefathers had to do with less service I suppose. And as you say, late dinners ain't 'ealthy. But Paolina shall give us our afternoon tea, at four, Uncle. It will make her feel at home to serve it to us. But aren't you famished for some music? I want to try the Steinway. This morning when I came down I raised the lid and saw the name.”
She rose from her corner of the sofa and seated herself at the piano. Oft have I travelled in those Realms of Gold... Presently she had started her two companions, travelling, journeying in those Realms of Gold which Chopin opens to the least of musicians. Chopin's austerity of perfect beauty wrought in a sad sincerity,—entered the New England drawing-room. To General Adgate's ears the music seemed to lend voice at last,—give expression, at last,—to holy, self-repressed, patient lives,—lives of the dead and the gone—particles of whose spirit still clung, perhaps, to the panelled walls, pervaded, perhaps, the air of the old room. To Ruth, this incomplete New England world, which something more than herself and less than herself was, for the nonce, infatuated with, possessed by,—which yet, to certain of her perceptions,—revealed itself as a milieu approaching to semi-barbarism, Oldbridge, melted away. At her own magic touch, Italian landscapes, rich in dreams, rich in love, abundant; decked forth in fair realities, intellectual joys,—complete and vibrant of absolute beauty, harmonious, suggestive,—rose, took shape before her.
“I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, among pink fragrant oleanders,” she repeated, smiling to her thoughts as she played and forgot the present.
Rutherford, Rutherford,—oh,—of course—Rutherford found in those heavenly chords and melodies what every lover finds in Chopin.
Ruth turned around upon her piano stool.
“Have you had enough?” she asked, smiling.
“Enough?” exclaimed the lovesick youth. “I, for one could never have enough.”
“Toujours perdrix!” said Ruth and lifted up a warning finger.
“Play us something else, child,” said her uncle in a matter-of-fact tone intended to disperse sentimentality. “Let us hear your Russians and a little Schubert.”