Nora looked at him with wide-open eyes of wonder.
"Can you play?" she asked, very much as though he had boasted of his flying abilities, so that he laughed with boyish amusement.
"I play like a great many of us do," he said, "sufficiently well to amuse myself. I have a piano in my quarters which I ill-treat at regular intervals. Do you remember how angry you used to get because I thumped so?"
He had turned to the girl lying on the sofa, but she avoided his frank gaze.
"Yes," she said. "It is not so long ago, Wolff." And then, almost as though she were afraid of having betrayed some deeper feeling, she added quickly, "Couldn't you two try over the old duets together? I should so like to hear them, and I am too tired to talk."
"Would you like to, Miss Ingestre?"
"Very much—only you will find me dreadfully slow and stupid."
He hunted amongst an old bundle of music, and having found the required piece, he arranged it on the piano and prepared himself for the task with great gravity.
"You must let me have the bass," he said; "then I can thump without being so much noticed. I have a decided military touch. Hildegarde says I treat the notes as though they were recruits."
Nora played her part without nervousness, at first because she was convinced of her own superiority and afterwards because he inspired her. His guidance was sure and firm, and when he corrected, it was not as a master but as a comrade seeking to give advice as to a common task. Her shyness and uneasiness with him passed away. Every bar seemed to make him less of a stranger, and once in a long rest she found herself watching the powerful, carefully kept hands on the keyboard with a curious pleasure, as though they typified the man himself—strong, clean, and honest.