Mrs. Smithers no longer fidgeted. She stood in the shadow of the curtained window, her old, hard-set face to the darkness. Only her mouth had lost something of its grim severity, and had become tender. She did not see Ayeshi, though barely the breadth of the verandah separated them. She looked past him as sightlessly as he looked past her. Evidently he had turned to go. One foot rested on the lower step and his body was thrown back against the balustrade as though he had been arrested in the very act of flight. The dim light on his face revealed its look of wonder—almost panic-stricken wonder.
Mrs. Smithers continued to disregard him. But presently she turned and went across to the piano. Whatever momentary weakness had overcome her had gone and she was again her ruthless, uncompromising self.
"Sigrid—there's some one out there in the compound—under the trees—a man. Who is he?"
"Major Tristram—the Dakktar Sahib—a very poor and gallant gentleman—who is perhaps going out to die and now trembles on the brink of Paradise." She broke off and passed joyously into the next phrase and through its glowing crescendo her voice sounded with a light distinctness. "I can play too, Smithy! And dance. I could dance to this and Beethoven would say I knew more of his soul than half the fools who gape in stuffy concert-halls. Think, Smithy, that man out there has never heard such music—only Meyerbeer's pompous little ballet—and after that he went and stood by the river until the daybreak—because of me——"
Mrs. Smithers shook her head sternly.
"You mustn't, Sigrid—you mustn't. It's not fair—you've always been fair. You know nothing can't come of it. You know yourself. You can't change your course——"
"I do know. But sometimes the wind shall blow me whither it listeth. Haven't I the right to that much?"
"Not at some one else's cost, Sigrid."
There was no answer. Sigrid Fersen lifted her right hand and touched her lips with her forefinger. It was as though she called the very garden without to a deeper stillness. Her left hand passed swiftly from chord to chord, from major to a wistful minor, resting at last on one deep lingering note of suspense.
"Hush, Smithy! Don't talk! What does anything matter? Now listen! Do you remember—the D minor valse—do you remember that last night—the grand-dukes and the princesses, what were they all?—was there anything but God and Chopin and I——"