The lawyer's adroit questioning brought out Beryl's story—of the simple home in the tenement from which her mother shut out all that was coarsening and degrading, stirring her child's mind and her tastes with dreams she persistently cherished against disheartening odds; of the Belgian musician who had first taught her small fingers and fired her ambitions for only the best in the art; of school and the lessons she devoured because she craved knowledge and the advantages of possessing it.
"How long have you lived here?"
"We came last summer. Dale wanted to work where there were machines and he got a job in the Forsyth Mills."
"You are planning to go back to New York and study?"
Beryl's face clouded. "Sometime. But I can't until I earn the money, and it takes such a lot."
"Yes, and courage, too," added the lawyer softly, as though he were speaking to himself.
Beryl abruptly lifted her violin from her lap to put it in the case. As she did so, its head caught in the string of green beads which, in honor of the occasion, she was wearing. The slender cord that held them snapped and the pretty beads scattered over the floor.
"Oh, dear!" cried Beryl, dismayed, dropping to her knees to find them.
Robin helped her search and in a few moments they had gathered them all.
"They're only beads but they're very old and a keepsake," Beryl explained, in apology for her moment's alarm.