'Do, dear,' said Captain Chauvin.
'I am in love with it; I think I could almost play it in the dark.'
The O'Hoolohan Roe seemed as if he would have no particular objection to a nether darkness—a darkness that would shut out his presence even from himself—falling on the scene.
Berthe commenced playing. The spirit of music lives and moves and has its being in the Gaelic air, and she played as one who felt, admired, and held communion with that spirit—not with her fingers merely, but with her soul, a beautiful, sensitive, emotional soul. The chords thrilled like sentient creatures, and voiced their melodious plaints, now one by one, now in murmuring volume, until the very atmosphere was languid with the melting sweetness, and the pathetic notes stole out by the flowers and the enraptured throstle in the window to soar upwards to the clouds.
The O'Hoolohan Roe listened entranced. As the last note died away he grew more fidgety than ever, and moved about uneasily in his chair. The perfumed handkerchief was scarcely ever out of his hand. Evidently, he was endeavouring to screw his courage to the sticking-place.
The brunette, ostensibly busy over an embroidery-frame, watched him with an amused look. Berthe toyed with the keys of the piano.
'Captain Chauvin,' he began at last, 'I have something important to say to you—something private.'
The brunette rose and left for the inner room. Berthe was preparing to follow her, but the Irishman, whose courage fortunately appeared to re-assert itself as the emergency neared, interposed.
'Stay, ma'amselle,' he said; ''tis of you I would talk; perhaps I may want your assistance.'
She sank back in her seat with a puzzled look, regarded him a moment, and reddened with the characters of virgin modesty. Why? The quick instinct of woman had divined the meaning of his visit in his countenance. She was not displeased; who could be displeased at discovering that they are loved? As Berthe turned her eyes from this robust, square-built man, in the palmy vigour of his manhood, and felt that he, so strangely weak and confused at sight of her, did indeed truly, passionately love her with the force of his sanguine temperament, there was a pit-a-pat under her bosom which made it visibly undulate; the blood rose to tropic heat in her veins and poured its tell-tale tide in rosy current over her neck and arms. She was loved—ineffable happiness for woman! Could she help loving in return? There is a yearning in every female breast for sympathy, a sense of void to be filled. Her naïve purity could not refuse the gift she had long desired, long dreamed of; she filled with a gladness which she averted her face to conceal.