“Would it disturb you if I played the piano a few minutes, Madame Rod?” Andrews found himself asking all at once.
“No, go ahead. We'll come in later and listen to you.”
It was only as he left the room that he realized he had been talking to the two cousins as well as to Madame Rod.
At the piano he forgot everything and regained his mood of vague joyousness. He found paper and a pencil in his pocket, and played the theme that had come to him while he had been washing windows at the top: of a step-ladder at training camp arranging it, modelling it, forgetting everything, absorbed in his rhythms and cadences. When he stopped work it was nearly dark. Genevieve Rod, a veil round her head, stood in the French window that led to the garden.
“I heard you,” she said. “Go on.”
“I'm through. How was your motor ride?”
“I loved it. It's not often I get a chance to go motoring.”
“Nor is it often I get a chance to talk to you alone,” cried Andrews bitterly.
“You seem to feel you have rights of ownership over me. I resent it. No one has rights over me.” She spoke as if it were not the first time she had thought of the phrase.
He walked over and leaned against the window beside her.