The parlor—even the wife of the great Foster Townsend had never dared refer to it as a “drawing-room” within the limits of Harniss township—was by far the most majestic apartment in the mansion. And, of course, the least livable. The huge rosewood square piano was of corresponding majesty. Esther seated herself upon the brocaded cushion of the music stool and her uncle, after trying one of the bolt-upright chairs, shifted to the equally bolt-upright sofa—in the bill it had been a “divan”—and sat uncomfortably upon that.
“What shall I play?” she asked. There were some sheets of music upon the rack, but they were unfamiliar and looked uninviting.
Townsend grunted. “Don’t ask me,” he replied. “Anything you want to. If you played ‘Old Hundred,’ and told me it was ‘The Jerusalem Hornpipe’ I couldn’t contradict you.”
She played two or three simple airs which her music teacher—he was also assistant to Mr. Wixon, the undertaker—had taught her. Her uncle did not speak during the playing. When she glanced at him he was sitting upon the sofa, his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out in front of him. He appeared to be lost in thought and the thought not of the pleasantest. Once she heard him sigh.
When, at the end of her third selection, she paused and he seemed not to be aware of it, she ventured to address him.
“I’m afraid that is about all I can play now—without my music,” she said. He looked up with a start.
“Eh?” he queried. “Oh, all right, all right! I’m much obliged. Maybe that will do, for now. Suppose we go back into the other room; shall we?”
He rose from the sofa and she from the stool. She was disappointed and a little hurt. He had not offered a word of praise. When they had entered the library he turned and closed the door behind them.
“That is the first time I have been in that room since—since the funeral,” he muttered. “Just now I feel as if I never wanted to go into it again.... Well, there! that’s foolishness,” he added, squaring his shoulders. “I shall go into it, of course. We’ll go in there to-morrow and then I want you to sing for me. I have heard a lot about that voice of yours.”
She did not know how to answer and he did not wait for her to do so.