“It pleases me to think that my own incapacity does not interfere in the least with my enjoyment of music,” Margaret said. “When I hear beautiful music my pleasure in it is not impaired by any feeling of regret that I cannot produce such a thing myself. It no more occurs to me to long for that, than to long to create a beautiful sunset when I see one.”
“The fact that one is attainable, while the other is not, would make a difference, I think.” He paused a moment, and then went on with his pleasant smile: “Do you know this discovery of mine—that of your fastidious appreciation of music—has been the thing that deterred me from inflicting any of my own upon you? I was so set against this that I made Eugenia promise not to acquaint you with the fact that I can sing a little.”
“How could you do that?” exclaimed Margaret, reproachfully, with a keen conception of what lovely effects in singing might be produced by this richly modulated voice, whose spoken utterances she so admired. “I might have had such delight in hearing you sing! I am accustomed to having music so constantly at home. We have a friend there, a young man, who is almost like one of our own household, who sings beautifully. He has a lovely voice, so pure and strong, but entirely uncultivated. In some things it shows this almost painfully, but there are others that he renders exquisitely. Sacred music he sings best.”
“Ah, that I have never tried, at least not much. Your friend’s voice is the opposite of mine. I had really very little to begin with, and an immense deal of practice and training has not enabled me to do much more than direct properly the small amount of power I possess, and disguise its insufficiency more or less. It isn’t very much, after all, and yet how I have pegged away at my scales and exercises! I had a most exacting master when I was in Germany, and as I was studying my profession at the same time, I wore myself almost to a skeleton. I studied very hard at the School of Architecture, but I never practised less than three hours a day—often four.”
He was talking on, very lightly, but he stopped short, arrested by an expression on the face of his companion that he was at a loss to account for. There was a look of enthusiastic ardor in her eyes that amounted to positive emotion.
“How can you speak so lightly of a thing that was really so noble?” she said, in a voice full of feeling.
Louis’ face broke into a smile of sheerest astonishment, but at the same time he felt himself strangely stirred by the feeling that he had roused this warm admiration in the breast of this fair young lady.
“My dear Miss Trevennon,” he said earnestly, “you amaze me by applying such a word to my conduct. I went abroad to study architecture and music, and there was every reason why I should make the most of the three years I had allotted to these purposes. That I did my part with some degree of thoroughness was only what I felt bound to do, in the simplest justice to myself and others. When I think of the fellows who accomplished twice what I did, contending against such obstacles as poverty, or ill-health, or the absence of proper facilities, I find the word noble, as applied to myself, almost humiliating. Do you know, your views on some points are extremely puzzling to me?”
“I am at sea,” said Margaret gently, with a hesitating little smile. “Things that I see about me seem strange and unfamiliar, and I often feel that I have lost my bearings. But your resolute application to studies that must often have been wearying and laborious, to the exclusion of the relaxations most young men find necessary, rouses my profound admiration. I have never known a man who was capable of a thing like that.”
“Will you do me the kindness to tell me if I am blushing?” said Louis. “I veritably believe so, and as it is a thing I have never been known to do before, I should like to have the occurrence certified to. I venture to hope, however, that the fact is accounted for by my being physically thick skinned, and not morally so, for I have known myself to be blushing when the fact would not have been suspected by outsiders. Just now, however, I fancy it must have been evident to the most casual observer.”