“Because,” said Paul, “he is a cripple.”
“Ah!” said the Duchessa. She had no need to ask more, for the music had told her the rest.
After a time she left, promising to come again. As she went into the courtyard with Paul and Christopher she looked towards the window from whence the sounds of the violin had proceeded.
“I wonder,” she said, “if one day he will play for me.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE DUCHESSA ENTERS A KINGDOM
FEBRUARY gave place to a stormy March, which ushered itself in angry and tempestuous. By the end of the month it was tired of its anger, and throughout April was like a child promising with smiles and tears to be good. In May it fulfilled its promise. The month was all sunshine, with soft winds and blue skies. The parks were alive with flowers, women donned their brightest dresses, and London looked like a great living nosegay.
And with the spring the Music of the Heart was playing so loudly for the Duchessa that she wondered Paul could not hear it too, and many times she longed to bid him listen.
The portrait was finished, and was in her drawing-room till later in the year when she would take it with her to Italy, where it would hang in the gallery like a great glowing sapphire among the sombre and haughty ladies of the House of Corleone.
She saw Paul from time to time. He came to her flat, and she went to his studio. And Michael had been persuaded to come and play for her. And having come once he was ready to come again. He made music sad and gay, and in her presence it lost much of its bitterness. Only when he was alone bitterness returned, and with it a desperate and pathetic note of yearning. For with the beauty of the Duchessa Michael realized more terribly that he was not as other men, though with the curious instinct possessed by the man-creature of hurting himself, he loved to be near her and look at her. And in his heart he laughed cynically at Paul, seeing that he had but to put out his hand and grasp the wonderful jewel of her love. But having been lonely all his own life he understood better than anyone Paul’s hesitation, even while he laughed.