“I will; I’ll eat and drink stupendously when you are gone; I wish you bon appetit,” he said, filling the glass, and smiling as he drank.
Contented now, Gladys hurried away, to find Helwyze already seated by the study-table, with the manuscript laid open before him. He looked up, wearing an expression of such pleasurable excitement, that it augured well for what was coming, and she slipped into the chair beside the one set ready for Canaris on the opposite side of the hearth, still hoping he would come and take it. Helwyze began, and soon she forgot every thing,—carried away by the smoothly flowing current of the story which he read so well. A metrical romance, such as many a lover might have imagined in the first inspiration of the great passion, but few could have painted with such skill. A very human story, but all the truer and sweeter for that fact. The men and women in it were full of vitality and color; their faces spoke, hearts beat, words glowed; and they seemed to live before the listener’s eye, as if endowed with eloquent flesh and blood.
Gladys forgot their creator utterly, but Helwyze did not; and even while reading on with steadily increasing effect, glanced now and then towards that inner room, where, after a moment of unnecessary bustle, perfect silence reigned. Presently a shadow flickered on the ceiling, a shadow bent as if listening eagerly, though not a sound betrayed its approach as it seemed to glide and vanish behind the tall screen which stood before the door. Gladys saw nothing, her face being intent upon the reader, her thoughts absorbed in following the heart-history of the woman in whom she could not help finding a likeness to herself.
Helwyze saw the shadow, however, and laughed inwardly, as if to see the singer irresistibly drawn by his own music. But no visible smile betrayed this knowledge; and the tale went on with deepening power and pathos, till at its most passionate point he paused.
“Go on; oh, pray go on!” cried Gladys, breathlessly.
“Are you not tired of it?” asked Helwyze; with a keen look.
“No, no! You are? Then let me read.”
“Not I; but there is no more here. Ask Felix if we may go on.”
“I must! I will! Where is he?” and Gladys hurried round the screen, to find Canaris flung down anyway upon a seat, looking almost as excited as herself.
“Ah,” she cried, delightedly, “you could not keep away! You know that it is good, and you are glad and proud, although you will not own it.”