"Thanks—I will not detain you. I will announce myself," Adrian said.
He crossed the second and larger room, threading his way in and out of a perfect archipelago of furniture; and held one curtain partially aside, while the purpose of his visit and the smart of his own distractions alike were merged in a sensation of curiosity and surprise.
Miss Beauchamp sat at a grand piano, placed in the middle of the bare polished floor at right angles to the doorway. Adrian saw her face and high-shouldered, high-waisted figure in profile. She wore a cinnamon-colored tea-gown, opening over an under-dress of copper sequin-sewn net. A veritable pagoda of fiery curls crowned her head. Yet, though thin and bony, hers were the man's hands which compelled such rich, forcible music from the piano, making it speak, declaim, sing, plead, touch tragedy, triumphantly affirm, in this so very convincing a manner. The method and mind of the player, in their largeness of conception and fearless security of execution, held the young man captive, raising his whole attitude and outlook to a nobler plane. The music, indeed, carried his imagination up to regions heroic. He was in no haste to have it cease. He waited, therefore.
When the final chords were struck Anastasia Beauchamp, raising her hands from the keyboard, rested the tips of her fingers upon the edge of the empty music-desk, and sat motionless, absorbed in thought. Then, as the seconds passed, Adrian's position became, in his opinion, equivocal, courtesy demanding that he should either make his presence known or withdraw. He chose the former alternative and, taking a step forward, let the curtain fall into place behind him. Imperiously, with a lift of the chin, Miss Beauchamp turned her head and looked full at him; and, for a moment, the young man was fairly taken aback. For, setting of flaming pagoda and frisky tea-gown notwithstanding, he beheld a countenance no longer bizarre, that of an accredited jester, but sibylline, that of a woman who, in respect of certain departments of human knowledge, has touched ultimate wisdom, so that, in respect of those departments, life has no further secrets to reveal. Here was something outpacing the province of Adrian's self-confident, young masculine attainment; and it was to his credit that he instantly recognized this, accepting it with quick-witted and intuitive sympathy.
"Forgive me if I have presumed upon your indulgence, dear lady," he said, advancing with a disarming air of admiration and modesty, "by remaining here unannounced. I could not permit any interruption of your wonderful playing. It would have amounted to profanity. Your art is sublime, is so altogether impressively great. But oh! why," he added, as the sibylline countenance softened somewhat, "have you elected to let me, to let your many friends, remain in ignorance? Why have you deprived us all of the joy of your superb musical gift?"
"Because that gift served its turn very fully many years ago, when you, my dear Savage, were little more than a baby," she answered. "Since then I have felt at liberty to regard my playing as a trifle of private property which I might keep to and for myself."
As she spoke Miss Beauchamp rose from her seat at the piano, and began replacing a multiplicity of bracelets and rings, laid aside during the performance.
"As we grow older we, most of us, are disposed to practise such reservations, I suppose, whether openly acknowledged or not," she continued. "They may take their rise in inclinations of a sentimental, avaricious, or penitential nature; but, however divergent their cause, their object is identical—namely, to keep intact one's individuality, menaced by the disintegrating wear and tear of outward things. The tendency of the modern world is to render one invertebrate, to pound one's character and opinions into a pulp. In self-defense one is forced to reserve and to cultivate some hidden garden, wherein one's poor, battered individual me may walk in assuaging solitude and recollection. Especially"—she looked bravely at Adrian through the shaded light, while her long-armed, ungainly, rusty-gold figure, and strangely wise face surmounted by that flaming top-knot, appeared to him more than ever impressive—"especially, perhaps, is this the case if that garden once represented—as my music possibly once did—a Garden of Paradise in which one did not walk altogether solitary. But, come. You want to speak to me. Let us go into the drawing-room and have our talk there."
"Let us talk, by all means," Adrian put in, quickly, "but let it be here, please. This room is sympathetic—full of splendid echoes good for the soul."
Anastasia's expression softened yet more.