Softly she closed the stair door behind her and dropped on the seat before the piano. In the kitchen the cook was doing his morning cleaning with his usual noiselessness, only the patter of his slippered feet and the subdued rattle of dishes betraying his presence. In all the great north country were only the dim sounds from the kitchen, and her absent-minded fingers on the keyboard.
The great north country—the lonely ranch she had had so long to herself, where for months at a time she was cut off from every other human being save the cowboys, and a husband who was wilfully forcing her from his inner life—the silent stretches had that year taken on a different note. Even those forbidding cliffs, with their long, uneven lines, had become the hunting ground of scientists—very human scientists—a cemetery of bygone ages with an absorbing story to tell. Professor Bulkeley, big, childlike in his simplicity, frank in his likes and fears, with an instinctive strain of gallantry so pleasing to one accustomed to the stifled gentleness of the West and the proprietary affection of her English husband—would he ever come again? Would there be enough in that isolated land to lure him back another year?
She hummed as she played, her eyes staring vacantly at the wall before her.
When he uttered her name softly from the open door she did not hear him. But when he repeated it, stepping into the room, her face reddened hotly. She tried to drop her eyes from his but they refused her will; something strange about his appearance held there in spite of her. He was without his spectacles. Never before had she seen him thus. It was as if he had disrobed before her, so naked did he appear, for the depths of simplicity and dependence had gone with the horn rims. Even his shoulders seemed to have straightened.
He must have noticed the flush on her face. His lips moved as if he were speaking to himself. Then, fumblingly, he put on the spectacles.
"That's funny," he said lightly, but his face was pale. "I didn't know you had that bit of Chopin among your music. So many of the old masters suffer from the emotionless piano. Taming the ivory keys is an art so many dabble at that almost none of them know when they have mastered them—or care. In all of us our hearts are nearer our throats than our fingers. Please hum it again for me, will you?"
He was speaking rapidly, nervously, and she had time to force herself to a rational reply.
"To-night—maybe. I—I didn't know what I was playing; I didn't know I was humming at all. In reality I was only dreaming."
The recollection of her dreams revived the flush in her face, and she rose abruptly from the piano to hide her confusion. He took one quick step forward, but stopped himself with a sudden breath.
"Is your husband in? I'd like to see him."