Allan studied this young man's character closely, studied him and thought of him much more than he wanted to think of him, and vainly struggled against an uneasy feeling that in every superiority of this new acquaintance there lurked a danger to his own happiness.
"He is handsomer than I am," mused Allan, in one of his despondent moods. "He has a gayer temper—Suzette's own temper—which sees all things in the happiest light. I sit and watch them, listen to them, and feel myself worlds away from them both; and yet if she were free to-morrow he could never love her as I love her. There, at least, I am the superior. He has no such power of concentration as I have. To his frivolous nature no woman could ever be all in all."
These despondent moods were luckily not of long duration. On Suzette's part there had not been the faintest sign of wavering; and Allan felt ashamed of the jealous fears which fell ever and anon like a black cloud across the sunny prospect of his life. However valiantly he might struggle against that lurking jealousy, there were occasions upon which he could not master it, and his darkest hours were those during which he sat in the music-room at Discombe, and heard Suzette and Geoffrey playing concertante duets for violin and piano. It seemed to him as the violinist bent over the pretty dark head, to turn a leaf, or to explain a passage in the piano score, that for these two there was a language which he knew not, a language in which mind spoke to mind, and perhaps heart to heart. Who could keep the heart altogether out of the question when that most eloquent of all languages was making its impassioned appeal? Every long-drawn legato chord upon the Strad, every delicate diminuendo of the sighing strings, the tremulous bow so lightly held in the long lissom fingers, sounded like an avowal.
"I love you, I love you, I love you," sobbed the violin; "how can you care for that dumb brute yonder, while I am telling my love in heavenliest sounds, in strains that thrill along every nerve, and tremble at the door of your heart? How can you care for that dumb dog, or care how you hurt him by your inconstancy?"
Possessed by these evil fancies, Allan started up from his seat in a remote window, and began to pace the room in the midst of a de Beriot sonata, to which Suzette had been promoted after a good deal of practice in less brilliant music.
"What's the matter, old fellow?" asked Geoffrey, noting that impatient promenade; "was I out of tune?"
"No, you were only too much in tune."
"How do you mean? I don't understand——"
"Is it likely you can understand me—or I you?" cried Allan, impetuously. "You have a language which I have not, a sense which is lacking in me. You and Suzette are in a paradise whose gate I can't open. Don't think me an envious, churlish kind of fellow, if I sometimes grudge you your happiness."
"But, my dear Allan, you are fond of music—you like listening——"