She sauntered softly out to the lawn, and he began to play.
Heavens, what a touch! Was it really her piano which answered with tones so exquisite—which gave forth such thrilling melody? He played an improvised arrangement of Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” and she stood entranced till the last dying arpeggio melted into silence. No one could doubt that he came of a race gifted in music.
“Pray don’t leave the piano,” she said softly, from her place by the open window.
“I will play till you call me away,” he answered, as he began Chopin’s Etude in C sharp minor.
That weird and impassioned composition reached its close just as George Greswold approached from a little gate on the other side of the lawn. Mildred went to meet him, and Castellani left the piano and came out of the window to be presented to his host.
Nothing could be more strongly marked than the contrast between the two men, as they stood facing each other in the golden light of afternoon. Greswold, tall, broad-shouldered, rugged-looking, in his rough brown heather suit and deerstalker cap, carrying a thick stick, with an iron fork at the end of it, for the annihilation of chance weeds in his peregrinations. His fine and massive features had a worn look, his cheeks were hollow, his dark hair and beard were grizzled here and there, his dark complexion had lost the hue of youth. He looked ten years older than his actual age.
Before him stood the Italian, graceful, gracious in every line and every movement; his features delicately chiselled, his eyes dark, full, and bright; his complexion of that milky pallor which is so often seen with hair tending towards red; his brown beard of silkiest texture; his hands delicately modelled and of ivory whiteness; his dress imbued with all the grace which a fashionable tailor can give to the clothes of a man who cultivates the beautiful, even in the barren field of nineteenth century costume. It was impossible that so marked a contrast could escape Mildred’s observation altogether; yet she perceived it dimly. The picture came back to her memory afterwards in more vivid colours.
She made the necessary introduction, and then proceeded to pour out the tea, leaving the two men to talk to each other.
“Your name has an Italian sound,” Greswold said presently.
“It is a Milanese name. My father was a native of Milan; my mother was French, but she was educated in England, and all her proclivities were English. It was at her desire my father sent me to Rugby, and afterwards to Cambridge. Her fatal illness called me back to Italy immediately after I had got my degree, and it was some years before I again visited England.”