“Is the house in which I live. One wants more than a few sticks of furniture to make a home.”
Sara was struck by the intense bitterness in his tone. Truly this man, with his lightning changes from boorish incivility to whole-hearted hospitality, from apparently impenetrable reserve to an almost desperate outspokenness, was as incomprehensible as any sphinx.
She hastily steered the conversation towards a less dangerous channel, and gradually they drifted into the discussion of art and music; and Sara, not without some inward trepidation—remembering Molly's experience—touched on his own musicianship.
“It was surely you I herd?” she queried a trifle hesitatingly. “You were playing some Russian music that I knew. Your man ordered me off the premises”—smiling a little—“so I didn't hear as much as I should have liked.”
“Is that a hint?” he asked whimsically.
“A broad one. Please take it.”
He hesitated a moment. Then—
“Very well,” he said abruptly.
He rose and led the way into an adjoining room.
Like the hall they had just quitted, it was pleasantly illumined by candles in silver sconces, and had evidently been arranged to serve exclusively as a music-room, for it contained practically no furniture beyond a couple of chairs, and a beautiful mahogany cabinet, of which the doors stood open, revealing sliding shelves crammed full of musical scores.