Rather reluctantly she played him a few odd bits of her recent work—the outcome of dull, depressing days.
Sandy listened, and as he listened his lips set in an uncompromising straight line.
"Well, I never heard more maudlin piffle in my life!" was his frank comment when she had finished. "If you can't do better than that, you'd better shut the piano and go digging potatoes."
Nan laughed rather mirthlessly.
"I don't know what sort of a hand you'd make at potato digging," pursued Sandy. "But apparently this is the net result of your musical studies"—and, seating himself at the piano, he rattled off a caustic parody of her performance.
"Rank sentimentalism, Nan," he said coolly, as he dropped his hands from the keys. "And you know it as well as I do."
"Yes, I suppose it is. But it's impossible to do any serious work here. Lady Gertrude fairly radiates disapproval whenever I spend an hour or two at the piano. Oh!"—her sense of humour rising uppermost for a moment—"she asked me to play to them one evening, so I gave them some Debussy—out of sheer devilment, I think"—smiling a little—"and at the end Lady Gertrude said politely: 'Thank you. And now, might we have something with a little more tune in it?"
Sandy shouted with delight.
"After all, people like that are awfully refreshing," he said at last.
"At times," admitted Nan. "All the same," she went on dispiritedly, "one must be in the right atmosphere to do anything worth while."