He met my fixed gaze, shrugged his shoulders, and shook his head.
“Crime!” I whispered—“You have roused in me evil thoughts of which I am ashamed. I did not think that was possible to so divine an Art.”
He smiled, and his eyes glittered with the steely brightness of stars on a wintry night.
[p 154]
“Art takes its colours from the mind, my dear friend;”—he said—“If you discover evil suggestions in my music, the evil, I fear, must be in your own nature.”
“Or in yours!” I said quickly.
“Or in mine;”—he agreed coldly—“I have often told you I am no saint.”
I stood hesitatingly, looking at him. For one moment his great personal beauty appeared hateful to me, though I knew not why. Then the feeling of distrust and repulsion slowly passed, leaving me humiliated and abashed.
“Pardon me, Lucio!” I murmured regretfully—“I spoke in haste; but truly your music almost put me in a state of frenzy,—I never heard anything in the least like it——”
“Nor I,”—said Lady Sibyl, who just then moved towards the piano—“It was marvellous! Do you know, it quite frightened me?”
“I am sorry!” he answered with a penitent air—“I know I am quite a failure as a pianist—I am not sufficiently ‘restrained,’ as the press men would say.”