"He wrote to you?" Lou inquired, with a suggestion of wondering in her voice.
"No; it was Tom."
Jim thrust his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and brought forth an envelope, from which he took out and unfolded a single sheet of typewritten paper. Then he read the letter:
Dear old Chum:
"Dan McGrew is back again in his old home after five years. He is coming down to see you and his old sweetheart, Lou. He has not yet forgiven you for winning her. He seems to have the same old unsettled disposition and I think he requires the strong hands of a friend to keep him in the straight path.
"Sincerely your old friend,
"Tom."
"Then you don't know when he will get here?" Lou asked.
Jim shook his head.
"No," he said, rather irritably; "we'll just have to wait for the visitation to descend upon us, be it sooner or later."
"We shall have to be nice to him, of course," the wife said.
"I'm not specially keen on dry-nursing Dan McGrew," Jim remarked plaintively. "We were never really intimate, though we were friendly enough. To tell the truth, Lou, I'm mighty sorry Dan's coming here." His face was somber as he gazed into his wife's eyes and read in their clear light sympathy with his own repugnance at the prospect. With an impatient ejaculation, he sprang to his feet and went into the house, where he seated himself before the grand piano that occupied the center of the spacious living-room. In a fierce crashing of dissonances, he voiced the resentment that was in him. But after a little, indignation somewhat relieved by such audible interpretation, his fingers flew into rippling arpeggios, out of which came, at last, a lilting melody, joyous, yet tender. For Jim Maxwell, lover of music all his days, had a gift of improvisation, with a sufficient technique for its exercise. To it he resorted often for the sounding of his deeper moods, and in it found a never-failing solace. So now, presently, soothed by his own art, he got up from the piano and went back to the porch, where he faced his wife, smiling.
Lou smiled in response.