Saxe whirled on the piano-stool, an expression of amazement on his face as he stared at his unmusical friend.
“By heavens, Billy,” he cried excitedly, “you’ve got it—you’ve got it exactly! That’s what it is; it’s the clink, clink, clink of the gold-pieces, as they’re piled up.” He was astounded by this perspicacity on the part of one who had no soul for music, yet had succeeded here, where he himself had failed. He had no particle of doubt that this explanation as to the meaning of the music was the true one. He played the piece once again, emphasizing the accent in the bass a little, so that the effect was even more pronounced. There could be no mistake.
Roy spoke with sudden appreciation of the fact:
“Why, that’s the piece you played the other night—the weird one. I’d been wondering where I’d heard it. It’s the one that got on Miss Thurston’s nerves so, because the old man was always playing it toward the last. It’s enough to get on anyone’s nerves, for that matter, but Billy hit the idea all right.”
David Thwing, nodding energetically, turned his protuberant eyes on Billy.
“Yes, you hit it, old man,” he exclaimed. “You got the idea we were all looking for, and couldn’t quite catch hold of. Bully for you! But how in the world did you ever come to do it? You, a music sharp!” He burst into a mellow peal of laughter, in which the others joined.
Suddenly, Saxe sprang to his feet, with a display of emotion that was contrary to his habit, for he had schooled himself to a certain phlegmatic bearing that masked the native susceptibility of his moods. Now, however, he forgot restraint in the agitation of his feeling, and addressed his friends with a vehemence that astonished them. His swift gestures and the changing play of his features revealed the volatile artistic temperament, which was ordinarily shrouded within a veil of imperturbable calm.
“I know, I understand it all now,” he declared eagerly. “In this music, the old man crystallized his besetting sin. This composition of his is the song of gold; it is the miser’s song. In it, he translates into musical terms the vice that corroded his soul. In it, he expresses the sordidness of that vice, even as he himself knew it out of dreadful personal experience. And, somehow, he put into the music the strength of the spell that was laid on him. It is there—some malignant fascination which each and every one of us has felt in a fashion of his own. That is why it so gripped Miss Thurston, and why it affected her so disagreeably. It has in it a subtle, irresistible suggestion of the hideous. The ignominy and the power of greed alike sound in the monotony of its rhythm, its harshness, its fearful simplicity. It is uncouth, it is as if it were calloused. Yet, it is full of vital, frightful emotion. It is a statement of ghastly truth, it is a confession of degradation, it is a wail of utter despair. In short, it is the heart-song of the miser, written by the brain that looked into the heart and learned its hateful mystery.”
The others had listened in tense silence, surprised beyond measure before this outbreak from one always hitherto so tranquil, so serene amid the varying stresses of affairs. It was the revelation of their friend in a new light, wherein he showed with an impressiveness strange to them. They watched him intently as he stood there before them, all animation, his handsome face flushed in the passion of the moment. A little sigh of appreciation issued from the lips of each as, with the last words, he sank again to the piano-stool, and dropped his hands to the keys. So, once again, he played the music of that dead man who had given himself to a gross, an evil worship. Still under the influence of deep emotion, the player now abandoned himself to the theme, and wrought on it with all his skill in music, with all the feeling of repulsion that held him in thrall.
There was not in this improvisation the power, the mastery, that had marked the frenzied interpretation by which the composer had amazed the night. But Saxe Temple was not wanting a large measure of skill, and to this he added the sympathy of the true artist, surcharged with a profound emotion. The uncanny spell of the music laid its hold on them all as he went on playing, gripped them, sent weird visions reeling before their fancy. Even Billy Walker for once was beguiled into a curious receptivity, so that he saw vistas of crouched specters, which ceaselessly shuffled golden coins to and fro, in a frenetic joy that was the madness of anguish. May Thurston, asleep in her chamber, turned uneasily, and her dreams grew troubled.