"No. It's other women he'll give trouble to," said John, "before he's done."
iii
Colin was playing. All afternoon he had been practising with fury; first scales, then exercises. Then a pause; and now, his fingers slipped into the first movement of the Waldstein Sonata.
Secretly, mysteriously he began; then broke, sharply, impatiently, crescendo, as the passion of the music mounted up and up. And now as it settled into its rhythm his hands ran smoothly and joyously along.
The west window of the drawing-room was open to the terrace. Eliot and
Anne sat out there and listened.
"He's wonderful, isn't he?" she said.
Eliot shook his head. "Not so wonderful as he was. Not half so wonderful as he ought to be. He'll never be good enough for a professional. He knows he won't."
"What's happened?"
"Nothing. That's just it. Nothing ever will happen. He's stuck. It's the same with his singing. He'll never be any good if he can't go away and study somewhere. If it isn't Berlin or Leipzig it ought to be London. But father can't live there and the mater won't go anywhere without him. So poor Col-Col's got to stick here doing nothing, with the same rotten old masters telling him things he knew years ago…. It'll be worse next term when he goes to Cheltenham. He won't be able to practice, and nobody'll care a damn…. Not that that would matter if he cared himself."
Colin was playing the slow movement now, the grave, pure passion, pressed out from the solemn bass, throbbed, tense with restraint.