So Aggie thought she would soothe him to sleep. She remembered how he used to go to sleep sometimes in the evenings when she played. And the music, she reflected with her bitterness, would cost nothing.
But music, good music, costs more than anything; and Arthur was fastidious. Aggie’s fingers had grown stiff, and their touch had lost its tenderness. Of their old tricks they remembered nothing, except to stumble at a “stretchy” chord, a perfect bullfinch of a chord, bristling with “accidentals,” where in their youth they had been apt to shy. Arthur groaned.
“Oh, Lord, there won’t be a wink of sleep for either of us if you wake that brat again. What on earth possesses you to strum?”
But Aggie was bent, just for the old love of it, and for a little obstinacy, on conquering that chord.
“Oh, stop it!” he cried. “Can’t you find something better to do?”
“Yes,” said Aggie, trying to keep her mouth from working, “perhaps I could find something.”
Arthur looked up at her from under his eyebrows, and was ashamed.
She thought still of what she could do for him; and an inspiration came. He had always loved to listen to her reading. Her voice had not suffered as her fingers had; and there, in its old place on the shelf, was the Browning he had given her.
“Would you like me to read to you?”
“Yes,” he said, “if you’re not too tired.” He was touched by the face he had seen, and by her pathetic efforts; but oh, he thought, if she would only understand.