When Miss Reynolds spoke of Mrs. Cummings she referred to her as Evelyn, explaining to Grace that she was the daughter of an old friend. Evelyn, it appeared, was arranging a Thanksgiving party for one of the country clubs. Bob said she was giving a lot of time to it; it was going to be a brilliant affair. Then finding that Grace did not know Evelyn and remembering that in all likelihood her guest wouldn’t be invited to the entertainment, Miss Reynolds turned the talk into other channels. It was evident that Bob was a welcome visitor to Miss Reynolds’s house and that she understood and humored him and indulged and encouraged his chaffing attitude toward her. That he should make a practice of escaping from a company at home that did not interest him was just like Bob! He was lucky to have a neighbor so understanding and amiable as Miss Reynolds. Perhaps again and often she would meet Bob at Miss Reynolds’s when he found Evelyn irksome. Grace rose and changed her seat, as though by so doing she were escaping from an idea she felt to be base, an affront to Miss Reynolds, an insult to Bob.
“The piano’s waiting, Bob”; and Miss Reynolds led the way to the music room across the hall.
Bob began, as had always been his way, Grace remembered, by improvising, weaving together snatches of classical compositions, with whimsical variations. Then, after a pause, he sat erect, struck into Schumann’s Nachtstuck, and followed it with Handel’s Largo and Rubenstein’s Melody in F, all associated in her memory with the days of their boy-and-girl companionship. He shook his head impatiently, waited a moment and then a new mood laying hold of him he had recourse to Chopin, and played a succession of pieces that filled the room with color and light. Grace watched the sure touch of his hands, marveling that he had been so faithful to the music that was his passion as a boy. It had always been his solace in the unhappy hours to which he had been a prey as far back as she could remember. There was no questioning his joy in the great harmonies. He was endowed with a talent that had been cultivated with devotion, and he might have had a brilliant career if fate had not swept him into a business for which his temperament wholly unfitted him.
While he was still playing Miss Reynolds was called away by callers and left the room quietly.
“You and Bob stay here,” she whispered to Grace. “These are people I have to see.”
When Bob ended with a Chopin valse, graceful and capricious, that seemed to Grace to bring the joy of spring into the room, he swung round, noted Miss Reynolds’s absence and then the closed door.
“My audience reduced one-half!” he exclaimed ruefully. “At this rate I’ll soon be alone.”
“Don’t stop! Those last things were marvelous!”
“Just one more! Do you remember how I cornered you one day in our old house—you were still wearing pigtails—and told you I’d learned a new piece and you sat like a dear angel while I played this—my first show piece?”
It was Mendelssohn’s Spring Song, and she thrilled to think that he hadn’t forgotten. The familiar chords brought back vividly the old times; he had been so proud and happy that day in displaying his prowess.