"Daddy doesn't do justice to Mr. Broussard," she said, "but you ought to have seen the way he grasped Mr. Broussard's hands after the music ride."
Colonel and Mrs. Fortescue, sitting in the cool, dim drawing-room, heard Beverley's laughter floating in from the garden. Beverley saw the case at a glance.
The torrid summer slipped by, and in November it was winter again, and the earth was snowbound once more. In all those months Mrs. Lawrence remained, feeble and nerveless, in the two little rooms she was still permitted to occupy. By that time she was a shadow. Mrs. McGillicuddy was more kind than ever to her, and Sergeant McGillicuddy grew more sombre every day, thinking that his words had brought Lawrence to ruin and his unfortunate wife close to the boundaries of the far country. The chaplain took the Sergeant in hand, and so did the Colonel, but the Sergeant, who had a tender heart under his well-fitting uniform, was not a happy man. Anita went regularly to see Mrs. Lawrence, and as the young are appalled at the thought of life going out, she watched with palpitating fear what seemed a steady journey toward the land where spirits dwell. But always on those visits to the woman who seemed slipping from life into the great ocean of forgetfulness, there was a thrill of joy for Anita; she could see Broussard's picture. Young and imaginative souls live and thrive on very little.
The introspective life that Anita led was strongly expressed in her music. Never had Neroda a pupil who was willing to work so hard as Anita, and the result charmed him. On this afternoon Anita was at her lesson in the great drawing-room, the red sunset pouring in through the long windows and flooding the room with crimson lights and purple shadows. Anita, wearing a little, nun-like black gown that outlined her slim figure, played, with wonderful fire and finish, a wild and gorgeous Hungarian dance by Brahms.
There was a delicate melody winding through all of the rich harmonies, as it ran up the scale, like a bird soaring into the blue sky, and then descended with splendid double notes, into the sombre and passionate G string, the string that touches the soul. It grew more of a miracle to Neroda than ever to watch Anita's slender bow-arm flashing back and forth, drawing out, with amazing force, the soul of the violin, her slender figure erect and poised high, vibrating with the strings, and her eyes darkening and lightening as the music grew deeply passionate or brilliantly gay. When she finished, and stood, smiling and triumphant, still holding the violin and bow, Neroda said to her:
"Are you not tired, Signorina?"
"Not a bit," cried Anita. "I feel that I could play as long as you did, in the days of which you told me when you first came to America and would play the violin all night long for dancers on the East Side in New York."
"I believe you could, almost," replied Neroda, smiling. "I, who had been a concert master in Italy, was only too glad to get three dollars for fiddling from eight in the evening until three in the morning; but they were happy nights, because I was young and strong and full of hope and loved my fiddle. Sometimes, when I am leading the band in my fine uniform, I long to take the instrument away from one of the bandsmen and play it as I did in those days, without any baton to hold me back; but the violin is a man's instrument and requires much strength. Now, where, Signorina, in your girlish arms and little hands, did you get such strength?"
"It is here," said Anita, smiling and tapping her breast. "I have a strong heart, my blood circulates well, and I am not afraid of the violin, like most girls. I am its master, and it shall do my will."
At that she tapped her violin sharply with the bow, saying to it: