"I will leave you," said his mother. "I think you will find it better to be alone with Basil, Herr Wildermann."
And she left the room.
She listened with some anxiety to the sounds which now and then made their way to the room where she sat writing. Sweet clear sounds occasionally from the master's violin, but mingled, it must be confessed, with others the reverse of musical. Squeakings and gruntings, and a dreadful sort of scraping whine, not to be described in words.
"My poor Basil," thought his mother, though it was a little difficult not to smile at a most unearthly shriek that just then reached her ears. "I hope he is not losing his temper already."
But she waited quietly till the sounds ceased. Then came the soft sweet notes of a melody which she knew well, played by Herr Wildermann alone; and a few minutes after she saw among the trees the tall thin figure of the young German, laden with but two violins this time as he made his way down the avenue.
She waited a minute or two to see if Basil would come to her. Then, as he did not, she returned to the morning room where he had had his lesson. He was still there, standing by the window, but she was pleased to hear as she went in that he was humming to himself the air that Ulric had played last.
"Well, Basil?" she said, "and how did you get on?"
The boy turned round—there was a mixture of expressions on his face. A rather dewy look about his eyes made his mother wonder for a moment if he had been crying. But when he spoke it was so cheerfully that she thought she must have been mistaken.
"He plays so beautifully, mother," he said.
"Yes," she replied. "I knew he did. I heard him one day at Mrs. Marchcote's, and I listened this morning."