“Ah, but some day!” cried the old organist. “Some day you will be a great artist on the organ. I see it in your fingers, I see it in your face, I see it most of all in your Spring Song. Ah! Julie, he will play for you his Spring Song.”
But Julie insisted that the subject of music should be banished from the dinner table. “If my father talks music,” she said in explanation to Paul, “he cannot and will not eat. Therefore we must talk something else, even the weather. But no more music till dinner is over.” And this she achieved by skilfully turning the conversation now to one subject, now to another, and most successfully when she beguiled Paul into telling the story of his experiences of the past summer. Beyond that he would not go. His reticence also extended to his plans for the future. In regard to what he meant to do he expressed himself in vague generalities, and his hosts were much too well bred to show any curiosity on the subject.
Dinner over, the old gentleman was relentlessly hailed away by his daughter to an hour’s rest. “You know, Papa, you have your evening service and you must have your rest to be ready for it. My father is not strong,” she explained to Paul, “and therefore he needs to be cared for like a baby.”
“Ah, Mr. Gaspard,” said her father, “she is a hard taskmaster. She is one to be obeyed. She rules me with a rod of iron. I shall leave you. There is the piano, and I beg you to consider yourself as in your own home.”
“Yes, Mr. Gaspard,” said Julie, “we shall treat you like one of the family and leave you to yourself. My father must have his sleep, and for me there are my household duties waiting.”
“And I will not disturb you if I play?” said Paul to the old gentleman.
“Not at all. I shall the more easily fall into sleep.”
And so there followed for Paul an hour of perfect bliss. The piano was a magnificent Broadwood, of exquisite tone and in perfect tune. And to Paul, who had not touched a piano worthy of the name for more than six years, this opportunity was as cold water to a thirsty soul.
Ever and anon Julie flitted in and out of the room, intent upon her duties, now throwing in a word of appreciation and again suggesting one of her favourite bits for Paul’s playing. When her work was finished she came into the room and, drawing Paul away from his piano, by the charm of her conversation led him far afield into regions hitherto unknown to him. She talked of books whose titles he had never known, she talked of great pictures by masters of whom he had never heard; but when she talked of nature and its secrets, of the mountains and rivers, she found in Paul a kindred soul, alive to the beauty and glory of the great outside world. She had never seen the Windermere, and she led Paul to picture for her the scenes that lay about his childhood’s home and to tell her of his father’s work in spreading them on canvas.
“And your father’s pictures?” she inquired. “Where are they?”