After a long silence he took the boy on his lap again and said softly:
‘Peter shall play.’
Peter put out both his hands, and carefully, delicately dropped them on the keys, listening and smiling.
‘Is he musical?’
Julian nodded.
‘Oh yes. He’s that—more or less. I seem to detect all the symptoms.’
He looked down at the leaning head on his shoulder with a sort of harsh tenderness; and after a while he spoke again as if out of a deep musing.
‘What, one asks oneself, is she going to do about him?’
‘Mariella?’
‘Yes.’