The thing she played, perched there like a nightingale on a limb, was not that at all, but an exquisite fantasy written after some all-but-forgotten folk song of the gypsies.
Caught by the charm of it, she played it over and over.
Then, to her vast astonishment, as the notes faded away and she rested there among the branches, someone took up her song.
“A violin!” she whispered. “The phantom violin! And so close at hand!”
The effect, there in the gathering twilight, was like a touch of magic.
The silence that followed the stranger’s last note was most profound, so perfect that the flutter of a small bird’s wings might be heard ten yards away. Charmed by this little touch of the dramatic in life, Greta forgot that she was perched in a tree, that a monstrous moose lay at the foot of that tree, and that darkness was falling. Lips parted, ears strained, she waited for one more note from that magic violin.
It did not come. Instead she heard a pleasing voice say, “What are you doing up there?”
“Quiet!” she warned. “There is a moose.”
“Oh ho! That’s it!” There came a mellow laugh. “Some bluffing old moose has you treed. Watch!”
Next instant an ear-splitting shout rent the air.