"Who else will be there?"
"Nobody. Just you and I."
"No. I couldn't do that. Ask Mrs. Carroll and I'll come."
"Why should you not come alone? Are you afraid of me? That would be strange."
"Of course I'm not afraid of you. But——"
"I will not make love to you. I will only make music to you."
Pat reflected that it might well prove to be much the same thing. When she left him it was with a half promise.
Before the week was out she had gone to his studio. Within the fortnight she had been there half a dozen times. She was drawn back to him by the lure of his marvellous music—"I play for no one as I play for you," he said—and by the fascination of his strange and single-minded personality. Not only did he play for her, but he made her sing, experimenting with her voice, pointing out her errors, instructing her, laughing to shame her impatiences and little mutinies, himself patient with the endurance and insight of the true artist. Ever responsive to genuine quality of whatever kind, Pat let herself become more and more involved in imagination and vagrant possibilities.
In the matter of love-making he was faithful to his word. While she was his guest he never so much as offered to kiss her, rather to her resentful disappointment, to tell the truth. But when, one November afternoon, he was walking with her to where her car was waiting, he said without preface:
"Colleen, I love you." He had taken to calling her Colleen after hearing her sing an Irish ballad of that title. Pat liked it.