At these words she felt despondency instead of pleasure.
Across the room, half in shadow, with a ray of lamplight falling on his hands, a young man sat sunken in a wheel chair. He was frail, obviously an invalid; yet in the gloom of the alcove where he was sitting his complexion seemed bronzed, as if from a life in the sun. His sensitive face, disfigured by his sufferings and his thoughts, leaned forward; his eyes were fixed on the keyboard of the piano.
"What!" Brantome exclaimed, "you don't know David Verne?"
She thought that she had heard some of his music, but could not recall the impression it had made on her.
"The impression produced by Verne's work isn't usually vague."
"Has he so much talent?"
"I was confident," said Brantome, "that he would be the great composer of this age."
"And now?"
"It's a question whether he'll live through the spring."
He told her David Verne's story.