“Don’t speak,—don’t try to say a word! There!” She had taken from him his hat and gloves and pushed forward a low chair in front of the fire, all in one capable movement. “What is it? Tea? Coffee? A glass of wine?”
“Music!” answered the Doctor, raising two haggard eyes, with the exhausted air of an animal taking shelter.
The girl turned away her own and walked towards the piano, stopping on the way, however, to push forward a little table set forth with a steaming tea-urn and cups, matches and a tray, and to lift to its farther edge a bowl of heavy-scented violets. Her every motion was full of ministry, as devoid of fuss.
The room was low, broad, and large, and full of books, flowers, low seats, and leaping firelight. A grand-piano, piled with music, dominated the whole. The girl seated herself before it and began to play, with the beautiful, powerful touch of control. After the first bars, the Doctor’s head sank back upon the cushions of the chair and the Doctor’s hand stole mechanically to the matches. He smoked and she played—quiet, large music, tranquilly filling the room: Bach fugues, German Lieder, fragments of weird northern harmonies, fragments of Beethoven and Schubert, the Largo of Handel,—and all the time she played she looked at the man who lay back in the chair, half turned from her, the cigar drooping from his fingers. There was no sound in the room but the music and light leaping of little flames in the fireplace,—no motion but theirs and the pulsing fingers on the keys. The girl played on and on, till the fire began to die, and with a sudden sigh the Doctor held up his hand. Then she rose at once, and going forward, stood as simply at the side of the fireplace opposite him. She was not beautiful, but, oh, she was beautiful with health and calm vigor.
The Doctor let his eyes rest on her.
“If you knew,” he said, with a little, half-apologetic laugh.
In her turn she held up one of her long hands.
“But I do;—you forget I was there all the morning. And you pulled him through. As for the rest—” She stooped suddenly and began to pile together the logs; the Doctor watched her, noting with a trained and sensitive eye the muscular ease and grace of the supple arms and shoulders—like music. “Of course”—she spoke lightly—“they will kill you some day, among them; but—it’s worth while, isn’t it?—and there isn’t much else that is, is there?” Still kneeling, she turned and looked straight up at him. “Do you know what it was like this morning—before you came?”
The Doctor shook his head.
She hesitated a moment, smiling a little. “‘Lord, if Thou hadst been here, our brother had not died!’” she quoted.