"Yes," she said, "if you are to play only once more; but, if more than once, let that be last. I never lose the sound and motion of one of Bach's fugues till I have slept; and I like to keep the murmur it leaves, as if my ears were sea-shells."
She went back to stand in the door, but, after a few minutes, stepped softly and slowly further away, and passed by the drawing-room doors, through which she saw Annette talking with animation and many gestures, while her two critics listened and nodded occasional acquiescence, and Lawrence withdrawn to a window-seat with Miss Carthusen, and Mrs. Ferrier the centre of a group of young people, who listened to her with ill-concealed smiles of amusement. At length she found the place she wanted, an arm-chair under the front portico, and, seated there, gathered up that strong, wilful rush of harmony as a whole. It did not seem to have ceased when Mr. Schöninger joined her. She was so full of the echoes of his music that for a moment she looked at him standing beside her as if it had been his wraith.
He pointed silently and smiling to the corner of the veranda visible from where they sat. It was on the shady side of the house, and still further screened by vines, and the half-drawn curtains of the window looking into it allowed but a single beam of gaslight to escape. In that nook were gathered half a dozen children, peeping into the drawing-room. They were as silent as the shadows in which they lurked, and their bare feet had given no notice of their coming. Their bodies were almost invisible, but their eager little faces shone in the red light, and now and then a small hand was lifted into sight.
"It reminds me," he said, "of a passage in the Koran, where Mahomet declares that it had been revealed to him that a company of genii had listened while he was reading a chapter, and that one of them had remarked: 'Verily, we have heard a most admirable discourse.' That amused me; and I fancied that an effective picture might be made of it: the prophet reading at night by the light of an antique lamp that shone purely on his solemn face and beard, and his green robe, with, perhaps, the pet cat curled round on the sleeve. The casement should be open wide, and crowded with a multitude of yearning, exquisite faces, the lips parted with the intensity of their listening. As I came along the hall just now, I saw one of those children through the window, and in that light it looked like a cameo cut in pink coral."
"I fancy they are some of my children," Miss Pembroke said, and rose. "Let us see. They ought not to be out so late, nor to intrude."
"Oh! spare the poor little wretches," Mr. Schöninger said laughingly, as she took his arm. "We find this commonplace enough, but to them it is wonderful. I think we might be tempted to trespass a little if we could get a peep into veritable fairyland. This is to them fairyland."
"That anything is a strong temptation is no excuse for yielding," the lady said in a playful tone that took away any appearance of reproof from her words. "We do not go into battle in order to surrender without a struggle, nor to surrender at all, but to become heroes. I must teach my little ones to have heroic thoughts."
The children, engrossed in the bright scene within, did not perceive any approach from without till all retreat was cut off for them, and they turned, with startled faces, to find themselves confronted by a tall gentleman, on whose arm leaned a lady whom they looked up to with a tender but reverent love.
These children were of a class accustomed to a word and a blow, and their instinctive motion was to shrink back into a corner, and hide their faces.