"I am not a musician."
"You mean you don't play your own accompaniments. That makes no difference. I will be very glad to do it for you. I am not in particularly good practice, but I used to be called rather good at that sort of thing."
She had seated herself, and as he spoke he rose as if he were going to the piano; but, instead, leaned over the back of the chair and looked down upon her. The look seemed to get into her veins and tingle through her blood like living fire. His voice was low and musical as that of a thrush, as he said, softly:
"Why will you, who are always so kind and gentle to others, be cruel to me? What have I done to win your dislike? How have I sinned that you withdraw your friendship from me alone of all the world?"
She bit her lip to keep the hot tears out of her eyes. She could not understand her own emotion, and hated him that he had caused it. She arose, not even glancing toward him, and threw out her hands deprecatingly:
"You are making too much of the fact that I do not care to sing for strangers," she replied haughtily. "If it will interest you, I will try, but I assure you that I am the most inexperienced of amateurs. What would you like me to sing?"
He did not reply to her. He was leaning against the piano, looking at her, not impertinently, but curiously, as if he did not quite understand her. She allowed her fingers to wander over the keys idly for a moment, then played and sang an excerpt from "Gioconda," not with her usual style and expression at all, but still with a sweetness and depth of voice and a breadth of expression that was infinitely pleasing.
"You can't do a thing of that sort playing your own accompaniment," he said, when she had finished, not complimenting her at all upon her beauty of voice or method. "Let me sit there, will you?"
She arose at once, a trifle nettled at his lack of praise, and he took the stool she had vacated. His fingers touched the piano with a tenderness that went to her soul. She loved music with a sort of ravenous passion, if one may so express it, a wild longing that had never been gratified, and she listened with an increased fascination that held her speechless.