"Lieben Sie nicht Musik?"
"Ja wohl," he cried, and, laughing, played an imaginary fiddle.
"He does like music," cried Miss Widdington. "How can you make such silly mistakes, Ursula? Only he prefers the violin."
Miss Ursula grew downcast for a moment; then she brightened. A brilliant idea occurred to her.
"Adam Penruddocke. He has a fiddle. We can ask him to come up after tea and play to us."
She reassured Andrea in her queer sign-language, and later in the afternoon Adam Penruddocke, a sheepish giant of a fisherman, was shown into the room. He bowed to the ladies, shook the long white hand proffered him by the beautiful youth, tuned up, and played "The Carnival of Venice" from start to finish. Andrea regarded him with mischievous, laughing eyes, and at the end he applauded vigorously.
Miss Widdington turned to her sister.
"I knew he liked music," she said.
"Shall I play something else, sir?" asked Penruddocke.
Andrea, guessing his meaning, beckoned him to approach the bed, and took the violin and bow from his hands. He looked at the instrument critically, smiled to himself, tuned it afresh, and with an air of intense happiness drew the bow across the strings.