She shrugged her shoulders and sat down at the piano and played scraps of Mozart, Beethoven, and Grieg—memories of girlhood—with the inexpert musician’s uncertainty of touch. Tommy wandered restlessly about the room examining the Bartolozzis and the backs of the books in the glass-protected cases. At last he became conscious of strain. He leant over the piano, and waited until she had broken down hopelessly in a fragment of Peer Gynt.
“Have I said or done anything wrong, Clementina? If so, I’m dreadfully sorry.”
She shut the piano with a bang.
“You poor, motherless babe,” she cried. “Whom would you go to with your troubles, if you hadn’t got me?”
Tommy smiled vaguely.
“Deuce knows,” said he.
“Then let us go down to the studio and talk about them,” said Clementina.
CHAPTER IX
After leaving Clementina, Tommy went for a long brisk walk in order to clear his mind, and on his homeward way along the Embankment, branched off to the middle of old Chelsea Bridge in order to admire the moonlight view; he also took off his hat in order to get cool. The treacherous May wind cooled him effectually and sent him to bed for three days with a chill.
Clementina sat by his rueful bedside and rated him soundly. The idea of one just recovering from pneumonia setting his blood boiling hot and then cooling himself on a bridge at midnight in the bitter north-east wind! He was about as sane as his uncle. They were a pretty and well-matched pair. Both ought to be placed under restraint. A dark house and a whip would have been their portion in the good old times.