Merle had seated herself at the grand piano and was softly fingering the keys, striking a chord here and there, until finally she drifted into Chopin’s Fifth Nocturne. There was something almost divine in her interpretation. The music fairly rippled from her deft fingers, as they glided on from one beautiful cadence to another until at last, note by note, as if sobbing a reluctant adieu, the melody died away.
Both the visitors were generous in their tributes of congratulation.
“Thank you,” said Merle, as she arose from the piano and proceeded to unfasten the clasps of a violin case.
“What now?” exclaimed Munson.
“Oh, I am not the performer; I am merely the accompanist,” and she held out a beautiful old violin to Grace. As Merle sounded a key on the piano, Grace touched the strings of the Stradivarius. When all was ready she tenderly caressed the violin with her chin, and, her bow sweeping across the instrument, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata trembled from the strings, in soft and plaintive melody, filling the room with echoing and re-echoing notes of sweetness, while Merle’s accompanying notes lent support, in blending harmony, to the rich cadences.
“Splendid! magnificent!” exclaimed the young men in unison.
Munson was now called upon to sing, and Dick felt himself at full liberty to converse with Mrs. Darlington. He broached the subject that had been occupying his thoughts.
“What is known of Senor Ricardo Robles?” he enquired. “Have you been long acquainted?”
“Oh, I have known him for many, many years,” replied Mrs. Darlington. “We used to be next door neighbors in Los Angeles. That was twenty years ago. Then we returned to England—Mr. Darlington had fallen heir to the family estates. Mr. Robles used to visit us off and on. He is, as you have seen, very fond of Grace”—she paused a moment, then went on—“and of my adopted daughter Merle as well. Merle, you know, was the child of my dearest girl friend who died a year after her baby was born.”
“Yes, Merle has told me this.”