“Excuse me, but did you not, on one occasion, speak of Miss Hampton’s playing?”
“I doubtless have mentioned it,” replied Hugh.
“Ah, you naughty girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Osborn, laughing, “why did you not tell me? Come, Marie, you must help me entertain these American financiers—these men of affairs. I promise you,” she went on, patronizingly, “that they will not know whether you play excellently or otherwise.”
CHAPTER XXV.—ALMOST A TRAGEDY
I CAN’. speak for Captain Osborn,” said Marie, as she seated herself before the piano, “but I fear, Mrs. Osborn, that you misjudge Mr. Stanton.”
“Oh, thank you,” said Hugh, bowing at the compliment.
“Papa insists,” Marie went on, as she looked at Hugh with her laughing eyes, “that you are wonderfully appreciative, and, doubtless, critical.”
“Indeed,” interposed Mrs. Osborn, with some surprise, “well, had I known that, I would have been more careful in the selections I played.” Marie turned to the instrument, softly fingering the keys and striking a chord here and there until finally she drifted into Chopin’s Fifth Nocturne. Her interpretation was that of a born artist. The music fairly rippled from her deft fingers, as she glided on and on from one beautiful cadence to another, until at last—note by note—as if sobbing a farewell, the melody died away. Then striking a few chords sharply, she took up a lively refrain, which gradually materialized into Rubinstein’s Melody in F. There was a wild abandon and rare power in her playing that appealed to Hugh Stanton’s soul like the wild sweep and rush of sighing winds in a primeval forest.