Both hurt and amused, she watched him with an indulgent smile.
“It is naturally the artist in you which interests me the most,” she replied quietly. “Anything further would be an impertinence,” she finished rather cruelly.
The furious pacing stopped. He glared down upon her.
“Then you are impertinent!” he cried brutally. “For unless you are a consummate actress, you are beginning to care for me, me personally, more than for any fiddling I ever have or am ever likely to do!”
A marble goddess looked suddenly forth from Anne’s stony face.
“If you were not ill, and only a boy, I would send you away for saying that!” Her voice was metallic.
The icy tones congealed his blood. In an excess of remorse, he fell down at her feet and hid his face on the chaise-longue.
“Forgive me,” he muttered. “But if you only knew how much it means to have someone take an interest in me outside of my music! To feel that I myself mean something to someone! My music has always been first with everyone. I have been like a rich man’s son, who is afraid to believe that anyone cares for anything except his millions.”
Raising his face, he looked pleadingly into her eyes. His misery melted her heart, but her tone remained cold.
“I think you are forgetting your wife,” she said quietly. “Surely you cannot believe that your music came first with her!”