LITMIR.BIZ

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lover of music.

      Tante Stéphanie rose to the occasion.

      On the evening of James's arrival she asked Zella, sitting with her in the lamplit drawing-room, whether she were not going to play.

      "Shall I?" said Zella rather wearily; "I am rather tired this evening, I think."

      "Pauvre petite! you should go to bed early. Play a nice little quiet berçeuse ; that ought to rest you."

      Zella rose slowly and went to the piano, visualizing her own ethereal appearance in her soft white evening dress, with the lamplight shining on her hair.

      "I will just play a little till they come in from the dining-room," she murmured.

      She moved the music-stool rather aimlessly about and shifted a pile of music.

      "Don't you think it's very hot in here this evening, Tante Stéphanie?"

      "Yes, I think it is. Would you like the other window open?"

      "I should, but I'm afraid it will make a draught and blow the music about. But this room does seem to me very airless. What can we do, Tante Stéphanie?"

      "I can open this one wider perhaps, " placidly replied Mdle. de Kervoyou.

      "What about the door?" cried Zella brightly. "Should you feel that too much?"

      "No, dear, not at all."

      Zella set it open, casting a quick side-glance at her it as she did so. Stéphanie was counting the stitches a tiny sock, but Zella, who generally missed her effects from sheer nervous anxiety to secure them, felt compelled a final touch of over-acting.

      "I hope they won't hear the piano from the dining-room, with the door open," she said, laughing nervously. I never thought of that." Upon which even the guileless Mdlle. de Kervoyou suddenly perceived from whence had arisen her niece's sire for fresh air.

      But she only remarked, after an infinitesimal pause: "Your cousin is fond of music, is he not?" If so, it appeared that James preferred it at a distance, for neither Grieg nor Chopin brought him from the dining-room; and when at last Zella, oddly nervous and disoncerted, rushed with more impetus than discretion "L'Apres-midi d'un Faune," Louis and James night have been seen emerging from the French window of the dining-room, and pacing slowly towards the farther end of the terrace.

      Zella did not perceive the two black shadows until they moved deliberately across the bar of light cast through the open window, and a few seconds later she rose from the piano and threw herself into an armchair.

      "Thank you, Zella dear; that was very nice," said Tante Stéphanie amiably.

      "I really think I shall go to bed." "Yes, do, dear, if you are tired." The tall form of James Lloyd-Evans appeared at the window.

      "Zella, are you game to mark the tennis-court with me to-morrow? It's high time to begin tennis, don't you think?"

      "Perhaps it is," smiled Zella faintly. "Dear what a strain Debussy's chords are!"

      She stretched her slender fingers wide.

      "Do you still care for music, James?"

      "Oh yes," answered her cousin vaguely, and frowning at the carpet.

      Zella felt with annoyance that he did not want to pursue the subject with her.

      "Zella plays to us a great deal now," observed Md de Kervoyou. "She is so fond of music."

      "Are you?" demanded James abruptly, with effect of rudeness, but rather as one striving to solve perplexing enigma.

      Upon which Zella replied very seriously, in St. Craye's favourite catchword of the moment:

      "It means a great deal to me."

      James still continued to gaze at her with a frowning perplexity that oddly recalled the dogmatic sulky schoolboy at Boscombe.

      'Why do you play?" he demanded suddenly.

      Zella flushed scarlet, was angry with herself for flushing and could find no reply that would not betray either mortification or fury.

      At last she said feebly, with a feeling that she must either speak or dissolve into scalding tears:

      "Why not? Don't you play?"

      James's face cleared abruptly, and Zella, with her odd insight, guessed that he suddenly felt himself to be comforting and reassuring the hurt vanity of an angry mortified child.

      "Good gracious, no! I gave it up when I heard real music. And my fingers aren't bits of quicksilver like yours, either. I couldn't tackle all those runs and shakes and things, and I can't imagine how you do it."

      It was the small glittering toy held out to pacify the discomfited child.

      "Then, you do not play at all?" murmured Mdlle. de Kervoyou, still intent on the nearly completed sock.

      "I only play tennis," laughed James. "Will you have a single to-morrow, Zella?"

      For the rest of her cousin's short visit, Zella was the bright, fresh, outdoor maiden of English fiction, and discovered half a dozen charming new poses in which to view herself, garbed in a short white skirt and cotton blouse and swinging a tennis racquet.

      XXV

       Table of Contents

      IN the course of that summer Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, thankfully relinquishing possession of the London flat which had served its purpose so well as regarded Muriel, decided that neither Providence nor her brother-in-law were exerting themselves sufficiently on Zella's behalf.

      To think, with Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, was to act.

      "Henry," she said, "I have a good mind to spend a couple of nights at Villetswood on our way home."

      "It isn't on our way, dear."

      "You need not pick my words to pieces in that carping manner, Henry dear. I do not say that Devonshire is on the direct line between London and Boscombe; but one cannot say a duty is ever out of one's way, after all, and it does seem to me a most clear duty to see that' poor little Zella is given a chance."

      "A chance of what?"

      "Why insist on putting things into words, Henry? Surely you know the kind of thing I mean: whom does she ever meet at Villetswood, where there is not another house within miles? You may tell me Louis brings her to spend a week in London every now and then; but mark my words, Henry, a week here and there does not make things happen."

      "I suppose not," said Henry doubtfully.

      "What is Villetswood for, I should like to know," demanded his wife with increasing warmth, "if not to have people staying there, now that the child is growing up? I feel bound to speak to Louis about it sooner or later, and you know, Henry, what I always say is, Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day."

      Henry made no reply to this electrifying axiom, and Mrs. Lloyd-Evans said with gentle reproachfulness:

      "You are not very sympathetic, darling, but Zella has always looked upon me as a second mother, as you. know, and I cannot fail her now, just at the most crucial moment in a girl's life. If necessary, I will offer to go and act hostess myself at Villetswood, so that Louis can have a nice amusing little house-party there for Zella's birthday."

      "It is very good of you, my dear, but you know how much you dislike entertaining, and, after all, there is that sister of his always there."

      "My dear Henry! what are you thinking of? A Frenchwoman is not at all the sort of person whom one could have as hostess at a house-party for young people. You know how very lax foreign ideas always are, and one has heard some very strange stories indeed."

      "Not of that old sheep, Marianne!"

      Mrs. Lloyd-Evans smiled with a mixture of reproof and tolerance—reproof at Henry's unseemly

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