LITMIR.BIZ

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beg your pardon; I am afraid you will think me rude, but the truth is, I-I have been a little out of sorts just lately." He came briskly towards the piano; glancing however, as Madge could not help but notice, nervously through the window as he came. The man outside was gone; his absence seemed to reassure him. "Is this the piece you wish me to play? I will do my best."

      He did his best-or, if it was not his best, his best must have been something very remarkable indeed.

      The piece she had selected-unwittingly-was a Minuet of Mozart's. A dainty trifle; a pitfall for the inexperienced; seeming so simple, yet needing the soul, and knowledge, of a virtuoso to make anything of it at all. Hardly the sort of thing to set before a seeker after music lessons, whose acquaintance with music, for all she knew, was limited to picking out the notes upon the keyboard. At her final examination she herself had chosen it, first because she loved it, and, second, because she deemed it to be something which would enable her to illustrate her utmost powers at their very best.

      It was only when he struck the first few notes that she realised what it was she had put in front of him; when she did, she was startled. Whether he understood what the piece was there for-that he was being set to play it as an exhibition of his ignorance rather than of his knowledge-was difficult to say. It is quite possible that in the preoccupation of his mind it had escaped him altogether that the sole excuse for his presence in that room lay in the fact that he was seeking lessons from this young girl. There could be no doubt whatever that at least one of the things that he had said of himself was true, and that he did love music; there could be just as little doubt that he already was a musician of a quite unusual calibre-one who had been both born and made.

      He played the delicate fragment with an exquisite art which filled Madge Brodie with amazement. She had never heard it played like that before-never! Not even by her own professor. Perhaps her surprise was so great that, in the first flush of it, she exaggerated the player's powers.

      It seemed to her that this man played like one who saw into the very depths of the composer's soul, and who had all the highest resources of his art at his command to enable him to give a perfect-an ideal-rendering. Such an exquisite touch! such masterly fingering! such wondrous phrasing! such light and shade! such insight and such execution! She had not supposed that her cheap piano had been capable of such celestial harmony. She listened spellbound-for she, too, had imagination, and she, too, loved music. All was forgotten in the moment's rapture-in her delight at hearing so unexpectedly sounding in her ears, what seemed to her, in her excitement, the very music of the spheres. The player seemed to be as oblivious of his surroundings as Madge Brodie-his very being seemed wrapped up in the ecstasy of producing the quaint, sweet music for the stately old-time measure.

      When he had finished, the couple came back to earth, with a rush.

      With an apparent burst of recollection his hands came off the keyboard, and he wheeled round upon the music-stool with an air of conscience-stricken guilt. Madge stood close by, actually quivering with a conflict of emotions. He met her eyes-instantly to avert his own. There was silence-then a slight tremor in her voice in spite of her effort to prevent it.

      "I suppose you have been having a little jest at my expense."

      "A jest at your expense?"

      "I daresay that is what you call it-though I believe in questions of humour there is room for wide differences of opinion. I should call it something else."

      "I don't understand you."

      "That is false."

      At this point-blank contradiction, the blood showed through his sallow cheeks.

      "False?"

      "Yes, false. You do understand me. Did you not say that you had been for some time seeking for an opportunity to take lessons in music?"

      "I-I-"

      Confronted by her red-hot accusatory glances, he stammered, stumbled, stopped.

      "Yes? – go on."

      "I have been seeking such an opportunity."

      "Indeed? And do you wish me to suppose that you believed that you-you-could be taught anything in music by an unknown creature who fastened a plate announcing lessons in music, to the palings of such a place as this?"

      He was silent-looking as if he would have spoken, but could not. She went on:

      "I thank you for the pleasure you have given me-the unexpected pleasure. It is a favourite piece of mine which you have just performed-I say 'performed' advisedly. I never heard it better played by any one-never! and I never shall. You are a great musician. I? – I am a poor teacher of the rudiments of the art in which you are such an adept. I am obliged by your suggestion that I should give you lessons. I regret that to do so is out of my power. You already play a thousand times better than I ever shall-I was just going out as you came in. I must ask you to be so good as to permit me to go now."

      He rose from the music stool-towering above her higher and higher. From his altitude he looked down at her for some seconds in silence. Then, in his deep bass voice, he began, as it seemed, to excuse himself.

      "Believe me-"

      She cut him short.

      "I believe nothing-and wish to believe nothing. You had reasons of your own for coming here; what they were I do not know, nor do I seek to know. All I desire is that you should take yourself away."

      He stooped to pick up his hat. Rising with it in his hand, he glanced towards the window. As he did so, the man who had leaned over the palings came strolling by again. The sight of this man filled him with his former uneasiness. He retreated further back into the room-all but stumbling over Miss Brodie in his haste. In a person of his physique the agitation he displayed was pitiful. It suggested a degree of cowardice which nothing in his appearance seemed to warrant.

      "I-I beg your pardon-but might I ask you a favour?"

      "A favour? What is it?"

      "I will be frank with you. I am being watched by a person whose scrutiny I wish to avoid. Because I wished to escape him was one reason why I came in here."

      Madge went to the window. The man in the road was lounging lazily along with an air of indifference which was almost too marked to be real. He gave a backward glance as he went. At sight of Madge he quickened his pace.

      "Is that the man who is watching you?"

      "Yes, I-I fancy it is."

      "You fancy? Don't you know?"

      "It is the man."

      "He is shorter than you-smaller altogether. Compared to you he is a dwarf. Why are you afraid of him?"

      Either the question itself, or the tone in which it was asked, brought the blood back into his cheeks.

      "I did not say I was afraid."

      "No? Then if you are not afraid, why should you have been so anxious to avoid him as to seek refuge, on so shallow a pretext, in a stranger's house?"

      The intruder bit his lip. His manner was sullen.

      "I regret that the circumstances which have brought me here are of so singular and complicated a character as to prevent my giving you the full explanation to which you may consider yourself entitled. I am sorry that I should have sought refuge beneath your roof as I own I did; and the more so as I am compelled to ask you another favour-permission to leave that refuge by means of the back door."

      She twirled round on her heels and faced him.

      "The back door!"

      "I presume there is a back door?"

      "Certainly-only it leads to the front."

      Again he bit his lip. His temper did not seem to be improving. The girl's tone, face, bearing, were instinct with scorn.

      "Is there no means of getting away by the back without returning to the front?"

      "Only by climbing a hedge and a fence on to the common."

      "Perhaps the feat will be within my powers-if you will allow me to try."

      "Allow you to try! And is it possible that you forced your way into

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