Old Rose and Silver Part 6

"I know," he answered, clearing his throat. "You've told me that before and I've often thought of it. Yet sometimes it seems as though all of life was behind that door."

"Ah, but it isn't. Your son and at least one true friend are outside.

Listen!"

"No," Allison was saying, "I got well acquainted with surprisingly few people over there. You see, I always chummed with Dad."

"Bless him," said Francesca, impulsively.

"Have I done well?" asked the Colonel, anxiously. "It was hard work, alone."

"Indeed you have done well. I hear that he is a great artist."

"He's more than that--he's a man. He's clean and a good shot, and he isn't afraid of anything. Someway, to me, a man who played the fiddle always seemed, well--lady-like, you know. But Allison isn't."

"No," answered Francesca, demurely, "he isn't. Do I infer that it is a disgrace to be ladylike?"

"Not for a woman," laughed the Colonel. "Why do you pretend to misunderstand me? You always know what I mean."

After dinner, when the coffee had been served, Allison took out his violin, of his own accord. "You haven't asked me to play, but I'm going to. Who is going to play my accompaniment? Don't all speak at once."

Rose went to the piano and looked over his music. "I'll try. Fortunately I'm familiar with some of this."

His first notes came with a clearness and authority for which she was wholly unprepared. She followed the accompaniment almost perfectly, but mechanically, lost as she was in the wonder and delight of his playing.

The exquisite harmony seemed to be the inmost soul of the violin, speaking at last, through forgotten ages, of things made with the world --Love and Death and Parting. Above it and through it hovered a spirit of longing, infinite and untranslatable, yet clear as some high call.

Subtly, Rose answered to it. In some mysterious way, she seemed set free from bondage. Unsuspected fetters loosened; she had a sense of largeness, of freedom which she had never known before. She was quivering in an ecstasy of emotion when the last chord came.

For an instant there was silence, then Isabel spoke. "How well you play!" she said politely.

"I ought to," Allison replied, modestly. "I've worked hard enough."

"How long have you been studying?"

"Thirty years," he answered. "That is, I feel as if I had been at work all my life."

"How funny!" exclaimed Isabel. "Are you thirty?"

"Just," he said.

"Then Cousin Rose and I are like steps, with you half way between us.

I'm twenty and she's forty," smiled Isabel, with childlike frankness.

Rose bit her lips, then the colour flamed into her face. "Yes," she said, to break an awkward pause, "I'm forty. Old Rose," she added, with a forced smile.

"Nonsense," said Allison quickly. "How can a rose be old?"

"Or," continued the Colonel, with an air of old-world gallantry, "how can earth itself be any older, having borne so fair a rose upon its breast for forty years?"

"Thank you both," responded Rose, her high colour receding. "Shall we play again?"

While they were turning over the music Madame grappled with a temptation to rebuke Isabel then and there. "Not fit for a parlour yet," she thought. "Ought to be in the nursery on a bread and milk diet and put to bed at six."

For her part, Isabel dimly discerned that she had said something awkward, and felt vaguely uncomfortable. She was sorry if she had made a social mistake and determined to apologise afterward, though she disliked apologies.

Allison was playing again, differently, yet in the same way. Through the violin sounded the same high call to Rose. Life a.s.sumed a new breadth and value, as from a newly discovered dimension. She had been in it, yet not of it, until now. She was merged insensibly with something vast and universal, finite yet infinite, unknown and undreamed-of an hour ago.

She was quite pale when they finished. "You're tired," he said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm not," she denied, vigorously.

"But you are," he insisted. "Don't you suppose I can see?" His eyes met hers for the moment, clearly, and, once more, she answered an unspoken summons in some silent way. The room turned slowly before her; their faces became white spots in a mist.

"You play well," Allison was saying. "I wish you'd let me work with you."

"I'll be glad to," Rose answered, with lips that scarcely moved.

"Will you help me work up my programs for next season?"

"Indeed I will. Don't stop now, please--really, I'm not tired."

While she was still protesting, he led her away from the piano to an easy chair. "Sit there," he said, "and I'll do the work. Those accompaniments are heavy."

He went back to his violin, tightened a string, and began to play, alone. The melody was as delicate in structure as the instrument itself, yet strangely full of longing. Slowly the violin gave back the music of which it was made; the wind in the forest, the sound of many waters, moonlight shimmering through green aisles of forest, the mating calls of Spring. And again, through it all, surged some great question to which Rose thrilled in unspoken answer; a great prayer, which, in some secret way, she shared.

It came to an end at last when she felt that she could bear no more.

"What is it?" she forced herself to ask.

"I haven't named it," he replied, putting down his violin.

"Is--is it--yours?"

"Of course. Why not?"

Isabel came to the piano and took up the violin. "May I look at it?"

"Certainly."

She stroked the brown b.r.e.a.s.t.s curiously and tw.a.n.ged the strings as though it were a banjo. "What make is it?"

"Cremona. Dad gave it to me for Christmas, a long time ago. It belonged to an old man who died of a broken heart."

"What broke his heart?" queried Isabel, carelessly.

"One of his hands was hurt in some way, and he could play no more."

"Not much to die of," Isabel suggested, practically.

"Ah, but you don't know," he answered, shaking his head.