“You have brought some music?” asked mother.
“Wish I was Orpheus,” he said, uttering his words with exaggerated enunciation, a trick he had caught from his singing, I suppose.
“I see you’re in full feather, Tempest. Is she kind as she is fair?”
“Who?”
Will pursed up his smooth sensuous face that looked as if it had never needed shaving. Lettie went out with Marie, hearing the bell ring.
“She’s an houri!” exclaimed William. “Gad, I’m almost done for! She’s a lotus-blossom! — But is that your ring she’s wearing, Tempest?”
“Keep off,” said Leslie.
“And don’t be a fool,” said I.
“Oh, 0-0-Oh!” drawled Will, “so we must look the other way! ‘Le bel homme sans merci’!”
He sighed profoundly, and ran his fingers through his hair, keeping one eye on himself in the mirror as he did so. Then he adjusted his rings and went to the piano. At first he only splashed about brilliantly. Then he sorted the music, and took a volume of Tchaikovsky’s songs. He began the long opening of one song, was unsatisfied, and found another, a serenade of Don Juan. Then at last he began to sing.
His voice is a beautiful tenor, softer, more mellow, less strong and brassy than Leslie’s. Now it was raised that it might be heard upstairs. As the melting gush poured forth, the door opened. William softened his tones, and sang ‘dolce’, but he did not glance round.
“Rapture! — Choir of Angels,” exclaimed Alice, clasping her hands and gazing up at the lintel of the door like a sainted virgin.
“Persephone — Europa —” murmured Madie, at her side, getting tangled in her mythology.
Alice pressed her clasped hands against her bosom in ecstasy as the notes rose higher.
“Hold me, Madie, or I shall rush to extinction in the arms of this siren.” She clung to Madie. The song finished, and Will turned round.
“Take it calmly, Miss Gall,” he said. “I hope you’re not hit too badly.”
“Oh — how can you say ‘take it calmly’— how can the savage beast be calm!”
“I’m sorry for you,” said Will.
“You are the cause of my trouble, dear boy,” replied Alice. “I never thought you’d come,” said Madie.
“Skimmed here like an Indian ‘brra-ave’,” said Will. “Like Hiawatha towards Minnehaha. I knew you were coming.”
“You know,” simpered Madie, “it gave me quite a flutter when I heard the piano. It is a year since I saw you. How did you get here?”
“I came on snow-shoes,” said he. “Real Indian — came from Canada — they’re just ripping.”
“Oh — Aw-w do go and put them on and show us — do! — do perform for us, Billy dear!” cried Alice.
“Out in the cold and driving sleet — no fear,” said he, and he turned to talk to Madie. Alice sat chatting with Mother. Soon Tom Smith came, and took a seat next to Marie; and sat quietly looking over his spectacles with his sharp brown eyes, full of scorn for William, full of misgiving for Leslie and Lettie.
Shortly after, George and Emily came in. They were rather nervous. When they had changed their clogs, and Emily had taken off her brown-paper leggings, and he his leather ones, they were not anxious to go into the drawing-room. I was surprised — and so was Emily — to see that he had put on dancing shoes.
Emily, ruddy from the cold air, was wearing a wine-coloured dress, which suited her luxurious beauty. George’s clothes were well made — it was a point on which he was particular, being somewhat self-conscious. He wore a jacket and a dark bow. The other men were in evening dress.
We took them into the drawing-room, where the lamp was not lighted, and the glow of the fire was becoming evident in the dusk. We had taken up the carpet — the floor was all polished — and some of the furniture was taken away — so that the room looked large and ample.
There was general hand-shaking, and the newcomers were seated near the fire. First Mother talked to them — then the candles were lighted at the piano, and Will played to us. He is an exquisite pianist, full of refinement and poetry. It is astonishing, and it is a fact. Mother went out to attend to the tea, and after a while, Lettie crossed over to Emily and George, and, drawing up a low chair, sat down to talk to them. Leslie stood in the window bay, looking out on the lawn where the snow grew bluer and bluer and the sky almost purple.
Lettie put her hands on Emily’s lap, and said softly, “Look — do you like it?”
“What! Engaged?” exclaimed Emily.
“I am of age, you see,” said Lettie.
“It is a beauty, isn’t it? Let me try it on, will you? Yes, I’ve never had a ring. There, it won’t go over my knuckle-end — I thought not. Aren’t my hands red? — it’s the cold — yes, it’s too small for me. I do like it.”
George sat watching the play of the four hands in his sister’s lap, two hands moving so white and fascinating in the twilight, the other two rather red, with rather large bones, looking so nervous, almost hysterical. The ring played between the four hands, giving an occasional flash from the twilight or candlelight.
“You must congratulate me,” she said, in a very low voice, and two of us knew she spoke to him.
“Ah, yes,” said Emily, “I do.”
“And you?” she said, turning to him, who was silent. “What do you want me to say?” he asked.
“Say what you like.”
“Some time, when I’ve thought about it.”
“Cold dinners!” laughed Lettie, awaking Alice’s old sarcasm at his slowness.
“What?” he exclaimed, looking up suddenly at her taunt. She knew she was playing false; she put the ring on her finger and went across the room to Leslie, laying her arm over his shoulder, and leaning her head against him, murmuring softly to him. He, poor fellow, was delighted with her, for she did not display her fondness often.
We went in to tea. The yellow shaded lamp shone softly over the table, where Christmas roses spread wide open among some dark-coloured leaves; where the china and silver and the coloured dishes shone delightfully. We were all very gay and bright; who could be otherwise, seated round a well-laid table, with young company, and the snow outside? George felt awkward when he noticed his hands over the table, but for the rest, we enjoyed ourselves exceedingly.
The conversation veered inevitably to marriage.
“But what have you to say about it, Mr Smith?” asked little Marie.
“Nothing yet,” replied he in his peculiar grating voice. “My marriage is in the unanalysed solution of the future — when I’ve done the analysis I’ll tell you.”
“But what do you think about it —?”
“Do you remember, Lettie,” said Will Bancroft, “that little red-haired girl who was in our year at college? She has just married old Craven out of Physic’s department.”
“I wish her joy of it!” said Lettie; “Wasn’t she an old flame of yours?”
“Among the rest,” he replied, smiling. “Don’t you remember you were one of them; you had your day.”
“What a joke that was!” exclaimed Lettie. “We used to go in the arboretum at dinner-time. You lasted half one autumn. Do you remember when we gave a concert, you and I, and Frank Wishaw, in the small lecture theatre?”
“When