tears. He did not observe that Darrell was intently
watching him. When the music stopped, he turned
aside to wipe the tears from his eyes. Somehow
or other, what with the poem, what with the flute,
his thoughts had wandered far, far hence to the green
banks and blue waves of the Thames,—to
Sophy’s charming face, to her parting childish
gift! And where was she now? Whither passing
away, after so brief a holiday, into the shadows of
forlorn life? Darrell’s bell-like voice
smote his ear.
“Spenser; you love him! Do you write poetry?”
“No, sir: I only feel it!”
“Do neither!” said the host, abruptly.
Then, turning away, he lighted his candle, murmured
a quick good-night, and disappeared through a side-door
which led to his own rooms.
Lionel looked round for Fairthorn, who now emerged
ab anqulo from his nook.
“Oh, Mr. Fairthorn, how you have enchanted me!
I never believed the flute could have been capable
of such effects!”
Mr. Fairthorn’s grotesque face lighted up.
He took off his spectacles, as if the better to contemplate
the face of his eulogist. “So you were
pleased! really?” he said, chuckling a strange,
grim chuckle, deep in his inmost self.
“Pleased! it is a cold word! Who would
not be more than pleased?”
“You should hear me in the open air.”
“Let me do so-to-morrow.”
“My dear young sir, with all my heart.
Hist!”—gazing round as if haunted,—“I
like you. I wish him to like you. Answer
all his questions as if you did not care how he turned
you inside out. Never ask him a question, as
if you sought to know what he did not himself confide.
So there is some thing, you think, in a flute, after
all? There are people who prefer the fiddle.”
“Then they never heard your flute, Mr. Fairthorn.”
The musician again emitted his discordant chuckle,
and, nodding his head nervously and cordially, shambled
away without lighting a candle, and was engulfed in
the shadows of some mysterious corner.
The old world and the
new.
It was long before Lionel could sleep. What
with the strange house and the strange master, what
with the magic flute and the musician’s admonitory
caution, what with tender and regretful reminiscences
of Sophy, his brain had enough to work on. When
he slept at last, his slumber was deep and heavy,
and he did not wake till gently shaken by the well-bred
arm of Mr. Mills. “I humbly beg pardon:
nine o’clock, sir, and the breakfast-bell going
to ring.” Lionel’s toilet was soon
hurried over; Mr. Darrell and Fairthorn were talking
together as he entered the breakfast-room,—the
same room as that in which they had dined.
