She looked down at him as he lay with the firelight flickering across his strong-featured face, and a storm of fury and indignation swept over her.  She could have struck him!

Presently he stirred uneasily.  Perhaps he felt the cessation of the music, the sense of someone moving in the room.  A moment later he opened his eyes and saw her standing beside him.

“You, darling?” he murmured drowsily.  He stretched his arms.  “I think . . .  I’ve been to sleep.”  Then, recollection returning to him:  “By Jove!  And you were playing to me—­”

“Yes,” she answered slowly.  Her lips felt dry.  “And I’ll never play to you again as long as I live!”

He smiled indulgently.

“That’s putting it rather strong, isn’t it?” he said, making a long arm and pulling her down on to his knee.

She sprang up again instantly and stood a little away from him, her hands clenched, her breast heaving tumultuously.

“Come back, small firebrand!” he commanded laughingly.

A fresh gust of indignation, swept over her.  Even now he didn’t comprehend, didn’t realise in the very least how he had wounded her.  Her nails dug into the flesh of her palms as she took a fresh grip of herself and answered him—­very slowly and distinctly so that he might not miss her meaning.

“It’s not putting it one bit too strong.  It’s what I feel—­that I can’t ever play to you again.”  She paused, then burst out impetuously:  “You’ve always disliked my love of music!  You were jealous of it.  And to-night I wanted to show you—­to—­to share it with you.  You hated the piano—­you wanted to smash it, because you thought it came between us.  And so I tried to make you understand!” Her words came rushing out headlong now, bitter, sobbing words, holding all the agony of mind which she had been enduring for so long.

“You’ve no idea what music means to me—­and you’ve not tried to find out.  Instead, you’ve laughed indulgently about it, been impatient over it, and behaved as though it were some child’s toy of which you didn’t quite approve.”  Her voice shook.  “And it isn’t!  It’s part of me—­part of the woman you want to marry . . .”

She broke off, a little breathlessly.

Roger was on his feet now and there was a deep, smouldering anger in his eyes as he regarded her.

“And is all this outburst because I fell asleep while you were playing?” he asked curtly.

She was silent, battling with the emotion that was shaking her.

“Because”—­he went on with a tinge of contempt in his voice—­“if so, it’s a ridiculous storm in a tea-cup.”

“‘Ridiculous’! . . .  Yes, that’s all it would be to you,” she answered bitterly.  “But to me it’s just like a light flashed on our future life together.  We’re miles apart—­miles!  We haven’t a thought, an idea, in common.  And when it comes to music—­to the one big thing in my life—­you brush it aside as if it could be taken up or put down like a child’s musical box!”