"I am not," the Boy replied. "I know all that Angelica thinks, and it is of you--"

"Hush!" the Tenor exclaimed. "You must not tell me."

"But she--"

"I will not allow it."

"Well, there then, don't bite," said the Boy; "and I won't tell you against your will that she thinks a great deal about you"--this _presto_, in order to get it out before the Tenor could stop him.

"But I will tell you on my own account that I don't know the woman who wouldn't."

A vivid flush suffused the Tenor's face, and he turned away.

"I hope you never say things like that to your sister," he objected, after a time.

The Boy grinned. "Sometimes I do," he said, "only they're generally more so."

There was a long silence after this, during which the Tenor changed his att.i.tude repeatedly. He was much disturbed, and he showed it. The Boy made a great pretence of sipping his wine, but he had not in reality taken much of it. He was watching the Tenor, and it was curious how much older he looked while so engaged. The Tenor must have noticed the change in him, which was quite remarkable, giving him an entirely different character, but for his own preoccupation. As it was, however, he noticed nothing.

"Boy," he began at last, in a low voice and hesitating, "I want you to promise me something." The Boy leant forward all attention. "I want you to promise that you will not say anything like that--anything at all about me to--"

"To Angelica?" The Boy seemed to think. "I will promise," he slowly decided, "if you will promise me one thing in return."

"What is it?"

"Will you promise to tell me everything you think about her."

The Tenor laughed.

"You might as well," the Boy expostulated. "I've got to look after you both and see that you don't make fools of yourselves. The youngness of people in love is a caution!" And I should like to see Angelica safely settled with you. A man with a voice like yours is a match for anyone.

There are obstacles, of course; but they can be got over--if you will trust me."

"Oh, you impossible child!" the Tenor exclaimed.

"It is you who are impossible," the Boy said, in dudgeon. "You are too ideal, too content to worship from afar off as Dante worshipped Beatrice.

I believe that was what killed her. If Dante had come to the scratch, as he should have done, she would have been all right."

"Beatrice was a married woman," the Tenor observed.

The Boy shrugged his shoulders, but just then the cathedral clock struck three, and he hastily finished his wine.

"I'll disperse," he said, when the chime was over. "Take care of my fiddle. You'll find the case under the sofa. I left it the last time I was here. By-the-bye, you should make the old woman stay at home to look after the place when you're out. Unscrupulous people might walk in uninvited, you know. Ta, ta," and the Tenor found himself alone.

It was no use to go to bed, he could not rest. His heart burned within him. It was no use to tell himself that the Boy was only a boy. He knew what he was saying, and he spoke confidently. He was one of those who are wiser in their generation than the children of light. And he had said--what was it he had said? Not much in words, perhaps, but he had conveyed an impression. He had made the Tenor believe that she thought of him. He believed it, and he disbelieved it. If she thought of him--he threw himself down on the sofa, and buried his face in the cushions. The bare supposition made every little nerve in his body tingle with joy. He ought not to indulge in hope, perhaps; but, as the Boy himself might have observed, you can't expect much sense from a man in that state of mind.

A few days later the Tenor saw his lady again in the canon's pew, and he was sure, quite sure, she tried to suppress a smile.

"That little wretch has told her, and she is laughing at my presumption,"

was his distressed conclusion. "I'll wring his neck for him when he comes again."

But when the service was over, and he had taken his surplice off, she pa.s.sed him in the nave, so close that he might have touched her, and looked at him with eyes just like the Boy when he was shy; gave him a quick half-frightened look, and blushed vividly; gave him time to speak, too, had he chosen. But the Tenor was not the man to take advantage of a girlish indiscretion.

When he went home, however, he was glad. And he opened his piano and sang like one-inspired. "I am gaining more power in everything," he said to himself, "I could make a position for her yet."

CHAPTER VIII.

A few nights later the Tenor went out for a stroll, leaving the windows of his sitting room closed but not fastened, and the lamp turned down. On his return he was surprised to find the window wide open and the room lit up. The little garden gate was shut and bolted, He could easily have reached over and opened it from the outside, but knowing that it creaked, and not wanting to disturb his nocturnal visitor until he had ascertained his occupation, he jumped over it lightly, walked across the gra.s.s plot to the window, and looked in.

It was the Boy, of course. The Tenor recognized him at once, although all he could see of him at first were his legs as he knelt on the floor with his back to him and his head and shoulders under a sofa. "What, in the name of fortune, is he up to now?" the Tenor wondered.

Just then the boy got up, frowning, and flushed with stooping. He stamped his foot impatiently, and looked all round the room in search of something. Suddenly his face cleared. He had discovered his violin oh the top of a bookshelf above him, and that was apparently what he wanted, for he made a dash at it, and took it down, and hugged it affectionately.

The Tenor smiled, and stepped down into the room. He did not wish to take his visitor unawares, but the carpet was soft and thick, and his quick step as he crossed to where the boy was standing with his back to him, absorbed in the contemplation of his beloved instrument, made no noise, so that when the Tenor laid his hand on the Boy's shoulder he did startle him considerably. The Boy did not drop his instrument, but he uttered an almost womanish shriek, and faced round with such a scared white look that the Tenor thought he was going to faint. He recovered immediately, however, and then exclaimed angrily: "How dare you startle me so?

Everybody knows I can't bear to be startled. If you are nothing but a blunderer you will spoil everything. And I bolted the gate too. It would have made a noise if you had opened it as you ought to have done, and then I should have known, I've a good mind to go away now, and never come back again."

"I am very sorry," said the Tenor. "But how was I to know it was you? It might have been a thief."

"Thieves don't come to steal grand pianos and armchairs in lighted chambers with the windows open and the blinds up," the Boy retorted.

"Don't you feel mean, spying around like that?"

"Are you an American?" the Tenor interrupted blandly.

"Yes, I am"--with asperity--"and you must have known quite well it was me.

Who else could get into the Close after the gates were shut?"

"I never thought of that," said the Tenor. "And how _do_ you get in, pray? By the postern?"

"No," was the answer, "I come by the water-gate;" and his face cleared as he saw the Tenor's puzzled glance at his garments.

"I'm not wet," he said. "I don't swim."

"But the ferry does not cross after six."

"No, but I do, you see. And now let us make music," he added, his good humour restored by the Tenor's mystification. "If you will be so good as to accompany me with your piano, I will give you a treat. I brought my music the last time I was here;" and there it was, piled up, on a chair beside the instrument.

The Tenor could have sworn that neither chair nor music was there when he went out that evening, but what was the use of swearing? He felt sure that the Boy in his present mood would have outsworn him without scruple had it pleased him to maintain his a.s.sertion, so he opened his piano in silence, and the music began. And it was a rare treat indeed which the Tenor enjoyed that night. The Boy played with great technical mastery of the instrument, but even that was not so remarkable as the originality of his interpretations. He possessed that sympathetic comprehension of the masters' ideas which is the first virtue of a musician; but even when he was most true to it, he managed to throw some of his strong individuality into the rendering, and hence the originality which was the special charm of his playing. As an artist, he certainly satisfied; even the sensitive soul of the Tenor was refreshed when he played; but in other respects he was obviously deficient. So long as things were pleasant it was a question whether he would ever stop to ask himself if they were right. Acts which lead to no bodily evil, such as sickness or that lowering of the system which lessens the power of enjoyment, he was not likely in his present phase to see much objection to; and for the truth, for verbal accuracy in his a.s.sertions that is, he had no particular respect. All this, however, the Tenor was more reluctant to acknowledge, perhaps, than slow to perceive. He was one of those who expect a great soul to accompany great gifts, and what he did know of the Boy's shortcomings he condoned. He believed the young tone-poet's power was in itself an indication of high aspirations, and those he thought were only temporarily suppressed by a boyish affectation of cynicism.

But the Boy did not give the Tenor much time to think. His mind was quick-glancing, like his eyes when he was animated, and he carried the Tenor along with him from one occupation to another with distracting glee.

When he was tired of making music, as he called it, he demanded food, and, so long as he could cook it and serve it himself, he delighted in bacon and eggs, as much as he did in Bach and Beethoven.

The Tenor tried to wean him of his nocturnal habits, but to this the Boy would not listen. He said he liked to sit up all night, and when he said he liked a thing, he seemed to think he had adduced an unanswerable argument in its favour. The Tenor complained of fatigue. The long nights affected his voice, he said, and made him unfit for work; but the Boy only grinned at this, and told him he'd get used to it. Then he threatened to shut up the house and go to bed if the Boy did not come in proper time, and on one occasion he carried out his threat; but when the Boy arrived he made night hideous with horrid howls until the Tenor could stand it no longer, and was obliged to get up, and let him in, to preserve the peace of the neighbourhood. After which the Tenor ceased to remonstrate, and it became one of the pleasures of his life to prepare for this terrible hungry Boy. He worked in his garden early and late, cultivating the succulent roots which the latter loved, the fruits and the vegetables, and, last, but not least, the flowers, for he never could feed without flowers, be said, and the Tenor ministered to this exaction with the rest.

"He is dainty because he is delicate," the Tenor thought, always excusing him. "When he is older and stronger he will grow out of all these epicurean niceties of taste, I must make him dig, too, and fence, and row.

He'll soon develop more manliness."

That he was spoiling the Boy in the meantime never occurred to him, not even when he noticed that the latter took all these kindnesses as a matter of course, and only grumbled when some accustomed attention was omitted.