"Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath." He had no business to sing it, to sing
it like that, so that you couldn't get the thing out of your head. That
wouldn't have mattered if you could have got his voice out of your heart.
It hung there, clawing, hurting. She resented this pain.
"Das man vom liebsten was man hat," the dearest that we have, "muss
schei-ei-eden, muss schei-ei-eden."
Her fingers pressed and crept over the keys, in guilty, shamed silence;
it would be awful if he heard you playing it, if Dan heard you or Mamma.
You had only to play and you could make him come.
Supposing you played the Schubert _Impromptu_--She found herself playing
it.
He didn't come. He wasn't coming. He was going into Reyburn with Dan. And
on Monday he would be gone. This time he would really go.
When you left off playing you could still hear him singing in your head.
"Das man vom liebsten was man hat." "Es ist bestimmt--" But if you felt
like that about it, then--
Her hands dropped from the keys.
It wasn't possible. He only came on Friday evening last week. This was
Saturday morning. Seven days. It couldn't happen in seven days. He would
be gone on Monday morning. Not ten days.
"I can't--I don't."
Something crossing the window pane made her start and turn. Nannie
Learoyd's face, looking in. Naughty Nannie. You could see her big pink
cheeks and her scarlet mouth and her eyes sliding and peering. Poor
pretty, naughty Nannie. Nannie smiled when she met you on the Green, as
if she trusted you not to tell how you saw her after dark slinking about
the Back Lane waiting for young Horn to come out to her.
The door opened. Nannie slid away. It was only Mamma.
"Mary," she said, "I wish you would remember that Mr. Vickers has come to
see Dan, and that he has only got two days more."
"It's all right. He's going into Reyburn with him."
"I'm sure," her mother said, "I wish he'd stay here."
She pottered about the room, taking things up and putting them down
again. Presently Catty came for her and she went out.
Mary began to play the Sonata _Appassionata_. She thought: "I don't care
if he doesn't come. I want to play it, and I shall."
He came. He stood close beside her and listened. Once he put his hand on
her arm. "Oh no," he said. "_Not_ like that."
She stood up and faced him. "Tell me the truth, shall I ever be any good?
Shall I ever play?"
"Do you really want the truth?"
"Of course I do."
Her mind fastened itself on her playing. It hid and sheltered itself
behind her playing.
"Let's look at your hands."
She gave him her hands. He lifted them; he felt the small bones sliding
under the skin, he bent back the padded tips, the joints of the fingers.
"There's no reason why you shouldn't have played magnificently," he said.
"Only I don't. I never have."
"No, you never have."
He came closer; she didn't know whether he drew her to him or whether he
came closer. A queer, delicious feeling, a new feeling, thrilled through
her body to her mouth, to her finger-tips. Her head swam slightly. She
kept her eyes open by an effort.
He gave her back her hands. She remembered. They had been talking about
her playing.
"I knew," she said, "it was bad in places."
"I don't care whether it's bad or good. It's you. The only part of you
that can get out. You're very bad in places, but you do something to me
all the same."
"What do I do?"
"You know what you do."
"I don't. I don't really. Tell me."
"If you don't know, I can't tell you--dear--"
He said it so thickly that she was not sure at the time whether he had
really said it. She remembered afterwards.
"There's Dan," she whispered.
He swung himself off from her and made himself a rigid figure at the
window. Dan stood in the doorway. He was trying to took as if she wasn't
there.
"I say, aren't you coming to Reyburn?"
"No, I'm not."
"Why not?"
"I've got a headache."
"_What_?"
"Headache."
Outside on the flagstones she saw Nannie pass again and look in.