"You are as decided and dictatorial as ever," she laughed; "but this
time you shall have your way. What will you have--a bit of Chopin or
Grieg? Here is plenty of music to choose from."
"No," he said, "something that you know by heart. The piece that you
played in the Rue de Grenelle in the twilight on May the seventh."
She looked at him with startled, wondering eyes, as if about to ask
the explanation of such a curious request. Then her eyes dropped, and
her colour rose, and she sat down at the piano.
The _humoreske_ came from her lightly moving hands as it had come on
that spring evening,--quaint, tender, consoling, caressing,--but now
with a new accent of joy in it, a quicker, almost exulting movement in
the dancing passages. Richard listened, standing close behind her,
watching the play of her firm, rounded fingers, breathing the
fragrance that rose from her hair and her white neck.
When she turned on the stool he was kneeling beside her, and his hands
were stretched out to take hers.
"Let me tell you," he exclaimed, "let me tell you what a fool I have
been."
So she sat very still while he told her of his failure at college, and
how he had gone wild afterward, and how bitter he had been, and how
lonely. The adventure with the travelling musicians had led to
nothing, and his assurance of winning fame with his violin or with his
pen had come to nothing. He was at the edge of the big darkness on
that May evening, when she had brought the turn of the tide without
knowing it. And even now things were not much better, but still he had
a fighting chance to make himself amount to something. He could
write, and he would work at it as a man must work at his calling. He
could play the violin, and he would make it his avocation and
refreshment. She was going on, he knew, to win a great success. He
would rejoice in it--he loved her with all his heart--she must know
that--but he had nothing to offer her. He was too poor to ask her for
anything now.
Her hands trembled as he bent to kiss them. In her shining eyes there
was a strange, sweet, deep smile. She leaned over him, and he felt the
warmth of her breath on his forehead as she whispered: "Richard,
couldn't you even ask me for the _humoreske_?"