The Hermit of Far End Part 18

"Very well," he said abruptly.

He rose and led the way into an adjoining room.

Like the hall they had just quitted, it was pleasantly illumined by candles in silver sconces, and had evidently been arranged to serve exclusively as a music-room, for it contained practically no furniture beyond a couple of chairs, and a beautiful mahogany cabinet, of which the doors stood open, revealing sliding shelves crammed full of musical scores.

A grand piano was so placed that the light from either window or candles would fall comfortably upon the music-desk; and on a stool beside it rested a violin case.

Trent opened the case, and, lifting the violin from is cus.h.i.+ony bed of padded satin, fingered it caressingly.

"Can you read accompaniments?" he asked, flas.h.i.+ng the question at her with his usual abruptness.

"Yes." Sara's answer came simply, minus the mock-modest tag: "A little,"

or "I'll do my best," which most people seem to think it inc.u.mbent on them to add, in the circ.u.mstances.

It is one of the mysteries of convention why, when you are perfectly aware that you can do a thing, and do it well, you are expected to depreciate your capability under penalty of being accounted overburdened with conceit should you fail to do so.

"Good." Trent pulled out an armful of music from the cabinet and looked through it rapidly.

"We'll have some of these." ("These" being several suites for violin and piano.)

Sara's lips twitched. He was testing her rather highly, since the pianoforte score of the suites in question was by no means easy. But, thanks to the wisdom of Patrick Lovell, who had seen to it that she studied under one of the finest masters of the day, she was not a musician by temperament alone, but had also a surprisingly good technique.

At the close of the second suite, Trent turned to her enthusiastically, his face aglow. For the moment he was no longer the hermit, aloof and enigmatical, but an eager comrade, spontaneously appealing to a congenial spirit.

"That went splendidly, didn't it?" he exclaimed. "The pianoforte score is a pretty stiff one, but I was sure"--smilingly--"from the downright way you answered my question about accompaniments, that you'd prove equal to it."

Sara smiled back at him.

"I didn't think it necessary to make any conventional professions of modesty--to you," she said. "You don't--wrap things up much--yourself."

He leaned against the piano, looking down at her.

"No. Nothing I say can make things either better or worse for me, so I have at least gained freedom from the conventions. That is one of my few compensations."

"Compensations for what?" The question escaped her almost before she was aware, and she waited for the snub which she felt would inevitably follow her second indiscretion that afternoon.

But it did not come. Instead, he fenced adroitly.

"Compensation for the limitations of a hermit's life," he said lightly.

"The life is your own choice," she flashed back at him.

"Oh, no, we're not always given a choice, you know. This world isn't a kind of sublimated children's party."

She regarded him thoughtfully.

"I think," she said gravely, "we always get back out of life just what we put into it."

His mouth twisted ironically.

"That's a charming doctrine, but I'm afraid I can't subscribe to it. I put in--all my capital. And I've drawn a blank."

His tone implied a kind of strange, numb acceptance of an inimical destiny, and Sara was conscious of a rush of intense pity towards this man whose implacably cynical outlook manifested itself in almost every word he uttered. It was no mere pose on his part--of that she felt a.s.sured--but something ingrained, grafted on to his very nature by the happenings of life.

Rather girlishly she essayed to combat it.

"You're not at the end of life yet."

He smiled at her--a sudden, rare smile of extraordinary sweetness.

Her intention was so unmistakable--so touchingly ingenious, as are all youth's attempts to heal a bitterness that lies beyond its ken.

"There are no more lucky dips left in life's tub for me, I'm afraid," he said gently.

Sara seized upon the opening afforded.

"Of course not--if you persist in keeping to the role of looker-on," she retorted.

He regarded her gravely.

"Unfortunately, I've no longer any right to dip my head into the tub.

Even if I chanced to draw a prize--I should only have to put it back again."

The quiet irrevocableness of his answer shook her optimism.

"I--don't understand," she said hesitatingly.

"No?"--his tones hardened suddenly. "It's just as well you shouldn't, perhaps."

The abrupt alteration in his manner took her by surprise. All at once, he seemed to have retreated into his sh.e.l.l, to have become again the curt, ironic individual of their first meeting.

"I think," he went on, tranquilly ignoring the mixture of chagrin and amazement in her face, "I think I hear the car coming round. You had better put on your shoes and stockings again--they'll be dry now--and then we can start. It's no longer raining."

Sara felt as though she had been suddenly relegated to a position of utter unimportance. He was showing her that, as far as he was concerned, she was a person of not the slightest consequence, treating her like an inquisitive child. Their recent conversation, during which his mantle of reserve had slipped a little aside, the music they had shared, when for a brief time they had walked together in the pleasant paths of mutual understanding, all seemed to have receded an immense distance away. As she took her place in the car, she could almost have believed that the incidents of the afternoon were a dream, and nothing more.

Trent sat silently beside her, his attention apparently concentrated on the driving of the car. Once he asked her if she were warm enough, and, upon her replying in the affirmative, lapsed again into silence.

Gaining security from his abstraction, Sara ventured to steal a side-glance at his face. It was a curiously contradictory face, hard and bitter-looking, yet the reckless mouth curved sensitively at the corners, and the tolerant, humorous lines about the eyes seemed to combat the impression of almost brutal force conveyed by the frowning brows and square, dominant chin.

Always acutely sensible of temperament, Sara felt as though the man beside her might be capable of any extreme of action. Whatever decision he might adopt over any given matter, he would hold by it, come what may, and she was aware of an odd reflex consciousness of feminine inadequacy. To influence Garth Trent against his convictions would be like trying to deflect the course of a river by laying a straw across its track.

The primitive woman in her thrilled a little, responsively, and she wondered whether or no her s.e.x had played much part in his life. He was a woman-hater--so Molly had told her--yet Sara could imagine him in a very different role. Of one thing she was sure--that the woman who was loved by Garth Trent would anchor in no placid back-water. Life, for her, would hold something breathless, vital, exultant . . .

"Well, have you decided yet?"

The ironical voice broke sharply into the midst of her fugitive thoughts, and Sara jumped violently, flus.h.i.+ng scarlet as she found Trent's eyes surveying her with a quietly quizzical expression.

"Decided what?" she asked defensively.