e scene, set out on his
way to rejoin his friends.

Chapter XXVI

I Want You Just as You Are

The evening of that day after their return from the mountains, when Conrad
Lagrange had found Aaron King so absorbed in his mother's letters, the
artist continued in his silent, preoccupied, mood. The next morning, it
was the same. Refusing every attempt of his friend to engage him in
conversation, he answered only with absent-minded mono-syllables; until
the novelist, declaring that the painter was fit company for neither beast
nor man, left him alone; and went off somewhere with Czar.

The artist spent the greater part of the forenoon in his studio, doing
nothing of importance. That is, to a casual observer he would have
_seemed_ to be doing nothing of importance. He did, however, place his
picture of the spring glade beside the portrait of Mrs. Taine, and then,
for an hour or more, sat considering the two paintings. Then he turned the
"Quaker Maid" again to the wall and fixed a fresh canvas in place on the
easel. That was all.

Immediately after their midday lunch, he returned to the
studio--hurriedly, as if to work. He arranged his palette, paints, and
brushes ready to his hand, indeed--but he, then, did nothing with them.
Listlessly, without interest, he turned through his portfolios of
sketches. Often, he looked away through the big, north window to the
distant mountain tops. Often, he seemed to be listening. He was sitting
before the easel, staring at the blank canvas, when, clear and sweet, from
the depths of the orange grove, came the pure tones of Sibyl Andres'
violin.

So soft and low was the music, at first, that the artist almost doubted
that it was real, thinking--as he had thought that day when Sibyl came
singing to the glade--that it was his fancy tricking him. When he and
Conrad Lagrange left the mountains three days before, the girl and her
companion had not expected to return to Fairlands for at least two weeks.
But there was no mistaking that music of the hills. As the tones grew
louder and more insistent, with a ringing note of gladness, he knew that
the mountain girl was announcing her arrival and, in the language she
loved best, was greeting her friends.

But so strangely selfish is the heart of man, that Aaron King gave the
novelist no share in their neighbor's musical greeting. He received the
message as if it were to himself alone. As he listened, his eyes
brightened; he stood erect,