if to shake off some physical
discomfort. Dyan--very much aware of Aruna and the subaltern--approached
them with a friendly remark. Roy and Lance said, "Play up, Thea! Your
innings," almost in a breath--and crooked little fingers.

Thea needed no second bidding. While the men talked, an insidious
depression had stolen over her spirit--and brooded there, light and
formless as a river mist. Half an hour with her fiddle, and Lance at his
best, completely charmed it away. But the creepiness of it had been very
real: and the memory remained.

* * * * *

When all the others had dispersed, she lingered over the fire with Roy,
while Lance, at the piano, with diplomatic intent, drifted into his
friend's favourite Nocturne--the Twelfth; that inimitable rendering of a
mood, hushed yet exalted, soaring yet brooding, 'the sky and the nest as
well.' The two near the fire knew every bar by heart, but as the liquid
notes stole out into the room, their fitful talk stopped dead.

Lance was playing superbly, giving every note its true value; the
cadence rising and falling like waves of a still sea; softer and softer;
till the last note faded away, ghostlike--a sigh rather than a sound.

Roy remained motionless, one elbow on the mantelpiece. Thea's lashes
were wet with the tears of rarefied emotion--tears that neither prick
nor burn. The silence itself seemed part of the music; a silence it were
desecration to break. Without a word to Roy, she crossed the room;
kissed Lance good-night; clung a moment to his hands that had woven the
spell, smiling her thanks, her praise; and slipped away, leaving the two
together.

Roy subsided into a chair. Lance came over to the fire and stood there
warming his hands.

It was a minute or two before Roy looked up and nodded his
acknowledgments.

"You're a magician, old chap. You play that thing a damn sight too
well."

He did not add that his friend's music had called up a vision of the
Home drawing-room, clear in every detail; Lance at the piano--his last
week-end from Sandhurst--playing the 'thing' by request; himself
lounging on the hearthrug, his head against his mother's knee; the very
feel of her silk skirt against his cheek, of her fingers on his hair....
Nor did he add that the vision had spurred his reluctant spirit to a
resolve.

The more practical soul of Lance Desmond had already dropped back to
earth, as a lark drops after pouring out its heart in th