ally aware of the sounds of the night: the bubbling of
water in the boiler, the faint sound of the gas, the sudden crying of
the baby in the next room, then noises outside, distant boys shouting,
distant rags of carols, fragments of voices of men. The whole country
was roused and excited.

The little room was hot. Aaron rose and opened a square ventilator over
the copper, letting in a stream of cold air, which was grateful to him.
Then he cocked his eye over the sheet of music spread out on the table
before him. He tried his flute. And then at last, with the odd gesture
of a diver taking a plunge, he swung his head and began to play. A
stream of music, soft and rich and fluid, came out of the flute. He
played beautifully. He moved his head and his raised bare arms with
slight, intense movements, as the delicate music poured out. It was
sixteenth-century Christmas melody, very limpid and delicate.

The pure, mindless, exquisite motion and fluidity of the music delighted
him with a strange exasperation. There was something tense, exasperated
to the point of intolerable anger, in his good-humored breast, as he
played the finely-spun peace-music. The more exquisite the music, the
more perfectly he produced it, in sheer bliss; and at the same time, the
more intense was the maddened exasperation within him.

Millicent appeared in the room. She fidgetted at the sink. The music was
a bugbear to her, because it prevented her from saying what was on her
own mind. At length it ended, her father was turning over the various
books and sheets. She looked at him quickly, seizing her opportunity.

"Are you going out, Father?" she said.

"Eh?"

"Are you going out?" She twisted nervously.

"What do you want to know for?"

He made no other answer, and turned again to the music. His eye went
down a sheet--then over it again--then more closely over it again.

"Are you?" persisted the child, balancing on one foot.

He looked at her, and his eyes were angry under knitted brows.

"What are you bothering about?" he said.

"I'm not bothering--I only wanted to know if you were going out," she
pouted, quivering to cry.

"I expect I am," he said quietly.

She recovered at once, but still with timidity asked:

"We haven't got any candles for the Christmas tree--shall you buy some,
because mother isn't going out?"

"Candles!" he repeated, settling his music and taking up the piccolo.

"Yes--shall you buy us some, Father? Shall you