tering inference
that, while apparently absorbed in conversation with Miss Bramble, she
had been aware of his presence in the background, and of every
movement he had made.

"Well, I must ask our hostess first, mustn't I?"

She went to that lady and bent over her with her request.

If Lucia's aim was to give pleasure she had certainly achieved it.
Mrs. Downey may or may not have loved music, but she was visibly
excited at the prospect of hearing it. So were the boarders. They
settled themselves solemnly in their seats. Spinks crushed his noisy
newspaper into a ball and thrust it behind him; Miss Bramble put away
her clicking needles; while Mr. Soper let himself sink into a chair
with elaborate silence; one and all (with the exception of Mr.
Partridge, who slept) they turned their faces, politely expectant,
towards the inner room. It struck Lucia that in this the poor things
were better mannered than many a more aristocratic audience.

Rickman lit the candles on the piano and seated himself beside her.

"I know what I have got to play." said she.

"What?"

"The Sonata Appassionata, isn't it?"

"Fancy your remembering."

"Of course I remember. It isn't every one who cares for Beethoven. I'm
afraid the others won't like it, though."

"They've got to like it," he said doggedly.

And Lucia, with her fatal passion for giving pleasure, played. And as
the stream of music flowed through the half-lit room, it swept away
all sense of his surroundings, all memory of the love and truth and
honour pledged to his betrothed, and every little scruple of pity or
of conscience. It bore down upon the barriers that stood between him
and Lucia, and swept them away too. And the secret sources of his
inspiration, sealed for so many months, were opened and flowed with
the flowing of the stream; and over them the deep flood of his longing
and his misery rose and broke and mingled with the tumult. And through
it, and high above it all, it was as if his soul made music with her;
turning the Sonata Appassionata into a singing of many voices, a
symphony of many strings.

So lost was he that he failed to perceive the effect of her playing on
the audience of the outer room. Flossie sat there, very quiet in her
awe; Miss Bishop kept her loose mouth open, drinking in the sounds;
Mr. Soper leaned forward breathing heavily in a stupid wonder; there,
over the tops of the chairs, one up-standing ribbon on Miss Bramble's
cap seemed to be beat