Miss Elfrides image chose the form in which she was beheld during these minutes of singing,for her permanent attitude of visitation to Stephens eyes during his sleeping and waking hours in after days.The profile is seen of a young woman in a pale gray silk dress with trimmings of swans-down,and opening up from a point in front,like a waistcoat without a shirt;the cool colour contrasting admirably with the warm bloom of her neck and face.
The furthermost candle on the piano comes immediately in a line with her head,and half invisible itself,forms the accidentally frizzled hair into a nebulous haze of light,surrounding her crown like an aureola.Her hands are in their place on the keys,her lips parted,and trilling forth,in a tender diminuendo,the closing words of the sad apostrophe:
O Love,who bewailest The frailty of all things here,Why choose you the frailest For your cradle,your home,and your bier!
Her head is forward a little,and her eyes directed keenly upward to the top of the page of music confronting her.Then comes a rapid look into Stephens face,and a still more rapid look back again to her business,her face having dropped its sadness,and acquired a certain expression of mischievous archness the while;which lingered there for some time,but was never developed into a positive smile of flirtation.
Stephen suddenly shifted his position from her right hand to her left,where there was just room enough for a small ottoman to stand between the piano and the corner of the room.Into this nook he squeezed himself,and gazed wistfully up into Elfrides face.So long and so earnestly gazed he,that her cheek deepened to a more and more crimson tint as each line was added to her song.Concluding,and pausing motionless after the last word for a minute or two,she ventured to look at him again.His features wore an expression of unutterable heaviness.
You dont hear many songs,do you,Mr.Smith,to take so much notice of these of mine?
Perhaps it was the means and vehicle of the song that I was noticing:I mean yourself,he answered gently.
Now,Mr.Smith!
It is perfectly true;I dont hear much singing.You mistake what I am,I fancy.Because I come as a stranger to a secluded spot,you think I must needs come from a life of bustle,and know the latest movements of the day.But I dont.My life is as quiet as yours,and more solitary;solitary as death.
The death which comes from a plethora of life?But seriously,I
can quite see that you are not the least what I thought you would be before I saw you.You are not critical,or experienced,or--
much to mind.Thats why I dont mind singing airs to you that I
only half know.Finding that by this confession she had vexed him in a way she did not intend,she added *****ly,I mean,Mr.
Smith,that you are better,not worse,for being only young and not very experienced.You dont think my life here so very tame and dull,I know.
I do not,indeed,he said with fervour.It must be delightfully poetical,and sparkling,and fresh,and----
There you go,Mr.Smith!Well,men of another kind,when I get them to be honest enough to own the truth,think just the reverse:
that my life must be a dreadful bore in its normal state,though pleasant for the exceptional few days they pass here.
I could live here always!he said,and with such a tone and look of unconscious revelation that Elfride was startled to find that her harmonies had fired a small Troy,in the shape of Stephens heart.She said quickly:
But you cant live here always.
Oh no.And he drew himself in with the sensitiveness of a snail.
Elfrides emotions were sudden as his in kindling,but the least of womans lesser infirmities--love of admiration--caused an inflammable disposition on his part,so exactly similar to her own,to appear as meritorious in him as modesty made her own seem culpable in her.