The musician awoke, with a sigh, from his dazzled contemplation of his host’s sister, and looked about him.  “Ach, yes!  Ach, yes!” he admitted.  With a glance of adoration at the visitor, he added impressively what to his mind evidently signified some profoundly significant tribute, “Dis night we shall blay only Schubert!”

Sylvia heaved a sigh of relief as the four gathered in front of the music-racks at the other end of the room, tuning and scraping.  Young Mr. Saunders, evidently elated that his opportunity had come, leaned toward Aunt Victoria and began talking in low tones.  Once or twice they laughed a little, looking towards Professor Kennedy.

Then old Reinhardt, gravely pontifical, rapped with his bow on his rack, lifted his violin to his chin, and—­an obliterating sponge was passed over Sylvia’s memory.  All the queer, uncomfortable talk, the unpleasant voices, the angry or malicious or uneasy eyes, the unkindly smiling lips, all were washed away out of her mind.  The smooth, swelling current of the music was like oil on a wound.  As she listened and felt herself growing drowsy, it seemed to her that she was being floated away, safely away from the low-ceilinged room where personalities clashed, out to cool, star-lit spaces.

All that night in her dreams she heard only old Reinhardt’s angel voice proclaiming, amid the rich murmur of assent from the other strings: 

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

THE SIGHTS OF LA CHANCE

One day at the end of a fortnight, Aunt Victoria and Arnold were late in their daily arrival at the Marshall house, and when the neat surrey at last drove up, they both showed signs of discomposure.  Discomposure was no unusual condition for Arnold, who not infrequently made his appearance red-faced and sullen, evidently fresh from angry revolt against his tutor, but on that morning he was anything but red-faced, and looked a little scared.  His stepmother’s fine complexion, on the contrary, had more pink than usual in its pearly tones, and her carriage had less than usual of sinuous grace.  Sylvia and Judith ran down the porch steps to meet them, but stopped, startled by their aspect.  Aunt Victoria descended, very straight, her head high-held, and without giving Sylvia the kiss with which she usually marked her preference for her older niece, walked at once into the house.

Although the impressionable Sylvia was so struck by these phenomena, that, even after her aunt’s disappearance, she remained daunted and silent, Judith needed only the removal of the overpowering presence to restore her coolness.  She pounced on Arnold with questions.  “What you been doing that’s so awful bad?  I bet you caught it all right!”

“’Tisn’t me,” said Arnold in a subdued voice.  “It’s Pauline and old Rollins that caught it.  They’re the ones that ha’ been bad.”

Judith was at a loss, never having conceived that grown-ups might do naughty things.  Arnold went on, “If you’d ha’ heard Madrina talking to Pauline—­say!  Do you know what I did?  I crawled under the bed—­honest I did.  It didn’t last but a minute, but it scared the liver out o’ me.”  This vigorous expression was a favorite of his.