Rand stood with his hands upon the balustrade, then walked down the terrace and paused before the dancing master.  “Before he hurt his hand Mr. Jefferson played the violin beautifully,” he said.  “When I was younger, in the days when I tried to do everything that he did, I tried to learn it too.  But I have no music in me.”

“It is a solace,” answered Mr. Pincornet.  “I learned long ago, in the South.”

“I like the harp,” announced Rand abruptly.

“It is a becoming instrument to a woman,” replied Mr. Pincornet, and in a somewhat ghostly fashion became vivacious.  “Ah, a rounded arm, a white hand, the rise and fall of a bosom behind the gold wires—­and the notes like water dropping, sweet, sweet!  Ah, I, too, like the harp!”

“I have never heard it but twice,” said Rand, and turned again to the balustrade.  Below him lay the vast and shadowy landscape.  Here and there showed a light—­a pale earth-star shining from grey hill or vale.  Rand looked toward Fontenoy, and he looked wistfully.  Behind him the violin was telling of the springtime; from the garden came the smell of the syringas; the young man’s desire was toward a woman.  “Is she playing her harp to-night? is she playing to Ludwell Cary?”

     “Belle saison de ma jeunesse—­
     Beaux jours du printemps!”

sang the violin.  A shot sounded near the house.  Adam Gaudylock emerged from the shadow of the locust trees and crossed the moonlit lawn below the terrace.  “I’ve shot that night-hawk.  He’ll maraud no more,” he said, and passed on toward his quarter for the night.

Rand made a motion as if to follow, then checked himself.  It was late, and it had been a day of strife, but his iron frame felt no fatigue and his mood was one of sombre exaltation.  What was the use of going to bed, of wasting the moonlit hours?  He turned to the Frenchman.  “Play me,” he commanded, “a conquering air!  Play me the Marseillaise!”

Mr. Pincornet started violently.  Down came the fiddle from his chin, the bow in his beruffled hand cut the air with a gesture of angry repudiation.  When he was excited he forgot his English, and he now swore volubly in French; then, recovering himself, stepped back a pace, and regarded with high dudgeon his host of the night.  “Sir,” he cried, “before I became a dancing master I was a French gentleman!  I served the King.  I will teach you to dance, but—­Morbleu!—­I will not play you the Marseillaise!”

“I beg your pardon,” said Rand.  “I forgot that you could not be a Republican.  Well, play me a fine Royalist air.”

“Are you so indifferent?” asked the dancing master, not without a faded scorn.  “Royalist or Republican—­either air?”

“Indifferent?” repeated Rand.  “I don’t know that I am indifferent.  Open-minded, perhaps,—­though I don’t know that that is calling it rightly.  The airs the angels sing, and the thundering march of the damned through hell—­why should I not listen to them both?  I don’t believe in hell, nor much in angels, save one, but I like the argument.  Mr. Pincornet, I don’t want to sleep.  Suppose—­suppose you teach me a minuet?”