Kenny turned a dark red and ignored the question.

“Don’t like it!” jeered the old man.

“There’s a Shakespeare quotation,” reminded Kenny dangerously, “that begins—­Hum! how does it begin?  Yes.  ’There was no thought of pleasing you’ and so on.  That’s it.”

“You impudent devil!  Close the door.”

“I’ll close it when I go out.  And I’ll lock it.”

They faced each other in a silence perilously akin to hate.

“Are you a Christian?” hissed Adam Craig between his teeth.  “Or are you a heartless pagan?”

“I’m a pagan,” said Kenny.  “Orthodoxy, Adam,” he added bitterly with thoughts of Joan, “I leave for such compassionate hearts as yours.”

“I don’t want it!” said Adam instantly.  “It’s churchiology, not Christianity.  They are as different, thank God, as you and I.”

A gust of wind and rain tore at the windows.  The old man fixed his piercing eyes on Kenny’s face.  Kenny shuddered and looked away.

“Hear the rain!” said Adam.

“I hear it,” said Kenny hopelessly.

“And you’ll lock me in!”

“Yes!”

“I’ll ring for Hughie and tell him to batter the door down.  I would rather bump myself into eternity down that hallway,” flung out Adam Craig passionately, banging his fist upon the arm of the wheel-chair, “than sit here, alone, to-night.”

With his hands clenched Kenny choked back his anger and faced his fate.  He could not lock the door.  Either he must stay or go back with the haunting conviction that this hungry-eyed old fiend who could strum with diabolic skill upon the sensitive strings of his very soul, would propel himself in his wheel-chair to the stairway, there to sit like a ghoul at the top.  Rain beat in Kenny’s ears like a trumpet of doom.  He felt sick and dizzy.  No! with the memory of that last wonderful moment when the music had blended into the fire of his tenderness, he could not go back.  Invisible, Adam Craig would still be pervasive.  He would jar the idyl into a mockery, the indefinable malignity of him, alert and silent up there at the head of the stairs, floating down like an evil wind to mingle with the reminiscent sound of rain.

“Well?” said the old man softly.

“Oh, my God!” said Kenny, wiping his forehead.  “I’ll stay!”

“Good!” said Adam, moistening his lips.  “Good!  You know, Kenny,” he whispered, shivering, “I—­I hate the rain.”

“Yes,” said Kenny wretchedly, “so do I.”

“Kenny,” said the old man later when Kenny had carried the lamp back and made sure that Joan had gone to her room, “don’t sulk.  You’re old enough to know better.”

“I’m not sulking.”

“You are.”

“Very well, then, I am.”

“You’ve had enough music for one night.”

Kenny did not trouble to reply.  Whatever he said would be combated.

“Music,” insisted Adam, “makes you as noisy as a magpie.  If you’re not whistling, you’re singing some damned rake of an Irish song and if you’re not singing, you’re at the piano battering out a scrap-heap of tunes.”