“What is it, Lucien?” his mother asked.

“If Monsieur David would be so good as to play before I must go to bed—­” he murmured entreatingly.

“But, Lucien, I am a soldier now.  I have not worked at all for two years.  The Amati would think it had fallen into the hands of a Boche.”

Lucien smiled.  “Oh, no!  It is too intelligent for that.  A little, please,” and he sat down on a footstool before the sofa in confident anticipation.

Mlle. Claire went to the piano.  David frowned and began to tune the violin.  Madame Fleury called the old servant and told him to light the sticks that lay in the fireplace.  She took the arm-chair at the right of the hearth and motioned Claude to a seat on the left.  The little boy kept his stool at the other end of the room.  Mlle. Claire began the orchestral introduction to the Saint-Saens concerto.

“Oh, not that!” David lifted his chin and looked at her in perplexity.

She made no reply, but played on, her shoulders bent forward.  Lucien drew his knees up under his chin and shivered.  When the time came, the violin made its entrance.  David had put it back under his chin mechanically, and the instrument broke into that suppressed, bitter melody.

They played for a long while.  At last David stopped and wiped his forehead.  “I’m afraid I can’t do anything with the third movement, really.”

“Nor can I. But that was the last thing Rene played on it, the night before he went away, after his last leave.”  She began again, and David followed.  Madame Fleury sat with half-closed eyes, looking into the fire.  Claude, his lips compressed, his hands on his knees, was watching his friend’s back.  The music was a part of his own confused emotions.  He was torn between generous admiration, and bitter, bitter envy.  What would it mean to be able to do anything as well as that, to have a hand capable of delicacy and precision and power?  If he had been taught to do anything at all, he would not be sitting here tonight a wooden thing amongst living people.  He felt that a man might have been made of him, but nobody had taken the trouble to do it; tongue-tied, foot-tied, hand-tied.  If one were born into this world like a bear cub or a bull calf, one could only paw and upset things, break and destroy, all one’s life.

Gerhardt wrapped the violin up in its cloth.  The little boy thanked him and carried it away.  Madame Fleury and her daughter wished their guests goodnight.

David said he was warm, and suggested going into the garden to smoke before they went to bed.  He opened one of the long windows and they stepped out on the terrace.  Dry leaves were rustling down on the walks; the yew trees made a solid wall, blacker than the darkness.  The fountain must have caught the starlight; it was the only shining thing,—­a little clear column of twinkling silver.  The boys strolled in silence to the end of the walk.