`More, more!' said Lucy, when the duet had been encored - `Something spirited again: Maggie always says she likes a great rush of sound.'
`It must be "Let us take the road," then,' said Stephen - `so suitable for a wet morning.But are you prepared to abandon the most sacred duties of life, then, and come and sing with us?'
`O yes,' said Lucy, laughing.`If you will look out the "Beggar's Opera"from the large canterbury.It has a dingy cover.'
`That is a great clue, considering there are about a score covers here of rival dinginess,' said Stephen, drawing out the canterbury.
`O, play something the while, Philip,' said Lucy, noticing that his fingers were wandering over the keys.`What is that you're falling into?
- something delicious that I don't know.'
`Don't you know that?' said Philip, bringing out the tune more definitely.
`It's from the Sonnambula - "Ah! perchè non posso odiarti."I don't know the opera but it appears the tenor is telling the heroine that he shall always love her though she may forsake him.You've heard me sing it to the English words, "I love thee still."'
It was not quite unintentionally that Philip had wandered into this song which might be an indirect expression to Maggie of what he could not prevail on himself to say to her directly.Her ears had been open to what he was saying, and when he began to sing, she understood the plaintive passion of the music.That pleading tenor had no very fine qualities as a voice, but it was not quite new to her: it had sung to her by snatches in a subdued way among the grassy walks and hollows and under the leaning ash-tree in the Red Deeps.There seemed to be some reproach in the words - did Philip mean that? She wished she had assured him more distinctly in their conversation that she desired not to renew the hope of love between them, only because it clashed with her inevitable circumstances.
She was touched not thrilled by the song: it suggested distinct memories and thoughts, and brought quiet regret in the place of excitement.
`That's the way with you tenors,' said Stephen, who was waiting with music in his hand while Philip finished the song.`You demoralise the fair *** by warbling your sentimental love and constancy under all sorts of vile treatment.Nothing short of having your heads served up in a dish like that mediaeval tenor or troubadour, would prevent you from expressing your entire resignation.I must administer an antidote - while Miss Deane prepares to tear herself away from her bobbins.'
Stephen rolled out, with saucy energy-- `Shall I, wasting in despair, Die because a woman's fair?' and seemed to make all the air in the room alive with a new influence.
Lucy, always proud of what Stephen did, went towards the piano with laughing, admiring looks at him; and Maggie, in spite of her resistance to the spirit of the song and to the singer, was taken hold of and shaken by the invisible influence - was borne along by a wave too strong for her.
But angrily resolved not to betray herself she seized her work, and went on ****** false stitches and pricking her fingers with much perseverance, not looking up or taking notice of what was going forward, until all the three voices united in `Let us take the road.'
I am afraid there would have been a subtle, stealing gratification in her mind if she had known how entirely this saucy, defiant Stephen was occupied with her, how he was passing rapidly from a determination to treat her with ostentatious indifference, to an irritating desire for some sign of inclination from her, some interchange of subdued work or look with her.It was not long before he found an opportunity, when they had passed to the music of `The Tempest.' Maggie, feeling the need of a footstool, was walking across the room to get one, when Stephen, who was not singing just then and was conscious of all her movements, guessed her want, and flew to anticipate her, lifting the footstool with an entreating look at her, which made it impossible not to return a glance of gratitude.And then, to have the footstool placed carefully by a too self-confident personage - not any self-confident personage, but one in particular who suddenly looks humble and anxious, and lingers, bending still, to ask if there is not some draught in that position between the window and the fireplace, and if he may not be allowed to move the worktable for her - these things will summon a little of the too ready, traitorous tenderness into a woman's eyes, compelled as she is in her girlish time to learn her life-lessons in very trivial language.And to Maggie these things had not been everyday incidents, but were a new element in her life, and found her keen appetite for homage quite fresh.That tone of gentle solicitude obliged her to look at the face that was bent towards her and to say, `No, thank you' - and once looking nothing could prevent that mutual glance from being delicious to both, as it had been the evening before.