"
But the old man had caught both Kirk's hands and spread them out in his
own. There was a moment of silence, and then he said:
"Do you care for music, my child?"
"I love Phil's songs," Kirk answered, puzzled a little by a different
note in the voice he was beginning to know. "She sings and plays the
accompaniments on the piano."
"Do you ever sing?"
"Only when I'm all alone." The color rushed for an instant to Kirk's
cheeks, why, he could not have said.
"Without a word, the old gentleman, still holding Kirk's hands, pushed
him gently into the chair he had himself been sitting in. There was a
little time of stillness, filled only by the crack and rustle of the
fire. Then, into the silence, crept the first dew-clear notes of
Chopin's F Sharp Major Nocturne. The liquid beauty of the last bars had
scarcely died away, when the unseen piano gave forth, tragically
exultant, the glorious chords of the Twentieth Prelude--climbing higher
and higher in a mournful triumph of minor chords and sinking at last
into the final solemn splendor of the closing measures. The old
gentleman turned on the piano-stool to find Kirk weeping passionately
and silently into the cushions of the big chair.
"Have I done more than I meant?" he questioned himself, "or is it only
the proof?" His hands on Kirk's quivering shoulders, he asked, "What is
it?"
Kirk sat up, ashamed, and wondering why he had cried. "It was because
it was so much more wonderful than anything that ever happened," he said
unsteadily.
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