Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/131

 "But it will fade out, in the light. It's just a proof."

"I'll keep it—where it won't."

His tone sent her to the piano, nervously, and she sat down at the keyboard, turning her back. "Well," she said, running up the scale.

He drew a long breath of gratification, and passing his hand over the picture to brush a speck of dust from it, caressingly, he laid it between two letters taken from his inside pocket, and put it away with the warm flush of a girl hiding a love-letter in the bosom of her bodice. She had begun to play a light air. He sat down to put his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands; and he remained so, as if the music were a bright stream flowing past him and he were staring at it, full of his thoughts.

It brought him back, at last, to something of her own sparkling mood; and when she had finished it, he said: "I wish I could play like that."

"Come on and try," she laughed, moving aside on the bench.

He hesitated. "Is there room?"

"There should be. It's for the Misses Kimball's duets."

"Oh." He came awkwardly. She invited him again by gathering in her skirts beside her. He sat down.

"Now. Put your hands so. I may have to earn my living this way some day. My first pupil!" And with a severe "One—two! One—two! One—two!' she began the exercises for the first two fingers.