Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/52

 I saw music—printed music. I wondered how anyone could make .... music out of it. I suppose it's easy enough—when you know how—too—Greek."

Don laughed apologetically as he sat down. "I don't know. I don't know how."

"We don't study it—at Horton. German is bad enough."

"Are you studying German?"

Oh, she was not studying much of anything—except music and singing. And she had worked so hard at those that her health had broken down and her mother had taken her away from the school. They were in town for a month, on their way to the Muskoka lakes, where they were to spend the summer.

She chattered nervously about herself, turning the pages backward and forward. Don watched her fingers. He glanced shyly at the soft profile of her cheek and chin, with the dark eyelash and dimple that came and went with her smile. He breathed a faint, warm odour of violets that overbore the scent of the wood balsam, every now and then, with a sweet suggestion of feminine daintiness and charm. And that perfume stealing in on him, and her white hands touching his old book, and her voice voluble in friendship, and her smile—they dazzled, fascinated him, intoxicated him, so that his eyes burned on her, and he leaned forward beside her, clasping his knees, to see her better under the brim of her hat; and she looked up, half-startled, and caught the boyish gentleness and reverence that shone even through his ardour; and she was not afraid.