Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/120

96 his breath, and exhausted a considerable vocabulary in reviling them for their musical incompetence and crass-headed ignorance. Young lady pupils, too, and in the presence of their mothers! Mrs. Jones told him that he need not call again, which was not strange of Mrs. Jones, who did not pay to have the pleasure of hearing her daughter rated as being lower than the beasts that grovel.

As I have said, my nephew was telling me about that friend of his as we were eating our dinner. My dining-room is under the drawing-room, and in the drawing-room we had left that three-and-sixpenny fiddle. While the fish was being removed we distinctly heard, above our heads, the sound of a violia. It was Ernest who heard it first. "You have a musician in the house."

"A musician? What do you mean?"

For the change of themes was sudden. He was in the very middle of the story of his friend.

"Someone in the drawing-room is favouring us with a solo on the violin."

I listened It was as he said. The sound was unmistakable. Someone was fiddling while we dined.

"Which of your maids is a mistress of harmony?"

"I was not aware that I had such a paragon. It is the first I have heard of it." Just then Rouse came in with the entrée. "Rouse, who is in the drawing-room?" The question appeared to surprise him.

"I am not aware, sir, that anyone is."

"There is someone. Go up, and see who it is."

Rouse went. Almost immediately the sound of playing ceased.