Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/268

244 But about Mr. Goad's imperturbability there could be no sort of doubt whatever. That was nature itself, and it reminded me so bewilderingly of old Groome. The scene at the club seemed to have made no impression on him. Our allusions to the subject, if they had any effect upon him at all, had the effect of boring him. He appeared to think that there was nothing in any way out of the common in an old married woman, who had never been parted for any length of time from the partner of her joys and sorrows, and who had only left him an hour or two, under such circumstances mistaking, and insisting on mistaking, a perfect stranger for her husband of thirty years.

After supper Goad and I went away together. It was a fine night, and, as his way lay not very apart from mine, I bore him company. As we strolled through the quiet streets he struck me as being one of the most infrequent conversationalists I had had the pleasure of meeting. It seemed difficult to get a word out of him edgeways. At last I assailed him on the subject of his art. Then he did say something.

"I suppose, Mr. Goad, that of music you have been a lifelong student?"

"No. I have never studied it at all. Music came to me, so far as I can remember, in a second. Of the science of music I know nothing. I cannot read a note of music on a printed page. What I play I play because I have to play it. It comes to me I know not whence nor how. When I must play I play. I never play unless I must."

While I pondered, somewhat taken aback at his