Page:Solo (1924).pdf/56

 room so that Aunt Verona's attention should not be attracted to the inscription on the title-page. It might arouse some disagreeable memory, and he wished to avoid that, for she had been unnaturally depressed for several weeks.

It was a dull book, except for the parts in which the author spoke of composing symphonies and travelling over Europe to conduct them. There were grand pages relating his triumphs, and touching accounts of his disappointments and the treachery of his colleagues.

Then there came a page of crashing, glittering splendour—a page that set Paul's heart beating and wrapped his immediate world in a magic scarf. For he read: "It was at this selfsame concert that the public of Vienna first heard the young Canadian pianist, Mlle. Verona Windell, who performed the Schumann concerto in a manner that aroused the highest pitch of interest and curiosity. This artist undoubtedly has a brilliant future. As for my own concertos, not even Clara Schumann has played them with a finer sense of proportion and a more appealing charm. Mlle. Windell is of that rare company of musicians who abandon themselves to the composition in hand, without trickery, without ceremony, so that it becomes for the moment the channel for the deepest reservoirs of feeling of which the human organism is capable. Such artists should never be constrained to interpret petty music. Their energies need to be conserved for the great works."

With the open book in his hand and his eyes as widely open as the pages, Paul passed down the playroom into the kitchen. It was all very well to repress one's wonderment about Aunt Verona on ordinary occasions, but this!

Aunt Verona paused in the act of wringing out a dish-cloth, and her face tightened as she saw the eager inquiry in Paul's eyes.