Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/349

 films, he appeared to be listening. The April night had a soft warm breath.

Cherry's voice ceased, and with her hands still resting on the keyboard she sat and waited.

"Lovely night," said the man at the window; "come along you two and see my garden by moonlight."

He paused by the piano.

"Sing, Cherry, sing. You should hear her voice dropping down into the garden, with my Narcissus listening"

Molly Pentreath was given a cloak, and refused it, and had it placed upon her shoulders by Roland's insisting hands. He led them out to look at the white figures of his statues, and the shadows cast by them upon the moonlit stones, and at the well-head with its circle of blackness. Christopher stood beside the figure of the Dancing Faun, and opposite to him Narcissus,—one finger raised—seemed to be listening to Cherry's voice. She had chosen "Samson and Delilah." She sang it with passion and with a tenderness that made Kit bow his head as though he were sinking into the deep water of her lovely voice.

A silence came. Molly Pentreath was leaning against the well-head, while Roland looked up at the window of the music-room.

"What a voice she has!"

In an underchant he sang a few notes of some song, and then made suddenly towards the house.

"Wait a moment,—I'll get her to sing out of 'Cherry of Chelsea' You have got my garden, you may as well have my music."

And he did not return. They stood there in the moonlight and waited, Kit by his statue, Molly by the well-head, listening to some amiable, domestic argument that appeared to be taking place in the music-room. They heard Cherry laughing, and striking an occasional and casual note upon the piano, and Roland's voice, big and deep and amused.

Silence. Two people rigid as Roland's statues. Kit looked at the girl,—and the girl surveyed the moon. She was a figure of irresponsive blackness, calmly poised, waiting not upon him, but upon the music that was to be. And he felt a sense of conflict within him, as though he were silently wrestling with her silence.

"What did you do with that sparrow?"