Her father listened, but said nothing. His imagination immediately set before him the tuning and scraping, the clang of the piano, the shriek of the fiddle, and he himself only two rooms off, endeavouring in vain to collect his thoughts and do his work! Mr Waring’s work was not of the first importance, but still it was his work, and momentous to him. He bore, however, a countenance unmoved, if very grave, and even endured without a word the young man’s entrance with them, the consultation about where the piano was to stand, and tea afterwards in the loggia. He did not himself want any tea; he left the young people to enjoy this refreshment together while he retired to his bookroom. But with only two rooms between, and with his senses quickened by displeasure, he heard their voices, the laughter, the continual flow of talk, even the little tinkle of the teacups--every sound. He had never been disturbed by Frances’ tea; but then, except Tasie Durant, there had been nobody to share it, no son from the bungalow, no privileged messenger sent by his mother. Mrs Gaunt’s children, of whom she talked continually, had always been a nuisance, except to the sympathetic soul of Frances. But who could have imagined the prominence which they had assumed now?
Young Gaunt did not go away until shortly before dinner; and Constance, after accompanying him to the anteroom, went along the corridor singing, to her own room, to change her dress. Though her room (Frances’ room that was) was at the extremity of the suite, her father heard her light voice running on in a little operatic air all the time she made her toilet. Had it been described in a book, he thought to himself it would have had a pretty sound. The girl’s voice, sweet and gay, sounding through the house, the voice of happy youth brightening the dull life there, the voice of innocent content betraying its own satisfaction with existence--satisfaction in having a young fool to flirt with, and some trumpery shops to buy unnecessary appendages in! At dinner, however, she made fun of young Gaunt, and the morose father was a little mollified. “It is rather dreadful for other people when there is an adoring mother in the background to think everything you do perfection,” Constance said. “I don’t think we shall make much of the violin.”