Six months had gone by since he left Sparrow Hall, and during them he had worked desperately with scanty rest. He had flung his proud self-will and undisciplined love of prettiness into mechanical exercises for fingers and bow, he had subjected his taste for the tuneful and sentimental to Herr von Gleichroeder's dissonantal preferences. But he had been happy--his dream had always been with him, and had breathed all the sentimentality of hope into the dry bones of Chabrier, Chausson and Strauss. He had found it everywhere--even in his bow exercises.
He was happy, too, in his environment--the companionship of his fellow-students with their young, clear spirits and enthusiasm. Most of them knew his story, but in their careless code it did not tell much against him, for every one admired him for his originality and liked him for his desperate pluck. So Nigel found a new form of gratification for that strange part of him born in prison. The companionship of an unripe little school-girl with her slang, the sight of children dancing in the dusk, had been succeeded by many a racket with young men and women of his own age--Bohemian supper-parties, followed by impromptu concerts or startling variety turns; expeditions in rowdy throngs to a theatre or music-hall; small, friendly meals with some fellow-enthusiast, who confessed in private an admiration for Gounod.... It was a draught of new life to him; he loved it all--down to the constant musical jargon, the endless "shop." Much of his bitterness was leaving him, his sullen bouts were rarer, even the lines of his face were growing rounded and more boyish.
Chausson's "Chanson Perpetuelle" drawled and wailed its way towards a close. Nigel's muscles tightened to prevent a shudder. To-night the hall would be full of the friends and relations of the students; they had come out to encourage their respective prodigies, and his item on the programme would belong, so to speak, to no one. He almost wished he had not forbidden Len and Janey to come--at least they would have made a noise.
The thought of Len and Janey brought an additional stake into the game. He must succeed for their sakes too. He must justify to them his departure from Sparrow Hall. If he failed, they would look upon it as a mere piece of obstinate cruelty, they would plague him to return, and he, in all the sickness of failure, would find it hard to resist them.