"I hope you will sing something to us this evening," said Sheila.
"I will sing and play for you all the evening," he said lightly, "until you are tired. But you must tell me when you are tired, for who can tell how much music will be enough? Sometimes two or three songs are more than enough to make people wish you away."
"You need have no fear of tiring me," said Sheila. "But when you are tired I will sing for you."
"Yes, of course you sing, madame," he said, casting down his eyes: "I knew that when I saw you."
Sheila had got a sweetheart, and Lavender saw it and smiled good-naturedly. The awe and reverence with which this lad regarded the beautiful woman beside him were something new and odd in Kensington Gardens. Yet it was the way of those boys. He had himself had his imaginative fits of worship, in which some very ordinary young woman, who ate a good breakfast and spent an hour and a half in arranging her hair before going out, was regarded as some beautiful goddess fresh risen from the sea or descended from the clouds. Young Mosenberg was just at the proper age for these foolish dreams. He would sing songs to Sheila, and reveal to her in that way a passion of which he dared not otherwise speak. He would compose pieces of music for her, and dedicate them to her, and spend half his quarterly allowance in having them printed. He would grow to consider him, Lavender, a heartless brute, and cherish dark notions of poisoning him, but for the pain it might cause to her.
"I don't remember whether you smoke, Mosenberg," Lavender said after dinner.
"Yes--a cigarette sometimes," said the lad; "but if Mrs. Lavender is going away perhaps she will let me go into the drawing-room with her. There is that sonata of Muzio Clementi, madame, which I will try to remember for you if you please."
"All right," said Lavender: "you'll find me in the next room on the left when you get tired of your music and want a cigar. I think you used to beat me at chess, didn't you?"
"I do not know. We will try once more to-night."
Then Sheila and he went into the drawing-room by themselves, and while she took a seat near the brightly-lit fire-place, he opened the piano at once and sat down. He turned up his cuffs, he took a look at the pedals, he threw back his head, shaking his long brown hair; and then, with a crash like thunder, his two hands struck the keys. He had forgotten all about that sonata: it was a fantasia of his own, based on the airs in _Der Freischütz_, that he played; and as he played Sheila's poor little piano suffered somewhat. Never before had it been so battered about, and she wished the small chamber were a great hall, to temper the voluminous noise of this opening passage. But presently the music softened. The white, lithe fingers ran lightly over the keys, so that the notes seemed to ripple out like the prattling of a stream, and then again some stately and majestic air or some joyous burst of song would break upon this light accompaniment, and lead up to another roar and rumble of noise. It was a very fine performance, doubtless, but what Sheila remarked most was the enthusiasm of the lad. She was to see more of that.