"Well," the young man sighed resignedly, "you mean well; but I can't help thinking you a little quixotic."
"The Ferriers are giving us _eau sucrée_ instead of wine to-night," sneered one of the company to Mr. Schöninger, a while after.
"They show good taste in doing so," he replied coldly. "There are always bar-rooms and drinking-saloons enough for those who are addicted to drink. I never wish to take wine from the hand of a lady, nor to drink it in her presence."
The night was brilliantly full-moonlighted, and so warm that they had lit as little gas as possible. A soft glow from the upper floor, and the bright doors of the drawing-room, made the hall chandelier useless. Miss Ferrier's new organ there was flooded with a silvery radiance that poured through a window. Mr. Schöninger came out and seated himself before it.
"Shall I play a fugue of Bach's?" he asked of Miss Pembroke, who was standing in the open door leading to the garden.
She took a step toward him, into the shadow between moonlight of window and door, and the light seemed to follow her, lingering in her fair face and her white dress. Even the waxen jasmine blossoms in her hair appeared to be luminous.
"Yes," she said, "if you are to play only once more; but, if more than once, let that be last. I never lose the sound and motion of one of Bach's fugues till I have slept; and I like to keep the murmur it leaves, as if my ears were sea-shells."
She went back to stand in the door, but, after a few minutes, stepped softly and slowly further away, and passed by the drawing-room doors, through which she saw Annette talking with animation and many gestures, while her two critics listened and nodded occasional acquiescence, and Lawrence withdrawn to a window-seat with Miss Carthusen, and Mrs. Ferrier the centre of a group of young people, who listened to her with ill-concealed smiles of amusement. At length she found the place she wanted, an arm-chair under the front portico, and, seated there, gathered up that strong, wilful rush of harmony as a whole. It did not seem to have ceased when Mr. Schöninger joined her. She was so full of the echoes of his music that for a moment she looked at him standing beside her as if it had been his wraith.