第29章

Theron found himself moved as he had never been before.

He almost resented the discovery, when it was presented to him by the prosaic, mechanical side of his brain, that he was listening to organ-music, and that it came through the open window from the church close by.

He would fain have reclined in his chair and closed his eyes, and saturated himself with the uttermost fulness of the sensation.Yet, in absurd despite of himself, he rose and moved over to the window.

Only a narrow alley separated the pastorate from the church;Mr.Ware could have touched with a walking-stick the opposite wall.Indirectly facing him was the arched and mullioned top of a great window.A dim light from within shone through the more translucent portions of the glass below, throwing out faint little bars of party-colored radiance upon the blackness of the deep passage-way.He could vaguely trace by these the outlines of some sort of picture on the window.There were human figures in it, and--yes--up here in the centre, nearest him, was a woman's head.

There was a halo about it, engirdling rich, flowing waves of reddish hair, the lights in which glowed like flame.

The face itself was barely distinguishable, but its half-suggested form raised a curious sense of resemblance to some other face.He looked at it closely, blankly, the noble music throbbing through his brain meanwhile.

"It's that Madden girl!" he suddenly heard a voice say by his side.Dr.Ledsmar had followed him to the window, and was close at his shoulder.

Theron's thoughts were upon the puzzling shadowed lineaments on the stained glass.He saw now in a flash the resemblance which had baffled him."It IS like her, of course," he said.

"Yes, unfortunately, it IS just like her," replied the doctor, with a hostile note in his voice."Whenever I am dining here, she always goes in and kicks up that racket.

She knows I hate it."

"Oh, you mean that it is she who is playing," remarked Theron.

"I thought you referred to--at least--I was thinking of--"His sentence died off in inconsequence.He had a feeling that he did not want to talk with the doctor about the stained-glass likeness.The music had sunk away now into fragmentary and unconnected passages, broken here and there by abrupt stops.Dr.Ledsmar stretched an arm out past him and shut the window.

"Let's hear as little of the row as we can," he said, and the two went back to their chairs.

"Pardon me for the question," the Rev.Mr.Ware said, after a pause which began to affect him as constrained, "but something you said about dining--you don't live here, then? In the house, I mean?"The doctor laughed--a characteristically abrupt, dry little laugh, which struck Theron at once as bearing a sort of black-sheep relationship to the priest's habitual chuckle."That must have been puzzling you no end,"he said--"that notion that the pastorate kept a devil's advocate on the premises.No, Mr.Ware, I don't live here.

I inhabit a house of my own--you may have seen it--an old-fashioned place up beyond the race-course, with a sort of tower at the back, and a big garden.

But I dine here three or four times a week.It is an old arrangement of ours.Vincent and I have been friends for many years now.We are quite alone in the world, we two--much to our mutual satisfaction.You must come up and see me some time; come up and have a look over the books we were speaking of.""I am much obliged," said Theron, without enthusiasm.

The thought of the doctor by himself did not attract him greatly.

The reservation in his tone seemed to interest the doctor.

"I suppose you are the first man I have asked in a dozen years," he remarked, frankly willing that the young minister should appreciate the favor extended him.

"It must be fully that since anybody but Vincent Forbes has been under my roof; that is, of my own species, I mean.""You live there quite alone," commented Theron.

"Quite--with my dogs and cats and lizards--and my Chinaman.

I mustn't forget him." The doctor noted the inquiry in the other's lifted brows, and smilingly explained.

"He is my solitary servant.Possibly he might not appeal to you much; but I can assure you he used to interest Octavius a great deal when I first brought him here, ten years ago or so.He afforded occupation for all the idle boys in the village for a twelve-month at least.

They used to lie in wait for him all day long, with stones or horse-chestnuts or snowballs, according to the season.

The Irishmen from the wagon-works nearly killed him once or twice, but he patiently lived it all down.

The Chinaman has the patience to live everything down--the Caucasian races included.He will see us all to bed, will that gentleman with the pigtail!"The music over in the church had lifted itself again into form and sequence, and defied the closed window.If anything, it was louder than before, and the sonorous roar of the bass-pedals seemed to be shaking the very walls.It was something with a big-lunged, exultant, triumphing swing in it--something which ought to have been sung on the battlefield at the close of day by the whole jubilant army of victors.

It was impossible to pretend not to be listening to it;but the doctor submitted with an obvious scowl, and bit off the tip of his third cigar with an annoyed air.

"You don't seem to care much for music," suggested Mr.Ware, when a lull came.

Dr.Ledsmar looked up, lighted match in hand.

"Say musicians!" he growled."Has it ever occurred to you,"he went on, between puffs at the flame, "that the only animals who make the noises we call music are of the bird family--a debased offshoot of the reptilian creation--the very lowest types of the vertebrata now in existence?