Part 12 (1/2)

”Indeed--I was not aware--excuse me, I should be happy,” stammered the young man. ”As for the money, it is all in Governments and is at your command whenever you please.”

”That is good, I'll notify you when I'm ready for the transfer. And now come,” said he, with a change from his deep business tone to the lighter one of ordinary social converse, ”forget for a half hour that you have discarded the name of Mandeville, and give us an aria or a sonata from Mendelssohn before those hands have quite lost their cunning.”

”But the ladies,” inquired the youth glancing towards the drawing-room where Mrs. Sylvester was giving Paula her first lesson in ceramics.

”Ah, it is to see how the charm will act upon my shy country la.s.sie, that I request such a favor.”

”Has she never heard Mendelssohn?”

”Not with your interpretation.”

Without further hesitation the young musician proceeded to the piano, which occupied a position opposite to my lady's picture in this anomalous room denominated by courtesy the library. In another instant, a chord delicate and ringing, disturbed the silence of the long vista, and one of Mendelssohn's most exquisite songs trembled in all its delicious harmony through these apartments of sensuous luxury.

Mr. Sylvester had seated himself where he could see the distant figure of Paula, and leaning back in his chair, watched for the first startled response on her part. He was not disappointed. At the first note, he beheld her spirited head turn in a certain wondering surprise, followed presently by her whole quivering form, till he could perceive her face, upon which were the dawnings of a great delight, flush and pale by turns, until the climax of the melody being reached, she came slowly down the room, stretching out her hands like a child, and breathing heavily as if her ecstacy of joy in its impotence to adequately express itself, had caught an expression from pain.

”O Mr. Sylvester!” was all she said as she reached that gentleman's side; but Bertram Mandeville recognized the accents of an unfathomable appreciation in that simple exclamation, and struck into a grand old battle-song that had always made his own heart beat with something of the fire of ancient chivalry under its breastplate of modern broadcloth.

”It is the voice of the thunder clouds when they marshal for battle!”

exclaimed she at the conclusion. ”I can hear the cry of a righteous struggle all through the sublime harmony.”

”You are right; it is a war-song ancient as the time of battle-axes and spears,” quoth Bertram from his seat at the piano.

”I thought I detected the flas.h.i.+ng of steel,” returned she. ”O what a world lies in those simple bits of ivory!”

”Say rather in the fingers that sweep them,” uttered Mr. Sylvester. ”You will not hear such music often.”

”I am glad of that,” she cried simply, then in a quick conscious tone explained, ”I mean that the hearing of such music makes an era in our life, a starting-point for thoughts that reach away into eternity; we could not bear such experiences often, it would confuse the spirit if not deaden its enjoyment. Or so it seems to me,” she added naively, glancing at her cousin who now came sweeping in from the further room, where she had been trying the effect of a change in the arrangement of two little pet monstrosities of j.a.panese ware.

”What seems to you?” that lady inquired. ”O, Mr. Mandeville's playing? I beg pardon, Sylvester is the name by which you now wish to be addressed I suppose. Fine, isn't it?” she rambled on all in the same tone while she cautiously hid an unfortunate gape of her rosy mouth behind the folds of her airy handkerchief. ”Mr. Turner says the hiatus you have made in the musical world by leaving the concert room for the desk, can never be repaired,” she went on, supposedly to her nephew though she did not look his way, being at that instant engaged in sinking into her favorite chair.

”I am glad,” Bertram politely returned with a frank smile, ”to have enjoyed the approval of so cultivated a critic as Mr. Turner. I own it occasions me a pang now and then,” he remarked to his uncle over his shoulder, ”to think I shall never again call up those looks of self-forgetful delight, which I have sometimes detected on the faces of certain ones in my audience.”

And he relapsed without pause into a solemn anthem, the very reverse of the stirring tones which he had previously accorded them.

”Now we are in a temple!” whispered Paula, subduing the sudden interest and curiosity which this young man's last words had awakened. And the awe which crept over her countenance was the fittest interpretation to those n.o.ble sounds, which the one weary-hearted man in that room could have found.

”I have something to tell you, Ona,” remarked Mr. Sylvester shortly after this, as the music being over, they all sat down for a final chat about the fireside. ”I have received notice that the directors of the Madison Bank have this day elected me their president. I thought you might like to know it to-night.”

”It is a very gratifying piece of news certainly. President of the Madison Bank sounds very well, does it not, Paula?”

The young girl with her soul yet ringing with the grand and solemn harmonies of Mendelssohn and Chopin, turned at this with her brightest smile. ”It certainly does and a little awe-inspiring too;” she added with her arch glance.

”Your congratulations are also requested for our new a.s.sistant cas.h.i.+er.

Arise, Bertram, and greet the ladies.”

With a blush his young nephew arose to his feet.

”What! are you going into the banking business?” queried Mrs. Sylvester.

”Mr. Turner will be more shocked than ever: he chooses to say that bankers, merchants and such are the solid rock of his church, while the lighter fry such as artists, musicians, and let us hope he includes us ladies, are its minarets, and steeples. Now to make a foundation out of a steeple will quite overturn his methodical mind I fear.”