All dead and gone to dust years ago, host and
guest and grinning little Ethiopians. Joyselle had told Brigit this
story, and now as she stood watching him vent his wrath and anguish on
his faithful Amati, a kind of vision came to her; and she seemed to see
the room as it used to be--vaguely, the big table with six or eight men
sitting around it drinking wine, and, more distinctly, the heaped-up
bowls and plates of fruit----
Half hypnotised she stood there, her hands pressed to her ears until,
with a final excruciating dig into the strings, he dropped his left arm
and turned.
For a moment he, in his square of light, did not see her in the dusk
under the gallery. Then he took a step forward, and with a low cry
caught her in his arms and crushed her and the violin painfully to his
breast.
"_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu_," he repeated over and over, kissing her roughly,
"you have come. Then you know, ma Brigitte, you know!"
"Yes, I know," she admitted sullenly. "Let me go, Victor, you--you hurt
me."
He dropped his arms and she withdrew a few steps. He was very pale and
his hair was ruffled.
"You--it was good of you to come," he said after a pause. "Then, you are
not angry?"
"No.
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