"My father's system of education included music. For which I praise
him in the gates," Mr. Jelnik replied casually.
"'Tinkle out a tune on a piano'!" breathed Alicia, and cast a look
of deep disdain upon the blundering doctor. "Why, I've never in all
my life heard anybody sing like that!"
But I saw him through a mist, and felt my heart ache and burn in my
breast, and wondered what he was doing here in my house that might
have been his house, and how I was going to walk through my life
after he had gone out of it.
I had a wild desire to run outside into the dark night and the
hushed garden, away from everybody and weep and weep, despairingly.
Because a veil had been torn from my eyes this night, and I knew
that the cruellest thing that can happen to a woman had happened to
me. There could be but one thing more bitter--that he or anybody
else in the world should know it.
So I sat there, dumb, while everybody else said pleasant things to
him, their voices sounding afar, far off.
After a while we went into the living-room where our new piano is,
and he played for us--Hungarian things, I think. Then he drifted
into Chopin, and Alicia stood by and turned his music for him.
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