"
"How English you are! But all the same, I ask myself whether you would
say that if you had seen Belgium. I came here from Ostend last month."
The man gazed at her with new vivacious interest.
"So it is like that that you are here!"
"But do not let us talk about it," she added quickly with a mournful
smile.
"No, no!" he agreed.... "I see you have a piano. I expect you are fond
of music."
"Ah!" she exclaimed in a fresh, relieved tone. "Am I fond of it! I
adore it, quite simply. Do play for me. Play a boston--a two-step."
"I can't," he said.
"But you play. I am sure of it."
"And you?" he parried.
She made a sad negative sign.
"Well, I'll play something out of _The Rosenkavalier_."
"Ah! But you are a _musician_!" She amiably scrutinised him. "And
yet--no."
Smiling, he, too, made a sad negative sign.
"The waltz out of _The Rosenkavalier_, eh?"
"Oh, yes! A waltz. I prefer waltzes to anything."
As soon as he had played a few bars she passed demurely out of the
sitting-room, through the main part of the bedroom into the _cabinet
de toilette_. She moved about in the _cabinet de toilette_ thinking
that the waltz out of _The Rosenkavalier_ was divinely exciting. The
delicate sound of her movements and the plash of water came to him
across the bedroom.
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