He was picturesque—too picturesque. He had the very white skin that sometimes goes with red hair, and tonight, as he sat against an olive-green velvet curtain, his features seemed to disappear altogether. His face looked like a handful of flour thrown against the velvet. His head was rather flat behind the ears, and his red hair seemed to clasp it in a wreath of curls that were stiff but not tight. She thought she remembered plaster casts in the Art Museum with just such curls. For some reason she didn't like the way he moved across the stage. His lameness gave him a weak, undulating walk, "like a rag walking," she thought. It was contemptible to hold a man's infirmity against him; besides, if this young man weren't lame, she would not be going to Sebastian's studio tomorrow,—she would never have met him at all. How strange it was that James Mockford's bad hip should bring about the most important thing that had ever happened to her!

After the concert Paul Auerbach, in his old-fashioned dress coat and white lawn tie, came up to her. "I am going back to the artists' room, Lucy. Would you like to go with me?"

She hesitated. "No, thank you, Mr. Auerbach. I'd rather not. Will he really expect me tomorrow, do you think?"

Chapter 6

 

The next morning Lucy was walking across the city toward Michigan Avenue. She was happy, she was frightened,—couldn't keep her attention on anything. Her mind had got away from her and was darting about in the sunlight, over the tops of the tall buildings. Exactly at ten o'clock she went into the Arts Building and told the hall porter she had an engagement with Mr. Sebastian. He rang for the elevator, and she was taken up to the sixth storey. When she lifted the brass knocker, Sebastian himself opened the door.

"I was expecting you," he said with a nod. "I knew you were in town, for I saw you in my audience last night, hiding behind a pillar. Did you like the concert?" He took her coat from her and hung it up. "Better take off your hat, too; you'll be more comfortable."

The music room opened directly off the entry hall, with only a doorway between. As she walked into it, Lucy noticed it was a big room, full of sunlight, and that the general colour was dark red; the rugs and curtains and chairs. The piano stood at the front, between two windows.

Sebastian saw that she was not looking at anything; probably she was frightened again.

"Shall we begin? We can talk afterwards. We'll work a little on the Elijah. I have to go to St. Paul to sing it with an oratorio society very soon, and I've not looked at it for a long while."

When she sat down at the piano, he put the music on the rack, turning over the pages. "Before we begin with my part, we might run through the tenor's aria, here. It's much too high for me, of course, but I like to sing it." He pointed to the page and began: "If with all your heart you truly seek Him."

"That's a nice introduction to the whole thing, isn't it? Now we'll take it up just here," he leaned over her and indicated with his finger.

He walked up and down in his elkskin shoes as he sang, his hands in the pockets of his smoking-jacket. Lucy had no thought for anything but the score in front of her.