"
"It's difficult to tell, isn't it?" she said. "I wonder how one can?"
He did not answer; and they sat for a time in silence.
"Did you ever see her act?" asked Joan.
"Every evening for about six months," he answered. A little flame shot
up and showed a smile upon his face.
"I owe to her all the charity and tenderness I know. She taught it to me
in those months. I might have learned more if I had let her go on
teaching. It was the only way she knew."
Joan watched her as gradually she shaped herself out of the shadows: the
poor, thin, fretful lady of the ever restless hands, with her bursts of
jealous passion, her long moods of sullen indifference: all her music
turned to waste.
"How did she come to fall in love with you?" asked Joan. "I don't mean
to be uncomplimentary, Dad." She laughed, taking his hand in hers and
stroking it. "You must have been ridiculously handsome, when you were
young. And you must always have been strong and brave and clever. I can
see such a lot of women falling in love with you. But not the artistic
woman.
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