Theron shook hands with her, and found joy in the perception, that his own hand trembled.He put boldly into words the thought that came to him.
"It was generous of you," he said, "to wait for me out here, where all might delight in the sight of you, instead of squandering the privilege on a handful of clerks inside."Miss Madden beamed upon him, and nodded approval.
"Alcibiades never turned a prettier compliment,"she remarked.They went in together at this, and Theron made a note of the name.
During the ensuing half-hour, the young minister followed about even more humbly than the clerks in Celia's commanding wake.There were a good many pianos in the big show-room overhead, and Theron found himself almost awed by their size and brilliancy of polish, and the thought of the tremendous sum of money they represented altogether.
Not so with the organist.She ordered them rolled around this way or that, as if they had been so many checkers on a draught-board.She threw back their covers with the scant ceremony of a dispensary dentist opening paupers' mouths.
She exploited their several capacities with masterful hands, not deigning to seat herself, but just slightly bending forward, and sweeping her fingers up and down their keyboards--able, domineering fingers which pounded, tinkled, meditated, assented, condemned, all in a flash, and amid what affected the layman's ears as a hopelessly discordant hubbub.
Theron moved about in the group, nursing her parasol in his arms, and watching her.The exaggerated deference which the clerks and salesmen showed to her as the rich Miss Madden, seemed to him to be mixed with a certain assertion of the claims of good-fellowship on the score of her being a musician.There undoubtedly was a sense of freemasonry between them.They alluded continually in technical terms to matters of which he knew nothing, and were amused at remarks of hers which to him carried no meaning whatever.It was evident that the young men liked her, and that their liking pleased her.
It thrilled him to think that she knew he liked her, too, and to recall what abundant proofs she had given that here, also, she had pleasure in the fact.He clung insistently to the memory of these evidences.They helped him to resist a disagreeable tendency to feel himself an intruder, an outsider, among these pianoforte experts.
When it was all over, Celia waved the others aside, and talked with Theron."I suppose you want me to tell you the truth," she said."There's nothing here really good.
It is always much better to buy of the makers direct.""Do they sell on the instalment plan?" he asked.
There was a wistful effect in his voice which caught her attention.
She looked away--out through the window on the street below--for a moment.Then her eyes returned to his, and regarded him with a comforting, friendly, half-motherly glance, recalling for all the world the way Sister Soulsby had looked at him at odd times.
"Oh, you want it at once--I see," she remarked softly.
"Well, this Adelberger is the best value for the money."Mr.Ware followed her finger, and beheld with dismay that it pointed toward the largest instrument in the room--a veritable leviathan among pianos.The price of this had been mentioned as $600.He turned over the fact that this was two-thirds his yearly salary, and found the courage to shake his head.
"It would be too large--much too large--for the room,"he explained."And, besides, it is more than I like to pay--or CAN pay, for that matter." It was pitiful to be explaining such details, but there was no help for it.
