The painters she knew spoke of their art technically, and this
imaginative appreciation was new to her. She was horribly fascinated
by the personality that imbued these elaborate sentences. Haddo's eyes
were fixed upon hers, and she responded to his words like a delicate
instrument made for recording the beatings of the heart. She felt an
extraordinary languor. At last he stopped. Margaret neither moved nor
spoke. She might have been under a spell. It seemed to her that she had
no power in her limbs.
'I want to do something for you in return for what you have done for me,'
he said.
He stood up and went to the piano.
'Sit in this chair,' he said.
She did not dream of disobeying. He began to play. Margaret was hardly
surprised that he played marvellously. Yet it was almost incredible that
those fat, large hands should have such a tenderness of touch. His
fingers caressed the notes with a peculiar suavity, and he drew out of
the piano effects which she had scarcely thought possible. He seemed to
put into the notes a troubling, ambiguous passion, and the instrument had
the tremulous emotion of a human being.
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