A faint smile
hovers about his lips that Nature has made rather full and he
has made thin, as though keeping a hard secret; but his bright
grey eyes, dark round the rim, look out and upwards almost as if
he were being crucified. There is something about the whole of
him that makes him seen not quite present. A gentle creature,
burnt within.
A low broad window above a window-seat forms the background to
his figure; and through its lattice panes are seen the outer
gate and yew-trees of a churchyard and the porch of a church,
bathed in May sunlight. The front door at right angles to the
window-seat, leads to the village green, and a door on the left
into the house.
It is the third movement of Veracini's violin sonata that
STRANGWAY plays. His back is turned to the door into the house,
and he does not hear when it is opened, and IVY BURLACOMBE, the
farmer's daughter, a girl of fourteen, small and quiet as a
mouse, comes in, a prayer-book in one hand, and in the other a
gloss of water, with wild orchis and a bit of deep pink
hawthorn. She sits down on the window-seat, and having opened
her book, sniffs at the flowers. Coming to the end of the
movement STRANGWAY stops, and looking up at the face on the
wall, heaves a long sigh.
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