"
"Oh, Ronnie, I wish I could laugh! But to-morrow is so near. What shall
I do when there is nobody here to tell me silly stories?"
"Ask Mademoiselle Victorine to try her hand at it. Say: 'Chere
Mademoiselle, s'il-vous-plait, racontez-moi une extremement sotte
histoire.'"
"Ronnie, do stop chaffing! Go and play me something really beautiful,
and sing very softly, as you did the other night; so that I can hear the
tones of the piano and your voice vibrating together."
"No," said Ronnie, "I can't. I have a cast-iron lump in my throat just
now, and not a note could pass it. Besides, I don't really play the
piano."
He stretched out his foot, and kicked a log into the fire.
The flame shot up, illumining the room. The log-fire, and the two
seated near it, were reflected fitfully in the distant mirror.
"Helen, there is one instrument, above all others, which I have always
longed to play; yet I have never even held one in my hand."
"What instrument is that, darling?"
"The violoncello," said Ronnie, sitting up and turning towards her as he
spoke. "When I think of a 'cello I seem as if I know exactly how it
would feel to hold it between my knees, press my fingers up and down the
yielding strings, and draw the bow across them. Helen--if I had a 'cello
here to-night, you would listen to sounds of such exquisite throbbing
beauty, that you would forget everything in this world, my wife,
excepting that I love you.
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