I upbraided myself as a monster of indelicacy for my touch of doubt before dinner; also for a devilish and malicious suspicion that flitted through my brain while she was cataloguing her possible reasons for putting on the old evening dress.

The thought of Betty's beautiful arm and the man's bull-neck was a shivering offence.

I craved purification.
"If you've finished your coffee," I said, "let us go into the drawing-room and have some music." She rose with the impulsiveness of a child told that it can be excused, and responded startlingly to my thought.
"I think we need it," she said.
In the drawing-room I swung my chair so that I could watch her hands on the keys.

She was a good musician and had the well-taught executant's certainty and grace of movement.

It may be the fancy of an outer Philistine, but I love to forget the existence of the instrument and to feel the music coming from the human finger-tips.