He was a lonely man, who lived with his music and
his books, cared little for company, and had few friends; but
he liked to see Madelon flitting about his dusky room,
carrying with her bright suggestions of the youth, and gaiety,
and hopefulness he had almost forgotten. He talked to her,
taught her songs, played to her as much as she liked, and
often gave her and her father orders for the theatre to which
he belonged, where, with delight, she would recognise his
familiar face as he nodded and smiled at her from the
orchestra. He instructed her, too, in music; made her learn
her notes, and practise on the jangling old piano, and even,
at her particular request, to scrape a little on the violin;
but she cared most for singing, and for hearing him play and
talk. She never felt shy or timid with him, and one day, at
the end of a long rhapsody about German music and German
composers, she asked him innocently enough--
"Who was Beethoven, and Mozart, and--and all those others you
talk about? I never heard of them before."
"Never before!" he cried, in a sort of comic amazement and
dismay.
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