“I am glad Beethoven is dead,” said Constance, as she closed the piano. “He is safe from that at least: he can never hear us play. When you go home, Captain Gaunt, I advise you to take lodgings in some quite out-of-the-way place, about Russell Square, or Islington, or somewhere, and grind, as you call it, till you are had up as a nuisance; or else----” “Or else--what, Miss Waring? Anything to please you.” “Or else--give it up altogether,” Constance said. His face grew very long; he was very fond of his violin. “If you think it is so hopeless as that--if you wish me to give it up altogether----” “Oh, not I. It amuses me. I like to hear you break down. It would be quite a pity if you were to give up, you take my scolding so delightfully. Don’t give it up as long as you are here, Captain Gaunt. After that, it doesn’t matter what happens--to me.” “No,” he said, almost with a groan, “it doesn’t matter what happens after that--to me. It’s the Deluge, you know,” said the poor young fellow. “I wish the world would come to an end first”--thus unconsciously echoing the poet. “But, Miss Waring,” he added anxiously, coming a little closer, “I may come back? Though I must go to London, it is not necessary I should stay there. I may come back?” “Oh, I hope so, Captain Gaunt. What would your mother do, if you did not come back? But I suppose she will be going away for the summer. Everybody leaves Bordighera in the summer, I hear.” “I had not thought of that,” cried the young soldier. “And you will be going too?’ “I suppose so,” said Constance. “Papa, I hope, is not so lost to every sense of duty as to let me spoil my complexion for ever by staying here.” “That would be impossible,” he said, with eyes full of admiration. “You intend that for a compliment, Captain Gaunt; but it is no compliment. It means either that I have no complexion to lose, or that I am one of those thick-skinned people who take no harm--neither of which is complimentary, nor true. I shall have to teach you how to pay compliments as well as how to play the violin.” “Ah, if you only would!” he cried. “Teach me how to make myself what you like--how to speak, how to look, how----” “Oh, that is a great deal too much,” she said. “I cannot undertake all your education. Do you know it is close upon noon? Unless you are going to stay to breakfast----” “Oh, thanks, Miss Waring. They will expect me at home. But you will give me a message to take back to my mother. I may come to fetch you to drive with her to-day?” “It must be dreadfully dull work for her sitting waiting while we explore.” “Oh, not at all. She is never dull when she knows I am enjoying myself--that’s the mother’s way.” “Is it?” said Constance, with once more that air of acquiring information. “I am not acquainted with that kind of mother. But do you think, Captain Gaunt, it is right to enjoy yourself, as you call it, at your mother’s cost?”