“Matilda. Matilda. Come back im-me-diately! What on earth have you got on your head? It looks like a tea cosy. And why have you got that mane of hair on your forehead.” “I can’t come back. Mother. I’ll be late for my lesson.” “Come back immediately!” She won’t. She won’t. She hates Mother. “Go to hell,” she shouts, running down the road. In waves, in clouds, in big round whirls the dust comes stinging, and with it little bits of straw and chaff and manure. There is a loud roaring sound from the trees in the gardens, and standing at the bottom of the road outside Mr. Bullen’s gate she can hear the sea sob: “Ah! . . . Ah! . . . Ah-h!” But Mr. Bullen’s drawing-room is as quiet as a cave. The windows are closed, the blinds half pulled, and she is not late. The-girl-before-her has just started playing MacDowell’s “To an Iceberg.” Mr. Bullen looks over at her and half smiles. “Sit down,” he says. “Sit over there in the sofa corner, little lady.” How funny he is. He doesn’t exactly laugh at you . . . but there is just something. . . . Oh, how peaceful it is here. She likes this room. It smells of art serge and stale smoke and chrysanthemums . . . there is a big vase of them on the mantelpiece behind the pale photograph of Rubinstein . . . _à mon ami Robert Bullen._ . . . Over the black glittering piano hangs “Solitude”—a dark tragic woman draped in white, sitting on a rock, her knees crossed, her chin on her hands. “No, no!” says Mr. Bullen, and he leans over the other girl, put his arms over her shoulders and plays the passage for her. The stupid—she’s blushing! How ridiculous! Now the-girl-before-her has gone; the front door slams. Mr. Bullen comes back and walks up and down, very softly, waiting for her. What an extraordinary thing. Her fingers tremble so that she can’t undo the knot in the music satchel. It’s the wind. . . . And her heart beats so hard she feels it must lift her blouse up and down. Mr. Bullen does not say a word. The shabby red piano seat is long enough for two people to sit side by side. Mr. Bullen sits down by her. “Shall I begin with scales,” she asks, squeezing her hands together. “I had some arpeggios, too.” But he does not answer. She doesn’t believe he even hears . . . and then suddenly his fresh hand with the ring on it reaches over and opens Beethoven. “Let’s have a little of the old master,” he says. But why does he speak so kindly—so awfully kindly—and as though they had known each other for years and years and knew everything about each other. He turns the page slowly. She watches his hand—it is a very nice hand and always looks as though it had just been washed. “Here we are,” says Mr. Bullen. Oh, that kind voice—Oh, that minor movement. Here come the little drums. . . . “Shall I take the repeat?” “Yes, dear child.”