The silent Laura set aside her work, rose and went out of the room. Her cheeks, too, had reddened faintly, a circumstance sharply noted by the terrible boy. He sat where he was, asprawl, propped by his arms behind him, watching with acute concentration the injured departure of Cora, following her sister. At the door, Cora, without pausing, threw him a look over her shoulder: a full-eyed shot of frankest hatred. A few moments later, magnificent chords sounded through the house. The piano was old, but tuned to the middle of the note, and the keys were swept by a master hand. The wires were not hammered; they were touched knowingly as by the player's own fingers, and so they sang--and from out among the chords there stole an errant melody. This was not "piano-playing" and not a pianist's triumphant nimbleness--it was music. Art is the language of a heart that knows how to speak, and a heart that knew how was speaking here. What it told was something immeasurably wistful, something that might have welled up in the breast of a young girl standing at twilight in an April orchard. It was the inexpressible made into sound, an improvisation by a master player. "You hear what she's up to?" said Hedrick, turning his head at last. But his mother had departed. He again extended himself flat upon the floor, face downward, this time as a necessary preliminary to rising after a manner of his own invention. Mysteriously he became higher in the middle, his body slowly forming first a round and then a pointed arch, with forehead, knees, and elbows touching the floor. A brilliantly executed manoeuvre closed his Gothic period, set him upright and upon his feet; then, without ostentation, he proceeded to the kitchen, where he found his mother polishing a sugar-bowl. He challenged her with a damnatory gesture in the direction of the music. "You hear what Cora's up to?" Mrs. Madison's expression was disturbed; she gave her son a look almost of appeal, and said, gently: "I believe there's nothing precisely criminal in her getting Laura to play for her. Laura's playing always soothes her when she feels out of sorts--and--you weren't very considerate of her, Hedrick. You upset her." "Mentioning Ray Vilas, you mean?" he demanded. "You weren't kind." "She deserves it. Look at her! _You_ know why she's got Laura at the piano now." "It's--it's because you worried her," his mother faltered evasively. "Besides, it is very hot, and Cora isn't as strong as she looks. She said she felt morbid and----" "Morbid? Blah!" interrupted the direct boy. "She's started after this Corliss man just like she did for Vilas. If I was Dick Lindley I wouldn't stand for Cora's----"