Yet notwithstanding the dreaminess of his mood, his senses were curiously alert. Remote sounds and faint perfumes reached him, which at another hour he would not have been conscious of. And he noticed Brocklehurst’s hands as they rested on the stone step: he noticed the fineness of the skin, darkened to a rich golden-brown by the sun; the tapering fingers; the tiny blue vein, scarce visible, on the inside of the wrist. His hands were extraordinarily living, extraordinarily sensitive, expressive. They seemed made to touch the strings of musical instruments, to play upon some delicate lute or viol. He imagined that they must have some power in them to allay pain; he imagined them, cool and soothing, laid softly upon his own forehead, or over his mouth and eyes. And suddenly Harold began to speak. ‘It is very quiet here.... How strange you must have found everything when you first came to school!――after having been accustomed to this for so long.’ Graham smiled lazily. He felt very happy. It was as though a day he had long awaited had at last begun to break within his spirit, as though some perfect hour of life were here. And his present gladness was mingled somehow with all the happiness that had been before; with all the happiness he had ever known. He watched the dark leaves scarce tremulous against the sky; he watched the dark grass, the gathering dusk everywhere; the night wind was soft upon his face. The light grew more and more subdued; the outlines of things vaguer and vaguer. ‘I cannot tell you how glad I am to have you here, Harold,’ he whispered shyly. ‘It was very good of your father to ask me.’ ‘To ask you! But it all belongs to you! It has all been waiting for you for so long――and now, at last, you have come.’ He spoke half-laughingly, but all his childish imaginings and dreams were stirring within him. ‘How dark it is getting!’ The last glimmer of twilight had in truth died out of the sky, and only a dim pallor seemed to hang in the air, a faint reflection from the hidden moon. ‘Listen!’ ‘It is my father. He plays to himself every evening; he is very fond of music.’ The soft, clear notes of a violin were drawn out slowly across the stillness. The darkness, the charm of the night, helped to make them wonderfully expressive, and Brocklehurst almost held his breath to listen. When a pause came he gave a little sigh. ‘Why is beautiful music always so sad?’ he wondered; ‘so much sadder than anything else?’ ‘Is it?’ Graham asked. ‘And yet you like it!’ ‘Yes; there is nothing else I like so well.... I used to sing in the choir at school until my voice broke; but I have never learned very much.’ Graham raised himself a little. He leaned his chin on his companion’s shoulder and looked out into the darkness. And he felt Brocklehurst’s soft, warm cheek against his own. ‘You went to school when you were very young, Harold, didn’t you?’ he murmured. ‘No younger than most fellows. You, you know, came peculiarly late.’