"Would you like to hear Mademoiselle Reisz play?" asked Robert, coming

out on the porch where she was. Of course Edna would like to hear

Mademoiselle Reisz play; but she feared it would be useless to entreat

her.

"I'll ask her," he said. "I'll tell her that you want to hear her. She

likes you. She will come." He turned and hurried away to one of the far

cottages, where Mademoiselle Reisz was shuffling away. She was dragging

a chair in and out of her room, and at intervals objecting to the crying

of a baby, which a nurse in the adjoining cottage was endeavoring to put

to sleep. She was a disagreeable little woman, no longer young, who

had quarreled with almost every one, owing to a temper which was

self-assertive and a disposition to trample upon the rights of others.

Robert prevailed upon her without any too great difficulty.

She entered the hall with him during a lull in the dance. She made an

awkward, imperious little bow as she went in. She was a homely woman,

with a small weazened face and body and eyes that glowed. She had

absolutely no taste in dress, and wore a batch of rusty black lace with

a bunch of artificial violets pinned to the side of her hair.

"Ask Mrs. Pontellier what she would like to hear me play," she requested

of Robert. She sat perfectly still before the piano, not touching the

keys, while Robert carried her message to Edna at the window. A general

air of surprise and genuine satisfaction fell upon every one as they saw

the pianist enter. There was a settling down, and a prevailing air

of expectancy everywhere. Edna was a trifle embarrassed at being thus

signaled out for the imperious little woman's favor. She would not dare

to choose, and begged that Mademoiselle Reisz would please herself in

her selections.

Edna was what she herself called very fond of music. Musical strains,

well rendered, had a way of evoking pictures in her mind. She sometimes

liked to sit in the room of mornings when Madame Ratignolle played

or practiced. One piece which that lady played Edna had entitled

"Solitude." It was a short, plaintive, minor strain. The name of the

piece was something else, but she called it "Solitude." When she heard

it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside

a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one

of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its

flight away from him.

Another piece called to her mind a dainty young woman clad in an Empire

gown, taking mincing dancing steps as she came down a long avenue

between tall hedges. Again, another reminded her of children at play,

and still another of nothing on earth but a demure lady stroking a cat.




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