"I was intending to call upon Mrs. Lavender, madame," he said. "I heard that she was ill. Perhaps you can tell me if she is better."
"She seems to be very well to-day, and in very good spirits," Sheila answered.
"Then I will not go in. Did you propose to take a walk in the Park, madame?"
Lavender inwardly laughed at the magnificent audacity of the lad, and, seeing that Sheila hesitated, humored him by saying, "Well, we were thinking of calling on one or two people before going home to dinner. But I haven't seen you for a long time, Mosenberg, and I want you to tell me how you succeeded at the Conservatoire. If you like to walk with us for a bit, we can give you something to eat at seven."
"That would be very pleasant for me," said the boy, blushing somewhat, "if it does not incommode you, madame."
"Oh no: I hope you will come," said Sheila most heartily; and so they set out for a walk through Kensington Gardens northward.
Precious little did Lavender learn about Leipsic during that walk. The boy devoted himself wholly to Sheila. He had heard frequently of her, and he knew of her coming from the wild and romantic Hebrides; and he began to tell her of all the experiments that composers had made in representing the sound of seas and storms and winds howling through caverns washed by the waves. Lavender liked music well enough, and could himself play and sing a little, but this enthusiasm rather bored him. He wanted to know if the yellow wine was still as cool and clear as ever down in the twilight of Auerbach's cellar, what burlesques had lately been played at the theatre, and whether such and such a beer-garden was still to the fore; whereas he heard only analyses of overtures, and descriptions of the uses of particular musical instruments, and a wild rhapsody about moonlit seas, the sweetness of French horns, the King of Thule, and a dozen other matters.
"Mosenberg," he said, "before you go calling on people you ought to visit an English tailor. People will think you belong to a German band."
"I have been to a tailor," said the lad with a frank laugh. "My parents, madame, wish me to be quite English: that is why I am sent to live in London, while they are in Frankfort. I stay with some very good friends of mine, who are very musical, and they are not annoyed by my practicing, as other people would be."