He handed her a set of popular waltzes, and without a word she began to play. Her angry fingers flew over the keys. She was not an accomplished musician; but she could rattle off a composition of this order with a dash and brilliance that evoked a hearty “Well done!” from her undemonstrative companion.
“And now will you sing?” and Nina flinched as he handed her--of all songs--the hackneyed but touching “Nancy Lee.”
In a weak, trembling voice, that seemed to come from a far-away corner of the room, she warbled the strains of the familiar song until she came to the words, “The sailor’s wife the sailor’s star shall be!”
There, an association of ideas made her drop her head and have recourse to her handkerchief. Poor ’Steban! What a flighty, unsteady kind of a star she was to him. If she were a proper, steady one, she would at this moment be shedding her rays on him, instead of being involved in these clouds of doubt and despair.
She received but faint sympathy in her distress. “As nervous as a cat, and not half as much voice,” said the man, disappointedly, to himself; then he strolled away to the other end of the room.
Nina had utterly broken down. As she sat dismally weeping, the fresh night air struck her hot face. She raised her head. A wind had sprung up. The window curtains were swelling out now like--like the sails of the _Merrimac_. Oh! if she could with one bound spring to the deck of that dear old ship, the black, safe river flowing between her and her perplexities, a strong arm ready to protect her, a strong brain willing to advise her.
Her thoughts led to practical results. This strange man had evinced a persistent desire that she should not leave the room until the arrival of her host and hostess. And they would not appear for an hour or two. A voice seemed ringing in her ears: “Run away from him. It is the easiest way out of the difficulty both for you and for him.” And he could never overtake her,--this man with the puffy, white face and sloping shoulders. He looked as if the greater part of his life had been spent indoors, and she had been brought up in the meadows, where she had learned to run like the small, wild creatures hidden there.
A fair start was all she asked for, yet it would be as well to have him handicapped, and she glanced over her shoulder. He was in a distant alcove now, examining the contents of a cabinet, and--let her rejoice, therefore--he was sitting down; and a whole drawer full of coins reposed on his knees.