She took up her work and occupied herself resolutely, while Philip watched her, really in doubt whether she had anything more than this general allusion in her mind.It was quite in Maggie's character to be agitated by vague self-reproach.But soon there came a violent well-known ring at the door-bell resounding through the house.
`O what a startling announcement!' said Maggie, quite mistress of herself, though not without some inward flutter.`I wonder where Lucy is.'
Lucy had not been deaf to the signal, and after an interval long enough for a few solicitous but not hurried inquiries, she herself ushered Stephen in.
`Well, old fellow,' he said, going straight up to Philip and shaking him heartily by the hand, bowing to Maggie in passing, `it's glorious to have you back again - only I wish you'd conduct yourself a little less like a sparrow with a residence on the house-top and not go in and out constantly without letting the servants know.This is about the twentieth time I've had to scamper up those countless stairs to that painting room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people thought you were at home.
Such incidents embitter friendship.'
`I've so few visitors - it seems hardly worth while to leave notice of my exits and entrances,' said Philip, feeling rather oppressed just then by Stephen's bright strong presence and strong voice.
`Are you quite well this morning, Miss Tulliver?' said Stephen, turning to Maggie with stiff politeness and putting out his hand with the air of fulfilling a social duty.
Maggie gave the tips of her fingers, and said, `Quite well, thank you,'
in a tone of proud indifference.Philip's eyes were watching them keenly;but Lucy was used to seeing variations in their manner to each other, and only thought with regret that there was some natural antipathy which every now and then surmounted their mutual good-will.`Maggie is not the sort of woman Stephen admires, and she is irritated by something in him which she interprets as conceit,' was the silent observation that accounted for everything to guileless Lucy.Stephen and Maggie had no sooner completed this studied greeting than each felt hurt by the other's coldness.And Stephen, while rattling on in questions to Philip about his recent sketching expedition, was thinking all the more about Maggie because he was not drawing her into the conversation, as he invariably done before.`Maggie and Philip are not looking happy,' thought Lucy.`Perhaps this first interview has been saddening to them.'
`I think we people who have not been galloping.' she said to Stephen, `are all a little damped by the rain.Let us have some music.We ought to take advantage of having Philip and you together.Give us the duet in "Masaniello:" Maggie has not heard that, and I know it will suit her.'
`Come, then,' said Stephen, going towards the piano, and giving a foretaste of the tune in his deep `brum-brum,' very pleasant to hear.
`You, please, Philip - you play the accompaniment,' said Lucy, `and then I can go on with my work.You will like to play, shan't you?'
she added, with a pretty inquiring look, anxious, as usual, lest she should have proposed what was not pleasant to another, but with yearnings towards her unfinished embroidery.
Philip had brightened at the proposition, for there is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music - that does not make a man sing or play the better; and Philip had an abundance of pent-up feeling at this moment, as complex as any trio or quartet that was ever meant to express love and jealousy and resignation and fierce suspicion all at the same time.
`O yes,' he said, seating himself at the piano, `it is a way of eking out one's imperfect life and being three people at once - to sing and make the piano sing, and hear them both all the while - or else to sing and paint.'
`Ah, there you are an enviable fellow.I can do nothing with my hands,'
said Stephen.`That has generally been observed in men of great administrative capacity, I believe.A tendency to predominance of the reflective powers in me! - haven't you observed that, Miss Tulliver?'
Stephen had fallen by mistake into his habit of playful appeal to Maggie, and she could not repress the answering flash and epigram.
`I have observed a tendency to predominance,' she said, smiling, and Philip at that moment devoutly hoped that she found the tendency disagreeable.
`Come, come,' said Lucy, `music, music! We will discuss each other's qualities another time.'
Maggie always tried in vain to go on with her work when music began.
She tried harder than ever today, for the thought that Stephen knew how much she cared for his singing, was one that no longer roused a merely playful resistance, and she knew too that it was his habit always to stand so that he could look at her.But it was of no use: she soon threw her work down, and all her intentions were lost in the vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet - emotion that seemed to make her at once strong and weak, strong for all enjoyment, weak for all resistance.When the strain passed into the minor she half started from her seat with the sudden thrill of that change.Poor Maggie!She looked very beautiful when her soul was being played on in this way by the inexorable power of sound.
You might have seen the slightest perceptible quivering through her whole frame, as she leaned a little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady herself, while her eyes dilated and brightened into that wide-open, childish expression of wondering delight which always came back in her happiest moments.Lucy, who at other times had always been at the piano when Maggie was looking in this way, could not resist the impulse to steal up to her and kiss her.Philip too caught a glimpse of her now and then round the open book on the desk, and felt that he had never before seen her under so strong an influence.
