"Play!" commanded Jacques Henri, without so much as a word for the
Aladdin-lamp tale she had told him.
Beryl played and as she played she wished with all her might she could
summon the power that had been hers on Christmas night. She wanted to
play for Jacques Henri as she had played then. But she could not.
"Stop!"
Beryl laid the violin down.
The old man scowled at her until she shifted nervously under his
searching eyes.
"Your fingers--they are clever, your ear is true--but there is
nothing--of _you_--in what you play! Do you know what I mean?"
He did not wait for Beryl to answer; he went on, with a shake of his
great head and his eyes still fixed upon her.
"You come to me and tell me your good fortune and what you will do; how
_you_ can study and _you_ can work and _you_ can learn to make good
music--and you have no word for what that money will mean to your saint
of a mother--aye, the best woman God ever made! Shame to you, selfish
girl, that you should put your ambition before her dreams!"
The color dyed Beryl's face. "I never thought--" she muttered, then
stopped abruptly, ashamed of her own admission.
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