"We want to find out what's behind things, don't we?--Look
at the lights down there," he continued, "scattered about anyhow. Things
I feel come to me like lights. . . . I want to combine them. . . . Have
you ever seen fireworks that make figures? . . . I want to make figures.
. . . Is that what you want to do?"
Now they were out on the road and could walk side by side.
"When I play the piano? Music is different. . . . But I see what you
mean." They tried to invent theories and to make their theories agree.
As Hewet had no knowledge of music, Rachel took his stick and drew
figures in the thin white dust to explain how Bach wrote his fugues.
"My musical gift was ruined," he explained, as they walked on after
one of these demonstrations, "by the village organist at home, who
had invented a system of notation which he tried to teach me, with the
result that I never got to the tune-playing at all. My mother
thought music wasn't manly for boys; she wanted me to kill rats and
birds--that's the worst of living in the country. We live in Devonshire.
It's the loveliest place in the world. Only--it's always difficult at
home when one's grown up. I'd like you to know one of my sisters. . . .
Oh, here's your gate--" He pushed it open. They paused for a moment.
She could not ask him to come in. She could not say that she hoped they
would meet again; there was nothing to be said, and so without a word
she went through the gate, and was soon invisible.
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