But all this beauty only had the effect of putting an edge on Evan's
dissatisfaction. The gnawing inside him was a hundred times worse by
moonlight. "What's the matter with me?" he thought querulously. "I
wished for something to happen. Well, something did happen, but
there's no fun in it. There's no fun in anything any more. Moonlight
makes me hate myself. Oh, damn moonlight anyhow! It turns a man
inside out!"

He flung away from the window and planted himself in his chair with his
back to it.

Presently he became aware of a sound new in that house. His door stood
open for ventilation and it came floating up the old stairs. He was
aware of a vague pleasure before he localised the sound. It was music;
a piano--but not the usual rooming-house instrument; a piano in tune,
softly played. It drew him to the door and to the banisters outside, a
poignant, haunting melody rippling in a minor treble, a melody that
queerly sharpened the knife that stabbed him, yet drew him on
irresistibly.

He stole down the dark stairs, guiding himself with a hand on the rail,
his eyes as abstracted as a sleep walker's. The sounds were issuing
from the back parlour of course. The door was partly open--so she was
not as unsociable as Charley had feared, or perhaps it was only that it
was hot. The room was dark inside. Evan leaned against the banisters
with bent head, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of breaking the
lovely spell.

The music came to an end and his spirit dropped back to earth. He
lingered, silently praying for it to resume and give him wings again.
Instead, the door was suddenly opened wider and he saw the tenant of
the room on the threshold. All he could see of her was that she was a
little woman with a lot of hair. The moonlight shimmering through the
edges of her hair made a halo around her head. Moonlight made two
square patches on the floor of the room.

It was too late for him to escape. "I--I beg your pardon," he
stammered. "I couldn't help listening."

"Oh!" she said. "Who are you?"

"Evan Weir. I live up-stairs."

"Oh!" she said again, but with a different inflection.

By her voice Evan knew she was young and adorable. It was a
low-pitched voice for so little a woman, low and thrilling; a
mezzo-soprano. His spirit went to meet that voice.

For a moment or two they stood silently facing each other in the dark.
Evan was not conscious of any embarrassment; he was too deeply moved.