And that made her think of the other Terence's music again, for she
remembered now, though she had never thought of it before, that there
was a longing in his music too. Perhaps she had done wrong, she
thought, to say that it did not mean anything. Still, this was so
different. If the other Terence's fiddle had ever seemed to be longing
for anything, it had seemed to be hopeless, and the fiddle always
seemed to be bitterly laughing at those who were listening to it and
thinking that it was so fine. She had never thought of anything like
this before, but it seemed clear to her now, listening to the same
music played so differently. For now, below all the longing and
sounding through it, there were strength and hope and life and faith
in something good.

I do not say that Kathleen thought all this out while she was
listening. She only felt the most of it. But she felt it so much that
she scarcely knew what she was doing, and she moved by little and
little toward Terence, till she was nearer to him than anybody else,
and looked at him as if he were something more wonderful than she had
ever seen before, till she found that she could not look at him,
because her eyes were wet. And then the music stopped.

Then said the King: "I said that was something that we could
understand, Terence, but I dunno if it is. It's the wonderful player
you are all out, but I never heard you play like that before, and I
think there's something in it that's more than I can find out. That's
enough of it for to-night."

Terence had already come back to Kathleen. She could scarcely speak to
him even yet. "Who taught you to play like that?" she said.

"I don't quite know," he answered, "whether anybody taught me. They
taught me to play here, and the music that I just played is their
music, but I don't play it the way they do. I don't know why that is.
Just as soon as they had taught me so that I could play at all, I
began to play in my own way. Their music is sweet and bright and merry
and sparkling, and sometimes it seems to be sad, but it never means
anything."

Kathleen was startled again to hear Terence say the very words that
she had said so many times about the other Terence's music. "But I
never played before in my life," Terence went on, "the way I have
been playing just now. I think it was because you were here. You
understood, and so I thought of nothing but you all the time that I
was playing, and I think it made me play better. Th