Class 11 English 2024 Edition www.tntextbooks.in · Section 168

She raised the baton; she tapped the music stand twice. Down came Mary on the opening chord; down came all those left hands, beating the air, and in chimed those young, mournful voices:- "Fast! Ah, too Fast Fade the Ro-o-ses of Pleasure; Soon Autumn yields unto Wi-i-nter Drear. Fleetly! Ah, Fleetly Mu-u-sic's Gay Measure Passes away from the Listening Ear." Good Heavens, what could be more tragic than that lament! Every note was a sigh, a sob, a groan of awful mournfulness. Miss Meadows lifted her arms in the wide gown and began conducting with both hands. "—I feel more and more strongly that our marriage would be a mistake —" she beat. And the voices cried: "Fleetly! Ah, Fleetly." What could have possessed him to write such a letter! What could have led up to it! It came out of nothing. His last letter had been all about a fumed-oak bookcase he had bought for "our" books, and a "natty little hall-stand" he had seen, "a very neat affair with a carved owl on a bracket, holding three hat-brushes in its claws." How she had smiled at that! So like a man to think one needed three hat- brushes! "From the Listening Ear," sang the voices. "Once again," said Miss Meadows. "But this time in parts. Still without expression." "Fast! Ah, too Fast." With the gloom of the contraltos added, one could scarcely help shuddering. "Fade the Roses of Pleasure." Last time he had come to see her, Basil had worn a rose in his buttonhole. How handsome he had looked in that bright blue suit, with that dark red rose! And he knew it, too. He couldn't help knowing it. First he stroked his hair, then his moustache; his teeth gleamed when he smiled. "The headmaster's wife keeps on asking me to dinner. It's a perfect nuisance. I never get an evening to myself in that place." "But can't you refuse?" "Oh, well, it doesn't do for a man in my position to be unpopular." "Music's Gay Measure," wailed the voices. The willow trees, outside the high,