For a time there was silence. At last there was a crunching of
moccasined feet upon the crisp snow, then a slight tap at the outer door,
and immediately it was opened. A stalwart young man stepped inside. He
looked round, pleased, astonished, and glanced at the violin, then
meaningly towards the nearly closed door of the other room. After which
he pulled off his gloves, threw his cap down, and with a significant toss
of the head, picked up the violin.

He was a strong, handsome man of about twenty-two, with a face at once
open and inscrutable: the mouth with a trick of smiling, the eyes
fearless, convincing, but having at the same time a look behind this--an
alert, profound speculation, which gave his face singular force. He was
not so tall as the priest in the next room, but still he was very tall,
and every movement had a lithe, supple strength. His body was so firm
that, as he bent or turned, it seemed as of soft flexible metal.

Despite his fine manliness, he looked very boylike as he picked up the
violin, and with a silent eager laugh put it under his chin, nodding
gaily, as he did so, towards the other room. He bent his cheek to the
instrument--almost as brown as the wood itself--and made a pass or two in
the air with the bow, as if to recall a former touch and tune. A
satisfied look shot up in his face, and then with an almost impossible
softness he drew the bow across the strings, getting a distant delicate
note, which seemed to float and tenderly multiply upon itself--a
variation, indeed, of the tune which De Casson had played. A rapt look
came into his eyes. And all that look behind the general look of his
face--the look which has to do with a man's past or future--deepened and
spread, till you saw, for once in a way, a strong soldier turned artist,
yet only what was masculine and strong. The music deepened also, and, as