The Stars in the Water

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. They never understand. They love music and they hate geometry, but they understand one just as well as the other."

The King came up to Kathleen and said: "It is time for you to come and be looking after the child again."

Kathleen went with him and he led her back into the room where the Queen was. "Where is the box of ointment?" the King said to the Queen.

"I have it here under my pillow," the Queen answered; "come here and get it, Kathleen."

The Queen took something from under her pillow and held it so that Kathleen had to come close to her to get it. "Did you eat anything?" the Queen asked, as Kathleen bent over her.

Kathleen did not quite know whether she ought to answer or not, but the Queen looked at her so kindly that she thought that there could be no harm, and she said: "Only what Terence gave me."

"That was right," said the Queen, and then she went on, speaking louder, so that the King could hear: "Take this box of ointment. In the morning, as soon as the baby is awake, take him out of the cradle and wash him, and then just touch his eyes with this ointment; but be careful that you do not touch your own eyes with it.