The big flexible fingers still needed training, but they showed the
result of hours and hours of patient practice, too. Through his seven
years in the music house, Mark had been faithful to his gift. He made no
secret of it, his associates knew that he came back after dinner to the
very rooms that they themselves left so eagerly at the end of the day.
Mark had indeed once asked old Mr. Pomeroy to hear him play, an occasion
to which the boy still looked back with hot shame. For when his obliging
old employer had settled himself to listen after hours on an appointed
afternoon, and Mark had opened the piano, the performer suddenly found
his spine icy, his hands wet and clumsy. He felt as if he had never
touched a piano before; the attempt was a failure from the first note,
as Mark well knew. When he had finished he whisked open another book.
"That was rotten," he stammered. "I thought I could do it--I can't. But
just let me play you this--"
But the great man was in a hurry, it appeared.
"No--no, my boy, not to-day--some other time! Perhaps a little bit too
ambitious a choice, eh? We must all be ambitious, but we must know our
limitations, too.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113