Barry Pain

“ Why, if I’d thought they both cared for me very much I wouldn’t have dreamed of running away.”
“There is a saying, Celia, that to know everything is to forgive everything. Your father teaches music, I think.”
“Yes—it’s his profession.”
“And the poor man’s a real musician. He has not been successful as a composer so far, and he does not know—as I do—that success will come to him before very long. Meanwhile, he teaches the piano to duffers. Think what that means. Every day, on the average, his true and sensitive ear is tortured with seven hundred and eighty-six wrong notes. ”

“ Bright sunlight, and London all behind her. She must have been walking for hours, and her sensible shoes were white with dust. But she did not feel tired; she was filled with a sense of exhilaration, almost of triumph. ”

“ The ghost said so.”
“A ghost?” said her mother. “Why, that sounds more like a nightmare.”
“But it wasn’t. He wasn’t a bit like any other ghost.”
“And possibly,” said Mr. Melrose, “the success won’t be like any other success. How goes the time?” His hand went instinctively to an empty watch-pocket and dropped. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Twenty minutes, and then I start teaching the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ to the younger Miss Levison.” As he went out he put his hand for a moment on his daughter’s head. “Never mind, Celia,” he said, “you’re a good girl to dream nice things about me.” ”

“ Celia sprang to her feet, thus dropping an apple and the greater part of a biscuit.
“So you’ve run away, little girl, have you?” said a man’s voice. Well, yes, Celia admitted, it was a pleasant voice. And she liked the looks of the young man who stood on the other side of the stile. Not handsome, perhaps, but interesting—which, in Celia’s view, was so much better. Yet it was necessary to show that Miss Melrose knew how to take care of herself. ”

“ I will give to you a power that no human being has had yet, though at some point in their lives every man and every woman would give all they possess—and many would even give their lives—to have that power. ”

“ I can take care of myself, and I have with me five pounds that I have saved. I shall write to you, too, so that you will know I am well and safe. But I am going, because I must.
“I wonder if you will understand. I don’t think a girl of seventeen ought to be sick of life as I am. I am sick of the quarrels and sordid economies of home. I am sick of the drudgery of the office, and the tea-shop luncheons, and everything. I have no liberty. I do not live—I only execute orders. ”

“ No one’s bitten you.”
Having thrown the shreds of her runaway letter into the Thames, Celia lunched alone in the Embankment Gardens. And for lunch she had biscuits and apples, but there are no ghosts in the Embankment Gardens.
If you ever meet the famous composer, Mr. Hubert Melrose, do not speak to him of the song with which he first achieved popularity. He may tell you that the song was muck, or he may express himself more strongly, but in any case he will be annoyed with you. ”

“ Abrahams generally sacks people who absent themselves without good reasons. But in your case the son, Mr. Sam Abrahams, might intercede with success. He is sometimes kind to pretty girls, you know, and he always expects them to—to pay for it. ”