Demelza, Book Two, Chapter 17
He moved on and reached his own land and rode down into the valley and from far off could hear Demelza playing the spinet. The sound came up to him in a sweet vibration plaintive and distant. … The music was a thread of silver woven into the spring. A fancy took him to surprise her, and he stopped Darkie and tethered her at the bridge. Then he walked to the house and came into the hall unnoticed. The parlor door was open. She was there at the spinet in her white muslin frock, the peculiar expression on her face that she always took on when reading music, as if she were just going to bite an apple. … Ross slid into the room. … He listened for some minutes, glad of the scene, glad of the music and the bordering quiet. That was what he came home for. He stepped silently across the room and kissed the back of her neck. She squeaked, and the spinet stopped on a discord. “A slip o’ the finger and—phit!—yer dead,” said Ross in Jud’s voice. “Judas! You give me a fright, Ross. Always I’m getting frights of some sort. No wonder I’m a bag of nerves. This is a new device, creepin’ in like a tomcat.”
