Mrs. Duff-Scott had followed the direction of his eyes, and her attention was violently arrested by the figures of the three girls sitting together, who were so remarkably unlike the majority of Mrs. Aarons's guests. She took note of all their superficial peculiarities in a moment, and the conviction that the lace and the pearls were real flashed across her like an inspiration. "Is it the young lady with the bright eyes?" she inquired. "What a charming face! Yes, Herr Wüllner, we will ask her. Introduce her to me, Mrs. Aarons, will you?"
She rose as she spoke and sailed towards Patty, Mrs. Aarons following; and Paul Brion held his breath while he waited to see how his reckless enterprise would turn out. In a few minutes Patty came towards the piano, with her head up and her face flushed, looking a little defiant, but as self-possessed as the great lady who convoyed her across the room. The events of the evening had roused her spirit, and strung up her nerves like Herr Wüllner's fiddle-strings, and she, too, was in a daring and audacious mood.
"This is it," said the old musician, looking at her critically as he gave a sheet of manuscript into her hand. It was a wonderful chance, of course, but Patty had seen the facsimile of that manuscript many times before, and had played from it. It is true she had never played with the violin accompaniment—had never so much as seen a violin until she came to Melbourne; but her mother had contrived to make her understand how the more delicate and sensitive instrument ought to be deferred to in the execution of the piano part, and what the whole should sound like, by singing the missing air in her flexible trilling voice; and just now she was in that peculiar mood of exaltation that she felt inspired to dare anything and assured that she should succeed. "You will not be able to read it?" Herr Wüllner suggested persuasively, drawing hope from her momentary silence.
"Oh, yes," she said, looking up bravely: "I think so. You will stop me, please, if I do not play it right." And she seated herself at the piano with a quiet air of knowing what she was doing that confounded the two ladies who were watching her and deeply interested Mrs. Duff-Scott. Paul Brion's heart was beating high with anticipated triumph. Herr Wüllner's heart, on the contrary, sank with a mild despair.
"Well, we will have a few bars," he sighed. "And pray, my dear young lady, don't bang the piano—I mean don't play over me. And try to keep time. But you will never do it—with the best intentions, my dear, you will never be able to read it from such a manuscript as that."
Patty looked up at him with a sort of radiant calmness, and said gently, "Go on. You see you have an opening movement to yourself."
Bewildered, the old man dropped his bow upon the strings, and set forth on his hopeless task. And at exactly the right moment the piano glided in, so lightly, so tenderly, and yet with such admirable precision and delicate clearness, that it justified, for once, its trespass upon ground that belonged to more aerial instruments. It was just what Paul Brion had counted on—though Paul Brion had not the least idea what a wild chance had brought about the fulfilment of his expectations. Patty was able to display her chief accomplishment to the very best advantage, and the sisters were thereby promoted to honour. The cold shade of neglect and obscurity was to chill them no more from this happy moment. It was a much greater triumph than Patty herself had any idea of, or than anybody had had the least reason to expect. She knew that piles of music, all in this self-same handwriting (she had never seen any other and supposed that all manuscript music was alike), were stowed away in the old bureau at home, and in the ottoman which she had constructed out of a packing-case, and that long familiarity had made it as easy to her to read as print; but Herr Wüllner was not in a position to make the faintest guess at such a circumstance. When Elizabeth moved her seat nearer to the piano, as if to support her sister, though he was close enough to see it, he did not recognise in the miniature round her neck the face of that young lady of genius who eloped with a scapegrace, and was supposed to have been drowned at sea with her husband. And yet it was that lady's face. Such wonderful coincidences are continually happening in our small world. It was not more wonderful than that Herr Wüllner, Mrs. Duff-Scott, Paul Brion, and Patty King should have been gathered together round one piano, and that piano Mrs. Aarons's.
The guests were laughing and talking and flirting, as they were wont to do under cover of the music that generally prevailed at these Friday receptions, when an angry "Hush!" from the violinist, repeated by Mrs. Duff-Scott, made a little circle of silence round the performers. And in this silence Patty carried through her responsible undertaking with perfect accuracy and the finest taste—save for a shadowy mistake or two, which, glancing over them as if they were mere phantoms of mistakes, and recovering herself instantly, only served to show more clearly the finished quality of her execution, and the thoroughness of her musical experience. She was conscious herself of being in her very best form.
"Ah!" said Herr Wüllner, drawing a long breath as he uttered the exclamation, and softly laying down his violin, "I was mistaken. My dear young lady, allow me to beg your pardon, and to thank you." And he bowed before Patty until his nose nearly touched his knees.
Mrs. Duff-Scott, who was a woman of impulses, as most nice women are, was enthusiastic. Not only had she listened to Patty's performance with all her intelligent ears, but she had at the same time investigated and appraised the various details of her personal appearance, and been particularly interested in that bit of lace about her neck.