"What do you understand in Bach? I want to know. You must tell me what you understand. Exactly what it is that you understand and I don't. Bemolle!" she cried, still holding the visitor's sleeve. "Give me the violin!"
Bemolle jumped up and obeyed with beaming face.
"Anne-Marie, darling!" expostulated Nancy.
But Anne-Marie had the violin in her hand and wildness in her eye.
"Stay here," she said to the visitor, relinquishing his sleeve with unwilling hand, and hastily tuning the fiddle. "Now you have got to tell me what you understand in Bach." She played the first five of the thirty-two variations of the Chaconne; then she stopped.
"What does Bach mean? What have you understood?" she cried. The English musician leaned back in his chair and smiled with benevolent superiority.
"And now—now I play it differently." She played it again, varying the lights and shades, the piani and the forti. "What different thing have you understood?"
"And now—now I play it like Joachim. So, exactly so, he played it for me and with me ...
"...Now what have you understood that I have not? What has Bach said to you, and not to me, you silly man?"
Nancy took Anne-Marie's hand. "Hush, Anne-Marie! For shame!"