"Come," she said, "I want you to play for me. I'm so fond of music, and I've heard that you play beautifully."
"Ah, but I don't," Elizabeth protested; but still she allowed herself to be led to the piano, without undue reluctance. And then that grand piano, with the name of the maker had been tempting her to try it ever since dinner-time.
After all, it is doubtful if Mrs. Bobby cared so very much for music; but it is possible she knew of some one else who did. Elizabeth had a gift which had come to her, Heaven knows how!—a gift in which far greater pianists are sometimes lacking—the power to throw herself into what she played and to infuse into it something of her own personality. Her playing seemed no mere, mechanical repetition of what she had been taught, but the unstudied, spontaneous expression of her own thoughts and feelings. As she passed at Mrs. Bobby's request from one thing to another, mingling more set compositions with fragments from operas and songs of the day, the conversation between Mrs. Hartington and Gerard slackened, and he glanced more and more frequently towards the piano.
"Music is rather a bore—isn't it—after dinner this way," drawled Mrs. Hartington, noticing this fact.
"I don't think I agree with you. I'm fond of music," said Gerard, and after awhile he found an opportunity to saunter over to the piano, where Elizabeth sat playing, a little absently now, bits from Wagner. She started and looked up, blushing slightly, as Gerard asked her if she could play the Fire-music.
"I—it is a long time since I have tried it," she began, impelled by some vague instinct to refuse, and then she stopped, and almost unconsciously her fingers touched the keys, as she caught a look that seemed to compel obedience. He smiled.
"Please play it," he said, and though the tone was caressing, there lurked in it a half perceptible note of command. She felt it, as she began to play, and he stood listening, his grave eyes fixed upon her face. "A severe judge," she thought to herself with a proud little thrill of rebellion. And then, as she played on, she forgot this thought, and the fear of his criticism; forgot the strange room, and the strange people, and the fact that she was dining at the Van Antwerps'; forgot everything but the eyes fixed upon her, and played as she had never played before.
Elizabeth had always put the best of herself into her music, her finest qualities of brain and soul. But now she put into it something of which she before was hardly conscious, a force and depth and fire, which stirred inarticulately within her, and found expression in the throbbing Wagnerian chords. All the magic of the fairy spell thrilled beneath her touch, as it rose and fell and wove itself in and out amidst the clash of conflicting motives, while Brünnhilde sank ever deeper into slumber, and the flames leaped and danced and played about her sleeping form, and there lurked no premonition in her maiden dreams of that fatal, all-engrossing love, which was yet to awaken her from the serenity of oblivion. Then, as the rippling cadence died away, Elizabeth hesitated for a moment, striking furtive harmonies, till she passed at length into the poignant sweetness, the passionate self-surrender of the second act of Tristan, and so on to the Liebestod, with its swan-song of triumphant anguish, of love supreme even in death. With the last sobbing chord, Elizabeth's hands fell from the keys, and she sat staring straight before her, with eyes that were unusually large and dark.
"Upon my word she can play," said Bobby Van Antwerp, and looked, for him, slightly stirred. "She has temperament," Mrs. Hartington coldly responded and again honored Elizabeth with a prolonged stare. "My dear child," exclaimed Elizabeth's hostess, "I had no idea you could play like that." The only person who said nothing was the man for whom she had played. He stood motionless by the piano, and his face was white and set. When the applause of the others had ceased, and Elizabeth, blushing now and smiling, looked up at him in involuntary surprise at his silence as if from a dream, he started and then, recovering himself, he spoke mechanically a few conventional words of thanks, and without comment on her performance, turned abruptly away.
Elizabeth still sat, a trifle dazed, at the piano, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Her cheeks were burning painfully and she bit her lip to keep back the tears that sprang unbidden to her eyes. She seemed to have fallen suddenly from the clouds back to earth. After a moment she rose and went over to her hostess to say farewell.