"Thank you, Edward!" she said. "I like it where it comes in again. There! I believe it's going to come out!"
He faced round on his music-stool to receive their compliments, his eyes still glowing, and met Elizabeth's look. Perception flashed between the two, wordless and infallible. He knew for certain that she knew, knew all the exultant music meant to him, knew all the entire incompetence of his rendering. He got up and went to her.
"You play, don't you?" he said, speaking rather low. "Can't you take the taste of that out of our mouths?"
Elizabeth almost laughed for pleasure at the complete understanding so instantaneously established between them.
"Yes. What shall I play?" she asked.
"If only you happened to know that first Novelette," he said.
She raised her eyebrows.
"Shall I really?" she said. "I think I know it."
"And won't you give us that other delicious one?" said Mrs. Hancock, plastering the cards down. "The one I like next best, which is sad in the middle."
Elizabeth did not answer, but went straight over to the piano. He had shut the book from which he played, and she did not open it, for, though she suspected she might not be note-perfect, she intended to play, not to practise. Mrs. Hancock, absorbed in the patience that really was "coming out," did not notice that she had no reply to her question, and the click of her triumphant sequence of cards continued. Edith, who had not heard what had passed between the two, remembered that Elizabeth was fond of music, but felt surprised and slightly nervous at the thought that she should think of playing when the echoes of that reverberating performance still lingered in the air. But neither Elizabeth nor Edward seemed to heed her.