Elizabeth sat down, then half-rose again, and gave a twirl to the music-stool. Then she paused for a moment, with her hands before her face, and without any preliminary excursions, plunged straight into the first Novelette again. And all that had been in Edward's brain, all that could not communicate itself to his hands, streamed from her firm, soft finger-tips. The images imprisoned in his brain broke out and peopled the room with colour and with fire. Banners waved, and a throng of laughing youths passed, jewel-decked, in wonderful processions down a street of noble palaces. At every corner fresh members joined them, for on this joyful morning the whole world of those spirit-presences kept festival, and whether they sang or not, or whether the marching melody was but the sound of joy, he knew not.... Innumerable as the laughter of the sea they glittered along, until by some wonderful transformation they were the waves on a spring morning, and over them a song floated.... Or were they a field of daffodils, and over them the scent of their blossoming hovered? From the sunlight they passed into a clear blue shadow, and out of it, as out of waters, came the strain.... From shadow into sunlight again they passed, and from sunlight into waves with singing sea-birds flashing white-winged over them. Once more sun and banners, and in the sunlight a fountain of water aspired.... Where under his hands the wooden doll had tumbled from rock to rock, bouquets of rainbowed water fell from basin to basin of crystal.... And that was the first Novelette.
Mrs. Hancock had noticed the change of performer, though not at first, for it only occurred to her that Edward was playing the same piece over again. But it struck her very soon that he was not "keeping the time" with such precision as usual, and the moment afterwards that this was altogether different from the tune that kept coming in again, as rendered before. Then, looking up, she saw it was Elizabeth at the piano, and there followed a couple of obviously wrong notes. How foolish and forward of this girl to play after Edward, to play his piece, too, and make mistakes in it. And when the tune came in again she didn't put half the force into it that Edward did. Certainly she had not Edward's "touch," nor his masculine power, that stamped out the time with such vigour.
Her natural geniality prevented her saying or even hinting at any of these things, and she was extremely encouraging.
"Thank you, Elizabeth!" she said. "What a coincidence that you should be learning one of Edward's tunes. Now you have heard it played, haven't you? I am sure you will get it right in time. You must play it to Edward again next week, when you have practised, and he will see how you have got on."
"Ah, do play it again to me next week," said he, "or before next week."
"And now, Edward," said Mrs. Hancock, "do let us have the tune that gets sad in the middle."
He turned to her, with face that music still vivified.
"After that all my tunes would be sad," he said—"beginning, middle, and end. But won't Miss Fanshawe play again?"
Mrs. Hancock thought that charming of him; it was so tactful to make Elizabeth think she had played well; poor Elizabeth, with her wrong notes that any one with an ear could detect. As a matter of fact she did not care one particle who played or if anybody played, so long as her patience came out. She perceived nothing of the situation, guessed nothing about the fire from the girl's fingers which tingled in his brain.
But Edith saw more; she saw, at any rate, that something in Elizabeth's playing had enormously pleased and excited her lover. And he had said that it was surely she herself who lay behind melody, she whom he sought. She went to Elizabeth and gently pushed her back on to the music-stool.