I was so transported that I believe I should have knelt before Santonio but that, as lightly as he had spoken, he had turned again away. It was as if he had not said those words, so unaltered was his face, with those curved eyebrows; and I wished he had left me alone altogether, I felt so insignificant. It was a good thing for me that now there entered footmen very stately, with silver trays, upon which they carried coffee, very strong and cold, and chilly green tea. We helped ourselves, every one, and then it was I really began to enjoy the exclusion with which we had been visited; for we all seemed shut in and belonging to each other. The pianist primo joked with Santonio, and Mr. Westley attacked Davy, while Newton and the man in the blue coat with bright buttons wore the subject of the festival to a thread; for the former had been away, and the latter had been there, and the latter enlightened the former, and more than enlightened him, and where his memory failed, invented, never knowing that I, who had been present, was listening and judging,—as Clara said, "he was making up stories;" and indeed it was a surprise for me to discover such an imagination dwelling in a frame so adipose.
Santonio at last attracted our whole attention by pouring his coffee into the fire, and asking a footman, who had re-entered with wafers and tea-cakes, for some more coffee that was hot; and while we were all laughing very loud, another footman, a shade more pompous than this, threw back the folding-doors that divided us from the impenetrable saloon. As those doors stood open we peeped in.
"How many people there are!" said I.
"Yes," said Clara, "but they are not very wise."
"Why do you suppose not?"
"First, because they have set the piano close up against the wall. Mr. Davy will have it out, I know."
"I see a great many young ladies in pink frocks,—I suppose the Miss Redferns."
"See that man, Master Auchester, who is looking down at the legs of the piano, to find out how they are put on."
And thus we talked and laughed until Santonio had finished his coffee, quite as if no one was either in that room or in the next.
"It was not warm, after all," said he to Mirandos; but this was in a lower tone, and he put on an air of hauteur withal that became him wonderfully. Then I found that we had all become very quiet, and there had grown a hush through the next room, so that it looked like a vast picture, of chandeliers all light, tall glasses, ruddy curtains, and people gayly yet lightly dressed. The men in there spoiled the picture, though,—they none of them looked comfortable: men seldom do in England at an evening party. Our set, indeed, looked comfortable enough, though Davy was a little pale; I very well knew why. At last in came the footman again; he spoke to the gentleman in the blue coat with bright buttons. He bowed, looked red, and walked up to Davy. Miss Benette's song came first, I knew; and I declare the blood quite burned at my heart with feeling for her. How little I knew her really! Almost before I could look for her, she was gone from my side; I watched her into the next room. She walked across it just as she was used to cross her own little lonely room at home, except that she just touched Davy's arm. As she had predicted, he drew the piano several feet from the wall,—it was a grand piano—and she took her place by him. As serenely, as seriously, with that bright light upon her face which was as the sunshine amidst those lamps, she seemed, and I believe was, as serene, as serious, as when at home over her exquisite broidery. No music was before Davy as he commenced the opening symphony of one of Weber's most delighting airs. The public was just fresh from the pathos of Weber's early death, and everybody rushed to hear his music. She began with an intensity that astonished even me,—an ease that so completely instilled the meaning that I ceased to be alarmed or to tremble for her. Her voice even then held promise of what it has since become, as perfectly as does the rose-bud, half open, contain the rose. I have seen singers smile while they sang; I have watched them sing with the tears upon their cheeks: yet I never saw any one sing so seriously as Miss Benette, calmly, because it is her nature, and above all, with an evident facility so peculiar that I have ceased to reverence conquered difficulties so much as I believe I ought to do for the sake of art. Everybody was very quiet, quieter than at many public concerts; but this audience was half stupefied with curiosity, as well as replete with the novelty of the style itself. Everybody who has enthusiasm knows the effect of candle-light upon the brain during the performance of music anywhere, and just as we were situated there was a strange romance, I thought. Santonio stood upon the rug; a very sweet expression sat upon his lips,—I thought even he was enchanted; and when Clara was silent and had come back again so quietly, without any flush upon her face, I thought he would surely come too and compliment her. But no, he was to play himself, and had taken out his violin.