Eleven times did poor Pauline attack it and eleven times did she have a breakdown. It was not always the D flat that caused the downfall, though Miss Bibby found herself listening with nerves a-stretch every time the difficult bar approached. And she felt inclined to cry with thankfulness everytime the child went smoothly past. But then just as surely as her nervous tension released itself, and she began to comfort herself that the concluding page could not fail to go well, a stumble, a slip, a despairing cry from the piano stool, and the whole performance began again.
“Oh, make her stop, Miss Bibby,” implored Muffie; “she intrupts me dreadf’lly, and I’m in the middle of telling about the fat lady that rides on a bicycle.”
“Make her stop,” said Max, she “intlups me worse. I’ll never get my letter done.” Max, except for a wavy line or two in red chalk generally confined his correspondence to enclosing tangible sections of things in which he was interested at the time. To-day he had stuffed into his envelope a clipping from the tail of Larkin’s horse, one of the white daisies Trike was being nourished upon, some shavings of coloured chalks from a box [p84] on which he had just expended his final penny, and a few currants from his last drop cake.
“I’m getting all my chalks mixed up with her intlupting me,” he complained, looking angrily towards the piano where the devoted Pauline still battled madly with the Serenade.
“Pauline, my dear child, I shall go out of my senses if you play the thing again,” Miss Bibby said desperately, as Pauline for the twelfth time began the clashing chords that opened the piece, and served as contrast for the gentler music of the Serenade itself.
“I’ve—I’ve sworn to myself to get it right,” said Pauline wildly. Her lips were quivering, her eyes were full of tears, her very hands were shaking with weariness.
“You shouldn’t swear,” began Miss Bibby.
“The butcher does,” volunteered Max.
“I—I mean it is wrong to bind oneself by a promise one may not be able to keep,” Miss Bibby added hastily. “And you are not to talk to the butcher, Max. Shut the piano now, Pauline, and another time when you are quite calm——”
“I’ve got it w-w-written,” sobbed Pauline, fighting with the keys through a mist of tears.