Ascher saved us from a heated argument. Dinner was over. He had smoked his half cigarette. He rose from his chair.
“I expect Mr. Wendall is waiting for us,” he said to Mrs. Ascher.
Her face softened as he spoke. The look of fanatical enthusiasm passed out of her eyes. She got up quietly and left the room. Ascher held the door open for her and motioned me to follow her. He took my arm as we passed together down a long corridor.
“Mr. Wendall,” he said, “is a young musician who comes to play to us every week. He is a man with a future before him. I think you will enjoy his playing. We are going to the music room.”
We went through a small sitting-room, more fully furnished than any other in Ascher’s house. It looked as if it were meant to be inhabited by ordinary human beings. It was reserved, so I learned afterwards, for the use of Ascher’s guests. We ascended a short flight of stairs and entered the music room. Unlike the dining-room it was only partially lit. A single lamp stood on a little table near the fireplace, and there were two candles on a grand piano in the middle of the room. These made small spots of light in a space of gloom. I felt rather than saw that the room was a large one. I discerned the shapes of four tall, curtainless windows. I saw that except the piano and a few seats near the fireplace there was no furniture. As we entered I heard the sound of an organ, played very softly, somewhere above me.
“Mr. Wendall is here,” said Ascher.
He led me over to the fireplace and put me in a deep soft chair. He laid a box of cigarettes beside me and set a vase of spills at my right hand. I gathered that I might smoke, so long as I lit my tobacco noiselessly, with spills kindled in the fire; but that I must not make scratchy sounds by striking matches. Mrs. Ascher sank down in a corner of a large sofa. She lay there with parted lips and half-closed eyes, like some feline creature expectant of sensuous delight. The light from the lamp behind her and the flickering fire played a strange game of shadow-making and shadow-chasing among the folds of her scarlet gown. Ascher sat down beside her.
The organ was played very softly. I found out that it was placed in a gallery above the door by which we had entered. I saw the pipes, like a clump of tall spears, barely discernible in the gloom. There was no light in the gallery. Mr. Wendall was no doubt there and was able to play without seeing a printed score. I supposed that he was playing the music of the new Russian composer. Whatever he played he failed to catch my attention, though the sounds were vaguely soothing. I found myself thinking that Mrs. Ascher had no right to be furiously angry with the people of Belfast for making their churches comfortable. This was her form of worship, and never were any devotees more luxuriously placed than we were. If her soul can soar to spiritual heights from the depths of silken cushions, surely a linen-draper may find it possible to pray in a cushioned pew.
I was mistaken about the music I was listening to. Mr. Wendall was only soothing his nerves with organ sounds while he waited for us. When he discovered our presence he left the gallery and descended to the room in which we sat, by a narrow stairway. No greeting of any kind passed between him and the Aschers. He went straight to the piano without giving any sign that he knew of our presence. I lit a cigarette and prepared to endure what was in store for me.
At first the new Russian music struck me as merely noisy. I found no sense or rhythm in it. Then I began to feel slightly excited. The excitement grew on me in a curious way. I looked at the Aschers. He was sitting nearly bolt upright, very rigid, in a corner on the sofa. She lay back, as she had lain before, with her hands on her lap. The only change that I noted in her attitude was that her fists were clenched tightly. Mr. Wendall stopped playing abruptly. There was a short interval of silence, through which I seemed to feel the last chord that was struck vibrating in my spine.