And then Little Billee remembered there was such a person as Svengali in the world, and recalled his little flexible flageolet!
"That is how I teach Gecko; that is how I teach la bedite Honorine; that is how I teach il bel canto.... It was lost, il bel canto—and I found it in a dream—I, Svengali!"
And his old cosmic vision of the beauty and sadness of things, the very heart of them, and their pathetic evanescence, came back with a tenfold clearness—that heavenly glimpse beyond the veil! And with it a crushing sense of his own infinitesimal significance by the side of this glorious pair of artists, one of whom had been his friend and the other his love—a love who had offered to be his humble mistress and slave, not feeling herself good enough to be his wife!
It made him sick and faint to remember, and filled him with hot shame, and then and there his love for Trilby became as that of a dog for its master!
She sang once more—"Chanson de Printemps," by Gounod (who was present, and seemed very hysterical), and the first part of the concert was over, and people had time to draw breath and talk over this new wonder, this revelation of what the human voice could achieve; and an immense hum filled the hall—astonishment, enthusiasm, ecstatic delight!
But our three friends found little to say—for what they felt there were as yet no words!
Taffy and the Laird looked at Little Billee, who seemed to be looking inward at some transcendent dream of his own; with red eyes, and his face all pale and drawn, and his nose very pink, and rather thicker than usual; and the dream appeared to be out of the common blissful, though his eyes were swimming still, for his smile was almost idiotic in its rapture!
The second part of the concert was still shorter than the first, and created, if possible, a wilder enthusiasm.
Trilby only sang twice.