Taffy rang the bell, and sent a servant for Dr. Thorne, who lived close by, in Fitzroy Square.
Presently Trilby began to speak, quite softly, in French: "Encore une fois? bon! je veux bien! avec la voix blanche alors, n'est-ce pas? et puis foncer au milieu. Et pas trop vite en commençant! Battez bien la mesure, Svengali—que je puisse bien voir—car il fait déjà nuit! c'est ça! Allons, Gecko—donne-moi le ton!"
Then she smiled, and seemed to beat time softly by moving her head a little from side to side, her eyes intent on Svengali's in the portrait, and suddenly she began to sing Chopin's Impromptu in A flat.
She hardly seemed to breathe as the notes came pouring out, without words—mere vocalizing. It was as if breath were unnecessary for so little voice as she was using, though there was enough of it to fill the room—to fill the house—to drown her small audience in holy, heavenly sweetness.
She was a consummate mistress of her art. How that could be seen! And also how splendid had been her training! It all seemed as easy to her as opening and shutting her eyes, and yet how utterly impossible to anybody else!
Between wonder, enchantment, and alarm they were frozen to statues—all except Marta, who ran out of the room, crying: "Gott im Himmel! wieder zurück! wieder zurück!"
She sang it just as she had sung it at the Salle des Bashibazoucks, only it sounded still more ineffably seductive, as she was using less voice—using the essence of her voice, in fact—the pure spirit, the very cream of it.
There can be little doubt that these four watchers by that enchanted couch were listening to not only the most divinely beautiful, but also the most astounding feat of musical utterance ever heard out of a human throat.
The usual effect was produced. Tears were streaming down the cheeks of Mrs. Bagot and Little Billee. Tears were in the Laird's eyes, a tear on one of Taffy's whiskers—tears of sheer delight.
When she came back to the quick movement again, after the adagio, her voice grew louder and shriller, and sweet with a sweetness not of this earth; and went on increasing in volume as she quickened the time, nearing the end; and then came the dying away into all but nothing—a mere melodic breath; and then the little soft chromatic ascending rocket, up to E in alt, the last parting caress (which Svengali had introduced as a finale, for it does not exist in the piano score).