"Oh, thank you! Thank you!" he said in a high, fervent voice. "How wonderful that is! And you played it as Crouchmann plays it—the only interpretation! I know him quite well. We had supper together the other night after his concert, and he told me—no, that won't interest you. I'll tell you another time, remind me! Now, do play something else!"
He fumbled with the music upon the piano with tremulous and unsteady hands.
"Ah! here we are!" he cried, and there was an insistent note of familiarity in his voice. "The book of Valses! You know the twelfth of course? Tempo giusto! It goes like this . . ."
He began to hum, quite musically, and to wave his hands.
Muriel Amberley glanced quickly at her father and there was distress in her eyes.
Amberley was standing by the piano in a moment. He seemed very much master of himself, serene and dominant, by the side of Gilbert Lothian. His face was coldly civil and there was disgust in his eyes.
"I don't think my daughter will play any more, Mr. Lothian," he said.
An ugly look flashed out upon the poet's face, suspicion and realisation showed there for a second and passed.
He became nervous, embarrassed, almost pitiably apologetic. The savoir-faire which would have helped some men to take the rebuke entirely deserted him. There was something assiduous, almost vulgar, a frightened acceptance of the lash indeed, which immensely accentuated the sudden défaillance and break-down.
In the big drawing room no one spoke at all.