Majestically, with ponderous bass notes and a deeper comment of short, staccato chords, the Rhapsodie began. It was as solemn as a dirge in its adagio movement, till the high treble began to flutter into the motif, and dragged it upward, with a brilliant run, into a suggestion of running water. Plunging again into the bass, the music marched firmly on, varied with higher chords, until, through the monotonous throb, a bird chirped, twittered, and trilled, and cadenza followed cadenza, plashing in and over the main theme. This variation was presently gone again in a swiftly descending arpeggio, and the adagio reasserted itself, beating out across the salon with the lingering quality of tolled bells, freeing itself at last by another run into the crystal sparkle of the treble, where the motif was repeated, ringing with fresh vigour. The bass replied with a brief word now and again, correcting the new rendering of the air that it had taught, or patiently repeating a whole phrase. But, petulantly, the treble threw off the sombre spirit of what had gone before. Again it thrilled with bird-music, and ran into the gay babble of brooks, punctuated rarely by a deeper chord, as if the water swerved round a stone, and slid, murmuring, across a level, before swinging again down a shelving reach. But, almost immediately, a new element stole in—a tremulous flutter of one note, potently suggestive of mad music to follow. Faster—faster! The flutter was interrupted by a dripping of stray notes, an octave lower, dotted, presently, with a tiny tinkling above. Then, without warning, the whole plunged into a mad vivace movement, that galloped like a living thing, was interrupted by whimsically coupled notes, gabbling up and down, and then seemed to lengthen and bound forward as if it had been spurred. There was a thunder of chromatics—hoofs pounding on a long bridge—then the tinkle of water broke in again—right at his elbow—lingered briefly, and was gone, and the hoofs were thudding on a muffling stretch of soft road. The suggestion, at first merely a fancy, grew upon him as he played. This was the gallop of which he had felt a need! He could almost see the wiry mare snapping in the wind, smell the horse and the saddle, and hear the stirrup-leathers squeaking against his boots. In spirit, at least, he put into the music the exultation, which is near to delirium, of a ride at nightfall or at dawn. The earth, which never sighs save when falling asleep or waking, sighs then, and her breath is sweet. Scents and sounds step to the roadside, and are gone again in a moment. The wind whips and whistles. And the triplicate hoof-beats pound, pound, pound out of life all that is stale, morbid, and unclean, so that it becomes a crystal dome inverted on a perfume-breathing garden, and one man whirling through space like a god, with a laugh on his lips!
Hurdles rushed at Andrew out of the music, and he rose to them, and, clearing them, would have shouted, but that the music shouted for him. He felt the familiar shock of landing, the infinitesimal pause before the recover, and then—away, away! It was life, youth, the surge and hammer of red blood through every vein, the certainty of strength and the sovereignty of success, the ineffable wine of life, filling the cup to the brim, and splashing over into the sunlight, in drops like rubies sheathed in silver.
As suddenly as it had begun, the mad, blood-stirring gallop was over. The stream tinkled and was still. The motif was repeated softly, incompletely, as if regretfully, in adagio, then paraphrased in a brilliant staccato movement, which mounted, plunged madly down from treble to bass, hesitated, and whipped out of existence in a group of crashing chords.
"I never knew you could play like that!"
Mirabelle had risen, and come across to the piano, and the words were spoken in a voice barely above a whisper. The room seemed to Andrew to be closing in around him, and out of its dwindling distance floated her face, more beautiful than he had ever seen it, but very pale and with eyes wide and startled. He did not answer directly. Thoughts as confused as the wisps of a dream but half recalled went racing through his brain. For an instant he strove to control himself, strove to remember, strove to forget. Then, as it were, a great tide of oblivion to all but the intoxication of the moment swept down upon him.
"You said," he began, "that only one thing could justify—What is it? What did you mean?"
He stood up as he spoke, came quite close to her, and took her hands.
"What did you mean?" he repeated. "Tell me—Mirabelle."
As she did not speak, he took her hand and drew her toward him, with a kind of dull wonder in his eyes. What he saw in hers he had never seen in a woman's before—a mist not wholly moisture, and tenderer than tears.
"Mirabelle!"