And so she became the iris girl. But he did not suspect that yet. He was not looking for iris girls; it is much to his credit.
They did not notice the excitement glistening in Jonathan's eyes.
"You have been practising again," he declared.
"Just a little. And only for the fun of it. Not in earnest of course.
It's your turn now."
He said no more about her practise but got out his violin, tuned it carefully, opened a book of music before her and waited for her to play the prelude. Then, tucking the violin under his chin with an eager caressing gesture, he began to play.
That was a night of wonders to David. He was transported from a world of failures and disappointments into a delectable land where a dinky little man, armed with nothing but a horsehair bow and his own nimble fingers, compelled a gut-strung box to sing songs of love and throb with pain and dark passions and splendid triumphs. That is always magic, though some call it genius. And the magic did not cease there. It touched the player, transformed him. The homely manikin, a bit ridiculous with his mannerisms and whiskers, a trifle too obvious in his good will to others, disappeared. Where he had been stood a man strong but fine and gentle in his strength, proud and passionate, as strong men are apt to be, but brave enough to turn willingly from his chosen path because another way seemed best. David, watching the player's swaying body and transfigured face, understood, as even the blind little mother could never understand, how much her son had given to her.
"If only he could be playing always!"
Jonathan's mother slept. But for two hours the man who was no longer manikin and the girl who in real life was only a frail little bookkeeper played to David: a brilliant polonaise, a nocturne that was moonlight and shadow set to music, a concerto that only the masters attempt, a few noble old classics. Between them she sang thrice, songs chosen by Jonathan, each a little more taxing than the one before. Not once did she falter and only once, in the last song where her contralto voice had to take b-flat above middle c, was there a hint of strain.
More than rare harmonies and melodies and rhythms were coming to David. Player and singer, though they did not know it, were giving themselves to him. This was the man, and that the girl, whom—rather patronizingly, as though he were conferring a favor—he had let proffer their simple unaffected friendship! "He gave up his work of his own accord for that poor old woman who can't even guess at what it cost him. She was forced out of hers when success was in sight. I don't know which is worse. And they don't make gloomy grandeur out of it."
The last song, to which Jonathan improvised an obbligato, ended the music. Esther—for that was her name—pointed in dismay, toward the clock and the sleeping hostess.