The young man advanced into the group a little awkwardly, rubbing his eyes as if waking from a dream.
The baron, standing by the piano, glanced at him sharply under lowered lids. His lips took on a little smile, not unkind, but full of secret amusement.
The musician passed him without a glance, and, seating himself at the piano, threw back his head with an impatient gesture. He turned swiftly the leaves of music that stood on the rack before him.
"Sing this," he said briefly.
He struck a few chords, and they gathered about him, taking up their parts with a careless familiarity and skill. It was Haydn's "Creation." They had sung it many times, but a new power was in it to-night. The music lifted them. The touch on the keys held the sound, and shaped it, and filled it with light.
When it was finished they glanced at one another. They smiled; then they looked at the player. He sat wrapped in thought, his head bowed, his fingers touching the keys with questioning touch. They moved back noiselessly and waited. When he was like this, they did not disturb him.
The melody crept out at last, the strange, haunting Hungarian air, with unrest and sadness and passion and sweetness trembling through it.
The baron started as he heard it. He moved carelessly to the window and stood with his back to the room, looking out.
The countess looked up with a startled air. She glanced inquiringly toward her husband. He was leaning forward, a look of interest on his dark face. The child at his knee shrank a little. Her eyes were full of a strange light. On the opposite side of the room her sister Marie sat unmoved, her placid doll eyes resting on the player with a look of gentle content.
The passionate note quickened. Something uncanny and impure had crept into it. It raised its head and hissed a little and was gone, gliding away among the low notes and losing itself in a rustling wave of sound.... The music trembled a moment and was still; then the passion burst in a flood upon them. Dark chasms opened; strange, wild fastnesses shut them in; storm and license and evil held them. Blinding flashes fell on them. Slowly the player emerged into a wide sunlit place. The music filled it. Winds blew from the four quarters to meet it, and the air was full of melody.