There was a pause as he finished this song. Jerome half-rose from the piano, but a voice cried from the window:
‘We have not had the test yet, Mr. Wellfield. Give us a love-song. Give us Adeläida.’
Sara saw, even from her place in the background, the expression that flashed into the young man’s eyes, and over his face.
‘Good!’ was all he said, as he sat down again, and that melodious, significant single F was struck—that note which is the prelude to the sea of love and fire and passion which follows.
Sara sat pale and composed in her place, but feeling as if everyone in the room must see and observe that she was blushing furiously—so burningly hot were her cheeks. Each time that the notes ‘Adeläida’ rang out, she felt that she was apostrophised—the company, and the lighted room oppressed her—yet she looked, to one who was observing her from the other side of the room, grave, quiet, almost tired.
When the last notes had died away, Wellfield rose very decidedly, nor could he be prevailed upon to sing another note. The company clustered round him, thanked him, and congratulated him; asked to be introduced to him, and dispersed. Dancing began again, and still Sara sat as if spell-bound, in the place where he had left her.
‘I have come to know if you approved?’ murmured Jerome’s voice beside her.
She looked up, and met his eyes with an expression in them, before which her own in vain tried to remain calm and untroubled.
‘If I approved?’ she said, indistinctly. ‘How can you ask?’
Jerome was leaning against the wall, looking down at her—looking, too, as undisturbed as if he had been asking her whether she would have an ice. In the same manner, with the same tone, so low that none but she could hear it, he added: