"How clever those women are," said Mann. "Madame Wtorkowska is not worth a sou, and look how they dress, how they live."
"I suspect the object of this visit," whispered Simon. "It is a chase organized against Jacob. I pity him if he falls into their hands."
While they were talking, Muse drew near the piano and looked at the music before Mathilde. It was a composition of Schumann's, and as Jacob was near her she asked him:--
"Do you remember our promenades with Mathilde? Are you as serious as ever?"
"Always the same, mademoiselle, with the difference, perhaps, that age has augmented my failing."
During this conversation Mathilde felt her heart beat violently. Father Simon made from afar some warning gestures, and finished by approaching the piano. Muse greeted him coldly as an enemy, but just then some one asked her to play something.
"With pleasure," said she; "I love music, and I never refuse to play. Above all, I love Schumann the best."
She executed one of those fantastic reveries where grief gushes out in poignant notes like drops of blood.
She played admirably and with much expression. An actress even in music, she expressed ravishingly the sentiments which she could not feel.
She was warmly applauded. Mathilde, who was herself an excellent musician, found new food for thought in this manner of interpreting a composition that she loved. Jacob praised, but coldly. Father Simon took him by the arm and drew him aside.