"Yes." Nodus held the player arm poised. "Now we'll have nineteen...."
Woodard struggled for recovery. "It's been my theory," he croaked, "that Yehudi makes them up as he goes along."
Russ stared for a moment, then went on writing.
"Do I understand," Nodus asked with cold hatred, "that you refuse to listen to a few unaccompanied Bach partitas?"
Woodard grovelled. The privilege of hearing partitas on this superlative equipment? Refuse? Oh most certainly not—He collapsed in a fit of coughing.
Mollified, Nodus said "I'll wait till you pull yourself together. Meanwhile, you may like to know that of the records my dealer sends me—and he knows my taste, mind you—I keep one in eight. And that one I exchange, on the average, three times before I find a copy I can admit...."
Woodard wanted desperately to concentrate. Here was something solid to work on. Did Nodus keep one record in eleven, or one in twenty-four? It depended, of course, on whether x equalled 8 plus 3 or 8 times 3. Surely one should be able—but he was straining beyond his limit. It was as if some mental spine, which in a past existence had sustained him, were numbed or missing.
Nodus was staring. So, with an odd, expectant smile, was the girl. To show that his wits had never left him, Woodard blurted out, "The composer never intended the music to sound like this!"
"Like what?"
"The partitas were all wrong!" Now his voice kept breaking. "A composer—and a performer—should have some say—not be fed into equipment like this and—and...." Another paroxysm prevented his concluding: "and used to start sinuses running."