Was it any wonder if a faint thrill of pleasure and triumph swelled the girl's heart as her white hands fluttered lovingly over the pearl keys?
She remembered last year. How ashamed she had felt that she could not play; how the young girls had looked at her pityingly and, she vaguely fancied, disdainfully, because she knew so little.
They did not know how hard she had practiced since. Everyone was surprised that she should try after Ronald Valchester.
He himself looked at her a little uneasily. Everyone expected a failure.
Walter Earle opened the portfolio of music and held it open before her, but she shook her head.
"No, I will play something from memory," she said.
"Now I know she will make a failure," Violet said to herself, "for my music-teacher always told me never to play without my notes before me."
But Violet made no allowance for genius, which acknowledges no law, and is sufficient unto itself.
Jaquelina touched a key or two softly so that the sound seemed to be the answer to a caress, then her hands began to fly across the keys like white-winged birds.