It is Selina's turn to sing now, and she has chosen a grand aria from "Lucrezia Borgia." She is a pupil of Frau Marchesi's, and she has a fine voice,--that is to say, a voice of unusual compass and power, which might perhaps have made a reputation on the stage, but which is far from agreeable in a drawing room. It is like the blowing of trumpets in the same space.
His wife's singing is the one thing in the world which Lato absolutely cannot tolerate, and never has tolerated. Passing directly through the room, he disappears through a door opposite the one leading into the garden.
Even in the earliest years of their married life Selina always took amiss her husband's insensibility to her musical performances, and now, when she avers his indifference to her in every other respect to be a great convenience, her sensitiveness as an artist is unchanged.
Breaking off in the midst of her song, she calls after him, "Is that a protest?"
He does not hear her.
"Continuez done, ma cousine, I implore you," the Pole murmurs.
With redoubled energy, accompanying herself, Countess Selina sings on, only dropping her hands from the keys when she has executed a break-neck cadenza by way of final flourish. Fainacky, meanwhile, gracefully leaning against the instrument, listens ecstatically, with closed eyes.
"Selina, you are an angel!" he exclaims, when she has finished. "Were I in Treurenberg's place you should sing to me from morning until night."
"My husband takes no pleasure in my singing; at the first sound of my voice he leaves the room, as you have just seen. He has no more taste for music than my poodle."
"Extraordinary!" the Pole says, indignantly. And then, after a little pause, he adds, musingly, "I never should have thought it. The day I arrived here, you remember, I came quite unexpectedly; and, looking for some one to announce me, I strayed into this very room----" He hesitates.