'You have drifted to wise purpose——'You must have studied much?'
'In my youth. Not since. An artist! Ah! how I envy artists! They believe; they aspire; even if they never attain, they are happy, happy in their very torment, and through it, like lovers.'
'But your talent——'
'Ah, Madame, it is only talent; it is nothing else. The feu sacré is wanting.'
She looked at him with some curiosity.
'Perhaps the habit of the world has put out that fire: it often does. But if even it be only talent, what a beautiful talent it is! To carry all that store of melody safe in your memory—it is like having sunlight and moonlight ever at command.'
Lizst had more than once summoned the spirits of Heaven to his call there in that same room in Hohenszalras; and since his touch no one had ever made the dumb notes speak as this stranger could do, and the subdued power of his voice added to the melody he evoked. The light of the lamps filled with silvery shadows the twilight of the chamber; the hues of the tapestries, of the ivories, of the gold and silver work, of the paintings, of the embroideries, made a rich chiaro-oscuro of colour; the pine cones and the dried thyme burning on the hearth shed an aromatic smell on the air; there were large baskets and vases full of hothouse roses and white lilies from the gardens; she sat by the hearth, left in shadow except where the twilight caught the gleam of her pearls and the shine of her eyes; she listened, the jewels on her hand glancing like little stars as she slowly waved to and fro a feather screen in rhythm with what he sang or played: so might Mary Stuart have looked, listening to Rizzio or Ronsard. 'She is a queen!' he thought, and he sang—
'Si j'étais Roi!'
'Go on!' she said, as he paused; he had thrown eloquence and passion into the song.
'Shall I not tire you?'