Pauline rose to the occasion magnificently; she was never afraid of herself; but she had the incentive of a desire to shine more in some company than in others. She always wished to impress the Toriallis, and to-day she wished to make them feel that they had made a mistake in passing her over for Hester Lévi. Jean played faultlessly. He did not desire to shine and he had quite forgotten Torialli and Pauline, but he had not forgotten that he was playing to a lover of music, and he played to satisfy her and please the child that had smiled at him out of Gabrielle’s eyes.
Pauline’s voice was hard, tuneless, and without emotion; it was a good organ, and it had been well trained. Like all her other acquisitions she had done the best she could with it, and for want of something better, which can never be done to anything, it yet failed to please.
To-day she took her notes with deliberate skill and threw into their rendering a dramatic force which she had never shown before; and so interweaving with her voice that it almost seemed one being, Jean gave the velvet and tenderness, the fire and magic of the music in his heart and under his flying finger-tips.
Torialli leaned back in his seat with drawn brows and seemed to be listening with his small light eyes as well as with his ears. He hardly spoke at all during the performance; once or twice he called to Pauline to repeat a phrase, but he made no comment till the end. Then he sprang from his seat, rushed across the stage, and flinging his arms round Jean, embraced him on both cheeks.
“But my dear young man! my good young man! You have music in your fingers, but it is there, I tell you, the real thing we are working for, and listening for, and trying to drag out all day long! And you kept it up, you kept it up! You got into her big brass voice and made it yield up gold! You must come and play for us! Gabrielle, arrange something this instant! I cannot afford to lose sight of such an excellent talent!”
Fortunately, perhaps, Pauline could not follow Torialli’s rapid French; she only understood enough of it to know that Jean had succeeded; and she knew that she herself had never sung so well before.
“I’m right glad you’re pleased,” she said to Torialli. “Monsieur D’Ucelles helped my voice a lot, I know. It’s something to have a man who knows how to play. You don’t suppose I could have sung like that if your secretary had been at the piano.”
Madame Torialli laughed. Her voice was like the deeper note of a silver bell.
“Our poor little Louis!” she said, “is not a musical genius, perhaps, but you know we couldn’t do with him so well if he was; and you will not think me conceited if I say that when I look for genius—I turn to my husband!”
Madame gave Jean a charming compensating smile; she seemed to be saying that he must excuse her for appearing not to take his part; she must do what was safe and wise, but at the same time she had, perhaps, other ideas.