“Yes, I must acknowledge that he is tolerably good-looking.”
Chapter XVIII
The Concert
PHILIP’S manager had consented, although rather reluctantly, that the boy should play a night or two before the concert at the house of Lord Ashden’s friend, the duchess, who had shown him so much kindness upon his arrival in London. She had gathered together three or four score of her particular friends, who belonged to the most critical musical set in London, and when Lord Ashden looked around the room and began to discern the character of the audience, he glanced rather anxiously at Philip.
Never before had he been so impressed with the boy’s extreme youth, and with his entire simplicity and unconsciousness, as he came modestly forward with his pretty air of being genuinely pleased by the sound of clapping hands which greeted him; and as he flashed upon the company one of his sunny smiles the women murmured, “What a little love!” and the men, many of them hardened concert-goers, drew up their chairs, prepared to listen with some curiosity to this fragile morsel of humanity, of whose wonderful playing they had heard such great things from their hostess.
“He hardly looks as though he had strength enough to handle the bow through such a difficult selection as he has chosen to begin his programme with,” said a stout violincellist; “but we shall see.”
Philip played his best, and as usual, after the first bar or two, he forgot all about himself and his audience, and thought only of the music before him. The second selection he played without notes, and with a sympathy and abandon which astonished his hearers; and the final number of the programme finished, as he lowered his bow and stood for a moment in the centre of the room, there was a hush of astonishment and pleasure. Then the applause began, lasting for full five minutes, while the people gathered around Philip, shaking hands and kissing him, the older musicians among the first to pay their willing tribute to his genius.
“He is wonderful—marvellous!” Lord Ashden heard them saying on all sides. “What a career he has ahead of him!” And in the midst of it all he felt a warm little hand slipped into his, and Philip’s voice whispered:
“Come, dear Lord Ashden, let us go home.”