“Either you will stay where you are, or I will not play.”
“I shall do as I please, Mr Jack. You have Mademoiselle Sczympliça to play for. I cannot stay here alone.”
“Mr Herbert will take care of you.”
“I do not choose to disturb Mr Herbert.”
“Well, well, here is your brother. Hush! — if you call him Charlie aloud here, he will be sulky. Mr Sutherland.”
“What’s the matter?” said Charlie gratefully. Jack handed Mary over to him and presently went to the piano at the invitation of the old gentleman he had pointed out, who wore a gold badge on his coat as one of the stewards of the entertainment. He had composed a symphony — his second — that year for the Antient Orpheus: a laborious, conscientious, arid symphony, full of unconscious pickings and stealings from Mendelssohn, his favorite master, scrupulously worked up into the strictest academic form. It was a theme from this symphony that Jack now sounded on the pianoforte with one finger.
“That is not very polite.” said Mr Phipson, after explaining this to the Polish lady. “Poor Maclagen! He does not seem to like having his theme treated in that fashion.”
“If he intends it derisively,” said Adrian indignantly, “it is in execrable taste. Mr Maclagan ought to leave the room.”
“You think like me, Monsieur Herbert,” said Mademoiselle Szczympliça “All must be forgiven to Monsieur Jacques; but he should not insult those who are less fortunately gifted than he. Besides, it is an old man.”
Jack then began improvising on the theme with a capriciousness of which the humor was lost on the majority of the guests. He treated it with an eccentricity which burlesqued his own style, and then with a pedantry which burlesqued that of the composer. At last, abandoning this ironical vein when it had culminated in an atrociously knock-kneed fugato, he exercised his musical fancy in earnest, and succeeded so well that Maclagan felt tempted to rewrite the middle section of the movement from which the subject was taken. The audience professed to be delighted, and were in truth dazzled when Jack finished by a commonplace form of variation in which he made a prodigious noise with his left hand, embroidered by showers of arpeggios with his right.
“ Magnificent!” said Mr Phipson, applauding. “Splendid.”
“Ah!” said Mdlle Szczympliça, sighing, “if I had but his strength, I should fear no competitor.”
“Is it possible,” said Herbert, “that you, who play so beautifully, can envy such a man as that. I would rather hear you play for one minute than listen to him for an hour.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Alas!” she said, “you know what I can do; and you are so good as to flatter me that I do it well. But I! I know what I cannot do.”
“How are you, Mademoiselle?” said Jack, approaching them without staying to answer several persons who were congratulating him. “Good evening, Mr Herbert. Ah, Mr Phipson.”
“Mademoiselle Szczympliça has been paying you a high compliment — I fully agree with Mr Herbert that it is an exaggerated one,” said Phipson, “She wishes she could play like you.”
“And so Mr Herbert thinks ‘God forbid! does he? Well, he is right Why do you want to trample on the pianoforte as I do, Fraulein, when you can do so much better? What would you think of a skiff on the waters envying the attempts of a cavalry charger to swim?”
“I see from your playing how far I fall short in the last movement of the fantasia, Monsieur Jacqes. I am not strong enough to play it as you think it should be played. Ah yes, yes, yes; but I know — I know.”
“No, Mademoiselle; nor are you strong enough to dance the wardance as an Iroquois Indian thinks it should be danced. The higher you attain, the more you leave below you. Eh, Mr Herbert?”
“I am not a musician,” said Herbert, irritated by Jack’s whimsical appeals to him. “My confirmation of your opinion would not add much to its value.”
“Come,” said Jack: “I care nothing for professional opinions. According to them, I do not know the rudiments of music. Which would you rather hear the Fraulein play or me?”
“Since you compel me to express a preference, I had rather hear Mademoiselle Sczympliça.”
“I thought so,” said Jack, delighted “Now I must go back to Miss Sutherland, who has been left to take care of herself whilst I was playing.”
Herbert reddened. Jack nodded and walked away.
“Miss — Miss — , I cannot say it. She is the young lady who was with you at the concert, when Monsieur Feepzon introduced us. She is very dark, and wears lunettes. Is not that so?”
“Yes.”
“She is not stiff, like some of the English ladies. Is she a great friend of yours?”
“She — Her elder brother, who is married to Mrs Phipson’s daughter, was at school with me; and we were great friends.”
“Perhaps I should not have asked you. I fear I often shock your English ideas of reserve. I beg your pardon.”
“Not at all,” said Herbert, annoyed at himself for having betrayed his uneasiness. “Pray do not let any fear of our national shyness — for it is not really reserve — restrain you from questioning me whenever you are interested in anything concerning me. If you knew how much I prize that interest—” She drew back a little; and he stopped, afraid to go on without encouragement, and looking wistfully at her in the hope of seeing some in her face.
“How do you call this lady who is going to sing?” she said, judging it better to ask an irrelevant question than to look down and blush. Jack’s voice, speaking to Mary close by, interrupted them.
“I can listen to Josefs because he can play the fiddle,” said he, “and to Szczympliça because she can play the piano; and I would listen to her” — pointing to the singer — if she could sing. She is only about four years older than you; and already she dare attempt nothing that cannot be screamed through by main force. She has become what they call a dramatic singer, which means a singer with a worn out voice. Come, make haste: she is going to begin.”
“But perhaps she will feel hurt by your leaving the room. Now that you are famous, you cannot come and go unnoticed, as I can.”
“So much the worse for those who notice me. I hate singers, a miserable crew who think that music exists only in their own throats. There she goes with her Divinités du Styx. Come away God’s sake.”
“I think this room is the pleas — No, I do not — Let us go.”
Mary’s habitual look of resolution had gathered into a frown. They went back to the settee which was now deserted: Mrs Phipson and her neighbors having gone to hear the music.
Ä penny for your thoughts,” said Jack, sitting down beside Mary. “Are you jealous?”
She started and said “What do you mean?” Then, recovering herself a little, “Jealous of whom; and why?”
“Jealous of Sczympliça because Master Herbert seems to forget that there anyone else in the whole world tonight.”
“] did not notice his absorption. I am sure she is very welcome. He ought to be tired of me by this time.”
“You think to hoodwink me, do you? I saw you watching him the whole time she was playing. I wish you would quarrel with him.”
“Why do you wish that.”
“Because I am tired of him. If you were well rid of the fellow, you would stick to your music; pitch your nasty oil paints into the Thames; and be friendly to me without accusing yourself of treason to him. He is the most uncomfortable chap I know, and the one least suited