“A strange dream!” I said to myself as we trooped upstairs. “Grown men discussing, as seriously as if they were matters of life and death, the hopelessly trivial details of mere delicacies, that appeal to no higher human function than the nerves of the tongue and palate! What a humiliating spectacle such a discussion would be in waking life!”
When, on our way to the drawing-room, I received from the housekeeper my little friends, clad in the daintiest of evening costumes, and looking, in the flush of expectant delight, more radiantly beautiful than I had ever seen them before, I felt no shock of surprise, but accepted the fact with the same unreasoning apathy with which one meets the events of a dream, and was merely conscious of a vague anxiety as to how they would acquit themselves in so novel a scene—forgetting that Court-life in Outland was as good training as they could need for Society in the more substantial world.
It would be best, I thought, to introduce them as soon as possible to some good-natured lady-guest, and I selected the young lady whose pianoforte-playing had been so much talked of. “I am sure you like children,” I said. “May I introduce two little friends of mine? This is Sylvie—and this is Bruno.”
The young lady kissed Sylvie very graciously. She would have done the same for Bruno, but he hastily drew back out of reach. “Their faces are new to me,” she said. “Where do you come from, my dear?”
I had not anticipated so inconvenient a question; and, fearing that it might embarrass Sylvie, I answered for her. “They come from some distance. They are only here just for this one evening.”
“How far have you come, dear?” the young lady persisted.
Sylvie looked puzzled. “A mile or two, I think,” she said doubtfully.
“A mile or three,” said Bruno.
“You shouldn’t say ‘a mile or three,’ ” Sylvie corrected him.
The young lady nodded approval. “Sylvie’s quite right. It isn’t usual to say ‘a mile or three.’ ”
“It would be usual—if we said it often enough,” said Bruno.
It was the young lady’s turn to look puzzled now. “He’s very quick, for his age!” she murmured. “You’re not more than seven, are you, dear?” she added aloud.
“I’m not so many as that,” said Bruno. “I’m one. Sylvie’s one. Sylvie and me is two. Sylvie taught me to count.”
“Oh, I wasn’t counting you, you know!” the young lady laughingly replied.
“Hasn’t oo learnt to count?” said Bruno.
The young lady bit her lip. “Dear! What embarrassing questions he does ask!” she said in a half-audible “aside.”
“Bruno, you shouldn’t!” Sylvie said reprovingly.
“Shouldn’t what?” said Bruno.
“You shouldn’t ask—that sort of questions.”
“What sort of questions?” Bruno mischievously persisted.
“What she told you not,” Sylvie replied, with a shy glance at the young lady, and losing all sense of grammar in her confusion.
“Oo can’t pronounce it!” Bruno triumphantly cried. And he turned to the young lady, for sympathy in his victory. “I knewed she couldn’t pronounce ‘umbrella-sting’!”
The young lady thought it best to return to the arithmetical problem. “When I asked if you were seven, you know, I didn’t mean ‘how many children?’ I meant ‘how many years⸺’ ”
“Only got two ears,” said Bruno. “Nobody’s got seven ears.”
“And you belong to this little girl?” the young lady continued, skilfully evading the anatomical problem.
“No, I doosn’t belong to her!” said Bruno. “Sylvie belongs to me!” And he clasped his arms round her as he added “She are my very mine!”
“And, do you know,” said the young lady, “I’ve a little sister at home, exactly like your sister? I’m sure they’d love each other.”
“They’d be very extremely useful to each other,” Bruno said, thoughtfully. “And they wouldn’t want no looking-glasses to brush their hair wiz.”
“Why not, my child?”
“Why, each one would do for the other one’s looking-glass, a-course!” cried Bruno.
But here Lady Muriel, who had been standing by, listening to this bewildering dialogue, interrupted it to ask if the young lady would favour us with some music; and the children followed their new friend to the piano.
Arthur came and sat down by me. “If rumour speaks truly,” he whispered, “we are to have a real treat!” And then, amid a breathless silence, the performance began.
She was one of those players whom Society talks of as “brilliant,” and she dashed into the loveliest of Haydn’s Symphonies in a style that was clearly the outcome of years of patient study under the best masters. At first it seemed to be the perfection of pianoforte-playing; but in a few minutes I began to ask myself, wearily, “What is it that is wanting? Why does one get no pleasure from it?”
Then I set myself to listen intently to every note; and the mystery explained itself. There was an almost-perfect mechanical correctness—and there was nothing else! False notes, of course, did not occur: she knew the piece too well for that; but there was just enough irregularity of time to betray that the player had no real “ear” for music—just enough inarticulateness in the more elaborate passages to show that she did not think her audience worth taking real pains for—just enough mechanical monotony of accent to take all soul out of the heavenly modulations she was profaning—in short, it was simply irritating; and, when she had rattled off the finale and had struck the final chord as if, the instrument being now done with, it didn’t matter how many wires she broke, I could not even affect to join in the stereotyped “Oh, thank you!” which was chorused around me.
Lady Muriel joined us for a moment. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she whispered, to Arthur, with a mischievous smile.
“No, it isn’t!” said Arthur. But the gentle sweetness of his face quite neutralised the apparent rudeness of the reply.
“Such execution, you know!” she persisted.
“That’s what she deserves,” Arthur doggedly replied: “but people
