will now begin the evening," said Ingpen, as he glanced at the music.
All five were conscious of the pleasant feeling of freedom, intimacy, and mutual comprehension which animates a small company that by self-selection has survived out of a larger one. The lateness of the hour aided their zest. Even the more staid among them perceived as by a revelation that it did not in fact matter, once in a way, if they were tired and inefficient on the morrow, and that too much regularity of habit was bad for the soul. Edwin had brought in a tray from the dining-room, and rearranged the chairs according to Hilda's caprice, and was providing cushions to raise the bodies of the duet-players to the proper height. Janet began to excuse herself, asserting that if there was one member of her family who could not play duets, she was that member, that she had never seen this Dvorak music before, and that if they had got her brother Tom, or her elder sister Marion, or even Alicia, – etc., etc.
"We are quite accustomed to these formal preliminaries from duet-players, Miss Orgreave," said Ingpen. "I never do them myself, – not because I can play well, but because I am hardened. Now shall we start? Will you take the treble or the bass?"
Janet answered with eager modesty that she would take the bass.
"It's all one to me," said Ingpen, putting on spectacles; "I play either equally badly. You'll soon regret leaving the most important part to me. However…! Clayhanger, will you turn over?"
"Er-yes," said Edwin boldly. "But you'd better give me the tip."
He knew a little about printed music, from his experiences as a boy when his sisters used to sing two-part songs. That is to say, he had a vague idea "where a player was" on a page. But the enterprise of turning over Dvorak's "Legends" seemed to him critically adventurous. Dvorak was nothing but a name to him; beyond the correct English method of pronouncing that name, he had no knowledge whatever of the subject in hand.
Then the performance of the "Legends" began. Despite halts, hesitations, occasional loud insistent chanting of the time, explanations between the players, many wrong notes by Ingpen, and a few wrong notes by Janet, and one or two enormous misapprehensions by Edwin, the performance was a success, in that it put a spell on its public, and permitted the loose and tender genius of Dvorak to dominate the room.
"Play that again, will you?" said Hilda, in a low dramatic voice, at the third "Legend."
"We will," Ingpen answered. "And we'll play it better."
Edwin had the exquisite sensation of partially comprehending music whose total beauty was beyond the limitations of his power to enjoy-power, nevertheless, which seemed to grow each moment. Passages entirely intelligible and lovely would break at intervals through the veils of general sound and ravish him. All his attention was intensely concentrated on the page. He could hear Ingpen breathing hard. Out of the corner of his eye he was aware of Johnnie Orgreave on the sofa making signs to Hilda about drinks, and pouring out something for her, and something for himself, without the faintest noise. And he was aware of Ada coming to the open door and being waved away to bed by her mistress.
"Well," he said, when the last "Legend" was played. "That's a bit of the right sort-no mistake." He was obliged to be banal and colloquial.
Hilda said nothing at all. Johnnie, who had waited for the end in order to strike a match, showed by two words that he was an expert listener to duets. Tertius Ingpen was very excited and pleased. "More tricky than difficult, isn't it-to read?" he said privately to his fellow-performer, who concurred. Janet also was excited in her fashion. But even amid the general excitement Ingpen had to be judicious.
"Delightful stuff, of course," he said, pulling his beard. "But he's not a great composer you know, all the same."
"He'll do to be going on with," Johnnie murmured.
"Oh, yes! Delightful! Delightful!" Ingpen repeated warmly, removing his spectacles. "What a pity we can't have musical evenings regularly!"
"But we can!" said Hilda positively. "Let's have them here. Every week!"
"A great scheme!" Edwin agreed with enthusiasm, admiring his wife's initiative. He had been a little afraid that the episode of George had upset her for the night, but he now saw that she had perfectly recovered from it.
"Oh!" Ingpen paused. "I doubt if I could come every week. I could come once a fortnight."
"Well, once a fortnight then!" said Hilda.
"I suppose Sunday wouldn't suit you?"
Edwin challenged him almost fiercely:
"Why won't it suit us? It will suit us first-class."
Ingpen merely said, with quiet delicacy:
"So much the better… We might go all through the Mozart fiddle sonatas."
"And who's your violinist?" asked Johnnie.
"I am, if you don't mind." Ingpen smiled. "If your sister will take the piano part."
Hilda exclaimed admiringly:
"Do you play the violin, too, Mr. Ingpen?"
"I scrape it. Also the tenor. But my real instrument is the clarinet." He laughed. "It seems odd," he went on with genuine scientific unegotistic interest in himself. "But d'you know I thoroughly enjoy playing the clarinet in a bad orchestra whenever I get the chance. When I happen to have a free evening I often wish I could drop in at a theatre and play rotten music in the band. It's better than nothing. Some of us are born mad."
"But Mr. Ingpen," said Janet Orgreave anxiously, after this speech had been appreciated. "I have never played those Mozart sonatas."
"I am glad to hear it," he replied with admirable tranquillity. "Neither have I. I've often meant to. It'll be quite a sporting event. But of course we can have a rehearsal if you like."
The project of the musical evenings was discussed and discussed until Janet, having vanished silently upstairs, reappeared with her hat and cloak on.
"I can go alone if you aren't ready, Johnnie," said she.
Johnnie yawned.
"No. I'm coming."
"I also must go-I suppose," said Ingpen.
They all went into the hall. Through the open door of the dining-room, where one gas-jet burned, could be seen the rich remains of what had been "light refreshments" in the most generous interpretation of the term.
Ingpen stopped to regard the spectacle, fingering his beard.
"I was just wondering," he remarked, with that strange eternal curiosity about himself, "whether I'd had enough to eat. I've got to ride home."
"Well, what have you had?" Johnnie quizzed him.
"I haven't had anything," said Ingpen, "except drink."
Hilda cried.
"Oh! You poor sufferer! I am ashamed!" And led him familiarly to the table.
Edwin was kept at the front-door some time by Johnnie Orgreave, who resumed as he was departing the subject of the proposed new works, and maintained it at such length that Janet, tired of waiting on the pavement, said that she would walk on. When he returned to the dining-room, Ingpen and Hilda were sitting side by side at the littered table, and the first words that Edwin heard were from Ingpen:
"It
