"Ay!" said James. "He came in an' had a sup o' tea."
"Do you know why he came?"

"Maybe he felt faintlike, and slipped in here, as there's no public
nearer than the Queen Adelaide. Or maybe he thought as I was getting on
in years, and he wanted for to make my acquaintance afore I died. I
didna' ask him."

"I see you understand," said Mrs. Prockter. "Mr. Ollerenshaw, my stepson
is courting your niece."

"Great-stepniece," James corrected; and added: "Is he now? To tell ye
th' truth I didn't know till th' other day as they were acquainted."

"They haven't been acquainted long," Mrs. Prockter informed him. "You
may have heard that Emanuel is thinking of going into partnership with
Mr. Andrew Dean--a new glaze that Mr. Dean has invented. The matter may
turn out well, because all that Mr. Dean really wants is a sleeping
partner with money. Emanuel has the money, and I think he can be
guaranteed to sleep. Your stepniece met Emanuel by accident through Mr.
Dean some weeks ago, over at Longshaw. They must have taken to each
other at once. And I must tell you that not merely is my stepson
courting your niece, but your niece is courting my stepson."

"You surprise me, missis!"

"I daresay I do. But it is the fact. She isn't a Churchwoman; at least,
she wasn't a Churchwoman at Longshaw; she was Congregational, and not
very much at that. You aren't a Churchman, either; but your niece now
goes to St. Luke's every Sunday. So does my stepson. Your niece is out
to-night. So is my stepson. And if they are not together somewhere I
shall be very much astonished. Of course, the new generation does as it
likes."

"And what next?" James inquired.

"I'll tell you what next," cried the mature lady, with the most charming
vivacity. "I like your niece. I've met her twice at the St. Luke's
Guild, and I like her. I should have asked her to come and see me, only
I'm determined not to encourage her with Emanuel. Mr. Ollerenshaw, I'm
not going to have her marrying Emanuel, and that's why I've come to see
you."

The horror of his complicated situation displayed itself suddenly to
James. He who had always led a calm, unworried life, was about to be
shoved into the very midst of a hullabaloo of women and fools.

His wizened body shrank; and he was not sure that his pride was quite
unhurt. Mrs. Prockter noticed this.

"Oh!" she resumed, with undiminished vivacity, "it's not because I think
your niece isn't good enough for Emanuel; it's because I think she's a
great deal too good! And yet it isn't that, either. The truth is, Mr.
Ollerenshaw, I'm a purely selfish woman. I'm the last person in the
world to stand in the way of my poor stepson getting a better wife than
he deserves. And if the woman chooses to throw herself away on him,
that's not my affair. What I scent danger in is that your stepniece
would find my stepson out. At present she's smitten by his fancy
waistcoat. But she would soon see through the fancy waistcoat--and then
there would be a scandal. If I have not misjudged your stepniece, there
would be a scandal, and I do not think that I have misjudged her. She is
exactly the sort of young woman who, when she had discovered she had
made a mistake, would walk straight out of the house."

"She is!" James agreed with simple heartiness of conviction.

"And Emanuel, having no sense of humour, would leave nothing undone to
force her back again. Imagine the scandal, Mr. Ollerenshaw! Imagine my
position; imagine yours! _Me_, in an affair like that! I won't have
it--that is to say, I won't have it if I can stop it. Now, what can we
do?"

Despite the horror of the situation, he had sufficient loose, unemployed
sentiment (left over from pitying himself) to be rather pleased by her
manner of putting it: What can _we_ do?

But he kept this pleasure to himself.

"Nowt!" he said, drily.

He spoke to her as one sensible person speaks to another sensible person
in the Five Towns. Assuredly she was a very sensible person. He had in
past years credited, or discredited, her with "airs." But here she was
declaring that Helen was too good for her stepson. If his pride had
momentarily suffered, through a misconception, it was now in the full
vigour of its strength.

"You think we can do nothing?" she said, reflectively, and leant forward
on her chair towards him, as if struck by his oracular wisdom.

"What can us do?"

"You might praise Emanuel to her--urge her on." She fixed him with her
eye.

Sensible? She was prodigious. She was the serpent of serpents.

He took her gaze twinkling. "Ay!" he said. "I might. But if I'm to urge
her on, why didna' ye ask her to your house like, and chuck 'em at each
other?"

She nodded several times, impressed by this argument. "You are quite
right, Mr. Ollerenshaw," she admitted.

"It's a dangerous game," he warned her.

She put her lips together in meditation, and stared into a corner.

"I must think it over"--she emerged from her reflections. "I feel much
easier now I've told you all about it. And I feel sure that two
common-sense, middle-aged people like you and me can manage to do what
we want. Dear me! How annoying stepsons are! Obviously, Emanuel ought to
marry another fool. And goodness knows there are plenty to choose from.
And yet he must needs go and fall in love with almost the only sensible
girl in the town! There's no end to that boy's foolishness. He actually
wants me to buy Wilbraham Hall, furniture, and everything! What do you
think it's worth, Mr. Ollerenshaw?"

"Worth? It's worth what it'll fetch."

"Eight thousand?"

"Th' land's worth that," said James.

"It's a silly idea. But he put it into my head. Now will you drop in one
day and see me?"

"No," said James. "I'm not much for tea-parties, thank ye."

"I mean when I'm alone," she pleaded, delightfully; "so that we can
talk over things, and you can tell me what is going on."

He saw clearly all the perils of such a course, but his instinct seized
him again.

"Happen I may look in some morning when I'm round yonder."

"That will be very nice of you," she flattered him, and rose.

Helen came home about ten o'clock, and went direct to bed. Never before
had James Ollerenshaw felt like a criminal, but as Helen's eyes dwelt
for a moment on his in bidding him good-night, he could scarcely
restrain the blush of the evildoer. And him sixty! Turn which way he
would he saw nothing but worry. What an incredible day he had lived
through! And how astounding was human existence!




CHAPTER XII

BREAKFAST


He had an unsatisfactory night--that is to say, in the matter of sleep.
In respect of sagacity he rose richer than he had lain down. He had
clearly perceived, about three a.m., that he was moving too much in
circles which were foreign to him, and which called him "Jimmy." And at
five a.m., when the first workmen's car woke bumpily the echoes of the
morn, he had perceived that Mrs. Prockter's plan for separating Emanuel
and Helen by bringing them together was not a wise plan. Of course,
Helen must not marry Emanuel Prockter. The notion of such a union was
ludicrous. (In spite of all the worry she was heaping upon him, he did
not see any urgent reason why she should marry anybody.) But the proper
method of nipping the orange-blossom in the bud was certainly to have a
plain chat with Helen, one of those plain chats which can only occur,
successfully, between plain, common-sense persons. He was convinced
that, notwithstanding Mrs. Prockter's fears, Helen had not for an
instant thought of Emanuel as a husband. It was inconceivable that she,
a girl so utterly sensible, should have done so. And yet--girls! And
Mrs. Prockter was no fool, come to think of it. A sterling creature. Not
of his world, but nevertheless--At this point he uneasily dozed.

However, he determined to talk with Helen that morning at breakfast. He
descended at half-past seven, as usual, full of a diplomatic intention
to talk to Helen. She was wholly sensible; she was a person to whom you
_could_ talk. Still, tact would be needed. Lack of sleep had rendered
his nervous system such that he would have preferred to receive tact
rather than to give it. But, happily, he was a self-controlled man.

His post, which lay scattered on the tiles at the foot of the front
door, did not interest him. He put it aside, in its basket. Nor could he
work, according to his custom, at his accounts. Even the sight of the
unfilled-in credit-slips for the bank did not spur him to industry.
There can be no doubt that he was upset.

He walked across the room to the piles of Helen's books against the
wall, and in sheer absence of mind picked one up, and sat on a chair, on
which he had never before sat, and began to read the volume.

Then the hurried, pretentious striking of the kitchen clock startled
him. Half-an-hour had passed in a moment. He peeped into the kitchen.
Not a sign of breakfast! Not a sign of the new servant, with her
starched frills! And for thirty years he had breakfasted at eight
o'clock precisely.

And no Helen! Was Helen laughing at him? Was Helen treating him as an
individual of no importance? It was unimaginable that his breakfast
should be late. If anybody thought that he was going to--No! he must not
give way to righteous resentment. Diplomacy! Tact! Forbearance!

But he would just go up to Helen's room and rap, and tell her of the
amazing and awful state of things on the ground-floor. As a fact, she
herself was late. At that moment she appeared.

"Good-morning, uncle."

She was cold, prim, cut off like China from human intercourse by a wall.

"Th' servant has na' come," said he, straining to be tolerant and
amicable. He did his best to keep a grieved astonishment out of his
voice; but he could not.

"Oh!" she murmured, calmly. It was nothing to her, then, that James's
life should be turned upside down! And she added, with icy detachment:
"I'm not surprised. You'll never get servants to be prompt in the
morning when they don't sleep in the house. And there's no room for
Georgiana to sleep in the house."

Georgiana! Preposterous name!

"Mrs. Butt was always prompt. I'll say that for her," he replied.

This, as he immediately recognised, was a failure in tact on his part.
So when she said quickly: "I'm sure Mrs. Butt would be delighted to come
back if you asked her," he said nothing.

What staggered his intellect and his knowledge of human nature was that
she remained absolutely unmoved by this appalling, unprecedented, and
complete absence of any sign of breakfast at after eight o'clock.

Just then Georgiana came. She had a key to the back door, and entered
the house by way of the scullery.

"Good-morning, Georgiana," Helen greeted her, going into the
scullery--much more kindly than she had greeted her uncle. Instead of
falling on Georgiana and slaying her, she practically embraced her.

A gas cooking-stove is a wondrous gift of Heaven. You do not have to
light it with yesterday's paper, damp wood, and the remains of last
night's fire. In twelve minutes not merely was the breakfast ready, but
the kitchen was dusted, and there was a rose in a glass next to the
bacon. James had calmed himself by reading the book, and the period of
waiting had really been very short. As he fronted the bacon and the
flower, Helen carefully shut the scullery door. The _Manchester
Guardian_ lay to the left of his plate. Thoughtful! Altogether it was
not so bad.

Further, she smiled in handing him his tea. She, too, he observed,
must have slept ill. Her agreeable face was drawn. But her
blue-and-white-striped dress was impeccably put on. It was severe, and
yet very smooth. It suited her mood. It also suited his. They faced each
other, as self-controlled people do face each other at breakfast after
white nights, disillusioned, tremendously sensible, wise, gently
cynical, seeing the world with steady and just orbs.

"I've been reading one o' your books, lass," he began, with superb
amiability. "It's pretty near as good as a newspaper. There's summat
about a law case as goes on for ever. It isna' true, I suppose, but it
might be. The man as wrote that knew what he was talking about for once
in a way. It's rare and good."

"You mean Jarndyce _v_. Jarndyce?" she said, with a smile--not one of
her condescending smiles.

"Ay," he said, "I believe that _is_ the name. How didst know, lass?"

"I just guessed," she answered. "I suppose you don't have much time for
reading, uncle?"

"Not me!" said he. "I'm one o' th' busiest men in Bosley. And if ye
don't know it now, you will afore long."

"Oh!" she cried, "I've noticed that. But what can you expect? With all
those rents to collect yourself! Of course, I think you're quite right
to collect them yourself. Rent-collectors can soon ruin a property." Her
tone was exceedingly sympathetic and comprehending. He was both
surprised and pleased by it. He had misjudged her mood. It was certainly
comfortable to have a young woman in the house who understood things as
she did.

"Ye're right, lass," he said. "It's small houses as mean trouble. You're
never done--wi' cottage property. Always summat!"

"It's all small, isn't it?" she went on. "About how much do the rents
average? Three-and-six a week?"

"About that," he said. She was a shrewd guesser.

"I can't imagine how you carry the money about," she exclaimed. "It must
be very heavy for you."

"I'll tell you," he explained. "I've got my own system o' collecting. If
I hadn't, I couldna' get through. In each street I've one tenant as I
trust. And the other tenants can leave their rent and their rent books
there. When they do that regular for a month, I give 'em twopence apiece
for their children. If they do it regular for a year, I mak' 'em a
present of a wik's rent at Christmas. It's cheaper nor rent-collectors."

"What a good idea!" she said, impressed. "But how _do_ you carry the
money about?"

"I bank i' Bosley, and I bank i' Turnhill, too. And I bank once i'
Bosley and twice i' Turnhill o' Mondays, and twice i' Bosley o'
Tuesdays. Only yesterday I was behind. I reckon as I can do all my
collecting between nine o'clock Monday and noon Tuesday. I go to th'
worst tenants first--be sure o' that. There's some o' 'em, if you don't
catch 'em early o' Monday, you don't catch 'em at all."

"It's incredible to me how you can do it all in a day and a half," she
pursued. "Why, how many houses are there?"

"Near two hundred and forty i' Bosley," he responded. "Hast forgotten
th' sugar this time, lass?"

"And in Turnhill?" she said, passing the sugar. "I think I'll have that
piece of bacon if you don't want it."

"Over a hundred," said he. "A hundred and twenty."

"So that, first and last, you have to handle about sixty pounds each
week, and all in silver and copper. Fancy! What a weight it must be!"

"Ay!" he said, but with less enthusiasm.

"That's three thousand a-year," she continued.

Her tone was still innocuously sympathetic. She seemed to be talking of
money as she might have talked of counters. Nevertheless, he felt that
he had been entrapped.

"I expect you must have saved at the very least thirty thousand pounds
by this time," she reflected, judicially, disinterestedly--speaking as a
lawyer might have spoken.

He offered no remark.

"That means another thirty pounds a week," she resumed. Decidedly she
was marvellous at sums of interest.

He persisted in offering no remark.

"By the way," she said, "I must look into my household accounts. How
much did you tell me you allowed Mrs. Butt a week for expenses?"

"A pound," he replied, shortly.

She made no comment. "You don't own the house, do you?" she inquired.

"No," he said.

"What's the rent?"

"Eighteen pounds," he said. Reluctant is a word that inadequately
describes his attitude.

"The worst of this house is that it has no bathroom," she remarked.
"Still, eighteen pounds a year is eighteen pounds a year."

Her tone was faultless, in its innocent, sympathetic common sense. The
truth was, it was too faultless; it rendered James furious with a fury
that was dangerous, because it had to be suppressed.

Then suddenly she left the table.

"The Kiel butter at a shilling a pound is quite good enough, Georgiana,"
he heard her exhorting the servant in the scullery.

Ten minutes later, she put ten sovereigns in front of him.

"There's that ten-pound note," she said, politely (but not quite
accurately). "I've got enough of my own to get on with."

She fled ere he could reply.

And not a word had he contrived to say to her concerning Emanuel.




CHAPTER XIII

THE WORLD


A few days later James Ollerenshaw was alone in the front room, checking
various accounts for repairs of property in Turnhill, when twin letters
fell into the quietude of the apartment. The postman--the famous old
postman of Bursley, who on fine summer days surmounted the acute
difficulty of tender feet by delivering mails in worsted slippers--had
swiftly pushed the letters, as usual, through the slit in the door; but,
nevertheless, their advent had somehow the air of magic, as, indeed, the
advent of letters always had. Mr. Ollerenshaw glanced curiously from his
chair, over his spectacles, at the letters as they lay dead on the
floor. Their singular appearance caused him to rise at once and pick
them up. They were sealed with a green seal, and addressed in a large
and haughty hand--one to Helen and the other to himself. Obviously they
came from the world which referred to him as "Jimmy." He was not used to
being thrilled by mere envelopes, but now he became conscious of a
slight quickening of pulsation. He opened his own envelope--the paper
was more like a blanket than paper, and might have been made from the
material of a child's untearable picture-book. He had to use a stout
paper-knife, and when he did get into the envelope he felt like a
burglar.

The discerning and shrewd ancient had guessed the contents. He had
feared, and he had also hoped, that the contents would comprise an
invitation to Mrs. Prockter's house at Hillport. They did; and more than
that. The signature was Mrs. Prockter's, and she had written him a
four-page letter. "My dear Mr. Ollerenshaw." "Believe me, yours most
cordially and sincerely, Flora Prockter."

Flora!

The strangest thing, perhaps, in all this strange history is that he
thought the name suited her.

He had no intention of accepting the invitation. Not exactly! But he
enjoyed receiving it. It constituted a unique event in his career. And
the wording of it was very agreeable. Mrs. Prockter proceeded thus: "In
pursuance of our plan"--our plan!--"I am also inviting your niece.
Indeed, I have gathered from Emanuel that he considers her as the prime
justification of the party. We will throw them together. She will hear
him sing. She has never heard him sing. If this does not cure her,
nothing will, though he has a nice voice. I hope it will be a fine
night, so that we may take the garden. I did not thank you half enough
for the exceedingly kind way in which you received my really
unpardonable visit the other evening," etc.

James had once heard Emanuel Prockter sing, at a concert given in aid of
something which deserved every discouragement, and he agreed with Mrs.
Prockter; not that he pretended to know anything about singing.

He sat down again, to compose a refusal to the invitation; but before he
had written more than a few words it had transformed itself into an
acceptance. He was aware of the entire ridiculousness of his going to an
evening party at Mrs. Prockter's; still an instinct, powerful but
obscure (it was the will-to-live and naught else), persuaded him by
force to say that he would go.

"Have you had an invitation from Mrs. Prockter?" Helen asked him at tea.

"Yes," said he. "Have you?"

"Yes," said she. "Shall you go?"

"Ay, lass, I shall go."

She seemed greatly surprised.

"Us'll go together," he said.

"I don't think that I shall go," said she, hesitatingly.

"Have ye written to refuse?"

"No."

"Then I should advise ye to go, my lass."

"Why?"

"Unless ye want to have trouble with me," said he, grimly.

"But, uncle----"

"It's no good butting uncle," he replied. "If ye didna' mean to go, why
did ye give young Prockter to understand as ye would go? I'll tell ye
why ye changed your mind, lass. It's because you're ashamed o' being
seen there with yer old uncle, and I'm sorry for it."

"Uncle!" she protested. "How can you say such a thing? You ought to know
that no such idea ever entered my head."

He did know that no such idea had ever entered her head, and he was
secretly puzzling for the real reason of her projected refusal. But,
being determined that she should go, he had employed the surest and the
least scrupulous means of achieving his end.

He tapped nervously on the table, and maintained the silence of the
wounded and the proud.

"Of course, if you take it in that way," she said, after a pause, "I
will go."

And he went through the comedy of gradually recovering from a wound.

His boldness in accepting the invitation and in compelling Helen to
accompany him was the audacity of sheer ignorance. He had not surmised
the experiences which lay before him. She told him to order a cab. She
did not suggest the advisability of a cab. She stated, as a platitude,
the absolute indispensability of a cab. He had meant to ride to Hillport
in the tramcar, which ran past Mrs. Prockter's gates. However, he
reluctantly agreed to order a cab, being fearful lest she might, after
all, refuse to go. It was remarkable that, after having been opposed to
the policy of throwing Helen and Emanuel together, he was now in favour
of it.

On the evening, when at five minutes past nine she came into the front
room clad for Mrs. Prockter's party, he perceived that the tramcar would
have been unsuitable. A cab might hold her. A hansom would certainly not
have held her. She was all in white, and very complicated. No hat;
simply a white, silver-spangled bandage round her head, neck, and
shoulders!

She glanced at him. He wore his best black clothes. "You look very
well," said she, surprisingly. "That old-fashioned black necktie is
splendid."

So they went. James had the peculiar illusion that he was going to a
belated funeral, for except at funerals he had never in his life ridden
in a cab.

When he descended with his fragile charge in Mrs. Prockter's illuminated
porch, another cab was just ploughing up the gravel of the drive in
departure, and nearly the whole tribe of Swetnams was on the doorstep;
some had walked, and were boasting of speed. There were Sarah Swetnam,
her brother Ted, the lawyer, her brother Ronald, the borough surveyor,
her brother Adams, the bank cashier, and her sister Enid, aged
seventeen. This child was always called "Jos" by the family, because
they hated the name "Enid," which they considered to be "silly." Lilian,
the newly-affianced one, was not in the crowd.

"Where's Lilian?" Helen asked, abruptly.

"Oh, she came earlier with the powerful Andrew," replied the youthful
and rather jealous Jos. "She isn't an ordinary girl now."

Sarah rapidly introduced her brothers and sisters to James. They were
all very respectful and agreeable; and Adams Swetnam pressed his hand
quite sympathetically, and Jos's frank smile was delicious. What
surprised him was that nobody seemed surprised at his being there. None
of the girls wore hats, he noticed, and he also noticed that the three
men (all about thirty in years) wore silk hats, white mufflers, and blue
overcoats.

A servant--a sort of special edition of James's Georgiana--appeared, and
robbed everybody of every garment that would yield easily to pulling.
And then those lovely creatures stood revealed. Yes, Sarah herself was
lovely under the rosy shades. The young men were elegantly slim, and
looked very much alike, except that Adams had a beard--a feeble beard,
but a beard. It is true that in their exact correctness they might have
been mistaken for toast-masters, or, with the slight addition of silver
neck-chains, for high officials in a costly restaurant. But
great-stepuncle James could never have been mistaken for anything but a
chip of the early nineteenth century flicked by the hammer of Fate into
the twentieth. His wide black necktie was the secret envy of the Swetnam
boys.

The Swetnam boys had the air of doing now what they did every night of
their lives. With facile ease, they led the way through the long hall to
the drawing-room. James followed, and _en route_ he observed at the
extremity of a side-hall two young people sitting with their hands
together in a dusky corner. "Male and female created He them!" reflected
James, with all the tolerant, disdainful wisdom of his years and
situation.

A piano was then heard, and as Ronald Swetnam pushed open the
drawing-room door for the women to enter, there came the sound of a
shocked "S-sh!"

Whereupon the invaders took to the tips of their toes and crept in as
sinners. At the farther end a girl was sitting at a grand piano, and in
front of the piano, glorious, effulgent, monarchical, stood Emanuel
Prockter, holding a piece of music horizontally at the level of his
waist. He had a white flower in his buttonhole, and, adhering to a
quaint old custom which still lingers in the Five Towns, and possibly
elsewhere, he showed a crimson silk handkerchief tucked in between his
shirt-front and his white waistcoat. He had broad bands down the sides
of his trousers. Not a hair of his head had been touched by the
accidental winds of circumstance. He surveyed the couple of dozen people
in the large, glowing room with a fixed smile and gesture of benevolent
congratulation.

Mrs. Prockter was close to the door. "Emanuel is just going to sing,"
she whispered, and shook hands silently with James Ollerenshaw first.




CHAPTER XIV

SONG, SCENE AND DANCE


Every head was turned. Emanuel coughed, frowned, and put his left hand
between his collar and his neck, as though he had concealed something
there. The new arrivals slipped cautiously into chairs. James was
between Helen and Jos. And he distinctly saw Jos wink at Helen, and
Helen wink back. The winks were without doubt an expression of
sentiments aroused by the solemnity of Emanuel's frown.

The piano tinkled on, and then Emanuel's face was observed to change.
The frown vanished and a smile of heavenly rapture took its place. His
mouth gradually opened till its resemblance to the penultimate vowel was
quite realistic, and simultaneously, by a curious muscular
co-ordination, he rose on his toes to a considerable height in the air.

The strain was terrible--like waiting for a gun to go off. James was
conscious of a strange vibration by his side, and saw that Jos Swetnam
had got the whole of a lace handkerchief into her mouth.

The gun went off--not with a loud report, but with a gentle and lofty
tenor piping, somewhere in the neighbourhood of F, or it might have been
only E (though, indeed, a photograph would have suggested that Emanuel
was singing at lowest the upper C), and the performer slowly resumed his
normal stature.

"O Love!" he had exclaimed, adagio and sostenuto.

Then the piano, in its fashion, also said: "O Love!"

"O Love!" Emanuel exclaimed again, with slight traces of excitement, and
rising to heights of stature hitherto undreamt of.

And the piano once more, in turn, called plaintively on love.

It would be too easy to mock Emanuel's gift of song. I leave that to
people named Swetnam. There can be no doubt Emanuel had a very taking
voice, if thin, and that his singing gave pleasure to the majority of
his hearers. More than any one else, it pleased himself. When he sang he
seemed to be inspired by the fact, to him patent, that he was conferring
on mankind a boon inconceivably precious. If he looked a fool, his looks
seriously misinterpreted his feelings. He did not spare himself on that
evening. He told his stepmother's guests all about love and all about
his own yearnings. He hid nothing from them. He made no secret of the
fact that he lived for love alone, that he had known innumerable loves,
but none like one particular variety, which he described in full detail.
As a confession, and especially as a confession uttered before many
maidens, it did not err on the side of reticence. Presently, having
described a kind of amorous circle, he came again to: "O Love!" But this
time his voice cracked: which made him angry, with a stern and
controlled anger. Still singing, he turned slowly to the pianist, and
fiercely glared at the pianist's unconscious back. The obvious inference
was that if his voice had cracked the fault was the pianist's. The
pianist, poor thing, utterly unaware of the castigation she was
receiving, stuck to her business. Less than a minute later, Emanuel's
voice cracked again. This time he turned even more deliberately to the
pianist. He was pained. He stared during five complete bars at the back
of the pianist, still continuing his confession. He wished the audience