The musician pa.s.sed him without a glance, and, seating himself at the piano, threw back his head with an impatient gesture. He turned swiftly the leaves of music that stood on the rack before him.

"Sing this," he said briefly.

He struck a few chords, and they gathered about him, taking up their parts with a careless familiarity and skill. It was Haydn's "Creation."

They had sung it many times, but a new power was in it to-night. The music lifted them. The touch on the keys held the sound, and shaped it, and filled it with light.

When it was finished they glanced at one another. They smiled; then they looked at the player. He sat wrapped in thought, his head bowed, his fingers touching the keys with questioning touch. They moved back noiselessly and waited. When he was like this, they did not disturb him.

The melody crept out at last, the strange, haunting Hungarian air, with unrest and sadness and pa.s.sion and sweetness trembling through it.

The baron started as he heard it. He moved carelessly to the window and stood with his back to the room, looking out.

The countess looked up with a startled air. She glanced inquiringly toward her husband. He was leaning forward, a look of interest on his dark face. The child at his knee shrank a little. Her eyes were full of a strange light. On the opposite side of the room her sister Marie sat unmoved, her placid doll eyes resting on the player with a look of gentle content.

The pa.s.sionate note quickened. Something uncanny and impure had crept into it. It raised its head and hissed a little and was gone, gliding away among the low notes and losing itself in a rustling wave of sound.... The music trembled a moment and was still; then the pa.s.sion burst in a flood upon them. Dark chasms opened; strange, wild fastnesses shut them in; storm and license and evil held them. Blinding flashes fell on them. Slowly the player emerged into a wide sunlit place. The music filled it. Winds blew from the four quarters to meet it, and the air was full of melody.

The count stirred a little as the last notes fell.

"A strange composition," he said briefly.

The child at his knee lifted her head. She raised a tiny hand and brought it down sharply, her small face aglow with suppressed anger.

"It was not good!" she said.

The player turned to look at her. His big face worked strangely.

"No, it was not good," he said. "I shall not play that again. But it is great music," he added, with a little laugh.

The count looked at him shrewdly. He patted the child's trembling hand.

"Now," he said soothingly, "something to clear away the mists! 'Der Erlkonig,' We have never had it; bring it out."

Schubert hesitated an instant. He glanced at the child.

"That music--I have it not, Herr Count--I left it in Vienna."

The count moved impatiently.

"Play it from memory," he said.

The musician turned slowly to the piano.

The child's eyes followed him. She shivered a little.

He swung back with a swift gesture, feeling absently in his pockets.

"A piece of tissue-paper," he murmured. He had extracted a small comb from one of his pockets. He regarded it thoughtfully. "If I had one little piece of paper--" He looked about him helplessly.

"There is some in the music-rack, Marie. Find it for him," said the count.

The girl found it and laid it in his hand.

He turned back to the piano, adjusting and smoothing it. His broad back was an effective screen. The group waited, a look of interest on their faces.

Suddenly he wheeled about, his hands raised to his mouth, the comb, thinly covered with tissue-paper, at his lips, and his fat cheeks distended. His eyes behind the big spectacles glowed portentously.

They gazed at him in astonishment.

He drew a full breath and drove it forth, a lugubrious note. With scowling brows and set face he darted the instrument back and forth across his puckered lips. It wailed and shrieked, and out of the noise and discord emerged, at a galloping trot, "Der Erlkonig!"

The child, who had been regarding him intently, threw back her head, and a little laugh broke from her lips. Her face danced. She came and stood by the player, her hand resting on his knee.

Herr Schubert puffed and blew, and "The Erlking" pranced and thumped.

Now and then he stumbled and fell, and the fugitives flew fast ahead.

The player's face was grave beyond belief, filled with a kind of fat melancholy, and tinged with tragic intent.

The faces watching it pa.s.sed from question to amus.e.m.e.nt, and from amus.e.m.e.nt to protest.

"Nein, nein, mein Herr!" said the countess, as she wiped her mild blue eyes and shook her blond curls. "Nicht mehr! nicht mehr!"

With a deep, snorting sob the sound ceased. The comb dropped from his lips, and the player sat regarding them solemnly. A smile curved his big lips.

"Ja," he said simply, "that was great music. I have made it myself, that music."

With laughter and light words the party broke up. At a touch from the count the musician lingered. The others had left the room.

The count walked to the open window and stood for a moment staring into the darkness. Then he wheeled about.

"What was it you played?" he said swiftly.

"A Hungarian air," replied Schubert briefly.

The count looked incredulous.

"It was your own," he said.

"Partly," admitted the musician.

The count nodded.

"I thought so." He glanced toward the piano. "It is not too late----"

Schubert shrugged his shoulders.

"I told the child--you heard--I cannot play it again, that music."

The count laughed lightly.