"But there it is.

A little triangular box in your throat and a breath of air from your lungs--and immediately you hold one's heart in your hands!" Alan Stair and Joan came up to London the day before that on which the recital was to take place, since Diana had insisted that they must fix their visit so that the major part of it should follow, instead of preceding the concert.
"For"-- as she told them--"if I fail, it will be nice to have you two dear people to console me, and if I succeed, I shall be just in the right mood to take a holiday and play about with you both.

Whereas until my fate is sealed, one way or the other, I shall be like a bear with a sore head." But when the day actually arrived her nervousness completely vanished, and she drove down to the hall composedly as though she were about to appear at her fiftieth concert rather than at her first.

Olga Lermontof regarded her with some anxiety.

She would have preferred her to show a little natural nervous excitement beforehand; there would be less danger of a sudden attack of stage-fright at the last moment.
Baroni was in the artistes' room when they arrived, outwardly cool, but inwardly seething with mingled pride and excitement and vicarious apprehension.