"I'm all attention." She looked across at him, feeling for the first time a little anxious and uncertain of the success of her plan.
"Of course, it'll sound very bald--just played on the piano," she explained carefully.

"You'll have to try and imagine the difference the orchestral part makes." Switching off the lights, so that nothing but the flickering glow of the fire illumined the room, she began to play.
For half an hour she played on, lost to all thoughts of the world around her, wrapped in the melody and meaning of the music.

Then, as the _finale_ rushed in a torrent of golden chords to its climax and the last note was struck, her hands fell away from the piano and she sank back on her seat with a little sigh of exhaustion and happiness.
A pause followed.

How well she remembered listening for that pause when she played, in public!--The brief, pulsating silence which falls while the thought of the audience steal back from the fairyland whither they have wandered and readjust themselves reluctantly to the things of daily life.

And then, the outburst of applause.
In silence she awaited Roger's approval, her lips just parted, her face still alight with the joy of the creator who knows that his work is good.
But the words for which she was listening did not come.