The room was plethoric with artistic objects, some good, some bad, some
atrocious, but all recalling the singer's past triumphs, and all
jumbled together, on tables, easels, pedestals, brackets and shelves
with much less taste than an average dealer in antiquities would have
shown in arranging his wares. There was not even light enough to see
them distinctly, for the terrifically heavy and expensive Genoa velvet
curtains produced a sort of dingy twilight. Moreover the Persian carpet
was so extremely thick that Margaret almost turned her ankle as she
made a step upon it.
As she knew that she must probably wait some time she looked for a
seat. There were a few light chairs here and there, but they were
occupied by various objects; on one a framed oil-painting was waiting
till a place could be found for it, on another there was a bandbox, on
a third lay some sort of garment that might be an opera-cloak or a
tea-gown, or a theatrical dress, a little silver tray with the remains
of black coffee and an empty liqueur glass stood upon a fourth chair,
and Margaret's searching eye discovered a fifth, with nothing on it,
pushed away in a corner.
She took hold of it by the back, to bring it forward a little, and the
gilt cross-bar came off in her hand. She stuck the piece on again as
well as she could, and as she did not like to disturb any of the things
she stood still, in the middle of the room, wondering vaguely whether
Madame Bonanni's visitors usually sat down, and if so, on what.
Suddenly her eyes fell upon a piano, standing behind several easels
that almost completely hid it. A piano usually has a stool, and
Margaret made her way between the easels and the little oriental
tables, and the plants, and the general confusion, towards the
keyboard. She was not disappointed; there was a stool, and she sat down
at last.
The air was oppressive and she wished herself out in the Pare Monceau,
in the May morning. The time seemed endless. By sheer force of habit
she slowly turned on the revolving stool and touched the keys; then she
struck a few chords softly, and the sound of the perfect instrument
gave her pleasure. She played something, trying to make as little noise
as possible so long as she remembered where she was, but presently she
forgot herself, her lips parted and she was singing, as people do who
sing naturally.
She sang the waltz song in the first act of Gounod's Romeo and
Juliet, and after the first few bars she had altogether forgotten that
she was not at home, with her own piano, or else standing behind her
teacher's shoulder in the Boulevard Malesherbes.