Now
the old doubts came to life as the chivalric tones of Weber rose to her
sharpened senses. Why couldn't Richard--
The door in the anteroom opened, her guest entered. Alixe was not
dismayed. She left her seat and, closing the curtains, greeted him.
The overture was ending as Rentgen sat down beside her in the intimate
little chamber, lighted by a solitary electric bulb.
"You are always thoughtful," she murmured.
"My dear lady, mine is the honour. And if you do not care, can't we hear
the music of your young man--" he smiled, she thought, acidly--"here? If
I sit outside, the world will say--we have to be careful of our
unsmirched reputations--we poor critics and slave-drivers of the deaf."
She drew her hand gently away. He had held it, playfully tapping it as
he slowly delivered himself in short sentences. He was a Dane, but his
French and English were without trace of accent; certain intonations
alone betrayed his Scandinavian origin.
Alixe could not refuse, for the moment he finished speaking she heard a
too familiar motive, the ponderous phrase in the brass choir which Van
Kuyp intended as the thematic label for his hero, "Sordello.
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