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“Ormarr—you must be out of your senses.”

“Whether or no, I am what I am. And I can’t be otherwise. I am furious with myself too; blind fool that I have been—oh, you don’t know what I feel at this moment.”

Ormarr noticed that Grahl was feeling for his watch.

“Don’t,” he put in hastily. “I don’t want to see any one tonight. I can’t stand it. I don’t know what may happen....”

Abel Grahl rose from his seat. When he spoke, his voice was calm and earnest.

“Ormarr, remember I stand to you in a father’s stead. You cannot get away from this. Where is my son, who had grown to be a man of the world? We had grown out of stage fright, nerves and all that nonsense, surely? Tomorrow is our concert. We must not forget it, we must be there in time. But beyond that, we need not give the matter a thought. There—that’s the way to look at it. Don’t forget.”

Ormarr paled slightly.

“Very well—have it your own way.”

A car was heard hooting outside, and they went out.

Ormarr stood on the platform of the Concert Hall, playing the Andante from Beethoven’s Sonata. This was the third item on the programme. The first had been a show piece, from Tchaikowsky, which had given him an opportunity of displaying his extraordinary skill and masterly technique. After the second, his own nocturne, it seemed as if the applause would never end. The audience was delirious. The atmosphere of the nocturne, with its melancholy depths and wild heights of joy, its bewildering beauty and strange transitions, moved the dense crowd as if by magic.