And Helen made the piano say “O Love!” in its fashion.

And presently Emanuel was launched upon the sea of his yearnings, and voyaging behind the hurricane of passion.  And, as usual, he hid nothing from his hearers.  Then he hove to, and, as it were, climbed to the main-topgallant-sail in order to announce: 

“O Love!”

It was not surprising that his voice cracked.  Emanuel ought to have been the last person to be surprised at such a phenomenon.  But he was surprised.  To him the phenomenon of that cracking was sempiternally novel and astounding.  It pained and shocked him.  He wondered whose the fault could be?  And then, according to his habit, he thought of the pianist.  Of course, it was the fault of the pianist.  And, while continuing to sing, he slowly turned and gazed with sternness at the pianist.  The audience must not be allowed to be under any misapprehension as to the identity of the culprit.  Unfortunately, Emanuel, wrapped up, like the artist he was, in his performance, had himself forgotten the identity of the culprit.  Helen had ceased to be Helen; she was merely his pianist.  The thing that he least expected to encounter when gazing sternly at the pianist was the pianist’s gaze.  He was accustomed to flash his anger on the pianist’s back.  But Helen, who had seen other pianists at work for Emanuel, turned as he turned, and their eyes met.  The collision disorganised Emanuel.  He continued to glare with sternness, and he ceased to sing.  A contretemps had happened.  For the fifth of a second everybody felt exceedingly awkward.  Then Helen said, with a faint, cold smile, in a voice very low and very clear: 

“What’s the matter with you, Mr. Prockter?  It wasn’t my voice that cracked.”

The minx!

There was a half-hearted attempt at the maintenance of the proprieties, and then Wilbraham Hall rang with the laughter of a joke which the next day had become the common precious property of all the Five Towns.  When the aged rector had restored his flock to a sense of decency Mr. Emanuel Prockter had vanished.  In that laughter his career as a singer reached an abrupt and final conclusion.  The concert also came to an end.  And the collection, by which the divine always terminated these proceedings, was the largest in the history of the Guild.

A quarter of an hour or twenty minutes later all the guests, members, and patrons of the St. Luke’s Guild had left, most of them full of kind inquiries after Mr. Ollerenshaw, the genial host of that so remarkably successful entertainment.  The appearances and disappearances of Mr. Ollerenshaw had been a little disturbing.  First it had been announced that he was detained in Derby, buying property.  Indeed, few persons were unaware that, except for a flying visit in the middle, of two days, to collect his rents, James had spent a fortnight in Derby purchasing sundry portions of Derby.  Certainly Helen had not expected him.  Nor had she expected Mrs. Prockter, who two days previously had been called away by telegram to the bedside of a sick cousin in Nottingham.  Nor had she expected Lilian Swetnam, who was indisposed.  The unexpected ladies had not arrived; but James had arrived, as disconcerting as a ghost, and then had faded away with equal strangeness.  None of the departing audience had seen even the tassel of his cap.