Madame de Bergenheim lowered her eyes and endeavored to smile disdainfully, as she struck the first bars of the duet.

The concert began.  Gerfaut had a sweet, clear, tenor voice which he used skilfully, gliding over dangerous passages, skipping too difficult ones which he thought beyond his execution, singing, in fact, with the prudence of an amateur who can not spend his time studying runs and chromatic passages four hours daily.  He sang his solo with a simplicity bordering upon negligence, and even substituted for the rather complicated passage at the end a more than modest ending.

Clemence, for whom he had often sung, putting his whole soul into the performance, was vexed with this affectation of indifference.  It seemed to her as if he ought, for her sake, to make more of an effort in her drawing-room, whatever might be their private quarrel; she felt it was a consideration due to her and to which his numerous homages had accustomed her.  She entered this new grievance in a double-entry book, which a woman always devotes to the slightest actions of the man who pays court to her.

Marillac, on the contrary, was grateful to his friend for this indifference of execution, for he saw in it an occasion to shine at his expense.  He began his solo ‘E il ciel per noi sereno,’ with an unusual tension of the larynx, roaring out his low notes.  Except for the extension being a little irregular and unconnected, he did not acquit himself very badly in the first part.  When he reached his final run, he took a long breath, as if it devolved upon him to set in motion all the windmills in Montmartre, and started with a majestic fury; the first forty notes, while they did not resemble Mademoiselle Grisi’s pearly tones, ascended and descended without any notable accident; but at the last stages of the descent, the singer’s breath and voice failed him at the same moment, the “A” came out weak, the “G” was stifled, the “F” resembled the buzzing of a bee, and the “E” was absent!

Zuchelli’s run was like one of those Gothic staircases which show an almost complete state of preservation upon the upper floor, but whose base, worn by time, leaves a solution of continuity between the ground and the last step.

Madame de Bergenheim waited the conclusion of this dangerous run, not thinking to strike the final chord; the only sound heard was the rustling of the dilettante’s beard, as his chin sought his voice in vain in the depths of his satin cravat, accompanied by applause from a benevolent old lady who had judged of the merit of the execution by the desperate contortions of the singer.

“D—­n that charlotte-russe!” growled the artist, whose face was as red as a lobster.

The rest of the duet was sung without any new incident, and gave general satisfaction.

“Madame, your piano is half a tone too low,” said the basso, with a reproachful accent.

“That is true,” replied Clemence, who could not restrain a smile; “I have so little voice that I am obliged to have my piano tuned to suit it.  You can well afford to pardon me for my selfishness, for you sang like an angel.”