The Countess took from her work-table a little gold case that he had given her, opened it, and offered him some cigarettes.

“Pray smoke, my friend,” said she; “you know I like it when we are alone here.”

He obeyed, and the music began.  It was the music of the distant past, graceful and light, one of those compositions that seem to have inspired the artist on a soft moonlight evening in springtime.

“Who is the composer of that?” asked Bertin.

“Schumann,” the Countess replied.  “It is little known and charming.”

A desire to look at Annette grew stronger within him, but he did not dare.  He would have to make only a slight movement, merely a turn of the neck, for he could see out of the corner of his eye the two candles lighting the score; but he guessed so well, read so clearly, the watchful gaze of the Countess that he remained motionless, his eyes looking straight before him, interested apparently in the gray thread of smoke from his cigarette.

“Was that all you had to say to me?” Madame de Guilleroy murmured to him.

He smiled.

“Don’t be vexed with me.  You know that music hypnotizes me; it drinks my thoughts.  I will talk soon.”

“I must tell you,” said the Countess, “that I had studied something for you before mamma’s death.  I never had you hear it, but I will play it for you immediately, as soon as the little one has finished; you shall see how odd it is.”

She had real talent, and a subtle comprehension of the emotion that flows through sounds.  It was indeed one of her surest powers over the painter’s sensibility.

As soon as Annette had finished the pastoral symphony by Mehul, the Countess rose, took her place, and awakened a strange melody with her fingers, a melody of which all the phrases seemed complaints, divers complaints, changing, numerous, interrupted by a single note, beginning again, falling into the midst of the strains, cutting them short, scanning them, crashing into them, like a monotonous, incessant, persecuting cry, an unappeasable call of obsession.

But Olivier was looking at Annette, who had sat down facing him, and he heard nothing, comprehended nothing.

He looked at her, without thinking, indulging himself with the sight of her, as a good and habitual possession of which he had been deprived, drinking her youthful beauty wholesomely, as we drink water when thirsty.

“Well,” said the Countess, “was not that beautiful?”

“Admirable!  Superb!” he said, aroused.  “By whom?”

“You do not know it?”

“No.”

“What, really, you do not know it?”

“No, indeed.”

“By Schubert.”

“That does not astonish me at all,” he said, with an air of profound conviction.  “It is superb!  You would be delightful if you would play it over again.”

She began once more, and he, turning his head, began again to contemplate Annette, but listened also to the music, that he might taste two pleasures at the same time.