While
Schwarz, the sonata over, was busy with his pencil on the margin of the
music, Dove leaned over to Maurice and whispered behind his hand:
"Furst--our best pianist."

Now came the turn of the others, and the master's attention wandered;
he stretched himself, yawned, and sighed aloud, then, in the search for
something he could not find, turned out on the lid of the second piano
the contents of sundry pockets. While Dove played, he wrote as if for
life in a bulky notebook.

Maurice remarked this without being properly conscious of it, so
impressed had he been by the sonata. The exultant beauty of the great
final theme had permeated his every fibre, inciting him, emboldening
him, and, still under the sway of this little elation when his own turn
to play came, he was the richer by it, and acquitted himself with
unusual verve.

As the class was about to leave the room, Schwarz signed to Maurice to
remain behind. For several moments, he paced the floor in silence; then
he stopped suddenly short in front of the young man, and, with legs
apart, one hand at his back, he said in a tone which wavered between
being brutal and confidential, emphasising his words with a series of
smart pencil-raps on his hearer's shoulder:

"Let me tell you something: if I were not of the opinion that you had
ability, I should not detain you this evening. It is no habit of mine,
mark this, to interfere with my pupils. Outside this room, most of them
do not exist for me. In your case, I am making an exception, because
..."--Maurice was here so obviously gratified that the speaker made
haste to substitute: "because I should much like to know how it is that
you come to me in the state you do." And without waiting for a reply:
"For you know nothing, or, let us say, worse than nothing, since what
you do know, you must make it your first concern to forget." He paused,
and the young man's face fell so much that he prolonged the pause, to
enjoy the discomfiture he had produced. "But give me time," he
continued, "adequate time, and I will undertake to make something of
you." He lowered his voice, and the taps became more confidential.
"There is good stuff here; you have talent, great talent, and, as I
have observed to-day, you are not wanting in intelligence. But," and
again his voice grew harsher, his eye more piercing, "understand me, if
you please, no trifling with other studies; let us have no fiddling, no
composing. Who works with me, works fo