ay through the long hall to
the drawing-room. James followed, and _en route_ he observed at the
extremity of a side-hall two young people sitting with their hands
together in a dusky corner. "Male and female created He them!" reflected
James, with all the tolerant, disdainful wisdom of his years and
situation.

A piano was then heard, and as Ronald Swetnam pushed open the
drawing-room door for the women to enter, there came the sound of a
shocked "S-sh!"

Whereupon the invaders took to the tips of their toes and crept in as
sinners. At the farther end a girl was sitting at a grand piano, and in
front of the piano, glorious, effulgent, monarchical, stood Emanuel
Prockter, holding a piece of music horizontally at the level of his
waist. He had a white flower in his buttonhole, and, adhering to a
quaint old custom which still lingers in the Five Towns, and possibly
elsewhere, he showed a crimson silk handkerchief tucked in between his
shirt-front and his white waistcoat. He had broad bands down the sides
of his trousers. Not a hair of his head had been touched by the
accidental winds of circumstance. He surveyed the couple of dozen people
in the large, glowing room with a fixed smile and gesture of benevolent
congratulation.

Mrs. Prockter was close to the door. "Emanuel is just going to sing,"
she whispered, and shook hands silently with James Ollerenshaw first.

CHAPTER XIV

SONG, SCENE AND DANCE

Every head was turned. Emanuel coughed, frowned, and put his left hand
between his collar and his neck, as though he had concealed something
there. The new arrivals slipped cautiously into chairs. James was
between Helen and Jos. And he distinctly saw Jos wink at Helen, and
Helen wink back. The winks were without doubt an expression of
sentiments aroused by the solemnity of Emanuel's frown.

The piano tinkled on, and then Emanuel's face was observed to change.
The frown vanished and a smile of heavenly rapture took its place. His
mouth gradually opened till its resemblance to the penultimate vowel was
quite realistic, and simultaneously, by a curious muscular
co-ordination, he rose on his toes to a considerable height in the air.

The strain was terrible--like waiting for a gun to go off. James was
conscious of a strange vibration by his side, and saw that Jos Swetnam
had got the whole of a lace handkerchief into her mouth.

The gun went off--not with a loud report, but with a gentle and lofty
tenor piping,