Her white arms hung slender as a child's from the immense puffs
of the sleeves. Her fair hair was piled in front of a high amber comb.
As she appeared before the platform Rowcliffe rose and took her cloak
from her (Greatorex saw him take it, but he didn't care; he knew more
about the doctor than the doctor knew himself). He handed her up the
steps on to the platform and then turned, like a man who has done all
that chivalry requires of him, to his place between her sisters. The
hand that Rowcliffe had let go went suddenly to her throat, seizing
her necklace and loosening it as if it choked her. Rowcliffe was not
looking at her.
Still with her hand at her throat, she smiled and bowed to the
audience, to the choir, to Greatorex, to the schoolmaster who came
forward (Greatorex cursed him) and led her to the piano.
She sat down, wiped her hands on her handkerchief, and waited,
enduring like an angel the voices of the villagers and the shuffling
of their feet.
Then somebody (it was the Vicar) said, "Hush!" and she began to play.
In her passion for the unattainable she had selected Chopin's Grande
Valse in A Flat, beginning with the long shake of eight bars.
Greatorex did not know whether she played well or badly. He only knew
it looked and sounded wonderful. He could have watched forever her
little hands that were like white birds. He had never seen anything
more delicious and more amusing than their fluttering in the long
shake and their flying with spread wings all over the piano.
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