He had been given a second chance. He read it as a sign that
he should take heart and hope. He felt that fortune was indeed kind.
He determined that he would play to her again, and that this time he
would not fail.
As the first notes of La Lettre d'Amour brought a pause of silence in
the restaurant, Corbin, who was talking at the moment, interrupted
himself abruptly, and turned in his chair.
All through the evening he had been conscious of the near presence of
the young musician. He had not forgotten how, on the night before,
his own feelings had been interpreted in La Lettre d'Amour, and for
some time he had been debating in his mind as to whether he would
request Edouard to play the air again, or let the evening pass
without again submitting himself to so supreme an assault upon his
feelings. Now the question had been settled for him, and he found
that it had been decided as he secretly desired. It was impossible to
believe that Edouard was the same young man who had played the same
air on the night previous, for Edouard no longer considered that he
was present on sufferance--he invited and challenged the attention of
the room; his music commanded it to silence.
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