All my love for music welled freshly up in my heart; I, who had felt disinclined to touch the piano for months, now longed to try my strength again upon the familiar and responsive key-board. For a piano has never been a mere piano to me; it is a friend who answers to my thought, and whose notes meet my fingers with caressing readiness and obedience.
Breakfast came, and I took it with great relish. Then, to pass the day, I went out and called on Mrs. Everard's friends, Mr. and Mrs. Challoner and their daughters. I found them very agreeable, with that easy bonhomie and lack of stiffness that distinguishes the best Americans. Finding out through Mrs. Everard's letter that I was an "artiste" they at once concluded I must need support and patronage, and with impulsive large-heartedness were beginning to plan as to the best means of organizing a concert for me. I was taken by surprise at this, for I had generally found the exact reverse of this sympathy among English patrons of art, who were never tired of murmuring the usual platitudes about there being "so many musicians," "music was overdone," "improvising was not understood or cared for," etc., etc.
But these agreeable Americans, as soon as they discovered that I had not come for any professional reason to Paris, but only to consult a physician about my health, were actually disappointed.
"Oh, we shall persuade you to give a recital some time!" persisted the handsome smiling mother of the family. "I know lots of people in Paris. We'll get it up for you!"
I protested, half laughing, that I had no idea of the kind, but they were incorrigibly generous.
"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Challoner, arranging her diamond rings on her pretty white hand with pardonable pride. "Brains don't go for nothing in OUR country. As soon as you are fixed up in health, we'll give you a grand soiree in Paris, and we'll work up all our folks in the place. Don't tell me you are not as glad of dollars as any one of us."
"Dollars are very good," I admitted, "but real appreciation is far better."
"Well, you shall have both from us," said Mrs. Challoner. "And now, will you stop to luncheon?"
I accepted this invitation, given as it was with the most friendly affability, and enjoyed myself very much.
"You don't look ill," said the eldest Miss Challoner to me, later on. "I don't see that you want a physician."