The ceremony was repeated at almost every party, and the thought of it would altogether spoil the children's dinner. When they had to play the _Voyage en Chine_ of Bazin, or their pieces of Weber as a duet, they gave each other confidence, and were not very much afraid. But it was torture to them to have to play alone. Antoinette, as usual, was the braver of the two. Although it bored her dreadfully,--as she knew that there was no way out of it, she would go through with it, sit at the piano with a determined air, and gallop through her _rondo_ at breakneck speed, stumbling over certain passages, make a hash of others, break off, turn her head, and say, with a smile: "Oh! I can't remember...." Then she would start off again a few bars farther on, and go on to the end. And she would make no attempt to conceal her pleasure at having finished: and when she returned to her chair, amid the general chorus of praise, she would laugh and say: "I made such a lot of mistakes." But Olivier was not so easy to handle. He could not bear making a show of himself in public, and being "the observed of all observers." It was bad enough for him to have to speak in company. But to have to play, especially for people who did not like music--(that was obvious to him)--for people whom music actually bored, people who only asked him to play as a matter of habit, seemed to him to be neither more nor less than tyranny, and he tried vainly to revolt against it. He would refuse obstinately. Sometimes he would escape and go and hide in a dark room, in a passage, or even in the barn, in spite of his horror of spiders. His refusal would make the guests only insist the more, and they would quiz him: and his parents would sternly order him to play, and even slap him when he was too impudently rebellious. And in the end he always had to play,--of course unwillingly and sulkily. And then he would suffer agonies all night because he had played so badly, partly from vanity, and partly from his very genuine love for music.