He played it through to the very end, then rose, bowed from where he stood, stared round at the empty hall--a dreadful, strained, defiant smile stiffening upon his face--and sinking back upon his stool, laid his arms across the keyboard with a crash of notes, burying his head upon them. In a moment Jenny was out of her seat. There were chairs in her way, and she kicked them aside; raked one forward with her foot, and scrambled on to the platform; then, catching a sideways glimpse of the empty seats, bent forward and shook her fist at them. "Beasts! Pigs! A-a-a-ah!--You!" The attendants had disappeared, the stranger was lost in shadows. There was nobody there but themselves: it would not have mattered if there had been: all the lords and ladies, all the swells in the world, would not have mattered. The great empty hall, suddenly friendly, closed, curving, around them. Jenny dropped upon her knees at Ben's side, and flung her arms about him, with little moans of love and pity; slid one hand beneath his cheek, with a muffled roll of notes, raised his head and pressed it against her heart. "There, my dear! There, my love--there--there--there!" She laid her lips to his thick dark hair, in a passion of adoration, loving every lock of it; and then, woman-like, picked a white thread from off his black coat; clasped him afresh, with joy and sorrow like runnels of living water pouring through and through her. "There, there, there, there!" He was too much of a child to fight against her: all his pride was gone. "Oh, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny!" he cried; then, in an extremity of innocent anguish, amazement-- "They didn't come! They don't care--they don't want it! Jenny, they don't want it!" "Don't you worry about them there blighters, my darling. Selfish pigs! they ain't not worth a thought. Don't you worry about them." "But--Beethoven...." "Don't you worry about Beethoven, neifer--ain't no better nor he oughter be, taeke my word fur it. Lettin' you in like this 'ere! There--there--there, my dear!" They clung together, weeping, rocking to and fro. "Well," said the man in the gallery, "I'm jiggered!" and crept out very softly, stumbling a little because of the damp air which seemed to have got into his eyes and made them smart. As the lovers came out into the little vestibule, clinging to each other, they did not so much as see the stranger, who stood talking to the man in the box-office, but went straight on out into the rain, with their umbrellas unopened in their hands. "A good thing as the 'all people insists upon payment in advance," remarked the man in the box-office. The other gave him a curious, half-contemptuous glance. "I'd like to hear you say that in a year's time." "Why?" "Because that chap will be able to buy and sell a place like this a hundred times over by then--Queen's Hall--Albert Hall--I know. It's my business to know. There's something about his playing. That _something different_ they're all out for."