And in that moment his own ambitions, which he had so splendidly realised for so long, dropped dead. He and Martin, he knew now, were master and pupil no longer; it was the master’s turn--and with what solemn joy he did it--to sit and learn, to hear--and he longed for a myriad ears--what was possible, for even Martin had never played like that before. Even admiration was dead; there was no room for anything except listening. Admiration, wonder, delight, laughter of joy might come when the last note had sounded, but at present to listen was enough. Martin held the last chord long. Then he took both hands off, as if the keys were hot, and rose, facing the hall. For him, too, just then, personal ambition was dead; he had played, as David played before Saul, in order to drive from his master’s face the demon of agony that he had seen there. And he looked not at Stella, not at Lady Sunningdale, not at Frank and Helen, nor did his eyes wander over the crowded rows, but straight at Karl, while the hall grew louder and louder, till the air was thick with sound, still asking him, “Did I play it well?” And when Karl nodded to him, he was content, and bowed in front of him and to right and left, thinking “How kind they all are!” He caught Stella’s eye and smiled, Frank’s, Helen’s, Lady Sunningdale’s. Then he sat down at the piano again. But it was quite impossible to begin, and for his own amusement (for now, it must be confessed, he was enjoying himself quite enormously), he struck an octave rather sharply and heard not the faintest vibration from the strings above the uproar. So he rose again, bowed again, and still bowed, and bowed still, till he felt like a Chinese mandarin, and knew everybody must think so, too. Then he sat down and waited till the phlegmatic English public had said “thank you” enough. A ten minutes’ interval had been put down on the programme, and tea was waiting for him in the room below. But he forgot all about it, and went straight through. The recital was carefully chosen not to be too long, and in the ordinary course of events the audience would have been streaming out into the street again after an hour and a half. But they refused to stream; Martin gave one _encore_, and after a pause a second, but he was still wildly recalled. Once before in the summer he and Helen had sent “London” mad about them; this afternoon he did it alone. And, at last, in a despair that was wholly delightful, as the hush fell on the house again, when he sat down for the fourth time, he played “God save the King” solemnly through, and his audience laughed and departed. Lady Sunningdale found that she had burst her left-hand glove and lost her right-foot shoe when she came to take stock of what had happened, as Martin finally retired after “God save the King.” Karl was sitting next her.