She felt for the pedals, lifted her hands a span above the piano as Clara had done and came down, true and clean, on to the opening chord. The full rich tones of the piano echoed from all over the room; and some metal object far away from her hummed the dominant. She held the chord for its full term.... Should she play any more?... She had confessed herself ... just that minor chord ... anyone hearing it would know more than she could ever tell them ... her whole being beat out the rhythm as she waited for the end of the phrase to insist on what already had been said. As it came, she found herself sitting back, slackening the muscles of her arms and of her whole body, and ready to swing forward into the rising storm of her page. She did not need to follow the notes on the music stand. Her fingers knew them. Grave and happy she sat with unseeing eyes, listening, for the first time. At the end of the page she was sitting with her eyes full of tears, aware of Fräulein standing between the open swing doors with Gertrude's face showing over her shoulder--its amazement changing to a large-toothed smile as Fräulein's quietly repeated "Prachtvoll, prachtvoll" came across the room. Miriam, after a hasty smile, sat straining her eyes as widely as possible, so that the tears should not fall. She glared at the volume in front of her, turning the pages. She was glad that the heavy sun-blinds cast a deep shadow over the room. She blinked. She thought they would not notice. Only one tear fell and that was from the left eye, towards the wall. "You are a real musician, Miss Henderson," said Fräulein, advancing. 17 Every other day or so Miriam found she could get an hour on a bedroom piano; and always on a Saturday morning during _raccommodage_. She rediscovered all the pieces she had already learned. She went through them one by one, eagerly, slurring over difficulties, pressing on, getting their effect, listening and discovering. "It's _technique_ I want," she told herself, when she had reached the end of her collection, beginning to attach a meaning to the familiar word. Then she set to work. She restricted herself to the Pathétique, always omitting the first page, which she knew so well and practised mechanically, slowly, meaninglessly, with neither pedalling nor expression, page by page until a movement was perfect. Then when the mood came, she played ... and listened. She soon discovered she could not always "play"--even the things she knew perfectly--and she began to understand the fury that had seized her when her mother and a woman here and there had taken for granted one should "play when asked," and coldly treated her refusal as showing lack of courtesy. "Ah!" she said aloud, as this realisation came, "Women." "Of course you can only 'play when you _can_,'" said she to herself, "like a bird singing."