She
looked so bewitching in her excited eagerness
for his welfare that it would have been inhuman
to oppose her. So he meekly succumbed, and
began to discuss with her the programme for
the concert.
During the next week there was hardly a day
that he did not read some startling paragraph
in the newspapers about "the celebrated Scandinavian
pianist," whose appearance at S----
Hall was looked forward to as the principal
event of the coming season. He inwardly
rebelled against the well-meant exaggerations;
but as he suspected that it was Edith's influence
which was in this way asserting itself in his behalf,
he set his conscience at rest and remained silent.
The evening of the concert came at last, and,
as the papers stated the next morning, "the
large hall was crowded to its utmost capacity
with a select and highly appreciative audience."
Edith must have played her part of the performance
skillfully, for as he walked out upon
the stage, he was welcomed with an enthusiastic
burst of applause, as if he had been a world-
renowned artist. At Edith's suggestion, her
two favorite nocturnes had been placed first
upon the programme; then followed one of
those ballads of Chopin, whose rhythmic din and
rush sweep onward, beleaguering the ear like
eager, melodious hosts, charging in thickening
ranks and columns, beating impetuous retreats,
and again uniting with one grand emotion the
wide-spreading army of sound for the final
victory. Besides these, there was one of Liszt's
"Rhapsodies Hongroises," an impromptu by
Schubert, and several orchestral pieces; but the
greater part of the programme was devoted
to Chopin, because Halfdan, with his great,
hopeless passion laboring in his breast, felt that
he could interpret Chopin better than he could
any other composer.
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