THE    DERSINGHAMS    AT    HOME         153
"''That's the way, Lena/1 her father shouted approv-
ingly. He had been talking in a corner to Mr, Pearson*
"Let's have a tune. Do us good."
Before anybody else could say a word, Lena had begun
playing. She played some dance tunes, very sketchily,
but with great speed and noise. The first two or three
-minutes were bad, but the next two or three minutes
were much worse, for then her left hand, guessing wildly,
began hitting any note roughly in the neighbourhood of
the right one, and the very fire-irons joined in the din.
After ten minutes, she reached a grand fortissimo
Mrs. Dersingham could stand it no longer.
"Oh, do stop that noise," she shrieked, rushing for-
ward, white and trembling with fury.
Lena stopped at once. They were all fixed, rooted,
in a vast sudden silence.
Mrs. Dersingham bit her lip, recovered herself. "I'm
sorry," she said, coldly and curtly, "but I really must ask
you to stop playing. I've—got a bad headache/'
"I see," replied Lena, getting up from the piano.
"Sorry." She walked forward a step or two, then looked
at Mrs. Dersingham. "Have you had it all the evening
or has it just come on now?" And this was not a polite
inquiry, but a challenge. The tone of voice made that
obvious.
"Does that matter?"  And Mrs. Dersingham turned
away.
Into the silence that fell now there came the voice,
quavering a little, of Mrs. Pearson. "Now I really think
it's time we were going," it began. But nobody took any
notice of it.
For Lena burst into a torrent of speech. "No, it
doesn't matter, of course. But I just asked because I