went about practising to himself. He came into H ward and sang it
through for Jane Brown, with his heart in his clear young eyes. He
sang about the hours he had spent with her being strings of pearls,
and all that, but he was really asking her if she would be willing
to begin life with him in a little house, where she would have to
answer the door-bell and watch telephone calls while he was out.

Jane Brown felt something of this, too. For she said: "You sing it
beautifully," although he had flatted at least three times.

He wrote his name on a medicine label and glued it to her hand. It
looked alarmingly possessive.

Twenty-two presided at the concert that night. He was extravagantly
funny, and the sort of creaking solemnity with which things began
turned to uproarious laughter very soon.

Everything went off wonderfully. Tony started his selection too
high, and was obliged to stop and begin over again. And the two
Silversteins, from the children's ward, who were to dance a Highland
fling together, had a violent quarrel at the last moment and had to
be scratched. But everything else went well. The ambulance driver
gave a bass solo, and kept a bar or two ahead of the accompaniment,
dodging chords as he did wagons on the street, and fetching up with
a sort of garrison finish much as he brought in the ambulance.

But the real musical event of the evening was Jane Brown's playing.
She played Schubert without any notes, because she had been taught
to play Schubert that way.