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“Please.”

The first phrase came readily. She paused over the second, tried it again, and shook her head.

“Your humming concealed a difficulty.”

“I generally omit that part.”

“Then you have an unfair advantage.”

Darcy stood beside the instrument. He knew the sound she sought well enough to hear the wrong note before she corrected it, but could no more have supplied it with his own fingers than he could have written the tune.

“There,” Elizabeth said, trying the phrase a third time. “That is nearer.”

“It is.”

Her hands rested upon the keys while she studied the next line. Darcy looked at the pencil marks beside it. Georgiana had made them impatiently, pressing so hard that one stroke had nearly torn the paper.

“She wanted to play it faster,” he said.

Elizabeth followed his glance. “Your sister?”

“Her master told her the air would be spoiled if she hurried it. She said he had spoiled it already by making her play it six times.”

Elizabeth laughed. “A reasonable objection.”

“She did not make it until after he had gone.”

“A prudent one, then.”

He could see Georgiana at the instrument, turning back upon the stool to complain to him. He had told her the man was employed to improve her performance, and she had asked whether there was any point at which he would consider it improved enough to allow a different tune.

Darcy found himself smiling before he had finished telling Elizabeth the story.

“I hope you took her side,” she said.

“I advised her to practise.”

“Oh, Mr. Darcy.”

“I was a very dutiful brother.”

“You must have been a trial to her.”

He laughed. The sound startled him, though it ought not to have done. His sister had found him a trial upon many occasions and had not loved him less for it.

Elizabeth played the opening again, more slowly this time. Darcy listened without trying to make it sound as Georgiana would have played it. Elizabeth hesitated in different places. She frowned at the difficult turn, pleased herself by managing it, and immediately lost her place in the following line.

“I should not have congratulated myself so soon,” she said.

“There is time to recover.”

“A sentiment you may regret if I insist upon continuing until I have done so.”

Sir came into the room before Darcy could answer. He examined them both, decided that neither was likely to go out, and made directly for the broad armchair near the hearth.

“No,” Darcy said.

The dog paused with his forepaws upon the seat.