‘When exactly did my hand end up there?’

I blinked at my own inexplicable action, and Astaire was looking down at me with an equally bewildered expression. After a brief silence, he carefully lifted my frozen hand away.

“Let’s get ready to go out.”

“Pardon? But the lesson……”

I startled to my feet at the sudden mention of going out, and he let out a faint sigh and shook his head.

“Learning the piece isn’t the issue right now. What Miss Danyu needs first is a wider range of experiences. Music other than Sio Lieselotte’s, for instance.”

Astaire spoke in his characteristically gentle manner, but the words came out rather quickly.

“The unchanging environment seems to be part of the problem as well, so from now on we’ll hold lessons at my house. Before that, we’re going out today. I’ll wait in the drawing room until you’re ready.”

His manner seemed oddly hurried compared to his usual ease, which I found puzzling, but Astaire had already left the salon without waiting for my answer. It wasn’t a proposal I had any particular reason to refuse, but being informed like this rather than asked still didn’t sit well with me. I stepped out of the salon full of complaints, and a maid passing by greeted me.

“Oh my, is the lesson already over?”

It was a difficult question to answer. I couldn’t tell myself whether the lesson was over or not.

“Hmm…… I’m going out with Astaire.”

After some deliberation I gave a vague answer, and the maid’s eyes went wide with surprise. She was one of the quieter ones in the household, so this kind of reaction was unexpected.

“Miss! You’re going out with Mr. Werner and you plan to go like that?”

“Yes. That’s what I was thinking.”

“Good heavens! How could you! It would be a great discourtesy to go to a date with a gentleman looking like that!”

Before I could say it wasn’t a date, the maid had already steered me into my room. I had been wearing an indoor dress, but since I had a guest it was a fairly presentable one. I hadn’t thought I needed to change, but it was clearly not good enough in the maid’s eyes.

Change clothes, apply makeup, fix my hair.

I had only planned to throw on a coat since the weather was still cool. How had it come to this? 

I let out a small sigh and glanced at the clock. Quite a bit of time had passed. Astaire certainly hadn’t expected the preparations to take this long either. Feeling sorry, I urged the maids to hurry. I finished up roughly and went down to the drawing room near the entrance, where I found Astaire sitting and reading a newspaper.

“I’m sorry, Astaire. Did you wait long?”

“Not at all. Ladies generally take time to……”

At the sound of my voice, Astaire set down the newspaper and rose, but he didn’t finish his sentence and went quiet. He had a strangely dazed look on his face.

Wondering what the matter was, I walked slowly toward him and looked at his face, and Astaire, who had been staring at me, reached out and brushed my lips with his hand. He looked at the lipstick on his fingers with that same dazed expression. Only then did I realize I had appeared before Astaire in makeup for the first time.

“It’s a misunderstanding on our maid’s part. I was about to come down in just a coat, but she went pale and started fussing over makeup and hair. This dress too, I don’t usually wear because it’s uncomfortable. Anyway, I’m sorry. I made you wait so long.”

I wiped my lips with my hand and laughed awkwardly. Astaire, who had been staring blankly at the lipstick on his fingers through my rambling, turned his gaze to me. The moment that look reached me, the hand wiping my lips stopped. My hand fell to my side in the stiff silence, the kind that makes it feel like time has stopped. Then a bright smile broke across Astaire’s face.

“It smeared. A shame, after going to the trouble of looking so nice.”

Astaire reached out again and tidied the smeared edge of my lips. When that touch overlapped with the memory of his hand wiping my lips on the day he kissed me, my face flushed in an instant.

“Besides, this kind of misunderstanding is always welcome.”

I pushed his hand away and dropped my head to hide my burning face, but I already knew it was too late. A light laugh came from above my head a moment later.

“Shall we go, miss?”

Astaire extended his hand with a smile. His voice saying those words made my hand reach out before I could think, and he took it carefully and began to walk.

True to his word that he had never once thought of me as a child, Astaire escorted me as he would a grown woman. It was a thoroughly unfamiliar experience. Perhaps because of that unfamiliarity, my chest felt strangely fluttery.

To settle the fluttering in my chest, I deliberately turned my gaze to the street rather than his face. As I walked alongside Astaire and took in the surroundings, several people came up to greet him. Watching them shake his hand and smile brightly, clearly honored, I was reminded that Astaire was a well-known figure in the capital.

It was a situation I had encountered occasionally when going out with Sio too, but back then I had been so focused on Sio that I never paid attention to the air around us. With every step Astaire took, people’s gazes followed, and the atmosphere around us shifted. That alone was enough for me to sense how much attention he drew.

We arrived at our destination just around the point when I thought my feet would start to ache if we walked much further. It was a place I knew personally, but I couldn’t quite understand why he had brought me here.

“This is Madame Frida’s house?”

“Yes. You know it. Have you been before?”

“Madame is acquainted with my mother, so I’ve come a few times for tea.”

Madame Frida was a woman of considerable standing in the capital’s social circles, and she and my mother had grown close through those same circles. Thanks to that, I had memories of receiving her invitations and attending her teas from a young age. I had visited less often once I took up piano in earnest, but not so infrequently that our acquaintance had faded.

“Among the artists of the capital, Madame Frida’s salon is quite well known. While Lady Astrid’s salon opens once a month, Madame Frida’s is always open, so it’s always full of artists. There are many young artists around Miss Danyu’s age in particular, so it should be a good experience.”

Astaire explained this as he opened the door and stepped inside with easy familiarity. I already knew that Madame Frida had a keen interest in the arts. It was their shared taste that had brought her and my mother close in the first place. Only then did I recall that invitations to her salon had arrived from Madame from time to time.

“Miss Danyu!”

Madame Frida greeted me with a look of great delight as we stepped inside. She seemed quite surprised to see me walk in alongside Astaire. The name Lieselotte slipped quietly from her lips as she murmured to herself, but the moment she caught the uncomfortable look that crossed my face upon hearing it, she quickly closed her mouth.

Her reaction was entirely understandable. I had studied under Sio for eight long years. He had many students, but none he had taught for that length of time. His female students had, without exception, gone from student to lover and then left his side when things ended, while his male students tended to find the difficulty of his standards in music too much to bear and soon went looking for another teacher.

Whatever the reason, I was Sio Lieselotte’s longest-standing student. Unlike his other students who made names for themselves in competitions and recitals, I had no official activities to speak of, but it was a fact known to anyone in the capital with even a passing interest in the arts. And now I had appeared at a salon side by side with Astaire, who was counted among Sio’s greatest rivals.

Sio Lieselotte and Astaire Werner.

I was not particularly famous in my own right, but the names of the people connected to me were far too prominent. The private affairs of a young male teacher and a young female student. Whatever the reality, it was exactly the kind of subject gossips loved to get their teeth into.

Astaire seemed to realize the situation only after seeing Madame Frida’s reaction. Since it was usually the woman who suffered when rumors like this spread, it was perhaps understandable that Astaire hadn’t thought carefully enough about it.

“I’m sorry, Miss Danyu.”

He apologized with an awkward hand through his hair, saying he hadn’t thought that far ahead, but I didn’t particularly mind. Whatever form it took, once I had made up my mind to leave Sio’s side, getting caught up in rumors was inevitable, and the timing had simply come a little sooner than expected.

As we stepped into the salon, the sound of people talking in small clusters and music filling the air reached us. People debating in front of paintings, people gathered in groups of two and three chatting over champagne, people gathered around the piano listening to the music with serious expressions. Of course, the place where my gaze came to rest was in front of the piano.