The mirror caught the piano with its peaked inquiring shape, that, in its inflection, looked so much more tremendous and ominous than it did in plain reality.

Through the mirror the piano looked as though it might do anything, and to Henry, who knew nothing about pianos, it was responsible for almost everything that occurred in the house.
The windows of the room gave a fine display of the gardens, the children, the carriages, and the distant houses, but it was when the Square was empty that Henry liked best to gaze down into it, because then the empty house and the empty square prepared themselves together for some tremendous occurrence.

Whenever such an interval of silence struck across the noise and traffic of the day, it seemed that all the world screwed itself up for the next event.

"One--two--three." But the crisis never came.

The noise returned again, people laughed and shouted, bells rang and motors screamed.