f
she had, or was likely to acquire, sufficient voice for grand opera. So
much Madame Savelli would know for certain, though she could not predict
success. So many things were required, and to fail in one was to
fail.... Owen expected Isolde and Brunnhilde, and she was to achieve in
these parts something which had not been achieved. She was to sing them;
hitherto, according to Owen, they had been merely howled. Other triumphs
were but preparatory to this ultimate triumph, and if she fell short of
his ideal, he would take no further interest in her voice. However well
she might sing Margaret, he would not really care; as for Lucia and
Violetta, it would be his amiability that would keep him in the stalls.
To-day her fate was to be decided. If Madame Savelli were to say that
she had no voice--she couldn't very well say that, but she might say
that she had only a nice voice, which, if properly trained, could be
heard to advantage in a drawing-room--then what was she to do? She
couldn't live with Owen as his kept mistress; in that case she would be
no better than the women she had seen at the races. She grew suddenly
pale. What was she to do? The choice lay between drowning herself and
going back to her father.

Only yesterday she had received such a kind letter from him, offering to
forgive everything if she would come back. So like her dear, unpractical
dad to ask her to go back and suffer all the disgrace without having
attained the end for which she had left home. If, as Owen had said, she
went back with the finest soprano voice in Europe, and an engagement to
sing at Covent Garden at a salary of L400 a week, the world would close
its ears to scandal, the world would deny that any violation of its
rules had been committed; but to return after an escapade of a week in
Paris would be ruin. So, at Owen's persuasion, she had written a letter
to her father explaining why she could not return. But her inability to
obey her father did not detract from the fear which her disobedience
caused her. She thought of the old man whom she loved so well grieving
his heart out and thinking her, whom he loved so dearly, cruel and
ungrateful. But what could she do? Go back and bring disgrace upon
herself and upon her father? Ah, if she had known beforehand the
suffering she was enduring, she did not think she would ever have gone
away with Owen. It was all wrong, very wrong, and she had merited this
punishment by her own grievous fault....