hese parts, and sang fragments of the music as it floated
into her mind. She was impelled to extravagance. She would have liked to
stand up in her carriage and sing aloud, nothing seemed to matter, until
she remembered that she must not make a fool of herself before Lady
Duckle. And that she might walk the fever out of her blood, she called
to the coachman to stop, and she walked down the Champs Elysees rapidly,
not pausing to take breath till she reached the Place de la Concorde;
and she almost ran the rest of the way, so that she might not be late
for dinner. When she entered the hotel, she came suddenly upon Owen on
the verandah. He was sitting there engaged in conversation with an
elderly woman--a woman of about fifty, who, catching sight of her,
whispered something to him.

"Evelyn.... This is Lady Duckle."

"Sir Owen has been telling me, Miss Innes, what Madame Savelli said
about your voice. I do not know how to congratulate you. I suppose such
a thing has not happened before." And her small, grey eyes gazed in
envious wonderment, as if seeking to understand how such extraordinary
good fortune should have befallen the tall, fair girl who stood blushing
and embarrassed in her happiness. Owen drew a chair forward.

"Sit down, Evelyn, you look tired."

"No, I'm not tired ... but I walked from the Arc de Triomphe."

"Walked! Why did you walk?"

Evelyn did not answer, and Lady Duckle said--

"Sir Owen tells me that you'll surely succeed in singing Wagner--that I
shall be converted."

"Lady Duckle is a heretic."

"No, my dear Owen, I'm not a heretic, for I recognise the greatness of
the music, and I could hear it with pleasure if it were confined to the
orchestra, but I can find no pleasure in listening to a voice trying to
accompany a hundred instruments. I heard 'Lohengrin' last season. I was
in Mrs. Ayre's box--a charming woman--her husband is an American, but he
never comes to London. I presented her at the last Drawing-Room. She had
a supper party afterwards, and when she asked me what I'd have to eat, I
said, 'Nothing with wings' ... Oh, that swan!"

Her grey hair was drawn up and elaborately arranged, and Evelyn noticed
three diamond rings and an emerald ring on her fat, white fingers. There
had been moments she said, when she had thought the people on the stage
were making fun of them--"such booing!"--they had all shouted themselves
hoarse--such wandering from key to key.

"Hoping, I suppose, that i