homesick for it. But purple is
perhaps picturesque. It was not that for which her soul sighed, but the
dream that hides behind it, the dream of going about and giving money
away. To her the dream had been the dream of a dream, realisable only on
the top rungs of the operatic ladder, which, later, she felt she was not
destined to scale. None the less there are dreams that do come true,
though usually, beforehand, there is a desert to cross.

"I wonder if I might have a cavatina?" Paliser asked, rising and moving
to her.

Cassy shrugged. I have to pay for my dinner, she thought, but she too
got up.

Preceding her, he led the way to a room of which the floor, inlaid and
waxed, was rugless. The windows were not curtained, they were shuttered.
In the centre was a grand and a bench. Afar, at the other end, masking a
door, was a portiere, the colour of hyacinth. Near it, were two
unupholstered chairs; one, white; the other, black. Save for these, save
too for a succession of mirrors and of lights, the room was bare. In
addition, it was spacious, a long oblong, ceiled high with light
frescoes, the proper aviary for a song-bird.

Cassy curtsied to it. At table she had not wanted to sing. The mere
sight of this room inspired.

Paliser opened the piano and, seating himself, ran his long thin fingers
over the keys. He was heating them, preluding a score, passing from it
to another. Presently he looked up; she nodded and the _Ah, non giunge_
floated from her.

"Brava!" Paliser muttered as the final trill drifted away. Again he
looked up. "You will be a very great artist."

He did not mean it. He judged her voice colourful but lacking in
carriage.

Cassy, leaning forward, struck the keys, giving him the note and again
she sang, this time the _Libiamo_, which, old as the hills, claptrap,
utterly detestable, none the less served to display the bravura quality
of her voice.

When it passed, Paliser sprang up, faced her. "Open your mouth! There!
Wide!"

Cassy, familiar with the ritual, obeyed. Paliser peered into the
strawberry of her throat. It was deep as a well and he moved back.

"You have the organ but you do not know how to use it. You don't know
how to breathe."

Cassy forgot that he was young, that she was, that in the great room in
the great house they were alone. Through the shutters came the smell of
lilacs, the sorceries of spring. In the sexlessness of art these things
were unnoticed. For the first time she