"You see my husband is looking at me. Yes, you are looking at me. You
think I have gone mad, but he'll not think I've gone mad when he hears
mademoiselle sing. Will mademoiselle be so kind?"
Evelyn felt she could not sing again, and, turning suddenly away, she
walked to the window and watched the cabs going by. She heard Owen ask
Madame and Monsieur Savelli to excuse her. He said that madame's praise
had proved too much for her; that her nerves had given way. Then he came
over and spoke to her gently. She looked at him through her tears; but
she could not trust herself to speak, nor yet to walk across the room
and bid Monsieur and Madame Savelli good-bye. She felt she must die of
shame or happiness, and plucked at Owen's sleeve. She was glad to get
out of that room; and the moments seemed like years. They could not
speak in the glaring of the street. But fortunately their way was
through the park, and when they passed under the shade of some
overhanging boughs, she looked at him.
"Well, little girl, what do you think? Everything is all right now. It
happened even better than I expected."
She wiped away her tears.
"How foolish I am to cry like this. But I could not bear it; my nerves
gave way. It was so sudden. I'm afraid those people will think me a
little fool. But you don't know, Owen, what I have suffered these last
few days. I don't want to worry you, but there were times when I thought
I couldn't stand it any longer. I thought that God might punish me by
taking my voice from me. Just fancy if I had not been able to sing at
all! It would have made you look a fool. You would have hated me for
that; but now, even if I should lose my voice between this and next
Monday.... Did I sing well, Owen? Did I sing as well as ever you heard
me sing?"
"I've heard you sing better, but you sang well enough to convince
Savelli that you'll have the finest voice in Europe by this time next
year. That's good enough for you, isn't it? You don't want any more, do
you?"
"No, no, half that would do, half that; I only want to know that it is
all true." Tears again rose to her eyes. "I mean," she said, laughing,
"that I want to know that I am sitting by you in the carriage; that
Madame Savelli has heard me sing; that she said that I should be a great
singer. Did she say that?"
"Yes, she said you would be a great singer."
"Then why does it not seem true? But nothing seems true, not even Paris.
It all seems like a dazzling, scattered dream, like spots of light, and
every moment I fear that it will pass away, and that I shall wake up and
find myself in Dulwich; that I shall see my viola da gamba standing in
the corner; that a rap at the front door will tell me that a pupil has
come for a lesson."
"Do you remember the lessons that you gave me on the viola da gamba?"
She looked at him beseechingly.
"Then it is true. I suppose it is true, but I wish I could feel this
life to be true."
She looked up and saw the clouds moving across the sky; she looked down
and saw the people passing along the streets.
"In a few days, in a few weeks, this life will seem quite real. But, if
you cannot bear the present, how will you bear the success that is to
come?"
"When I was a tiny girl, the other girls used to say, 'Evey, dear, do
make that funny noise in your throat,' and that was my trill. But since
mother's death everything went wrong; it seemed that I would never get
out of Dulwich. I never should have if it had not been for you. I had
ceased to believe that I had a voice."
"In that throat there are thousands of pounds."
Evelyn put her hand to her throat to assure herself that it was still on
her shoulders.
"I wonder, I wonder. To think that in a year--in a year and a half--I
shall be singing on the stage! They will throw me bouquets, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, you need have no fear about that; this park would not suffice
to grow all the flowers that will be thrown at your feet."
"It seems impossible that I--poor, miserable I--should be moving towards
such splendour. I wonder if I shall ever get there, and, if I do get
there, if I shall be able to live through it. I cannot yet see myself
the great singer you describe. Yet I suppose it is all quite certain."
"Quite certain."
"Then why can't I imagine it?"
"We cannot imagine ourselves in other than our present circumstances;
the most commonplace future is as unimaginable as the most extravagant."
"I suppose that is so."
The carriage stopped at the Continental, and he asked her what she would
like to do. It was just five.
"Come and have a cup of tea in the Rue Cambon."
She consented, and, after tea, he said, standing with one foot on the
carriage step--
"If you'll allow me to advise you, you will go for a drive in the Bois
by yourself. I want to see some pictures."
"May I not come?"
"Certainly, if you like, but I don't think you could give your attention
to pictures; you're thinking of yourself, and you want to be alone with
yourself--nothing else would interest you."
A pretty flush of shame came into her cheeks. He had seen to the bottom
of her heart, and discovered that of which she herself was not aware.
But, now that he had told her, she knew that she did want to be
alone--not alone in a room, but alone among a great number of people. A
drive in the Bois would be a truly delicious indulgence of her egotism.
The Champs Elysées floated about her happiness, the Avenue du Bois de
Boulogne seemed to stretch out and to lead to the theatre of her glory;
and, looking at the lake, its groups of pines, its gondola-like boats,
she recalled, and with little thrills of pleasure, the exact words that
madame had used--
"If you will stay a year with me, I'll make something wonderful of
you." "Was there ever such happiness? Can it be true? Then I am
wonderful--perhaps the most wonderful person here. Those women, however
haughty they may look, what are they to me? I am wonderful. With not one
would I change places, for I am going to be something wonderful." And
the word sang sweeter in her ears than the violins in "Lohengrin." ...
"Owen loves me. I have the nicest lover in the world. All this good
fortune has happened to me. Oh, to me! If father could only know. But
Owen thinks that will be all right. Father will forgive me when I come
back the wonderful singer that I am--that I shall be.... If anyone could
hear me, they would think I was mad. I can't help it.... She'll make
something wonderful of me, and father will forgive me everything. We
always loved each other. We've always been pals, dear dad. Oh, how I
wish he had heard Madame Savelli say, 'If you will stop with me a year,
I'll make something wonderful of you!' I will write to him ... it will
cheer him up."
Then, seeing the poplars that lined the avenue, beautiful and tall in
the evening, she thought of Owen. He had said they were the trees of the
evening. She had not understood, and he had explained that we only see
poplars in the sunset; they appear with the bats and the first stars.
"How clever he is, and he is my lover! It is dreadfully wicked, but I
wonder what Madame Savelli said to her husband about my voice. She meant
all she said; there can be no doubt about that."
Catching sight of some passing faces, Evelyn thought how, in two little
years, at this very hour, the same people would be returning from the
Bois to hear her sing--what? Elsa? Elizabeth? Margaret? She imagined
herself in these 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 Elysées 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?"