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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Evelyn Innes, by George Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Evelyn Innes
+
+Author: George Moore
+
+Release Date: August 17, 2004 [EBook #13201]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVELYN INNES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BENN'S ESSEX LIBRARY
+
+_Edited by Edward G. Hawke, M.A._
+
+
+
+
+
+EVELYN INNES
+
+
+
+GEORGE MOORE
+
+
+
+_First published_ 1898
+
+_Reprinted (Essex Library_) 1929
+
+
+  _To
+  Arthur Symons and W.B. Yeats
+  Two contemporary writers
+  with whom
+  I am in sympathy_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+
+The thin winter day had died early, and at four o'clock it was dark
+night in the long room in which Mr. Innes gave his concerts of early
+music. An Elizabethan virginal had come to him to be repaired, and he
+had worked all the afternoon, and when overtaken by the dusk, he had
+impatiently sought a candle end, lit it, and placed it so that its light
+fell upon the jacks.... Only one more remained to be adjusted. He picked
+it up, touched the quill and dropped it into its place, rapidly tuned
+the instrument, and ran his fingers over the keys.
+
+Iron-grey hair hung in thick locks over his forehead, and, shining
+through their shadows, his eyes drew attention from the rest of his
+face, so that none noticed at first the small and firmly cut nose, nor
+the scanty growth of beard twisted to a point by a movement habitual to
+the weak, white hand. His face was in his eyes: they reflected the flame
+of faith and of mission; they were the eyes of one whom fate had thrown
+on an obscure wayside of dreams, the face of a dreamer and propagandist
+of old-time music and its instruments. He sat at the virginal, like one
+who loved its old design and sweet tone, in such strict keeping with the
+music he was playing--a piece by W. Byrd, "John, come kiss me now"--and
+when it was finished, his fingers strayed into another, "Nancie," by
+Thomas Morley. His hands moved over the keyboard softly, as if they
+loved it, and his thoughts, though deep in the gentle music, entertained
+casual admiration of the sixteenth century organ, which had lately come
+into his possession, and which he could see at the end of the room on a
+slightly raised platform. Its beautiful shape, and the shape of the old
+instruments, vaguely perceived, lent an enchantment to the darkness. In
+the corner was a viola da gamba, and against the walls a harpsichord and
+a clavichord.
+
+Above the virginal on which Mr. Innes was playing there hung a portrait
+of a woman, and, happening to look up, a sudden memory came upon him,
+and he began to play an aria out of _Don Giovanni_. But he stopped
+before many bars, and holding the candle end high, so that he could see
+the face, continued the melody with his right hand. To see her lips and
+to strike the notes was almost like hearing her sing it again. Her voice
+came to him through many years, from the first evening he had heard her
+sing at La Scala. Then he was a young man spending a holiday in Italy,
+and she had made his fortune for the time by singing one of his songs.
+They were married in Italy, and at the end of some months they had gone
+to Paris and to Brussels, where Mrs. Innes had engagements to fulfil. It
+was in Brussels that she had lost her voice. For a long while it was
+believed that she might recover it, but these hopes proved illusory,
+and, in trying to regain what she had lost irrevocably, the money she
+had earned dwindled to a last few hundred pounds. The Innes had returned
+to London, and, with a baby-daughter, settled in Dulwich. Mr. Innes
+accepted the post of organist at St. Joseph's, the parish church in
+Southwark, and Mrs. Innes had begun her singing classes.
+
+Her reputation as a singer favoured her, and an aptitude for teaching
+enabled her to maintain, for many years, a distinguished position in the
+musical world. Mr. Innes's abilities contributed to their success, and
+he might have become a famous London organist if he had devoted himself
+to the instrument. But one day seeing in a book the words "viola
+d'amore," he fancied he would like to possess an instrument with such a
+name. The instrument demanded the music that had been written for it.
+Byrd's beautiful vocal Mass had led him to Palestrina and Vittoria, and
+these wakened in him dreams of a sufficient choir at St. Joseph's for a
+revival of their works.
+
+So when Evelyn clambered on her father's knee, it was to learn the
+chants that he hummed from old manuscripts and missals, and it was the
+contrapuntal fancies of the Elizabethan composers that he gave her to
+play on the virginal, or the preludes of Bach on the clavichord. Her
+infantile graces at these instruments were the delight and amazement of
+her parents. She warbled this old-time music as other children do the
+vulgar songs of the hour; she seemed less anxious to learn the operatic
+music which she heard in her mother's class-rooms, and there was a shade
+of uneasiness in Mrs. Innes's admiration of the beauty of Evelyn's
+taste; but Mr. Innes said that it was better that her first love should
+be for the best, and he could not help hoping that it would not be with
+the airs of _Lucia_ and _Traviata_ that she would become famous. As if
+in answer, the child began to hum the celebrated waltz, a moment after a
+beautiful Ave Maria, composed by a Fleming at the end of the fifteenth
+century, a quick, sobbing rhythm, expressive of naïve petulance at delay
+in the Virgin's intercession. Mr. Innes called it natural music--music
+which the modern Church abhorred and shamefully ostracised; and the
+conversation turned on the incurably bad taste and the musical misdeeds
+of a certain priest, Father Gordon, whom Mr. Innes judged to be
+responsible for all the bad music to be heard at St. Joseph's.
+
+For Mr. Innes's ambition was to restore the liturgical chants of the
+early centuries, from John Ockeghem, the Flemish silver-smith of Louis
+XI., whose recreation it was to compose motets, to Thomas da Vittoria;
+and, after having made known the works of Palestrina and of those who
+gravitated around the great Roman composer, he hoped to disinter the
+masses of Orlando di Lasso, of Goudimel and Josquin des Près, the motets
+of Nannini, of Felice Anerio, of Clemens non Papa.... He would go still
+further back. For before this music was the plain chant or Gregorian,
+bequeathed to us by the early Church, coming down to her, perhaps, from
+Egyptian civilisation, the mother of all art and all religion, an
+incomparable treasure which unworthy inheritors have mutilated for
+centuries. It was Mr. Innes's belief that the supple, free melody of the
+Gregorian was lost in the shouting of operatic tenors and organ
+accompaniments. The tradition of its true interpretation had been lost,
+and the text itself, but by long study of ancient missals, Mr. Innes had
+penetrated the secret of the ancient notation, vague as the eyeballs of
+the blind, and in the absence of a choir that could read this strange
+alphabet of sound, he cherished a plan for an edition of these old
+chants, re-written by him into the ordinary notation of our day. But
+impassable obstacles intervened: the apathy and indifference of the
+Jesuits, and their fear lest such radical innovations should prove
+unpopular and divert the congregation of St. Joseph's elsewhere. He had
+abandoned hope of converting them from their error, but he was confident
+that reaction was preparing against the jovialities of Rossini, whose
+_Stabat Mater_, he said, still desecrated Good Friday, and against the
+erotics of M. Gounod and his suite. And this inevitable reaction Mr.
+Innes strove to advance by his pupils. Many became disciples and helped
+to preach the new musical gospel. He induced them to learn the old
+instruments, and among them found material for his concerts. Though a
+weak man in practical conduct, he was steadfast in his ideas. His
+concerts had begun to attract a little attention; he was receiving
+support from some rich amateurs, and was able to continue his propaganda
+under the noses of the worthy fathers in whose church he was now
+serving, but where he knew that one day he would be master.
+
+But, unfortunately, Mr. Innes could only give a small part of his time
+to these concerts. Notwithstanding his persuasiveness, there remained on
+his hands some intractable pupils who would not hear of viol or
+harpsichord, who insisted upon being taught to play modern masses on the
+organ, and these he could not afford to refuse. For of late years his
+wife's failing health had forced her to relinquish teaching, and the
+burden of earning their living had fallen entirely upon him. She hoped
+that a long rest might improve her in health, and that in some
+months--six, she imagined as a sufficient interval--she would be able to
+undertake in full earnestness her daughter's education. To do this had
+become her dearest wish; for there could now be little doubt that Evelyn
+had inherited her voice, the same beautiful quality and fluency in
+vocalisation; and thinking of it, Mrs. Innes held out her hands and
+looked at them, striving to read in them the progress of her illness.
+Evelyn wondered why, just at that moment, her father had turned from the
+bedside overcome by sudden tears. But whoever dies, life goes on the
+same, our interests and necessities brook little interference.
+Meal-times are always fixed times, and when father and daughter met in
+the parlour--it was just below the room in which Mrs. Innes was
+dying--Evelyn asked why her mother had looked at her hands so
+significantly.
+
+He said that it was thus her mother foreshadowed Violetta's death, when
+Armand's visit is announced to her.
+
+In the silence which followed this explanation their souls seemed to say
+what their lips could not. Sympathies and perceptions hitherto dormant
+were awakened; he recognised in her, and she, in herself, an unsuspected
+inheritance. Her voice she had received from her mother, but all else
+came from her father. She felt his life and character stirring in her,
+and moved as by a new instinct, she sat by his side, holding his hand.
+They sat waiting for the announcement of the death which could not be
+delayed much longer, and each thought of the difference the passing
+would make in their lives! It was her death that had brought them
+together, that had given them a new and mutual life. And in those hours
+their eyes had seemed to seal a compact of love and fealty.
+
+This was three years ago; but since Mrs. Innes's death very little had
+been done with Evelyn's voice. The Jesuits had spent money in increasing
+their choir and orchestra, and Mr. Innes was constantly rehearsing the
+latest novelties in religious music. All his spare time was occupied
+with private teaching; and discovering in his daughter a real aptitude
+for the lute, he had taught her that instrument, likewise the viola da
+gamba, for which she soon displayed even more original talent. She
+played both instruments at his concerts, and as several pupils offered
+themselves, he encouraged her to give lessons--he had made of her an
+excellent musician, able to write fugue and counterpoint; only the
+production of the voice he had neglected. Now and again, in a fit of
+repentance, he had insisted on her singing some scales, but his heart
+was not in the lesson, and it fell through.
+
+He was suspicious that she knew she could not learn singing from him;
+but an avowal of his inability to teach her would necessitate some
+departure from his own ideas, and, like all men with a mission, Mr.
+Innes was deficient in moral courage, and in spite of himself he evaded
+all that did not coincide with the purpose of his life. He loved his
+daughter above everything, except his music, and the thought that he was
+sacrificing her to his ambition afflicted him with cruel assaults of
+conscience. Often he asked himself if he were capable of redeeming his
+promise to his dead wife, or if he shirked the uncongenial labour it
+entailed? And it was this tormenting question that had impelled him to
+light the candle, and raise it so that he could better see his wife's
+face.
+
+Though an indifferent painting, the picture was elaborately like the
+sitter. The pointed oval of the face had been faithfully drawn, and its
+straight nose and small brown eyes were set characteristically in the
+head. Remembering a photograph of his daughter, Mr. Innes fetched it
+from the other end of the room, and stood with it under the portrait, so
+that he could compare both faces, feature by feature. Evelyn's face was
+rounder, her eyes were not deep-set like her mother's; they lay nearly
+on the surface, pools of light illuminating a very white and flower-like
+complexion. The nose was short and high; the line of the chin deflected,
+giving an expression of wistfulness to the face in certain aspects. Her
+father was still bent in examination of the photograph when she entered.
+It was very like her, and at first sight Nature revealed only two more
+significant facts: her height--she was a tall girl--and a beautiful
+undulation in her walk, occasioned by the slight droop in her shoulders.
+She was dressed in dark green woollen, with a large hat to match.
+
+"Well, darling! and how have you been getting on?"
+
+The vague pathos of his grey face was met by the bright effusion of
+hers, and throwing her arms about him, she kissed him on the cheek.
+
+"Pretty well, dear; pretty well."
+
+"Only pretty well," she answered reproachfully. "No one has been here to
+interrupt you; you have had all the afternoon for finishing that
+virginal, and you've only been getting on 'pretty well.' But I see your
+necktie has come undone."
+
+Then overlooking him from head to foot--
+
+"Well, you have been making a day of it."
+
+"Oh, these are my old clothes--that is glue; don't look at me--I had an
+accident with the glue-pot; and that's paint. Yes; I must get some new
+shirts, these won't hold a button any longer."
+
+The conversation paused a few seconds, then running her finger down the
+keys, she said--
+
+"But it goes admirably."
+
+"Yes; I've finished it now; it is an exquisite instrument. I could not
+leave it till it was finished."
+
+"Then what are you complaining of, darling? Has Father Gordon been here?
+Has he discovered any new Belgian composer, and does he want all his
+music to be given at St. Joseph's?"
+
+"No; Father Gordon hasn't been here, and as for the Belgian composers,
+there are none left; he has discovered them all."
+
+"Then you've been thinking about me, about my voice.
+That's it," she said, catching sight of her own photograph. "You've
+been frowning over that photograph, thinking"--her eyes went up to her
+mother's portrait--"all sorts of nonsense, making yourself miserable,
+reproaching yourself that you do not teach me to vocalise, a thing which
+you know nothing about, or lamenting that you are not rich enough to
+send me abroad, where I could be taught it." Then, with a pensive note
+in her voice which did not escape him, she said--
+
+"As if there was any need to worry. I'm not twenty yet."
+
+"No, you're not twenty yet, but you will be very soon. Time is going
+by."
+
+"Well, let time go by, I don't care. I'm happy here with you, father. I
+wouldn't go away, even if you had the money to send me. I intend to help
+you make the concerts a success. Then, perhaps, I shall go abroad."
+
+His heart went out to his daughter. He was proud of her, and her fine
+nature was a compensation for many disappointments. He took her in his
+arms and thankfully kissed her. She was touched by his emotion, and
+conscious that her eyes were threatening tears, she said--
+
+"I can't stand this gloom. I must have some light. I'll go and get a
+lamp. Besides, it must be getting late. I wonder what kind of a dinner
+Margaret has got for us. I left it to her. A good one, I hope. I'm
+ravenous."
+
+A few minutes after she appeared in the doorway, holding a lamp high,
+the light showing over her white skin and pale gold hair. "Margaret has
+excelled herself--boiled haddock, melted butter, a neck of mutton and a
+rice pudding. And I have brought back a bag of oranges. Now come,
+darling. You've done enough to that virginal. Run upstairs and wash your
+hands, and remember that the fish is getting cold."
+
+She was waiting for him in the little back room--the lamp was on the
+table--and when they sat down to dinner she began the tale of her day's
+doings. But she hadn't got farther than the fact that they had asked her
+to stay to tea at Queen's Gate, when her tongue, which always went quite
+as fast as her thoughts, betrayed her, and before she was aware, she had
+said that her pupil's sister was in delicate health and that the family
+was going abroad for the winter. This was equivalent to saying she had
+lost a pupil. So she rattled on, hoping that her father would not
+perceive the inference.
+
+"There doesn't seem to be much luck about at present," he said. "That's
+the third pupil you've lost this month."
+
+"It is unfortunate ... and just as I was beginning to save a little
+money." A moment after her voice had recovered its habitual note of
+cheerfulness. "Then what do you think I did? An idea struck me; I took
+the omnibus and went straight to St. James's Hall."
+
+"To St. James's Hall!"
+
+"Yes, you old darling; don't you know that M. Desjardin, the French
+composer, has come over to give a series of concerts. I thought I should
+like him to try my voice."
+
+"You didn't see him?"
+
+"Yes I did. When I asked for him, the clerk said, pointing to a
+gentleman coming downstairs, that is Monsieur Desjardin. I went straight
+up to him, and told him who I was, and asked him if he had ever heard of
+mother. Just fancy, he never had; but he seemed interested when I told
+him that everyone said my voice was as good as mother's. We went into
+the hall, and I sang to him."
+
+"What did you sing to him?"
+
+"'Have you seen but a white lily grow?' and 'Que vous me coûtez cher,
+mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs.'"
+
+"Ah! that music must have surprised him. What did he say?"
+
+"I don't think I sang very well, but he seemed pleased, and asked me if
+I knew any modern music. I said 'Very little.' He was surprised at that.
+But he said I had a very fine voice, and sang the old music beautifully,
+but that it would be impossible for me to sing modern music without
+ruining my voice, until I had been taught. I asked him if it would not
+be well to try to earn a little money by concert singing, so that I
+might go abroad later on. He said, 'I am glad that all my arrangements
+are made, otherwise I might be tempted to offer you an engagement. One
+engagement leads to another, and if you sing before your voice is
+properly placed'--'posée' was the word he used--'you will ruin it.'"
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, that's all." Then, noticing the pained look that had come into her
+father's face, she added, "It was nice to hear that he thought well of
+my voice."
+
+But she could tell what he was thinking of, and regretting her tongue's
+indiscretion, she tried to divert his thoughts from herself. His
+brooding look continued, and to remove it she had to fetch his pipe and
+tobacco. When he had filled it for the third time he said--
+
+"There is the Bach and the Handel sonata waiting for us; we ought to be
+getting to work."
+
+"I'm quite ready, father. I suppose I must not eat any more oranges,"
+and she surveyed her plate full of skins.
+
+Mr. Innes took up the lamp, Evelyn called to the servant to get another,
+and followed him into the music-room. The lamps were placed on the
+harpsichord. She lighted some candles, and in the moods and aspirations
+of great men they found a fairyland, and the lights disappeared from the
+windows opposite, leaving them still there.
+
+The wings of the hours were light--weariness could not reach them--and
+at half-past eleven Mr. Innes was speaking of a beautiful motet, "O
+Magnum Mysterium," by Vittoria. His fingers lingered in the wailing
+chords, and he said--
+
+"That is where Wagner went for his chorus of youths in the cupola. The
+critics haven't discovered it yet; they are still talking of
+Palestrina."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+Jesuits from St. Joseph's were not infrequently seen at Mr. Innes's
+concerts. The worthy fathers, although they did not see their way to
+guaranteeing a yearly grant of money sufficient to ensure adequate
+performances of Palestrina's finest works, were glad to support, with
+occasional guineas, their organist's concerts. Painters and men of
+letters were attracted by them; musicians seldom. Nor did Mr. Innes
+encourage their presence. Musicians were of no use to him. They were, he
+said, divided into two classes--those who came to scoff, and those who
+came to steal. He did not want either sort.
+
+The rare music interested but a handful, and the audience that had come
+from London shivered in remembrance of the east wind which had
+accompanied their journey. But this little martyrdom did not seem to be
+entirely without its satisfactions, and conscious of superiority, they
+settled themselves to listen to the few words of explanation with which
+Mr. Innes was accustomed to introduce the music that was going to be
+played. He was speaking, when he was interrupted by the servant-maid,
+who whispered and gave him a card: "Sir Owen Asher, Bart., 27 Berkeley
+Square." He left the room hurriedly, and his audience surmised from his
+manner that something important had happened.
+
+Sir Owen, seemingly a tall man, certainly above the medium height, was
+waiting for him in the passage. His thin figure was wrapped tightly in
+an overcoat, most of his face was concealed in the collar, and the pale
+gold-coloured moustache showed in contrast to the dark brown fur. The
+face, wide across the forehead, acquired an accent in the pointed chin
+and strongly marked jaw. The straight nose was thin and well shaped in
+the nostrils. "An attractive man of forty" would be the criticism of a
+woman. Sir Owen's attractiveness concentrated in his sparkling eyes and
+his manner, which was at once courteous and manly. He told Mr. Innes
+that he had heard of his concerts that morning at the office of the
+_Wagnerian Review_, and Mr. Innes indulged in his habitual dream of a
+wealthy patron who would help him to realise his musical ambitions. Sir
+Owen had just bought the periodical, he intended to make it an organ of
+advanced musical culture, and would like to include a criticism of these
+concerts. Mr. Innes begged Sir Owen to come into the concert-room. But
+while taking off his coat, Sir Owen mentioned what he had heard
+regarding Mr. Innes's desire to revive the vocal masses of the sixteenth
+century at St. Joseph's, and the interest of this conversation delayed
+them a little in the passage.
+
+The baronet's evening clothes were too well cut for those of a poet, a
+designer of wall paper, or a journalist, and his hands were too white
+and well cared for at the nails. His hair was pale brown, curling a
+little at the ends, and carefully brushed and looking as if it had been
+freshened by some faintest application of perfumed essence. Three pearl
+studs fastened his shirt front, and his necktie was tied in a butterfly
+bow. He displayed some of the nonchalant ease which wealth and position
+create, smiled a little on catching sight of the jersey worn by a lady
+who had neglected to fasten the back of her bodice, and strove to
+decipher the impression the faces conveyed to him. He grew aware of that
+flitting anxiety which is inseparable from the task of finding a daily
+living, and that pathos which tells of fidelity to idea and abstinence
+from gross pleasure. A young man, who stood apart, in a carefully
+studied attitude, a dark lock of hair falling over his forehead, amused
+him, and the young man in the chair next Sir Owen wore a threadbare coat
+and clumsy boots, and sat bolt upright. Sir Owen pitied him and imagined
+him working all day in some obscure employment, finding his life's
+pleasure once a week in a score by Bach. Catching sight of a priest's
+profile, a look of contempt appeared on his face.
+
+He was of his class, he had lived its life and lived it still, in a
+measure, but from the beginning his ideas and tastes had been superior
+to those of a merely fashionable man. At five-and-twenty he had
+purchased a Gainsborough, and at thirty he had spent a large sum of
+money in exhuming some sonatas of Bach from the dust in which they were
+lying. At three-and-thirty he had wrecked the career of a fashionable
+soprano by inspiring her with the belief that she might become a great
+singer, a great artist; at five-and-thirty Bayreuth and its world of
+musical culture and ideas had interested him in spite of his
+unconquerable aversion to long hair and dirty hands. After some
+association with geniuses he withdrew from the art-world, confessing
+himself unable to bear the society of those who did not dress for
+dinner; but while repudiating, he continued to spy the art-world from a
+distance. An audience is, however, necessary to a 'cello player, and the
+Turf Club and the Royal Yacht Club contained not a dozen members, he
+said, who would recognise the Heroica Symphony if they happened to hear
+it, which was not likely. Lately he had declared openly that he was
+afraid of entering any of his clubs, lest he should be asked once more
+what he thought of the Spring Handicaps, and if he intended sailing the
+_Medusa_ in the Solent this season. Nevertheless, his journey to
+Bayreuth could not but produce an effect. He had purchased the
+_Wagnerian Review_; it had led him to Mr. Innes's concerts, and he was
+already interested in the prospect of reviving the early music and its
+instruments. That this new movement should be begun in Dulwich, a suburb
+he would never have heard of if it had not been for its picture gallery,
+stimulated his curiosity.
+
+It is the variation, not the ordinary specimen, that is most typical,
+for the variation contains the rule in essence, and the deviation
+elucidates the rule. So in his revolt against the habitual pleasures and
+ideas of his class, Sir Owen became more explanatory of that class than
+if he had acquiesced in the usual ignorance of £20,000 a year. To the
+ordinary eye he was merely the conventional standard of the English
+upper classes, but more intimate observation revealed the slight glaze
+of Bohemianism which natural inclination and many adventures in that
+land had left upon him. He listened without parade, his grey eyes
+following the music--they, not the head, seeming to nod to it; and when
+Mr. Innes approached to ask him his opinion, he sprang to his feet to
+tell him.
+
+One of the pieces they had heard was a pavane for five viols and a
+harpsichord, composed by Ferrabosco, son of the Italian musician who had
+settled in Greenwich at the end of the sixteenth century. Sir Owen was
+extraordinarily pleased and interested, and declared the pavane to be as
+complete as a sonata by Bach or Beethoven; but his appreciation was
+suddenly interrupted by someone looking at him.
+
+At a little distance, Evelyn stood looking at him. The moment she had
+seen him she had stopped, and her eyes were delighted as by a vision.
+Though he represented to her the completely unknown, she seemed to have
+known him always in her heart; she seemed to have been waiting for
+knowledge of this unknown, and the rumour of the future grew loud in her
+ears.
+
+He raised his eyes and saw a tall, fair girl dressed in pale green. Mr.
+Innes introduced them.
+
+"My daughter--Sir Owen Asher."
+
+In the little while which he took to decide whether he would take tea or
+coffee, he thought that something could be said for her figure, and he
+liked her hair, but, on the whole, he did not think he cared for her.
+She seemed to him an unimportant variety of what he had met before. He
+said he would take tea, and then he changed his mind and said he would
+have coffee, but Evelyn came back with a cup of tea, and perceiving her
+mistake, she laughed abstractedly.
+
+"You are going to sing two songs, Miss Innes. I'm glad; I hear your
+voice is wonderful."
+
+The sound of his voice conveyed a penetrating sense of his presence. It
+was the same happiness which the very sight of him had awakened in her,
+and she felt herself yielding to it as to a current. She was borne far
+away into mists of dream, where she seemed to live a long while. Time
+seemed to have ceased and the outside world to have fallen behind her.
+The sensation was the most delicious she had ever experienced. She
+hardly heard the answers that she made to his questions, and when her
+father called her, it was like returning after a long absence.
+
+She sang much more beautifully than he had expected, and during the
+preludes and fugues and the sonatas by Bach, which finished the
+programme, he thought of her voice, occasionally questioning himself
+regarding his taste for her. Even in this short while he had come to
+like her better. She had beautiful teeth and hair, and he liked her
+figure, notwithstanding the fact that her shoulders sloped a
+little--perhaps because they did slope a little. He noticed, whether her
+eyes wandered or remained fixed, that they returned to him, and that
+their glance was one of interrogation, as if all depended upon him. When
+the concert was over he was anxious to speak to her, so that he grew
+impatient with the people who stopped his way. The back room was filled
+with musical instruments--there were two harpsichords, a clavichord and
+an organ, and Mr. Innes insisted on explaining these instruments to him.
+He seemed to Owen to pay too slight a heed to his daughter's voice. That
+she played the viola da gamba very well was true enough, but what sense
+was there in a girl like that playing an instrument? Her voice was her
+instrument.
+
+When he was able to get a few words with her, he told her about Madame
+Savelli. There was no one else, he said, who could teach singing. She
+must go to France at once, and he seemed to take it for granted that she
+might start at the end of the week, if she only made up her mind. She
+did not know what answer to make, and was painfully conscious how silly
+she must look standing before him unable to say a word. It was no longer
+the same; some of the dream had been swept aside, and reality had begun
+to look through it. Her intense consciousness of this tall, aristocratic
+man frightened her. She saw the embroidered waistcoat, the slight hips,
+the gold moustache, and the sparkling grey eyes asked her questions to
+which her whole nature violently responded, and, though her feelings
+were inexplicable to herself, she was overcome with physical shame.
+Father Railston was looking at her, and the thought crossed her mind
+that he would not approve of Sir Owen Asher. Feeling very uncomfortable,
+she seized an opportunity of saying good-bye to a friend, and escaped
+from Sir Owen, leaving him, as she knew, under the impression that she
+was a little fool not worth taking further trouble about. But his ideas
+were different from all that she had been taught, and it would be better
+if she never saw him again. She did not doubt, however, that she would
+see him again, and when, two days after, the servant announced him and
+he walked into the music room, she was less surprised than her father.
+
+The review, he said, could not go to press without an article on the
+concert, but to do this article he must consult Mr. Innes, for in the
+first piece, "La my," the viols had seemed to him out of tune. Of course
+this was not so--perhaps one of the players had played a wrong note;
+that might be the explanation. But on referring to the music, Mr. Innes
+discovered a better one. "From the twelfth to the fifteenth century,
+writers," he said, "did not consider their music as moderns do. Now we
+watch the effect of a chord, a combination of notes heard at the same
+moment, the top note of which is the tune, but the older writers used
+their skill in divining musical phrases which could be followed
+simultaneously, each one going logically its own way, irrespective of
+some temporary clashing. They considered their music horizontally, as
+the parts went on; we consider it vertically, each chord producing its
+impression in turn. To them all the parts were of equal importance.
+Their music was a purely decorative interweaving of melodies. Now we
+have a tune with accompanying parts."
+
+"What a wonderful knowledge of music your father has, Miss Innes!"
+
+"Yes, father reads old MSS. that no one else can decipher."
+
+"These discords happened," Mr. Innes said, as he went to the
+harpsichord, "when a composition was based upon some old plain song
+melody, the notes of which could not be altered. Then the musician did
+not scruple to write in one of the other parts the same note altered by
+a sharp or flat to suit the passing requirement of the musical phrase
+allotted to that part. You could thus have together, say an F natural in
+one part and an F sharp in another. This to modern ears, not trained to
+understanding the meaning of the two parts, is intolerable."
+
+While he spoke of the relative fineness of the ancient and modern ear,
+maintaining that the reason ancient singers could sing without an
+accompaniment was that they were trained to sing from the monochord,
+Owen considered the figure of this tall, fair girl, and wondered if she
+would elect to remain with her father, playing the viola da gamba in
+Dulwich, or bolt with a manager--that was what generally happened. Her
+father was a most interesting old man, a genius in his way, but just
+such an one as might prove his daughter's ruin. He would keep her
+singing the old music, perhaps marry her to a clerk, and she would be a
+fat, prosaic mother of three in five years.
+
+However this might be, he, Owen, was interested in her voice, and, if he
+had never met Georgina, he might have liked this girl. It would be
+better that he should take her away than that she should go away with a
+manager who would rob and beat her. But, if he were to take her away, he
+would be tied to her; it would be like marrying her. Far better stick to
+married women, and he remembered his epigram of last night. It was at
+Lady. Ascott's dinner-party, the conversation had turned on marriage,
+and its necessity had been questioned. "But, of course, marriage is
+necessary," he had answered. "You can't have husbands without marriage,
+and if there were no husbands, who would look after our mistresses?" A
+lot of hypocrites had chosen to look shocked; Georgina had said it was a
+horrid remark and had hardly spoken to him all the evening; and this
+afternoon she had said she should not come and see him any more--she was
+afraid her husband suspected, her children were growing up, etc. When
+women cease to care for one, how importunate their consciences are! A
+little terror took him, and he wondered if he were about to lose
+Georgina, or if she were only trying to make him jealous. Perhaps he
+could not do better than make her jealous. For that purpose this young
+girl was just the thing.
+
+Moreover, he was interested in the revival of Palestrina at St.
+Joseph's, and he liked Ferrabosco's pavane. He would like to have a
+harpsichord; even if he did not play on it much, it would be a
+beautiful, characteristic piece of furniture.... And it would be a good
+idea to ask Mr. Innes to bring all his queer instruments to Berkeley
+Square, and give a concert to-morrow night after his dinner-party. His
+friends had bored him with Hungarian bands, and the improvisations the
+bands had been improvising for the last ten years, and he saw no reason
+why he should not bore them, just for a change, with Mr. Innes.
+
+At this moment his reflections were interrupted by Mr. Innes, who wanted
+to know if he did not agree with him regarding the necessity for the
+re-introduction of the monochord, if the sixteenth century masses were
+ever to be sung again properly. All this was old story to Evelyn. In a
+sort of dream, through a sort of mist, she saw the embroidered waistcoat
+and the gold moustache, and when the small, grey, smiling eyes were
+raised from her father's face and looked at her, a delicious sensation
+penetrated through the very tissues of her flesh, and she experienced
+the tremor of a decisive moment; and then there came again a gentle
+sense of delicious bewilderment and illusion.
+
+She did not know how it would all happen, but her life seemed for the
+first time to have come to a definite issue. The very moment he had
+spoken of Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, it was as if a
+light had begun in her brain, and she saw a faint horizon line; she
+seemed to see Paris from afar; she knew she would go there to study, and
+that night she had fallen asleep listening to the applause of three
+thousand hands.
+
+But she did not like to stand before him, offering him first the cup of
+tea, then the milk and sugar, then the cake, and bread and butter. Her
+repugnance had nothing to do with him; it was an obscure feeling, quite
+incomprehensible to herself. When he looked up she answered him with a
+smile which she felt to be mysterious, and he perceived its mystery, for
+he compared it to the hesitating smile of the Monna Lisa, a print of
+which hung on the wall. But the remark increased her foreboding and
+premonition. And she was sorry for her father, who was saying that he
+hoped to send her abroad in the spring; that he would have done so
+before, but she was studying harmony with him. And she could see that
+Owen was bored. He was only staying on in the hope of speaking to her,
+but she knew that her father was not going out, so there was no chance
+of their having a few words together. His invitation to Mr. Innes to
+bring the instruments to London, and give a concert to-morrow night at
+Berkeley Square, he had reserved till the moment he had got up to go.
+Mr. Innes was taken aback. He doubted if there would be time to get the
+instruments to London. But Owen said that all that was necessary was a
+Pickford van, and that if he would say "Yes," the van and a competent
+staff of packers would be at Dulwich in the morning, and would take all
+further trouble off his hands. The question was debated. Mr. Innes
+thought the instruments had better go by train, and Owen could not help
+smiling when he said that he would arrive with the big harpsichord and
+Evelyn about nine or half-past.
+
+She had two evening gowns--a pale green silk and a white. The pale green
+looked very nice; it had cost her three pounds. The white had nearly
+ruined her, but it had seemed to suit her so well that she had not been
+able to resist, and had paid five pounds ten, a great deal for her to
+spend on a dress. Its great fault was that it soiled at the least touch.
+She had worn it three times, and could not wear it again till it had
+been cleaned. It was a pity, but there was no help for it. She would
+have to wear the green, and to console herself she thought of the
+compliments she had had for it at different parties. But these seemed
+insignificant when she thought of the party she was going to to-night.
+
+She had never been to Berkeley Square, and expected to be surprised. But
+it lay in a hollow, a dignified, secluded square, exactly as she had
+imagined it. Nor did the great doorway, and the carpet that stretched
+across the pavement for her to walk upon, surprise her, nor the lines of
+footmen, nor the natural grace of the wide staircase. She seemed to have
+seen it all before, only she could not remember where. It came back to
+her like a dream. She seemed to recognise the pictures of the goddesses,
+the Holy Families and the gold mirrors; and lifting her eyes, she saw
+Owen at the head of the stairs, and he smiled so familiarly, that it
+seemed strange to think that this was only the third time she had seen
+him.
+
+He introduced her father to a fashionable musician, whose pavanes and
+sonatas were composed with that lack of matter and excess of erudition
+which delight the amateur and irritate the artist, and he walked down
+the rooms looking for seats where they could talk undisturbed for a few
+minutes. He was nervous lest Georgina should find him sitting with this
+girl in an intimate corner, but he did not expect her for another
+half-hour, and could not resist the temptation. He was curious to know
+how far Evelyn acquiesced in the obscure lot which her father imposed
+upon her, to play the viola da gamba, and sing old music, instead of
+singing for her own fame upon the stage. But had she a great voice? If
+she had, he would like to help her. The discovery of a new prima donna
+would be a fine feather in his cap. Above all, he was also curious to
+find out if she were the innocent maiden she appeared to be, or if she
+had had flirtations with the clerks in the neighbourhood, and he found
+his opportunity to speak to her on this subject in the first line of a
+French song she was going to sing:--
+
+"Que vous me coûtez cher, mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs."
+
+His appreciation of her changed every moment. Truly her eyes lit up with
+a beautiful light, and her remarks about the length of our payment for
+our pleasures revealed an apprehension which he had not credited her
+with. But he was alarmed at the quickness with which they had strayed to
+the very verge of things: From the other room they would seem very
+intimate, sitting on a sofa together, and he was expecting Georgina
+every minute. If she were to see them, it would lead to further
+discussion, and supply her with an excuse. But his curiosity was
+kindled, and while he considered how he could lead Evelyn into
+confidences, he saw her arm trembling through the gauze sleeve, for it
+seemed to her that all that was happening now had happened before. The
+walls covered with red pleated silk, the bracket-clocks, the
+brocade-covered chairs: where had she seen them? And Owen's grey eyes
+fixed upon her: where had she seen them? In a dream perhaps. She asked
+him if he had ever experienced the sensation of having already lived
+through a scene that was happening at the very moment. He did not seem
+to hear; he seemed expecting someone; and then the vision returned to
+her again, and she could not but think that she had known Sir Owen long
+ago, but how and where she could not tell. At that moment she noticed
+his absent-mindedness, and it was suddenly flashed upon her that he was
+in love with some woman and was waiting for her, and almost at the same
+moment she saw a tall, red-haired woman cross the further room. The
+woman paused in the doorway, as if looking for someone. She nodded to
+Owen and engaged in conversation with a group of men standing by the
+fireplace. Something told Evelyn that that smooth, cream-coloured neck
+was the woman Owen was in love with, and the sudden formality of his
+manner convinced her that she was right, that that was the woman he was
+in love with. He said that he must go and see after his other guests,
+and, as she expected, he went straight to the woman with the red hair.
+But she did not leave her friends. After shaking hands with Owen, she
+continued talking to them, and he was left out of the conversation.
+
+The concert began with a sonata for the harpsichord and the viola da
+gamba, and then Evelyn sang her two songs. She sang for Owen, and it
+seemed to her that she was telling him that she was sorry that it had
+all happened as it had happened, and that he must go away and be happy
+with the woman he loved. She did not think that she sang particularly
+well, but Owen came and told her that she had sung charmingly, and in
+their eyes were strange questions and excuses, and an avowal of regret
+that things were not different. Slim women in delicious gowns glided up
+and praised her, but she did not think that they had been as much
+impressed by her singing as they said; distinguished men were introduced
+to her, and she felt she had nothing to say to them; and looking round
+the circle of men and women she saw Owen in the doorway, and noticed
+that his eyes were restless and constantly wandered in the direction of
+the tall woman with the red hair, who sat calmly talking to her friends,
+never noticing him. He seemed waiting for a look that never came; his
+glances were furtive and quickly withdrawn, as if he feared he was being
+watched. When she got up to leave, Owen came forward and spoke to her,
+but she barely replied, and left the room alone. Evelyn saw all this,
+and she was surprised when Owen came rapidly through the room and sat
+down by her. He was painfully absent-minded, and so nervous that he did
+not seem to know what he was saying: indeed, that was the only excuse
+she could make for his remarks. She hardly recognised this man as the
+man she had hitherto known. She hated all his sentiments and his ideas;
+she thought them horrid, and was glad when her father came to tell her
+it was time for her to go.
+
+"You didn't sing well," he said, as they went home. "What was the matter
+with you?"
+
+Owen and the red-haired lady seemed to fall behind this last misfortune.
+If she had lost her voice she was no longer herself, and as she went to
+her teaching she saw herself a music mistress to the end of her days.
+
+But on Sunday morning she came down stairs singing, and Mr. Innes heard
+a future prima donna in her voice. Her face lit up, and she said, "Do
+you think so, dear. It was unlucky I sang so badly the other night. I
+seemed to have no voice at all."
+
+He told her that there were times when her mother suddenly lost her
+voice.
+
+"But, father, you are not fit to go out, and can't go out in that
+state."
+
+"What is the matter?" and his hand went to his shirt collar.
+
+"No, your necktie is all right. Ah! there you've untied it; I'll tie it
+for you. It's your coat that wants brushing."
+
+The black frock coat which he wore on Sundays was too small for him. If
+he buttoned it, it wrinkled round the waist and across the chest; if he
+left it open, its meagre width and the shortness of the skirts (they
+were the fashion of more than ten years ago) made it seem ridiculous.
+At the elbows the cloth was shiny with long wear, and the cuffs were
+frayed. His hat was as antiquated as his coat. It was a mere pulp,
+greasy inside and brown outside; the brim was too small, it was too low
+in the crown, and after the severest brushing it remained rough like a
+blanket. Evelyn handed it back to him in despair. He thanked his
+daughter, put it on his head, and forgot its appearance. But in spite of
+shabby coat and shabbier hat, Mr. Innes remained free from suspicion of
+vulgarity--the sad dignity of his grey face and the dreams that haunted
+his eyes saved him from that.
+
+"And whose mass are you going to play to-day?" she asked him.
+
+"A mass by Hummel, in B; on Thursday, a mass by Dr. Gladstone; and next
+Sunday, Mozart's Twelfth, beloved of Father Gordon and village choirs. I
+wonder if he will allow the Reproaches to be sung in Holy Week? He will
+insist on the expense of the double choir."
+
+"But, father, do you think that the congregation of St. Joseph's is one
+that would care for the refinement of Palestrina? Would you not require
+a cultivated West-end audience--the Oratory or Farm Street?"
+
+"That is Sir Owen's opinion."
+
+"I never heard him say so."
+
+How had she come to repeat anything she had heard him say? Moreover, why
+had she said that she had not heard him say so? And Evelyn argued with
+herself until the train reached their station--it was one of those
+absurd little mental complications, the infinitesimal life that
+flourishes deep in the soul.
+
+A little way down a side street, a few yards from the main thoroughfare,
+where the roads branched, the great gaunt façade of St. Joseph's pointed
+against a yellow sky. Its foundations had been laid and its walls built
+by a priest, who had collected large sums of money in America, and whose
+desire had been to have the largest church that could be built for the
+least money, in the shortest possible time. The result was the great,
+sprawling, grey stone building with a desolate spire, now fading into
+the darkness of the snow-storm. Money had run short. The church had not
+been completed when its founder died; then another energetic priest had
+raised another subscription. Doors and stained glass had been added,
+and, for a while, St. Joseph's had become a flourishing parish church,
+supported by various suburbs, and projects for the completion of its
+interior decoration had begun to be entertained; but while these
+projects were under consideration, the suburbs had acquired churches of
+their own, and the congregation of St. Joseph's had dwindled until it
+had lost all means of support, except the meagre assistance it received
+from the poor Irish and Italians of the neighbourhood. There had been
+talk of closing the church, and it would have had to be closed if the
+Jesuits had not accepted the mission. Another subscription had been
+started, but the greater part of this third subscription the Jesuits had
+spent upon their schools, so the fate of St. Joseph's seemed to be to
+remain, as someone had said, an unfinished ruin. Their resources were
+exhausted, and they surveyed the barren aisles, dreaming of the painting
+and mosaics they would put up when the promises of Father Gordon were
+realised. For it was understood that their fortunes should be retrieved
+by his musical abilities, and his competence to select the most
+attractive masses. Father Gordon was a type often found among amateur
+musicians--a man with a slight technical knowledge, a good ear, a nice
+voice, and absolutely no taste whatever. His natural ear was for obvious
+rhythm, his taste coincided with the popular taste, and as the necessity
+of attracting a congregation was paramount, it is easy to imagine how
+easily he conceded to his natural inclinations. And the arguments with
+which he rebutted those of his opponents were unanswerable, that
+whatever moved the heart to the love of God was right; that if the plain
+chant failed to help the soul to aspiration, we were justified in
+substituting Rossini's _Stabat Mater_, or whatever other musical idiom
+the neighbourhood craved for.
+
+Religious rite, according to Father Gordon, should conform to the
+artistic taste of the congregation, and he urged, with some force, that
+the artistic taste of Southwark stood on quite as high a level as that
+of Mayfair. To get a Mayfair audience they had only to follow the taste
+of Southwark. And so, under his guidance, the Jesuits had increased
+their orchestra and employed the best tenors that could be hired.
+Nevertheless, their progress was slow. Father Gordon pleaded patience.
+The neighbourhood was unfashionable; it was difficult to persuade their
+friends to come so far. Mr. Innes answered that if they gave him a choir
+of forty-five voices--he could do nothing with less--the West-end would
+come at once to hear Palestrina. The distance, and the fact of the
+church being in a slum, he maintained, would not be in itself a
+drawback. Half the success of Bayreuth, he urged, is owing to its being
+so far off. And this plan, too, seemed to possess some elements of
+success, and so the Jesuits hesitated between very divergent methods by
+which the same result might be attained.
+
+A few flakes of snow were falling, and Evelyn and her father put up
+their umbrellas as they crossed the road to the church. Three steps led
+to the pointed door above which was the figure of the patron saint.
+
+The nakedness of the unfinished and undecorated church was hidden in the
+twilight of the approaching storm, and Evelyn trembled as she walked up
+the aisle, so menacing seemed the darkness that descended from the sky.
+The stained glass, blackened by the smoke of the factory chimneys, let
+in but little light, the aisles were plunged in darkness, and kneeling
+in her favourite place the ineffectual gaslight seemed to her like
+painted flames on a dark background. The side chapels which opened on to
+the aisles were shut off by no ornamental screens, indeed, the only
+piece of decoration seemed to be the fine modern ironwork which veiled
+the sanctuary.
+
+She opened her prayer book, but in the shadow of the pillar where she
+was kneeling there was not sufficient light for her to read, so she bent
+her face upon her hands, intent upon losing herself in prayer. She
+abased herself before her Father in Heaven; attaining once more the
+wonderful human moment when the creature who crouches on this rim of
+earth implores pardon for her trespass from the beneficent Creator of
+things. But to-day her devotional mood was interrupted by sudden thought
+and sensation of Owen's presence; she was forced to look up, and
+convinced that he was very near her, she sought him amid the crowd of
+people who sat and knelt in front of her, blackening the dusk, a vague
+darkness in which she could at first distinguish nothing but an
+occasional white plume and a bald head. But her eyes grew accustomed to
+the darkness, and above the uninteresting backs of middle-aged men she
+recognised his thin sharp shoulders. She had been compelled to look up
+from her prayers, and she wondered if he had been thinking of her. If
+so, it was very wrong of him to interrupt her at her prayers. But a
+sensation of pleasure arose spontaneously in her. At that moment he had
+to remove his hat from the chair on which he had placed it, and she
+noticed the gold stud links in his large shirt cuffs, the rough material
+of which the coat was made, and how well it lay along the thin arm. She
+imagined the look of vexation on the grave interesting face, and laughed
+a little to herself. What was the poor woman to do? She had a right to
+her chair. But she did look so frightened, and was visibly perturbed by
+the presence of so fine a gentleman. Evelyn knew the woman by sight--a
+curious thin and crooked creature, who wore a strange bonnet and a
+little black mantle, and walked up the church, her hands crossed like a
+doll....
+
+No doubt he had driven all the way from Berkeley Square. She could see
+him leaning back in his brougham, humming various music, or plaintively
+thinking about the lady with the red hair, who did not care for him. Her
+breath caught her in the throat. That was the reason why he had come to
+St. Joseph's. It was all over with the red-haired lady, and it was for
+her that he had come to St. Joseph's! But that could not be.... She saw
+him moving in rich and elegant society, where everyone had a title, and
+the narrowness of her life compared with his dismayed her. It was
+impossible that he could care for her. She was remaining in Dulwich,
+with nothing but a few music lessons to look forward to.... But when she
+reached the operatic stage her life would be like his, and the vision
+of her future passed before her eyes--diamonds in stars, baskets of
+wonderful flowers, applause, and the perfume of a love story, swinging
+like a censer over it all.
+
+At that moment the priests entered; mass began. She opened her prayer
+book, but, however firmly she fixed her thoughts in prayer, they sprang
+back, without her knowing it, to Owen and the red-haired woman, with the
+smooth, cream-coloured shoulders. Without being aware of it, she was
+looking at him, and it was such a delight to think of him that she could
+not refrain. His chair was the last on the third line from the altar
+rail, and she noticed that he wore patent leather shoes; the hitching of
+the dark grey trousers displayed a silk sock; but he suddenly uncrossed
+his legs, and assumed a less negligent attitude. In a sudden little
+melancholy she remembered how he had watched the woman with the red
+hair, and the determined indifference of this woman's face as she left
+the room. Immediately after she was amused at the way in which his face
+expressed his opinion of the music, and she had to admit to herself that
+he listened as if he understood it.
+
+It was not until her father began to play the offertory, one of
+Schubert's beautiful inspirations, that she noticed the look of real
+delight that held the florid profile till the last note, and for some
+seconds after. "He certainly does love music," she thought; and when the
+bell rang for the Elevation, she bowed her head and became aware of the
+Real Presence. When it rang a second time she felt life stifle in her.
+When it rang a third time she again became conscious of time and place.
+But the sensation of awe which the accomplishment of the mystery had
+inspired was dissipated in the tumult of a very hideous Agnus Dei, in
+the voice of a certain concert singer, who seemed determined to shout
+down the organ. Evelyn had some difficulty in keeping her countenance,
+so plain was the expression of amazement upon the profile in front of
+her.
+
+Then the book was carried from the right to the left side of the altar,
+and when the priest had read the Gospel, she began once more to ask
+herself the reason that had brought Sir Owen to St. Joseph's. The manner
+in which he genuflected before the altar told her that he was a
+Catholic; perhaps he had come to St. Joseph's merely to hear mass.
+
+"I have come to see your father."
+
+"You will find him in the organ loft.... But he'll be down presently."
+
+And at the end of the church, in a corner out of the way of the crowd,
+they waited for Mr. Innes, and she learnt almost at once, from his face
+and the remarks that he addressed to her, that it was not for her that
+he had come to St. Joseph's. His carriage was waiting, he told the
+coachman to follow; all three tramped through the snow together to the
+station. In this miserable walk she learnt that he had decided to go for
+a trip round the world in his yacht, and expected to be away for nearly
+a year. As he bade them good-bye he looked at her, and his eyes seemed
+to say he was sorry that it was so, that he wished it were otherwise.
+She felt that if she had been able to ask him to stay he would have
+stayed; but, of course, that was impossible, and the last she saw of him
+was as he turned, just before getting into his brougham, to tell her
+father that the best critic of the _Review_ should attend the concerts,
+and that he hoped that what he would write would bring some people of
+taste to hear them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+
+The name was no indication. None remembered that Dowlands was the name
+of Henry the Eight's favourite lute player, and there was nothing in the
+snug masonry to suggest an æstheticism of any kind. The dulcimers, lutes
+and virginals surprised the visitor coming in from the street, and he
+stayed his steps as he might on the threshold of a fairy land.
+
+The villas, of which Dowlands was one, were a builder's experiment. They
+had been built in the hopes of attracting wealthy business West-end
+shopkeepers; but Dulwich had failed to become a fashionable suburb. Many
+had remained empty, and when Mr. Innes had entered into negotiations
+with the house agents, they declared themselves willing to entertain all
+his proposals, and finally he had acquired a lease at a greatly reduced
+rental.
+
+In accordance with his and Mrs. Innes's wishes, the house had been
+considerably altered. Partition walls had been taken away, and
+practically the whole ground floor converted into class-rooms, leaving
+free only one little room at the back where they had their meals. During
+his wife's lifetime the house suited their requirements. The train
+service from Victoria was frequent, and on the back of their notepaper
+was printed a little map, whereby pupils coming and going from the
+station could find their way. On the second floor was Mr. Innes's
+workshop, where he restored the old instruments or made new ones after
+the old models. There was Evelyn's bedroom--her mother had re-furnished
+it before she died--and she often sat there; it was, in truth, the most
+habitable room in the house. There was Evelyn's old nursery, now an
+unoccupied room; and there were two other empty rooms. She had tried to
+convert one into a little oratory. She had placed there a statue of the
+Virgin, and hung a crucifix on the wall, and bought a _prie-Dieu_ and
+put it there. But the room was too lonely, and she found she could say
+her prayers more fervently by her bedside. Their one servant slept
+downstairs in a room behind the kitchen. So the house often had the
+appearance of a deserted house; and Evelyn, when she returned from
+London, where she went almost daily to give music lessons, often paused
+on the threshold, afraid to enter till her ear detected some slight
+sound of her servant at work. Then she cried, "Is that you, Margaret?"
+and she advanced cautiously, till Margaret answered, "Yes, miss."
+
+The last summer and autumn had been the pleasantest in her life since
+her mother's death. Her pupils interested her--she had some six or
+seven. Her flow of bright talk, her eager manner, her beautiful playing
+of the viola da gamba, her singing of certain old songs, her mother's
+fame, and the hopes she entertained of one day achieving success on the
+stage made her a heroine among her little circle of friends. Her father
+was a remarkable man, but he seemed to her the most wonderful of men. It
+was exciting to go to London with him, to bid him good-bye at
+Victoria--she to her lessons, he to his--to meet him in the evenings,
+and in conjunction to arrange the programme of their next concert. These
+interests and ambitions had sufficed to fill her life, and to keep the
+greater ambition out of sight; and since her mother's death she had
+lived happily with her father, helping him in his work. But lately
+things had changed. Some of her pupils had gone abroad, others had
+married, and interest in the concerts declined. For a little while the
+old music had seemed as if it were going to attract sufficient
+attention, but already their friends had heard enough, and Mr. Innes had
+been compelled to postpone the next, which had been announced for the
+beginning of February. There would be no concert now till March, perhaps
+not even then; so there was nothing for her to look forward to, and the
+wet windy weather which swept the suburb contributed to her
+disheartenment. The only event of the day seemed to be her father's
+departure in the morning. Immediately after breakfast he tied up his
+music in a brown paper parcel and put his violin into its case; he spoke
+of missing his train, and, from the windows of the music-room, she saw
+him hastening down the road. She had asked him if there were any MSS. he
+wished copied in the British Museum; absent-mindedly he had answered
+"No;" and, drumming on the glass with her fingers, she wondered how the
+day would pass. There was nothing to do; there was nothing even to think
+about. She was tired of thinking that a pupil might come back--that a
+new pupil might at any moment knock at the door. She was tired of
+wondering if her father's concerts would ever pay--if the firm of music
+publishers with whom he was now in treaty would come to terms and enable
+him to give a concert in their hall, or if they would break off
+negotiations, as many had done before. And, more than of everything
+else, she was tired of thinking if her father would ever have money to
+send her abroad, or if she would remain in Dulwich always.
+
+One morning, as she was returning from Dulwich, where she had gone to
+pay the weekly bills, she discovered that she was no longer happy. She
+stopped, and, with an empty heart, saw the low-lying fields with poultry
+pens, and the hobbled horse grazing by the broken hedge. The old
+village was her prison, and she longed as a bird longs. She had trundled
+her hoop there; she ought to love it, but she didn't, and, looking on
+its too familiar aspect, her aching heart asked if it would never pass
+from her. It seemed to her that she had not strength nor will to return
+home. A little further on she met the vicar. He bowed, and she wondered
+how he could have thought that she could care for him. Oh, to live in
+that Rectory with him! She pitied the young man who wore brown clothes,
+and whose employment in a bank prevented him from going abroad for his
+health. These people were well enough, but they were not for her. She
+seemed to see beyond London, beyond the seas, whither she could not say,
+and she could not quell the yearning which rose to her lips like a wave,
+and over them.
+
+Formerly, when there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, she used to go
+there and meet her father, but lately, for some reason which she could
+not explain to herself, she had refrained. The thought of this church
+had become distasteful to her, and she returned home indifferent to
+everything, to music and religion alike. Her eyes turned from the pile
+of volumes--part of Bach's interminable works--and all the old
+furniture, and she stood at the window and watched the rain dripping
+into the patch of black garden in front of the house, surrounded by a
+low stone wall. The villas opposite suggested a desolation which found a
+parallel in her heart; the sloppy road and the pale brown sky frightened
+her, so menacing seemed their monotony. She knew all this suburb; it was
+all graven on her mind, and all that ornamental park where she must go,
+if it cleared a little, for her afternoon walk. She must tramp round
+that park once more. She strove to keep out of her mind its symmetrical
+walls, its stone basins, where the swans floated like white china
+ornaments, almost as lifeless. But worse even than these afternoons were
+the hours between six and eight. For very often her father was detained,
+and if he missed the half-past six train he had to come by the half-past
+seven, and in those hours of waiting the dusk grew oppressive and
+fearful in the music-room. Startled by a strange shadow, she crouched in
+her armchair, and when the feeling of dread passed she was weak from
+want of food. Why did her father keep her waiting? Hungry, faint and
+weary of life, she opened a volume of Bach; but there was no pleasure
+for her in the music, and if she opened a volume of songs she had
+neither strength nor will to persevere even through the first, and,
+rising from the instrument, she walked across the room, stretching her
+arms in a feverish despair. She had not eaten for many hours, and out of
+the vacuity of the stomach a dimness rose into her eyes. Pressing her
+eyes with her hand, she leaned against the door.
+
+One evening she walked into the garden. The silence and damp of the
+earth revived her, and the sensation of the cold stone, against which
+she was leaning, was agreeable. Little stars speckled a mauve and misty
+sky, and out of the mysterious spring twilight there came a strange and
+ultimate yearning, a craving which nothing she had ever known could
+assuage. But those stars--could they tell her nothing? One, large almost
+as the moon itself, flamed up in the sky, and a voice within her
+whispered that that was her star, that it held the secret of her
+destiny. She gazed till her father called to her from the gate; and all
+that evening she could think of nothing else. The conviction flowed
+within her that the secret of her destiny was there; and as she lay in
+bed the star seemed to take a visible shape.
+
+A face rose out of the gulf beneath her. She could not distinguish
+whether it was the face of man or woman; it was an idea rather than a
+face. The ears were turned to her for her to take the earrings, the
+throat was deeply curved, the lips were large and rose-red, the eyes
+were nearly closed, and the hair was curled close over a straight, low
+forehead. The face rose up to hers. She looked into the subtle eyes, and
+the thrill of the lips, just touching hers, awakened a sense of sin, and
+her eyes when they opened were frightened and weary. And as she sat up
+in her bed, trembling, striving vainly to separate the real from the
+unreal, she saw the star still shining. She hid her face in the pillow,
+and was only calmed by the thought that it was watching her.
+
+She went into the garden every evening to see it rise, and a desire of
+worship grew up in her heart; and thinking of the daffodils, it occurred
+to her to lay these flowers on the wall as an offering. Even wilder
+thoughts passed through her brain; she could not keep them back, and
+more than once asked herself if she were giving way to an idolatrous
+intention. If so, she would have to tell the foolish story to her
+confessor. But she could hardly bring herself to tell him such
+nonsense.... If she didn't, the omission might make her confession a
+false one; and she was so much perplexed that it seemed to her as if the
+devil took the opportunity to insinuate that she might put off going to
+confession. This decided her. She resolved to combat the Evil One.
+To-day was Thursday. She would confess on Saturday, and go to Communion
+on Sunday.
+
+Till quite lately her confessor had been Father Knight--a tall, spare,
+thin-lipped, aristocratic ecclesiastic, in whom Evelyn had expected to
+find a romantic personality. She had looked forward to thrilling
+confessions, but had been disappointed. The romance his appearance
+suggested was not borne out; he seemed unable to take that special
+interest in her which she desired; her confessions were barren of
+spiritual adventure, and after some hesitations her choice dropped upon
+Father Railston. In this selection the law of contrast played an
+important part. The men were very opposites. One walked erect and tall,
+with measured gait; the other walked according to the impulse of the
+moment, wearing his biretta either on one side of the head or the
+other. One was reserved; the other voluble in speech. One was of
+handsome and regular features; the other's face was plain but
+expressive. Evelyn had grown interested in Father Railston's dark,
+melancholy eyes; and his voice was a human voice vibrant with the terror
+and suffering of life. In listening to her sins he seemed to remember
+his own. She had accused herself of impatience at the circumstances
+which kept her at home, of even nourishing, she would not say projects,
+but thoughts, of escape.
+
+"Then, my child, are you so anxious to change your present life for that
+of the stage?"
+
+"Yes, Father."
+
+"You weary of the simplicity of your present life, and sigh for the
+brilliancy of the stage?"
+
+"I'm afraid I do." It was thrilling to admit so much, especially as the
+life of an actress was not in itself sinful. "I feel that I should die
+very soon if I were to hear I should never leave Dulwich."
+
+The priest did not speak for a long while, and raising her eyes she
+watched his expression. It seemed to her that her confession of her
+desire of the world had recalled memories, and she wondered what were
+they.
+
+"I am more than forty--I'm nearly fifty--and my life has passed like a
+dream."
+
+He seemed about to tell her the secret of life, and had stopped. But the
+phrase lingered through her whole life, and eventually became part of
+it. "My life has passed like a dream." She did not remember what he had
+said after, and she had gone away wondering if life seemed to everyone
+like a dream when they were forty, and if his life would have seemed
+more real to him if he had given it to the world instead of to God? Her
+subsequent confessions seemed trite and commonplace. Not that Father
+Railston failed to listen with kind interest to her; not that he failed
+to divine that she was passing through a physical and spiritual crisis.
+His admonitions were comforting in her weariness of mind and body; but
+notwithstanding her affection for him, she felt that beyond that one
+phrase he had no influence over her. She almost felt that he was too
+gentle and indulgent, and the thought she would have liked a confessor
+who was severe, who would have inflicted heavier penances, compelled her
+to fast and pray, who would have listened in deeper sternness to the
+sins of thought which she with averted face shamefully owned to having
+entertained. She was disappointed that he did not warn her with the loss
+of her soul, that he did not invent specious expedients for her use,
+whereby the Evil One might be successfully checked.
+
+One Sunday morning the servant told Mr. Innes that Miss Evelyn has left
+a little earlier, as she was going to Communion. She remained in church
+for High Mass, and when chided for such long abstinence, she smiled
+sadly and said that she did not think that it would do her much harm.
+During the following week he noticed that she hardly touched breakfast,
+and the only reason she gave was that she thought she would like to
+fast. No, she had not obtained leave from her confessor; she had not
+even consulted him. She, of course, knew that she was not obliged to
+fast, not being of age; but she was not doing any work; she had no
+pupils; the concert had been postponed; she thought she would like to
+fast. Father and daughter looked at each other; they felt that they did
+not understand, that there was nothing to be done, and Mr. Innes put his
+fiddle into its case and went to London, deeply concerned about his
+daughter, and utterly unable to arrive at any conclusion.
+
+She fasted, and she broke through her fast, and as Lent drew to a close
+she asked her father if she might make a week's retreat in a convent at
+Wimbledon where she had some friends. There was no need for her at home;
+it would be at least change of air and she pressed him to allow her to
+go. He feared the influence the convent might have upon her, and
+admitted that his selfishness was largely accountable for this religious
+reaction. No doubt she wanted change, she was looking very poorly. He
+spoke of the sea, but who was to take her to Brighton or Margate? The
+convent seemed the only solution of the difficulty, and he had to
+consent to her departure.
+
+The retreat was to last four days, but Evelyn begged that she might stay
+on till Easter Tuesday. This would give her a clear week away from home,
+and the improvement that this little change wrought in her was
+surprising. The convent had made her cheeks fair as roses, and given her
+back all her sunny happiness and abundant conversation. She delighted in
+telling her father of her week's experience. For four days she had not
+spoken (perhaps that was the reason she was talking so much now), and
+during these four days they were nearly always in chapel; but somehow it
+hadn't seemed long, the services were so beautiful. The nuns wore grey
+serge robes and head-dresses, the novices white head-dresses; what had
+struck her most was the expression of happy content on their faces.
+
+"I wish, father, you had seen them come into church--their long robes
+and beautiful white faces. I don't think there is anything as beautiful
+as a nun."
+
+The mother prioress was a small woman, with an eager manner. She looked
+so unimportant that Evelyn had wondered why she had been chosen, but the
+moment she spoke you came under the spell of her keen, grey eyes and
+clear voice.... Mother Philippa, the mistress of the novices, was quite
+different--stout and middle-aged, and she wore spectacles. She was
+beautiful notwithstanding; her goodness was like a soft light upon her
+face. ...Evelyn paused. She could not find words to describe her; at
+last she said--
+
+"When she comes into the room, I always feel happy."
+
+She could not say which she liked the better, but branched off into a
+description of the Carmelite who had given the retreat--strong,
+eagle-faced man, with thin hair drawn back from his forehead, and
+intense eyes. He wore sandals, and his white frock was tied with a
+leather belt, and every word he spoke had entered into her heart. He
+gave the meditations, which were held in the darkened library. They
+could not see each other's faces; they could only see the white figure
+at the end of the room.
+
+She had had her meals in the parlour with two other ladies who had come
+to the convent for the retreat. They were both elderly women, and Evelyn
+fancied that they belonged to the grandest society. She could tell that
+by their voices. The one she liked best had quite white hair, and her
+expression was almost that of a nun. She was tall, very stout, and
+walked with a stick. On Easter Sunday this old lady had asked her if she
+would care to come into the garden with her. It was such a beautiful
+morning, she said, that it would do both of them good. The old lady
+walked very slowly with her stick. But though Evelyn thought that she
+must be at least a countess, she did not think she was very rich--she
+had probably lost her money. The black dress she wore was thin and
+almost threadbare, and it was a little too long for her; she held it up
+in her left hand as she walked--a most beautiful hand for an old woman.
+Both these ladies had been very kind to her; she had often walked with
+them in the garden--a fine old garden. There were tall, shady trees;
+these were sprinkled with the first tiny leaves; and the currant and
+raspberry bushes were all out. And there was a fishpond swarming with
+gold fish, and they were so tame that they took bread from the novices'
+hands.
+
+The conversation had begun about the convent, and after speaking of its
+good sisters, the old lady, whose hair was quite white, had asked Evelyn
+about herself. Had she ever thought of being a nun? Evelyn had answered
+that she had not. She had never considered the question whether she had
+a vocation.... She had been brought up to believe that she was going on
+the stage to sing grand opera.
+
+"It is hardly for me to advise you. But I know how dangerous the life of
+an opera singer is. I shall pray God that He may watch over you. Promise
+me always to remember our holy religion. It is the only thing we have
+that is worth having; all the rest passes."
+
+"Father, we were close by the edge of the fishpond, and all the greedy
+fish swarmed to the surface, thinking we had come to feed them. She
+said, 'I cannot walk further without resting; come, my dear, let me sit
+down on that bench, and do you sing me a little song, very low, so that
+no one shall hear you but I.' I sang her "John, come kiss me now," and
+she said, "My dear, you have a beautiful voice, I pray that you make
+good use of it."
+
+But not in one day could all Evelyn's convent experiences be related,
+and it was not until the end of the week that Evelyn told how Mother
+Philippa, at the end of a long talk in which she had spoken to Evelyn
+about the impulses which had led her to embrace a religious life (she
+had been twenty years in this convent), had taken her upstairs to the
+infirmary to see Sister Bonaventure, an American girl, only twenty-one,
+who was dying of consumption. She lay on a couch in grey robes, her
+hands and face waxen white, and a smile of happy resignation on her lips
+and in her eyes.
+
+"But," exclaimed Evelyn, "they told me she would die within the
+fortnight, so she may be dead now; if not to-day, to-morrow or after. I
+hadn't thought of that.... I shall never forget her, every few minutes
+she coughed--that horrible cough! I thought she was going to die before
+my eyes, but in the intervals she chattered and even laughed, and no
+word of complaint escaped her. She was only twenty-one ... had known
+nothing of life; all was unknown to her, except God, and she was going
+to Heaven. She seemed quite happy, yet to me it seemed the saddest sight
+in the world.... She'll be buried in a few days in the sunniest corner
+of the garden, away from the house--that is their graveyard. The mother
+Prioress, the founder of the convent, is buried there; a little
+dedicatory chapel has been built, and on the green turf, tall wooden
+crosses mark the graves of six nuns; next week there'll be one more
+cross."
+
+The conversation paused, and Evelyn sat looking into the corner of the
+room, her large clear eyes wide open and fixed. Presently she said--
+
+"Father," I've often thought I should like to be a nun."
+
+"You a nun! And with that voice!"
+
+She looked at him, smiling a little.
+
+"What matter?"
+
+"What matter! Have you not thought--but I understand; you mean that your
+voice is wasted here, that we shall never have the means to go
+abroad.... But we shall."
+
+"Father, dear, I wasn't thinking of that. I do believe that means will
+be found to send me abroad to study. But what then? Shall I be happy?"
+
+"Fame, fortune, art!"
+
+"Those nuns have none of those things, and they are happy. As that old
+lady said their happiness comes from within."
+
+"And you'll be happy with those things, as happy as they are without
+them. You're in a melancholy mood; come, we'll think of the work before
+us. I've decided that we give our concert the week after next. That will
+give us ten clear days."
+
+He entered into the reasons which had induced him to give this concert.
+But Evelyn had heard all about the firm of musical publishers, who
+possibly might ask him to bring up the old instruments to London, and
+give a concert in a fashionable West-end hall. Seeing that she was not
+listening, he broke off his narrative with the remark that he had
+received a letter that morning from Sir Owen.
+
+"Is he coming home? I thought he was going round the world and would not
+be back for a year."
+
+"He has changed his mind. This letter was posted at Malta--a most
+interesting letter it is;" and while Mr. Innes read Sir Owen's account
+of the discovery of the musical text of an ancient hymn which had been
+unearthed in his presence, Evelyn wondered if he had come home for her
+or--the thought entered her heart with a pang--if he had come home for
+the red-haired woman. Mr. Innes stopped suddenly in his reading, and
+asked her of what she was thinking.
+
+"Nothing, father."
+
+"You don't seem to take any interest. The text is incomplete, and some
+notes have been conjecturally added by a French musician." But much more
+interesting to Evelyn was his account of the storm that had overtaken
+his yacht on the coast of Asia Minor. He had had to take his turn at the
+helm, all the sailors being engaged at the sails, and, with the waves
+breaking over him, he had kept her head to the wind for more than two
+hours.
+
+"I can hardly fancy him braving the elements, can you, Evelyn?"
+
+"I don't know, father," she said, startled by the question, for at that
+moment she had seen him in imagination as clearly as if he were present.
+She had seen him leaning against the door-post, a half-cynical,
+half-kindly smile floating through his gold moustache. "Do you think he
+will like the music you are going to give at the next concert? He is
+coming, I suppose?"
+
+"It is just possible he may arrive in time; but I should hardly think
+so. I've written to invite him; he'll like the music; it is the most
+interesting programme we've had--an unpublished sonata by Bach--one of
+the most interesting, too. If that is not good enough for him--by the
+way, have you looked through that sonata?"
+
+"No, father, but I will do so this afternoon."
+
+And while practising the sonata, Evelyn felt as if life had begun again.
+The third movement of the sonata was an exquisite piece of musical
+colour, and, if she played it properly, he could not fail to come and
+congratulate her.... But he would not be here in time for the concert
+... not unless he came straight through, and he would not do that after
+having nearly escaped shipwreck. She was sure he would not arrive in
+time, but the possibility that he might gave her additional interest in
+the sonata, and every day, all through the week, she discovered more and
+more surprising beauties in it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+
+She was alone in the music-room reading a piece of music, and her back
+was to the door when he entered. She hardly recognised him, tired and
+tossed as he was by long journeying, and his grey travelling suit was
+like a disguise.
+
+"Is that you, Sir Owen?... You've come back?"
+
+"Come back, yes, I have come back. I travelled straight through from
+Marseilles, a pretty stiff journey.... We were nearly shipwrecked off
+Marseilles."
+
+"I thought it was off the coast of Asia Minor?"
+
+"That was another storm. We have had rough weather lately."
+
+The music dropped from her hand, and she stood looking at him, for he
+stood before her like an ancient seafarer. His grey tweed suit buttoned
+tightly about him set off every line of his spare figure. His light
+brown hair was tossed all over his head, and she could not reconcile
+this rough traveller with the elegant fribble whom she had hitherto
+known as Sir Owen. But she liked him in this grey suit, dusty after long
+travel. He was picturesque and remote as a legend. A smile was on his
+lips; it showed through the frizzled moustache, and his eyes sparkled
+with pleasure at sight of her.
+
+"But why did you travel straight through? You might have slept at
+Marseilles or Paris."
+
+"One of these days I will tell you about the gale. I wonder I am not at
+the bottom of that treacherous sea; it did blow my poor old yacht
+about--I thought it was her last cruise; and when we got to the hotel I
+was handed your father's letter. As I did not want to miss the concert,
+I came straight through."
+
+"You must be very fond of music."
+
+"Yes, I am.... Music can be heard anywhere, but your voice can only be
+heard at Dulwich."
+
+"Was it to hear me sing that you came back?"
+
+She had spoken unawares, and felt that the question was a foolish one,
+and was trembling lest he should be inwardly laughing at her. But the
+earnest expression into which his little grey eyes concentrated
+reassured her. She seemed to lose herself a little, to drift into a sort
+of dream in which even he seemed to recede, and so intense and personal
+was her sensation that she could not follow his tale of adventure. It
+was an effort to listen to it at that moment, and she said--
+
+"But you must be tired, you've not had a proper night's sleep ... for a
+week."
+
+"I'm not very tired, I slept in the train, but I'm hungry. I've not had
+anything since ten o'clock this morning. There was no time to get
+anything at Victoria. I was told that the next train for Dulwich started
+in five minutes. I left my valet to take my trunks home; he will bring
+my evening clothes on here for the concert. Can you let me have a room
+to dress in?"
+
+"Of course; but you must have something to eat."
+
+"I thought of going round to the inn and having a chop."
+
+"We had a beefsteak pudding for dinner; I wonder if you could eat
+beefsteak pudding?"
+
+"There's nothing better."
+
+"Warmed up?"
+
+"Yes, warmed up."
+
+"Then I may run and tell Margaret?"
+
+"I shall be much obliged if you will."
+
+She liked to wait upon him, and her pleasure quickened when she handed
+him bread or poured out ale, making it foam in the glass, for
+refreshment after his long journey; and when she sat opposite, her eyes
+fixed on him, and he told her his tale of adventure, her happy flushed
+face reminded him of that exquisite promise, the pink almond blossom
+showing through the wintry wood.
+
+"So you didn't believe me when I said that it was to hear you sing that
+I came back?"
+
+"That you renounced your trip round the world?"
+
+"Yes, I renounced my trip round the world to hear you sing."
+
+She did not answer, and he put the question again.
+
+"I can understand that there might be sufficient reason for your giving
+up your trip round the world. I thought that perhaps--no, I cannot
+say--"
+
+They had been thinking of each other, and had taken up their interest in
+each other at their last thoughts rather than at their last words. She
+was more conscious of the reason of their sudden intimacy than he was,
+but he too felt that they had advanced a long way in their knowledge of
+each other, and their intuition was so much in advance of facts that
+they sat looking at each other embarrassed, their words unable to keep
+pace with their perceptions.
+
+Evelyn suddenly felt as if she were being borne forward, but at that
+moment her father entered.
+
+"Father, Sir Owen was famishing when he arrived. He wanted to go to the
+inn and eat a chop, but I persuaded him to stop and have some beefsteak
+pudding."
+
+"I am so glad ... you've arrived just in time, Sir Owen. The concert is
+to-night."
+
+"He came straight through without stopping; he has not been home. So,
+father, you will never be able to say again that your concerts are not
+appreciated."
+
+"Well, I don't think that you will be disappointed, Sir Owen. This is
+one of the most interesting programmes we have had. You remember
+Ferrabosco's pavane which you liked so much--"
+
+Margaret announced the arrival of Sir Owen's valet, and while Mr. Innes
+begged of Sir Owen not to put himself to the trouble of dressing, Owen
+wondered at his own folly in yielding to a sudden caprice to see the
+girl. However, he did not regret; she was a prettier girl than he had
+thought, and her welcome was the pleasantest thing that had happened to
+him for many a day.
+
+"My poor valet, I am afraid, is quite _hors de combat_. He was
+dreadfully ill while we were beating up against that gale, and the long
+train journey has about finished him. At Victoria he looked more dead
+than alive."
+
+Evelyn went out to see this pale victim of sea sickness and expedition.
+She offered him dinner and then tea, but he said he had had all he could
+eat at the refreshment bars, and struggled upstairs with the portmanteau
+of his too exigent master.
+
+A few of her guests had already arrived, and Evelyn was talking to
+Father Railston when Sir Owen came into the room.
+
+"I shall not want you again to-night," he said, turning towards the door
+to speak to his valet. "Don't sit up for me, and don't call me to-morrow
+before ten."
+
+She had not yet had time to speak to Owen of a dream which she had
+dreamed a few nights before, and in which she was much interested. She
+had seen him borne on the top of a huge wave, clinging to a piece of
+wreckage, alone in the solitary circle of the sea. But Owen, when he
+came downstairs dressed for the concert, looked no longer like a
+seafarer. He wore an embroidered waistcoat, his necktie was tied in a
+butterfly bow, and the three pearl studs, which she remembered, fastened
+the perfectly-fitting shirt. She was a little disappointed, and thought
+that she liked him better in the rough grey suit, with his hair tossed,
+just come out of his travelling cap. Now it was brushed about his ears,
+and it glistened as if from some application of brilliantine or other
+toilet essence. Now he was more prosaic, but he had been extraordinarily
+romantic when he ran in to see her, his grey travelling cap just
+snatched from his head. It was then she should have told him her dream.
+All this was a very faint impression, half humorous, half regretful, it
+passed, almost without her being aware of it, in the background of her
+mind. But she was keenly disappointed that he was not impressed by her
+dream, and was inclined to consider it in the light of a mere
+coincidence. In the first place, he hadn't been shipwrecked, and that
+she should dream of shipwreck was most natural since she knew that he
+had gone a-seafaring, and any gust of wind in the street was enough to
+excite the idea of a castaway in the unclosed cellular tissues of her
+brain. She did not answer, and he stood trying to force an answer from
+her, but she could not, nor did she wish to think that her dream was no
+more than a merely physiological phenomenon. But just at that moment Mr.
+Innes was waiting to speak to Sir Owen.
+
+He had a great deal to say on the subject of the disgraceful neglect of
+the present Royal Family in not publishing the works of their single
+artistic ancestor, Henry VIII. Up to the present time none of his
+numerous writings, except one anthem played in the Chapel at Windsor,
+was known; the pieces that were going to be played that evening lay in
+MS. in the British Museum, and had probably not been heard for two,
+maybe three hundred years. Encouraged by Sir Owen's sympathy, he
+referred again, in his speech to his audience, to the indifference of
+the present Royal Family to art, and he added that it was strange that
+he should be doing at Dowlands what the Queen or the Prince of Wales
+should have done long ago, namely, the publication of their ancestor's
+work with all the prestige that their editorship or their patronage
+could give it.
+
+"I must go," she said; "they are waiting for me."
+
+She took her place among the viol players and began playing; but she had
+forgotten to tune her instrument, and her father stopped the
+performance. She looked at him, a little frightened, and laughed at her
+mistake. The piece they were playing was by Henry VIII., a masterpiece,
+Mr. Innes had declared it to be, so, to stop the performance on account
+of Evelyn's viola da gamba, and then to hear her play worse than he had
+ever heard her play before, was very disappointing.
+
+"What is the matter? Aren't you well? I never heard you play so badly."
+
+He hoped that she would play better in the next piece, and he besought
+her with a look before he signed to the players to begin. She resolved
+not to think of Owen, and she played so well that the next piece was
+applauded. Except for her father's sake she cared very little how she
+played; she tried to play well to please him, but she was anxious to
+sing well--she was singing for herself and for Owen, which was the same
+thing--and she sang beautifully in the King's madrigal and the two songs
+accompanied by the lute--"I loathe what I did love," and "My lytell
+pretty one," both anonymous, composed in 1520, and discovered by Mr.
+Innes in the British Museum. The musical interest of these two songs was
+slight, and Owen reflected that all Mr. Innes's discoveries at the
+British Museum were not of equal importance. But she had sung divinely,
+and he thought how he should praise her at the end of the concert.
+
+Evelyn hoped he would tell her that she had sung better than she had
+sung on the fatal night of the party in Berkeley Square. This was what
+she wished him to say, and she wished it partly because she knew that
+that was what he would say. That party had not yet been spoken of, but
+she felt sure it would be, for it seemed a decisive point in their
+lives.
+
+She was not playing in the next two pieces--fantasies for treble and
+tenor viols--and she sat in the background, catching glimpses of Owen
+between the hands and the heads of the viol players, and over the rims
+of their, instruments. She sat apart, not hearing a note of the music,
+absorbed in herself, a little exaltation afloat in her brain, her flesh
+glowing as in the warmth of an inward fire, her whole instinct telling
+her that Owen had not come back for the red-haired woman; he had gone
+away for her, perhaps, but he had not come back for her--of that she was
+sure In spite of herself, the conviction was forced upon her that the
+future was for her. The red-haired lady was a past which he would tell
+her some day, and that day she knew to be not very far distant.
+
+The programme was divided into two parts, and after the first, there was
+a little interval during which tea and cake were handed round. Evelyn
+helped to hand them round, and when she held the cake tray to Owen, she
+raised her eyes and they looked at each other, and in that interval it
+almost seemed as if they kissed each other.
+
+They met again at the end of the concert, and she waited anxiously for
+him to speak. He told her, as she expected he would, that she had sung
+to-night much better than she had sung at his party. But they were
+surrounded by people seeking their coats and umbrellas; it was
+impossible to speak without being overheard; he had told her that she
+had sung to his satisfaction; that was sufficient, and they felt that
+all had been said, and that they understood each other perfectly.
+
+As she lay in bed, the thought came that he might write to her a letter
+asking her to meet him, to keep an appointment. But she would have to
+refuse, it would be wrong; but it was not wrong to think about it. He
+would be there before her; the moment he saw her coming his eyes would
+light up in a smile, and they would walk on together some little way
+without speaking. Then he would say, "Dearest, there will be a carriage
+waiting at the corner of the road"--and then? She could see his face and
+his tall, thin figure, she could picture it all so distinctly that it
+was almost the same as if it were happening. All he said, as well as all
+she said, kept pouring in upon her brain without a missing word, and she
+hugged herself in the delight of these imaginings, and the hours went by
+without weariness for her. She lay, her arms folded, thinking,
+thinking, seeing him through the darkness.
+
+He came to see them the following day. Her father was there all the
+time, but to hear and see him was almost enough for her. She seemed to
+lose sight of everything and to be engulfed in her own joy. When he had
+gone away she remembered the smile which had lit up some pretty thought
+of her; her ears were full of his voice, and she heard the lilt that
+charmed her whenever she pleased. Then she asked herself the meaning of
+some casual remark, and her mind repeated all he had said like a
+phonograph. She already knew his habitual turns of speech; they had
+begun to appear in her own conversation, and all that was not connected
+with him lost interest for her. Once or twice during the week she went
+to bed early so that she might not fancy her father was looking at her
+while she thought of Owen.
+
+Owen called at the end of the week--the _Wagnerian Review_ always
+supplied him with sufficient excuse for a visit--but he had to spend his
+visit in discussing the text of a Greek hymn which he had seen
+disinterred in Greece. She was sorry for him, sorrier than she was for
+herself, for she could always find him in her thoughts.... She wondered
+if he could find her as vividly in his thoughts as she settled herself
+(the next day was Sunday) in the corner of her pew, resolved from the
+beginning not to hear a word of the sermon, but to think of Owen the
+whole time. She wanted to hear why he had left England so suddenly, and
+why he had returned so suddenly. She was sure that she and the
+red-haired lady were the cause of one or the other, and that neither was
+the cause of both. These two facts served for a warp upon which she
+could weave endless mental embroideries, tales as real as the tales of
+old tapestry, tales of love and jealousy, and unexpected meetings, in
+which she and Owen and the red-haired lady met and re-met. Whilst Father
+Railston was preaching, these tales flowed on and on, subtle as silk,
+illusive as evening tinted clouds; and it was not until she had
+exhausted her fancy, and Owen had made one more fruitless visit to
+Dulwich, that she began to scheme how she might see him alone. There was
+so much that they could only talk about if they were alone; and then she
+wanted so much to hear the story of the red-haired lady. If she did not
+contrive an opportunity for being with him alone, she might never hear
+why he had left England for a trip round the world, and had returned
+suddenly from the Mediterranean. She felt that, however difficult and
+however wrong it might be, she must find this opportunity. She thought
+of asking him the hour of the train by which he generally came to
+Dulwich, so that she might meet him in the station. Other schemes came
+into her mind, but she could think of nothing that was just right.
+
+But one day, as she was running to post a letter, she saw Owen, more
+beautifully dressed than ever, coming toward her. Her feet and her
+heart stood still, for she wore her old morning gown and a pair of old
+house slippers. But he had already seen her and was lifting his hat, and
+with easy effrontery he told her that he had come to Dulwich to consult
+her father about the Greek hymn.
+
+"But father is at St. Joseph's," she said, and then she stopped; and
+then, before she saw his smile, she knew why he had come to Dulwich so
+early.
+
+The shadows of the leaves on the pavement drew pretty pattern for their
+feet, and they strolled meditatively through the subdued sunlight.
+
+"Why did you stop and look so startled when you saw me?"
+
+"Because I am so badly dressed; my old house slippers and this--"
+
+"You look very well--dress matters nothing."
+
+"No one would gather your opinions from your appearance."
+
+Owen laughed, and admired the girl's wit.
+
+"Do you want to see father very much about the Greek hymn?"
+
+"Well," he said, and he looked at her questioningly, and not liking to
+tell her in so many words that he had come to Dulwich to see her, he
+entered into the question of the text of the hymn, which was imperfect.
+Many notes were missing, and had been conjecturely added by a French
+musician, and he had wished to consult Mr. Innes about them. So a good
+deal of time was wasted in conversation in which neither was interested.
+Before they were aware, they were at Dowlands, and with an accent of
+regret in her voice, which Owen noticed with pleasure, she held out her
+hand and said good-bye.
+
+"Are you very busy, then, are you expecting a pupil?"
+
+"No, I have nothing to do."
+
+"Then why should we say good-bye? It is hardly worth while getting up so
+early in the morning to discuss the text of an ancient Greek hymn."
+
+His frankness was unexpected, and it pleased her.
+
+"No, I don't suppose it is; Greek music at eleven o'clock in the morning
+would be a little trying."
+
+A delicious sense of humour lit up in her eyes, and he felt his interest
+in her advance a further stage.
+
+"If you have nothing to do we might go to the picture gallery. There is
+a wonderful Watteau--"
+
+"Watteau at eleven, Greek hymn at one."
+
+But she felt, all the same, that she would give everything to go to the
+picture gallery with him.
+
+"But I am not dressed, this is an old thing I wear in the morning; not
+that there would be many people there, only the curator and a girl
+copying at eleven in the morning."
+
+"But is your father coming back at one?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because you said Greek hymn at one. The time will pass quickly between
+eleven and one. You need not change your dress."
+
+Then, with an expressive little glance which went straight to his heart,
+she noted his fastidious dress, the mauve necktie, the perfectly fitting
+morning coat buttoned across the chest, the yellow-brown trousers, and
+the long laced boots, half of patent and half of tan coloured leather.
+
+"I could not walk about with you in this dress and hat, but I sha'n't
+keep you long."
+
+While he waited he congratulated himself on the moment when he had
+determined to abandon his tour round the world, and come back to seek
+Evelyn Innes at Dulwich.
+
+"She is much nicer, a hundred times more exciting than I thought.
+Poetry, sympathy, it is like living in a dream." He asked himself if he
+liked her better than Georgina, and answered himself that he did; but
+deep down in his heart he knew that the other woman had given him deeper
+and more poignant emotions, and he knit his brows, for he hated
+Georgina.
+
+Owen was the first temptation in Evelyn's life, and it carried her
+forward with the force of a swirling river. She tried to think, but
+thoughts failed her, and she hooked her black cloth skirt and thrust her
+arms into her black cloth jacket with puffed sleeves. She opened her
+wardrobe, and wondered which hat he would like, chose one, and hastened
+downstairs.
+
+"You've not been long ... you look very nice. Yes, that is an
+improvement."
+
+His notice of her occasioned in her a little flutter of joy, a little
+exaltation of the senses, and she walked on without speaking, deep in
+her pleasure, and as the sensation died she became aware that she was
+very happy. The quiet silence of the Spring morning corresponded to her
+mood, and the rustle of last year's leaves communicated a delicious
+emotion which seemed to sing in the currents of her blood, and a little
+madness danced in her brain at the ordinary sight of nature. "This way,"
+she said, and they turned into a lane which almost looked like country.
+There were hedges and fields; and the sunlight dozed amid the cows, and
+over the branches of the high elm the Spring was already shaking a soft
+green dust. There were nests in the bare boughs--whether last year's or
+this year's was not certain. Further on there was a stile, and she
+thought that she would like to lean upon it and look straight through
+the dim fields, gathering the meaning which they seemed to express. She
+wondered if Owen felt as she did, if he shared her admiration of the
+sunlight which fell about the stile through the woven branches, making
+round white spots on the roadway.
+
+"So you were surprised to hear that I had given up my trip round the
+world?"
+
+"I was surprised to hear you had given it up so that you might hear me
+sing."
+
+"You think a man incapable of giving up anything for a woman?"
+
+He was trembling, and his voice was confused; experience did not alter
+him; on the verge of an avowal he was nervous as a schoolboy. He watched
+to see if she were moved, but she did not seem to be; he waited for her
+to contest the point he had raised, but her reply, which was quite
+different, took him aback.
+
+"You say you came back to hear me sing. Was it not for another woman
+that you went away?"
+
+"Yes, but how did you know?"
+
+"The woman with the red hair who was at your party?"
+
+The tale of a past love affair often served Owen as a plank of
+transition to another. He told her the tale. It seemed to him
+extraordinary because it had happened to him, and it seemed to Evelyn
+very extraordinary because it was her first experience of the ways of
+love.
+
+"Then it was she who got tired of you? Why did she get tired of you?"
+
+"Why anything? Why did she fall in love with me?"
+
+"Is it, then, the same thing?"
+
+He judged it necessary to dissemble, and he advanced the theory which he
+always made use of on these occasions--that women were more capricious
+than men, that so far as his experience counted for anything, he had
+invariably been thrown over. The object of this theory was two-fold. It
+impressed his listener with an idea of his fidelity, which was essential
+if she were a woman. It also suggested that he had inspired a large
+number of caprices, thereby he gratified his vanity and inspired hope in
+the lady that as a lover he would prove equal to her desire. It also
+helped to establish the moral atmosphere in which an intrigue might
+develop.
+
+"Did you love her very much?"
+
+"Yes, I was crazy about her. If I hadn't been, should I have rushed off
+in my old yacht for a tour round the world?"
+
+He felt the light of romance fall upon him, and this, he thought, was
+how he ought to appear to her.
+
+Yet he was sincere. He admired Evelyn, he thought he might like to be
+her lover, and he regarded their present talk as a necessary subterfuge,
+the habitual comedy in which we live. So, when Evelyn asked him if he
+still loved Georgina, he answered that he hated her, which was only
+partly true; and when she asked him if he would go back to her if she
+were to invite him, he said that nothing in the world would induce him
+to do so, which was wholly untrue, though he would not admit it to
+himself. He knew that if Georgina were to hold up her little finger he
+would leave Evelyn without a second thought, however foolish he might
+know such conduct to be.
+
+"Why did you not marry her when she was in love with you?"
+
+"You can love a woman very well indeed without wanting to marry her;
+besides, she is married. But are you sure we're going right?...Is this
+the way to the picture gallery?"
+
+"Oh, the picture gallery, I had forgotten. We have passed it a long
+while."
+
+They turned and went back, and, in the silence, Owen considered if he
+had not been too abrupt. His dealings with women had always been
+conducted with the same honour that characterised his dealings on the
+turf, but he need not have informed her so early in their
+acquaintanceship of his vow of celibacy. While he thought how he might
+retrieve his slight indiscretion, she struggled in a little crisis of
+soul. Owen's words, tone of voice, manner were explicit; she could not
+doubt that he hoped to induce her to leave her father, and she felt that
+she ought not to see him any more. She must see him, she must go out to
+walk with him, and her will fluttered like a feather in space. She
+remembered with a gasp that he was the only thing between herself and
+Dulwich, and at the same moment he decided that he could not do better
+than to suggest to her that her father was sacrificing her to his
+ambitions.
+
+"I wonder," he said, assuming a meditative air, "what will become of
+you? Eventually, I mean."
+
+"What do you think?" Her eagerness told him that he had struck the right
+note.
+
+"You have grown up in an atmosphere of great music, far removed from the
+tendencies of our day. You have received from your father an
+extraordinary musical education. He has prepared you on all points but
+one for your career, he has not developed your voice; his ambition
+intervened--"
+
+"You must not say that. Father does not allow his ambition to interfere
+with his duties regarding me. You only think that because you do not
+know him; you don't know all the difficulties he has to contend with."
+
+Owen smiled inwardly, pleased at the perception he had shown in divining
+her feelings, and he congratulated himself on having sown some slight
+seed of discontent; and then, as if he were withdrawing, or at least
+attenuating, the suggestion he had thrown out, he said--
+
+"Anyone can see that you and your father are very attached to each
+other."
+
+"Can they?"
+
+"You always like to be near him, and your favourite attitude is with
+your hand on his shoulder."
+
+"So many people have noticed that. Yes, I am very fond of father. We
+were always very fond of each other, but now we are more like pals than
+father and daughter."
+
+He encouraged her to talk of herself, to tell him the story of her
+childhood, and how she and her father formed this great friendship.
+Evelyn's story of her mother's death would have interested him if he had
+been able to bestow sufficient attention upon it, but the intricacy of
+the intrigue he was entering upon engrossed his thoughts. There were her
+love of her father, her duty towards him, and her piety to be overcome.
+Against these three considerable influences there were her personal
+ambition and her love of him. A very evenly matched game, he thought,
+and for nothing in the world would he have missed this love adventure.
+
+At that moment the words, "A few days later she died," caught on his
+ear. So he called all the sorrow and reverence he could into his eyes,
+sighed, and raised his eyebrows expressing such philosophic resignation
+in our mortal lot as might suffice to excuse a change in the
+conversation.
+
+"That is the picture gallery," Evelyn said, pointing to a low brick
+building, almost hidden at the back of a well-kept garden. The
+unobtrusive doorway was covered with a massive creeper, just beginning
+to emerge from it's winter's rust. "Do you care to go in?" she said
+negligently.
+
+"You know the pictures so well, I am afraid they will bore you."
+
+"No, I should like to see them with you."
+
+He could see that her æsthetic taste had been absorbed by music, and
+that pictures meant nothing to her, but they meant a great deal to him,
+and, unable to resist the temptation, he said--"Let us go in for a
+little while, though it does seem a pity to waste this beautiful Spring
+day."
+
+There was an official who took her parasol and his cane, and they were
+impressed by the fact of having to write their names side by side in the
+book--Sir Owen Asher, Evelyn Innes.
+
+On pushing through the swing-door, they found themselves in a small room
+hung with the Dutch school. There were other rooms, some four or five,
+opening one into the other, and lighted so that the light fell sideways
+on to the pictures. Owen praised the architecture. It was, he said, the
+most perfectly-constructed little gallery he had ever seen, and he ought
+to know, for he had seen every gallery in Europe. But he had not been
+here for many years and had quite forgotten it. "A veritable radiation
+of masterpieces," he said, stepping aside to see one. But the girl was
+the greater attraction, and only half satisfied he returned to her, and
+when the attraction of the pictures grew irresistible he tried to engage
+her attention in their beauties, so that he might be allowed to enjoy
+them. To his surprise and pleasure the remarks he had hazarded provoked
+an extraordinary interest in her, and she begged of him to tell her more
+about the paintings. He was not without suspicion that the pictures were
+a secondary interest; but as it was clear that to hear him talk excited
+her admiration, he favoured her with all he knew regarding the Dutch
+school. She followed attentive as a peahen, he spreading a gorgeous tail
+of accumulated information. He asked if the dark background in Cuyp's
+picture, "The White Horse and the Riding School," was not admirable? And
+that old woman peeling onions in her little kitchen, painted by a modern
+would be realistic and vulgar; but the Dutchman knew that by light and
+shade the meanest subject could be made as romantic as a fairy tale. As
+dreamers and thinkers they did not compare with the Italians, but as
+painters they were equal to any. They were the first to introduce the
+trivialities of daily life into Art--the toil of the field, the gross
+pleasures of the tavern. "Look at these boors drinking; they are by
+Ostade. Are they not admirably drawn and painted? "Brick-making in a
+Landscape, by Teniers the younger." Won't you look at this? How
+beautiful! How interesting is its grey sky! Here are a set of pictures
+by Wouvermans--pictures of hawking. Here is a Brouwer, a very rare Dutch
+master, a very fine example too. And here is a Gerard Dow. Miss Innes,
+will you look at this composition? Is it not admirable? That rich
+curtain hung across the room, how beautifully painted, how sonorous in
+colour."
+
+"Ah! she's playing a virginal!" said Evelyn, suddenly. "She is like me,
+playing and thinking of other things. You can see she is not thinking of
+the music. She is thinking ... she is thinking of the world outside."
+
+This pleased him, and he said, "Yes, I suppose it is like your life; it
+is full of the same romance and mystery."
+
+"What romance, what mystery? Tell me."
+
+They sat down on the bench in the third room, opposite the colonnade by
+Watteau, to which his thoughts frequently went, while telling her how,
+when cruising among the Greek Islands, he had often seen her, sometimes
+sitting in the music-room playing the virginal, sometimes walking in the
+ornamental park under a wet, grey sky, a somewhat desolate figure
+hurrying through shadows of storm.
+
+"How strange you should think all that. It is quite true. I often walked
+in that hateful park."
+
+"You will never be able to stand another winter in Dulwich."
+
+She raised her eyes, and he noticed with an inward glee their little
+frightened look.
+
+"I thought of you in that ornamental park watching London from the crest
+of the hill; and I thought of London--great, unconscious London--waiting
+to be awakened with the chime of your voice."
+
+She turned her head aside, overcome by his praise, and he exulted,
+seeing the soft rose tint mount into the whiteness of her face.
+
+"You must not say such things to me. How you do know how to praise!"
+
+"You don't realise how wonderful you are."
+
+"You should not say such things, for if they are not true, I shall be so
+miserable."
+
+"Of course they are true," he said, hushing his voice; and in his
+exultation there was a savour of cruelty. "You don't realise how
+wonderful your story is. As I sailed through the Greek Isles, I thought
+less and less of that horrid, red-haired woman; your face, dim at first,
+grew clearer and clearer.... All my thoughts, all things converged to
+you and were absorbed in you, until, one day on the deck, I felt that
+you were unhappy; the knowledge came, how and whence I know not; I only
+know that the impulse to return was irresistible. I called to the
+skipper, and told him to put her head about."
+
+"Then you did think of me whilst you were away?"
+
+Evelyn looked at him with her soft, female eyes, and meeting his keen,
+bright, male eyes, she drew away from him with a little dread.
+Immediately after, this sensation of dread gave way to a delicious joy;
+an irresponsible joy deep down in her heart, a joy so intimate that she
+was thankful to know that none could know it but herself.
+
+Her woman's instinct told her that many women had loved him. She
+suspected that the little lilt in his voice, and the glance that
+accompanied it, were the relics of an old love affair. She hoped it was
+not a survival of Georgina.
+
+"It must be nearly one o'clock. It is time for you to come to talk to
+father about the Greek hymn."
+
+"Let's look at this picture first--'The Fête beneath the Colonnade'--it
+is one of the most beautiful things in the world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+
+Sipping her coffee, her feet on the fender, she abandoned herself to
+memories of the afternoon. She had been to the Carmelite Church in
+Kensington, to hear the music of a new and very realistic Belgian
+composer; and, walking down the High Street after Mass, she and Owen had
+argued his artistic intentions. At the end of the High Street, he had
+proposed that they should walk in the Gardens. The broad walk was full
+of the colour of Spring and its perfume, the thick grass was like a
+carpet beneath their feet; they had lingered by a pond, and she had
+watched the little yachts, carrying each a portent of her own success or
+failure. The Albert Hall curved over the tops of the trees, and sheep
+strayed through the deep May grass in Arcadian peacefulness; but the
+most vivid impression was when they had come upon a lawn stretching
+gently to the water's edge. Owen had feared the day was too cold for
+sitting out, but at that moment the sun contradicted him with a broad,
+warm gleam. He had fetched two chairs from a pile stacked under a tree,
+and sitting on that lawn, swept by the shadow of softly moving trees,
+they had talked an hour or more. The scene came back to her as she sat
+looking into the fire. She saw the Spring, easily victorious amid the
+low bushes, capturing the rough branches of the elms one by one, and the
+distant slopes of the park, grey like a piece of faded tapestry. And as
+in a tapestry, the ducks came through the mist in long, pulsing flight,
+and when the day cleared the pea fowl were seen across the water,
+sunning themselves on the high branches. While watching the spectacle of
+the Spring, Owen had talked to Evelyn about herself, and now their
+entire conversation floated back, transposed into a higher key.
+
+"I want your life to be a great success."
+
+"Do you think anyone's life can be that?"
+
+"That is a long discussion; if we seek the bottom of things, none is
+less futile than another. But what passes for success, wealth and
+renown, are easily within your reach.... If it be too much trouble to
+raise your hand, let me shake the branches, and they'll fall into your
+lap."
+
+"I wonder if they would seem as precious to me when I had got them as
+they do now. Once I did not know what it was to despond, but I lost my
+pupils last winter, and everything seemed hopeless. I am not vain or
+egotistic; I do not pine for applause and wealth, but I should like to
+sing.... I've heard so much about my voice that I'm curious to know what
+people will think of it."
+
+"Once I was afraid that you were without ambition, and were content to
+live unknown, a little suburban legend, a suburban might-have-been."
+
+"That was long ago.... I've been thinking about myself a great deal
+lately. Something seems always crying within me, 'You're wasting your
+life; you must become a great singer and shine like a star in the
+world.'"
+
+"That is the voice of vocation speaking within you, a voice that may not
+be disobeyed. It is what the swallows feel when the time for departure
+has come."
+
+"Ah, yes, what the swallows feel."
+
+"A yearning for that which one has never known, for distant places, for
+the sunshine which instinct tells us we must breathe."
+
+"Oh, yes, that is it. I used to feel all that in the afternoons in that
+ornamental park. I used to stop in my walk, for I seemed to see far
+away, to perceive dimly as in a dream, another country."
+
+"And since I came back have you wished to go away?"
+
+"No ... for you come to see me, and when I go out with you I'm amused."
+
+"I'm afraid I do little to amuse you."
+
+"You do a great deal--you lend me books. I never cared to read, now I'm
+very fond of reading--and I think more."
+
+"Of what do you think?"
+
+"You see, I never met anyone like you before. You've travelled; you've
+seen everything; you know everything and everyone. When you come I seem
+to see in you all the grand world of fashion."
+
+"Which you used to see far away as in a dream?"
+
+"No, the world of fashion I did not think of till I saw you. Since you
+came back I have thought of it a little. You seem to express it somehow
+in your look and dress; and the men who nodded to you in Piccadilly, and
+the women who bowed to you, all wore the same look, and when they spoke
+they seemed to know all about you--where you were last summer, and where
+you are going to spend this autumn. Their friends are your friends;
+you're all like one family."
+
+"You're very observant. I never noticed the things you speak of, but no
+doubt it is so. But society is ready to receive you; society, believe
+me, is most anxious for you."
+
+After some pause she heard him say--
+
+"But you must not delay to go abroad and study."
+
+"Tell me, do you think the concerts will ever pay?"
+
+"No, not in the sense of your requirements. Evelyn, since you ask me, I
+must speak the truth. Those concerts may come to pay their expenses,
+with a little over, but it is the veriest delusion to imagine that they
+will bring enough money to take you and your father abroad. Moreover,
+your father would have to resign his position at St. Joseph's, where he
+is required; there his mission is. It is painful for me to tell you
+these things, but I cannot see you waste your life."
+
+"What you say is quite true.... I've known it all along."
+
+"Only you have shut your eyes to it."
+
+"Yes, that's it."
+
+"Don't look so frightened, Evelyn. It was better that you should be
+brought face to face with the truth. You'll have to go abroad and
+study."
+
+"And my father! Don't advise me to leave him. I couldn't do that."
+
+"Why make my task more difficult than it is? I wish to be honest. I
+should speak just the same, believe me, if your father were present. Is
+not our first duty towards ourselves? The rest is vague and uncertain,
+the development of our own faculties is, after all, that which is most
+sure.... I'm uttering no paradox when I say that we serve others best by
+considering our own interests. Let us suppose that you sacrifice
+yourself, that you dedicate your life to your father, that you do all
+that conventional morality says you should do. You look after his house,
+you sing at his concerts, you give music lessons. Ten, fifteen years
+pass, and then, remembering what might have been, but what is no longer
+possible, you forgive him, and he, overcome with remorse for the wrong
+he did you, sinks into the grave broken-hearted."
+
+"I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I had done my
+duty."
+
+"Words, Evelyn, words. Take your life into your keeping, go abroad and
+study, come back a great success."
+
+"He would never forgive me."
+
+"You do not think so.... Evelyn, you do not believe that."
+
+"But even if I wished to leave home, I could not. Where should I get the
+money? You have not thought what it would cost."
+
+"Have you forgotten the knight that came to release the sleeping beauty
+of the woods from her bondage? Fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds
+would be ample. I can easily afford it."
+
+"But I cannot afford to accept it. Father would not allow me."
+
+"You can pay it all back."
+
+"Yes, I could do that. But why don't you offer to help father instead?"
+
+"Why are you what you are? Why am I interested in you?"
+
+"If I went abroad to study, I should not see you again for a long
+while--two years."
+
+"I could go to Paris."
+
+She did not remember what answer she had made, if she had made any
+answer, but as she leaned forward and stirred the fire, she saw his
+hands, their strength and comeliness, the kindliness of his eyes. She
+was not sure that he was fond of, but she thought that she could make
+him like her. At that moment he seemed to take her in his arms and kiss
+her, and the illusion was so vivid that she was taken in an instant's
+swoon, and shuddered through her entire flesh. When her thoughts
+returned she found herself thinking of a volume of verses which had come
+to be mentioned as they walked through the Gardens. He had told her of
+the author, a Persian poet who had lived in a rose-garden a thousand
+years ago. He had compared life to a rose, an exquisite flower to be
+caught in the hand and enjoyed for a passionate moment, and had recited
+many of the verses, and she had listened, enchanted by the rapid
+interchange of sorrow, and gladness, and lofty resignation before the
+inevitable. Often it seemed as if her own soul were speaking in the
+verses. "So do not refuse to accept the flowers and fruit that hang in
+reach of your hands, for to-morrow you may be where there are none....
+The caravan will have reached the nothing it set out from.... Surely the
+potter will not toss to hell the pots he marred in the making." She
+started from her reverie, and suddenly grew aware of his very words,
+"However we may strive to catch a glimpse of to-morrow, we must fall
+back on to-day as the only solid ground we have to stand on, though it
+be slipping momentarily from under our feet." She recalled the
+intonation of his sigh as he spoke of the inscrutable nature of things,
+and she wondered if he, too, with all his friends and possessions, was
+unhappy. She seemed to have exhausted her thoughts about him, and in the
+silence of her mind, her self came up for consideration.... Owen
+intended to ask her to go away with him; but he did not intend to marry
+her. It was shocking to think that he could be so wicked, and then with
+a thrill of pleasure that it would be much more exciting to run away
+with him than to be married to him by Father Railston. But how very
+wicked of her to think such things, and she was frightened to find that
+she could not think differently; and with sensations of an elopement
+clattering in her brain, she sat still striving to restrain her
+thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+
+On leaving her at Victoria, he had walked down the Buckingham Palace
+Road, not quite knowing where he was going. Suddenly an idea struck him.
+He put up his stick, stopped a hansom, and drove to Georgina; for he was
+curious to see what impression she would make upon him. He spent an hour
+with her, and returned to Berkeley Square to dine alone. He was sure
+that he cared no more for Georgina, that she was less than nothing to
+him. He dismissed her from his thoughts, and fixed them on Evelyn. He
+had said he would send her a book. It stood next to his hand, on the
+shelf by the round table where he wrote his articles. After dinner, he
+would walk from the dining-room into the library, take down the volume
+and pack it up, leaving orders that it should be sent off by the first
+post.
+
+When man ceased to capture women, he reflected, man invented art whereby
+he might win them. The first melody blown through a reed pipe was surely
+intended for woman's ears. The first verses were composed in a like
+intention. Afterwards man began to take an interest in art for its own
+sake.... Women, having no necessity for art, have not been artists. The
+idea amused him, and he remembered that while Evelyn's romantic eyes and
+gold hair were sufficient to win his regard, he had availed himself of a
+dozen devices to tempt her. Suddenly his face grew grave, and he asked
+himself how this flirtation was to end. As a sufficient excuse for
+seeing her he was taking music lessons; he wrote to her every other day
+and often sent her books and music. They had met in London.... He had
+been observed walking with her, and at Lady Ascott's lunch the
+conversation had suddenly turned on a tall girl with gold hair and an
+undulating walk. Pointed observations had been made.... Lady Lovedale
+had looked none too well pleased. He didn't wish to be cynical, but he
+did want to know whether he was going to fall in love?... They had now
+arrived at that point when love-making or an interruption in their
+intimacy was imperative. He did not regret having offered her the money
+to go abroad to study, it was well he should have done so, but he should
+not have said, "But _I'll_ go to see you in Paris." She was a clever
+girl, and knew as well as he how such adventures must end.... She was a
+religious girl, a devout Catholic, and as he had himself been brought
+up in that religion, he knew how it restrained the sexual passion or
+fashioned it in the mould of its dogma. But we are animals first, we are
+religious animals afterwards. Religious defences must yield before the
+pressure of the more original instinct, unless, indeed, hers was a
+merely sexual conscience. The lowest forms of Anglicanism are reduced to
+perceiving conscience nowhere except in sex. The Catholic was more
+concerned with matters of faith. Not in France, Italy or Spain did
+Catholicism enter so largely into the private life of the individual as
+it did in England. The foreign, or to be more exact, the native Catholic
+had worn the yoke till it fitted loose on his shoulders. His was a more
+eclectic Christianity; he took what suited him and left the rest. But in
+England Romanism had never shaken itself free from the Anglican
+conscience. The convert never acquired the humanities of Rome, and in
+addition the lover had to contend against the confessional. But in
+Evelyn's case he could set against the confessional the delirium of
+success, the joy of art, the passion of emulation, jealousy and
+ambition, and last, but far from least, the ache of her own passionate
+body. Remembering the fear and humility with which he had been used to
+approach the priest, and the terror of eternal fire in which he had
+waited for him to pronounce absolution, Owen paused to think how far
+such belief was from him now. Yet he had once believed--in a way. He
+wondered at the survival of such a belief in the nineteenth century, and
+asked himself if confession were not inveterate in man. The artist in
+his studio, the writer in his study, strive to tell their soul's secret;
+the peasant throws himself at the feet of the priest, for, like them, he
+would unburden himself of that terrible weight of inwardness which is
+man. Is not the most mendacious mistress often taken with the desire of
+confession ... the wish to reveal herself? Upon this bed rock of human
+nature the confessional has been built. And Owen admired the humanity of
+Rome. Rome was terribly human. No Church, he reflected, was so human.
+Her doctrine may seem at times quaint, medieval, even gross, but when
+tested by the only test that can be applied, power to reach to human
+needs, and administer consolation to the greatest number, the most
+obtuse-minded cannot fail to see that Rome easily distances her rivals.
+Her dogma and ceremonial are alike conceived in extraordinary sympathy
+with man's common nature....
+
+Our lives are enveloped in mystery, the scientist concedes that, and the
+woof of which the stuff of life is woven is shot through with many a
+thread of unknown origin, untraceable to any earthly shuttle. There is a
+mystery, and in the elucidation of that mystery man never tires; the
+Sovereign Pontiff and the humblest crystal gazer are engaged in the same
+adventure. The mystery is so intense, and lives so intimately in all,
+that Rome dared to come forward with a complete explanation. And her
+necessarily perfunctory explanation she drapes in a ritual so
+magnificent, that even the philosopher ceases to question, and pauses
+abashed by the grandeur of the symbolism. High Mass in its own home,
+under the arches of a Gothic cathedral, appealed alike to the loftiest
+and humblest intelligence. Owen paused to think if there was not
+something vulgar in the parade of the Mass. A simple prayer breathed by
+a burdened heart in secret awaked a more immediate and intimate response
+in him. That was Anglicanism. Perhaps he preferred Anglicanism. The
+truth was, he was deficient in the religious instinct.
+
+Awaking from his reverie, he raised himself from the mantelpiece against
+which he was leaning. Never had he thought so brilliantly, and he
+regretted that no magical stenographer should be there to register his
+thoughts as they passed. But they were gone.... Resuming his position
+against the mantelpiece, he continued his interrupted train of thoughts.
+
+There would be the priest's interdiction ... unless, indeed, he could
+win Evelyn to agnosticism. In his own case he could imagine a sort of
+religious agnosticism. But is a woman capable of such a serene
+contemplation and comprehension of the mystery, which perforce we must
+admit envelops us, and which often seems charged with murmurs,
+recollections and warnings of the under world? Does not woman need the
+grosser aid of dogma to raise her sensual nature out of complete
+abjection? But all this was very metaphysical. The probability was that
+Evelyn would lead the life of the ordinary prima donna until she was
+fifty, that she would then retire to a suburb in receipt of a handsome
+income, and having nothing to do, she would begin to think again of the
+state of her soul. The line of her chin deflected; some would call it a
+weak chin, but he had observed the same in men of genius--her father,
+for instance. None could be more resolute than he in the pursuance of
+his ideas. The mother's thin, stubborn mouth must find expression
+somewhere in her daughter. But where? Evelyn's mouth was thin and it
+drooped at the ends.... But she was only twenty; at five-and-twenty, at
+thirty, she might be possessed by new ideas, new passions.... The moment
+we look into life and examine the weft a little, what a mystery it
+becomes, how occult the design, and out of what impenetrable darkness
+the shuttle passes, weaving a strange pattern, harmonious in a way, and
+yet deducible to none of our laws! This little adventure, the little
+fact of his becoming Evelyn's lover, was sown with every eventuality....
+If, instead of his winning her to agnosticism, she should win him to
+Rome! They then would have to separate or marry, otherwise they would
+burn in hell for ever.
+
+But he would never be fool enough as to accept such a story as that
+again. That God should concern himself at all in our affairs was
+strange enough, that he should do so seemed little creditable to him,
+but that he should manage us to the extent of the mere registration of a
+cohabitation in the parish books was--. Owen flung out his arms in an
+admirable gesture of despair, and crossed the room. After a while he
+returned to the fireplace calmer, and he considered the question anew.
+By no means did he deny the existence of conscience; his own was
+particularly exact on certain points. In money matters he believed
+himself to be absolutely straight. He had never even sold a friend a
+horse knowing it to be unsound; and he had always avoided--no, not
+making love to his friends' wives (to whose wives are you to make love
+if not to your friends'?)--he had avoided making women unhappy. But much
+more than in morals his conscience found expression in art. That Evelyn
+should use her voice except for the interpretation of masterpieces would
+shock him quite as much as an elopement would shock the worthy Fathers
+of St. Joseph's. He smiled at his thoughts, and remembered that it was
+through fear of not making a woman happy that he had not married. He
+hated unhappiness. His wish had always been to see people happy. Was not
+that why he wished to go away with Evelyn? A particularly foolish woman
+had once told him that she liked going out hunting because she liked to
+see people amused.... He did not pretend to such altruism as hers, and
+he remembered how he used to watch for her at the window as she came
+across the square with her dog. But Evelyn was quite different. He could
+not have her to luncheon or tea, and send her back to her father.
+Somehow, it would not seem fair to her. No; he must break with her, or
+they must go away together. Which was it to be? Mrs. Hartrick had
+written three times that week! And there was Lady Lovedale. She had
+promised to come to tea on Friday. Was he going to renounce the list, or
+was he going to put all his eggs in one basket? The list promised much
+agreeable intercourse, but it was wholly lacking in unexpectedness. He
+had been through it all before, and knew how each story would end. In
+mutual indifference or in a tiff because he wearied of accompanying her
+to all racecourses and all theatres. Another would pretend that her
+husband was jealous, and that she daren't come to see him any more. But
+Evelyn would be quite different. In her case, he could not see further
+than driving to Charing Cross and getting into the mail train for Paris.
+She was worth the list, not a doubt of it. If he were only sure that he
+loved her, he would not hesitate. He was interested in her, he admired
+her, but did he love her? A genuine passion alone would make an
+elopement excusable.
+
+One of his moralities was that a man who did not love his mistress was a
+beast, and that a man who loved a woman who wasn't, was a fool. Another
+was that although every man of the world knew a _liaison_ would not
+last for ever, he should not begin one unless it seemed as if it were
+going to. In other words, you should not be able to see the end before
+you began. But he had never even kissed Evelyn, and it was impossible
+even to guess, even approximately, if you were going to like a girl
+before you had kissed her. There could be no harm in kissing her. Then,
+if he was sure he loved her, they might go away together. Of course,
+there were hypocrites who would say that he had seduced her, that he had
+ruined her, robbed Mr. Innes of his only daughter. But he was not
+concerned with conventional, but with real morality. If he did not go
+away with her, what would happen? He had told her the truth in the park
+that morning, and he believed every word he had said.... If she did not
+leave her father she would learn to hate him. It was terrible to think
+of, but it was so, and nothing could change it. He tried to recall his
+exact words, and easily imagined her father stricken with remorse, and
+Evelyn looking across the table, hating him in spite of herself. But if
+he could persuade her to leave him for two years he would engage to
+bring her back a great singer. And what an interest it would be to watch
+the development of that voice, surely the most beautiful soprano he had
+ever heard! She might begin with "Margaret" and "Norma," if she liked,
+for in singing these popular operas she would acquire the whole of her
+voice, and also the great reputation which should precede and herald the
+final stage of her career. "Isolde," "Brunnhilde," "Kundry," Wagner's
+finest works, had remained unsung--they en merely howled. Evelyn should
+be the first to sing them. His eyes glowed with subdued passion as he
+thought of an afternoon, some three years hence, in the great theatre
+planned by the master himself, when he should see her rush in as the
+Witch Kundry. The marvellous evocation of Arabia flashed upon him....
+Would he ever hear her sing it?... Yes, if she would consent to go away
+with him he would hear her sing it. But would she go away with him? Her
+love of her father, and her religion, might prevent her.... She might
+not even care for him.... She might be thinking of marrying him. Was it
+possible that she was such a fool! What good would it do her to marry
+him? She could not go on the stage as Lady Asher. Lady Asher as Kundry!
+Could anything be more grotesque? How beset life was with difficulties!
+Without her vocation she was no longer the Evelyn Innes he was in love
+with.... Someone else, a pretty, interesting girl, the daughter of a
+suburban organist. To marry her now would be to ruin her. But he might
+marry her five or six years hence, for there was no reason why she
+should continue singing "Isolde" and "Brunnhilde" till she had no shred
+of voice left. When she had established a standard she would have
+achieved her mission, then it would be for others to maintain the
+standard. In the full blaze of her glory she might become Lady Asher. He
+would have to end his life somehow, that way as well as another. Five
+years are a long while--anything might happen. She might leave him for
+someone else ... anything--anything--anything might happen. It was
+impossible to divine the turn human lives would take. The simple fact of
+his elopement contained a dozen different stories in germ. Each would
+find opportunities of development; they would struggle for mastery;
+which would succeed?... Keep women you couldn't; he had long ago found
+out that. Marry them, and they came to hate the way you walked across
+the room; remain their lover, and they jilted you at the end of six
+months. He had hardly ever heard of a _liaison_ lasting more than a year
+or eighteen months, and Evelyn would meet all the nicest men in Europe.
+All Europe would be his rival--really it would be better to give her
+up.... She was the kind of woman who, if she once let herself go, would
+play the devil. Turning from the fire he looked into the glass.... He
+admitted to eight-and-thirty, he was forty--a very well-preserved forty.
+There were times when he did not look more than five-and-thirty. His
+hair was paler than it used to be; it was growing a little thin on the
+forehead, otherwise he was the same as when he was five-and-twenty. But
+he was forty, and a man of forty cannot marry a prima donna of twenty.
+Five pleasant years they might have together, five delicious years; it
+were vain to expect more. But he would not get her to go away with him
+under a promise of marriage; all such deception he held to be as
+dishonourable as cheating at cards. So in their next interview it would
+have to be suggested that there could be no question of marriage, at
+least for the present. At the same time he would have her understand
+that he intended to shirk no responsibility. But if he were to tire of
+her! That was another possibility, and a hateful one; he would prefer
+that she should jilt him. Perhaps it would be better to give her up, and
+throw his fate in with the list. But he was tired of country houses,
+with or without a _liaison_, and felt that he could not go through
+another season's hunting; he had no horses that suited him, and didn't
+seem to be able to find any. To go abroad with Evelyn, watch over the
+cultivation of her voice, see her fame rising, that was his mission! The
+only question to decide was whether he was in love with her. He would
+not hesitate a moment if he were only sure of that. He thought of the
+women he knew. Georgina was the first to come up in his mind. He had
+been to see her, and had come away at a loss to understand what he had
+ever seen in her. She had struck him as vulgar and middle-class, sly,
+with a taste for intrigue. He remembered that was how she had struck him
+when he first saw her. But if anyone had described her as vulgar and
+middle-class six months ago. Good heavens!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+
+The day grew too fine, as he said, for false notes, so the music lesson
+was abandoned, and they went to sit in the garden behind the picture
+gallery, a green sward with high walls covered with creeper, and at one
+end a great cedar with a seat built about the trunk; a quiet place rife
+with songs of birds, and unfrequented save by them. They had taken with
+them Omar's verses, and Evelyn hoped that he would talk to her about
+them, for the garden of the Persian poet she felt to be separated only
+by a wicket from theirs. But Owen did not respond to her humour. He was
+prepense to argue about the difficulties of her life, and of the urgent
+necessity of vanquishing these.
+
+He had noticed, he said, as they sat in the park, that she had a weak
+face. Her thoughts were far away; he had caught her face, as it were,
+napping, and had seen through it to the root of her being. The
+conclusion at which he had arrived was that she was not capable of
+leading an independent life.
+
+"Am I not right? Isn't it so?"
+
+"You think that because I don't leave father and go abroad."
+
+"You might go abroad and lead a dependent life; you might stay at home
+and lead an independent life."
+
+He asked her what offers of marriage she had had.
+
+One was from the Vicar, a widower, a man of fifty, the other from a
+young man in a solicitor's office. She did not care for either, and had
+not entertained their proposals for a second.
+
+"If you marry anyone, it must be a duke. Life is a battle; society will
+get the better of us unless we get the better of society. Everyone must
+realise that--every young man, every young woman. We must conquer or be
+conquered."
+
+Society, he argued, did not require a chaperon from her; society would,
+indeed, resent a chaperon if she were to appear with one. Society not
+only granted her freedom, but demanded that she should exercise it. As a
+freelance she would be taken notice of, as a respectable, marriageable
+girl she would be passed over. The cradle and the masterpiece were
+irreconcilable ideals. He drew an amusing picture of the prima donna's
+husband, the fellow who waits with a scarf ready to wind it round the
+throat of his musical instrument; the fellow who is always on the watch
+lest someone should walk off with his means of subsistence. Evelyn
+listened because she liked to hear him talk; she knew that he was trying
+to influence her with argument, but it was he himself who was
+influencing her, she dreaded his presence, not his argument.
+
+She got up and walked across the sward; and as they returned through the
+flowery village street, the faint May breeze shed the white chestnut
+bloom about their feet. It seemed to him better to say nothing; there
+are times when silence is more potent than speech. They were walking
+under the trees of the old Dulwich street, and so charming were the
+hedge-hidden gardens, and the eighteenth-century houses with white
+porticoes, that Owen could not but think Dulwich at that moment seemed
+the natural nativity of the young girl's career. A few moments after
+they were at Dowlands. She was trembling, and had no strength of will to
+refuse to ask him in. She would have had the strength if she had not
+been obliged to give him her hand. She had tried to bid him good-bye
+without giving her hand, and had not succeeded, and while he held her
+hand her lips said the words without her knowing it. She spoke
+unconsciously, and did not know what she had said till she had said it.
+
+And while they waited for tea, Evelyn lay back in a wicker chair
+thinking. He had said that life without love was a desert, and many
+times the conversation trembled on the edge of a personal avowal, and
+now he was playing love music out of "Tristan" on the harpsichord. The
+gnawing, creeping sensuality of the phrase brought little shudders into
+her flesh; all life seemed dissolved into a dim tremor and rustling of
+blood; vague colour floated into her eyes, and there were moments when
+she could hardly restrain herself from jumping to her feet and begging
+of him to stop.... The servant brought in the tea, and she thought she
+would feel better when the music ceased. But neither did the silence nor
+the tea help her. He sat opposite her, his eyes fixed upon her, that
+half-kindly, half-cynical face of his showing through the gold of his
+moustache. He seemed to know that she could not follow the conversation,
+and seemed determined to drive the malady that was devouring her to a
+head. He continued to speak of the motive of the love call, how it is
+interwoven with the hunting fanfare; when the fanfare dies in the
+twilight, how it is then heard in the dark loneliness of the garden. She
+heard him speak of the handkerchief motive, of thirty violins playing
+three notes in ever precipitated rhythm, until we feel that the world
+reels behind the woman, that only one thing exists for her--Tristan. A
+giddiness gathered in Evelyn's brain, and she fell back in her chair,
+slightly to the left side, and letting her hand slip towards him, said,
+with a beseeching look--
+
+"I cannot go on talking, I am too tired."
+
+It seemed as if she were going to faint, and this made it easy and
+natural for him to take her hand, to put his arm about her, and then to
+whisper--
+
+"Evelyn, dear, what is the matter?"
+
+She opened her eyes; their look was sufficient answer.
+
+"Dearest Evelyn," he said; and bending over, he kissed her on the cheek.
+
+"This is very foolish of me," she said, and throwing her arm about his
+neck, she kissed him on the mouth. "But you are fond of me?" she said
+impulsively, laying her hand on his shoulder. It was a movement full of
+affectionate intimacy.
+
+"Yes," he said, moving her face again towards him. "I love you, I've
+always loved you."
+
+"No," she said, "you didn't, not always; I know when you began to care
+for me."
+
+"When?"
+
+"When you returned from Greece, at the moment when you said you wanted
+me to like you. Is it not true?"
+
+Owen dared not tell her that it was at the moment of kissing her that he
+had really begun to love her. In that moment he had entered into her
+atmosphere; it was fragrant as a flower, and it had decided him to use
+every effort to become her lover.
+
+"No," she said, "you must not kiss me again."
+
+She got up from the low wicker chair; he followed her, and they sat
+close together on two low seats. He put his arm round her and said--
+
+"I love to kiss you.... Why do you turn away your head?"
+
+"Because it is wrong; I shall be miserable to-night."
+
+"You don't think it wrong to kiss me?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+Then turning her face to his, she kissed him.
+
+"Who taught you to kiss like that?"
+
+"No one, I never kissed anyone before--father, of course. You know what
+I mean."
+
+"She'll be an adorable mistress," he thought, "and in four years the
+greatest singer in England. I shall get very fond of her. I like her
+very much as it is, and when she gets over her religious scruples--when
+I've reformed her--she'll be enchanting. It is lucky she met me; without
+me she'd have come to nothing."
+
+She asked him what he was thinking about, and he answered of the
+happiness he had begun to feel was in store for them.
+
+"What happiness?" she asked; and he answered--
+
+"The happiness of seeing each other constantly--the happiness of lovers.
+Now we must see each other more often."
+
+"How often? Every day?"
+
+He wondered what was the exact colour of her eyes, and he pressed her to
+answer. At last she said--
+
+"You cannot come here oftener than you do at present. I'm deceiving
+father about these lessons. What will you do if he asks you to play to
+him? What excuse will you give? You daren't attempt the simplest
+exercise, you haven't got over the difference of the bowing; you'd play
+false notes all the time."
+
+"Yes," he said; "I've not made much progress, have I?"
+
+"No, you haven't; but that isn't my fault."
+
+"But the days I don't see you seem so long!"
+
+"Do you think they do not seem long to me? I've nothing to think about
+but you."
+
+"Then, on your weariest days, come and see me. We can always see each
+other in Berkeley Square. Send me a wire saying you are coming."
+
+"I could not come to see you," she said, still looking at him fixedly;
+"you know that I could not.... Then why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because I want you."
+
+"You know that I'd like to come."
+
+"Then, if you do, you'll come. I don't believe in temptations that we
+don't yield to."
+
+"I suppose that the temptation that we yield to is the temptation?"
+
+"Of course. But, Evelyn, you are not going to waste your life in
+Dulwich. Come and see me to-morrow and, if you like, we'll decide."
+
+"On what?"
+
+"You know what I mean, dearest."
+
+"Yes, I think I do," she said, smiling at once sadly and ardently; "but
+I'm afraid it wouldn't succeed. I'm not the kind of woman to play the
+part to advantage."
+
+"I'm very fond of you, and I think you're very fond of me."
+
+"You don't think about it--you know I am."
+
+"Then why did you say you would not come and see me?"
+
+"I did not say so. But something tells me that if I did go away with you
+it would not succeed."
+
+"Why do you think that?"
+
+"I don't know. Something whispers that it wouldn't succeed. All my
+people were good people--my mother, my grandmother, my aunts. I never
+had a relative against whom anything could be said, so I don't know why
+I am what I am. For I'm only half good. It is you who make me bad, Owen;
+it isn't nice of you." She flung her arms about him, and then recoiled
+from him in a sudden revulsion of feeling.
+
+"When you go away I shall be miserable; I shall repent of all this ...
+I'm horrid." She covered her face in her hands. "I didn't know I was
+like this."
+
+A moment after she reached out her hand to him saying--
+
+"You're not angry with me? I can't help it if I'm like this. I should
+like to go and see you; it would be so much to me. But I must not. But
+why mustn't I?"
+
+"I know no reason, except that you don't care for me."
+
+"But you know that isn't so."
+
+"Come, dearest, be reasonable. You're not going to stop here all your
+life playing the viola da gamba. The hour of departure has come," he
+said, perceiving her very thought; "be reasonable, come and see me
+to-morrow. Come to lunch, and I'll arrange. You know that you--"
+
+"Yes, I believe that," she said, in response to a change which had come
+into her appreciation. "But can I trust myself? Suppose I did go away,
+and repented and left you. Where should I go? I could not come back
+here. Father would forgive me, I daresay, but I could not come back
+here."
+
+"'Repented,' Those are fairy tales," he said lifting her gold hair from
+her ear and kissing it. "A woman does not leave the man who adores her."
+
+"You told me they often did."
+
+"How funny you are.... They do sometimes, but not because they repent."
+
+Her head was on his shoulder, and she stood looking at him a long while
+without speaking.
+
+"Then you do love me, dearest? Tell me so again."
+
+Kissing her gently on the mouth and eyes, he answered--
+
+"You know very well that I do. Come and see me to-morrow. Say you will,
+for I must go now."
+
+"Go now!"
+
+"Do you know what time it is? It is past seven."
+
+She followed him to the gate of the little garden. The lamps were
+lighted far away in the suburbs. Again he asked her to come and see him.
+
+"I cannot to-morrow; to-morrow will be Sunday."
+
+His footsteps echoed through the chill twilight, and seeing a thin moon
+afloat like a feather in the sky, she thought of Omar's moon, that used
+to seek the lovers in their garden, and that one evening sought one of
+them in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+
+There was no other place except the picture gallery where they could see
+each other alone. But the dignity of Velasquez and the opulence of
+Rubens distracted their thoughts, and they were ill at ease on a
+backless seat in front of a masterpiece. Owen regretted the Hobbema; it
+was less aggressive than the colonnade. A sun-lit clearing in a wood and
+a water mill raised no moral question. He turned his eyes from the
+dancers, but however he resisted them, their frivolous life found its
+way into the conversation. They were the wise ones, he said. They lived
+for art and love, and what else was there in life? A few sonatas, a few
+operas, a few pictures, a few books, and a love story; we had always to
+come back to that in the end. He spoke with conviction, his only
+insincerity being the alteration of a plural into a singular. But no, he
+did not think he had lied; he had spoken what seemed to him the truth at
+the present moment. Had he used the singular instead of the plural a
+fortnight ago, he would have lied, but within the last week his feelings
+for Evelyn had changed. If she had broken with him a week ago, he would
+have found easy consolation in the list, but now it was not women, but a
+woman that he desired. A mere sexual curiosity, and the artistic desire
+to save a beautiful voice from being wasted, had given way to a more
+personal emotion in which affection was beginning. Looking at him,
+thinking over what he had just said, unable to stifle the hope that
+those women in the picture were the wise ones, she heard life calling
+her. The art call and the love call, subtly interwoven, were modulated
+now on the violins now on the flutes of an invisible orchestra. At the
+same moment his immeshed senses, like greedy fish, swam hither and
+thither, perplexed and terrified, finding no way of escape, and he
+dreaded lest he had lost his balance and fallen into the net he had cast
+so often. He had begun to see that she was afraid of the sin, and not at
+all of him. She had never asked him if he would always love her--that
+she seemed to take for granted--and he had, or fancied he had, begun to
+feel that he would never cease to love her. He looked into the future
+far enough to see that it would be she who would tire of him, and that
+another would appear two or three years hence who would appeal to her
+sensual imagination just as he did to-day. She would strive to resist
+it, she would argue with herself, but the enticing illusion would draw
+her as in a silken net. He was now engaged in the destruction of her
+moral scruples--in other words, making the way easy for his successor.
+
+They were in the gallery alone, and, taking her hand, he considered in
+detail the trouble this _liaison_ would bring in its train. He no longer
+doubted that she would go abroad with him sooner or later. He hoped it
+would be sooner, for he had begun to perceive the absurdity of his
+visits to Dulwich. The question was whether she was worth an exile in a
+foreign country. He would have to devote himself to her and to her
+interests. She would have a chaperon. There would be no use in their
+openly living together--that he could not stand. But at that moment the
+exquisite happiness of seeing her every day, coming into the room where
+she was reading or singing, and kissing her as he leaned over her chair
+affectionately, as a matter of course, deriving his enjoyment from the
+prescriptive right to do so, and then talking to her about ordinary
+affairs of life, came upon him suddenly like a vision; and this imagined
+life was so intense that for one moment it was equivalent to the
+reality. He saw himself taking her home from the theatre at night in the
+brougham. In the next instant they were in the train going to Bayreuth.
+In the next he saw her as Kundry rush on to the stage. He felt that,
+whatever it cost him, that was the life he must obtain. He felt that he
+could not live if he did not acquire it, and so intense was the vision
+that, unable to endure its torment, he got up and proposed they should
+go into the garden and sit under the cedar.
+
+They were alone in the garden as they were in the gallery, but lovers
+are averse to open spaces, and Owen felt that their appearance coincided
+too closely with that of lovers in many popular engravings. He hoped he
+was not observed, and regretted he had often spoken of the picture
+gallery to his friends. An unlucky chance might bring one of them down.
+
+It was in this garden, amid the scent and colour of May, that the most
+beautiful part of their love story was woven. It was in this garden that
+they talked about love and happiness, and the mystery of the attraction
+of one person to another, and whilst listening to him, a poignant memory
+of the afternoon when he had first kissed her often crossed her mind.
+Little faintnesses took her in the eyes and heart. Their voices broke,
+and it seemed that they could not continue to talk any longer of life
+and art. It was in this garden that they forgot each other. Their
+thoughts wandered far away, and then, when one called the other's
+attention, he or she relinquished scenes and sensations and came back
+appearing suddenly like someone out of a mist. Each asked the other what
+he or she had been dreaming. Once he told her his dream. It was of a
+villa in the middle of a large garden surrounded by chestnut trees and
+planted with rhododendrons. In this villa there dwelt a great singer
+whose name was a glory in the world, and to this villa there came very
+often a tall, thin, ugly man, and, seeing the beautiful singer walking
+with him, the folk wondered how she could love him.
+
+It was a sort of delicious death, a swooning ecstasy, an absorption of
+her individuality in his. Just as the spring gradually displaced the
+winter by a new branch of blossom, and in that corner of the garden by
+the winsome mauve of a lilac bush, without her knowing it his ideas
+caught root in her. New thoughts and perceptions were in growth within
+her, and every day she discovered the new where she had been accustomed
+to meet the familiar idea. She seemed to be slipping out of herself as
+out of a soft, white garment, unconsciously, without any effort on her
+part.
+
+Very often they discussed whether sacrifice of self is not the first of
+the sins against life. "That is the sin," he said, "that cries loudest
+to Nature for vengeance. To discover our best gift from Nature, and to
+cultivate that gift, is the first law of life." If she could not accept
+this theory of life as valid and justifiable, she had at least begun to
+consider it. Another of Owen's ideas that interested her was his theory
+of beauty. He said that he could not accept the ordinary statement that
+a woman was beautiful and stupid. Beauty and stupidity could not exist
+in the same face, stupidity being the ugliest thing on earth; and he
+contended that two-thirds of human beauty were the illumination of
+matter by the intelligence, and but one-third proportion and delicacy of
+line. After some hesitation, he admitted that at first he had been
+disappointed in her, but now everything about her was an enchantment,
+and when she was not present, he lived in memories of her. He spoke
+without emphasis, almost as if he were speaking to himself, and she
+could not answer for delight.
+
+Her father was vaguely conscious of some change in his daughter, and
+when one day he heard her singing "Faust," he was perplexed; and when
+she argued that it was a beautiful and human aspiration, he looked at
+her as if he had never seen her before. He asked her how she had come to
+think such a thing, and was perplexed by her embarrassments. She was
+sorry for her liking for Gounod's melodies. It seemed to alienate them;
+they seemed to have drifted apart. She saw a silently widening distance,
+as if two ships were moving away. One day he asked her if she were going
+to communion next Sunday. She answered that she did not think so, and
+sat thinking a long while, for she had become suddenly aware that she
+was not as pious as she used to be. She did not think that Owen's
+arguments had touched her faith, but she no longer felt the same
+interest in religion; and in thinking over this change, which seemed so
+independent of her own will, she grew pensive and perplexed. Her
+melancholy was a sort of voluptuous meditation. She was conscious all
+the while of Owen's presence. It was as if he were standing by her, and
+she felt that he must be thinking of her.
+
+He had often spoken of going away with her; she had smiled plaintively,
+never regarding an elopement as possible. But one evening her father had
+gone to dine with a certain Roman prelate who believed in the advantage
+to the Catholic Church of a musical reformation. And she had gone to
+meet Owen, who had driven from London. They had walked two hours in the
+lanes, and when she got home she ran to her room and undressed
+hurriedly, thinking how delightful it would be to lie awake in the dark
+and remember it all. And feeling the cool sheets about her she folded
+her arms and abandoned herself to every recollection. Her imagination,
+heightened as by a drug, enabled her to see the white, dusty road and
+the sickly, yellow moon rising through the branches. Again she was
+standing by him, her arms were on his neck; again they stood looking
+into the vague distance, seeing the broken paling in the moonlight.
+There were his eyes and hands and lips to think about, and when she had
+exhausted these memories, others sprang upon her. It was in the very
+centre of her being that she was thinking of the moment when she had
+spied his horse's head over the hill top. She had recognised his
+silhouette against the sky. He had whipped up the horse, he had thrown
+the reins to the groom, he had sprung from the step. The evening was
+then lighted by the sunset, and as the sky darkened, their love had
+seemed to grow brighter. In comparison with this last meeting, all past
+meetings seemed shadowy and unreal. She had never loved him before, and
+if her smile had dwindled when he asked her to come away with him, she
+had liked to hear him say the dogcart was waiting at the inn. But when
+they stood by the stile where cattle were breathing softly, and the moon
+shone over the sheepfold like a shepherd's lantern, her love had grown
+wilful, and she had liked to say that she would go away with him. She
+knew not whether she could fulfil her promise, but it had been a joy to
+give it. They had walked slowly towards Dulwich, the groom had brought
+round the dog-cart; Owen had asked her once more to get in. Oh, to drive
+away with him through the night! "Owen, it is impossible," she said; "I
+cannot, at least not now. But I will one day very soon, sooner perhaps
+than you think."
+
+He had driven away, and, standing on the moon-whitened road, she had
+watched the white dust whirl about the wheels.
+
+One of the difficulties in the indulgence of these voluptuous
+meditations was that they necessitated the omission of her evening
+prayers. She could not kneel by her bedside and pray to God to deliver
+her from evil, all the while nourishing in her heart the intention of
+abandoning herself to the thought of Owen the moment she got into bed.
+Nor did the omission of her evening prayers quite solve the difficulty,
+for when she could think no more of Owen, the fear of God returned. She
+dared not go to sleep, and lay terrified, dreading the devil in every
+corner of the room. Lest she might die in her sleep and be summoned
+before the judgment seat, she lay awake as long as she could.
+
+When she fell asleep she dreamed of the stage when the world was won,
+and when it seemed she had only to stretch her hands to the sky to take
+the stars. But in the midst of her triumph she perceived that she could
+no longer sing the music the world required; a new music was drumming in
+her ears, drowning the old music, a music written in a melancholy mode,
+and played on invisible harps. Owen told her it was madness to listen,
+and she strove to close her ears against it. In great trouble of mind
+she awoke; it was only a dream, and she had not lost her voice. She lay
+back upon the pillow and tried to recall the music which she had heard
+on the invisible harps, but already it was forgotten; it faded from her
+brain like mist from the surface of a mere. But the humour that the
+dream had created endured after the dream was dead. She felt no longer
+as she had felt over night, and lay in a sort of obtuse sensibility of
+conscience. She got up and dressed, her mind still clouded and sullen,
+and her prayers were said in a sort of middle state between fervour and
+indifference. Her father attributed her mood to the old cause; several
+times he was on the point of speaking, and she held him for the moment
+by the lappet of his coat and looked affectionately into his face. But
+something told her that if she were to confide her trouble to anyone,
+she would lose the power she had acquired over herself. Something told
+her that all the strength on her side was reposed in the secrecy of the
+combat. If it were known, she could imagine herself saying--
+
+"Well, nothing matters now; let us go away, Owen."
+
+He was coming to see her between eleven and twelve--at the very time he
+knew her father would be away from home, and this very fact stimulated
+her ethical perception. Her manner was in accordance with her mood, and
+the moment he entered he saw that something had happened, that she was
+no longer the same Evelyn from whom he had parted a couple of nights
+before.
+
+"Well, I can see you have changed your mind; so we are not going away
+together. Evelyn, dear, is it not so? Tell me."
+
+He was a little ashamed of his hypocrisy, for, as he had driven home in
+the dogcart, the adventure he was engaged in had appeared to him under
+every disagreeable aspect. He could not but think that the truth of the
+story would leak out, and he could hear all the women he knew speaking
+of Evelyn as a girl he had picked up in the suburbs--an organist's
+daughter. He had thought again of the responsibility that going away
+with this girl imposed upon him, and he had come to the conclusion that
+it would be wiser to drop the whole thing and get out of it while there
+was time. That night, as he lay in bed, he saw himself telling people
+how many operas she knew; and the tales of her successes in Vienna and
+Naples.... But he need not always be with her, she would have a
+chaperon; and he had fallen asleep thinking which among his friends
+would undertake the task for him. In the morning he had awakened in the
+same nervous indecision, and had gone to Dulwich disheartened, provoked
+at his own folly. It therefore happened that her refusal to go away with
+him coincided exactly with his humour. So all that was necessary was a
+mere polite attempt to persuade her that she was sacrificing her career,
+but without too much insistence on the point; a promise to call again
+soon; then a letter saying he was unwell, or was going to Paris or to
+Riversdale. A month after they could meet at a concert, but he must be
+careful not to be alone with her, and very soon the incident--after all,
+he had only kissed her--would be forgotten. But as he sat face to face
+with her, all his carefully considered plans seemed to drop behind him
+in ruins, and he doubted if he would be able to deny himself the
+pleasure of taking her away. That is to say, if he could induce her to
+go, which no longer seemed very sure. She might be one of those women in
+whom the sense of sin was so obdurate that they could not but remain
+virtuous.
+
+But of what was she thinking? he asked himself; and he scanned the
+yielding face, reading the struggle in a sudden suppressed look or
+nervous twitching of the lips.
+
+"Dearest Evelyn, I love you. Life would be nothing without you."
+
+"Owen, I am very fond of you, but there would be no use in my going away
+with you. I should be miserable. I know I am not the kind of woman who
+would play the part."
+
+Her words roused new doubts. It would be useless to go away with her if
+she were to be miserable all the while. He did not want to make anyone
+miserable; he wanted to make people happy. He indulged in a moment of
+complacent self-admiration, and then reflected that this adventure would
+cost a great deal of time and money, and if he were really to get
+nothing out of it but tears and repentance, he had better take her at
+her word, bid her good-bye, and write to-morrow saying he was called
+away to Riversdale on business.
+
+"But you are not cross with me? You will come to see me all the same?"
+
+He wondered if she were tortured with as many different and opposing
+desires as he was. Perhaps not, and he watched her tender, truthful
+eyes. In her truthful nature, filled full of passion and conscience,
+there was no place for any slightest calculation. But he was
+mistrustful, and asked himself if all this resistance was a blind to
+induce him to marry her. If he thought that, he would drop her at once.
+This suspicion was lost sight of in a sudden lighting of her hair,
+caused by a slight turning of her head. Beyond doubt she was a fresh and
+delicious thing, and if he did not take her, someone else would, and
+then he would curse his indecision; and if she had a great voice, he
+would for ever regret he had not taken her when he could get her. If he
+did not take her now, the chance was gone for ever. She was the
+adventure he had dreamed all his life. At last it had come to him,
+perhaps through the sheer force of his desire, and now, should he
+refrain from the dream, or should he dream it? He saw the exquisite
+sensual life that awaited him and her in Paris. He saw her, pale and
+pathetic, and thought of her eager eyes and lips.
+
+Evelyn sat crestfallen and repentant, but her melancholy was a pretty,
+smiling melancholy, and her voice had not quite lost the sparkle and
+savour of wit. She regretted her sin, admitted her culpability, and he
+was forced to admit that sorrow and virtue sat becomingly upon her. Her
+mood was in a measure contagious, and he talked gently and gaily about
+herself, and the day when the world would listen to her with delight and
+approbation. But while he talked, he was like a man on the rack. He was
+dragged from different sides, and the questioner was at his ear.
+
+Hitherto he had never compromised himself in his relations with women.
+As he had often said of himself, he had inspired no great passion, but a
+multitude of caprices. But now he had begun to feel that it is one love
+and not twenty that makes a life memorable, he wished to redeem his life
+from intrigues, and here was the very chance he was waiting for. But
+habit had rendered him cowardly, and this seduction frightened him
+almost as much as marriage had done. To go away with her, he felt, was
+equivalent to marrying her. His life would never be the same again. The
+list would be lost to him for ever, no more lists for him; he would be
+known as the man who lived with--lived with whom? A girl picked up in
+the suburbs, and sang rather prettily. If she were a great singer he
+would not mind, but he could not stand a mediocre singer about whom he
+would have to talk continual nonsense: conspiracies that were in
+continual progress against her at Covent Garden, etc. He had heard all
+that sort of thing before.... What should he do? He must make up his
+mind. It might be as well if he were to ask her to come to his house;
+then in some three or four months he would be able to see if she were
+worth the great sacrifice he was going to make for her.
+
+Her hand lay on her knees. He knew that he should not take it, but it
+lay on her knees so plaintively, that in spite of all his resistance he
+took it and examined it. It did not strike him as a particularly
+beautiful hand. It was long and white, and exceedingly flexible. It was
+large, and the finger-tips were pointed. The palms curved voluptuously,
+but the slender fingers closed and opened with a virile movement which
+suggested active and spontaneous impulses. In taking her hand and
+caressing it, he knew he was prejudicing his chances of escape, and
+fearing the hand he held in his might never let him go again, he said--
+
+"If your destiny should be to play the viola da gamba in Dulwich, and
+mine to set forth again on my trip round the world."
+
+In an instant, in a rapid succession of scenes, the horrible winter she
+had spent in Dulwich passed before her eyes. She saw herself stopping at
+the corner of a street, and looking at a certain tree and the slope of a
+certain house, and asking herself if her life would go on for ever, if
+there would be no change. She saw herself star-gazing, with daffodils
+for offerings in her hands; and the memory of the hungry hours when she
+waited for her father to come home to dinner was so vivid, that she
+thought she felt the same wearying pain and the exhausting yearning
+behind her eyes, and that feeling as if she wanted to go mad. No; she
+could not endure it again, and she cried plaintively, falling slightly
+forward--
+
+"Owen, don't make things more difficult than they are. Why is it wrong
+for me to go away with you? I don't do any harm to anyone. God is
+merciful after all."
+
+"If I were to marry you, you could not go on the stage; you would have
+to live at Riversdale and look after your children."
+
+"But I don't want children. I want to sing."
+
+"And I want you to sing. No one but husbands have children, exception
+the stage and in novels."
+
+"It would be much more exciting to run away together, than to be married
+by the Vicar. It is very wicked to say these things. It is you who make
+me wicked."
+
+A mist blinded her eyes, and a sickness seemed instilled in her very
+blood, and in a dubious faintness she was conscious of his lips. He
+hardly heard the words he uttered, so loud was the clatter of his
+thoughts, and he seemed to see the trail of his destiny unwinding itself
+from the distaff in the hands of Fate. He was frightened, and an impulse
+strove to force him to his feet, and hence, with a rapid good-bye, to
+the door. But instead, he leaned forth his hands, he sought her, but she
+shrank away, and turning her face from him, she said--
+
+"Owen, you must not kiss me."
+
+Again he might choose between sailing the _Medusa_ in search of
+adventure, or crossing the Channel in the mail packet in search of art.
+
+"Will you come away with me?" he said. His heart sank, and he thought
+of the Rubicon.
+
+"You don't mean this very instant? I could not go away without seeing
+father."
+
+"Why not? You don't intend to tell him you are going away with me?"
+
+"No; it is not the sort of thing one generally tells one's father,
+but--I cannot go away with you now--"
+
+"When will you come?"
+
+"Owen, don't press me for an answer. I don't know."
+
+"The way of escape is still open to me," he thought; but he could not
+resist the temptation that this girl's face and voice presented to his
+imagination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+
+She sat in the music-room thinking, asking herself what use it would be
+to meet him in Berkeley Square unless to go away with him to Paris. She
+sat engrossed in her emotion; it was like looking into water where weeds
+are carried by a current out of the dim depths into the light of day. In
+a pensive atmosphere, a quiet daylight, his motives were revealed to
+her. She was in the humour to look at things sympathetically, and she
+understood that for him to run away with her entailed as much sacrifice
+on his part as on hers. It meant a giving up of his friends, pursuits
+and habits of life. There were sacrifices to be made by him as well as
+by her, and she smiled a little sadly as she thought of the differences
+of their several renunciations. She was asked to surrender her peace of
+mind, he his worldly pleasure. Often the sensation was almost physical;
+it rose up like a hand and seemed to sweep her heart clear, and at the
+same moment a voice said--It is not right. Owen had argued with her, but
+she could not quench the feeling that it was not right, and yet, when he
+asked her to explain, she could give no other reason except that it was
+forbidden by the Church.
+
+Each thought that very little was asked from the other. To him her
+conscience seemed a slight forfeit, and worldly pleasure seemed very
+little to her. She thought that she would readily forfeit this world for
+him.... But eternity was her forfeit; even that she might sacrifice if
+she were sure her conscience would not trouble her in this world. She
+followed her conscience like a river; it fluttered along full of
+unexpected eddies and picturesque shallows, and there were pools so deep
+that she could not see to the bottom.
+
+Suddenly the vision changed. She was no longer in Dulwich with her
+father. She saw railway trains and steamboats, and then the faint
+outline of the coast of France. Her foreboding was so clear and distinct
+that she could not doubt that Owen was the future that awaited her. The
+presentiment filled her with delight and fear, and both sensations were
+mingled at the same moment in her heart as she rose from her chair. She
+stood rigid as a visionary; then, hoping she would not be disturbed, she
+sank back into her chair and allowed her thoughts their will. She
+followed the course of the journey to France, and at every moment the
+sensation grew more exquisite. She heard him say what she wished him to
+say, and she saw the white villa in its garden planted with
+rhododendrons and chestnut trees in flower. The mild spring air, faint
+with perfume, dilated her nostrils, and her eyes drank in the soft
+colour of the light shadows passing over the delicate grass and the
+light shadows moving among the trees. She lay back in her chair, her
+eyes fixed on a distant corner of the room, and her life went by, clear
+and surprising as pictures seen in a crystal. When she grew weary of the
+villa, she saw herself on the stage, and heard her own voice singing as
+she wished to sing. Nor did she forsee any break in the lulling
+enchantment of her life of music and love. She knew that Owen did not
+love her at present, but she never doubted that she could get him to
+love her, and once he loved her it seemed to her that he must always
+love her. What she had heard and read in books concerning the treachery
+of men, she remembered, but she was not influenced, for it did not seem
+to her that any such things were to happen to her. She closed her eyes
+so that she might drink more deeply of the vision, so that she might
+bring it more clearly before her. Like aspects seen on a misty river, it
+was as beautiful shadows of things rather than the things themselves.
+The meditation grew voluptuous, and as she saw him come into her room
+and take her in his arms, her conscience warned her that she should
+cease to indulge in these thoughts; but it was impossible to check them,
+and she dreamed on and on in kisses and tendernesses of speech.
+
+That afternoon she was going to have tea with some friends, and as she
+paused to pin her hat before the glass, she remembered that if Owen were
+right, and that there was no future life, the only life that she was
+sure of would be wasted. Then she would endure the burden of life for
+naught; she would not have attained its recompense; the calamity would
+be irreparable; it would be just as if she had not lived at all. Thought
+succeeded thought in instantaneous succession, contradicting and
+refuting each other. No, her life would not be wasted, it would be an
+example to others, it was in renunciation that we rose above the animal
+and attained spiritual existence. At that moment it seemed to her that
+she could renounce everything but love. Could she renounce her art? But
+her art was not a merely personal sacrifice. In the renunciation of her
+art she was denying a great gift that had been given to her by Nature,
+that had come she knew not whence nor how, but clearly for exercise and
+for the admiration of the world. It therefore could not have been given
+to her to hide or to waste; she would be held responsible for it. Her
+voice was one of her responsibilities; not to cultivate her voice would
+be a sort of suicide. This seemed quite clear to her, and she reflected,
+and with some personal satisfaction, that she had incurred duties toward
+herself. Right and wrong, as Owen said, was a question of time and
+place. What was right here was wrong there, but oneself was the one
+certain thing, and to remain with her father meant the abandonment of
+herself.... She wanted herself! Ah, she wanted to live, and how well she
+knew that she was not living, and could never live, in Dulwich. The
+nuns! Strange were their renunciations! For they yielded the present
+moment, which Owen and a Persian poet called our one possession. She
+seemed to see them fading in a pathetic decadence, falling like
+etiolated flowers, and their holy simplicities seemed merely pathetic.
+
+And in the exaltation of her resolution to live, her soul melted again
+into Owen's kisses, and she drew herself together, and the spasm was so
+intense and penetrating that to overcome it she walked across the room
+stretching her arms. It seemed to her more than impossible that she
+could endure Dulwich any longer. The life of love and art tore at her
+heart; always she saw Owen offering her love, fame, wealth; his hands
+were full of gifts; he seemed to drop them at her feet, and taking her
+in his arms, his lips closed upon hers, and her life seemed to run down
+like the last struggling sand in a glass.
+
+Besides this personal desire there was in her brain a strange
+alienation. Paris rose up before her, and Italy, and they were so vague
+that she hardly knew whether they were remembrances or dreams, and she
+was compelled by a force so exterior to herself that she looked round
+frightened, as if she believed she would find someone at her elbow. She
+did not seem to be alone, there seemed to be others in the room,
+presences from which she could not escape; she could not see them, but
+she felt them about her, and as she sought them with fearing eyes,
+voices seemed speaking inside her, and it was with extreme terror that
+she heard the proposal that she was to be one of God's virgins. The hell
+which opened on the other side of Owen ceased to frighten her. The
+devils waiting there for her soul grew less substantial, and thoughts
+and things seemed to converge more and more, to draw together and become
+one. She was aware of the hallucination in her brain, but could not
+repress it, nor all sorts of rapid questions and arguments. Suddenly a
+voice reminded her that if she were going to abandon the life of the
+soul for the life of the flesh, that she should accept the flesh wholly,
+and not subvert its intentions. She should become the mother of
+children. Life was concerned more intimately with children than with her
+art. But somehow it did not seem the same renunciation, and she stood
+perplexed before the enigma of her conscience.
+
+She looked round the room, dreading and half believing in some diabolic
+influence at her elbow, but perceiving nothing, an ungovernable impulse
+took her, and her steps strayed to the door, in the desire and almost in
+the intention of going to London. But if she went there, how would she
+explain her visit?... Owen would understand; but if he were not in, she
+could not wait until he came in. She paused to consider the look of
+pleasure that would come upon his face when he came in and found her
+there. There would be just one look, and they would throw themselves
+into each other's arms. She was about to rush away, having forgotten all
+else but him, when she remembered her father. If she were to go now she
+must leave a letter for him explaining--telling him the story. And who
+would play the viola da gamba at his concerts? and there would be no one
+to see that he had his meals.
+
+Was she or was she not going away with Owen to Paris on Thursday night?
+The agonising question continued at every moment to present itself.
+Whatever she was doing or saying, she was always conscious of it, and as
+the time drew near, with every hour, it seemed to approach and menace
+her. She seemed to feel it beating like a neuralgic pain behind her
+eyes; and though she laughed and talked a great deal, her father noticed
+that her animation was strained and nervous, and he noticed, too, that
+in no part of their conversation was she ever entirely with him, and he
+wondered what were the sights and scenes he faintly discerned in her
+changing eyes.
+
+On getting up on Wednesday morning, she remembered that the best train
+from Dulwich was at three o'clock, and she asked herself why she had
+thought of this train, and that she should have thought of it seemed to
+her like an omen. Her father sat opposite, looking at her across the
+table. It was all so clear in her mind that she was ashamed to sit
+thinking these things, for thinking as clearly as she was thinking
+seemed equivalent to accomplishment; and the difference between what she
+thought and what she said was so repulsive to her that she was on the
+point of flinging herself at his feet several times.
+
+There were times when the temptation seemed to have left her, when she
+smiled at her own weakness and folly; and having reproved herself
+sufficiently, she thought of other things. It seemed to her
+extraordinary why she should argue and trouble about a thing which she
+really had no intention of doing. But at that moment her heart told her
+that this was not so, that she would go to meet Owen in Berkeley Square,
+and she was again taken with an extraordinary inward trembling.
+
+Our actions obey an unknown law, implicit in ourselves, but which does
+not conform to our logic. So we very often succeed in proving to
+ourselves that a certain course is the proper one for us to follow, in
+preference to another course, but, when it comes for us to act, we do
+not act as we intended, and we ascribe the discrepancy between what we
+think and what we do to a deficiency of will power. Man dares not admit
+that he acts according to his instincts, that his instincts are his
+destiny.
+
+We make up our mind to change our conduct in certain matters, but we go
+on acting just the same; and in spite of every reason, Evelyn was still
+undecided whether she should go to meet Sir Owen. It was quite clear
+that it was wrong for her to go, and it seemed all settled in her mind;
+but at the bottom of her heart something over which she had no kind of
+control told her that in the end nothing could prevent her from going to
+meet him. She stopped, amazed and terrified, asking herself why she was
+going to do a thing which she seemed no longer even to desire.
+
+In the afternoon some girl friends came to see her. She played and sang
+and talked to them, but they, too, noticed that she was never really
+with them, and her friends could see that she saw and heard things
+invisible and inaudible to them. In the middle of some trifling
+chatter--whether one colour or another was likely to be fashionable in
+the coming season--she had to put her hand in her pocket for her
+handkerchief, and happened to meet the key of the square, and it brought
+back to her in a moment the entire drama of her destiny. Was she going
+to take the three o'clock train to London, or to remain in Dulwich with
+her father? She thought that she would not mind whatever happened, if
+she only knew what would happen. Either lot seemed better to her than
+the uncertainty. She rattled on, talking with fictitious gaiety about
+the colour of bonnets and a party at which Julia had sung, not even
+hearing what she was saying. Wednesday evening passed with an inward
+vision so intense that all the outer world had receded from her, she was
+like one alone in a desert, and she ate without tasting, saw without
+seeing what she looked at, spoke without knowing what she was saying,
+heard without hearing what was said to her, and moved without knowing
+where she was going.
+
+On Thursday morning the obsession of her destiny took all colour from
+her cheek, and her eyes were nervous.
+
+"What is it, my girl?" Her father said, taking her hand, and the music
+he was tying up dropped on the floor. "Tell me, Evelyn; something, I can
+see, is the matter."
+
+It was like the breaking of a spring. Something seemed to give way
+within her, and slipping on her knees, she threw her arms about him.
+
+"I am very unhappy. I wish I were dead."
+
+He strove to raise her from her knees, but the attitude expressed her
+feelings, and she remained, leaning her face against him. Nor could he
+coax any information from her. At last she said, raising her tearful
+eyes--
+
+"If I were to leave you, father, you would never forgive me? But I am
+your only daughter, and you would forgive me; whatever happened, we
+should always love one another?"
+
+"But why should you leave me?"
+
+"But if I loved someone? I don't mean as I love you. I could never love
+anyone so tenderly; I mean quite differently. Don't make me say more. I
+am so ashamed of myself."
+
+"You are in love with him?"
+
+"Yes, and he has asked me to go away with him." And as she answered, she
+wondered at the quickness with which her father had guessed that it was
+Owen. He was such a clever man; the moment his thoughts were diverted
+from his music, he understood things as well as the most worldly, and
+she felt that he would understand her, that she must open her heart to
+him.
+
+"If I don't go away with him I shall die, or kill myself, or go mad. It
+is terrible to have to tell you these things, father, I know, but I
+must. I was ill when he went away to Greece, you remember. It was
+nothing but love of him."
+
+"Did he not ask you to marry him?"
+
+"No, he will never marry anyone."
+
+"And that made no difference to you?"
+
+"Oh, father, don't be angry, don't think me horrid. You are looking at
+me as if you never saw me before. I know I ought to have been angry when
+he asked me to go away with him, but somehow I wasn't. I don't know that
+I even wanted him to marry me. I want to go away and be a great singer,
+and he is not more to blame than I am. I can't tell lies. What is the
+use of telling lies? If I were to tell you anything else, it would be
+untrue."
+
+"But are you going away with him?"
+
+"I don't know. Not if I can help it;" and at that moment her eyes went
+to the portrait of her mother.
+
+"You lost your mother very early, and I have neglected you. She ought to
+be here to protect you."
+
+"No, no, father; she would not understand me as well as you do."
+
+"So you are glad that she is not here?"
+
+Evelyn nodded, and then she said--
+
+"If he were to go away and I were left here again, I don't know what
+would become of me. It isn't my fault, father; I can't help it."
+
+"I did not know that you were like this. Your mother--"
+
+"Ah I mother and I are quite different. I am more like you, father. You
+can't blame me; you have been in love with women--with mother, at
+least--and ought to understand."
+
+"Evelyn ... these are subjects that cannot be discussed between us."
+
+The eyes of the mother watched them, and there was something in her
+cold, distant glance which went to their hearts, but they could not
+interpret its meaning.
+
+"I either had to go away, father, telling you nothing, or I had to tell
+you everything."
+
+"I will go to Sir Owen."
+
+"No, father, you mustn't. Promise me you won't. I have trusted you, and
+you mustn't make me regret my trust. This is my secret." He was
+frightened by the strange light that appeared in her eyes, and he felt
+that an appeal to Owen would be like throwing oil on a flame. "You
+mustn't go to Sir Owen; you have promised you won't. I don't know what
+would happen if you did."
+
+His daughter's confession had frightened him, and he knew not what
+answer to make to her. When the depths find voice we stand aghast,
+knowing neither ourselves nor those whom we have lived with always. He
+was caught in the very den of his being, and seemed at every moment to
+be turning over a leaf of his past life.
+
+"If you had only patience, Evelyn--ah! you have heard what I am going to
+say so often, but I don't blame your incredulity. That was why I did not
+tell you before."
+
+"What has happened?" she asked eagerly; for she, too, wished for a lull
+in this stress of emotion.
+
+"Well," he said, "Monsignor Mostyn, the great Roman prelate, who has
+just arrived from Rome, and is staying with the Jesuits, shares all my
+views regarding the necessity of a musical reformation. He believes that
+a revival of Palestrina and Vittoria would be of great use to the
+Catholic cause in England. He says that he can secure the special
+intervention of the Pope, and, what is much more important, he will
+subscribe largely, and has no doubt that sufficient money can be
+collected."
+
+Evelyn listened, smiling through her sorrow, like a bird when the rain
+has ceased for a moment, and she asked questions, anxious to delay the
+inevitable return to her own unhappy condition. She was interested in
+the luck that had come to her father, and was sorry that her conduct had
+clouded or spoilt it. At last a feeling of shame came upon them that at
+such a time they should be engaged in speaking of such singularly
+irrelevant topics. She could see that the same thought had come upon
+him, and she noticed his trim, square figure, and the old blue jacket
+which she had known so many years, as he walked up and down the room. He
+was getting very grey lately, and when she returned he might be quite
+white.
+
+"Oh, father, father," she exclaimed, covering her face with her hands,
+"how unhappy I am."
+
+"I shall send a telegram to Monsignor saying I can't see him this
+morning."
+
+"Ah! you have to see him this morning;" and she did not know whether she
+was glad or sorry. Perhaps she was more frightened than either, for the
+appointment left her quite free to go to London by the three o'clock
+train.
+
+"I can't leave you alone."
+
+"Darling, if I had wanted to deceive you, I should have told you
+nothing; and, however you were to watch me, I could always get away if I
+chose."
+
+She was right, he could not keep her by force, he could do nothing;
+shame prevented him from appealing to her affection for him, for it was
+in his interest she should stay. After all, Sir Owen will make a great
+singer of her. The thought had come and gone before he was aware, and to
+atone for this involuntary thought he spoke to her about her religion.
+
+"I used to be religious," she said, "but I am religious no longer. I can
+hardly say my prayers now. I said them last night, but this morning I
+couldn't."
+
+He passed his hand across his eyes, and said--
+
+"It seems all like a bad dream."
+
+He felt that he ought to stay with her, and at the same time he felt
+that she was right; that his intervention would be unavailing, for the
+struggle resided in herself. But if she should learn from Sir Owen to
+forget him; if he were to lose her altogether; if she should never
+return? The thought of such a calamity was the rudest blow of all, and
+the possibility of her going away for a time, shocking as it was, seemed
+almost light beside it. He struggled against these thoughts, for he
+hated and was ashamed of them. They came into his mind unasked, and he
+hoped that they represented nothing of his real feeling. Suddenly his
+face changed, he remembered his passion for her mother. He had suffered
+what Evelyn was suffering now. She had divined it by some instinct;
+true, they were very much like each other. Nothing would have kept him
+from Gertrude. But all that was so long ago. Good God! It was not the
+same thing, and at the very same moment he regretted that it was not a
+music lesson he was going to, for an appointment with Monsignor
+introduced a personal interest, and if he were not to stay by her, it
+would seem that he was indifferent to what became of her.
+
+"No, Evelyn, I shan't go; I will stay here, I will stay by you."
+
+"But I don't know that I am going away with Sir Owen."
+
+"You said just now that you were."
+
+"Did I say so? Father, you must keep your appointment with Monsignor,
+and you must say nothing to Owen if you should meet him; you promise me
+that? It rests with me, father, it is all in the heart."
+
+He stood looking at her, twisting his beard into a point, and while she
+wondered whether he would go or stay, she admired the delicacy of his
+hand.
+
+"Think of the disgrace you will bring upon me, and just at the time,
+too, when Monsignor is beginning to see that a really great choir in
+London--
+
+"Then, father, you do think that my going away will prejudice him
+against you?"
+
+"I don't say that. I mean that this time seems less--Of course you
+cannot go. It is very shocking that we should be discussing the subject
+together."
+
+A sudden fortitude came upon her, and a sudden desire to sacrifice
+herself to her father.
+
+"Then, father, I shall stay. I will do nothing that will interfere with
+your work."
+
+"My dearest child, it is not for me--it is yourself--"
+
+She threw herself into his arms, begging him to forgive her. She wanted
+to stay with him. She loved him better than her voice, better than
+anything in the world. He did not answer, and when she raised her eyes
+she caught a slight look of doubt upon his face, and wondered what it
+could mean. At the very moment she had determined to stay with him, and
+forfeit her love and her art for his sake, a keen sense of his
+responsibility towards her was borne in upon him, and the feeling within
+him crushed like a stone that he could never do anything for her, nor
+anything else except, perchance, achieve that reformation of Church
+music upon which his heart was set. He understood in that instant that
+she was sacrificing all her life to his, and he feared the sacrifice she
+was making, and anticipated in some measure the remorse he would suffer.
+But he dared not think that she had better go and achieve her destiny in
+the only way that was open to her. He urged himself to believe that she
+was acting rightly, it was impossible for him to hold any other opinion.
+The thoughts that came upon him he strove to think were merely nervous
+accidents, and he forced himself to accept the irresponsibility of the
+sacrifice. He wished not to be selfish, but, however he acted, he always
+seemed to be acting in his own interest. Since she had promised him not
+to go away with Sir Owen, he was quite free to keep his appointment with
+Monsignor, and he gathered up his music, and then he let it fall again,
+fearing that she would interpret his action to mean that he was glad to
+get away.
+
+She besought him to go; she said she was tired and wanted to lie down,
+and all the while he spoke she was tortured with an uncertainty as to
+whether she was speaking the truth or not; and he had not been gone many
+minutes when she remembered that she had not told him that Owen had
+asked her to meet him that very afternoon in Berkeley Square, and that
+the key of the square lay in her pocket. Like one with outstretched
+hands, striving to feel her way in the dark, she sought to discover in
+her soul whether she had deliberately suppressed or accidentally omitted
+the fact of her appointment with Owen. It might be that the conversation
+had taken a sudden turn, at the moment she was about to tell him, for
+the thought had crossed her mind that she ought to tell him. Then she
+seemed to lose count of everything, and was unable to distinguish truth
+from falsehood.
+
+To increase her difficulties, she remembered that she had betrayed
+Owen's confidence. She could not quite admit to herself that she had a
+right to tell her father that it was he. But he had guessed it.... It
+seemed impossible to do right. Perhaps there was no right and no wrong,
+as Owen said; and a wish rose from the bottom of her heart that it might
+be so, and then she feared she had been guilty of blasphemy. Perhaps she
+should warn Owen of her indiscretion, and she thought of herself going
+to London for this purpose, and smiled as she detected the deception
+which she was trying to practise on herself.
+
+There was nothing for her to do in the house, and when she had walked an
+hour in the ornamental park, she strayed into the picture gallery, and
+stood a long time looking at the Dutch lady who was playing the
+virginal, and whose life passed peacefully apparently without any
+emotion, in a silent house amid rich furniture. But she was soon drawn
+to the Watteau, where a rich evening hushes about a beautiful carven
+colonnade, under which the court is seated; where gallants wear deep
+crimson and azure cloaks, and the ladies striped gowns of dainty
+refinement; where all the rows are full of amorous intrigue, and vows
+are being pleaded, and mandolines are playing; where a fountain sings in
+the garden and dancers perform their pavane or minuet, the lady holding
+out her striped skirt, and the gentleman bowing to her with a deference
+that seems a little mocking. An hour of pensive attitudes and whispered
+confidences, and over every fan a face wonders if there is truth in
+love.
+
+"It is strange," Evelyn thought, "how one woman lives in obscurity, and
+another in admiration and success. That woman playing the virginal is
+not ugly; if she were dressed like these seated under the colonnade, she
+would be quite as pretty; but she is not as clever, Owen would say, or
+she wouldn't be playing the virginal in a village. It is strange how I
+remember everything he says."
+
+She thought of herself as the lady in the centre, the one that looked
+like the queen, and to whom a tall young man in a lovely cloak was being
+introduced, and then imagined herself one of the less important ladies
+who, for the sake of her beautiful voice, would be surrounded and
+admired by all men; she would create bitter jealousies and annoy a
+number of women, which, however, she would endeavour to overcome by
+giving back to them the several lovers whom she did not want for
+herself.
+
+The life in this picture would be hers if she took the three o'clock
+train and went to Berkeley Square. The life in the other picture would
+be hers if she remained in Dulwich.
+
+Only one more hour remained between her and the moment when she would be
+getting into the train, and on going out of the gallery her senses all
+seemed awake at the same moment; she saw and felt and heard with equal
+distinctness, and she seemed to be walking automatically, to be moving
+forward as if on wheels. She met a friend on her way home, but it was
+like talking to one across a river or gulf; she wondered what she had
+said, and hardly heard, on account of the tumult within her, what was
+being said to her. When she got home, she noticed that she did not take
+off her hat; and she ate her lunch without tasting it. Her thoughts were
+loud as the clock which ticked out the last minutes she was to remain at
+home, and trying not to hear them, she turned to the Monna Lisa,
+wondering what Owen meant when he had said that the hesitating smile in
+the picture was like her smile. Her thoughts ran on ticking in her brain
+like the clock in the corner of a room, and though she would have given
+anything to stop thinking, she could not.
+
+Every moment the agony of anxiety and nervousness increased, and it was
+almost a relief when the clock pointed to the time when she would have
+to go to the station. She looked round the room, a great despair mounted
+into her eyes, and she walked quickly out of the house. As she went down
+the street she tried to think that she was going to Owen to tell him she
+had told her father that she was resolved to give him up. It seemed no
+longer difficult to do this, for, on looking into her mind, she could
+discover neither desire nor love, nor any wish to see him. She was only
+conscious of a nervous agitation which she could not control, and
+through this waking nightmare she walked steadily, thinking with
+extraordinary clearness.
+
+In the railway carriage the passengers noticed her pallor, and they
+wondered what her trouble was, and at Victoria the omnibus conductor
+just saved her from being run over. The omnibus jogged on, stopping now
+and then for people to get in and out, and Evelyn wondered at the
+extraordinary mechanism of life, and she took note of everyone's
+peculiarities, wondering what were their business and desires, and
+wondering also at the conductor's voice crying out the different parts
+of the town the omnibus would pass through.
+
+"This is Berkeley Street, miss, if you are getting out here."
+
+She waited a few minutes at the corner, and then wandered down the
+street, asking herself if it was yet too late to turn back.
+
+The sun glanced through the foliage, and glittered on the cockades of
+the coachmen and on the shining hides of the horses. It was the height
+of the season, and the young beauties of the year, and the fashionable
+beauties of the last decade, lay back, sunning themselves under the
+shade of their parasols. The carriages came round the square close to
+the curb, under the waving branches, and, waiting for an opportunity to
+cross, Evelyn's eyes followed an unusually beautiful carriage, drawn by
+a pair of chestnut horses. She did not see the lady's face, but she wore
+a yellow dress, and the irises in her bonnet nodded over the hood of the
+carriage. This lady, graceful and idle, seemed to mean something, but
+what? Evelyn thought of the picture of the colonnade in the gallery.
+
+The men to whom the stately servants opened the doors wore long frock
+coats pinched at the waist, and they swung their canes and carried their
+thick, yellow gloves in their hands. They were all like Owen. They all
+lived as he lived, for pleasure; they were all here for the season, for
+balls and dinner parties, for love-making and the opera.
+
+"They are the people," Evelyn thought, "who will pay thousands to hear
+me sing. They are the people who will invite me to their houses. If my
+voice is cultivated, if I ever go abroad."
+
+She ran across the street and walked under the branches until she came
+to a gate. But why not go straight to the house? She did not know....
+She was at the gate, and the square looked green and cool. The gate
+swung to and closed with a snap; but she had the key and could leave
+when she liked, and worn out with various fears she walked aimlessly
+about the grass plots. There was no one in the square, so if he were
+watching for her he could not fail to see her. Once more a puerile hope
+crossed her mind fitfully, that perhaps it would be as well if he failed
+to see her. But no, since she had gone so far she was determined to go
+on to the end, and before this determination, her spirits revived, and
+she waited for him to come to her. But for shyness she did not dare to
+look round, and the minutes she walked under the shady trees were very
+delightful, for she was penetrated with an intimate conviction that she
+would not be disappointed. And one of the moments of her life that fixed
+itself most vividly on her mind was when she saw Owen coming towards her
+through the trees. He was so tall and thin, and walked so gracefully;
+there was something in his walk that delighted her; it seemed to her
+that it was like the long, soft stride of a cat.
+
+"I am glad you have come," he said.
+
+But she could not answer. A moment afterwards he said, and she noticed
+that his voice trembled, "You are coming in to tea?"
+
+Again she did not answer, and thinking it safer to take things for
+granted, he walked towards the gate. He was at the point of saying,
+"That is my house," but he checked himself, thinking that silence was
+safer than speech. He could not get the gate open, and while he wrenched
+at the lock, he dreaded that delay might give her time to change her
+mind. But Evelyn was now quite determined. Her brain seemed to
+effervesce and her blood to bubble with joy, a triumphant happiness
+filled her, for no doubt remained that she was going to Paris to-night.
+
+"Let us have tea as soon as possible, and tell Stanley to bring the
+brougham round at once."
+
+"Why did you order the brougham?"
+
+"Are you not--? I thought--"
+
+The brilliancy of her eyes answered him, and he took her hands.
+
+"Then you are coming with me to Paris?"
+
+"Yes, if you like, Owen, anywhere.... But let me kiss you."
+
+And she stood in a beautiful, amorous attitude, her arm thrown about his
+neck, her eyes aflame.
+
+"The brougham will be round in half an hour. There is a train at six to
+Dover. It gets there at nine. So we shall have time to dine at the Lord
+Warden, and get on board the boat before the mail arrives."
+
+"But I have no clothes."
+
+"The night is fine; we shall have a lovely crossing; you will only want
+a shawl and a rug.... But what are you thinking of? You don't regret?"
+
+His eyes were tenderer than hers. She perceived in their grey lights a
+tenderness, as affection which seemed in contradiction to his nature as
+she had hitherto understood it. Even the thought flashed dimly in the
+background of her mind that his love was truer than hers; his cynicism,
+which had often frightened her, seemed to have vanished; indeed, there
+was something different in him from the man she had hitherto known--a
+difference which was rendered evident by the accent with which he said--
+
+"Dearest Evelyn, this is the happiest moment of my life. I have spent
+two terrible days wondering if you would come."
+
+"Did you, dear? Did you think of me? Are you fond of me?"
+
+He pressed her hand, and with one look answered her question, and she
+saw the streets flash past her--for they were in the brougham driving to
+Charing Cross. There was still the danger of meeting Mr. Innes at the
+station; but the danger was slight. She knew of no business that would
+take him to Charing Cross, and they were thankful the train did not
+start from Victoria.
+
+Owen called to his coachman to hasten. They had wasted, he said, too
+much time over the tea-table, and might miss the train. But they did not
+miss it, and through the heat of the long, summer afternoon the slow
+train jogged peacefully through the beautiful undulations of the
+southern counties. The sky was quiet gold and torquoise blue, and far
+away were ruby tinted clouds. A peaceful light floated over the
+hillsides and dozed in the hollows, and the happiness of the world
+seemed eternal. Deep, cool shadows filled the copses, and the green corn
+was a foot high in the fields, and every gate and hedgerow wore a
+picturesque aspect. Evelyn and Owen sat opposite each other, talking in
+whispers, for they were not alone; they had not been in time to secure a
+private carriage. The delight that filled their hearts was tender as the
+light in the valleys and the hill sides. But Evelyn's feelings were the
+more boisterous, for she was entering into life, whereas Owen thought he
+was at last within reach of the ideal he had sought from the beginning
+of his life.
+
+This feeling, which was very present in his mind, appeared somehow
+through his eyes and in his manner, and even through the tumult of her
+emotions she was vaguely aware that he was even nicer than she had
+thought. She had never loved him so much as now; and again the thought
+passed that she had not known him before, and far down in her happiness
+she wondered which was the true man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+
+From Dover they telegraphed to Mr. Innes--"Your daughter is safe. She
+has gone abroad to study singing;" and at midnight they were on board
+the boat. The night was strangely calm and blue; a little mist was
+about, and they stood watching the circle of light which the vessel shed
+upon the water, moving ever onwards, with darkness before and after.
+
+"Dearest, what are you thinking of?"
+
+"Of father. He has received our message by now. Poor dad, he won't sleep
+to-night. To-morrow they will all have the news, and on Sunday in church
+they will 'be talking about it.'"
+
+"But your voice would have been wasted. Your father would have
+reproached himself; he would think he had sacrificed you to his music."
+
+"Which wouldn't be true."
+
+"True or false, he'd think it. Besides, it would be true in a measure."
+
+Evelyn told Owen of her interview with her father that morning, and he
+said--
+
+"You acted nobly."
+
+"Nobly? Owen!"
+
+"There was nobility in your conduct."
+
+"He'll be so lonely, so lonely. And," she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
+"who will play the viola da gamba?"
+
+"When I bring you back a great singer ... there'll be substantial
+consolation in that."
+
+"But he won't close his eyes to-night, and he'll miss me at breakfast
+and at dinner--his poor dinner all by himself."
+
+"But you don't want to go back to him? You love me as much as your
+father?"
+
+They pressed each other's hands, and, striving to see through the blue
+hollow of the night, they thought of the adventure of the voyage they
+had undertaken. Spectral ships loomed up and vanished in the spectral
+stillness; and only within the little circle of light could they
+perceive the waves over which they floated. The moon drifted, and a few
+stars showed through the white wrack. Whither were their lives striving?
+She had thought that her life in Dulwich must endure for ever, but it
+had passed from her like a dream; it had snapped suddenly, and she
+floated on another voyage, and still the same mystery encircled her as
+before. She knew that Owen loved her. This was the little circle of life
+in which she lived, and beyond it she might imagine any story she
+pleased.
+
+Her thoughts reverted to the Eastern dreamer, and she realised that she
+was living through the tragedy which he had written about a thousand
+years ago in his rose garden. She might imagine what she pleased--that
+she was going to become a great singer, that artistic success was the
+harbour whither she steered, but in truth she did not know. She could
+not believe such an end to be her destiny. Then what was her destiny?
+All she had ever known was behind her, had floated into the darkness as
+easily as those spectral ships; her religion, her father, her home, all
+had vanished, and all she knew was that she was sailing through the
+darkness without them. Seen for a moment in the light of the high moon,
+and then in shrouded blue light, a great ship came and went, and Evelyn
+clung to the arm of her lover. He folded the rough shawl he had bought
+at Charing Cross about her shoulders. The lights of Calais harbour grew
+larger, the foghorn snorted, the vessel veered, and there was
+preparation on board; the crowd thickened, and as the night grew fainter
+they saw between the dawn and the silvery moon the long low sandhills of
+the French coast. The vessel veered and entered the harbour, and as she
+churned alongside the windy piers, the mystery with which a moonlit sea
+had filled their hearts passed, and they were taken in an access of
+happiness; and they cried to each other for sheer joy as they struggled
+up the gangway.
+
+They were in France! their life of love was before them! He could hardly
+take his eyes off the delicious girl; and soon two or three waiters
+attended at her first meal, her first acquaintance with French food and
+wine! Owen was known on the line, and the obsequiousness shown to him
+flattered her, and it was thrilling to read his name on the window of
+their carriage. Her foot was on the footboard, and seeing the empty
+carriage the thought struck her, "We shall be alone; he'll be able to
+kiss me." And, her heart beating with fear and delight, she got in and
+sat speechless in a corner.
+
+As the train moved out of the station he took her hand, and said that he
+hoped they would be very happy together. She looked at him, and in her
+eyes there was a little questioning, almost cynical look, which
+perplexed him. The part he had to play was a difficult one, and on board
+the boat, in the pauses of their conversation, he had felt that his
+future influence over Evelyn depended upon his conduct during the
+forthcoming week. This foresight had its origin in his temperament. It
+was his temperament to suggest and to lead, and as he talked to her of
+Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, and Lady Duckle, a lady whom
+he hoped to induce to come to Paris to chaperon her, he saw the hotel
+sitting-room at the moment when the waiter, having brought in the
+coffee, and delayed his departure as long as he possibly could, would
+finally close the door. Nervousness dilated her eyes, and his thoughts
+were often far from his words. He often had to catch his breath, and he
+quailed before the dread interrogation which often looked out of her
+eyes. They had passed Boulogne, and through the dawn, vague as an opal,
+appeared a low range of hills, and as these receded, the landscape
+flattened out into a bleak, morose plain.
+
+What lives were lived yonder in that low grange, crouching under the
+five melancholy poplars? An hour later father and son would go forth in
+that treacherous quaking boat, lying amid the sedge, and cast their net
+into one of those black pools. But these pictures of primeval
+simplicities which the landscape evoked were not in accord with a
+journey toward love and pleasure. Evelyn and Owen did not dare to
+contrast their lives with those of the Picardy peasants, and that they
+should see not roses and sunshine, but a broken and abandoned boat amid
+the sedge, and mournful hills faintly outlined against the heavy,
+lowering sky seemed to them significant. They watched the filmy,
+diffused, opal light of the dawn, and they were filled with nervous
+expectation. The man who appeared at the end of the plain in his
+primitive guise of a shepherd driving his flock towards the hard thin
+grass of the uplands seemed menacing and hostile. His tall felt hat
+seemed like a helmet in the dusk, his crook like a lance, and Owen
+understood that the dawn was the end of the truce, that the battle with
+Nature was about to begin again. At that moment she was thinking that if
+she had done wrong in leaving home, the sin was worth all the scruples
+she might endure, and she rejoiced that she endured none. He folded her
+in his rug. The train seemed to stop, and the names of the stations
+sounded dim in her ears. Her perceptions rose and sank, and, as they
+sank, the villa engarlanded, of which Owen had spoken, seemed there. Its
+gates, though unbarred, were impassable. She thought she was shaking
+them, but when she opened her eyes it was Owen telling her that they had
+passed the fortifications, that they were in Paris.
+
+He had brought with him only his dressing-bag, so they were not detained
+at the Customs. His valet was following with the rest of his luggage,
+and as soon as she had had a few hours' sleep, he would take her to
+different shops. She clung on to his arm. Paris seemed very cold and
+cheerless, and she did not like the tall, haggard houses, nor the
+slattern waiter arranging chairs in front of an early café, nor the
+humble servant clattering down the pavement in wooden shoes. She saw
+these things with tired eyes, and she was dimly aware of a decrepit
+carriage drawn by two decrepit horses, and then of a great hotel built
+about a courtyard. She heard Owen arguing about rooms, but it seemed to
+her that a room where there was a bed was all that she desired.
+
+But the blank hotel bedroom, so formal and cheerless, frightened her,
+and it seemed to her that she could not undress and climb into that high
+bed, and she had no clothes--not even a nightgown. The chambermaid
+brought her a cup of chocolate, and when she had drunk it she fell
+asleep, seeing the wood fire burning, and thinking how tired she was.
+
+It was the chambermaid knocking. It was time for her to get up, and Owen
+had sent her a brush and comb. She could only wash her face with the
+corner of a damp towel. Her stockings were full of dust; her chemise was
+like a rag--all, she reflected, the discomforts of an elopement. As she
+brushed out her hair with Owen's brush, she wondered what he could see
+to like in her. She admired his discretion in not coming to her room.
+But really, this hotel seemed as unlikely a place for love-making as the
+gloomy plain of Picardy.
+
+She was pinning on her hat when he knocked. He told her that he had been
+promised some nice rooms on the second floor later in the day, and they
+went to breakfast at Voisin's. The rest of the day was spent getting in
+and out of cabs.
+
+They took the shops as they came. The first was a boot and shoe maker,
+and in a few moments between four and five hundred francs had been
+spent. This seemed to Evelyn an unheard-of extravagance. Tea-gowns at
+five hundred and six hundred francs apiece were a joy to behold and a
+delicacy to touch. The discovery that every petticoat cost fifty francs
+seriously alarmed her. They visited the bonnet shop later in the
+afternoon. By that time she had grown hardened, and it seemed almost
+natural to pay two hundred francs for a hat. Two of her dresses were
+bought ready made. A saleswoman held out the skirt of a flowered silk,
+which she was to wear that night at the opera; another stood by, waiting
+for her and Owen to approve of the stockings she held in her hands. Some
+were open-work and embroidered, and the cheapest were fifteen francs a
+pair. It had to be decided whether these should be upheld by suspenders
+or by garters. Owen's taste was for garters, and the choice of a pair
+filled them with a pleasurable embarrassment. In the next shop--it was a
+glove shop--as she was about to consult him regarding the number of
+buttons, she remembered, in a sudden moment of painful realisation, the
+end for which they had met. She turned pale, and the words caught in her
+throat. Fortunately, his eyes were turned from her, and he perceived
+nothing of the nervous agitation which consumed her; but on leaving the
+shop, a little way down the street, when she had recovered herself
+sufficiently to observe him, she perceived that he was suffering from
+the same agitation. He seemed unable to fix his attention upon the
+present moment. He seemed to have wandered far afield, and when with an
+effort he returned from the ever nearing future, he seemed like a man
+coming out of another atmosphere--out of a mist!
+
+At six they were back at their hotel, surveying the sitting-rooms,
+already littered with cardboard boxes. But he hurried her off to the Rue
+de la Paix, saying that she must have some jewels. Trays of diamonds,
+rubies, emeralds and pearls were presented to her for choice.
+
+"You're not looking," he said, feigning surprise. "You take no interest
+in jewels; aren't you well?"
+
+"Yes, dearest; but I'm bewildered."
+
+When they returned to the hotel, the gown she was to wear that night at
+the opera had arrived.
+
+"It must have cost twenty pounds, and I usen't to spend much more than
+that in a whole year on my clothes."
+
+Neither cared to go to the opera; but half-past ten seemed to him quite
+a proper time for them to return home, and for this makeshift propriety
+he was so bored with "Lohengrin" that he never saw it afterwards with
+the old pleasure; and Evelyn's glances told of the wasted hours. While
+Elsa sang her dream, he realised the depth of his folly. If something
+were to happen? If they were to find Mr. Innes waiting at the door of
+the hotel? If he were robbed of her, it would serve him right. The aria
+in the second act was beautifully sung, and it helped them to forget;
+but with the rather rough chorus of men in the second half of the second
+act, their nervous boredom began again, and Evelyn's face was explicit.
+
+"You're tired, Evelyn; you're too tired to listen."
+
+"Yes, I'm tired, let's go; give me my cloak."
+
+"I don't care much for the nuptial music," he remarked accidentally; and
+then, feeling obliged to take advantage of the slip of the tongue, he
+said, "Lohengrin and Elsa are in the bridal chamber in the next act."
+
+He felt her hand tremble on his arm.
+
+"In two years hence you'll be singing here.... But you don't answer."
+
+"Owen, dear, I'm thinking of you now."
+
+Her answer was a delicious flattery, and he hurried her to the carriage.
+The moment his arm was about her she leaned over him, and when their
+lips parted he uttered a little cry. But in the middle of the
+sitting-room she stopped and faced him, barring the way. He took her
+cloak from her shoulders.
+
+"Owen, dear, if anything should happen."
+
+But it was not till the third night that they entered into the full
+possession of their delight. Every night after seemed more exquisite
+than the last, like sunset skies, as beautiful and as unrememberable.
+She could recall only the moment when from the threshold he looked back,
+nodded a good-night, and then told her he would call her when it was
+time to get up. Then in a happy weariness she closed her eyes; and when
+they opened she closed them quickly, and curled herself into dreams and
+thoughts of Owen.
+
+They were going to the races, and he would come and tell her when it was
+time to get up. She hoped this would not be till she had dreamed to the
+end of her dream. But her eyes opened, and she saw him in his dressing
+gown with blue facings standing in the middle of the room watching her.
+His little smile was in his eyes; they seemed to say, So there you are;
+I haven't lost you.
+
+"You're the loveliest thing," he said, "in God's earth."
+
+"Dearest Owen, I'm very fond of you;" and there was a plaintive and
+amorous cry in her voice which found echo in the movement with which she
+threw herself into her lover's arms, and laid her head upon his
+shoulder.
+
+"I've never seen such a hand, it is like a spray of fern; and those
+eyes--look at me, Eve."
+
+"Why do you call me Eve? No one ever called me Eve before."
+
+"Sometimes they are as green as sea water, at other times they are grey
+or nearly grey, most often they are hazel green. And your feet are like
+hands, and your ankle--see, I can span it between forefinger and
+thumb.... Your hair is faint, like flowers. Your throat is too thick,
+you have the real singer's throat; thousands of pounds lie hidden in
+that whiteness, which is mine--the whiteness, not the gold."
+
+"How you know how to praise, Owen!"
+
+"I love that sweet indecision of chin."
+
+"A retreating chin means want of character."
+
+"You have not what I call a retreating chin, the line merely deflects.
+Nothing more unlovable than a firm chin. It means a hard, unimaginative
+nature. Eve, you're adorable. Where should I find a sweetheart equal to
+you?"
+
+"That isn't the way I want you to love me."
+
+"Isn't it? Are you sure of that?"
+
+"I don't know--perhaps not. But why do you make me say these things?"
+
+She held his face between her hands, and moved aside his moustache with
+her lips.... Suddenly freeing herself from his embraces, she said, "I
+don't want to kiss you any more. Let's talk."
+
+"Dearest, do you know what time is it? You must get up and dress
+yourself. It is past nine o'clock. We are going to the races. I'll send
+you the chambermaid. You promise me to get up?"
+
+It was these little authoritative airs that enchanted her remembrance of
+him; and while the chambermaid poured out her bath she thought of the
+gown she was going to wear. She knew that she had some pink silk
+stockings to match it, but it took her a long while to find them. She
+opened all the wrong boxes. "It's extraordinary," she thought, "how long
+it takes one to dress sometimes; all one's things get wrong." And when
+hooking the skirt she suddenly remembered she had no parasol suitable to
+the gown. It was Sunday; it would be impossible to buy one. There was
+nothing for it but to send for Owen. If there was anything wrong with
+her gown he would give her no peace. He wished her to wear a
+flower-embroidered dress, but her fancy was set on a pale yellow muslin,
+and it amused her to get cross with him and to send him out of the room;
+but when the door closed she was moved to run after him. The grave
+question as to what she would wear dispelled other thoughts. She must be
+serious; and to please him she decided she would wear the gown he liked,
+and as she fixed the hat that went with it she admired the contrast of
+its purple with her rich hair. Owen was always right. She had never
+thought that she could look so well, and it was a happy moment when he
+took her by both hands and said--
+
+"Dearest, you are delicious--quite delicious. You'll be the prettiest
+woman at Longchamps to-day."
+
+She asked for tea, but he said they were in France, and must conform to
+French taste. When Marie Antoinette was informed that the people wanted
+bread, etc., Evelyn thought Marie Antoinette must have been a cruel
+woman. But she liked chocolate and the brioche, and henceforth they were
+brought to her bedside, and in a Sèvres service, a present from Owen.
+
+"When they had finished the little meal he rang for writing material,
+and said--
+
+"Now, my dear Evelyn, you must write to your father."
+
+"_Must_ I? What shall I say? Oh, Owen, I cannot write. If I did, father
+would come over here, and then--"
+
+"I'll tell you what to say. I'll dictate the letter you ought to write.
+You need not give him any address, but you must let him know you're
+well, and why you intend to remain abroad. It is by relieving his mind
+on these subjects that you'll save yourself from the vexation of his
+hunting you up here.... Come, now," he said, noticing the agonised and
+bewildered look on Evelyn's face, "this is the only disagreeable hour in
+the day--you must put up with it. Here is the pen. Now write--
+
+"'My DEAR FATHER,--I should be happy in Paris, very happy, if it were
+not for the knowledge of the grief that my flight must have occasioned
+you. Of course I have acted very wrongly, very wickedly--'"
+
+"But," said Evelyn, "you told me I was acting rightly, that to do
+otherwise would be madness."
+
+"Yes, and I only told you the truth. But in writing to your father you
+must adopt the conventional tone. There's no use in trying to persuade
+your father you did right.... I don't know, though. Scratch out 'I have
+acted wrongly and very wickedly,' and write--
+
+"'I will not ask you to think that I have acted otherwise than wrongly,
+for, of course, as a father you can hold no other opinion, but being
+also a clever man, an artist, you will perhaps be inclined to admit that
+my wrong-doing is not so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been
+in other and easily imagined circumstances.'" Full stop.
+
+"You've got that--'so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been in
+other and easily imagined circumstances'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"'Father dear, you know that if I had remained in Dulwich my voice would
+have been wasted, not through my fault or yours, but through the fault
+of circumstances.'
+
+"You have got circumstances a few lines higher up, so put 'through the
+fault of fate.'"
+
+"Father will never believe that I wrote this letter."
+
+"That doesn't matter--the truth is the truth from whoever it comes."
+
+"'We should have gone on deceiving ourselves, or trying to deceive
+ourselves, hoping as soon as the concerts paid that I should go abroad
+with a proper chaperon. You know, father dear, how we used to talk, both
+knowing well that no such thing could be. The years would have slipped
+by, and at five-and-thirty, when it would have been too late, I should
+have found myself exactly where I was when mother died. You would have
+reproached yourself, you would have suffered remorse, we should have
+both been miserable; whereas now I hope that we shall both be happy. You
+will bring about a revival of Palestrina, and I shall sing opera. Be
+reasonable, father, and remember that it had to be. Write to me if you
+can; to hear from you will make me very happy. But do not try to seek me
+out and endeavour to induce me to return home. Any meeting between us
+now would merely mean intolerable suffering to both of us, and it would
+serve no purpose whatever. A little later, when I have succeeded, when I
+am a great singer, I will come and see you, that is to say if you will
+see me. Meanwhile; for a year or two we had better not meet, but I'll
+write constantly, and shall look forward to your letters. Again, my dear
+father, I beseech you to be reasonable; everything will come right in
+the end. I will not conceal from you the fact that Sir Owen Asher
+advised me to this step. He is very fond of me, and is determined to
+help me in every way. When he brings me back to England a great singer,
+he hopes you will try to look on his fault with as much leniency as may
+be. He asks me to warn you against speaking of him in connection with
+me, for any accusation brought against him will injure me. He intends to
+provide me with a proper chaperon. I need not mention her name; suffice
+it to say that she is a very grand lady, so appearances will be
+preserved. No one need know anything for certain if you do not tell
+them. If you will promise to do this, I will send the name of the lady
+with whom I am going to live. You can say that I am living with her; her
+name will be a sufficient cloak--everyone will be satisfied.
+Interference can be productive of no good, remember that; let things
+take their natural course, and they will come right in the end. If you
+decide to do as I ask you, write at once to me, and address your letter
+to 31 Rue Faubourg St Honore, care of Monsieur Blanco.--Always, dear
+father, Your affectionate daughter,--EVELYN INNES.'"
+
+"How clever you are," she said, looking up. "You have written just the
+kind of letter that will influence father. I have lived with father all
+my life, and yet I couldn't have known how to write that letter. How did
+you think of it?"
+
+"I've put the case truthfully, haven't I? Now, do you copy out that
+letter and address it; meanwhile I'll go round to Voisin's and order
+breakfast. Try to have it finished by the time I get back. We'll post it
+on our way."
+
+She promised that she would do so, but instead sat a long while with the
+letter in her hands. It was so unlike herself that she could not bring
+herself to send it. It would not satisfy her father, he would sooner
+receive something from her own familiar heart, and, obeying a sudden
+impulse, she wrote--
+
+"My DARLING,--What must you think of me, I wonder! that I am an
+ungrateful girl? I hope not. I don't think you would be so unjust as to
+think such things of me. I have been very wicked, but I have always
+loved you, father, and never more than now; and had anything in the
+world been able to stop me, it would have been my love of you. But,
+father dear, it was just as I told you; I was determined to resist the
+temptation if I could, but when the time came I could not. I did my
+best, indeed I did. I went through agony after agony after you left, and
+in the end I had to go whether I desired it or not. I could not have
+stopped in Dulwich any longer; if I had I should have died, and then you
+would have lost me altogether. You would not have liked to see me pine
+away, grow white, and lie coughing on the sofa like poor mother. No, you
+would not. It would have killed you. You remember how ill I was last
+Easter when he was away in the Mediterranean, darling. We've always been
+pals, we've always told each other everything, we never had any secrets,
+and never shall. I should have died if I hadn't gone away. Now I've told
+you everything--isn't that so?--and when I come back a great success,
+you'll come and hear me sing. My success would mean very little if you
+were not there. I would sooner see your dear, darling face in a box than
+any crowned head in Europe. If I were only sure that you would forgive
+me. Everything else will turn out right. Owen will be good to me, I
+shall get on; I have little fear on that score. If I could only know
+that you were not too lonely, that you were not grieving too much. I
+shall write to Margaret and beg her to look after you. But she is very
+careless, and the grocer often puts down things in his book that we
+never had. A couple of years, and then we shall see each other again. Do
+you think, darling, you can live all that time without me? I must try to
+live that time without you. It will be hard to do so, I shall miss you
+dreadfully, so if you could manage to write to me, not too cross a
+letter, it would make a great deal of difference. Of course, you are
+thinking of the disgrace I have brought on you. There need be none. Owen
+is going to provide me with a chaperon--a lady, he says, in the best
+society. I will send you her name next week, as soon as Owen hears from
+her. He may hear to-morrow, and if you say that I'm living with her, no
+one will know anything. It is deceitful, I know; I told Owen so, but he
+says that we are not obliged to take the whole world into our
+confidence. I don't like it, but I suppose if one does the things one
+must put up with the consequences. Now, I must say good-bye. I've
+expressed myself badly, but you'll know what I mean--that I love you
+very dearly, that I hope you'll forgive me, and be glad to see me when I
+come back, that I shall always be,--Your affectionate daughter,--EVELYN."
+
+She put the letter into an envelope, and was addressing it when Owen
+came into the room.
+
+"Have you copied the letter, dear?"
+
+She looked at him inquiringly, and he wondered at her embarrassment.
+
+"No," she said, "I have written quite a different letter. Yours was very
+clever, of course, but it was not like me. I've written a stupid little
+letter, but one which will please father better."
+
+"I daresay you're right. If your father suspected the letter was
+dictated by me he would resent it."
+
+"That's just what I thought."
+
+"Let me see the letter you have written."
+
+"No; don't look at it. I'd rather you didn't."
+
+"Why, dearest? Because there's something about me in it?"
+
+"No, indeed. I would not write anything about you that I wouldn't show
+you. No; what I don't want you to see is about myself."
+
+"About yourself! Well, as you like, don't show me anything you don't
+want to."
+
+"But I don't like to have secrets from you, Owen; I hate secrets."
+
+"One of these days you'll tell me what you've written. I'm quite
+satisfied." He raised her face and kissed her tenderly, and she felt
+that she loved him better for his well-assumed indifference. Then they
+went downstairs, and she admired her dress in the long glasses on the
+landings. She listened to his French as he asked for a stamp. The
+courtyard was full of sunlight and carriages. The pages pushed open the
+glass doors for them to pass, and, tingling with health and all the
+happiness and enchantment of love, she walked by his side under the
+arcade--glad when, in walking, they came against each other--swinging
+her parasol pensively, wondering what happy word to say, a little
+perplexed that she should have a secret from him, and all the while
+healthily hungry. Suddenly she recognised the street as the one where
+they had dined on Friday night. He pushed open a white-painted door, and
+it seemed to her that all the white-aproned waiters advanced to meet
+her; and the one who drew the table forward that she might pass seemed
+to fully appreciate the honour of serving them. A number of _hors
+d'oeuvres_ were placed before her, but she only ate bread and butter and
+a radish, until Owen insisted on her trying the _filets d'anchois_--the
+very ones she was originally most averse from. The sole was cooked very
+elaborately in a rich brown sauce. The tiny chicken which followed it
+was first shown to her in a tin saucepan; then the waiter took it away
+and carved it at a side table. She enjoyed the melon which, for her
+sake, ended instead of beginning the meal, as Owen said it should.
+
+An Englishman, a friend of Owen's, sat at the next table, and she could
+see he regretted that Owen had not introduced him. Most of his
+conversation seemed designed for that end, and when they got up to go,
+his eyes surely said, "Well, I wish that he had introduced us; I think
+we should have got on together." And the eyes of the young man who sat
+at the opposite table said, as plain as any words, "I'd have given
+anything to have been introduced! Shall we ever meet again?"
+
+So her exit was very thrilling; and no sooner were they on the pavement
+than another surprise was in store for her.
+
+A smart coachman touched his hat, and Owen stepped back for her to get
+into the victoria.
+
+"But this is not our carriage?"
+
+"You did not think we were going to the Lonchamps in a _fiacre_, did
+you? This is your carriage--I bought these horses yesterday for you."
+
+"You bought this carriage and these horses for me, Owen?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I did; don't let's waste time. _Aux courses!_"
+
+"Owen, dear, I cannot accept such a present. I appreciate your kindness,
+but you will not ask me to accept this carriage and horses."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Evelyn thought for some time before answering.
+
+"It would only make people think that I was an amateur. The fine clothes
+you have bought me I shall not be able to wear, except when I want you
+to think me nice. I shall have to learn Italian, of which I don't know
+a word, and French, of which I know very little."
+
+Owen looked at her, at once pleased and surprised.
+
+"You're quite right," he said; "this carriage and these horses are
+unsuitable to your present circumstances. The chestnuts took my fancy
+... however, I haven't paid for them. I'll send them back for the
+present; they, or a pair like them, will come in all right later on."
+
+After a slight pause she said--
+
+"I do not want to run into your debt more than I can help. If my voice
+develops, if it be all you think it is, I shall be able to go on the
+stage in a year, at latest in a year and a half from now. My mother was
+paid three and four hundred a week. Unless I fail altogether, I shall
+have no difficulty in paying you back the money you so generously lent
+me."
+
+"But why do you want to cost me nothing?"
+
+"I don't know. Why shouldn't I pay you back? If I succeed I shall have
+plenty of money; if I don't, I daresay you'll overlook the debt. Owen,
+dear, how enchanting it is to be with you in Paris, to wear these
+beautiful dresses, to drive in this carriage, to see those lovely
+horses, and to wonder what the races will be like. You're not
+disappointed in me? I'm as nice as you thought I'd be?"
+
+"Yes; you're a great deal nicer. I was afraid at one time you might be a
+bore; scruples of conscience aren't very interesting. But somehow in
+your case they don't seem to matter."
+
+"I do try to keep them to myself. There's no use in inflicting one's
+personal worries on others. I am all one thing or all the other. When
+I'm with you, I'm afraid I'm all the other."
+
+He had always known that he could "make something of her," as he used to
+put it to himself, but she exceeded his expectations; she certainly was
+an admirable mistress. Her scruples did not bore him; they were, indeed,
+a novelty and an excitement which he would not willingly be without.
+Moreover, she was so intelligent he had not yet heard her make a stupid
+remark. She had always been interested in the right things; and, excited
+by her admiration of the wooden balconies--the metal lanterns hanging
+from them, the vases standing on the steps leading to the porticoes, he
+attempted a reading of these villas.
+
+"How plain is this paganism," he said. "Seeing them, we cannot but think
+of their deep feather beds, the savoury omelettes made of new-laid eggs
+served at mid-day, and followed by juicy beefsteaks cooked in the best
+butter. Those villas are not only typical of Passy, but of France; their
+excellent life ascends from the peasant's cottage; they are the result
+of agriculture, which is the original loveliness. All that springs from
+agriculture must be beautiful, just as all that springs from commerce
+must be vile. Manchester is the ugliest place on the earth, and the
+money of every individual cotton spinner serves to multiply the
+original ugliness--the house he builds, the pictures he buys. Isn't that
+so?"
+
+"I can't say, dear; I have never been to Manchester. But how can you
+think of such things?"
+
+"Don't you like those villas? I love them, and their comfort is secure;
+its root is in the earth, the only thing we are sure of. There is more
+pagan of life and sentiment in France than elsewhere. Would you not like
+to have a Passy villa? Would you not like to live here?"
+
+"One of these days I may buy one, then you shall come to breakfast, and
+I'll give you an omelette and a beefsteak. For the present, I shall have
+to put up with something less expensive. I must be near my music
+lessons. Thanks all the same, dearest."
+
+She sought a reason for the expression of thoughtfulness which had
+suddenly come over his face.
+
+"I don't know how it is, but I never see Paris without thinking of
+Balzac. You don't know Balzac; one of these days you must read him. The
+moment I begin to notice Paris, I think, feel, see and speak Balzac.
+That dark woman yonder, with her scornful face, fills my mind with
+Balzacian phrases--the celebrated courtesan, celebrated for her diamonds
+and her vices, and so on. The little woman in the next carriage, the
+Princess de Saxeville, would delight him. He would devote an entire page
+to the description of her coat of arms--three azure panels, and so on.
+And I should read it, for Balzac made all the world beautiful, even
+snobbery. All interesting people are Balzacians. The moment I know that
+a man is an admirer of Balzac, a sort of Freemasonry is established
+between us, and I am interested in him, as I should be in a man who had
+loved a woman whom I had loved."
+
+"But I shouldn't like a woman because I knew that you had loved her."
+
+"You are a woman; but men who have loved the same woman will seek each
+other from the ends of the earth, and will take an intense pleasure in
+their recollections. I don't know whether that aphorism is to be found
+in Balzac; if not, it is an accident that prevented him from writing it,
+for it is quite Balzacian--only he would give it a turn, an air of
+philosophic distinction to which it would be useless for me to pretend."
+
+"I wonder if I should like him. Tell me about him."
+
+"You would be more likely than most women to appreciate him. Supposing
+you put the matter to the test. You would not accept these horses, maybe
+you will not refuse a humbler present--an edition of Balzac. There's a
+very good one in fifty-two volumes."
+
+"So many as that?"
+
+"Yes; and not one too many--each is a masterpiece. In this enormous
+work there are something like two thousand characters, and these appear
+in some books in principal, in other books in subordinate, parts. Balzac
+speaks of them as we should of real people. A young lady is going to the
+opera and to a ball afterwards, and he says--
+
+"'It is easy to imagine her delight and expectation, for was she not
+going to meet the delicious Duchesse de la Maufregneuse, and her friend
+the celebrated Madame d'Espard, Coralis, Lucien de Rubempré and
+Rastignac.'
+
+"These people are only mentioned in the _Mémoires de deux jeunes
+Mariées_. But they are heroes and heroines in other books, in _Les
+Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan, Le Père Goriot_, and _Les Illusions
+Perdues_." Before you even begin to know Balzac, you must have read at
+least twenty volumes. There is a vulgarity about those who don't know
+Balzac; we, his worshippers, recognise in each other a refinement of
+sense and a peculiar comprehension of life. We are beings apart; we are
+branded with the seal of that great mind. You should hear us talk among
+ourselves. Everyone knows that Popinot is the sublime hero of
+_L'Interdiction_, but for the moment some feeble Balzacian does not
+remember the other books he appears in, and is ashamed to ask.... But
+I'm boring you."
+
+"No, no; I love to listen. It is more interesting than any play."
+
+Owen looked at her questioningly, as if he doubted the flattery, which,
+at the bottom of his heart, he knew to be quite sincere.
+
+"You cannot understand Paris until you have read Balzac. Balzac
+discovered Paris; he created Paris. You remember just now what I said of
+those villas? I was thinking at the moment of Balzac. For he begins one
+story by a reading of the human characteristics to be perceived in its
+streets. He says that there are mean streets, and streets that are
+merely honest; there are young streets about whose morality the public
+has not yet formed any opinion; there are murderous streets--streets
+older than the oldest hags; streets that we may esteem--clean streets,
+work-a-day streets and commercial streets. Some streets, he says, begin
+well and end badly. The Rue Montmartre, for instance, has a fine head,
+but it ends in the tail of a fish. How good that is. You don't know the
+Rue Montmartre? I'll point it out next time we're that way. But you know
+the Rue de la Paix?"
+
+"Yes; what does that mean?"
+
+"The Rue de la Paix, he says, is a large street, and a grand street, but
+it certainly doesn't awaken the gracious and noble thoughts that the Rue
+Royale suggests to every sensitive mind; nor has it the dignity of the
+Place Vendôme. The Place de la Bourse, he says, is in the daytime babble
+and prostitution, but at night it is beautiful. At two o'clock in the
+morning, by moonlight, it is a dream of old Greece."
+
+"I don't see much in that. What you said about the villas was quite as
+good."
+
+Fearing that the conversation lacked a familiar and personal interest,
+he sought a transition, an idea by which he could connect it with Evelyn
+herself. With this object he called her attention to two young men who,
+he pretended, reminded him of Rastignac and Morny. That woman in the
+mail phaeton was an incipient Madame Marneffe; that dark woman now
+looking at them with ardent, amorous eyes might be an Esther.
+
+"We're all creatures of Balzac's imagination. You," he said, turning a
+little so that he might see her better, "are intensely Balzacian."
+
+"Do I remind you of one of his characters?" Evelyn became more keenly
+interested. "Which one?"
+
+"You are more like a character he might have painted than anyone I can
+think of in the Human Comedy. He certainly would have been interested in
+your temperament. But I can't think which of his women is like you. You
+are more like the adorable Lucien; that is to say, up to the present."
+
+"Who was Lucien?"
+
+"He was the young poet whom all Paris fell in love with. He came up to
+Paris with a married woman; I think they came from Angouleme. I haven't
+read _Lost Illusions_ for twenty years. She and he were the stars in the
+society of some provincial town, but when they arrived in Paris each
+thought the other very common and countrified. He compares her with
+Madame d'Espard; she compares him with Rastignac; Balzac completes the
+picture with a touch of pure genius--'They forgot that six months would
+transform them both into exquisite Parisians.' How good that is, what
+wonderful insight into life!"
+
+"And do they become Parisians?"
+
+"Yes, and then they both regret that they broke off--"
+
+"Could they not begin it again?"
+
+"No; it is rarely that a _liaison_ can be begun again--life is too
+hurried. We may not go back; the past may never become the
+present--ghosts come between."
+
+"Then if I broke it off with you, or you broke it off with me, it would
+be for ever?"
+
+"Do not let us discuss such unpleasant possibilities;" and he continued
+to search the _Human Comedy_ for a woman resembling Evelyn. "You are
+essentially Balzacian--all interesting things are--but I cannot remember
+any woman in the _Human Comedy_ like you--Honorine, perhaps."
+
+"What does she do?"
+
+"She's a married woman who has left her husband for a lover who very
+soon deserts her. Her husband tries in vain to love other women, but
+his wife holds his affections and he makes every effort to win her back.
+The story is mainly an account of these efforts."
+
+"Does he succeed?"
+
+"Yes. Honorine goes back to her husband, but it cost her her life. She
+cannot live with a man she doesn't love. That is the point of the
+story."
+
+"I wonder why that should remind you of me?"
+
+"There is something delicate, rare, and mystical about you both. But I
+can't say I place _Honorine_ very high among Balzac's works. There are
+beautiful touches in it, but I think he failed to realise the type. You
+are more virile, more real to me than Honorine. No; on the whole, Balzac
+has not done you. He perceived you dimly. If he had lived it might, it
+certainly would, have been otherwise. There is, of course, the Duchesse
+Langeais. There is something of you in her; but she is no more than a
+brilliant sketch, no better than Honorine. There is Eugene Grandet. But
+no; Balzac never painted your portrait."
+
+Like all good talkers, he knew how to delude his listeners into the
+belief that they were taking an important part in the conversation. He
+allowed them to speak, he solicited their opinions, and listened as if
+they awakened the keenest interest in him; he developed what they had
+vaguely suggested. He paused before their remarks, he tempted his
+listener into personal appreciations and sudden revelations of
+character. He addressed an intimate vanity and became the inspiration of
+every choice, and in a mysterious reticulation of emotions, tastes and
+ideas, life itself seemed to converge to his ultimate authority. And
+having induced recognition of the wisdom of his wishes, he knew how to
+make his yoke agreeable to bear; it never galled the back that bore it,
+it lay upon it soft as a silken gown. Evelyn enjoyed the gentle
+imposition of his will. Obedience became a delight, and in its
+intellectual sloth life floated as in an opium dream without end,
+dissolving as the sunset dissolves in various modulations. Obedience is
+a divine sensualism; it is the sensualism of the saints; its lassitudes
+are animated with deep pauses and thrills of love and worship. We lift
+our eyes, and a great joy fills our hearts, and we sink away into
+blisses of remote consciousness. The delights of obedience are the
+highest felicities of love, and these Evelyn had begun to experience.
+She had ascended already into this happy nowhere. She was aware of him,
+and a little of the brilliant goal whither he was leading her. She was
+the instrument, he was the hand that played upon it, and all that had
+happened from hour to hour in their mutual existence revealed in some
+new and unexpected way his mastery over life. She had seen great ladies
+bowing to him, smiling upon him in a way that told their intention to
+get him away from her. She had heard scraps of his conversation with the
+French and English noblemen who had stopped to speak to him; and now,
+as Owen was getting into the victoria, after a brief visit to some great
+lady who had sent her footman to fetch him, a man, who looked to Evelyn
+like a sort of superior groom, came breathless to their carriage. He had
+only just heard that Owen was on the course. He was the great English
+trainer from Chantilly, and had tried Armide II. to win with a stone
+more on his back than he had to carry.
+
+"That is the horse," and Owen pointed to a big chestnut. "The third
+horse--orange and white sleeves, black cap ... they are going now for
+the preliminary canter. We shall have just time to back him. There is a
+Pari Mutuel a little way down the course; or shall we back the horse in
+the ring? No, it is too late to get across the course. The Pari Mutuel
+will do. Isn't the racecourse like an English lawn, like an overgrown
+croquet ground? and the horses go round by these plantations."
+
+It was not fashionable, he admitted, for a lady to leave her carriage,
+but no one knew her. It did not matter, and the spectacle amused her.
+But there was only time to catch a glimpse of beautiful toilettes,
+actresses and princesses, and the young men standing on the steps of the
+carriages. Owen whispered the names of the most celebrated, and told her
+she should know them when she was on the stage. At present it would be
+better for her to live quietly--unknown; her lessons would take all her
+time. He talked as he hastened her towards where a crowd had collected.
+She saw what looked like a small omnibus, with a man distributing
+tickets. Owen took five louis out of her purse and handed them to the
+man, who in return handed her a ticket. They would see the race better
+from their carriage, but it was pleasanter to stroll about the warm
+grass and admire the little woods which surrounded this elegant
+pleasure-ground, the white painted stands with all their flags flying on
+the blue summer air, the glitter of the carriages, the colour of the
+parasols, the bright jackets and caps of the jockeys, the rhythmical
+movement of the horses. Some sailed along with their heads low, others
+bounded, their heads high in the air. While Owen watched Evelyn's
+pleasure, his face expressed a cynical good humour. He was glad she was
+pleased, and he was flattered that he was influencing her. No longer was
+she wasting her life, the one life which she had to live. He was proud
+of his disciple, and he delighted in her astonishment, when, having made
+sure that Armide II. had won, he led her back to the Pari Mutuel, and,
+bidding her hold out her hands, saw that forty louis were poured into
+them.
+
+Then Evelyn could not believe that she was in her waking senses, and it
+took some time to explain to her how she had won so much money; and when
+she asked why all the poor people did not come and do likewise, since it
+was so easy, Owen said that he had had more sport seeing her win five
+and thirty louis than he had when he won the gold cup at Ascot. It
+almost inclined him to go in for racing again. Evelyn could not
+understand the circumstance and, still explaining the odds, he told the
+coachman that they would not wait for the last race. He had tied her
+forty louis into her pocket-handkerchief, and feeling the weight of the
+gold in her hand she leant back in the victoria, lost in the bright,
+penetrating happiness of that summer evening. Paris, graceful and
+indolent--Paris returning through a whirl of wheels, through
+pleasure-grounds, green swards and long, shining roads--instilled a
+fever of desire into the blood, and the soul cried that life should be
+made wholly of such light distraction.
+
+The wistful light seemed to breathe all vulgarity from the procession of
+pleasure-seekers returning from the races. An aspect of vision stole
+over the scene. Owen pointed to the group of pines by the lake's edge,
+to the gondola-like boat moving through the pink stillness; and the
+cloud in the water, he said, was more beautiful than the cloud in
+heaven. He spoke of the tea-house on the island, of the shade of the
+trees, of the lush grass, of the chatter of the nursemaids and ducks. He
+proposed, and she accepted, that they should go there to-morrow. The
+secret of their lips floated into their eyes, its echoes drifted through
+their souls like a faint strain played on violins; and neither spoke for
+fear of losing one of the faint vibrations. Evelyn settled her
+embroidered gown over her feet as the carriage swept around the Arc de
+Triomphe.
+
+"That is our rose garden," he said, pointing to Paris, which lay below
+them glittering in the evening light, "You remember that I used to read
+you Omar?"
+
+"Yes, I remember. Not three days ago, yet it seems far away."
+
+"But you do not regret--you would not go back?"
+
+"I could not if I would."
+
+"It has been a charming day, hasn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And it isn't over yet. I have ordered dinner at the Café des
+Ambassadeurs. I've got a table on the balcony. The balcony overlooks the
+garden, and the stage is at the end of the garden, so we shall see the
+performance as we dine. The comic songs, the can-can dancers and the
+acrobats will be a change after Wagner. I hope you'll like the dinner."
+
+He took a card from his pocket and read the menu.
+
+"There is no place in Paris where you get a better _petite marmite_ than
+the Ambassadeurs. I have ordered, you see, _filets de volaille, pointes
+d'asperges_. The _filets de volaille_ are the backs of the chickens, the
+tit-bits; the rest--the legs and the wings--go to make the stock; that
+is why the _marmite_ is so good. _Timbale de homard à l'Americaine_ is
+served with a brown sauce garnished with rice. You ought to find it
+excellent. If we were in autumn I should have ordered a pheasant
+_Sauvaroff_. A bird being impossible, I allowed myself to be advised by
+the head waiter. He assured me they have some very special legs of lamb;
+they have just received them from Normandy; you will not recognise it as
+the stringy, tasteless thing that in England we know as leg of lamb.
+_Soufflé au paprike_--this _soufflé_ is seasoned not with red pepper,
+which would produce an intolerable thirst, nor with ordinary pepper,
+which would be arid and tasteless, but with an intermediate pepper which
+will just give a zest to the last glass of champagne. There is a
+_parfait_--that comes before the _soufflé_ of course. I don't think we
+can do much better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+
+The appointment had been made, and he was coming back at half-past three
+to take her to Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, and at four
+her fate would be decided. She would then learn beyond cavil or doubt if
+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 £400 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.... Lady Duckle was coming that
+evening--the woman whom she was going to live with--an unfortunate day
+for her to arrive; if Madame Savelli thought that she, Evelyn, had no
+voice to speak of, the secret could not be kept from her. Lady Duckle
+would know her for a poor little fool who had been wheedled from her
+home, and on the pretext that she was to become the greatest singer in
+Europe. It was all horrid.
+
+And when Owen returned he found Evelyn in tears. But with his scrupulous
+tact he avoided any allusion to her grief, and while she bathed her eyes
+she thanked him in her heart for this. Her father would have fretted and
+fussed and maddened her with questions, but Owen cheered her with
+sanguine smiles and seemed to look forward to her success as a natural
+sequence, any interruption to which it would be idle to anticipate; and
+he cleverly drew her thoughts from doubt in her own ability into
+consideration of the music she was going to sing. She suggested the
+jewel song in "Faust," or the waltz in "Romeo and Juliet." But he was of
+the opinion that she had better sing the music she was in the habit of
+singing; for choice, one of Purcell's songs, the "Epithalamium," or the
+song from the "Indian Queen."
+
+"Savelli doesn't know the music; it will interest her. The other things
+she hears every day of her life."
+
+"But I haven't the music--I don't know the accompaniments."
+
+"The music is here."
+
+"It is very thoughtful of you."
+
+"Henceforth it must be my business to be thoughtful."
+
+They descended the hotel staircase very slowly, seeing themselves in the
+tall mirrors on the landings. The bright courtyard glittered through the
+glass verandah; it was full of carriages. Owen signed to his coachman.
+They got into the victoria, and a moment after were passing through the
+streets, turning in and out. But not a word did they speak, for the
+poison of doubt had entered into his, as it had into her, soul. He had
+begun to ask himself if he was mistaken--if she had really this
+wonderful voice, or if it only existed in his imagination? True it was
+that everyone who had heard her sing thought the same; but the last time
+he had heard her, had not her voice sounded a little thin? He had
+doubts, too, about her power of passionate interpretation.... She had a
+beautiful voice--there could be no doubt on that point--but a beautiful
+voice might be heard to a very great disadvantage on the stage.
+Moreover, could she sing florid music? Of course, the "Epithalamium"
+she was going to sing was as florid as it could be. Purcell had suited
+it to his own singing.... A woman did not always sing to an orchestra as
+well as to a single instrument. That was only when the singer was an
+insufficient musician. Evelyn was an excellent musician.... If a woman
+had the loveliest voice, and was as great a musician as Wagner himself,
+it would profit her nothing if she had not the strength to stand the
+wear and tear of rehearsals. He looked at Evelyn, and calculated her
+physical strength. She was a rather tall and strongly-built girl, but
+the Wagnerian bosom was wanting. He had always considered a large bosom
+to be a dreadful deformity. A bosom should be an indication, a hint; a
+positive statement he viewed with abhorrence. And he paused to think if
+he would be willing to forego his natural and cultured taste in female
+beauty and accept those extravagant growths of flesh if they could be
+proved to be musical necessities. But Evelyn was by no means
+flat-chested ... and he remembered certain curves and plenitudes with
+satisfaction. Then, catching sight of Evelyn's frightened face, he
+forced himself to invent conversation. That was the Madeleine, a fine
+building, in a way; and the boulevard they had just entered was the
+Boulevard Malesherbes, which was called after a celebrated French
+lawyer. The name Haussmann recalled the Second Empire, and he ransacked
+his memory for anecdotes. But soon his conversation grew stilted--even
+painful. He could continue it no longer, and, taking her hand, he
+assured her that, if she did not sing well, she should come to Madame
+Savelli again. Evelyn's face lighted up, and she said that what had
+frightened her was the finality of the decision--a few minutes in which
+she might not be able to sing at all. Owen reproved her. How could she
+think that he would permit such a barbarism? It really did not matter a
+brass button whether she sang well or ill on this particular day; if she
+did not do herself justice, another appointment should be made. He had
+money enough to hire Madame Savelli to listen to her for the next six
+months, if it were required.
+
+He was truly sorry for her. Poor little girl! it really was a dreadful
+ordeal. Yet he had never seen her look better. What a difference
+dressing her had made! Her manner, too, had improved. That was the
+influence of his society. By degrees, he'd get rid of all her absurd
+ideas. But he sorely wished that Madame Savelli's verdict would prove
+him right--not for his sake--it didn't matter to him--such teeth, such
+hands, such skin, such eyes and hair! Voice or no voice, he had
+certainly got the most charming mistress in Europe! But, if she did
+happen to have a great voice it would make matters so much better for
+them. He had plenty of money--twenty thousand lying idle--but it was
+better that she should earn money. It would save her reputation ... in
+every way it would be better. If she had a voice, and were a success,
+this _liaison_ would be one of the most successful things in his life.
+If he were wrong, they'd have to get on as best they could, but he
+didn't think that he could be altogether mistaken.
+
+The door was opened by a footman in livery, and they ascended
+half-a-dozen steps into the house. Then, off a wide passage, a door was
+opened, and they found themselves in a great saloon with polished oak
+floor. There was hardly any furniture--three or four chairs, some
+benches against the walls and a grand piano. The mantelpiece was covered
+with photographs, and there were life-sized photographs in frames on the
+walls. Owen pointed to one of a somewhat stout woman in evening-dress,
+and he whispered an illustrious name.
+
+A moment after madame entered.
+
+She was of medium height, thin and somewhat flat-chested. Her hair was
+iron-grey, and the face was marked with patches of vivid colouring. The
+mouth was a long, determined line, and the lines of the hips asserted
+themselves beneath the black silk dress. She glanced quickly at Evelyn
+as she went towards Sir Owen.
+
+"This is the young lady of whom you spoke to me?"
+
+"Yes, madame, it is she. Let me introduce you. Madame Savelli--Miss
+Evelyn Innes."
+
+"Does mademoiselle wish to sing as a professional or as an amateur?"
+
+The question was addressed at once to Evelyn and to Owen, and, while
+Evelyn hesitated with the French words, Owen answered--
+
+"Mademoiselle will be guided by your advice."
+
+"They all say that; however, we shall see. Will mademoiselle sing to me?
+Does mademoiselle speak French?"
+
+"Yes, a little," Evelyn replied, timidly.
+
+"Oh, very good. Has mademoiselle studied music?"
+
+"Yes; my father is a musician, but he only cares for the very early
+music, and I have hardly ever touched a piano, but I play the
+harpsichord.... My instrument is the viola da gamba."
+
+"The harpsichord and the viola da gamba! That is very interesting,
+but"--and Madame Savelli laughed good-naturedly--"unfortunately we have
+no harpsichord here, nor yet a spinet only the humble piano."
+
+"Miss Innes will be quite satisfied with your piano, Madame Savelli."
+
+"Now, Sir Owen, I will not have you get cross with me. I must always
+have my little pleasantry. Does he get cross with you like that, Miss
+Innes?"
+
+"I didn't get cross with you, Madame Savelli."
+
+"You wanted to, but I would not let you--and because I regretted I had
+not a harpsichord, only a humble piano! Mademoiselle knows, I suppose,
+all the church songs. I only know operas.... You see, Sir Owen, you
+cannot silence me; I will have my little pleasantry. I only know opera,
+and have nothing but the humble piano. But, joking apart, mademoiselle
+wants to study serious opera."
+
+"Yes; mademoiselle intends to study for the stage, not for the church."
+
+"Then I will teach her."
+
+"You have three classes here. Mademoiselle would like to go into the
+opera class."
+
+"In the opera class I How you do go on, Sir Owen! If mademoiselle can go
+into the opera class next year, I shall be more than satisfied,
+astonished."
+
+"Perhaps you'll be able to say better if mademoiselle will be able to go
+into the opera class when you have heard her sing."
+
+"But I know, my dear Sir Owen, that is impossible. You don't believe me.
+Well, I am prepared to be surprised. It matters not to me. Mademoiselle
+can go into the opera class in three months if she is sufficiently
+advanced. Will mademoiselle sing to me? Are these her songs?" Madame
+Savelli took the music out of Sir Owen's hands. "I can see that this
+music would sound better on the harpsichord or the spinet.... Now, Sir
+Owen, I see you are getting angry again."
+
+"I'm not angry, Madame Savelli--no one could be angry with you--only
+mademoiselle is rather nervous."
+
+"Then perhaps my pleasantry was inexpedient. Let me see--this is it,
+isn't it?" she said, running her fingers through the first bars.... "But
+perhaps you would like to accompany mademoiselle?"
+
+"Which would you like, Evelyn?"
+
+"You, dear; I should be too nervous with Madame Savelli."
+
+Owen explained, and madame gave him her place at the piano with
+alacrity, and took a seat far away by the fireplace. Evelyn sang
+Purcell's beautiful wedding song, full of roulades, grave pauses and
+long-sustained notes, and when she had finished Owen signed to madame
+not to speak. "Now, the song from the 'Indian Queen.' You sang
+capitally," he whispered to Evelyn.
+
+And, thus encouraged, she poured all her soul and all the pure melody of
+her voice into this music, at once religious and voluptuous, seemingly
+the rapture of a nun that remembrance has overtaken and for the moment
+overpowered. When she had done, Madame Savelli jumped from her chair,
+and seizing her by both hands said,--
+
+"If you'll stop with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you."
+
+Then without another word she ran out of the room, leaving the door
+open behind her, and a few moments after they heard her calling on the
+stairs to her husband.
+
+"Come down at once; come down, I've found a star."
+
+"Then she thinks I've a good voice?"
+
+"I should think so indeed. She won't get over the start you've given her
+for the next six months."
+
+"Are you sure, Owen? Are you sure she's not laughing at us?"
+
+"Laughing at us? She's calling for her husband to come down. She's
+shouting to him that she's found a star."
+
+Then the joy that rose up in Evelyn's heart blinded her eyes so that she
+could not see, and she seemed to lose sense of what was happening. It
+was as if she were going to swoon.
+
+"I have told her," Madame Savelli said to her husband, who followed her
+into the room, "that, if she will remain a year with me, I'll make
+something wonderful of her. And you will stay with me, my dear...."
+
+Owen thought that this was the moment to mention the fact that Evelyn
+was the daughter of the famous Madame Innes.
+
+Monsieur Savelli raised his bushy eyebrows.
+
+"I knew your mother, mademoiselle. If you have a voice like hers--"
+
+"In a year, if she will remain with me, she will have twice the voice
+her mother had. Mademoiselle must go into the opera class at once."
+
+"I thought you said that such a thing could not be; that no pupil of
+yours had ever gone straight into the opera class?"
+
+Madame Savelli's grey eyes laughed.
+
+"Ah! I was mistaken.... I had forgotten that all the other classes are
+full. There is no room for Miss Innes in the other classes. It is
+against all precedence; it will create much jealousy, but it can't be
+helped. She must go straight into the opera class. When will
+mademoiselle begin? The sooner the better."
+
+"Next Monday. Will that be soon enough?"
+
+"On Monday I'll begin to teach her the _rôle_ of Marguerite. Such a
+thing was never heard of; but then mademoiselle's voice is one such as
+one never hears."
+
+Turning to her husband, she said--
+
+"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?"
+
+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 in the end they'd hit off the right ones. And
+that trick of going up in fifths. And then they go up in fifths on the
+half notes. I said if they do that again, I'll leave the theatre."
+
+Evelyn could see that Owen liked Lady Duckle, and her conversation,
+which at first might have seemed extravagant and a little foolish, was
+illuminated with knowledge and a vague sense of humour which was
+captivating. Her story of how she had met Rossini in her early youth,
+and the praise he had bestowed on her voice, and his intention of
+writing an opera for her, seemed fanciful enough, but every now and then
+some slight detail inspired the suspicion that there was perhaps more
+truth in what she was saying than appeared at first hearing.
+
+"Why did he not write the opera, Olive?"
+
+"It was just as he was ill, when he lived in Rue Monsieur. And he said
+he was afraid he was not equal to writing down so many notes. Poor old
+man! I can still see him sitting in his arm-chair."
+
+She seemed to have been on terms of friendship with the most celebrated
+men of the time. Her little book entitled _Souvenirs of Some Great
+Composers_ was alluded to, and Owen mentioned that at that time she was
+the great Parisian beauty.
+
+"But instead of going on the stage, I married Lord Duckle."
+
+And this early mistake she seemed to consider as sufficient explanation
+for all subsequent misfortunes. Evelyn wondered what these might be, and
+Owen said--
+
+"The most celebrated singers are glad to sing at Lady Duckle's
+afternoons; no reputation is considered complete till it has received
+her sanction."
+
+"That is going too far, Owen; but it is true that nearly all the great
+singers have been heard at my house."
+
+Owen begged Evelyn to get ready for dinner, and as she stood waiting for
+the lift, she saw him resume confidential conversation with Lady Duckle.
+They were, she knew, making preparations for her future life, and this
+was the woman she was going to live with for the next few years! The
+thought gave her pause. She dried her hands and hastened downstairs.
+They were still talking in the verandah just as she had left them. Owen
+signed to the coachman and told him to drive to Durand's. They were
+dining in a private room, and during dinner the conversation constantly
+harked back to the success that Evelyn had achieved that afternoon. Owen
+told the story in well-turned sentences. His eyes were generally fixed
+on Lady Duckle, and Evelyn sat listening and feeling, as Owen intended
+she should feel, like the heroine of a fairy tale. She laughed nervously
+when, imitating Madame Savelli's accent, he described how she had said,
+"If you'll stop with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you." Lady Duckle leaned across the table, glancing from time to time at
+Evelyn, as if to assure herself that she was still in the presence of
+this extraordinary person, and murmured something about having the
+honour of assisting at what she was sure would be a great career.
+
+Owen noticed that Evelyn seemed preoccupied, and did not respond very
+eagerly to Lady Duckle's advances. He wondered if she suspected him of
+having been Lady Duckle's lover.... Evelyn was thinking entirely of Lady
+Duckle herself, trying to divine the real woman that was behind all this
+talk of great men and social notabilities. One phrase let drop seemed to
+let in some light on the mystery. Talking of her, Lady Duckle said that
+it was only necessary to know what road we wanted to walk in to succeed,
+and instantly Lady Duckle appeared to her as one who had never selected
+a road. She seemed to have walked a little way on all roads, and her
+face expressed a life of many wanderings, straying from place to place.
+There was nothing as she said, worth doing that she had not done, but
+she had clearly accomplished nothing. As she watched her she feared,
+though she could not say what she feared. At bottom it was a suspicion
+of the deteriorating influence that Lady Duckle would exercise, must
+exercise, upon her--for were they not going to live together for years?
+And this companionship would be necessarily based on subterfuge and
+deceit. She would have to talk to her of her friendship for Owen. She
+could never speak of Owen to Lady Duckle as her lover. But as Evelyn
+listened to this pleasant, garrulous woman talking, and talking very
+well, about music and literature, she could not but feel that she liked
+her, and that her easy humour and want of principle would make life
+comfortable and careless. She was not a saint; she could not expect a
+saint to chaperon her; nor did she want a saint. At that moment her
+spirits rose. She wanted Owen, and she loved him the more for the tact
+he had shown in finding Lady Duckle for her. She accepted the good
+lady's faults with reckless enthusiasm, and when they got back to the
+hotel she took the first occasion to whisper that she liked Lady Duckle
+and was sure they'd get on very well together.
+
+"Owen, dear, I'm so happy, I don't know what to do with myself. I did
+enjoy my drive to the Bois. I never was so happy and I don't seem to be
+enjoying myself enough; I should like to sit up all night to think of
+it."
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't."
+
+"Only I should feel tired in the morning.... Are you coming to my room?"
+
+"Unless you want me not to. Do you want me to come?"
+
+"Do I look as if I didn't?"
+
+"Your eyes are shining like stars. It is worth while taking trouble to
+make you happy. You do enjoy it so.... We'll go upstairs now. We can't
+talk here, Lady Duckle is coming back. Leave your door ajar."
+
+"You don't think she suspects?"
+
+"It doesn't matter what people suspect, the essential is that they
+shouldn't know. I've lots to tell you. I've arranged everything with
+Lady Duckle."
+
+"I was just telling Miss Innes that in three years she'll probably be
+singing at the Opera House. In a year or a year and a half she'll have
+learnt all that Savelli can teach her. Isn't that so?"
+
+The question was discussed for a while, and then Lady Duckle mentioned
+that it was getting late. It was an embarrassing moment when Owen
+stopped the lift and they bade her good-night. She was on the third,
+they were on the second floor. As Evelyn went down the passage, Owen
+stood to watch her sloping shoulders; they seemed to him like those of
+an old miniature. When she turned the corner a blankness came over him;
+things seemed to recede and he was strangely alone with himself as he
+strolled into his room. But standing before the glass, his heart was
+swollen with a great pride. He remarked in his eyes the strange,
+enigmatic look which he admired in Titian and Vandyke, and he thought
+of himself as a principle--as a force; he wondered if he were an evil
+influence, and lost himself in moody meditations concerning the mystery
+of the attractions he presented to women. But suddenly he remembered
+that in a few minutes she would be in his arms, and he closed his eyes
+as if to delight more deeply in the joy that she presented to his
+imagination. So intense was his desire that he could not believe that he
+was her lover, that he was going to her room, and that nothing could
+deprive him of this delight. Why should such rare delight happen to him?
+He did not know. What matter, since it was happening? She was his. It
+was like holding the rarest jewel in the world in the hollow of his
+hand.
+
+That she was at that moment preparing to receive him brought a little
+dizziness into his eyes, and compelled him to tear off his necktie.
+Then, vaguely, like one in a dream, he began to undress, very slowly,
+for she had told him to wait a quarter of an hour before coming to her
+room. He examined his thin waist as he tied himself in blue silk
+pyjamas, and he paused to admire his long, straight feet before slipping
+them into a pair of black velvet slippers. He turned to glance at his
+watch, and to kill the last five minutes of the prescribed time he
+thought of Evelyn's scruples. She would have to read certain
+books--Darwin and Huxley he relied upon, and he reposed considerable
+faith in Herbert Spencer. But there were books of a lighter kind, and
+their influence he believed to be not less insidious. He took one out of
+his portmanteau--the book which he said, had influenced him more than
+any other. It opened at his favourite passage--
+
+'I am a man of the Homeric time; the world in which I live is not mine,
+and I know nothing of the society which surrounds me. I am as pagan as
+Alcibiades or as Phidias.... I never gathered on Golgotha the flowers of
+the Passion, and the deep stream which flowed from from the side of the
+Crucified and made a red girdle round the world never bathed me in its
+tide. I believe earth to be as beautiful as heaven, and I think that
+precision of form is virtue. Spirituality is not my strong point; I love
+a statue better than a phantom.' ... He could remember no further; he
+glanced at the text and was about to lay the book down, when, on second
+thoughts, he decided to take it with him.
+
+Her door was ajar; he pushed it open and then stopped for moment,
+surprised at his good fortune. And he never forgot that instant's
+impression of her body's beauty. But before he could snatch the long
+gauze wrapper from her, she had slipped her arm through the sleeves,
+and, joyous as a sunlit morning hour, she came forward and threw herself
+into his arms. Even then he could not believe that some evil accident
+would not rob him of her. He said some words to that effect, and often
+tried to recall her answer to them; he was only sure that it was
+exquisitely characteristic of her, as were all her answers--as her
+answer was that very evening when he told her that he would have to go
+to London at the end of the week.
+
+"But only for some days. You don't think that I shall be changed? You're
+not afraid that I shall love you less?"
+
+"No; I was not thinking of you, dear. I know that you'll not be changed;
+I was thinking that I might be."
+
+He withdrew the arm that was round her, and, raising himself upon his
+elbow, he looked at her.
+
+"You've told me more about yourself in that single phrase than if you
+had been talking an hour."
+
+"Dearest Owen, let me kiss you."
+
+It seemed to them wonderful that they should be permitted to kiss each
+other so eagerly, and it sometimes was a still more intense rapture to
+lie in each other's arms and talk to each other.
+
+The dawn surprised them still talking, and it seemed to them as if
+nothing had been said. He was explaining his plans for her life. They
+were, he thought, going to live abroad for five, six, or seven years.
+Then Evelyn would go to London, to sing, preceded by an extraordinary
+reputation. But the first thing to do was to get a house in Paris.
+
+"We cannot stop at this hotel; we must have a house. I have heard of a
+charming hotel in the Rue Balzac."
+
+"In the Rue Balzac! Is there a street called after him? Is it on account
+of the name you want me to live there?"
+
+"No; I don't think so, but perhaps the name had something to do with
+it--one never knows. But I always liked the street."
+
+"Which of his books is it like?"
+
+"_Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan_"
+
+They laughed and kissed each other.
+
+"At the bottom of the street is the Avenue de Friedland; the tram passes
+there, and it will take you straight to Madame Savelli's."
+
+The sparrows had begun to shrill in the courtyard, and their eyes ached
+with sleep.
+
+"Five or six years--you'll be at the height of your fame. They will pass
+only too quickly," he added.
+
+He was thinking what his age would be then. "And when they have passed,
+it will seem like a dream."
+
+"Like a dream," she repeated, and she laid her face on the pillow where
+his had lain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+As she lay between sleeping and waking, she strove to grasp the
+haunting, fugitive idea, but shadows of sleep fell, and in her dream
+there appeared two Tristans, a fair and a dark. When the shadows were
+lifted and she thought with an awakening brain, she smiled at the
+absurdity, and, striving to get close to her idea, to grip it about its
+very loins, she asked herself how much of her own life she could express
+in the part, for she always acted one side of her character. Her pious
+girlhood found expression in the Elizabeth, and what she termed the
+other side of her character she was going to put on the stage in the
+character of Isolde. Again sleep thickened, and she found it impossible
+to follow her idea. It eluded her; she could not grasp it. It turned to
+a dream, a dream which she could not understand even while she dreamed
+it. But as she awaked, she uttered a cry. It happened to be the note she
+had to sing when the curtain goes up and Isolde lies on the couch
+yearning for Tristan, for assuagement of the fever which consumes her.
+All other actresses had striven to portray an Irish princess, or what
+they believed an Irish princess might be. But she cared nothing for the
+Irish princess, and a great deal for the physical and mental distress of
+a woman sick with love.
+
+Her power of recalling her sensations was so intense, that in her warm
+bed she lived again the long, aching evenings of the long winter in
+Dulwich, before she went away with Owen. She saw again the Spring
+twilight in the scrap of black garden, where she used to stand watching
+the stars. She remembered the dread craving to worship them, the anguish
+of remorse and fear on her bed, her visions of distant countries and the
+gleam of eyes which looked at her through the dead of night. How
+miserable she had been in that time--in those months. She had wanted to
+sing, and she could not, and she had wanted--she had not known what was
+the matter with her. That feeling (how well she remembered it!) as if
+she wanted to go mad! And all those lightnesses of the brain she could
+introduce in the opening scene--the very opening cry was one of them.
+And with these two themes she thought she could create an Isolde more
+intense than the Isolde of the fat women whom she had seen walking about
+the stage, lifting their arms and trying to look like sculpture.
+
+No one whom she had seen had attempted to differentiate between Isolde
+before she drinks and after she has drunk the love potion, and, to avoid
+this mistake, she felt that she would only have to be true to herself.
+After the love potion had been drunk, the moment of her life to put on
+the stage was its moment of highest sexual exaltation. Which was that?
+There were so many, she smiled in her doze. Perhaps the most wonderful
+day of her life was the day Madame Savelli had said, "If you'll stay
+with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of you." She recalled
+the drive in the Bois, and she saw again the greensward, the poplars,
+and the stream of carriages. She had hardly been able so resist
+springing up in the carriage and singing to the people; she had wanted
+to tell them what Madame Savelli had said. She had wished to cry to
+them, "In two years all you people will be going to the opera to hear
+me." What had stopped her was the dread that it might not happen. But it
+had happened! That was the evening she had met Olive. She could see the
+exact spot. Although Olive had only just arrived, she had been up to her
+room and put on a pair of slippers. They had dined at a café, and all
+through dinner she had longed to be alone with Owen, and after dinner
+the time had seemed so long. Before going up in the lift he had asked
+her if he might come to her room. In a quarter of an hour, she had said,
+but he had come sooner than she expected, and she remembered slipping
+her arm into a gauze wrapper. How she had flung herself into his arms!
+That was the moment of her life to put upon the stage when she and
+Tristan look at each other after drinking the love potion.
+
+In the second act Tristan lives through her. She is the will to live;
+and if she ultimately consents to follow him into the shadowy land, it
+is for love of him. But of his desire for death she understands nothing;
+all through the duet it is she who desires to quench this desire with
+kisses. That was her conception of women's mission, and that was her own
+life with Owen; it was her love that compelled him to live down his
+despondencies. So her Isolde would have an intense and a personal life
+that no Isolde had had before. And in holding up her own soul to view,
+she would hold up the universal soul, and people would be afraid to turn
+their heads lest they should catch each other's eyes. But was not a
+portrayal of sexual passion such as she intended very sinful? It could
+not fail to suggest sinful thoughts.... She could not help what folk
+thought--that was their affair. She had turned her back upon all such
+scruples, and this last one she contemptuously picked up and tossed
+aside like a briar.
+
+Her eyes opened and she gazed sleepily into the twilight of mauve
+curtains, and dreaded her maid's knock. "It must be nearly eight," she
+thought, and she strove to pick up the thread of her lost thoughts. But
+a sharp rap at her door awakened her, and a tall, spare figure crossed
+the room. As the maid was about to draw the curtains, Evelyn cried to
+her--
+
+"Oh, wait a moment, Herat.... I'm so tired. I didn't get to bed till
+two o'clock."
+
+"Mademoiselle forgets that she told me to awaken her very early.
+Mademoiselle said she wanted to go for a long drive to the other end of
+London before she went to rehearsal."
+
+Merat's logic seemed a little severe for eight o'clock in the morning,
+and Evelyn believed that her conception of Isolde had suffered from the
+interruption.
+
+"Then I am not to draw the curtains? Mademoiselle will sleep a little
+longer. I will return when it is time for mademoiselle to go to
+rehearsal."
+
+"Did you say it was half-past eight, Merat?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle. The coachman is not quite sure of the way, and will
+have to ask it. This will delay him."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know.... But I must sleep a little longer."
+
+"Then mademoiselle will not get up. I will take mademoiselle's chocolate
+away."
+
+"No, I'll have my chocolate," Evelyn said, rousing herself. "Merat, you
+are very insistent."
+
+"What is one to do? Mademoiselle specially ordered me to wake her....
+Mademoiselle said that--"
+
+"I know what I said. I'll see how I feel when I have had my chocolate.
+The coachman had better get a map and look out the way upon it."
+
+She lay back on the pillow and regretted she had come to England. There
+was no reason why she should not have thrown over this engagement. It
+wouldn't have been the first. Owen had always told her that money ought
+never to tempt her to do anything she didn't like. He had persuaded her
+to accept this engagement, though he knew that she did not want to sing
+in London. How often before had she not refused, and with his
+approbation? But then his pleasure was involved in the refusal or the
+acceptance of the engagement. He did not mind her throwing over a
+valuable offer to sing if he wanted her to go yachting with him. Men
+were so selfish. She smiled, for she knew she was acting a little comedy
+with herself. "But, quite seriously, I am annoyed with Owen. The London
+engagement--no, of course, I could not go on refusing to sing in
+London." She was annoyed with him because he had dissuaded her from
+doing what her instinct had told her was the right thing to do. She had
+wished to go to her father the moment she set foot in England, and beg
+his forgiveness. When they had arrived at Victoria, she had said that
+she would like to take the train to Dulwich. There happened to be one
+waiting. But they had had a rough crossing; she was very tired, and he
+had suggested she should postpone her visit to the next day. But next
+day her humour was different. She knew quite well that the sooner she
+went the easier it would be for her to press her father to forgive her,
+to entrap him into reconciliation. She had imagined that she could
+entrap her father into forgiving her by throwing herself into his arms,
+or with the mere phrase, "Father, I've come to ask you how I sing." But
+she had not been able to overcome her aversion to going to Dulwich, and
+every time the question presented itself a look of distress came into
+her face. "If I only knew what he would say when he sees me. If the
+first word were over--the 'entrance,'" she added, with a smile.
+
+It was hopeless to argue with her, so Owen said that if she did not go
+before the end of the week it would be better to postpone her visit
+until after her first appearance.
+
+"But supposing I fail. I never cared for my Margaret. Besides, it was
+mother's great part. He'll think me as bad an artist as I have been a
+bad daughter. Owen, dear, have patience with me, I know I'm very weak,
+but I dread a face of stone."
+
+Neither spoke for a long while. Then she said, "If I had only gone to
+him last year. You remember he had written me a nice letter, but instead
+I went away yachting; you wanted to go to Greece."
+
+"Evelyn, don't lay the blame on me; you wanted to go too.... I hope that
+when you do see your father you will say that it was not all my fault."
+
+"That what was not your fault, dear?"
+
+"Well--I mean that it was not all my fault that we went away together.
+You know that I always liked your father. I was interested in his ideas;
+I do not want him to think too badly of me. You will say something in my
+favour. After all, I haven't treated you badly. If I didn't marry you,
+it was because--"
+
+"Dearest Owen, you've been very good to me."
+
+He felt that to ask her again to go to see her father would only
+distress her. He said instead--
+
+"I hear a great deal about your father's choir. It appears to be quite
+the fashion to hear high mass at St. Joseph's."
+
+"Father always said that Palestrina would draw all London, if properly
+given. Last Sunday he gave a mass by Vittoria; I longed to go. He'll
+never forgive me for not going to hear his choir. It is strange that we
+both should have succeeded--he with Palestrina, I with Wagner."
+
+"Yes, it is strange.... But you promise me that you'll go and see him as
+soon as you've sung Margaret--the following day."
+
+"Yes, dear, I promise you I'll do that."
+
+"You'll send him a box for the first night?"
+
+"He wouldn't sit in a box. If he went at all, it would be in some
+obscure place where he would not be seen."
+
+"You had better send him a box, a stall and a dress circle, then he can
+take his choice.... But perhaps you had better not send. His presence
+among the audience would only make you nervous."
+
+"No, on the contrary, his presence would make me sing."
+
+For whatever reason she had certainly sung and acted with exceptional
+force and genius, and Margaret was at once lifted out of the obscurity
+into which it was slipping and took rank with her Elizabeth and her
+Elsa. As they drove home together in the brougham after the performance,
+Owen assured her that she had infused a life and meaning into the part,
+and that henceforth her reading would have to be "adopted."
+
+"I wonder if father was there? He was not in the box. Did you look in
+the stalls?"
+
+"Yes, but he was not there. You'll go and see him to-morrow."
+
+"No, not to-morrow, dear."
+
+"Why not to-morrow?"
+
+"Because I want him to see the papers. He may not have been in the
+theatre; on Thursday night is Lady Ascott's ball; then on Friday--I'll
+go and see father on Friday. I'll try to summon courage. But there is a
+rehearsal of 'Tannhäuser' on Friday."
+
+And so that she might not be too tired on Friday morning, Owen insisted
+on her leaving the ball-room at two o'clock, and their last words, as he
+left her on her doorstep, were that she would go to Dulwich before she
+went to rehearsal. But in the warmth of her bed, not occupied long
+enough to restore to the body the strength of which a ball-room had
+robbed it, her resolution waned, and her brain, weak from insufficient
+sleep, shrank from the prospect of a long drive and a face of stone at
+the end of it. She sat moodily sipping her chocolate and _brioche_.
+
+"You were at the opera last night, Merat. Was Mademoiselle Helbrun a
+success?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle, I'm afraid not."
+
+"Ah!" Evelyn put down her cup and looked at her maid. "I'm sorry, but I
+thought she wouldn't succeed in London. She was coldly received, was
+she?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle."
+
+"I'm sorry, for she's a true artist."
+
+"She has not the passion of mademoiselle."
+
+A little look of pleasure lit up Evelyn's face.
+
+"She is a charming singer. I can't think how she could have failed. Did
+you hear any reason given?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, I met Mr. Ulick Dean."
+
+"What did he say? He'd know."
+
+"He said that Mademoiselle Helbrun's was the true reading of the part.
+But 'Carmen' had lately been turned into a _femme de la balle_, and, of
+course, since the public had tasted realism it wanted more. I thought
+Mademoiselle Helbrun rather cold. But then I'm one of the public.
+Mademoiselle has not yet told me what I am to tell the coachman."
+
+"You do not listen to me, Merat," Evelyn answered in a sudden access of
+ill humour. "Instead of accepting the answer I choose to give, you stop
+there in the intention of obtaining the answer which seems to you the
+most suitable. I told you to tell the coachman that he was to get a map
+and acquaint himself with the way to Dulwich."
+
+And to bring the interview to a close, she told Merat to take away the
+chocolate tray, and took up one of the scores which lay on a small table
+by the bedside--"Tannhäuser" and "Tristan and Isolde." It would bore her
+to look at Elizabeth again; she knew it all. She chose Tristan instead,
+and began reading the second act at the place where Isolde, ignoring
+Brangäne's advice, signals to Tristan with the handkerchief. She glanced
+down the lines, hearing the motive on the 'cellos, then, in precipitated
+rhythm, taken up by the violins. When the emotion has reached breaking
+point, Tristan rushes into Isolde's arms, and the frantic happiness of
+the lovers is depicted in short, hurried phrases. The score slipped from
+her hands and her thoughts ran in reminiscence of a similar scene which
+she had endured in Venice nearly four years ago. She had not seen Owen
+for two months, and was expecting him every hour. The old walls of the
+palace, the black and watchful pictures, the watery odours and echoes
+from the canal had frightened and exhausted her. The persecution of
+passion in her brain and the fever of passion afloat in her blood waxed,
+and the minutes became each a separate torture. There was only one lamp.
+She had watched it, fearing every moment lest it should go out.... She
+had cast a frightened glance round the room, and it was the spectre of
+life that her exalted imagination saw, and her natural eyes a strange
+ascension of the moon. The moon rose out of a sullen sky, and its
+reflection trailed down the lagoon. Hardly any stars were visible, and
+everything was extraordinarily still. The houses leaned heavily forward
+and Evelyn feared she might go mad, and it was through this phantom
+world of lagoon and autumn mist that a gondola glided. This time her
+heart told her with a loud cry that he had come, and she had stood in
+the shadowy room waiting for him, her brain on fire. The emotion of that
+night came to her at will, and lying in her warm bed she considered the
+meeting of Tristan and Isolde in the garden, and the duet on the bank of
+sultry flowers. Like Tristan and Isolde, she and Owen had struggled to
+find expression for their emotion, but, not having music, it had lain
+cramped up in their hearts, and their kisses were vain to express it.
+She found it in these swift irregularities of rhythm, replying to every
+change of motion, and every change of key cried back some pang of the
+heart.
+
+This scene in the second act was certainly one of the most
+difficult--at least to her--and the one in which she most despaired of
+excelling. It suddenly occurred to her that she might study it with
+Ulick Dean. She had met him at rehearsal, and had been much interested
+in him. He had sent her six melodies--strange, old-world rhythms,
+recalling in a way the Gregorian she used to read in childhood in the
+missals, yet modulated as unintermittently as Wagner; the same chromatic
+scale and yet a haunting of the antique rhythm in the melody. Ulick knew
+her father; he had said, "Mr. Innes is my greatest friend." He loved her
+father, she could see that, but she had not dared to question him.
+Talking to Owen was like the sunshine--the earth and only the earth was
+visible--whereas talking to Ulick was like the twilight through which
+the stars were shining. Dreams were to him the true realities; externals
+he accepted as other people accepted dreams--with diffidence. Evelyn
+laughed, much amused by herself and Ulick, and she laughed as she
+thought of his fixed and averted look as he related the tales of bards
+and warriors. Every now and then his dark eyes would light up with
+gleams of sunny humour; he probably believed that the legends contained
+certain eternal truths, and these he was shaping into operas. He was the
+most interesting young man she had met this long while.
+
+He had been about to tell her why he had recanted his Wagnerian faith
+when they had been interrupted by Owen.... She could conceive nothing
+more interesting than the recantation by a man of genius of the ideas
+that had first inspired him. His opera had been accepted, and would be
+produced if she undertook the principal part. Why should she not? They
+could both help each other. Truly, he was the person with whom she could
+study Isolde, and she imagined the flood of new light he would throw
+upon it. Her head drowsed on the pillow, and she dreamed the wonderful
+things he would tell her. But as she drowsed she thought of the article
+he had written about her Margaret, and it was the desire to read it
+again that awoke her. Stretching out her hand, she took it from the
+table at her bedside and began reading. He liked the dull green dress
+she wore in the first act; and the long braids of golden hair which he
+admired were her own. He had mentioned them and the dark velvet cape,
+which he could not remember whether she wore or carried. As a matter of
+fact, she carried it on her arm. His forgetfulness on this point seemed
+to her charming, and she smiled with pleasure. He said that she made
+good use of the cape in the next act, and she was glad that he had
+perceived that.
+
+Like every other Margaret, her prayer-book was in her hand when she
+first met Faust; but she dropped it as she saw him, and while she shyly
+and sweetly sang that she was neither a lady nor a beauty, she stooped
+and with some embarrassment picked up the book. She passed on, and did
+not stop to utter a mechanical cry when she saw Mephistopheles, and then
+run away. She hesitated a moment; Mephistopheles was not in sight, but
+Faust was just behind her, and over the face of Margaret flashed the
+thought, "What a charming--what a lovely young man! I think I'll stop a
+little longer, and possibly he'll say something more. But no--after
+all--perhaps I'd better not," and, with a little sigh of regret, she
+turned and went, at first quietly and then more quickly, as though
+fearful of being tempted to change her mind.
+
+In the garden scene, she sang the first bars of the music
+absent-mindedly, dusting and folding her little cape, stopping when it
+was only half folded to stand forgetful a moment, her eyes far off,
+gazing back into the preceding act. Awaking with a little start, she
+went to her spinning-wheel, and, with her back to the audience, arranged
+the spindle and the flax. Then stopping in her work and standing in
+thought, she half hummed, half sang the song "Le Roi de Thulé." Not till
+she had nearly finished did she sit down and spin, and then only for a
+moment, as though too restless and disturbed for work that afternoon.
+
+Evelyn was glad that Ulick had remarked that the jewels were not "the
+ropes of pearls we are accustomed to, but strange, mediæval jewels,
+long, heavy earrings and girdles and broad bracelets." Owen had given
+her these. She remembered how she had put them on, just as Ulick said,
+with the joy of a child and the musical glee of a bird. "She laughed out
+the jewel song," he said, "with real laughter, returning lightly across
+the stage;" and he said that they had "wondered what was this lovely
+music which they had never heard before!" And when she placed the jewels
+back, she did so lingeringly, regretfully, slowly, one by one, even
+forgetting the earrings, perhaps purposely, till just before she entered
+the house.
+
+"In the duet with Faust," he said, "we were drawn by that lovely voice
+as in a silken net, and life had for us but one meaning--the rapture of
+love."
+
+"Has it got any other meaning?" Evelyn paused a moment to think. She was
+afraid that it had long ceased to have any other meaning for her. But
+love did not seem to play a large part in Ulick's life. Yet that last
+sentence--to write like that he must feel like that. She wondered, and
+then continued reading his article.
+
+She was glad that he had noticed that when she fainted at the sight of
+Mephistopheles, she slowly revived as the curtain was falling and
+pointed to the place where he had been, seeing him again in her
+over-wrought brain. This she did think was a good idea, and, as he said,
+"seemed to accomplish something."
+
+He thought her idea for her entrance in the following act exceedingly
+well imagined, for, instead of coming on neatly dressed and smiling like
+the other Margarets, she came down the steps of the church with her
+dress and hair disordered, in the arms of two women, walking with
+difficulty, only half recovered from her fainting fit. "It is by ideas
+like this," he said, "that the singer carried forward the story, and
+made it seem like a real scene that was happening before our eyes. And
+after her brother had cursed Margaret, when he falls back dead, Miss
+Innes retreats, getting away from the body, half mad, half afraid. She
+did not rush immediately to him, as has been the operatic custom, kneel
+down, and, with one arm leaning heavily on Valentine's stomach, look up
+in the flies. Miss Innes, after backing far away from him, slowly
+returned, as if impelled to do so against her will, and, standing over
+the body, looked at it with curiosity, repulsion, terror; and then she
+burst into a whispered laugh, which communicated a feeling of real
+horror to the audience.
+
+"In the last act, madness was tangled in her hair, and in her wide-open
+eyes were read the workings of her insane brain, and her every movement
+expressed the pathos of madness; her lovely voice told its sad tale
+without losing any of its sweetness and beauty. The pathos of the little
+souvenir phrases was almost unbearable, and the tragic power of the
+finish was extraordinary in a voice of such rare distinction and fluid
+utterance. Her singing and acting went hand in hand, twin sisters, equal
+and indivisible, and when the great moment in the trio came, she stepped
+forward and with an inspired intensity lifted her quivering hands above
+her head in a sort of mad ecstasy, and sang out the note clear and true,
+yet throbbing with emotion."
+
+The paper slid from Evelyn's hand. She could see from Ulick's
+description of her acting that she had acted very well; if she had not,
+he could not have written like that. But her acting only seemed
+extraordinary when she read about it. It was all so natural to her. She
+simply went on the stage, and once she was on the stage she could not do
+otherwise. She could not tell why she did things. Her acting was so much
+a part of herself that she could not think of it as an art at all; it
+was merely a medium through which she was able to re-live past phases of
+her life, or to exhibit her present life in a more intense and
+concentrated form. The dropping of the book was quite true; she had
+dropped a piece of music when she first saw Owen, and the omission of
+the scream was natural to her. She felt sure that she would not have
+seen Mephistopheles just then; she would have been too busy thinking of
+the young man. But she thought that she might take a little credit for
+her entrance in the third act. Somehow her predecessors had not seen
+that it was absurd to come smiling and tripping out of church, where she
+had seen Mephistopheles. She read the lines describing her power to
+depict madness. But even in the mad scenes she was not conscious of
+having invented anything. She had had sensations of madness--she
+supposed everyone had--and she threw herself into those sensations,
+intensifying them, giving them more prominence on the stage than they
+had had in her own personal life.
+
+Many had thought her a greater actress than a singer; and she had been
+advised to dispense with her voice and challenge a verdict on her
+speaking voice in one of Shakespeare's plays. Owen would have liked her
+to risk the adventure, but she dared not. It would seem a wanton insult
+to her voice. She had imagined that it might leave her as an offended
+spirit might leave its local habitation. Her Margaret had been accepted
+in Italy, so she must sing it as well as she acted it. But when she had
+asked the Marquis d'Albazzi if she sang it as well as her mother, he had
+said, "Mademoiselle, the singers of my day were as exquisite flutes, and
+the singers of your day give emotions that no flute could give me," and
+when she had told him that she was going to be so bold as to attempt
+Norma, he had raised his eyebrows a little and said, "Mademoiselle will
+sing it according to the fashion of to-day; we cannot compare the
+present with the past." Ah! _Ce vieux marquis était très fin_. And her
+father would think the same; never would he admit that she could sing
+like her mother. But Ulick had said--and no doubt he had already read
+Ulick's article--that she had rescued the opera from the grave into
+which it was gliding. None of them liked it for itself. Her father spoke
+indulgently about it because her mother had sung it. Ulick praised it
+because he was tired of hearing Wagner praised, and she liked it because
+her first success had been made in it.
+
+These morning hours, how delicious they were! to roll over in one's silk
+nightgown, to feel it tighten round one's limbs and to think how easily
+success had come. Madame Savelli had taught her eight operas in ten
+months, and she had sung Margaret in Brussels--a very thin performance,
+no doubt, but she had always been a success. Ulick would not have
+thought much of her first Margaret. Almost all the points he admired she
+had since added. She had learnt the art of being herself on the stage.
+That was all she had learnt, and she very much doubted if there was
+anything else to learn. If Nature gives one a personality worth
+exhibiting, the art of acting is to get as much of one's personality
+into the part as possible. That was the A B C and the X Y Z of the art
+of acting. She had always found that when she was acting herself, she
+was acting something that had not been acted before. She did not compare
+her Margaret with her Elizabeth. With Margaret she was back in the
+schoolroom. Still she thought that Ulick was right; she had got a new
+thrill out of it. Her Margaret was unpublished, but her Elizabeth was
+three times as real. There was no comparison; not even in Isolde could
+she be more true to herself. Her Elizabeth was a side of her life that
+now only existed on the stage. Brunnhilde was her best part, for into it
+she poured all her joy of life, all her love of the blue sky with great
+white clouds floating, all her enthusiasm for life and for the hero who
+came to awaken her to life and to love. In Brunnhilde and Elizabeth all
+the humanity she represented--and she thought she was a fairly human
+person--was on the stage. But Elsa? That was the one part she was
+dissatisfied with. There were people who liked her Elsa. Oh, her Elsa
+had been greatly praised. Perhaps she was mistaken, but at the bottom of
+her heart she could not but feel that her Elsa was a failure. The truth
+was that she had never understood the story. It began beautifully, the
+beginning was wonderful--the maiden whom everyone was persecuting, who
+would be put to death if some knight did not come to her aid. She could
+sing the dream--that she understood. Then the silver-clad knight who
+comes from afar, down the winding river, past thorpe and town, to
+release her from those who were plotting against her. But afterwards?
+This knight who wanted to marry her, and who would not tell his name.
+What did it mean? And the celebrated duet in the nuptial chamber--what
+did it mean? It was beautiful music--but what did it mean? Could anyone
+tell her? She had often asked, but no one had ever been able to tell
+her.
+
+She knew very well the meaning of the duet, when Siegfried adventures
+through the fire-surrounded mountain and wakes Brunnhilde with a kiss.
+That duet meant the joy of life, the rapture of awakening to the
+adventure of life, the delight of the swirling current of ephemeral
+things. And the duet that she was going to sing; she knew what that
+meant too. It meant the desire to possess. Desire finding a barrier to
+complete possession in the flesh would break off the fleshly lease, and
+enter the great darkness where alone was union and rest.
+
+But she could not discover the idea in the "Lohengrin" duet? Senta she
+understood, and she thought she understood Kundry. She had not yet begun
+to study the part. But Elsa? Suddenly the thought that, if she was going
+to Dulwich, she must get up, struck her like a spur, and she sprang out
+of bed, and laying her finger on the electric bell she kept the button
+pressed till Merat arrived breathless.
+
+"Merat, I shall get up at once; prepare my bath, and tell the coachman I
+shall be ready to start in twenty minutes."
+
+"Twenty minutes? Mademoiselle is joking."
+
+"No, I am not ... in twenty minutes--half-an-hour at the most."
+
+"It would be impossible for me to dress you in less than three-quarters
+of an hour."
+
+"I shall be dressed in half-an-hour. Go and tell the coachman at once; I
+shall have had my bath when you return."
+
+Her dressing was accomplished amid curt phrases. "It doesn't matter,
+that will do.... I can't afford to waste time.... Come, Merat, try to
+get on with my hair."
+
+And while Merat buttoned her boots, she buttoned her gloves. She wore a
+grey, tailor-made dress and a blue veil tied round a black hat with
+ostrich feathers. Escaping from her maid's hands, she ran downstairs.
+But the dining-room door opened, and Lady Duckle intervened.
+
+"My dear girl, you really cannot go out before you have had something to
+eat."
+
+"I cannot stay; I'll get something at the theatre."
+
+"Do eat a cutlet, it will not take a moment ... a mouthful of omelette.
+Think of your voice."
+
+There were engravings after Morland on the walls, and the silver on the
+breakfast-table was Queen Anne--the little round tea urn Owen and Evelyn
+had picked up the other day in a suburban shop; the horses, whose
+glittering red hides could be seen through the window, had been bought
+last Saturday at Tattersall's. Evelyn went to the window to admire them,
+and Lady Duckle's thoughts turned to the coachman.
+
+"He sent in just now to ask for a map of London. It appears he doesn't
+know the way, yet, when I took up his references, I was assured that he
+knew London perfectly."
+
+"Dulwich is very little known; it is at least five miles from here."
+
+"Oh, Dulwich!... you're going there?"
+
+"Yes, I ought to have gone the day after we arrived in London. ... I
+wanted to; I've been thinking of it all the time, and the longer I put
+it off the more difficult it will become."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"I thought I would drive there to-day before I went to rehearsal."
+
+"Why choose a day on which you have a rehearsal?"
+
+"Only because I've put it off so often. Something always happens to
+prevent me. I must see my father."
+
+"Have you written to him?"
+
+"No, but I sent him a paper containing an account of the first night. I
+thought he might have written to me about it, or he might have come to
+see me. He must know that I am dying to see him."
+
+"I think it would be better for you to go to see him in the first
+instance."
+
+Lady Duckle meant Evelyn to understand that it would not be well to risk
+anything that might bring about a meeting between Sir Owen and Mr.
+Innes. But she did not dare to be more explicit. Owen had forbidden any
+discussion of his relations with Evelyn.
+
+"Of course it would be nice for you to see your father. But you should,
+I think, go to him; surely that is the proper course."
+
+"We've written to each other from time to time, but not lately--not
+since we went to Greece.... I've neglected my correspondence."
+
+Tears rose to Evelyn's eyes, and Lady Duckle was sorely tempted to lead
+her into confidences. But Owen's counsels prevailed; she dissembled,
+saying that she knew how Evelyn loved her father, and how nice it would
+be for her to see him again after such a long absence.
+
+"I dare say he'll forgive me, but there'll be reproaches. I don't think
+there's anyone who hates a scene more than I do."
+
+"I haven't lived with you five years without having found out that. But
+in avoiding a disagreeable scene we are often preparing one more
+disagreeable."
+
+"That is true.... I think I'll go to Dulwich."
+
+"Shall you have time?... You're not in the first act."
+
+"Dulwich is not six miles from here. We can drive there easily in
+three-quarters of an hour. And three-quarters of an hour to get back.
+They won't begin to rehearse the second act before one. It is a little
+after ten now."
+
+"Then good-bye."
+
+Lady Duckle followed her to the front door and stood for a moment to
+admire the beauty of the morning. The chestnut horses pawed the ground
+restlessly, excited by the scent of the lilac which a wilful little
+breeze carried up from Hamilton Place. Every passing hansom was full of
+flowered silks, and the pale laburnum gold hung in loose tassels out of
+quaint garden inlets. The verandahed balconies seemed to hang lower than
+ever, and they were all hung and burdened with flowers. And of all these
+eighteenth century houses, Evelyn's was the cosiest, and the elder of
+the two men, who, from the opposite pavement, stood watching the prima
+donna stroking the quivering nostrils of her almost thoroughbred
+chestnuts with her white-gloved hand, could easily imagine her in her
+pretty drawing-room standing beside a cabinet filled with Worcester and
+old Battersea china, for he knew Owen's taste and was certain the Louis
+XVI. marble clock would be well chosen, and he would have bet
+five-and-twenty-pounds that there were some Watteau and Gainsborough
+drawings on the walls.
+
+"Owen is doing the thing well. Those horses must have cost four hundred.
+I know how much the Boucher drawing cost."
+
+"How do you know there is a Boucher drawing?"
+
+"Because we bid against each other for it at Christie's. A woman lying
+on her stomach, drawn very freely, very simply--quite a large
+drawing--just the thing for such a room as hers is, amid chintz and
+eighteenth century inlaid or painted tables."
+
+"I wonder where she is going. Perhaps to see him."
+
+"At ten o'clock in the morning! More likely that she will call at her
+dressmaker's on her way to rehearsal. She is to sing Elizabeth to-morrow
+night." And while discussing her singing, the elder man asked himself if
+he had ever had a mistress that would compare with her. "She isn't by
+any means a beautiful woman," he said, "but she's the sort of woman that
+if one did catch on to it would be for a long while."
+
+The young man pitied Evelyn's misfortune of so elderly an admirer as
+Owen. It seemed to him impossible that she could like a man who must be
+over forty, and the thought saddened him that he might never possess so
+desirable a mistress.
+
+"I wonder of she's faithful to him?"
+
+"Faithful to him, after six years of _liaison!_"
+
+"But, my dear Frank, we know you don't believe that any woman is
+straight. How do you know that he is her lover? Very often--"
+
+"My dear Cyril, because you meet her at a ball at Lady Ascott's, and
+because she has lived with that Lady Duckle--an old thing who used to
+present the daughters of ironmongers at Court for a consideration--above
+all, because you want her yourself, you are ready to believe anything. I
+never did meet anyone who could deceive himself with the same ease.
+Besides, I know all about her. It's quite an extraordinary story."
+
+"How did he pick her up?"
+
+"I'll tell you presently. She's got into her carriage; we shall be able
+to see if she rouges as she passes."
+
+Evelyn had noticed the men as she stood trying to explain as much of the
+way as she could to her somewhat obtuse coachman. Her bow was gracious
+as the chestnuts swept the light carriage by them; the young man pleased
+her fancy for the moment, and she tried to recall the few words they had
+exchanged as she left the ball. The elder man was a friend of Owen's.
+But his face was suddenly blotted from her mind. For if her father were
+to refuse to see her, if he were to cast her off for good and all, what
+would she do? Her life would be unendurable; she would go mad, mad as
+Margaret. But the picture did not frighten her, she knew it was
+fictitious; and looking into her soul for the truth, she saw the trees
+in the Green Park and the chimney pots of Walsingham House, and she
+realised that the nearest future is enveloped in obscurity. She had
+always dreaded the journey to London; she had been warned against
+London, and ever since she had consented to come she had been ill at
+ease and nervous--of what she did not know--of someone behind her, of
+someone lurking round her. She argued that she would not have had those
+feelings if there was not a reason. When she had them, something always
+happened to her, and nothing could convince her that London was not the
+turning-point in her fortune. The carriage seemed to be going very fast;
+they were already in Victoria Street; she cried to the coachman not to
+drive so fast, he answered that he must drive at that pace if he was to
+get there by eleven.... Surely her father would not refuse to see her.
+He could not, he would not take her by the shoulders and turn her out
+of the house--the house she had known all her life. Oh, good heavens! if
+he did, what would happen afterwards? She could not go back to Owen and
+sing operas at Covent Garden, and her soul wailed like a child and a
+deadly terror of her father came upon her. It might be her destiny never
+to speak to him again! That fate had been the fate of other women. Why
+should it not be hers? He might not send for her when he was dying, and
+if she were dying he might not come to her; and after death, would she
+see him? Would they then be reconciled? If she did not see her father in
+this world, she would never see him, for she had promised Owen to
+believe in oblivion, and she thought she did believe in nothing; but she
+felt now that she must say her prayers, she must pray that her father
+might forgive her. It might be absurd, but she felt that a prayer would
+ease her mind. It was dreadfully hypocritical to pray to a God one
+didn't believe in. There was no sense in it, nor was there much sense in
+much else one did.... She had promised Owen not to pray, and it was a
+sort of blasphemy to say prayers and lead a life of sin. She did not
+like to break her promise to Owen. She must make up her mind.... Her
+father might be at St. Joseph's! and it was with a sense of refreshing
+delight that she called the coachman and gave the order. The chestnuts
+were prancing like greyhounds amid heavy drays and clumsy, bear-like
+horses; the coachman was trying to hold them in and to understand the
+policeman, who shouted the way to him from the edge of the pavement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+
+But she ought not to go to St. Joseph's. She had promised Owen to avoid
+churches, priests--all that reminded her of religion. He had begged that
+until she was firm in her agnosticism she should not expose herself to
+influences which could but result in mental distress, and without any
+practical issue unless to separate them. She had escaped once; next time
+he might find it more difficult to win her back. How kind he was. He had
+not said a word about his own suffering.
+
+It had happened nearly three years ago in Florence, and an accident had
+brought it all about. One afternoon she was walking in the streets; she
+could still see the deep cornices showing distinct against the sky; she
+was admiring them when suddenly a church appeared; she could not tell
+how it was, but she had been propelled to enter.... A feeling which had
+arisen out of her heart, a sort of yearning--that was it. The church was
+almost empty; how restful it had seemed that afternoon, the rough
+plastered walls and the two figures of the nuns absorbed in prayer. Her
+heart had begun to ache, and her daily life with its riches and glories
+had seemed to concern her no longer. It was as if the light had changed,
+and she had become suddenly aware of her real self. A tall cross stood
+oddly placed between the arches; she had not seen it at first, but as
+her eyes rested upon it she had been drawn into wistful communion with
+her dying Redeemer. And all that had seemed false suddenly became true,
+and she had left the church overcome with remorse. That night her door
+was closed to Owen; she had pleaded indisposition, unable for some shame
+to speak the truth. On the next day and the day after the desire of
+forgiveness had sent her to the church and then to the priest, but the
+priest had refused her absolution till she separated from her lover. She
+had felt that she must obey. She had written a note--she could not think
+of it now--so cruel did it seem, yet at the time it had seemed quite
+natural. It was not until the next day, and the day after was worse
+still, that she began to plumb the depths of her own unhappiness; every
+day it seemed to grow deeper. She could not keep him out of her mind.
+She used to sit and try to do needlework in the hotel sitting-room. But
+how often had she had to put it down and to walk to the window to hide
+her tears? As the time drew near for her to go to the theatre, she had
+to vow not to cry again till she got home. He was always in his
+box--once she had nearly broken down, and, pitying her, he came no more.
+But not to see him at all was worse than the pain of seeing him. That
+empty box! And all through the night she thought of him in his hotel,
+only a street or two distant. She could not go through it again, nor
+could she think what would have happened if they had not met. Something
+had prompted her to go out one afternoon; she was weak with weeping and
+sick with love, and, feeling that there are burdens beyond our strength,
+she had walked with her eyes steadily fixed before her ... and somehow
+she was not surprised when she saw him coming towards her. He joined her
+quite naturally, as if by appointment, and they had walked on,
+instinctively finding their way out of the crowd. They had walked on and
+on, now and then exchanging remarks, waiting for a full explanation,
+wondering what form it would take. Cypresses and campanili defined
+themselves in the landscape as the evening advanced. Further on the
+country flattened out; there were urban gardens and dusty little
+vineyards. They had sat on a bench; above them was a statue of the
+Virgin; she remembered noticing it; it reminded her of her scapular, but
+nothing had mattered to her then but Owen. He said--
+
+"Well Evelyn, when is all this nonsense going to cease?"
+
+"I don't know, Owen; I'm very unhappy."
+
+The sense of reconciliation which overtook her was too delicious to be
+resisted, and she remembered how all the way home she had longed for the
+moment when she would throw herself into his arms. He had not reproved
+her nor reproached her; he had merely forgiven her the pain she had
+caused him. There were sounds of children's voices in the air and a glow
+of light upon the roofs. Their talk had been gentle and philosophic; she
+had listened eagerly, and had promised to shun influences which made her
+uselessly unhappy. And he had promised her that in time to come she
+would surely succeed in freeing herself from the tentacles of this
+church, and that the day would come when she would watch the Mass as she
+would some childish sport. "Though," he added, smiling, "it is doubtful
+if anyone can see his own rocking-horse without experiencing a desire to
+mount it." Nearly three years had passed since that time in Florence,
+and she was now going to put the strength of her agnosticism to the
+test.
+
+"They have not built a new entrance," she remarked to herself, as the
+coachman reined up the chestnuts before the meagre steps. "But
+alterations are being made," she thought, catching sight of some
+scaffolding. As she stepped out of her carriage she remembered that her
+dress and horses could not fail to suggest Owen's money to her father.
+She paused, and then hoped he would remember that she was getting three
+hundred pounds a week, and could pay for her carriage and gowns
+herself. And, smiling at the idea of dressing herself in a humble frock
+suitable for reconciliation, she entered the church hurriedly. She did
+not care to meet him in open daylight, in the presence of her servants.
+The church would be a better place. He could not say much to her in
+church, and she thought she would like to meet him suddenly face to
+face; then there would be no time for explanations, and he could not
+refuse to speak to her. Looking round she saw that Mass was in progress
+at one of the side altars. The acolyte had just changed the book from
+the left to the right, and the congregation of about a dozen had risen
+for the reading of the Gospel. She knew that her father was not among
+them. She must have known all the while that he was not in church. If he
+were at St. Joseph's, he would be in the practising room. She might go
+round and ask for him ... and run the risk of meeting one of the
+priests! They were men of tact, and would refrain from unpleasant
+allusions. But they knew she was on the stage, that she had not been
+back since she had left home; they could not but suspect; however they
+might speak, she could not avoid reading meanings, which very likely
+were not intended, into their words.... And she would see the practising
+room full of faces, and her father, already angry at the interruption,
+opening the door to her. It would be worse than meeting him in the
+street. No, she would not seek him in the practising room--then
+where--Dulwich? Perhaps, but not to-day. She would wait in the church
+and see if the Elevation compelled her to bow her head.
+
+And in this intention she took a seat in full view of the altar where
+the priest was saying Mass. Every shape and every colour of this church,
+its slightest characteristics, brought back an impression of long ago;
+the very wording of her childish thoughts was suddenly remembered; and
+she felt, whether she believed or disbelieved, that it was pleasant to
+kneel where she knelt when she was a little girl. It was touching to see
+the poor folk pray. The poor Irish and Italians--especially the
+Irish--how simple they were; it was all real to them, however false it
+may have become to her. Her eyes wandered among the little congregation;
+only one she recognised--the strangely thin and crooked lady who, as far
+back as she could remember, used to walk up the aisle, her hands crossed
+in front of her like a wooden doll's. She had not altered at all; she
+wore the same battered black bonnet. This lonely lady had always been a
+subject of curiosity to Evelyn. She remembered how she used to invent
+houses for her to live in and suitable friends and evenings at home. The
+day that Owen came to St. Joseph's before he went away on his yacht to
+the Mediterranean, he had put his hat on this lady's chair, and she had
+had to ask him to remove it. How frightened she had looked, and he not
+too well pleased at having to sit beside her. That was six years ago,
+and Evelyn thought how much had happened to her in that time--a great
+deal to her and very little to that poor woman in the black bonnet. She
+must have some little income on which she lived in a room with wax fruit
+in the window. Every morning and evening she was at St. Joseph's. The
+church was her one distraction; it was her theatre, the theatre
+certainly of all her thoughts.
+
+But at that moment the new choir-loft caught Evelyn's eye, and she
+imagined the melodious choirs answering each other from opposite sides.
+No doubt her father had insisted on the addition, so that such
+antiphonal music as the Reproaches might be given. Some rich carpets had
+been laid down, some painting and cleaning had been done, and the
+fashionable names on the front seats reminded her of the Grand Circle at
+Covent Garden. Evidently the frequentation of St. Joseph's was much the
+same as the theatres. The congregation was attracted by the choirs, and,
+when these were silenced, the worship shrank into the mumbled prayers of
+a few Irish and Italians. Evelyn wondered if the poor lady could
+distinguish between her father's music and Father Gordon's. The only
+music she heard was the ceaseless music of her devout soul.
+
+Was it not strange that the paper she had sent her father containing an
+account of her success in the part of Margaret contained also an account
+of his choir? They had both succeeded. The old music had made St.
+Joseph's a fashionable church. So far she knew, and despite her strange
+terror of their first meeting, she longed to hear him tell her how he
+had overcome the opposition of Father Gordon.
+
+The Gospel ended, the little congregation sat down, and Evelyn reflected
+how much more difficult belief was to her than to the slightly-deformed
+woman in front of her. The doctrine that a merciful God has prepared a
+place of eternal torment for his erring creatures is hard enough to
+credit. She didn't think she could ever believe that again; or that God
+had sent his Son on earth to expiate on the cross the sins which he and
+his Father in conjunction with the Holy Ghost had fated them to commit;
+or that bread and wine becomes, at the bidding of the priest, the
+creator of all the stars we see at midnight. True that she believed
+these doctrines no longer, but, unfortunately, this advancement brought
+her no nearer to the solution of the question directly affecting her
+life. Owen encouraged her to persevere in her agnosticism. "Old
+instincts," he said, "are not conquered at once. You must be patient.
+The Scotch were converted about three or four hundred years after
+Christ. Christianity is therefore fourteen hundred years old, whereas
+the seed of agnosticism has been sown but a few years; give it time to
+catch root." She had laughed, his wit amused her, but our feelings
+are--well, they are ours, and we cannot separate ourselves from them.
+They are certain, though everything else is uncertain, and when she
+looked into her mind (she tried to avoid doing so as much as possible,
+but she could not always help herself) something told her that the
+present was but a passing stage. Often it seemed to her that she was
+like one out on a picnic--she was amused--she would be sorry when it
+ended; but she could not feel that it was to last. Other women were at
+home in their lives; she was not in hers. We all have a life that is
+more natural for us to live than any other; we all have a mission of
+some sort to accomplish, and the happiest are those whose lives
+correspond to their convictions. Even Owen's love did not quite
+compensate her for the lack of agreement between her outer and inner
+life.
+
+All this they had argued a hundred times, but their points of view were
+so different. Once, however, she thought she had made him understand.
+She had said, "If you don't understand religion, you understand art.
+Well, then, imagine a man who wants to paint pictures; give him a palace
+to live in; place every pleasure at his call, imposing only one
+condition--that he is not to paint. His appetites may detain him in the
+palace for a while, but sooner or later he will cry out, 'All these
+pleasures are nothing to me; what I want is to paint pictures.'" She
+could see that the parable had convinced him, or nearly. He had said he
+was afraid she was hopeless. But a moment after, drawing her toward him
+with quiet, masterful arm, and speaking with that hard voice that could
+become so soft, it had seemed as if heaven suddenly melted away, and his
+kisses were worth every sacrifice.
+
+That was the worst of it. She was neither one thing nor the other. She
+desired two lives diametrically opposed to each other, consequently she
+would never be happy. But she was happy. She had everything; she could
+think of nothing that she wanted that she had not got: it was really too
+ridiculous for her to pretend to herself that she was not happy. So long
+as she had believed in religion she had not been happy, but now she
+believed no longer--she was happy. It was strange, however, that a
+church always brought the old feeling back again, and her thoughts
+paused, and in a silent awe of soul she asked herself if, at the bottom
+of her soul, she still disbelieved in God. But it was so silly to
+believe the story of the Virgin--think of it.... As Owen said, in no
+mythology was there anything more ridiculous. Nevertheless, she did not
+convince herself that the dim, vague, unquiet sensation which rankled in
+her was not a still unextirpated germ of the original faith. She tried
+to think it was not a religious feeling but the result of the terrible
+interview still hanging over her, the dread that her father might not
+forgive her. She tried to look into her mind to discover the impulse
+which had compelled her to turn from her intention and come to this
+church. She remembered the uncontrollable desire to say a prayer: that
+she could have resisted, but the moment after she had remembered that
+perhaps it was too late to find her father at home. But had she really
+hoped to find him at St. Joseph's, or had she used the pretext to
+deceive herself? She could not tell. But if religion was not true, if
+she did not believe, how was it that she had always thought it wrong to
+live with a man to whom she was not married? There was no use
+pretending, she never had quite got a haunting scruple on that point out
+of her mind.
+
+There could be but two reasons, he had insisted, for the maintenance of
+the matrimonial idea--the preservation of the race, and the belief that
+cohabitation without matrimony is an offence against God. But the race
+is antecedent to matrimony, and if there be no resurrection, there can
+be no religion.... If there be no personal God who manages our affairs
+and summons to everlasting bliss or torment, the matter is not worth
+thinking about--at least not to a Catholic. Pious agnosticism is a
+bauble unworthy to tempt anyone who has been brought up a Catholic. A
+Catholic remains a Catholic, or else becomes a frank agnostic. Only
+weak-minded Protestants run to that slender shelter--morality without
+God. "But why are you like this?" he had said, fixing his eyes.... "I
+think I see. Your father comes of a long line of Scotch Protestants; he
+became a Catholic so that he might marry your mother. Your scruples must
+be a Protestant heredity. I wonder if it is so? In no other way can I
+account for the fact that although you no longer believe in a
+resurrection, you cling fast to the doctrine which declares it wrong for
+two people, both free, to live together, unless they register their
+cohabitation in the parish books. Our reason is our own. Our feelings we
+inherit. You are enslaved to your Scotch ancestors; you are a slave to
+the superstitions of your grandmother and your grand-aunts; you obey
+them."
+
+"But do we not inherit our reason just as much as we inherit our
+feelings?"
+
+They had argued that point. She could not remember what his argument
+was, but she remembered that she had held her ground, that he had
+complimented her, not forgetting, however, to take the credit of the
+improvement in her intellectual equipment to himself, which was indeed
+no more than just. She would have been nothing without him. How he had
+altered her! She had come to think and feel like him. She often caught
+herself saying exactly what he would say in certain circumstances, and
+having heard him say how odours affected him, she had tried to acquire a
+like sensibility. Unconsciously she had assimilated a great deal. That
+little trick of his, using his eyes a certain way, that knowing little
+glance of his had become habitual to her. She had met men who were more
+profound, never anyone whose mind was more alert, more amusing and
+sufficient for every occasion. She sentimentalised a moment, and then
+remembered further similarities. They now ate the same dishes, and no
+longer had need to consult each other before ordering dinner. In their
+first week in Paris she had learnt to look forward to chocolate in the
+morning before she got up, and this taste was endeared to her, for it
+reminded her of him. In the picture galleries she had always tried to
+pick out the pictures he would like. If they could not decide how a
+passage should be sung, or were in doubt regarding the attitude and
+gesture best fitted to carry on a dramatic action, she had noticed that,
+if they separated so that they might arrive at individual conclusions,
+they almost always happened upon the same. To each other they now
+affected not to know from whom a certain quaint notion had come--clearly
+it had been inspired by him, but which had first expressed it was not
+sure--that the three great type operas were "Tristan and Isolde," the
+"Barber of Seville," and "La Belle Hélène." Nor were they sure which had
+first suggested that in the last week of her stage career she should
+appear in all three parts. Evelyn Innes, as La Belle Hélène, would set
+musical London by the ears.
+
+She had often wondered whether, by having absorbed so much of Owen's
+character, she had proved herself deficient in character. Owen
+maintained, on the contrary, that the sign of genius is the power of
+recognising and assimilating that which is necessary to the development
+of oneself. He mentioned Goethe's life, which he said was but the tale
+of a long assimilation of ideas. The narrow, barren soul is narrow and
+barren because it cannot acquire. We come into the world with nothing in
+our own right except the capacity for the acquisition of ideas. We
+cannot invent ideas; we can only gather some of those in circulation
+since the beginning of the world. We endow them with the colour and form
+of our time, and, if that colour and form be of supreme quality, the
+work is preserved as representative of a period in the history of
+civilisation; a name may or may not be attached to each specimen. Genius
+is merely the power of assimilation; only the fool imagines he invents.
+Owen would go still further. He maintained that if the circumstances of
+a man's life admitted the acquisition of only one set of ideas, his work
+was thin; but if, on the contrary, circumstances threw him in the way of
+a new set of ideas, a set of ideas different from the first set, yet
+sufficiently near for the same brain to assimilate, then the work
+produced by that brain would be endowed with richer colour; or, in
+severer form, the idea was, he said, to a work of art what salt is to
+meat--it preserved works of art against the corrupting action of time.
+
+How they had talked! how they had discussed things! They had talked
+about everything, and she remembered all he said, as she recalled the
+arguments he had used. The scene of this last conversation passed and
+repassed in vanishing gleams--Bopart on the Rhine. They had stopped
+there on their way to Bayreuth, where she was going to sing Elsa. The
+maidens and their gold, the fire-surrounding Brunnhilde, the death of
+the hero, the end of the legends: these she knew, but of "Parsifal" she
+knew nothing--the story or the music. The time was propitious for him to
+tell it. The flame of the candle burnt in the still midnight, and she
+had listened with bated breath. She could see Owen leaning forward,
+telling the story, and she could even see her own listening face as he
+related how the poor fool rises through sanctification of faith and
+repudiation of doubt, how he heals the sick king with the sacred spear
+and becomes himself the high priest of the Grail. It had seemed to
+Evelyn that she had been carried beyond the limits of earthly things.
+The thrill and shiver of the dead man's genius haunted the liquid ripple
+of the river; the moment was ecstatic; the deep, windless night was full
+of the haunting ripple of the Rhine. And she remembered how she had
+clasped her hands ... her very words came back to her....
+
+"It is wonderful ... and we are listening to the Rhine; we shall never
+forget this midnight."
+
+At that moment the Sanctus bell rang, and she remembered why she had
+stayed in church. She wished to discover what remnant, tatter or shred
+of her early faith still clung about her. She wished to put her
+agnosticism to the test. She wondered if at the moment of consecration
+she would be compelled to bow her head. The bell rang again.... She grew
+tremulous with expectation. She strove to refrain, but her head bowed a
+little, and her thoughts expanded into prayer; she was not sure that she
+actually prayed, for her thoughts did not divide into explicit words or
+phrases. There certainly followed a beautiful softening of her whole
+being, the bitterness of life extinguished; divine eyes seemed bent upon
+her, and she was in the midst of mercy, peace and love; and daring no
+longer to think she did not believe, she sat rapt till Mass was ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+
+Still under the sweet influence of the church and the ceremony she got
+into her carriage. But the mystery engendered in her soul seemed to fade
+and die in the sunshine; she could almost perceive it going out like a
+gentle, evanescent mist on the surface of a pool; she remembered that
+she would very likely meet Ulick at rehearsal, and could find out from
+him how her father would be likely to receive her visit. Ulick seemed
+the solution of the difficulty--only he might tell her that her father
+did not wish to see her. She did not think he would say that, and the
+swing of her carriage and her thoughts went to the same rhythm until the
+carriage stopped before the stage door of Covent Garden Theatre.
+
+As she ascended the stairs the swing door was pushed open. The pilgrims'
+song drifted through it, and she knew that they had begun the overture.
+She crossed a stage in indescribable disorder. Scene-shifters were
+calling to each other, and there was an incessant hammering in the
+flies. "We might as well rehearse in a barn with the threshing-machine
+going all the while," Evelyn thought. She had to pass down a long
+passage to get to the stalls, and, finding herself in inky darkness, she
+grew nervous, though she knew well enough whither it led. At last she
+perceived a little light, and, following it for a while, she happened to
+stumble into one of the boxes, and there she sat and indulged in angry
+comments on the negligence of English operatic management.
+
+Through the grey twilight of the auditorium she could see heads and
+hands, and shapes of musical instruments. The conductor's grey hair was
+combed back over his high forehead. He swung a lean body to the right
+and left. Suddenly he sprang up in his seat, and, looking in the
+direction of certain instruments, he brought down his stick
+determinedly, and, having obtained the effect he desired, his beat swung
+leisurely for a while.... "'Cellos, crescendo," he cried. "Ah, _mon
+Dieu!_ Ta-ra-la-la-la! Now, gentlemen, number twenty-five, please."
+
+For a few bars the stick swung automatically, striking the harmonium as
+it descended. "'Cellos, a sudden piano on the accent, and then no accent
+whatever. Ta-ra-ta-ta-ta!"
+
+At the back of the stalls the poor Italian chorus had gathered like a
+herd, not daring to sit in seats, the hire of which for a few hours
+equalled their weekly wages. But the English girls, whose musical tastes
+had compelled them from their suburban homes, had no such scruples.
+Confident of the cleanliness of their skirts and hats, they sat in the
+best stalls, their scores on their knees. One happened to look up as
+Evelyn entered. She whispered to her neighbours, and immediately after
+the row was discussing Bayreuth and Evelyn Innes.
+
+Meanwhile, the pilgrims' song grew more strenuous, until at last the
+trombones proclaimed, in unconquerable tones, Tannhäuser's abjuration of
+sensual life, and at that moment the tall, spare figure of Mr. Hermann
+Goetze, the manager, appeared in the doorway leading to the stalls. He
+was with his apparitor and satellite, Mr. Wheeler, a foppish little man,
+who seemed pleased at being in confidential conversation with his great
+chief. Catching sight of Evelyn in the box just above his eyes, he
+smiled and bowed obsequiously. A sudden thought seemed to strike him,
+and Evelyn said to herself, "He's coming to talk with me about the
+Brangäne. I hope he has done what I told him, and engaged Helbrun for
+the part."
+
+At the same moment it flashed across her mind that Mademoiselle
+Helbrun's unsuccessful appearance in "Carmen" might cause Mr. Harmann
+Goetze to propose someone else. She hoped that this was not so, for she
+could not consent to sing Isolde to anyone but Helbrun's Brangäne, and
+it was in this resolute, almost aggressive, frame of mind that she
+received the manager.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Hermann Goetze? Well, I hope you succeeded in
+inducing Mademoiselle Helbrun to play Brangäne?"
+
+"I have not had a moment, Miss Innes. I have not seen Mademoiselle
+Helbrun since last night. You will be sorry to hear that her Carmen was
+not considered a success.... Do you think--"
+
+"There is no finer artist than Mademoiselle Helbrun. If you do not
+engage her--"
+
+Mr. Hermann Goetze took his handkerchief from his pocket, and, upon
+inquiry, she learnt that he was suffering from toothache. Mr. Wheeler
+advised different remedies, but Mr. Hermann Goetze did not believe in
+remedies. There was nothing for it but to have it out. Evelyn suggested
+her dentist, and Mr. Hermann Goetze apologised for this interruption in
+the conversation. He begged of her not to think of him, and they entered
+into the difficult question of salary. He told her that Mademoiselle
+Helbrun would ask eighty pounds a performance, and such heavy salary
+added to the four hundred pounds a performance he was paying for the
+Tristan and Isolde would--But so intense was the pain from his tooth at
+this moment that he could not finish the sentence. A little alarmed,
+Evelyn waited until the spasm had ended, and when the manager's
+composure was somewhat restored, she spoke of the change and stress of
+emotion, often expressed in isolated notes and vehement declamation, and
+she reminded the poor man of Brangäne's long song in which she
+endeavours to appease Isolde. Mr. Hermann Goetze looked at her out of
+pain-stricken eyes, and said he was listening. She assured him that the
+melodious effect would be lost if Brangäne could not sing the long-drawn
+phrases in a single breath. But she stopped suddenly, perceiving that an
+æsthetic discussion was impossible with a man who was in violent pain.
+Mr. Wheeler proposed to go to the chemist for a remedy. Mr. Hermann
+Goetze shook his head; he had tried all remedies in vain; the dentist
+was the only resort, and he promised to go to Evelyn's when the
+rehearsal was over, and he retired from the box, holding his
+handkerchief to his face. When he got on to the stage, Evelyn was glad
+to see that he was a little better, and was able to give some directions
+regarding the stage management. She was genuinely sorry for him, for she
+had had toothache herself. Nevertheless, it was unfortunate that they
+had not been able to settle about Mademoiselle Helbrun's engagement. She
+pondered how this might be effected; perhaps, after rehearsal, Mr.
+Hermann Goetze might be feeling better, or she might ask him to dinner.
+As she considered the question, her eyes wandered over the auditorium in
+quest of Ulick Dean.
+
+She spied him sitting in the far corner, and wondered when he would look
+in her direction, and then remembering what he had said about the
+transmission of thought between sympathetic affinities, she sought to
+reach him with hers. She closed her eyes so that she might concentrate
+her will sufficiently for it to penetrate his brain. She sat tense with
+her desire, her hands clenched for more than a minute, but he did not
+answer to her will, and its tension relaxed in spite of herself. "He
+sits there listening to the music as if he had never heard a note of it
+before. Why does he not come to me?" As if in answer, Ulick got out of
+his stall and walked toward the entrance, seemingly in the intention of
+leaving the theatre. Evelyn felt that she must speak to him, and she was
+about to call to one of the chorus and ask him to tell Mr. Dean that she
+wanted to speak to him, but a vague inquietude seemed to awaken in him,
+and he seemed uncertain whether to go or stay, and he looked round the
+theatre as if seeking someone. He looked several times in the direction
+of Evelyn's box without seeing her, and she was at last obliged to wave
+her hand. Then the dream upon his face vanished, and his eyes lit up,
+and his nod was the nod of one whose soul is full of interesting story.
+
+He had one of those long Irish faces, all in a straight line, with flat,
+slightly hollow cheeks, and a long chin. It was clean shaven, and a
+heavy lock of black hair was always falling over his eyes. It was his
+eyes that gave its sombre ecstatic character to his face. They were
+large, dark, deeply set, singularly shaped, and they seemed to smoulder
+like fires in caves, leaping and sinking out of the darkness. He was a
+tall, thin young man, and he wore a black jacket and a large, blue
+necktie, tied with the ends hanging loose over his coat. Evelyn received
+him effusively, stretching both hands to him and telling him she was so
+glad he had come. She said she was delighted with his melodies, and
+would sing them as soon as she got an occasion. But he did not seem as
+pleased as he should have done; and sitting, his eyes fixed on the
+floor--now and then he muttered a word of thanks. His silence
+embarrassed her, and she felt suddenly that the talk which she had been
+looking forward to would be a failure, and she almost wished him out of
+her box. Neither had spoken for some time, and, to break an awkward
+silence, she said that she had been that morning at St. Joseph's. He
+looked up; their eyes met unexpectedly, and she seemed to read an
+impertinence in his eyes; they seemed to say, "I wonder how you dared go
+there!" But his words contradicted the idea which she thought she had
+read in his eyes. He asked her at once eagerly and sympathetically, if
+she had seen her father. No, he was not there, and, growing suddenly
+shy, she sought to change the conversation.
+
+"You are not a Roman Catholic, I think.... I know you were born a
+Catholic, but from something you said the other day I was led to think
+that you did not believe."
+
+"I cannot think what I could have said to give you such an idea. Most
+people reproach me for believing too much."
+
+"The other day you spoke of the ancient gods Angus and Lir, and the
+great mother Dana, as of real gods."
+
+"Of course I spoke of them as real gods; I am a Celt, and they are real
+gods to me."
+
+Now his face had lighted up, and in clear, harmonious voice he was
+arguing that the gods of a nation cannot die to that nation until it be
+incorporated and lost in another nation.
+
+"I don't see how you reconcile Angus and Lir with Christianity, that is
+all."
+
+"But I don't try to reconcile them; they do not need reconciliation; all
+the gods are part of one faith."
+
+"But what do you believe ... seriously?"
+
+"Everything except Atheism, and unthinking contentment. I believe in
+Christianity, but I am not so foolish as to limit myself to
+Christianity; I look upon Christianity as part of the truth, but not the
+whole truth. There is a continuous revelation: before Christ Buddha,
+before Buddha Krishna, who was crucified in mid-heaven, and the Gods of
+my race live too."
+
+She longed to ask Ulick so many questions that she could not frame one,
+so far had the idea of a continuous revelation carried her beyond the
+limits of her habitual thoughts; and while she was trying to think out
+his meaning in one direction, she lost a great deal of what he said
+subsequently, and her face wore an eager, puzzled and disappointed look.
+That she should have been the subject of this young man's thoughts, that
+she should have suggested his opera of Grania, and that he should have
+at last succeeded, by means of an old photograph, in imagining some sort
+of image of her, flattered her inmost vanity, and with still brightening
+eyes she hoped that he was not disappointed in her.
+
+"When did you begin to write opera? You must come to see me. You will
+tell me about your opera, and we will go through the music."
+
+"Will you let me play my music to you?"
+
+"Yes, I shall be delighted."
+
+At that moment she remarked that Ulick's teeth were almost the most
+beautiful she had ever seen, and that they shone like snow in his dark
+face.
+
+"Some afternoon at the end of the week. We're friends--I feel that we
+are. You are father's friend; you were his friend when I was away. Tell
+me if he missed me very much. Tell me about him. I have been longing to
+ask you all the time. What is he doing? I have heard about his choir. He
+has got some wonderful treble voices."
+
+"He is very busy now rehearsing the 'Missa Brevis.' It will be given
+next Sunday. It will be splendidly done ... You ought to come to hear
+it."
+
+"I should like to, of course, but I am not certain that I shall not be
+able to go to St. Joseph's next Sunday. How did you and father become
+acquainted?"
+
+"Through an article I wrote about the music of St. Joseph's. Mr. Innes
+said that it was written by a musician, and he wrote to the paper."
+
+"Asking you to come to see him?"
+
+"Yes. Your father was the first friend I made in London."
+
+"And that was some years ago?"
+
+"About four years ago. I had come over from Ireland with a few pounds in
+my pocket, and a portmanteau full of music, which I soon found no one
+wanted."
+
+"You had written music before you had met father?"
+
+"Yes, I was organist at St. Patrick's in Dublin for nearly three years.
+There's no one like your father, Miss Innes."
+
+"No one, is there?" she replied enthusiastically. "There's no one like
+him. I'm so glad you are friends. You see him nearly every day, and you
+show him all your music." Then after a pause, she said, "Tell me, did he
+miss me very much?"
+
+"Yes, he missed you, of course. But he felt that you were not wholly to
+blame."
+
+"And you took my place. I can see it all. It was father and son,
+instead of father and daughter. How well you must have got on together.
+What talks you must have had."
+
+The silence was confidential, and though they both were thinking of Mr.
+Innes, they seemed to become intimately aware of each other.
+
+"But may I venture to advise you?"
+
+"Yes. What?"
+
+"I'm sure you ought to go and see him, or at least write to him saying
+you'd like to see him."
+
+"I know--I know--I must go. He'll forgive me; he must forgive me. But I
+wish it were over. I'm afraid you think me very cowardly. You will not
+say you have seen me. You promise me to say nothing."
+
+Ulick gave her the required promise, and she asked him again to come to
+see her.
+
+"I want you," she said, "to go through Isolde's music with me."
+
+"Do you think I can tell you anything about the music you don't know
+already?"
+
+"Yes, I think you can. You tell me things about myself that I did not
+know. I hardly knew that I acted as you describe in Margaret. I hope I
+did, for I seemed very good in your article. I read it over again this
+morning in bed. But tell me, did father come?"
+
+"You must not press me to answer that question. My advice to you is to
+go and see your father. He will tell you what he thought of your singing
+if he came here.... The act is over," he said suddenly, and he seemed
+glad of the interruption. "I wonder what your Elizabeth will be like?"
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+"You're a clever woman; you will no doubt arrive at a very logical and
+clear conception of the part, but--"
+
+"But we cannot act what is not in us. Is that what you were going to
+say?"
+
+"Something like that."
+
+"You think I shall arrive at a logical and clear conception. Is that the
+way you think I arrived at my Margaret? Did it look like that? I may
+play the part of Elizabeth badly, but I sha'n't play it as you think I
+shall. This frock is against me. I've a mind to send you away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+
+Instead of rushing wildly from side to side according to custom, she
+advanced timidly, absorbed in deep memory; at every glance her face
+expressed a recollection; she seemed to alternate between a vague dread
+and an unconquerable delight; she seemed like a dim sky filled with an
+inner radiance, but for a time it seemed uncertain which would
+prevail--sunlight or shadow. But, like the sunlight, joy burst forth,
+scattering uncertainty and alarm, illuminating life from end to end; and
+her emotion vented itself in cries of April melody, and all the barren
+stage seemed in flower about her; she stood like a bird on a branch
+singing the spring time. And she sang every note with the same ease,
+each was equally round and clear, but what delighted Ulick was the
+perfect dramatic expression of her singing. It seemed to him that he was
+really listening to a very young girl who had just heard of the return
+of a man whom she had loved or might have loved. A bud last night slept
+close curled in virginal strictness, with the morning light it awoke a
+rose. But the core of the rose is still hidden from the light, only the
+outer leaves know it, and so Elizabeth is pure in her first aspiration;
+she rejoices as the lark rejoices in the sky, without desiring to
+possess the sky. Ulick could not explain to himself the obsession of
+this singing; he was thrall to the sensation of a staid German princess
+of the tenth century, and the wearing of a large hat with ostrich
+feathers, and tied with a blue veil, hindered no whit of it. And the
+tailor-made dress and six years of _liaison_ with Owen Asher was no let
+to the mediæval virgin formulated in antique custom. In the duet with
+Tannhäuser she was benign and forgiving, the divine penitent who, having
+no sins of her own to do penance for, does penance for the sins of
+others.
+
+It was then that Ulick began to understand the secret of Evelyn's
+acting; in Elizabeth she had gone back to the Dulwich days before she
+knew Asher, and was acting what she then felt and thought. She believed
+she was living again with her father, and so intense was her conviction
+that it evoked the externals. Even her age vanished; she was but
+eighteen, a virgin whose sole reality has been her father and her
+châtelaine, and whose vision of the world was, till now, a mere
+decoration--sentinels on the drawbridge, hunters assembling on the
+hillside, pictures hardly more real to her than those she weaves on her
+tapestry loom.
+
+Ulick leaned out of the box and applauded; he dared even to cry encore,
+and, following suit, the musicians laid aside their instruments and,
+standing up in the orchestra, applauded with him. The conductor tapped
+approval with his stick on the little harmonium, the chorus at the back
+cried encore. It was a curious scene; these folk, whose one idea at
+rehearsal is to get it over as soon as possible, conniving at their own
+retention in the theatre.
+
+The applause of her fellow artistes delighted her; she bowed to the
+orchestra, and, turning to the chorus, said that she would be pleased to
+sing the duet again if they did not mind the delay; and coming down the
+stage and standing in front of the box, she said to Ulick--
+
+"Well, are you satisfied?... Is that your idea of Elizabeth?"
+
+"So far as we have gone, yes, but I shall not know if your Elizabeth is
+my Elizabeth until I have heard the end of the act."
+
+Turning to Mr. Hermann Goetze, she said--
+
+"Mr. Dean has very distinct ideas how this part should be played."
+
+"Mr. Dean," answered the manager, laughing, "would not go to Bayreuth
+three years ago because they played 'Tannhäuser.' But one evening he
+took the score down to read the new music, and to his surprise he found
+that it was the old that interested him. Mr. Dean is always making
+discoveries; he discovers all my singers after he has heard them."
+
+"And Mr. Hermann Goetze discovers his singers before _he_ has heard
+them," cried Ulick.
+
+Mr. Hermann Goetze looked for a moment as if he were going to get angry,
+but remembering that Dean was critic to an important weekly, he laughed
+and put his handkerchief to his jaw, and Evelyn went up the stage to
+meet the Landgrave--her father--and she sang a duet with him. As soon as
+it was concluded, the introduction to the march brought the first
+courtiers and pages on the stage, and with the first strains of the
+march the assembly, which had been invited to witness the competitions,
+was seated in the circular benches ranged round the throne of the
+Landgrave and his daughter.
+
+Having consulted with his stage manager and superintended some
+alterations in the stage arrangements, Mr. Hermann Goetze, whose
+toothache seemed a little better again, left the stage, and coming into
+the box where Ulick was sitting, he sat beside him and affected some
+interest in his opinion regarding the grouping, for it had occurred to
+him that if Evelyn should take a fancy to this young man nothing was
+more likely than that she should ask to have his opera produced. With
+the plot and some of the music he was already vaguely acquainted; and
+he had gathered, in a general way, that Ulick Dean was considered to be
+a man of talent. The British public might demand a new opera, and there
+had been some talk of Celtic genius in the newspapers lately. Dean's
+"Grania" might make an admirable diversion in the Wagnerian
+repertoire--only it must not be too anti-Wagnerian. Mr. Goetze prided
+himself on being in the movement. Now, if Evelyn Innes would sing the
+title _rôle_, "Grania" was the very thing he wanted. And in such a frame
+of mind, he listened to Ulick Dean. He was glad that "Grania" was based
+on a legend; Wagner had shown that an opera could not be written except
+on a legendary basis. The Irish legends were just the thing the public
+was prepared to take an interest in. But there was one thing he
+feared--that there were no motives.
+
+"Tell me more about the music? It is not like the opera you showed me a
+year or two ago in which instead of motives certain instruments
+introduce the characters? There is nothing Gregorian about this new
+work, is there?"
+
+"Nothing," Ulick answered, smiling contemptuously--nothing recognisable
+to uneducated ears."
+
+"Plenty of chromatic writing?"
+
+"Yes, I think I can assure you that there is plenty of modulation, some
+unresolved dissonances. I suppose that that is what you want. Alas,
+there are not many motives."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Ulick waited to be asked if he could not introduce some. But at that
+moment Tannhäuser's avowal of the joys he had experienced with Venus in
+Mount Horsel had shocked the Landgrave's pious court. The dames and the
+wives of the burgesses had hastened away, leaving their husbands to
+avenge the affront offered to their modesty. The knights drew their
+swords; it was the moment when Elizabeth runs down the steps of the
+throne and demands mercy from her father for the man she loves. The idea
+of this scene was very dear to Ulick, and his whole attention was fixed
+on Evelyn.
+
+He was only attracted by essential ideas, and the mysterious expectancy
+of the virgin awaiting the approach of the man she loves was surely the
+essential spirit of life--the ultimate meaning of things. The comedy of
+existence, the habit of life worn in different ages of the world had no
+interest for him; it was the essential that he sought and wished to put
+upon the stage--the striving and yearning, and then the inevitable
+acceptation of the burden of life; in other words, the entrance into the
+life of resignation. That was what he sought in his own operas, and from
+this ideal he had never wavered; all other art but this essential art
+was indifferent to him. It was no longer the beautiful writing of
+Wagner's later works that attracted him; he deemed this one to be,
+perhaps, the finest, being the sincerest, and "Parsifal" the worst,
+being the most hypocritical. Elizabeth was the essential penitent, she
+who does penance not for herself, she has committed no sin, but the
+sublime penitent who does penance for the sins of others. Not for a
+moment could he admit the penitence of Kundry. In her there was merely
+the external aspect. "Parsifal" was to Ulick a revolting hypocrisy, and
+Kundry the blot on Wagner's life. In the first act she is a sort of wild
+witch, not very explicit to any intelligence that probes below the
+surface. In the second, she is a courtesan with black diamonds. In the
+third, she wears the coarse habit of a penitent, and her waist is tied
+with a cord; but her repentance goes no further than these exterior
+signs. She says no word, and Ulick could not accept the descriptive
+music as sufficient explanation of her repentance, even if it were
+sincere, which it was not, and he spoke derisively of the amorous cries
+to be heard at every moment in the orchestra, while she is dragging
+herself to Parsifal's feet. Elizabeth's prayer was to him a perfect
+expression of a penitent soul. Kundry, he pointed out, had no such
+prayer, and he derisively sang the cries of amorous desire. The
+character of Parsifal he could admit even less than the character of
+Kundry. As he would say in discussion, "If I am to discuss an artistic
+question, I must go to the very heart of it. Now, if we ask ourselves
+what Siegfried did, the answer is, that he forged the sword, killed the
+dragon and released Brunnhilde. But if, in like manner, we ask ourselves
+what Parsifal did, is not the answer, that he killed a swan and refused
+a kiss and with many morbid, suggestive and disagreeable remarks? These
+are the facts," he would say; "confute them who may, explain them who
+can!" And if it were urged, as it often was, that in Parsifal Wagner
+desired the very opposite to what he had in Siegfried, the Parsifal is
+opposed to Siegfried as Hamlet is opposed to Othello, Ulick eagerly
+accepted the challenge, and like one sure of his adversary's life, began
+the attack.
+
+Wagner had been all his life dreaming of an opera with a subjective
+hero. Christ first and then Buddha had suggested themselves as likely
+subjects. He had gone so far as to make sketches for both heroes, but
+both subjects had been rejected as unpractical, and he had fallen back
+on a pretty mediæval myth, and had shot into a pretty mediæval myth all
+the material he had accumulated for the other dramas, whose heroes were
+veritable heroes, men who had accomplished great things, men who had
+preached great doctrines and whose lives were symbols of their
+doctrines. The result of pouring this old wine into the new bottle was
+to burst the bottle.
+
+In neither Christ nor Buddha did the question of sex arise, and that was
+the reason that Wagner eventually rejected both. He was as full of
+sex--mysterious, sub-conscious sex--as Rossetti himself. In Christ's
+life there is the Magdalen, but how naturally harmonious, how implicit
+in the idea, are their relations, how concentric; but how excentric
+(using the word in its grammatical sense) are the relations of Parsifal
+to Kundry.... A redeemer is chaste, but he does not speak of his
+chastity nor does he think of it; he passes the question by. The figure
+of Christ is so noble, that whether God or man or both, it seems to us
+in harmony that the Magdalen should bathe his feet and wipe them with
+her hair, but the introduction of the same incident into "Parsifal"
+revolts. As Parsifal merely killed a swan and refused to be kissed--the
+other preached a doctrine in which beauty and wisdom touch the highest
+point, and his life was an exemplification of his doctrine of
+non-resistance--"Take ye and eat, for this is my body, and this is my
+blood."
+
+In "Parsifal" there was only the second act which he could admire
+without enormous reservations. The writing in the chorus of the "Flower
+Maidens" was, of course, irresistible--little cries, meaningless by
+themselves, but, when brought together, they created an enchanted
+garden, marvellous and seductive. But it was the duet that followed that
+compelled his admiration. Music hardly ever more than a recitative,
+hardly ever breaking into an air, and yet so beautiful! There the notes
+merely served to lift the words, to impregnate them with more terrible
+and subtle meaning; and the subdued harmonies enfolded them in an
+atmosphere, a sensual mood; and in this music we sink into depths of
+soul and float upon sullen and mysterious tides of life--those which
+roll beneath the phase of life which we call existence. But the vulgarly
+vaunted Good Friday music did not deceive him; at the second or third
+time of hearing he had perceived its insincerity. It was very beautiful
+music, but in such a situation sincerity was essential. The airs of this
+mock redeemer were truly unbearable, and the abjection of Kundry before
+this stuffed Christ revolted him. But the obtusely religious could not
+fail to be moved; the appeal of the chaste kiss, with little sexual
+cries all the while in the orchestra, could not but stir the vulgar
+heart to infinite delight, and the art was so dexterously beautiful that
+the intelligent were deceived. The artiste and the vulgarian held each
+other's hands for the first time; they gasped a mutual wonder at their
+own perception and their unsuspected nobility of soul. "Parsifal," he
+declared, with true Celtic love of exaggeration, "to be the oiliest
+flattery ever poured down the open throat of a liquorish humanity."
+
+As he spoke such sentences his face would light up with malicious
+humour, and he was so interested in the subject he discussed that his
+listener was forced to follow him. It was only in such moments of
+artistic discussion that his real soul floated up to the surface, and
+he, as it were, achieved himself. He knew, too, how to play with his
+listener, to wheedle and beguile him, for after a particularly
+aggressive phrase he would drop into a minor key, and his criticism
+would suddenly become serious and illuminative. To him "Parsifal" was a
+fresco, a decoration painted by a man whose true genius it was to reveal
+the most intimate secrets of the soul, to tell the enigmatic soul of
+longing as Leonardo da Vinci had done. But he had been led from the true
+path of his genius into the false one of a rivalry with Veronese. Only
+where Wagner is confiding a soul's secret is he interesting, and in
+"Tannhäuser," in this first flower of his dramatic and musical genius,
+he had perhaps told the story of his own soul more truly, more sincerely
+than elsewhere. To do that was the highest art. Sooner or later the
+sublimest imaginations pale before the simple telling of a personal
+truth, for the most personal truth is likewise the most universal.
+"Tannhäuser" is the story of humanity, for what is the human story if it
+isn't the pursuit of an ideal?
+
+And this essential and primal truth Evelyn revealed to him and the very
+spirit and sense of maidenhood, the centre and receptacle of life, the
+mysterious secret of things, the awful moment when the whisper of the
+will to live is heard in matter, the will which there is no denying, the
+surrender of matter, the awaking of consciousness in things. And united
+to the eternal idea of generation, he perceived the congenital idea
+which in remotest time seems to have sprung from it--that life is sin
+and must be atoned for by prayer. Evelyn's interpretation revealed his
+deepest ideas to himself, and at last he seemed to stand at the heart of
+life.
+
+Suddenly his rapture was broken through; the singer had stopped the
+orchestra.
+
+"You have cut some of the music, I see," she said, addressing the
+conductor.
+
+"Only the usual cut, Miss Innes."
+
+"About twenty pages, I should think."
+
+The conductor counted them.
+
+"Eighteen."
+
+"Miss Innes, that cut has been accepted everywhere--Munich, Berlin,
+Wiesbaden--everywhere except Bayreuth."
+
+"But, Mr. Hermann Goetze, my agreement with you is that the operas I
+sing in are to be performed in their entirety."
+
+"In their entirety; that is to say, well--taken literally, I
+suppose--that the phrase 'In their entirety' could be held to mean
+without cuts; but surely, regarding this particular cut--I may say that
+I spoke to Sir Owen about it, and he agreed with me that it was
+impossible to get people into the theatre in London before half-past
+seven."
+
+"But, Mr. Hermann Goetze, your agreement is with me, not with Sir Owen
+Asher."
+
+"Quite so, Miss Innes, but--"
+
+"If people don't care sufficiently for art to dine half-an-hour
+earlier, they had better stay away."
+
+"But you see, Miss Innes, you're not in the first act; there are the
+other artistes to consider. The 'Venusberg' will be sung to empty
+benches if you insist."
+
+It seemed for a moment as if Mr. Hermann Goetze was going to have his
+way; and Ulick, while praying that she might remain firm, recognised how
+adroitly Hermann Goetze had contrived to place her in a false position
+regarding her fellow artistes.
+
+"I am quite willing to throw up the part; I can only sing the opera as
+it is written."
+
+The conductor suggested a less decisive cut to Evelyn, and Mr. Hermann
+Goetze walked up and down the stage, overtaken by toothache. His agony
+was so complete that Evelyn's harshness yielded. She went to him, and,
+her hand laid commiseratingly on his arm, she begged him to go at once
+to the dentist.
+
+Then some of the musicians said that they could hardly read the music,
+so effectually had they scratched it out.
+
+"If the musicians cannot play the music, we had better go home," said
+Evelyn.
+
+"But the opera is announced for to-morrow night," Mr. Hermann Goetze
+replied dolefully.
+
+Mr. Wheeler suggested that they might go on with the rehearsal; the cut
+could be discussed afterwards. Groups formed, everyone had a different
+opinion. At last the conductor took up his stick and cried, "Number 105,
+please."
+
+"They are going back," thought Ulick; "she held her ground capitally.
+She has more strength of character than I thought. But Hermann Goetze
+has upset her; she won't be able to sing."
+
+And it was as he expected; she could not recapture her lost inspiration;
+mood, Ulick could see, was the foundation and the keystone of her art.
+
+"No," she said, "I sang it horribly, I am all out of sorts, I don't feel
+what I am singing, and when the mood is not upon me, I am atrocious.
+What annoyed me was his attributing such selfishness to me, and such
+vulgar selfishness, too--"
+
+"However, you had your way about the cut."
+
+"Yes, they'll have to sing the whole of the finale. But I am sorry about
+his tooth; I know that it is dreadful pain."
+
+Ulick told an amusing story how he had once called on Hermann Goetze to
+ask if he had read the book of his opera.
+
+"He'd just gone into an adjoining room to fetch a clothes-brush--he had
+taken off his coat to brush it--but the moment he saw me, he whipped out
+his handkerchief and said that he must go to the dentist."
+
+"And when I asked him to engage Helbrun to sing Brangäne, and give her
+eighty pounds a week if she wouldn't sing it for less, he whipped out
+his handkerchief as you say, and asked me if I knew a dentist."
+
+"The idea of Wagner without cuts always brings on a violent attack," and
+Ulick imitated so well the expression of agony that had come into the
+manager's face that Evelyn exploded with laughter. She begged Ulick to
+desist.
+
+"I shan't be able to sing at all. But I have not told you of my make up.
+I don't look at all pretty; the ugly curls I wear come from an old
+German print, and the staid, modest gown. But it is very provoking; I
+was singing well till that fiend began to argue. Don't make me laugh
+again."
+
+He became very grave.
+
+"I can only think of the joy you gave me."
+
+His praise brightened her face, and she listened.
+
+"I cannot tell you now what I feel; perhaps I shall never find words to
+express what I feel about your Elizabeth. I shall be writing about it
+next week, and shall have to try."
+
+"Do tell me now. You liked it better than my Margaret?"
+
+Ulick shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and they looked in each
+other's eyes, and could hardly speak, so extraordinary was their
+recognition of each other; it was so intense that they could hardly help
+laughing, so strange it seemed that they should never have met before,
+or should have been separated for such a long time. It really seemed to
+them as if they had known each other from all eternity.
+
+"How can you act Elizabeth, she is so different from what you are?"
+
+"Is she?"
+
+Her pale blue eyes seemed to open a little wider, and she looked at him
+searchingly. He could not keep back the words that rose to his tongue.
+
+"You mean that your dead life now lives in Elizabeth."
+
+"Yes, I suppose that that is it."
+
+They asked each other whether any part of one's nature is ever really
+dead.
+
+A few moments after the pilgrims were heard singing, and Evelyn would
+have to go on the stage. She pressed her hands against her forehead,
+ridding herself by an effort of will of her present individuality. The
+strenuous chant of the pilgrims grew louder, the procession approached,
+and as it passed across the stage Elizabeth sought for Tannhäuser, but
+he was not among them. So her last earthly hope has perished, and she
+throws herself on her knees at the foot of the wayside cross. And it was
+the anguish of her soul that called forth that high note, a G repeated
+three times; and it seemed to Ulick that she seemed to throw herself
+upon that note, that reiterated note, as if she would reach God's ears
+with it and force him to listen to her. In the religious, almost
+Gregorian, strain her voice was pure as a little child, but when she
+spoke of her renunciation and the music grew more chromatic, her voice
+filled with colour--her sex appeared in it; and when the music returned
+to the peace of the religious strain, her voice grew blanched and faded
+like a nun's voice. Henceforth her life will be lived beyond this world,
+and as she walked up the stage, the flutes and clarionets seemed to lead
+her straight to God; they seemed to depict a narrow, shining path,
+shining and ascending till it disappeared amid the light of the stars.
+
+"Well," she said, "did I sing it to your satisfaction?"
+
+"You're an astonishing artiste."
+
+"No, that's just what I am not. I go on the stage and act; I couldn't
+tell you how I do it; I am conscious of no rule."
+
+"And the music?"
+
+"The music the same. I have often been told that I might act
+Shakespeare, but without music I could not express myself. Words without
+music would seem barren; I never try to sing, I try to express myself.
+But you'll see, my father won't think much of my singing. He'll compare
+me to mother, and always to my disadvantage. I cannot phrase like her."
+
+"But you can; your phrasing is perfection. It is the very emotion--"
+
+"Father won't think so; if he only thought well of my singing he would
+forgive me."
+
+"How unaffected you are; in hearing you speak one hears your very soul."
+
+"Do you? But tell me, is he very incensed? Shall I meet a face of
+stone?"
+
+"He is incensed, no doubt, but he must forgive you. But every day's
+delay will make it more difficult."
+
+"I know, I know."
+
+"You cannot go to-morrow?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"To-morrow you sing this opera. Go on Saturday; you'll be sure to find
+him on Saturday afternoon. He has a rehearsal in the morning and will be
+at home about four in the afternoon."
+
+As they walked through the scenery she said, "You'll come to see me,"
+and she reminded him of his promise to go through the Isolde music with
+her.
+
+"Mind, you have promised," she said as she got into her carriage.
+
+"You'll not forget Saturday afternoon," he said as he shook hands.
+
+She nodded and put up her umbrella, for it was beginning to rain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+
+Evelyn found Owen waiting for her. As soon as she came into the room he
+said, "Well, have you seen your father?"
+
+She was not expecting him, and it was disagreeable to admit that she had
+not been to Dulwich. So she said that she had thought to find her father
+at St. Joseph's.
+
+"But how did you know he was not at home if you did not go to Dulwich?"
+
+"My gracious, Owen, how you do question me! Now, perhaps you would like
+to know which of the priests told me."
+
+She walked to the window and stood with her left hand in the pocket of
+her jacket, and he feared that the irritation he had involuntarily
+caused her would interfere with his projects for the afternoon. There
+passed in his eyes that look of absorption in an object which marks the
+end of a long love affair--a look charged with remembrance, and wistful
+as an autumn day.
+
+The earth has grown weary of the sun and turns herself into the shadow,
+eager for rest. The sun has been too ardent a lover. But the gaze of the
+sun upon the receding earth is fonder than his look when she raised
+herself to his bright face. So in Owen's autumn-haunted eyes there was
+dread of the chances which he knew were accumulating against
+him--enemies, he divined, were gathering in the background; and how he
+might guard her, keep her for himself, became a daily inquisition.
+Nothing had happened to lead him to think that his possession was
+endangered, his fear proceeded from an instinct, which he could not
+subdue, that she was gliding from him; he wrestled with the intangible,
+and, striving to subordinate instinct to reason, he often refrained from
+kissing her; he imitated the indifference which in other times he could
+not dissimulate when the women who had really loved him besought him
+with tears. But there was no long gain-saying of the delight of telling
+her that he loved her, and when his aching heart forced him to question
+her regarding the truth of her feelings towards him, she merely told him
+that she loved him as much as ever, and the answer, instead of being a
+relief, was additional fuel upon the torturing flame of his uncertainty.
+
+Ever since their rupture and reconciliation in Florence, their relations
+had been so uncertain that Owen often wondered if he were her lover.
+Whether the reason for these periods of restraint was virtue or
+indifference he could never be quite sure. He believed that she always
+retained her conscience, but he could not forget that her love had once
+been sufficient compensation for what she suffered from it. "The stage
+has not altered her," he thought, "time has but nourished her
+idiosyncrasies." He had been hoping for one of her sudden and violent
+returnings to her former self, but such thing would not happen to-day,
+and hardly knowing what reply to make, he asked if she were free to come
+to look at some furniture. She mentioned several engagements, adding
+that he had made her too many presents already.
+
+She spoke of the rehearsal at considerable length, omitting, somehow, to
+speak of Ulick, and after lunch she seemed restless and proposed to go
+out at once.
+
+As they drove off to see the Sheraton sideboard, he asked her if she had
+seen Ulick Dean. To her great annoyance she said she had not, and this
+falsehood spoilt her afternoon for her. She could not discover why she
+had told this lie. The memory rankled in her and continued to take her
+unaware. She was tempted to confess the truth to Owen; the very words
+she thought she should use rose up in her mind several times. "I told
+you a lie. I don't know why I did, for there was absolutely no reason
+why I should have said that I had not seen Ulick Dean." On Saturday the
+annoyance which this lie had caused in her was as keen as ever: and it
+was not until she had got into her carriage and was driving to Dulwich
+that her consciousness of it died in the importance of her interview
+with her father.
+
+In comparing her present attitude of mind with that of last Thursday,
+she was glad to notice that to-day she could not think that her father
+would not forgive her. Her talk on the subject with Ulick had reassured
+her. He would not have been so insistent if he had not been sure that
+her father would forgive her in the end. But there would be
+recriminations, and at the very thought of them she felt her courage
+sink, and she asked herself why he should make her miserable if he was
+going to forgive her in the end. Her plans were to talk to him about his
+choir, and, if that did not succeed, to throw herself on her knees. She
+remembered how she had thrown herself on her knees on the morning of the
+afternoon she had gone away. And since then she had thrown herself at
+his feet many times--every time she sang in the "Valkyrie." The scene in
+which Wotan confides all his troubles and forebodings to Brunnhilde had
+never been different from the long talks she and her father used to drop
+into in the dim evenings in Dulwich. She had cheered him when he came
+home depressed after a talk with the impossible Father Gordon, as she
+had since cheered Wotan in his deep brooding over the doom of the gods
+predicted by Wala, when the dusky foe of love should beget a son in
+hate. Wotan had always been her father; Palestrina, Walhalla, and the
+stupid Jesuits, what were they? She had often tried to work out the
+allegory. It never came out quite right, but she always felt sure in
+setting down Father Gordon as Alberich. The scene in the third act, when
+she throws herself at Wotan's feet and begs his forgiveness (the music
+and the words together surged upon her brain), was the scene that now
+awaited her. She had at last come to this long-anticipated scene; and
+the fictitious scene she had acted as she was now going to act the real
+scene. True that Wotan forgave Brunnhilde after putting her to sleep on
+the fire-surrounded rock, where she should remain till a pure hero
+should come to release her. A nervous smile curled her lip for a moment;
+she trembled in her very entrails, and as they passed down the long,
+mean streets of Camberwell her thoughts frittered out in all sorts of
+trivial observation and reflection. She wondered if the mother who
+called down the narrow alley had ever been in love, if she had ever
+deceived her husband, if her father had reproved her about the young man
+she kept company with. The milkman presented to her strained mind some
+sort of problem, and the sight of the railway embankment told her she
+was nearing Dulwich. Then she saw the cedar at the top of the hill,
+whither she had once walked to meet Owen. ... Now it was London nearly
+all the way to Dulwich.
+
+But when they entered the familiar village street she was surprised at
+her dislike of it; even the chestnut trees, beautiful with white bloom,
+were distasteful to her, and life seemed contemptible beneath them. In
+Dulwich there was no surprise--life there was a sheeted phantom, it
+evoked a hundred dead Evelyns, and she felt she would rather live in any
+ghostly graveyard than in Dulwich. Her very knowledge of the place was
+an irritation to her, and she was pleased when she saw a house which had
+been built since she had been away. But every one of the fields she knew
+well, and the sight of every tree recalled a dead day, a dead event.
+That road to the right led to the picture gallery, and at the cross road
+she had been nearly run over by a waggon while trundling a hoop. But
+eyesight hardly helped her in Dulwich; she had only to think, to see it.
+The slates of a certain house told her that another minute would bring
+her to her father's door, and before the carriage turned the corner she
+foresaw the patch of black garden. But if her father were at home he
+might refuse to see her, and she was not certain if she should force her
+way past the servant or return home quietly. The entire dialogue of the
+scene between her and Margaret passed through her mind, and the very
+intonation of their voices. But it was not Margaret who opened the door
+to her.
+
+"This way, miss, please."
+
+"No, I'll wait in the music-room."
+
+"Mr. Innes won't have no one wait there in his absence. Will you come
+into the parlour?"
+
+"No, I think I'll wait in the music-room. I'm Miss Innes; Mr. Innes is
+my father."
+
+"What, miss, are you the great singer?"
+
+"I suppose I am."
+
+"Do you know, miss, something told me that you was. The moment I saw the
+carriage, I said, "Here she is; this is her for certain." Will you come
+this way, miss? I'll run and get the key."
+
+"And who was it," Evelyn said, "that told you I was a singer?"
+
+"Lor'! miss, didn't half Dulwich go to hear you sing at the opera?"
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"No, I didn't go, Miss, but I heard Mr. Dean and your father talking of
+you. I've read about you in the papers; only this morning there was a
+long piece."
+
+"If father talks of me he'll forgive me," thought Evelyn. The girl's
+wonderment made her smile, and she said--
+
+"But you've not told me your name."
+
+"My name is Agnes, miss."
+
+"Have you been long with my father? When I left, Margaret--"
+
+"Ah! she's dead, miss. I came to your father the day after the funeral."
+
+Evelyn walked up the room, overcome by the eternal absence of something
+which had hitherto been part of her life. For Margaret took her back to
+the time her mother was alive; farther back still--to the very beginning
+of her life. She had always reckoned on Margaret.... So Margaret was
+dead. Margaret would never know of this meeting. Margaret might have
+helped her. Poor Margaret! At that moment she caught sight of her
+mother's eyes. They seemed to watch her; she seemed to know all about
+Owen, and afraid of the haunting, reproving look, Evelyn studied the
+long oval face and the small brown eyes so unlike hers. One thing only
+she had inherited from her mother--her voice. She had certainly not
+inherited her conduct from her mother; her mother was one of the few
+great artistes against whom nothing could be said. Her mother was a good
+woman.... What did she think of her daughter? And seeing her cold,
+narrow face, she feared her mother would regard her conduct even more
+severely than her father.... "But if she had lived I should have had no
+occasion to go away with Owen." She wondered. At the bottom of her heart
+she knew that Owen was as much as anything else a necessity in her
+life.... She moved about the room and wished the hands of the clock
+could be advanced a couple of hours, for then the terrible scene with
+her father would be over. If he could only forgive her at once, and not
+make her miserable with reproaches, they could have such a pleasant
+evening.
+
+In this room her past life was blown about her like spray about a rock.
+She remembered the days when she went to London with her father to give
+lessons; the miserable winter when she lost her pupils.... How she had
+waited in this room for her father to come back to dinner; the faintness
+of those hungry hours; worse still, that yearning for love. She must
+have died if she had not gone away. If it had to happen all over again
+she must act as she had acted. How well she remembered the moment when
+she felt that her life in Dulwich had become impossible. She was coming
+from the village where she had been paying some bills, and looking up
+she had suddenly seen the angle of a house and a bare tree, and she
+could still hear the voice which had spoken out of her very soul. "Shall
+I never get away from this place?" it had cried. "Shall I go on doing
+these daily tasks for ever?" The strange, vehement agony of the voice
+had frightened her.... At that moment her eyes were attracted by a sort
+of harpsichord. "One of father's experiments," she said, running her
+fingers over the keys. "A sort of cross between a harpsichord and a
+virginal; up here the intonation is that of a virginal."
+
+"I forgot to ask you miss"--Evelyn turned from the window, startled; it
+was Agnes who had come back--"if you was going to stop for dinner, for
+there's very little in the house, only a bit of cold beef. I should be
+ashamed to put it on the table, miss; I'm sure you couldn't eat it.
+Master don't think what he eats; he's always thinking of his music. I
+hope you aren't like that, miss?"
+
+"So he doesn't eat much. How is my father looking, Agnes?"
+
+"Middling, miss. He varies about a good bit; he's gone rather thin
+lately."
+
+"Is he lonely, do you think ... in the evenings?"
+
+"No, miss; I don't hear him say nothing about being lonely. For the last
+couple of years he never did more than come home to sleep and his meals,
+and he'd spend the evenings copying out the music."
+
+"And off again early in the morning?"
+
+"That's it, miss, with his music tied up in a brown paper parcel.
+Sometimes Mr. Dean comes and helps him to write the music."
+
+"Ah!... but I'm sorry he doesn't eat better."
+
+"He eats better when Mr. Dean's here. They has a nice little dinner
+together. Now he's taken up with that 'ere instrument, the harpy chord,
+they's making. He's comin' home to-night to finish it; he says he can't
+get it finished nohow--that they's always something more to do to it."
+
+"I wonder if we could get a nice dinner for him this evening?"
+
+"Well, miss, you see there's no shops to speak of about here. You know
+that as well as I do."
+
+"I wonder what your cooking is like?"
+
+"I don't know, miss; p'r'aps it wouldn't suit you, but I've been always
+praised for my cooking."
+
+"I could send for some things; my coachman could fetch them from town."
+
+"Then there's to-morrow to be thought about if you're stopping here. I
+tell you we don't keep much in the house."
+
+"Is my father coming home to dinner?"
+
+"I can't say for certain, miss, only that he said 'e'd be 'ome early to
+finish the harpy chord. 'E might have 'is dinner out and come 'ome
+directly after, but I shouldn't think that was likely."
+
+"You can cook a chicken, Agnes?"
+
+"Lor'! yes, miss."
+
+"And a sole?"
+
+"Yes, miss; but in ordering, miss, you must think of to-morrow. You
+won't like to have a nice dinner to-night and a bit of hashed mutton
+to-morrow."
+
+"I'll order sufficient. You've got no wine, I suppose?"
+
+"No, we've no wine, miss, only draught beer."
+
+"I'll tell my coachman to go and fetch the things at once."
+
+When she returned to the music-room, Agnes asked her if she was going to
+stop the night.
+
+"Because I should have to get your rooms ready, miss."
+
+"That I can't tell, Agnes.... I don't think so.... You won't tell my
+father I'm here when you let him in?... I want it to be a surprise."
+
+"I won't say nothing, miss. I'll leave him to find it out."
+
+Evelyn felt that the girl must have guessed her story, must have
+perceived in her the repentant daughter--the erring daughter returned
+home. Everything pointed to that fact. Well, it couldn't be helped if
+she had.
+
+"If my father will only forgive me; if that first dreadful scene were
+only over, we could have an enchanting evening together."
+
+She was too nervous to seek out a volume of Bach and let her fingers run
+over the keys; she played anything that came into her head, sometimes
+she stopped to listen. At last there came a knock, and her heart told
+her it was his. In another moment he would be in the room. But seeing
+her he stopped, and, without a word, he went to a table and began
+untying a parcel of music.
+
+"Father, I've come to see you.... You don't answer. Father, are you not
+going to speak to me? I've been longing to see you, and now--"
+
+"If you had wanted to see me, you'd have come a month ago."
+
+"I was not in London a month ago."
+
+"Well, three weeks ago."
+
+"I ought to have done so, but I had no courage. I could only see you
+looking at me as you are looking now. Forgive me, father.... I'm your
+only daughter; she's full of failings, but she has never ceased to love
+you."
+
+He sat at the table fumbling with the string that had tied the parcel he
+had brought in, and she stood looking at him, unable to speak. She
+seemed to have said all there was to say, and wished she could throw
+herself at his feet; but she could not, something held her back. She
+prayed for tears, but her eyes remained dry; her mouth was dry, and a
+flame seemed to burn behind her eyes. She could only think that this
+might be the last time she would see him. The silence seemed a great
+while. She repeated her words, "I had not the courage to come before."
+At the sound of her voice she remembered that she must speak to him at
+once of his choir, and so take their thoughts from painful reminiscence.
+
+"I went to St. Joseph's on Thursday, but you weren't there. You gave
+Vittoria's mass last Sunday. I started to go, but I had to turn back."
+
+She had not gone to hear her father's choir, because she could not
+resist Lady Ascott's invitation, and no more than the invitation could
+she resist the lie; she had striven against it, but in spite of herself
+it had forced itself through her lips, and now her father seemed to have
+some inkling of the truth, for he said--
+
+"If you had cared to hear my choir you'd have gone. You needn't have
+seen me, whereas I was obliged--"
+
+Evelyn guessed that he had been to the opera. "How good of him to have
+gone to hear me," she thought. She hated herself for having accepted
+Lady Ascott's invitation, and the desire to ask him what he thought of
+her voice seemed to her an intolerable selfishness.
+
+"What were you going to say, father?"
+
+"Nothing.... I'm glad you didn't come."
+
+"Wasn't it well sung?" and she was seized with nervousness, and instead
+of speaking to him about his basses as she had intended, she asked him
+about the trebles.
+
+"They are the worst part of the choir. That contrapuntal music can only
+be sung by those who can sing at sight. The piano has destroyed the
+modern ear. I daresay it has spoilt your ear."
+
+"My ear is all right, I think."
+
+"I hope it is better than your heart."
+
+Evelyn's face grew quite still, as if it were frozen, and seeing the
+pain he had caused her he was moved to take her in his arms and forgive
+her straight away. He might have done so, but she turned, and passing
+her hand across her eyes she went to the harpsichord. She played one of
+the little Elizabethan songs, "John, come kiss me now." Then an old
+French song tempted her voice by its very appropriateness to the
+situation--"_Que vous me coûtez cher, mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs_."
+But there was a knot in her throat, she could not sing, she could hardly
+speak. She endeavoured to lead her father into conversation, hoping he
+might forget her conduct until it was too late for him to withdraw into
+resentment. She could see that the instrument she was playing on he had
+made himself. In some special intention it was filled with levers and
+stops, the use of which was not quite apparent to her; and she could see
+by the expression on his face that he was annoyed by her want of
+knowledge of the technicalities of the instrument.
+
+So she purposely exaggerated her ignorance.
+
+He fell into the trap and going to her he said, "You are not making use
+of the levers."
+
+"Oh, am I not?" she said innocently. "What is this instrument--a
+virginal or a harpsichord?"
+
+"It is a harpsichord, but the intonation is that of a virginal. I made
+it this winter. The volume of sound from the old harpsichord is not
+sufficient in a large theatre, that is why the harpsichord music in 'Don
+Juan' has to be played on the fiddles."
+
+He stopped speaking and she pressed him in vain to explain the
+instrument. She went on playing.
+
+"The levers," he said at last, "are above your knees. Raise your knees."
+
+She pretended not to understand.
+
+"Let me show you." He seated himself at the instrument. "You see the
+volume of sound I obtain, and all the while I do not alter the treble."
+
+"Yes, yes, and the sonority of the instrument is double that of the old
+harpsichord. It would be heard all over Covent Garden."
+
+She could see that the remark pleased him. "I'll sing 'Zerline' if
+you'll play it."
+
+"You couldn't sing 'Zerline,' it isn't in your voice."
+
+"You don't know what my voice is like."
+
+"Evelyn, I wonder how you can expect me to forgive you; I wonder how I
+can speak to you. Have you forgotten how you went away leaving me to
+bear the shame, the disgrace?"
+
+"I have come to beg forgiveness, not to excuse myself. But I wrote to
+you from Paris that I was going to live with Lady Duckle, and that you
+were to say that I had gone abroad to study singing."
+
+"I'm astonished, Evelyn, that you can speak so lightly."
+
+"I do not think lightly of my conduct, if you knew the miserable days it
+has cost me. Reproach me as you will about my neglect toward you, but as
+far as the world is concerned there has been no disgrace."
+
+"You would have gone all the same; you only thought of yourself.
+Brought up as you have been, a Catholic--"
+
+"My sins, father, lie between God and myself. What I come for is to beg
+forgiveness for the wrong I did you."
+
+He did not answer, but he seemed to acquiesce, and it was a relief to
+her to feel that it was not the moral question that divided them;
+convention had forced him to lay some stress upon it, but clearly what
+rankled in his heart, and prevented him from taking her in his arms, was
+a jealous, purely human feud. This she felt she could throw herself
+against and overpower.
+
+"Father, you must forgive me, we are all in all to each other; nothing
+can change that. Ever since mother's death--you remember when the nurse
+told us all was over--ever since I've felt that we were in some strange
+way dependent on each other. Our love for each other is the one
+unalterable thing. My music you taught me; the first songs I sang were
+at your concerts, and now that we have both succeeded--you with
+Palestrina, and I with Wagner--we must needs be aliens. Father, can't
+you see that that can never be? if you don't you do not love me as I do
+you. You're still thinking that I left you. Of course, it was very
+wrong, but has that changed anything? Father, tell me, tell me, unless
+you want to kill me, that you do not believe that I love you less."
+
+The wonder of the scene she was acting--she never admitted she acted;
+she lived through scenes, whether fictitious or real--quickened in her;
+it was the long-expected scene, the scene in the third act of the
+"Valkyrie" which she had always played while divining the true scene
+which she would be called upon to play one day. It seemed to her that
+she stood on the verge of all her future--the mystery of the abyss
+gathered behind her eyes; she threw herself at her father's feet, and
+the celebrated phrase, so plaintive, so full of intercession, broke from
+her lips, "Was the rebel act so full of shame that her rebellion is so
+shamefully scourged? Was my offence so deep in disgrace that thou dost
+plan so deep a disgrace for me? Was this my crime so dark with dishonour
+that it henceforth robs me of all honour? Oh tell me, father; look in
+mine eyes." She heard the swelling harmony, every chord, the note that
+gave her the note she was to sing. She was carried down like a drowning
+one into a dim world of sub-conscious being; and in this half life all
+that was most true in her seemed to rise like a star and shine forth,
+while all that was circumstantial and ephemeral seemed to fall away. She
+was conscious of the purification of self; she seemed to see herself
+white and bowed and penitent. She experienced a great happiness in
+becoming humble and simple again.... But she did not know if the
+transformation which was taking place in her was an abiding or a passing
+thing. She knew she was expressing all that was most deep in her nature,
+and yet she had acted all that she now believed to be reality on the
+stage many times. It seemed as true then as it did now--more true; for
+she was less self-conscious in the fictitious than in the real scene.
+
+She knelt at her father's or at Wotan's feet--she could not distinguish;
+all limitations had been razed. She was _the_ daughter at _the_ father's
+feet. She knelt like the Magdalen. The position had always been natural
+to her, and habit had made it inveterate; there she bemoaned the
+difficulties of life, the passion which had cast her down and which
+seemed to forbid her an ideal. She caught her father's hand and pressed
+it against her cheek. She knew she was doing these things, yet she could
+not do otherwise; tears fell upon his hand, and the grief she expressed
+was so intense that he could not restrain his tears. But if she raised
+her face and saw his tears, his position as a stern father was
+compromised! She could only think of her own grief; the grief and regret
+of many years absorbed her; she was so lost in it that she expected him
+to answer her in Wotan's own music; she even smiled in her grief at her
+expectation, and continued the music of her intercession. And it was not
+until he asked her why she was singing Wagner that she raised her face.
+That he should not know, jarred and spoilt the harmony of the scene as
+she had conceived it, and it was not till he repeated his question that
+she told him.
+
+"Because I've never sung it without thinking of you, father. That is why
+I sang it so well. I knew it all before. It tore at my heart strings. I
+knew that one day it would come to this."
+
+"So every time before was but a rehearsal."
+
+She rose to her feet.
+
+"Why are you so cruel? It is you who are acting, not I. I mean what I
+say--you don't. Why make me miserable? You know that you must forgive
+me. You can't put me out of doors, so what is the use in arguing about
+my faults? I am like that ... you must take me as I am, and perhaps you
+would not have cared for me half as much if I had been different."
+
+"Evelyn, how can you speak like that? You shock me very much."
+
+She regretted her indiscretion, and feared she had raised the moral
+question; but the taunt that it was he and not she that was acting had
+sunk into his heart, and the truth of it overcame him. It was he who had
+been acting. He had pretended an anger which he did not feel, and it was
+quite true that, whatever she did, he could not really feel anger
+against her. She was shrined in his heart, the dream of his whole life.
+He could feel anger against himself, but not against her. She was right.
+He must forgive her, for how could he live without her? Into what
+dissimulation he had been foolishly ensnared! In these convictions which
+broke like rockets in his heart and brain, spreading a strange
+illumination in much darkness, he saw her beauty and sex idealised, and
+in the vision were the eyes and pallor of the dead wife, and all the
+yearning and aspiration of his own life seemed reflected back in this
+fair, oval face, lit with luminous, eager eyes, and in the tangle of
+gold hair fallen about her ears, and thrown back hastily with long
+fingers; and the wonder of her sex in the world seemed to shed a light
+on distant horizons, and he understood the strangeness of the common
+event of father and daughter standing face to face, divided, or
+seemingly divided, by the mystery of the passion of which all things are
+made. His own sins were remembered. They fell like soft fire breaking in
+a dark sky, and his last sensation in the whirl of complex, diffused and
+passing sensations was the thrill of terror at the little while
+remaining to him wherein he might love her. A few years at most! His
+eyes told her what was happening in his heart, and with that beautiful
+movement of rapture so natural to her, she threw herself into his arms.
+
+"I knew, father, dear, that you'd forgive me in the end. It was
+impossible to think of two like us living and dying in alienation. I
+should have killed myself, and you, dear, you would have died of grief.
+But I dreaded this first meeting. I had thought of it too much, and, as
+I told you, I had acted it so often."
+
+"Have I been so severe with you, Evelyn, that you should dread me?"
+
+"No, darling, but, of course, I've behaved--there's no use talking about
+it any more. But you could never have been really in doubt that a lover
+could ever change my love for you. Owen--I mustn't speak about him, only
+I wish you to understand that I've never ceased to think of you. I've
+never been really happy, and I'm sure you've been miserable about me
+often enough; but now we may be happy. 'Winter storms wane in the
+winsome May.' You know the _Lied_ in the first act of the 'Valkyrie'?
+And now that we're friends, I suppose you'll come and hear me. Tell me
+about your choir." She paused a moment, and then said, "My first thought
+was for you on landing in England. There was a train waiting at
+Victoria, but we'd had a bad crossing, and I felt so ill that I couldn't
+go. Next day I was nervous. I had not the courage, and he proposed that
+I should wait till I had sung Margaret. So much depended on the success
+of my first appearance. He was afraid that if I had had a scene with you
+I might break down."
+
+"Wotan, you say, forgives Brunnhilde, but doesn't he put her to sleep on
+a fire-surrounded rock?"
+
+"He puts her to sleep on the rock, but it is she who asks for flames to
+protect her from the unworthy. Wotan grants her request, and Brunnhilde
+throws herself enraptured into his arms. 'Let the coward shun
+Brunnhilde's rock--for but one shall win--the bride who is freer than I,
+the god!'"
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it? Then with what flames shall I surround you?"
+
+"I don't know, I've often wondered; the flame of a promise--a promise
+never to leave you again, father. I can promise no more."
+
+"I want no other promise."
+
+The eyes of the portrait were fixed on them, and they wondered what
+would be the words of the dead woman if she could speak.
+
+Agnes announced that the coachman had returned.
+
+"Father, I've lots of things to see to. I'm going to stop to dinner if
+you'll let me."
+
+"I'm afraid, Evelyn--Agnes--"
+
+"You need not trouble about the dinner--Agnes and I will see to that. We
+have made all necessary arrangements."
+
+"Is that your carriage?... You've got a fine pair of horses. Well, one
+can't be Evelyn Innes for nothing. But if you're stopping to dinner,
+you'd better stop the night. I'm giving the 'Missa Brevis' to-morrow.
+I'm giving it in honour of Monsignor Mostyn. It was he who helped me to
+overcome Father Gordon."
+
+"You shall tell me all about Monsignor after dinner."
+
+He walked about the room, unwittingly singing the _Lied_, "Winter storms
+wane in the winsome May," and he stopped before the harpsichord,
+thinking he saw her still there. And his thoughts sailed on, vagrant as
+clouds in a Spring breeze. She had come back, his most wonderful
+daughter had come back.
+
+He turned from his wife's portrait, fearing the thought that her joy on
+their daughter's return might be sparer than his. But unpleasant
+thoughts fell from him, and happiness sang in his brain like
+spring-awakened water-courses, and the scent in his nostrils was of
+young leaves and flowers, and his very flesh was happy as the warm,
+loosening earth in spring. "'Winter storms,'" he sang, "'wane in the
+winsome May; with tender radiance sparkles the spring.' I must hear her
+sing that; I must hear her intercede at Wotan's feet!" His eyes filled
+with happy tears, and he put questions aside. She was coming to-morrow
+to hear his choir. And what would she think of it? A shadow passed
+across his face. If he had known she was coming, he'd have taken more
+trouble with those altos; he'd have kept them another hour.... Then,
+taken with a sudden craving to see her, he went to the door and called
+to her.
+
+"Evelyn."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"You are stopping to-night?"
+
+"Yes, but I can't stop to speak with you now--I'm busy with Agnes."
+
+She was deep in discussion with Agnes regarding the sole. Agnes thought
+she knew how to prepare it with bread crumbs, but both were equally
+uncertain how the melted butter was to be made. There was no
+cookery-book in the house, and it seemed as if the fish would have to be
+eaten with plain butter until it occurred to Agnes that she might borrow
+a cookery-book next door. It seemed to Evelyn that she had never seen a
+finer sole, so fat and firm; it really would be a pity if they did not
+succeed in making the melted butter. When Agnes came back with the book,
+Evelyn read out the directions, and was surprised how hard it was to
+understand. In the end it was Agnes who explained it to her. The chicken
+presented some difficulties. It was of an odd size, and Agnes was not
+sure whether it would take half-an-hour or three-quarters to cook.
+Evelyn studied the white bird, felt the cold, clammy flesh, and inclined
+to forty minutes. Agnes thought that would be enough if she could get
+her oven hot enough. She began by raking out the flues, and Evelyn had
+to stand back to avoid the soot. She stood, her eyes fixed on the fire,
+interested in the draught and the dissolution of every piece of coal in
+the flame. It seemed to Evelyn that the fire was drawing beautifully,
+and she appealed to Agnes, who only seemed fairly satisfied. It was
+doing pretty well, but she had never liked that oven; one was never sure
+of it. Margaret used to put a piece of paper over the chicken to prevent
+it burning, but Agnes said there was no danger of it burning; the oven
+never could get hot enough for that. But the oven, as Agnes had said,
+was a tricky one, and when she took the chicken out to baste it, it
+seemed a little scorched. So Evelyn insisted on a piece of paper. Agnes
+said that it would delay the cooking of the chicken, and attributed the
+scorching to the quantity of coal which Miss Innes would keep adding. If
+she put any more on she would not be answerable that the chimney would
+not catch fire. Every seven or eight minutes the chicken was taken out
+to be basted. The bluey-whitey look of the flesh which Evelyn had
+disliked had disappeared; the chicken was acquiring a rich brown colour
+which she much admired, and if it had not been for Agnes, who told her
+the dinner would be delayed till eight o'clock, she would have had the
+chicken out every five minutes, so much did she enjoy pouring the rich,
+bubbling juice over the plump back.
+
+"Father! Father, dinner is ready! I've got a sole and a chicken. The
+sole is a beauty; Agnes says she never saw a fresher one."
+
+"And where did all these things come from?"
+
+"I sent my coachman for them. Now sit down and let me help you. I cooked
+the dinner myself." Feeling that Agnes's eye was upon her, she added,
+"Agnes and I--I helped Agnes. We made the melted butter from the recipe
+in the cookery-book next door. I do hope it is a success."
+
+"I see you've got champagne, too."
+
+"But I don't know how you're to get the bottle open, miss; we've no
+champagne nippers."
+
+After some conjecturing the wires were twisted off with a kitchen fork.
+Evelyn kept her eyes on her father's plate, and begged to be allowed to
+help him again, and she delighted in filling up his glass with wine; and
+though she longed to ask him if he had been to hear her sing, she did
+not allude to herself, but induced him to talk of his victories over
+Father Gordon. This story of clerical jealousy and ignorance was
+intensely interesting to the old man, and she humoured him to the top of
+his bent.
+
+"But it would all have come to nothing if it had not been for Monsignor
+Mostyn."
+
+She fetched him his pipe and tobacco. "And who is Monsignor Mostyn?" she
+asked, dreading a long tale in which she could feel on interest at all.
+She watched him filling his pipe, working the tobacco down with his
+little finger nail. She thought she could see he was thinking of
+something different, and to her great joy he said--
+
+"Well, your Margaret is very good; better than I expected--I am speaking
+of the singing; of course, as acting it was superb."
+
+"Oh, father! do tell me? So you went after all? I sent you a box and a
+stall, but you were in neither. In what part of the theatre were you?"
+
+"In the upper boxes; I did not want to dress." She leaned across the
+table with brightening eyes. "For a dramatic soprano you sing that light
+music with extraordinary ease and fluency."
+
+"Did I sing it as well as mother?"
+
+"Oh, my dear, it was quite different. Your mother's art was in her
+phrasing and in the ideal appearance she presented."
+
+"And didn't I present an ideal appearance?"
+
+"It's like this, Evelyn. The Margaret of Gounod and his librettist is
+not a real person, but a sort of keepsake beauty who sings keepsake
+music. I assume that you don't think much of the music; brought up as
+you have been on the Old Masters, you couldn't. Well, the question is
+whether parts designed in such an intention should be played in the like
+intention, or if they should be made living creations of flesh and
+blood, worked up by the power of the actress into something as near to
+the Wagner ideal as possible. I admire your Margaret; it was a wonderful
+performance, but--"
+
+"But what, father?"
+
+"It made me wish to see you in Elizabeth and Brunnhilde. I was very
+sorry I couldn't get to London last night."
+
+"You'd like my Elizabeth better. Margaret is the only part of the old
+lot that I now sing. I daresay you're right. I'll limit myself for the
+future to the Wagner repertoire."
+
+"I think you'd do well. Your genius is essentially in dramatic
+expression. 'Carmen,' for instance, is better as Galli Marié used to
+play it than as you would play it. 'Carmen' is a conventional type--all
+art is convention of one kind or another, and each demands its own
+interpretation. But I hope you don't sing that horrid music."
+
+"You don't like 'Carmen'?"
+
+Mr. Innes shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
+
+"'Faust' is better than that. Gounod follows--at a distance, of
+course--but he follows the tradition of Haydn and Mozart. 'Carmen' is
+merely Gounod and Wagner. I hope you've not forgotten my teaching; as
+I've always said, music ended with Beethoven and began again with
+Wagner."
+
+"Did you see Ulick Dean's article?"
+
+"Yes, he wrote to me last night about your Elizabeth. He says there
+never was anything heard like it on the stage."
+
+"Did he say that? Show me the letter. What else did he say?"
+
+"It was only a note. I destroyed it. He just said what I told you. But
+he's a bit mad about that opera. He's been talking to me about it all
+the winter, saying that the character had never been acted; apparently
+it has been now. Though for my part I think Brunnhilde or Isolde would
+suit you better."
+
+The mention of Isolde caused them to avoid looking at each other, and
+Evelyn asked her father to tell her about Ulick--how they became
+acquainted and how much they saw of each other. But to tell her when he
+made Ulick's acquaintance would be to allude to the time when Evelyn
+left home. So his account of their friendship was cursory and
+perfunctory, and he asked Evelyn suddenly if Ulick had shown her his
+opera.
+
+"Grania?"
+
+"No, not 'Grania.' He has not finished 'Grania,' but 'Connla and the
+Fairy Maiden.' Written," he added, "entirely on the old lines. Come into
+the music-room and you shall see."
+
+He took up the lamp; Evelyn called Agnes to get another. The lamps were
+placed upon the harpsichord; she lighted some candles, and, just as in
+old times, they lost themselves in dreams and visions. This time it was
+in a faint Celtic haze; a vision of silver mist and distant mountain and
+mere. It was on the heights of Uisnech that Connla heard the fairy
+calling him to the Plain of Pleasure, Moy Mell, where Boadag is king.
+And King Cond, seeing his son about to be taken from him, summoned Coran
+the priest and bade him chant his spells toward the spot whence the
+fairy's voice was heard. The fairy could not resist the spell of the
+priest, but she threw Connla an apple and for a whole month he ate
+nothing but that. But as he ate, it grew again, and always kept whole.
+And all the while there grew within him a mighty yearning and longing
+after the maiden he had seen. And when the last day of the month of
+waiting came, Connla stood by the side of the king, his father, on the
+Plain of Aromin, and again he saw the maiden come towards him, and
+again she spoke to him--
+
+"'Tis no lofty seat on which Connla sits among short-lived mortals
+awaiting fearful death, but now the folk of life, the ever-living living
+ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they
+have learnt to know thee."
+
+When Cond the king observed that since the maiden came Connla his son
+spake to none that spake to him, then Cond of the hundred fights said to
+him--
+
+"Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?"
+
+"'Tis hard on me; I love my folk above all things, but a great longing
+seizes me for the maiden."
+
+"The waves of the ocean are not so strong as the waves of thy longing;
+come with me in my currah, the straight gliding, the crystal boat, and
+we shall soon reach the Plain of Pleasure, where Boadag is king."
+
+King Cond and all his court saw Connla spring into the boat, and he and
+the fairy maiden glided over the bright sea, towards the setting sun,
+away and away, and they were seen no more, nor did anyone know where
+they went to.
+
+"My dear father, manuscript, and at sight, words and music!"
+
+"Come--begin."
+
+"Give me the chord."
+
+He looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"Won't you give me the keynote?"
+
+"In the key of E flat," he answered sternly.
+
+She began. "Is that right?"
+
+"Yes, that's right. You see that you can still sing at sight. I don't
+suppose you find many prima donnas who can."
+
+With her arm on his shoulder they sat together, playing and singing the
+music with which Ulick had interpreted the tale of "Connla and the Fairy
+Maiden."
+
+"You see," he said, "he has invented a new system of orchestration; as a
+matter of fact, we worked it out together, but that's neither here nor
+there. In some respects it is not unlike Wagner; the vocal music is
+mostly recitative, but now and then there is nearly an air, and yet it
+isn't new, for it is how it would have been written about 1500. You
+see," he said, turning over the pages of the full score, "each character
+is allotted a different set of instruments as accompaniment; in this way
+you get astonishing colour contrasts. For instance, the priest is
+accompanied by a chest of six viols; _i.e._, two trebles, two tenors,
+two basses. King Cond is accompanied by a set of six cromornes, like the
+viols of various sizes. The Fairy Maiden has a set of six flutes or
+recorders, the smallest of which is eight inches long, the biggest quite
+six feet. Connla is accompanied by a group of oboes; and another
+character is allotted three lutes with an arch lute, another a pair of
+virginals, another a regal, another a set of six sackbuts and trumpets.
+See how all the instruments are used in the overture and in the dances,
+of which there are plenty, Pavans, Galliards, Allemaines. But look here,
+this is most important: even in the instrumental pieces the instruments
+are not to be mixed, as in modern orchestra, but used in groups, always
+distinct, like patches of colour in impressionist pictures."
+
+"I like this," and she hummed through the fairy's luring of Connla to
+embark with her. "But I could not give an opinion of the orchestration
+without hearing it, it is all so new."
+
+"We haven't succeeded yet in getting together sufficient old instruments
+to provide an orchestra."
+
+"But, father, do you think such orchestration realisable in modern
+music? I see very little Wagner in it; it is more like Caccini or
+Monteverde. There can be very little real life in a parody."
+
+"No, but it isn't parody, that's just what it isn't, for it is natural
+to him to write in this style. What he writes in the modern style is as
+common as anyone else. This is his natural language." In support of the
+validity of his argument that a return to the original sources of an art
+is possible without loss of originality, he instanced the Pre-Raphaelite
+Brotherhood. The most beautiful pictures, and the most original pictures
+Millais had ever painted were those that he painted while he was
+attempting to revive the methods of Van Eyck, and the language of
+Shakespeare was much more archaic than that of any of his
+contemporaries. "But explanations are useless. I tried to explain to
+Father Gordon that Palestrina was one of the greatest of musicians, but
+he never understood. Monsignor Mostyn and I understood each other at
+once. I said Palestrina, he said Vittoria--I don't know which suggested
+the immense advantage that a revival of the true music of the Catholic
+would be in making converts to Rome. You don't like Ulick's music;
+there's nothing more to be said."
+
+"But I do like it, father. How impatient you are! And because I don't
+understand an entire æstheticism in five minutes, which you and Ulick
+Dean have been cooking for the last three years, I am a fool, quite as
+stupid as Father Gordon."
+
+Mr. Innes laughed, and when he put his arm round her and kissed her she
+was happy again. The hours went lightly by as if enchanted, and it was
+midnight when he closed the harpsichord and they went upstairs. Neither
+spoke; they were thinking of the old times which apparently had come
+back to them. On the landing she said--
+
+"We've had a nice evening after all. Good-night, father. I know my
+room."
+
+"Good-night," he said. "You'll find all your things; nothing has been
+changed."
+
+Agnes had laid one of her old nightgowns on the bed, and there was her
+_prie-dieu_, and on the chest of drawers the score of Tristan which Owen
+had given her six years ago. She had come back to sing it. How
+extraordinary it all was! She seemed to have drifted like a piece of
+seaweed; she lived in the present though it sank beneath her like a
+wave. The past she saw dimly, the future not at all; and sitting by her
+window she was moved by vague impulses towards infinity. She grew aware
+of her own littleness and the vastness overhead--that great unending
+enigma represented to her understanding by a tint of blue washed over by
+a milky tint. Owen had told her that there were twenty million suns in
+the milky way, and that around every one numerous planets revolved. This
+earth was but a small planet, and its sun a third-rate sun. On this
+speck of earth a being had awakened to a consciousness of the glittering
+riddle above his head, but he would die in the same ignorance of its
+meaning as a rabbit. The secret of the celestial plan she would never
+know. One day she would slip out of consciousness of it; life would
+never beckon her again; but the vast plan which she now perceived would
+continue to revolve, progressing towards an end which no man, though the
+world were to continue for a hundred million years, would ever know.
+
+Her brain seemed to melt in the moonlight, and from the enigma of the
+skies her thoughts turned to the enigma of her own individuality. She
+was aware that she lived. She was aware that some things were right,
+that some things were wrong. She was aware of the strange fortune that
+had lured her, that had chosen her out of millions. What did it mean? It
+must mean something, just as those stars must mean something--but what?
+
+Opposite to her window there was an open space; it was full of mist and
+moonlight; the lights of a distant street looked across it. She too had
+said, "'Tis hard upon me, I love my folk above all things, but a great
+longing seizes me." That story is the story of human life. What is human
+life but a longing for something beyond us, for something we shall not
+attain? Again she wondered what her end must be. She must end somehow,
+and was it not strange that she could no more answer that simple
+question than she could the sublime question which the moon and stars
+propounded.... That breathless, glittering peace, was it not wonderful?
+It seemed to beckon and allure, and her soul yearned for that peace as
+Connla's had for the maiden. Death only could give that peace. Did the
+Fairy Maiden mean death? Did the plains of the Ever Living, which the
+Fairy Maiden had promised Connla on the condition of his following her,
+lie behind those specks of light?
+
+But what end should she choose for herself if the choice were left to
+her--to come back to Dulwich and live with her father? She might do
+that--but when her father died? Then she hoped that she might die. But
+she might outlive him for thirty years--Evelyn Innes, an old woman,
+talking to the few friends who came to see her, of the days when Wagner
+was triumphant, of her reading of "Isolde." Some such end as that would
+be hers. Or she might end as Lady Asher. She might, but she did not
+think she would. Owen seemed to think more of marriage now than he used
+to. He had always said they would be married when she retired from the
+stage. But why should she retire from the stage? If he had wanted to
+marry her he should have asked her at first. She did not know what she
+was going to do. No one knew what they were going to do. They simply
+went on living. That moonlight was melting her brain away. She drew down
+the blinds, and she fell asleep thinking of her father's choir and the
+beautiful "Missa Brevis" which she was going to hear to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+
+As they went to church, he told her about Monsignor Mostyn. Evelyn
+remembered that the very day she went away, he had had an appointment
+with the prelate, and while trying to recall the words he had used at
+the time--how Monsignor believed that a revival of Palestrina would
+advance the Catholic cause in England--she heard her father say that no
+one except Monsignor could have succeeded in so difficult an enterprise
+as the reformation of church music in England.
+
+The organ is a Protestant instrument, and in organ music the London
+churches do very well; the Protestant congregations are, musically, more
+enlightened; the flattest degradation is found among the English
+Catholics, and he instanced the Oratory as an extraordinary disgrace to
+a civilised country, relating how he had heard the great Mass of Pope
+Marcellus given there by an operatic choir of twenty singers. In the
+West-end are apathy and fashionable vulgarity, and it was at St.
+Joseph's, Southwark, that the Church had had restored to her all her own
+beautiful music. Monsignor had begun by coming forward with a
+subscription of one thousand pounds a year, and by such _largesse_ he
+had confounded the intractable Jesuits and vanquished Father Gordon. The
+poor man who had predicted ruin now viewed the magnificent congregation
+with a sullen face. "He has a nice voice, too, that's the strange part
+of it; I could have taught him, but he is too proud to admit he was
+wrong." However, _bon gré mal gré_, Father Gordon had had to submit to
+Monsignor. When Monsignor makes up his mind, things have to be done. If
+a thousand pounds had not been enough, he would have given two thousand
+pounds; Monsignor was rich, but he was also tactful, and did not rely
+entirely on his money. He had come to St. Joseph's with the Pope's
+written request in his hand that St. Joseph's should attempt a revival
+of the truly Catholic music, if sufficient money could be obtained for
+the choir. So there was no gainsaying, the Jesuits had had to submit,
+for if they had again objected to the expense, Monsignor would come
+forward with a subscription of two thousand a year. He could not have
+afforded to pay so much for more than a limited number of years, "but he
+and I felt that it was only necessary to start the thing for it to
+succeed."
+
+Mr. Innes told his daughter of Monsignor's social influence; Monsignor
+had the command of any amount of money. There is always the money, the
+difficulty is to obtain the will that can direct the money. Monsignor
+was the will. He was all-powerful in Rome. He spent his winters and
+springs in Rome, and no one thought of going to Rome without calling on
+him. It was through him that the Pope kept in touch with the English
+Catholics. He had a confessional at St. Joseph's, and he was _au mieux_
+with the Jesuits. It was the influence of Monsignor that had given
+Palestrina his present vogue. But a revival of Palestrina was in the
+air; through him the inevitable reaction against Wagner was making
+itself felt. Monsignor had made all the rich Catholics understand that
+it was their duty to support the unique experiment which some poor
+Jesuits in Southwark were making, and the fact that he had come forward
+with a subscription of one thousand a year enabled him to ask his
+friends for their money. He had told Mr. Innes that a dinner party which
+did not produce a subscriber he looked upon as a dinner wasted.
+Monsignor knew how to carry a thing through; his influence was
+extraordinary; he could get people to do what he wanted.
+
+Evelyn and her father had so much to say that it did not seem as if they
+ever would find time to say it in. There was the story to tell of the
+construction of the vast choir and the difficulties he had experienced
+in teaching his singers to read at sight, for, as she knew, contrapuntal
+music cannot be sung except by singers who can sing unaccompanied. The
+trebles and the altos were of course the great difficulty; the boys
+often burst into tears; they said they preferred to die rather than
+endure his discipline. He was often sorry for them, for he knew that the
+perfect singing of this contrapuntal music was almost impossible except
+by _castrati_. But he was able to communicate his enthusiasm; he told
+them stories of how the ancient choirs used to sing Palestrina's masses
+without a rehearsal, how the ancient choirs used to compete one against
+the other, singing music they had never seen against men in the opposite
+organ loft whom they did not even know. He was full of such stories;
+they served to fire the boys' enthusiasm, and to change dislike into an
+inspiration. He had hypnotised them into a love of Palestrina, and when
+they went home their parents had told him that the boys were always
+talking about the ancient music, and that they sat up at night reading
+motets. He had told them that they would abandon all foolish pastimes
+for Palestrina, and they had in a measure; instead of batting and
+bowling, their ambition became sight singing. Once a spirit of emulation
+is inspired, great things are accomplished. There had been some
+beautiful singing at St. Joseph's. Three months ago he believed that his
+choir would have compared with some of the sixteenth century choirs. Mr.
+Innes told an instructive story of how he had lost a most extraordinary
+treble, the best he had ever had. No, he had not lost his voice; a
+casual word had done the mischief. The boy had happened to tell his
+mother that Mr. Innes had said that he would give up cricket for
+Palestrina, and she, being a fool, had laughed at him. Her laughter had
+ruined the boy; he had refused to sing any more; he had become a
+dissipated young rascal, up to every mischief. Unfortunately, before he
+left he had influenced other boys; many had to be sent away as useless;
+and it was only now that his choir was beginning to recover from this
+egregious calamity. But though the difficulty of the trebles and the
+altos was always the difficulty of his choir, it no longer seemed
+insuperable. With the large amount of money at his disposal, he could
+afford to pay almost any amount of money for a good treble or alto, so
+every boy in London who showed signs of a voice was brought to him. But
+in three or four years a boy's voice breaks, and the task of finding
+another to take his place has to be undertaken. Very often this is
+impossible; there are times when there are no voices. The present time
+was such a one, and he fumed at the foolish woman whose casual word had
+broken up his choir three months ago, bemoaning that such a calamity
+should have happened just before Monsignor's return from Rome. It was
+for that reason he was giving the "Missa Brevis," a small work easily
+done. He declared he would give fifty pounds to recall his choir of
+three months ago, just for Evelyn and Monsignor to hear it. Evelyn
+easily believed that he would, and as they parted inside the church she
+said--
+
+"I wish I could take the place of the naughty boy."
+
+A look of hope came into his eyes, but it died away in an instant, and
+she watched his despondent back as he went towards the choir loft.
+
+The influence of Monsignor had worked great changes at St. Joseph's--the
+very atmosphere of the church was different, the sensation was one of
+culture and refinement, instead of that acrid poverty. From the altar
+rail to the middle of the aisle the church was crowded--in the free as
+well as in the paying parts. From the altar rails to the middle of the
+aisle there were chairs for the ease of the subscribers, and for those
+who were willing to pay a fee of two shillings. In front of each chair
+was a comfortable kneeling place, and slender, gloved hands held
+prayer-books bound in morocco, and under fashionable hats, filled with
+bright beads and shadowy feathers, veiled faces were bent in dainty
+prayer. Among these Evelyn picked out a number of her friends. There
+were Lady Ascott, who missed no musical entertainment of whatever kind,
+even when it took place in church, and Lady Gremaldin, who thought she
+was listening to Wagner when she was thinking of the tenor whom she
+would take away to supper in her brougham after the performance....
+Evelyn caught sight of a painter or two and a man of letters who used
+to come to her father's concerts. Suddenly she saw Ulick standing close
+by her; he had not seen her, and was looking for a seat. Catching sight
+of her, he came and sat in the chair next to hers. Almost at the same
+moment the acolytes led the procession from the sacristy. They were
+followed by the sub-deacon, the deacon and the priest who was to sing
+the Mass. When the Mass began the choir broke forth, singing the
+Introit.
+
+The practice of singing in church proceeds from the idea that, in the
+exaltation of prayer, the soul, having reached the last limit obtainable
+by mere words, demands an extended expression, and finds it in song. The
+earliest form of music, the plain chant or Gregorian, is sung in unison,
+for it was intended to be sung by the whole congregation, but as only a
+few in every congregation are musicians, the idea of a choir could not
+fail to suggest itself; and, once the idea of a choir accepted, part
+writing followed, and the vocal masses of the sixteenth century were the
+result. Then the art of religious music had gone as far as it could, and
+the next step, the introduction of an accompanying instrument, was
+decadence.
+
+The "Missa Brevis" is one of the most exquisite of the master's minor
+works. It is written for four voices, and with the large choir at his
+command, Mr. Innes was able to put eight to ten voices on a part; and
+hearing voices darting, voices soaring, voices floating, weaving an
+audible embroidery, Evelyn felt the vanity of accompaniment instruments.
+Upon the ancient chant the new harmonies blossomed like roses on an old
+gnarled stem, and when on the ninth bar of the "Kyrie" the tenors softly
+separated from the sustained chord of the other parts, the effect was as
+of magic. Evelyn lifted her eyes and saw her dear father conducting with
+calm skill.
+
+She had heard the Mass in Rome, and remembered the beautiful phrase
+which opens the "Kyrie" and which is the essence of the first part of
+that movement. But the altos had not the true alto quality; they were
+trebles singing in the lower register of their voices. Leaning towards
+her, Ulick whispered, "The altos are not quite in tune." She had heard
+nothing wrong, but, seeing that he was convinced, she resolved to submit
+the matter to her father's decision. She had every confidence in the
+accuracy of her ear; but last night her father had said that the modern
+musical ear was not nearly so fine as the ancient, trained to the exact
+intervals of the monochord, instead of the coarse approximation of the
+keyboard.
+
+She remembered that when she had heard the Mass in Rome there was a
+moment when she had longed for the sweet concord of a pure third. Now,
+when it came at the end of the first note of the basses, Ulick said, "It
+is as sharp as that of an ordinary piano." It had not seemed so to her,
+and she wondered if her ear had deteriorated, if the corrupting
+influence of modern chromatic music had been too strong, if she had lost
+her ear in the Wagner drama. The coarse intonation was more obvious in
+the "Christe Eleison," sung by four solo voices, than in the "Kyrie,"
+sung by the full choir; and she did catch a slight equivocation, and the
+discovery tended to make her doubt Ulick's assertion that the altos were
+wrong in the "Kyrie," for, if she heard right in one place, why did she
+not hear right in another? The leading treble had a hard, unsympathetic
+voice, which did not suit the florid passages occurring three times on
+the second syllable of the word Eleison. He hammered them instead of
+singing them tenderly, with just the sense of a caress in the voice.
+
+But outside of such extreme criticism, in the audience of the ordinary
+musical ear, the beautiful "Missa Brevis" was as well given as it could
+be given in modern times, and Evelyn was, of course, anxious to see the
+great prelate to whose energetic influence the revival of this music was
+owing, the man who had helped to make her dear father's life a
+satisfaction to him. It was just slipping into disappointment when the
+prelate had come to save it. This was why Evelyn was so interested in
+him--why she was already attracted toward him. It was for this reason
+she was sitting in one of the front chairs, near to where Monsignor
+would have to pass on his way to the pulpit. He was to preach that
+Sunday at St. Joseph's.... He passed close to her, and she had a clear
+view of his thin, hard, handsome face, dark in colour and severe as a
+piece of mediæval wood carving; a head small and narrow across the
+temples, as if it had been squeezed. The eyes were bright brown, and
+fixed; the nose long and straight, with clear-cut nostrils. She noticed
+the thin, mobile mouth and the swift look in the keen eyes--in that look
+he seemed to gather an exact notion of the congregation he was about to
+address.
+
+Already Evelyn trembled inwardly. The silence was quick with
+possibility; anything might happen--he might even publicly reprove her
+from the pulpit, and to strengthen her nerves against this influence,
+she compared the present tension to that which gathered her audience
+together as one man when the moment approached for her to come on the
+stage. All were listening, as if she were going to sing; it remained to
+be seen if the effect of his preaching equalled that of her singing. She
+was curious to see.
+
+"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
+that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need
+no repentance." In introducing this text he declared it to be one of the
+most beautiful and hopeful in Scripture. Was it the sweet, clear voice
+that lured the different minds and led them, as it were, in leash? Or
+was it that slow, deliberate, persuasive manner? Or was it the
+benedictive and essentially Christian creed which he preached that
+disengaged the weight from every soul, allowing each to breathe an
+easier and sweeter breath? To one and all it seemed as if they were
+listening to the voice of their own souls, rather than that of a living
+man whom they did not know, and who did not know them. The preacher's
+voice and words were as the voices they heard speaking from the bottom
+of their souls in moments of strange collectedness. And as if aware of
+the spiritual life he had awakened, the preacher leaned over the pulpit
+and paused, as if watching the effect of his will upon the congregation.
+The hush trembled into intensity when he said, "Yes, and not only in
+heaven, but on earth as well, there shall be joy when a sinner repents.
+This can be verified, not in public places where men seek wealth, fame
+and pleasure--there, there shall be only scorn and sneers--but in the
+sanctuary of every heart; there is no one, I take it, who has not at
+some moment repented." Instantly Evelyn remembered Florence. Had her
+repentance there been a joy or a pain? She had not persevered. At that
+moment she heard the preacher ask if the most painful moments of our
+lives were the result of our having followed the doctrine of Jesus or
+the doctrine of the world? He instanced the gambler and the libertine,
+who willingly confess themselves unhappy, but who, he asked, ever heard
+of the good man saying he was unhappy? The tedium of life the good man
+never knows. Men have been known to regret the money they spent on
+themselves, but who has ever regretted the money he has spent in
+charity? But even success cannot save the gambler and libertine from the
+tedium of existence, and when the preacher said, "These men dare not be
+alone," Evelyn thought of Owen, and of her constant efforts to keep him
+amused, distracted; and when the preacher said it was impossible for the
+sinner to abstract himself, to enter into his consciousness without
+hearing it reprove him, Evelyn thought of herself. The preacher made no
+distinctions; all men, he said, when they are sincere with themselves,
+are aware of the difference between good and evil living. When they
+listen the voice is always audible; even those who purposely close their
+ears often hear it. For this voice cannot be wholly silenced; it can be
+stifled for a while, but it can be no more abolished than the sound of
+the sea from the shell. "As a shell, man is murmurous with morality."
+
+Of the rest of the sermon Evelyn heard very little.... It was the phrase
+that if we look into our lives we shall find that our most painful
+moments are due to our having followed the doctrine of the world instead
+of the doctrine of Christ that touched Evelyn. It seemed to explain
+things in herself which she had never understood. It told her why she
+was not happy. ... Happy she had never been, and she had never
+understood why. Because she had been leading a life that was opposed to
+what she deemed to be essentially right. How very simple, and yet she
+had never quite apprehended it before; she had striven to close her
+ears, but she had never succeeded. Why? Because that whisper can be no
+more abolished than the murmur of the sea from the shell. How true! That
+murmur had never died out of her ears; she had been able to stifle it
+for a while--she had never been able to abolish it--and what convincing
+proof this was of the existence of God!
+
+Disprove it you couldn't, for it was part of one's senses--the very
+evidence on which the materialists rely to prove that beyond this world
+there is nothing. Yet what a flagrant contradiction her conduct was to
+the murmur of spiritual existence. And that was why she was not happy.
+That was why she would never be happy till she reformed.... But the
+preacher spoke as if it were easy for all who wished it to change their
+lives. How was she to change her life? Her life was settled and
+determined for her ever since the day she went away with Owen. If she
+sent Owen away again the same thing would happen; she would take him
+back. She could not remain on the stage without a lover; she would take
+another before a month was out. It was no use for her to deceive
+herself! That is what she would do. To sing Isolde and live a chaste
+life, she did not believe it to be possible--and she sat helpless,
+hearing vaguely the Credo, her attention so distracted that she was only
+half aware of its beauty. She noticed that the "Et incarnatus est" was
+inadequately rendered, but that she expected. It would require the
+strange, immortal voices she had heard in Rome. But the vigour with
+which the basses led the "Et resurrexit" was such that the other parts
+could not choose but follow. She felt thankful to them; they dissipated
+her painful personal reverie. Yes, the basses were the best part of the
+choir; among them she recognised two of her father's oldest pupils; she
+had known them as boys singing alto--beautiful voices they had been, and
+were not less beautiful now. But if she desired to reform her life, how
+was she to begin? She knew what the priest would tell her. He would say,
+send away your lover; but to send him away in the plenitude of her
+success would be odious. He was unhappy; he was ill; he needed her
+sorely. His mother's health was a great anxiety to him, and if, on the
+top of all, she were to announce that she intended leaving him, he would
+break down altogether. She owed everything to him. No, not even for the
+sake of her immortal soul would she do anything that would give him
+pain. But he had been anxious to marry her for some time. Would she make
+him a good wife? She was fond of him; she would do anything for him. She
+had travelled hundreds of miles to see him when he was ill, and the
+other night she could not sleep because she feared he was unhappy about
+his mother's health. She would marry him if he asked her. On that point
+she was certain. Refuse Owen? Not for anything that could be offered
+her; nothing would change her from that. Nothing! Her resolve was taken.
+No, it was not taken; it was there in her heart.
+
+And at the moment when the Elevation bell rang she decided not only to
+accept Owen if he asked her, but to use all her influence to induce him
+to ask her. This seemed to her equivalent to a resolution to reform her
+life, and, happier in mind, she bowed her head, and as a very unworthy
+Catholic, but still a Catholic, and feeling no longer as an alien and an
+outcast, she assisted at the mystery of the Mass. She even ventured to
+offer up a vague prayer, and when the dread interval was over, she
+remembered that her father had spoken to her of the second "Agnus Dei"
+as an especially beautiful number. It was for five voices; exquisitely
+prayerful it seemed to her. With devout insistence the theme is
+reiterated by the two soprani, then the voices are woven together, and
+the simile that rose up in her mind was the pious image of fingers
+interlaced in prayer.
+
+The first thrill, the first impression of the music over, she applied
+herself to the dissection of it, so that she might be able to discuss it
+with Ulick and her father afterwards. This beautiful melody, apparently
+so free, was so exquisitely contrived that it contained within itself
+descant and harmony. She knew it well; it is a strict canon in unison,
+and she had heard it sung by two grey-haired men in the Papal choir in
+Rome, soprano voices of a rarer and more radiant timbre than any woman's
+sexful voice, and subtle, and, in some complex way, hardly of the earth
+at all--voices in which no accent of sex transpired, abstract voices
+aloof from any stress of passion, undistressed by any longing, even for
+God. They were not human voices, and, hearing them, Evelyn had imagined
+angels bearing tall lilies in their hands, standing on wan heights of
+celestial landscape, singing their clear silver music.
+
+These men had sung this "Agnus Dei" as perhaps it never would be sung
+again, but she knew the boy treble to be incapable of singing this canon
+properly, so she could hardly resist the impulse to run up to the choir
+loft and tell her father breathlessly that she would take his place. She
+smiled at the consternation such an act would occasion. Even if she
+could get to the choir loft without being noticed, she could not sing
+this music, her voice was full of sex, and this music required the
+strange sexless timbre of the voices she had heard in Rome. But the boy
+sang better than she anticipated; his voice was wanting in strength and
+firmness; she listened, anxious to help him, perplexed that she could
+not.
+
+The last Gospel was then read, and she followed Ulick out of church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+On getting outside the church, they were surprised to find that it had
+been raining. The shower had laid the dust, freshened the air, and upon
+the sky there was a beautiful flowerlike bloom; the white clouds hung in
+the blue air unlifting fugitive palace and tower, and when Evelyn and
+Ulick looked into this mysterious cloudland, their hearts overflowed
+with an intense joy.
+
+She opened her parasol, and told him that her father was lunching with
+the Jesuits. But he and she were going to dine together at Dowlands; and
+after dinner they were not to forget to practise the Bach sonata which
+was in the programme for the evening concert. She thought of the long
+day before them, and with mixed wonderment and pleasure of how much
+better they would know each other at the end of the day. She wanted to
+know how he thought and felt about things; and it seemed to her that he
+could tell her all that she yearned to know, though what this was she
+did not know herself.
+
+There were strange hills and valleys and fabulous prospects in the great
+white cloud which hung at the end of the suburban street, and it seemed
+to her that she would like to wander with him there among the white
+dells, and to stand with him upon the high pinnacles. She was happy in
+an infinite cloudland while he told her of her father's struggle to
+obtain mastery in St. Joseph's. But she experienced a passing pang of
+regret that she had not been present to witness the first struggles of
+the reformation.
+
+She was interested in the part that Ulick had played in it. He told her
+how almost every week he had written an article developing some new
+phase of the subject, and Evelyn told him how her father had told her of
+the extraordinary ingenuity and energy with which he had continued the
+propaganda from week to week. When her father was called away to
+negotiate some financial difficulty, Ulick had taken charge of the
+rehearsals. Mr. Innes had told Evelyn that Ulick had displayed an
+unselfish devotion, and she added that he had been to her father what
+Liszt had been to Wagner, and while paying this compliment she looked at
+him in admiration, thanking him with her eyes. Had it not been for him,
+her father might have died of want of appreciation, killed by Father
+Gordon's obstinacy.
+
+"But you came to him," she said, speaking unwillingly, "when I
+selfishly left him."
+
+Ulick would not concede that he was worthy of any distinction in the
+victory of the old music; it would have achieved its legitimate triumph
+without his aid. He had merely done his duty like any private soldier in
+the ranks. But from first to last all had depended upon Monsignor. Mr.
+Innes had shown more energy and practical intelligence than anyone, not
+excepting Evelyn herself, would have credited him with; he had
+interested many people by his enthusiasm, but nevertheless he had
+remained what he was--a man of ideas rather than of practice, and
+without Monsignor the reformation would have come to naught. Evelyn was
+strangely interested to know what Ulick thought of Monsignor, and she
+waited eager for him to speak. She would have liked to hear him
+enthusiastic, but he said that Monsignor was no more than an Oxford don
+with a taste for dogma and for a cardinal's hat. He was not a man of
+ideas, but a man that would do well in an election or a strike. He was
+what folk call "a leader of men," and Ulick held that power over the
+passing moment was a sign of inferiority. Shakespeare and Shelley and
+Blake had never participated in any movement; they were the movement
+itself, they were the centres of things. Christ, too, had failed to lead
+men, he was far too much above them; but St. Paul, the man of inferior
+ideas, had succeeded where Christ had failed. Mostyn, he maintained, was
+much more interested in dogma than in religion; he abhorred mysticism,
+and believed in organisation. He considered his Church from the point of
+view of a trades union. An unspiritual man, one much more interested in
+theology than in God--an able shepherd with an instinct for lost sheep
+whose fixed and commonplace ideas gave him command over weak and exalted
+natures, natures which were frequently much more spiritual than his own.
+Evelyn listened, amused, though she could not think of Monsignor quite
+as Ulick did. Monsignor had said that if we ask ourselves to what our
+unhappiness is attributable, we find that it is attributable to having
+followed the way of the world instead of the way of Christ.
+
+It seemed to her impossible that a man of inferior intelligence such as
+Ulick described could think so clearly. She reminded Ulick of these very
+sentences which had so greatly moved her, and it flattered her to hear
+him admit it, that the idea which had so greatly struck her was
+penetrating and far-reaching, but he denied that it was possible that it
+could be Monsignor's own. It was something he had got out of a book, and
+seeing the effect that could be made of it, he had introduced it into
+his sermon. In support of this opinion, he said that all the rest of the
+sermon was sententious commonplace about the soul, and obedience to the
+Church.
+
+"But you will be able to judge for yourself. He is coming to the
+concert to-night."
+
+"Then I must have a dress to wear, I suppose he would like me to wear
+sackcloth. But I am going to wear a pretty pink silk, which I hope you
+will like. Call that hansom, please."
+
+It was amusing to watch her write the note, hear her explain to the
+cabman: if he brought back the right dress he was to get a sovereign. It
+was amusing to stroll on through the naked Sunday streets, talking of
+the music they had just heard and of Monsignor, to find suddenly that
+they had lost their way and could see no one to direct them. These
+little incidents served to enhance their happiness. They were nearly of
+the same age, and were conscious of it; a generation is but a large
+family, united by ties of impulse and idea. Evelyn had been brought up
+and had lived outside of the influence of her own generation. Now it was
+flashed upon her for the first time, and under the spell of its
+instincts she ran down the steps to the railway and jumped into the
+moving train. Owen would have forbidden her this little recklessness,
+but Ulick accepted it as natural, and they sat opposite each other,
+their thoughts lost in the rustle and confusion of their blood. She was
+conscious of a delicious inward throbbing, and she liked the smooth
+young face, the colour of old ivory, and the dark, fixed eyes into which
+she could not look without trembling; they changed, lighting up and
+clouding as his thought came and went. She found an attraction in his
+occasional absent-mindedness, and wondered of what he was thinking.
+Looking into his eyes, she was aware of a mystery half understood, and
+she could not but feel that this enigma, this mystery, was essential to
+her. Her life seemed to depend upon it; she seemed to have come upon the
+secret at last.
+
+It was amusing to walk home to dinner together this bright summer's day,
+and to tell this young man, to whose intervention it pleased her to
+think that she owed her reconciliation to her father, how it was by
+pretending not to understand the new harpsichord that she had inveigled
+her father into speaking to her.... But it was only one o'clock--an hour
+still remained before dinner would be ready at Dowlands, and they were
+glad to dream it under the delicious chestnut trees. She sat intent,
+moving the tiny bloom from side to side with her parasol, thinking of
+her father. Suddenly she told Ulick of the Wotan and Brunnhilde scene,
+which she had always played, while thinking of the real scene that one
+day awaited her at her father's feet, and this scene she had at last
+acted, if you could call reality acting. She was dimly aware of the old
+Dulwich street, and that she had once trundled her hoop there, and the
+humble motion of life beneath the chestnut trees, the loitering of stout
+housewives and husbands in Sunday clothes, the spare figures of
+spinsters who lived in the damp houses which lay at the back of the
+choked gardens was accepted as a suitable background for her happiness.
+Her joy seemed to dilate in the morning, in the fluttering sensation of
+the sunshine, of summer already begun in the distant fields. Inspired by
+the scene, Ulick began to hum the old English air, "Summer is a-coming
+in," and without raising her eyes from the chestnut blooms that fell
+incessantly on the pavement, Evelyn said--"That monk had a beautiful
+dream."
+
+And for a while they thought of that monk at Reading composing for his
+innocent recreation that beautiful piece of music; they hummed it
+together, thinking of his quiet monastery, and it seemed to them that it
+would be a beautiful thing if life were over, if it might pass away, as
+that monk's life had passed, in peace, in aspiration whether of prayer
+or of art. Thinking of the music she had heard over night, that she had
+hummed through and that her father had played on the harpsichord, she
+said--"And you, too, had a beautiful dream when you wrote 'Connla and
+the Fairy Maiden'?"
+
+"Ah, your father showed it to you; you hadn't told me."
+
+Then, absorbed in his idea, never speaking for effect, stripping himself
+of every adventitious pleasure in the service of his idea, he told her
+of the change that had come upon his æstheticism in the last year. He
+had been organist for three years at St. Patrick's, and since then had
+been interested in the modes, the abandoned modes in which the plain
+chant is written. These modes were the beginning of music, the original
+source; in them were written, no doubt, the songs and dances of the folk
+who died two, three, four, five thousand years ago, but none of this
+music had been preserved, only the religious chants of this distant
+period of art have come down to us, and from this accident his sprung
+the belief that the early modes are only capable of expressing religious
+emotion. But the gayest rhythms can be written in these modes as easily
+as in the ordinary major and minor scales. It was thought, too, that the
+modes did not lend themselves to modulation, but by long study of them
+Ulick had discovered how they may be submitted to the science of
+modulation.
+
+"I see," Evelyn replied pensively. "The first line written in one of the
+ancient modes, and underneath the melody, chromatic harmonies."
+
+"No, that would be horrible," Ulick cried, like a dog whose tail has
+been trodden upon. "That is the infamous modern practice. I seek the
+harmony in the sentiment of the melody I am writing, in the tonality of
+the mode I am writing."
+
+And then, little by little, they entered the perilous question of the
+ancient modes. There were several, and three were as distinctive and as
+rich sources of melody and harmony as the ordinary major scale, for
+modern music limited itself to the major scale, the minor scale being a
+dependency. The major and minor modes or scales had sufficed for two or
+three centuries of music, but the time of their exhaustion was
+approaching, and the musicians of the future would have to return to the
+older scales. He refused to admit that they did not lend themselves to
+modulation, and he answered, when Evelyn suggested that the introduction
+of a sharp or a flat was likely to alter the character of the ancient
+scales, that she must not judge the ancient scales by what had already
+been written in them; it was nowise his intention to imitate the
+character of the plain chant melodies; she must not confuse the
+sentiment of these melodies with the modes in which they were written.
+It might be that in adding a sharp or a flat the musician destroyed the
+character of the mode which he was leaving and that of the mode he was
+passing into, but that proved nothing except his want of skill. His
+opera was written not only in the three ancient modes, but also in the
+ordinary major and minor scales, and he believed that he had enlarged
+the limits of musical expression.
+
+He was not the first young man she had met with schemes for writing
+original music. So far as she was capable of judging, his practice was
+better than his theory. But his music was not the origin of her interest
+for him. What really interested her were his beliefs; her personal
+interest in him had really begun when he had said that he believed in a
+continuous revelation. Of this revelation he had argued that Christ was
+only a part. These ideas, which she heard for the first time, especially
+interested her. Owen's agnosticism had given her freedom and command of
+this world, but it had made a great loneliness in her life which Owen
+was no longer able to fill. Life seemed a desert without some form of
+belief, and notwithstanding her success, her life was often intolerably
+lonely. She had often thought of the world's flowers and fruits as mere
+semblance of things without true reality, and what seemed a bountiful
+garden, a mere hard, dry, brilliant desert. It was only at certain
+moments, of course, that she thought these things, but sometimes these
+thoughts quite unexpectedly came upon her, and she could no longer
+conceal from herself the fact that she was lonely in her soul, and that
+she was growing lonelier. She was wearying a little of all the visible
+world, beginning to hunger for the invisible, from which she had closed
+her eyes so long, but which, for all that, had never become wholly
+darkened to her.
+
+Hearing Ulick speak of foreseeing and divinations by the stars was, too,
+like sweet rain in a dying land; and as they returned to Dowlands, she
+spoke to him of Moy Mell where Boadag is king, of the Plain of the Ever
+Living, of Connla and the Fairy Maiden gliding in the crystal boat over
+the Western Sea, and during dinner she longed to ask him if he believed
+in a future life.
+
+It was difficult for her, who had never spoken on such subjects before,
+to disentangle his philosophy, and it was not until he said that we
+must not believe as religionists do, that one day the invisible shall
+become the visible, that she began to understand him. Such doctrine, he
+said, is paltry and materialistic, worthy of the theologian and the
+agnostic. We must rather, he said, seek to raise and purify our natures,
+so that we may see more of the spiritual element which resides in
+things, and which is visible to all in a greater or less degree as they
+put aside their grosser nature and attain step by step to a higher point
+of vision. She had always imagined there was nothing between the
+materialism of Owen and the theology of Monsignor. Ulick's ideas were
+quite new to her; they appealed to her imagination, and she thought she
+could listen for ever, and was disappointed when he reminded her that
+she must practise the Bach sonata for the evening's concert.
+
+It did not, however, detain them long, for she found to her great
+pleasure that she had not lost nearly as much of her playing as she
+thought.
+
+The evening lengthened out into long, clear hours and thoughts of the
+green lanes; and to escape from hauntings of Owen--the music-room it
+seemed still to hold echoes of his voice--she asked him to walk out with
+her. They wandered in the cloudless evening. They sauntered past the
+picture gallery, and the fact that she was walking with this strange and
+somewhat ambiguous young man provoked her to think of herself and him as
+a couple from that politely wanton assembly which had collected at
+eventide to watch a pavane danced beneath the beauty of a Renaissance
+colonnade, and to accentuate the resemblance Evelyn fluttered her
+parasol and said, pointing across the yellow meadows--
+
+"Look at those idle clouds, the afternoon is falling asleep."
+
+She walked for some time touched with the sentiment that the evening
+landscape inspired, a little uncertain whether he would like to talk
+further about his spiritual nature, and whether she should rest
+contented with what she knew on that subject. "It is only curiosity, but
+I wonder how he would make love--how he'd begin? I wonder if he cares
+for women?" It was some time before she could get Ulick to talk of
+himself; he seemed to strive to change the conversation back to artistic
+questions. He seemed absorbed in himself; it seemed difficult to awaken
+him out of his absent-mindedness. At last he spoke suddenly, as was his
+habit, and she learned that the scene of his first love-making was a
+beautiful Normandy park. He was more explicit about the park than the
+lady, and he seemed to lay special stress on the fact that the great
+saloon in the castle was hung with a faded tapestry. The story seemed to
+Evelyn a little obscure, but she gathered that Ulick had been tragically
+separated from her, whether by the intervention of another woman or
+through his own fault did not seem clear. The story was vague as a
+legend, and Evelyn was not certain that Ulick had not invented the park
+and the tapestries as characteristic decorations of a love story as it
+should happen to him, if it did happen.
+
+Love as a theme did not seem to suit him; he seemed to fade from her; he
+was only real when he spoke of his ideas, and a fleeting comparison
+between him and herself passed across her mind. She remembered that she
+was no longer truly herself except when speaking of sexual emotion.
+Everything else had begun to seem to her trivial, trite and
+uninteresting. She could no longer take an interest in ordinary topics
+of conversation. If a man was not going to make love to her, she soon
+began to lose interest.... A long sequence of possibilities rose in her
+mind, and died away in the distance like flights of birds. Suddenly she
+began to sing, and they had a long and interesting talk about her
+rendering of Isolde in the first act. For a moment the love potion
+seemed as if it would carry the conversation back to their individual
+experiences of the essential passion; but they drifted instead into a
+discussion regarding the practice of sorcery in the middle ages. She was
+surprised to learn that she was not only a believer, but was apparently
+an adept in all the esoteric arts. But the subject being quite new to
+her, she followed with difficulty his account of a very successful
+evocation of the spirit of a mediæval alchemist, a Fleming of the
+fourteenth century, and wonder often interrupted her attention. She
+could not reconcile herself to the belief that he was serious in all he
+said, and he often spoke of the Kabbala, which apparently was the secret
+ritual of a sect of which he was a member, perhaps a priest. Between
+whiles she thought of the indignation with which Owen would hear such
+beliefs. Then tempted as by the edge of an abyss, she admired Ulick's
+strange appearance, which helped to make his story credible. She could
+no longer disbelieve, so simply did he tell his tales, his white teeth
+showing, and his dark eyes rapidly brightening and clouding as he
+mentioned different spells and their effects. But so illusive were his
+narratives that she never quite understood; he seemed always a little
+ahead of her; she often had to pause to consider his meaning, and when
+she had grasped it, he was speaking of something else, and she had
+missed the links. To understand him better she attempted to argue with
+him, and he told her of the incredible explanation that Charcot, the
+eminent hypnotist, had had to fall back upon in order to account
+materialistically for some of his hypnotic experiments, and she was
+forced to admit that the spiritualistic explanation was the easier to
+believe.
+
+She was most interested when he spoke of the College of Adepts and the
+Rosicrucians. Life as he spoke seemed to become intense and exalted, and
+the invisible seemed on the point of becoming visible when he told her
+how the brotherhood greeted each other with, "Man is God, and son of
+God, and there is no God but man." He repeated all he could remember of
+their terrible oath. The College of Adepts, she learned, was the
+antithesis of the monastery. The monastery is passive spirituality, the
+College of Adepts is active spirituality; the monastery abases itself
+before God, the Adepts seek to become as gods. "There is a spiritual
+stream," he said, "that flows behind the circumstance of history, and
+they claim that all religions are but vulgarisations of their doctrine.
+The Adept, by conquering passion and ignorance, attains a mastery over
+change, and so prolongs his life beyond any human limit."
+
+She begged Ulick not to forget to bring the book of magic which
+contained the oath of the Rosicrucians.
+
+It was now after eight, and they returned home, watching the white mists
+creeping up the blue fields. The sky was lucent as a crystal, and the
+purple would not die out of the west until nearly midnight. Evelyn would
+have liked to have stayed with him in the twilight, for as the landscape
+darkened, his strange figure grew symbolic, and his words, whether by
+beauty of verbal expression or the manner with which they were spoken,
+seemed to bring the unseen world nearer. The outside world seemed to
+slip back, to become subordinate as earth becomes subordinate to the sky
+when the stars come. Evelyn felt the life of the flesh in which Owen had
+placed her fall from her; it became dissipated; her life rose to the
+head, and looking into the mists she seemed to discover the life that
+haunts in the dark. It seemed to whisper and beckon her.
+
+Her father was in the music-room when they returned, and at sight of him
+she forgot Ulick and his enchantments.
+
+"Father, dear, I am so proud of you." Standing by him, her hand on his
+shoulder, she said, "Your choir is wonderful, dear. Palestrina has been
+heard in London at last!"
+
+She told him that she had heard the Mass in Rome, but had been
+disappointed in the papal choir, and she explained why she preferred his
+reading to that of the Roman musician. But he would not be consoled, and
+when he mentioned that the altos were out of tune, Ulick looked at
+Evelyn.
+
+"Father, dear, Ulick and I have had an argument about the altos. He says
+they were wrong in the Kyrie. Were they?"
+
+"Of course they were, but the piano has spoilt your ear. What was I
+saying last night?"
+
+He took down a violin to test his daughter's ear, and the results of the
+examination were humiliating to her.
+
+According to Mr. Innes, Bach was the last composer who had distinguished
+between A sharp and B flat. The very principle of Wagner's music is the
+identification of the two notes.
+
+She ran out of the room, saying that she must change her dress, and Mr.
+Innes looked at Ulick interrogatively. He seemed a little confused, and
+hoped he had not hurt her feelings, and Ulick assured him that
+to-morrow she would tell the incident in the theatre, that she would be
+the first to see the humour of it. The news that she was staying at
+Dowlands, and the presumption that she would sing at the concert, had
+brought many a priest from St. Joseph's, and all the painters, men of
+letters, and designers of stained glass, and all the old pupils, the
+viol players, and the madrigal singers, and when Evelyn came downstairs
+in her pink frock, she was surrounded by her old friends.
+
+"Do come, girls; can you come on Thursday night? I'll send you seats. It
+would be such a pleasure to me to sing to you, but not to-night;
+to-night I want to be like old times. I am going to play the viola da
+gamba."
+
+"But you used to sing Elizabethan songs in old times."
+
+"Yes, but father thinks I have lost my ear; I shall not sing to-night."
+
+Ulick laughed outright; the others looked at Evelyn amazed and a little
+perplexed, and the consumptive man who wore brown clothes and who had
+asked her to marry him came forward to congratulate her. But while
+talking to him, her eyes were attracted by the tall, spare ecclesiastic
+who stood talking to her father. She thought vaguely of Ulick's
+depreciation. In spite of herself she felt herself gravitating towards
+him. Several times she nearly broke off the conversation with the
+consumptive man: her feet seemed to acquire a will of their own. But
+when her eyes and thought returned to the consumptive man, her heart
+filled with plaintive terror, for she could not help thinking of the
+little space he had to live, and how soon the earth would be over him.
+She met in his eyes a clear, plaintive look, in which she seemed to
+catch sight of his pathetic soul. She seemed to be aware of it, almost
+in contact with it, and through the eyes she divined the thought passing
+there, and it was painful to her to think that it was of her health and
+success he was thinking. She could see how cruelly she reminded him of
+his folly in asking her to marry him, and she was quite sure that he was
+thinking now how very lucky for her it was that she had refused him.
+Pictures were formulating, she could see, in his poor mind of how
+different her life would have been in the home he had to offer her, and
+all this seemed to her so infinitely pathetic that she forgot Ulick,
+Monsignor and everything else. Her father called her.
+
+"Evelyn," he said, "let me introduce you to Monsignor."
+
+The sight of a priest always shocked her; the austere face and the
+reserved manner, the hard yet kind eyes, that appearance of
+frequentation of the other world, at least of the hither side of this,
+impressed her, and she trembled before him as she had trembled six years
+ago when she met Owen in the same room. And when the concert was over,
+when she lay in bed, she wondered. She asked herself how it was that a
+little ordinary conversation  about church singing--Palestrina, plain
+chant, the papal choir, and the rest of it--should have impressed her so
+vividly, should have excited her so much that she could not get to
+sleep.
+
+She remembered the discontent when it began to be perceived that she did
+not intend to sing, and how Julia had said, when it came to her to sing,
+that she did not dare. Julia had fixed her eyes on her, and then
+everyone seemed to be looking at her. The consumptive man was emboldened
+to demand "Elsa's Dream," but she had refused to sing for him. She was
+determined that nothing would induce her to sing that night, but
+suddenly Monsignor had said--
+
+"I hope you will not refuse to sing, Miss Innes. Remember that I cannot
+go to the opera to hear you."
+
+"If you wish to hear me, Monsignor, I shall be pleased indeed."
+
+It was impossible for her to refuse Monsignor; it was out of the
+question that she should refuse to sing for him. If he had wished it,
+she would have had to sing the whole evening. All that was quite true,
+but there seemed to be another reason which she could not define to
+herself. It had given her infinite pleasure to sing to Monsignor, a
+pleasure she had never experienced before, not at least for a very long
+while, and wondering what was about to happen, she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+
+The music-room had seemed haunted with Owen's voice, and yesterday she
+had asked Ulick to walk with her in the lanes so that she might escape
+from it. But to-day half-pleased, half-perplexed by her own perversity,
+she could not resist taking him to the picture gallery--she wanted to
+show him "The Colonnade."
+
+The picture was merged in shadow, and no longer the picture she
+remembered; but when the sun shone, all the rows quickened with amorous
+intrigue, and the little lady held out her striped skirt (she had lost
+none of her bland delight), and the gentleman who advanced to meet her
+bowed with the mock humility of yore, and the beautiful perspectives of
+the colonnade floated into the hush of the trees, and the fountain
+warbled.
+
+For a reason which eluded her, she was anxious to know how this picture
+would strike Ulick, and she tried to draw from him his ideas concerning
+it.
+
+"Their thoughts," he said, "are not in their evening parade; something
+quite different is happening in their hearts...." And while waiting for
+her parasol and his stick, he said--
+
+"I can see that you always liked that picture; you've seen it often
+before."
+
+She had been longing to speak of Owen. He seemed always about them, and
+in phantasmal presence he seemed to sunder them, to stand jailor-like.
+It was only by speaking of Owen that his interdiction could be removed,
+and she said that she had often been to the gallery with him. Having
+said so much, it was easy to tell Ulick of the story of the three days
+of hesitation which had preceded her elopement.
+
+"The Colonnade," and "The Lady playing the Virginal," had seemed to her
+symbols of the different lives which that day had been pressed upon her
+choice. Ulick explained that Fate and free will are not as
+irreconcilable as they seem. For before birth it is given to us to
+decide whether we shall accept or reject the gift of life. So we are at
+once the creatures and the arbiters of destiny. These metaphysics
+excited and then eluded her perceptions, and she hastened to tell him
+how she had stood at the corner of Berkeley Square, seeing the season
+passing under the green foliage, thinking how her life was summarised in
+a single moment. She remembered even the lady who wore the bright
+irises in her bonnet; but she neglected to mention her lest Ulick should
+think that it was memory of this woman's horses that had decided her to
+the choice of her pair of chestnuts. She told him about the journey to
+France, the buying of the trousseau, and the day that Madame Savelli had
+said, "If you'll stay with me a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you." She told him how Owen had sent her to the Bois by herself, and the
+madness that had risen to her brain: and how near she had been to
+standing up in the carriage and asking the people to listen to her. She
+told the tale of all this mental excitement fluently, volubly, carried
+away by the narrative. Suddenly she ceased speaking, and sat absorbed by
+the mystery.
+
+She sat looking into that corner of the garden where the gardener on a
+high ladder worked his shears without pausing. The light branches fell,
+and she thought of how she had grown up in this obscure suburb amid old
+instruments and old music. She remembered her yearning for fame and
+love; now she had both, love and fame. But within herself nothing was
+changed; the same little soul was now as it had been long ago, she could
+hear it talking, living its intense life within her unknown to everyone,
+an uncommunicable thing, unchanged among much change. She remembered how
+Owen, like Siegfried, had come to release her, and all the exhausting
+passion of that time. She had sat with him under this very tree. She was
+sitting there now with Ulick. Everything was changed, yet everything was
+the same.... She was going to fall in love with another man, that was
+all.
+
+She awoke with a start, frightened as by a dream; and before she had
+time to inquire of herself if the dream might come true, she remembered
+the girl with whom Ulick used to play Mozart in a drawing-room hung with
+faded tapestries. She feared that he would divulge nothing, and to her
+surprise he told her that it had happened two years ago at Dieppe, where
+he had gone for a month's holiday. At that time when he was writing
+"Connla and the Fairy Maiden." He had composed a great deal of the music
+by the sea-shore and in sequestered woods; and to assist himself in the
+composition of the melodies, he used to take his violin with him. One
+day, while wandering along the dusty high road on the look out for a
+secluded, shady place, he had come upon what seemed to be a private
+park. It was guarded by a high wall, and looking through an iron gate
+that had been left ajar, he was tempted by the stillness of the glades.
+"A music-haunted spot if ever there was one," he said to himself; and
+encouraged by the persuasion of a certain melody which he felt he could
+work out there, and nowhere but there, he pushed the gate open, and
+entered the park. A perfect place it seemed to him, no one but the birds
+to hear him, and the sun's rays did not pierce the thick foliage of the
+sycamore grove. Never did place correspond more intimately with the mood
+of the moment, and he played his melody over and over again, every now
+and then stopping to write. Her step was so light, and he was so deep to
+his music, that he did not hear it.... She had been listening doubtless
+for some time before he had seen her. He spoke very little French, and
+she very little English, but he easily understood that she wished him to
+go on playing. A little later her father and mother had come through the
+trees; she had held up her hand, bidding them be silent. Ulick could see
+by the way they listened that they were musicians. So he was invited to
+the villa which stood in the centre of the park, and till the end of his
+holiday he went there every day. The girl--Eliane was her beautiful
+name--was an exquisite musician. They had played Mozart in the room hung
+with faded tapestries, or, beguiled by the sunshine, they had walked in
+the park. When Evelyn asked him what they said, he answered simply, "We
+said that we loved each other." But when he returned to Dieppe three
+months later, all was changed. When he spoke of their marriage she
+laughed the question away, and he perceived that his visits were not
+desired; on returning to England, all his letters were returned to
+him.... Soon after she married a Protestant clergyman, and last year she
+had had a baby.
+
+He sat absorbed in the memory of this passion, and Evelyn and the garden
+were perceived in glimpses between scenes of youthful exaltations and
+romantic indiscretions. He remembered how he had threatened to throw
+himself from her window for no other reason except the desire of
+romantic action; and while he sat absorbed in the past, Evelyn watched
+him, nervous and irritated, striving to read in his face how much of the
+burden had fallen from him, and how free his heart might be to accept
+another love story.
+
+As he sat in the garden under the calm cedar tree he dreamed of a
+reconciliation with Eliane. He even speculated on the effect that the
+score of his opera would have upon her if he were to send it--all that
+music composed in her honour. But which opera? Not "Connla and the Fairy
+Maiden," for a great deal of it was crude, thin, absurd. No; he could
+not send it. But he might send "Grania." Yes, he would send "Grania"
+when he had finished it. To arrive suddenly from England, to cast
+himself at her feet--that might move her. Then, with a sigh, "These are
+things we dream of," he thought, "but never do. Only in dreams do men
+set forth in quest of the ideal."
+
+He looked up, Evelyn's eyes were fixed on him, and he felt like Bran
+returning home after his voyage to the wondrous isles.
+
+They saw the footman coming across the green sward. He had come to tell
+her that Mr. Innes was waiting for her. She was taking him to St.
+Joseph's. But there was not room in the victoria for three, and Ulick
+would have to go back to London by train.
+
+"But you will come and see me soon? You promised to go through the
+'Isolde' music with me. Will you come to-morrow?"
+
+Her clear, delightful eyes were fixed upon him; he felt for the first
+time the thrill of her personality; their light caused him to hesitate,
+and then to accept her invitation eagerly. He heard her remind her
+father that he had promised to come to-night to hear her sing Elizabeth.
+He would be there too. He would see her to-night as well, and he stood
+watching the beautiful horses bearing father and daughter swiftly away.
+The shady Dulwich street dozed under a bright sky, and the bloom of the
+flowering trees was shedding its fine dust. He thought of Palestrina and
+Wagner, and a delicious little breeze sent a shower of bloom about his
+feet, as if to remind him of the pathos of the passing illusion of which
+we are a part. He stood watching the carriage, and the happiness and the
+sorrow of things choked him when he turned away.
+
+She was happy with her father, and she felt that he loved her better
+than any lover. The unique experience of taking him to St. Joseph's in
+her carriage, and the event of singing to him that night at Covent
+Garden, absorbed her, and she dozed in her happiness like a beautiful
+rose. Never had she been so happy. She was happier than she merited. The
+thought passed like a little shadow, and a moment after all was
+brightness again. Her father was the real love of her life; the rest was
+mere excitement, and she wondered why she sought it; it only made her
+unhappy. Monsignor was right.... But she did not wish to think of him.
+
+On the steps of St. Joseph's, she bade her father good-bye, and remained
+looking back till she could see him no more. Then she settled herself
+comfortably under her parasol, intent on the enjoyment of their
+reconciliation. The two days she had spent with him looked back upon her
+like a dream from which she had only just awakened. As in a dream, there
+were blurred outlines and places where the line seemed to have so faded
+that she could no longer trace it. The most distinct picture was when
+she stood, her hand affectionately laid on his shoulder, singing Ulick's
+music. She had forgotten the music and Ulick himself, but her father,
+how near she was to him in all her sympathies and instincts! Another
+moment, equally distinct, was when she had looked up and seen him in the
+choir loft conducting with calm skill.
+
+He was coming to-night to hear her sing Elizabeth; that was the great
+event, for without his approval all the newspapers in the world were as
+nothing, at least to her. She hummed a little to herself to see if she
+were in voice. To convince him that she sang as well as mother was out
+of the question, but she might be able to convince him that she could do
+something that mother could not have done. It was strange that she
+always thought of mother in connection with her voice; the other singers
+did not seem to matter; they might sing better or worse, but the sense
+of rivalry was not so intimate. The carriage crossed Westminster Bridge,
+and as she looked down the swirling muddy current, her mother's face
+seemed to appear to her. In some strange way her mother had always
+seemed more real than her father. Her father lived on the surface of
+things, in this life, whereas her mother seemed independent of time and
+circumstance, a sort of principle, an eternal essence, a spirit which
+she could often hear speaking to her far down in her heart. Since she
+had seen her mother's portrait, this sensation had come closer; and
+Evelyn drew back as if she felt the breath of the dead on her face, as
+if a dead hand had been laid upon hers. The face she saw was grey,
+shadowy, unreal, like a ghost; the eyes were especially distinct, her
+mother seemed aware of her; but though Evelyn sought for it, she could
+not detect any sign of disapproval in her face. She looked always like a
+grey shadow; she moved like a shadow. Evelyn was often tempted to ask
+her mother to speak. Her prayer had always been a doubting, hesitating
+prayer, perhaps that was why it had not been granted. But now, sitting
+in her carriage in a busy thoroughfare, she seemed to see over the brink
+of life, she seemed to see her mother in a grey land lit with stars. She
+recalled Ulick's tales of evocation, and wondered if it were possible to
+communicate with her mother. But even if she could speak with her, she
+thought that she would shrink from doing so. She thought of what Ulick
+had said regarding the gain and loss of soul, how we can allow our soul
+to dwindle, and how we can increase it until communion with the
+invisible world is possible. She felt that it were a presumption to
+limit life to what we see, and Owen's argument that ignorance was the
+cause of belief in ghosts and spirits seemed to her poor indeed. Man
+would not have entertained such beliefs for thousands of years if they
+had been wholly false.
+
+Ulick was coming to-morrow. But he was going to read through Isolde's
+music with her, and she could hardly fail to learn something, to pick up
+a hint which she might turn to account.... Her conduct had been
+indiscreet; she had encouraged him to make love to her. But in this case
+it did not matter; he was a man who did not care about women, and she
+recalled all he had said to convince herself on this point. However this
+might be, the idea of her falling in love with him was out of the
+question. A second lover stripped a woman of every atom of self-esteem,
+and she glanced into her soul, convinced that she was sincere with
+herself, sure or almost sure that what she had said expressed her
+feelings truthfully. But in spite of her efforts to be sincere, there
+was a corner of her soul into which she dared not look, and her thoughts
+drew back as if they feared a lurking beast.
+
+Immediately after, she remembered that she had vowed in church that she
+would ask Owen to marry her. Owen would say yes at once, he would want
+to marry her at the end of the week; and once she was married, she would
+have to leave the stage. She would not be able to play Isolde.... But
+she knew the part! it would seem silly to give up the stage on the eve
+of her appearance in the part. It would be such a disappointment to so
+many people. All London was looking forward to seeing her sing Isolde.
+Mr. Hermann Goetze, what would he say? He would be entitled to
+compensation. A nice sum Owen would have to pay for the pleasure of
+marrying her. If she were to pay the indemnity--could she? It would
+absorb all her savings. More than all. She did not think she could have
+saved more than six or seven thousand pounds. The manager might claim
+twenty. Her thoughts merged into vague calculations regarding the value
+of her jewellery.... Even Owen would not care to pay twenty thousand
+pounds so that he might marry her this season instead of next. Next year
+she was going to sing Kundry! Her face tightened in expression, and a
+painful languor seemed to weaken and ruin all her tissues. He might ask
+her why she had so suddenly determined to accept what she had often
+avoided, put aside, postponed. She would have to give some reason. If
+she didn't, he would suspect--what would he suspect? That she was in
+love with Ulick?
+
+She might tell Owen that she wished to be married on account of scruples
+of conscience. But she had better not speak of Monsignor. Any mention of
+a priest was annoying to him. In that respect he was even more
+arbitrary, more violent than ever. But a sudden desire to see him arose
+in her, and she told the coachman to drive to Berkeley Square.
+
+The trees wore their first verdure, and there was a melody among the
+boughs, and she took pleasure in the graceful female figure pouring
+water from the long-necked ewer. She lay back in her carriage, imitating
+the lady she had seen six years ago, regretting that she would not know
+her if she were to meet her; she might be one of her present friends.
+
+Owen's house had been freshly painted that spring, its balcony was full
+of flowers chosen by herself, and arranged according to her taste ...
+and a pleasant look of recognition lit up in the eyes of the footmen in
+the hall, and the butler, whom Evelyn remembered since the first day she
+came to Berkeley Square, was sorry indeed that Sir Owen was out. But he
+was sure that Sir Owen would not be long. Would she wait in Sir Owen's
+room, or would she like lunch to be served at once? She said she would
+wait in Sir Owen's room, and she walked across the hall, smiling at the
+human nature of the servants' admiration. If their master had a
+mistress, they were glad that he had one they could boast about. And
+picking up two songs by Schubert, and hoping she was in good voice, she
+sat down at the piano and sang them. Then, half aware that she was
+singing unusually well, she sang another. The third song she sang so
+beautifully that Owen stood on the threshold loth to interrupt her, and
+when she got up from the piano he said--
+
+"Why on earth don't you sing like that on the stage?"
+
+"Ah, if one only could," she said, laughing, and taking him by the hand,
+she led him to the sofa and sat beside him as if for a long talk.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I've seen him. It's all right."
+
+"I'm so glad. I hope you said something in my favour. I don't want him
+to think me a brute, a villainous seducer, the man who ruined his
+daughter?"
+
+"No, there was nothing of that kind."
+
+She began at first very gravely, but her natural humour overcame her,
+and she made him laugh, with her account of her wooing of her father,
+and the part the new harpsichord had played in their reconciliation
+delighted him. He was full of pleasant comments, gay and sympathetic; he
+was interested in her account of Ulick, and said he would like to know
+him. This pleased her, and looking into Owen's eyes, she wondered if she
+should ask him to marry her. They talked of their friends, of the
+performance that night at the opera, and Evelyn thought that perhaps
+Owen ought not to go there lest he should meet her father, and she
+remembered that she had only to ask him to marry her in order to make it
+quite easy for him to meet her father. Every moment she thought she was
+going to ask him; she determined to introduce the subject in the first
+pause in the conversation, but when the pause came she didn't or
+couldn't; her tongue did not seem to obey her. She talked instead things
+that did not interest either her or him--the general principles of
+Wagner's music, or some technicality, whether she should insist on the
+shepherd's song being played on the English horn. At last she felt that
+she could not continue, so fictitious and strained did the conversation
+seem to her.
+
+"Are you going already? I've not seen you for four days. We are dining
+to-morrow at Lady Merrington's."
+
+Owen hoped that she would sing there the three songs which she had just
+sung so well, but she answered instantly that she did not think she
+would, that she wanted to sing Ulick's songs. She knew that this second
+mention of Ulick's name would rouse suspicion; she tried to keep it
+back, but it escaped her lips. She was sorry, for she did not think that
+she wished to annoy. She would not stop to lunch, though she could not
+urge any better reason than that Lady Duckle was waiting for her, and
+when he wished to kiss her, she turned her head aside; a moody look
+collected in her eyes, an ugly black resentment gathered in her heart;
+she was ashamed of herself, for there was nothing to warrant her being
+so disagreeable, and to pass the matter off, she described herself as
+being aggressively virtuous that morning.
+
+On her singing nights she dined at half-past five, and the interval
+after dinner she spent in looking through her part, humming bits of it
+to herself, but to-day Lady Duckle was quick to remark the score of
+"Tannhäuser" in her hand. She sat with it on her knees, looking at it
+only occasionally, for she was thinking how the music would appeal to
+her father, and how her mother would have sung it. But she had to
+abandon these vain speculations. She must play the part as she felt it,
+to tamper with her conception would be to court failure. To please
+herself was her only chance of pleasing her father; if he did not like
+her reading of the part, if her singing did not please him, it was very
+unfortunate, but could not be helped. And when the carriage came to take
+her to the theatre, she was not sure that she would not be glad to
+receive a telegram saying that he was prevented from coming. She was
+very nervous while dressing, and on coming downstairs she stood watching
+the stage-box where he was sitting. She could distinguish his handsome,
+grave face through the shadows, and the orchestra was playing that
+rather rhetorical address to the halls which neither she nor Ulick cared
+much about. She waited, forgetful of her entrance, and she had to hurry
+round to the back of the stage.
+
+But the moment the curtain went up, she became the mediæval German
+princess; her other life fell behind her, and her father was but a
+little shadow on her brain. Yet he was the inspiration of her acting,
+and that night the whole theatre consisted for Evelyn of one stage-box.
+Her eyes never wandered there, but she knew that there sat her ultimate
+judge, one whom no excess or trick could deceive. He would not judge her
+by the mere superficial appearance she presented on the stage, by the
+superficial qualities of her voice or her acting; he would see to the
+origin of the idea, whence it had sprung, and how it had been developed.
+He did not know this particular opera, but he knew all music, and would
+judge it and her not according to the capricious taste of the moment,
+but in its relation and her relation to the immutable canons of art,
+from the plain chant to Palestrina, from Palestrina to Bach and
+Beethoven. Her singing of every phrase would be passed as it were
+through the long tradition of the centuries; it would not be accepted as
+an isolated fact, it would be judged good, indifferent or bad, by
+learned technical comparison. That she was his daughter would weigh not
+a hair's weight in the scale, and the knowledge of this terrible justice
+raised her out of herself, detached her more completely from the
+superficial and the vulgar. She sang and acted as in a dream,
+hypnotised by her audience, her exaltation steeped in somnambulism and
+steeped in ecstasy.
+
+The curtain was raised several times, but that night the only applause
+or censure she was minded to hear awaited her in her dressing-room. She
+sent her maid out of the room, and waited for some sound of footsteps in
+the corridor, and at the first sound she rushed to the door and flung it
+open. It was her father, Merat was bringing him along the corridor, and
+they stood looking at each other; her clear, nervous eyes were trembling
+with emotion. His face seemed to tell her that he was pleased; she read
+upon it the calm exaltation of art, yet she could not however summon
+sufficient courage to ask him, and they sat down side by side. At last
+she said--
+
+"Why don't you speak? Aren't you satisfied? Was I so bad?"
+
+"You are a great artist, Evelyn. I wish your mother were here to hear
+you."
+
+"Is that really true? Say it again, father. You are satisfied with me.
+Then I have succeeded."
+
+He told her why she had sung well, and he knew so well. It was like
+walking with a man with a lantern; when he raised the light, she could
+see a little farther into the darkness. But she had still the prayer to
+sing to him. She wanted to know what he would think of her singing of
+the prayer. The voice of the call-boy interrupted them. She sang the
+prayer more purely than ever, and the flutes and clarionettes led her up
+a shining road, and when she walked up the stage she seemed to disappear
+amid the palpitation of the stars.
+
+Her father was waiting for her, and on their way to the station she
+could see that he was absorbed in her art of singing. His remarks were
+occasional and disparate, but she guessed his train of thought,
+supplying easily the missing links. His praise was all inferential, and
+this made it more delicate and delicious. On bidding him good-night he
+asked her to come to choir practice. She would have liked to, but her
+accompanist was coming at half-past ten.
+
+There were few days when she was not singing at night that she dispensed
+with her morning's work. She considered herself like a gymnast, bound to
+go through her feats in private, so as to assure herself of her power of
+being able to go through them in public. Even when she knew a part, she
+did not like to sing it many times without studying it afresh. She
+believed that once a week was as often as it was possible to give a
+Wagner opera, and even then an occasional rehearsal was indispensable if
+the first high level of excellence was to be maintained.
+
+With her morning's work she allowed no one to interfere. Owen was often
+sent away, or retained for such a time as his criticism might be of use.
+But to-day she was expecting Ulick; he had promised to go through the
+music with her; so when Merat came to tell her that the pianist had
+arrived, she hesitated, uncertain whether she should send him away. But
+after a moment's reflection she decided not to forego her serious study
+of the part. She only wished to talk to Ulick about the music, to sing
+bits of it here and there, to question him regarding certain readings,
+to get at his ideas concerning it. All that was very interesting and
+very valuable in a way, but it was not hard work, and she felt,
+moreover, that hard work was just what she wanted before the rehearsals
+of "Tristan" began; there were certain passages where she was not sure
+of herself. She thought of the cry Isolde utters in the third act when
+Tristan falls dead. The orchestra comes in then in a way very perplexing
+for the singer, and she had not yet succeeded in satisfying herself with
+those few bars.
+
+"Tell the young man that I shall be with him in half an hour."
+
+And when she had had her bath and her hair was dressed, she tied a few
+petticoats round her waist and slipped on a morning wrapper; that was
+enough, she paid no heed to her accompanist, treating him as if he were
+her hairdresser. She sang sitting close to his elbow, her arm familiarly
+laid upon the back of his chair, a little grey woollen shawl round her
+shoulders. In the passages requiring the whole of her voice, she got up
+and sang them right through, as if she were on the stage, listened to by
+five thousand people. Owen, accustomed as he was to her voice, sometimes
+couldn't help wondering at the power of it; the volume of sound issuing
+from her throat drowned the piano, threatening to break its strings. Her
+ear was so fine that it detected any slightest tampering with the text.
+"You have given me a false chord," she would say; and sure enough, the
+pianist's fingers had accidentally softened some harshness. Sometimes he
+ventured a slight criticism. "You should hold the note a little longer."
+Then she would sing the passage again.
+
+After singing for about two hours she had lunch. That day she was
+lunching with Lady Ascott, and did not get away until after three
+o'clock. Owen came to fetch her, and they went away to see pictures. But
+more present than the pictures were Ulick's dark eyes, and Owen noticed
+the shadow passing constantly behind her eyes. Twice she asked him what
+the time was, and she told him she would have to go soon.
+
+At last she said, "Now I must say good-bye."
+
+She could see he was troubled, and that she grieved him, and at one
+moment it was uncertain whether she would not renounce her visit and
+send Ulick a telegram. But she remembered that he had probably seen her
+father, and would be able to tell her more of what her father thought of
+her Elizabeth. It was that feeble excuse that sufficed to decide her
+conduct, and she bade him good-bye.
+
+Standing on the threshold of her drawing-room, Evelyn admired its
+symmetry and beauty. The wall paper, a delicate harmony in pale brown
+and pink roses, soothed the eye; the design was a lattice, through which
+the flowers grew. An oval mirror hung lengthwise above the white marble
+chimney piece, and the Louis XV. clock was a charming composition of two
+figures. A Muse in a simple attitude leaned a little to the left in
+order to strike the lyre placed above the dial; on the other side, a
+Cupid listened attentive for the sound of the hour, presumably his hour.
+There was a little lyrical inevitableness in the lines of this clock,
+and Owen could not come into the room without admiring it. On the
+chimney piece there were two bowls filled with violets, and the flowers
+partly hid the beautiful Worcester blue and the golden pheasants. And on
+either side of the clock were two Chelsea groups, factitious bowers made
+out of dark green shell-like leaves, in which were seated a lady in a
+flowered silk and a beribboned shepherd playing a flute.
+
+They had spent long mornings seeking a real Sheraton sofa, with six or
+eight chairs to match. For a long time they were unfortunate, but they
+had happened upon two sofas, certainly of the period, probably made by
+Sheraton himself. A hundred and twenty years had given a beautiful
+lustre to the satinwood and to the painted garlands of flowers, and the
+woven cane had attained a rich brown and gold; and the chairs that went
+with the sofa were works of art, so happy were the proportions of their
+thin legs and backs, and in the middle of the backs the circle of
+harmonious cane was in exquisite proportion.
+
+For a long while the question for immediate decision had become what
+carpet should be there. Evelyn had happened upon an old Aubusson carpet,
+a little threadbare, but the dealer had assured her that it could be
+made as good as new, and she had telegraphed to Owen to go to see its
+pale roses and purple architecture. He had written to her that its
+harmony was as florid, and yet as classical as an aria by Mozart. He was
+still more pleased when he saw it down, and he had spent hours thinking
+of what pictures would suit it, would carry on its colour and design.
+The Boucher drawing which he had bought at Christie's had seemed to him
+the very thing. He had brought it home in a cab.
+
+She was proud of her room, but she was doubtful if it would please
+Ulick, and was curious to hear what he would think of it. She remembered
+that Owen had said that such exquisite exteriorities were only possible
+in a pagan century, when man is content to look no farther than this
+strip of existence for the reason of his existence and his birthright.
+And while waiting for Ulick she wondered what his rooms were like, and
+if she would ever go there. She expected him about five, and she sat
+waiting for him by her tea-table amid the eighteenth century furniture,
+a little to the right of the Boucher.
+
+She watched him as he came towards her, expecting and hoping to see him
+cast a quick glance at the picture. He shook hands with her vaguely, and
+sat down on a Sheraton chair and fixed his eyes on the Aubusson carpet.
+She thought for some time that he was examining it, but at last the
+truth dawned; he did not see it at all, he was maybe a thousand years
+away, lost in some legendary past. Had she not seen him before pass from
+such remote mood and become suddenly animated and gay, she would have
+despaired of any pleasure in his visit. Above everything else she was
+minded to ask him if he had seen her father, and if her father had
+spoken to him about her Elizabeth. But shyness prevented her, and she
+spoke to him about ordinary things, and he answered her questions
+perfunctorily, and without any apparent reason he got up and walked
+about the room; but not looking at any object, he walked about, with
+hanging head, absorbed in thought. "If he won't look at me he might look
+at my room, I'm sure that is pretty enough," and she sat watching him
+with smiling eyes. When she asked him what he thought of the Boucher, he
+said that no doubt it was very graceful, but that the only art he took
+interest in, except Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci and some German
+Primitives, was Blake. Then he seemed to forget all about her, and she
+had begun to think his manner more than usually unconventional, and,
+having made all the ordinary remarks she could think of, she asked him
+suddenly if he had seen her father, and if he had said anything to him
+about her Elizabeth.
+
+"I went to Dulwich on purpose to hear."
+
+She blushed, and was very happy. It was delicious to hear that he was
+sufficiently interested in her to go to Dulwich on purpose to inquire
+her father's opinion of her Elizabeth.
+
+"I wonder if he will like my Isolde as well."
+
+He did not answer, and his silence filled her with inquietude.
+
+"I have been thinking over what you said regarding your conception of
+the part."
+
+She waited for him to tell her what conclusion he had come to, but he
+said nothing. At last he got up, and she followed him to the piano. When
+she came to the passage where Isolde tells Brangäne that she intended to
+kill Tristan, he stopped.
+
+"But she is violent; hear these chords, how aggressive they are. The
+music is against you. Listen to these chords."
+
+"I know those chords well enough. You don't suppose I am listening to
+them for the first time. I admit that there are a few places where she
+is distinctly violent. The curse must be given violently, but I think it
+is possible to make it felt that her violence is a sexual violence, a
+sort of wish to go mad. I can't explain. Can't you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I think I do; you want to sing the first part of the act
+languidly. There is more in the music which supports your reading than I
+thought. In the passage where Isolde says to Brangäne, but really to
+herself, 'To die without having been loved by that man!' the love motive
+appears here for the first time, but more drawn out, broader than
+elsewhere."
+
+She declared that Wagner had emphasised his meaning in this passage as
+if he had anticipated all the misreadings of this first act, and was
+striving to guard himself against them. She grew excited in the
+discussion. She had merely followed her instinct, but she was glad that
+Ulick had challenged her reading, for as they examined the music clause
+by clause, they found still further warrant for her conception.
+
+"Ah, the old man knew what he was doing," she said; "he had marked this
+passage to be sung gloomily, and by gloomily he meant infinite
+lassitude." But this intention had not been grasped, and the singers had
+either sung it without any particular expression, or with a stupid stage
+expression which meant if possible something less than nothing. "Then,
+you see, if I sing the first half of the first act as wearily as the
+music allows me, I shall get a contrast--an Isolde who has not drunk the
+love potion. The love potion is of course only a symbol of her surrender
+to her desire."
+
+Ulick would have liked to have gone through the whole of the music of
+the act with her. It was only in this way that he could get an idea of
+how her reading would work out. But in that moment each read in the
+other's eyes an avowal of which they were immediately ashamed, and which
+they tried to dissimulate.
+
+"I am tired. We won't have any more music this evening."
+
+His thoughts seemed to pass suddenly from her, and then, without her
+being aware how it began, she found herself listening intently to him.
+He was talking in that strange, rhythmical chant of his about the primal
+melancholy of man, and his remote past always insurgent in him. Although
+she did not quite understand, perhaps because she did not quite
+understand, she was carried away far out of all reason, and it seemed to
+her that she could listen for ever. Nor could she clearly see out of her
+eyes, and she felt all power of resistance dissolve within her. He might
+have taken her in his arms and kissed her then; but though sitting by
+her, he seemed a thousand miles away; his remoteness chastened her, and
+she asked him of what he was thinking.
+
+"When your father used to speak of you, I used to see you; sometimes I
+used to fancy I heard you. I did hear you once sing in a dream."
+
+"What was I singing? Wagner?"
+
+"No; something quite different. I forgot it all as I awoke except the
+last notes. I seemed to have returned from the future--you seemed in the
+end to lose your voice.... I cannot tell you--I forget."
+
+"It is very sad; how sad such feelings are."
+
+"But I never doubted that I should meet you, that our destinies were
+knit together--for a time at least."
+
+She wanted to ask him by what signs do we recognise the moment that we
+are destined to meet the one that is more important to us than all the
+world. But she could find no way of asking this question that would not
+betray her. She could not put it so that Ulick would fail to read some
+application of the question to herself, and to himself. So it seemed
+strange indeed that he should, as if in answer to her unexpressed
+thought, say that the instinct of man is to consult the stars. She
+remembered the evenings when she used to go into the patch of black
+garden and gaze at the stars till her brain reeled. She used even to
+gather the daffodils and place them on the wall in homage to the star
+which she felt to be hers. She could not refrain from this idolatrous
+act; but in her bed at night, thinking of the flowers and the star, she
+had believed herself mad or very wicked; for nothing in the world would
+she have had anyone know her folly, and she remembered the agony it had
+been to her to confess it. But now she heard that she had been acting
+according to the sense of the wisdom of generations. As he had said,
+"according to the immortal atavism of man."
+
+With her ordinary work-a-day intelligence, she felt that the stars could
+not possibly be concerned in our miserable existence. But deep down in
+her being someone who was not herself, but who seemed inseparable from
+her, and over whom she had no slightest control, seemed to breathe
+throughout her entire being an affirmation of her celestial dependency.
+She could catch no words, merely a vague, immaterial destiny like
+distant music; and her ears filled with a wailing certitude of an
+inseverable affinity with the stars, and she longed to put off this
+shameful garb of flesh and rise to her spiritual destiny of which the
+stars are our watchful guardians. It was like deep music; words could
+not contain it, it was a deep and indistinct yearning for the stars--for
+spiritual existence. She was conscious of the narrowness of the
+prison-house into which Owen had shut her, and looking at Ulick, she
+felt the thrill of liberation; it was like a ray of light dividing the
+dark. Looking at Ulick, she was startled by the conviction of his
+indispensability in her life, and the knowledge that she must repel him
+was an acute affliction, a desolate despair. It seemed cruel and
+disastrous that she might not love him, for it was only through love
+that she could get to understand him, and life without knowledge of him
+seemed failure.
+
+"I'm very fond of you, Ulick, but I mustn't let you kiss me. Can't we
+be friends?"
+
+He sat leaning a little forward, his head bent and his eyes on the
+carpet. He represented to her an abysmal sorrow--an extraordinary
+despair. She longed to share this sorrow, to throw her arms about him
+and make him glad. Their love seemed so good and natural, she was
+surprised that she might not.
+
+"Ulick."
+
+"Yes, Evelyn."
+
+He looked round the room, saw it was getting late, and that it was time
+for him to go.
+
+"Yes, it is getting late. I suppose you must go. But you'll come to see
+me again. We shall be friends, promise me that ... that whatever happens
+we shall be friends."
+
+"I think that we shall always be friends, I feel that."
+
+His answer seemed to her insufficient, and they stood looking at each
+other. When the door closed after him, Evelyn turned away, thinking that
+if he had stayed another moment she must have thrown herself into his
+arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+Dreams was the first of the five, but the music that haunted belonged to
+the third song. She could not quite remember a single phrase, nor any
+words except "pining flowers." She had thought of sending for it, but
+such vague memory suited her mood better than an exact text. If she had
+the song she would go to the piano, and she did not wish to move from
+the Sheraton sofa, made comfortable with pale blue cushions. But again
+the music stirred her memory like wind the tall grasses, and out of the
+slowly-moving harmonies there arose an invocation of the strange pathos
+of existence; no plaint for an accidental sorrow, something that
+happened to you or me, or might have happened, if our circumstances had
+been different; only the mood of desolate self-consciousness in which
+the soul slowly contemplates the disaster of existence. The melancholy
+that the music exhales is no querulous feminine plaint, but an
+immemorial melancholy, an exalted resignation. The music goes out like a
+fume, dying in remote chords, and Evelyn sat absorbed, viewing the world
+from afar, like the Lady of Shallott, seeing in the mirror of memory the
+chestnut trees of the Dulwich street, and a little girl running after
+her hoop; and then her mother's singing classes, and the expectation she
+had lived in of learning to sing, and being brought upon the stage by
+her mother. If her mother had lived, she would have been singing "Romeo
+and Juliet" and "Lucia." ... Her father would have deemed her voice
+wasted; but mother always had had her way with father. Then she saw
+herself pining for Owen, sick of love, longing, hungry, weak, weary,
+disappointed, hopeless. Her thoughts turned from that past, and her
+mother's face looked out of her reverie, grey and grave and watchful,
+only half seen in the shadows. She seemed aware of her mother as she
+might be of some idea, strangely personal to herself, something near and
+remote, beyond this span of life, stretching into infinity. She seemed
+to feel herself lifted a little above the verge of life, so that she
+might inquire the truth from her mother; but something seemed to hold
+her back, and she did not dare to hear the supernatural truth. She was
+still too thrall to this life of lies, but she could not but see her
+mother's face, and what surprised her was that this grey shadow was more
+real to her than the rest of the world. The face did not stir, it
+always wore the same expression. Evelyn could not even tell if the
+expression of the dim eyes was one of disapproval. But it needs must
+be--she could have no doubt on that point. What was certain and sure was
+that she seemed in a nearer and more intimate, in a more essential
+communication with her mother, than with her father who was alive.
+Nothing seemed to divide her from her mother; she had only to let her
+soul go, and it could mingle with her mother's spirit, and then all
+misunderstandings would be at an end.
+
+She was tempted to free herself from this fettering life, where all is
+limitation and division. Its individualism appeared to her particularly
+clear when she thought of Owen. They had clasped and kissed in the hope
+to become part of the other's substance. They had sought to mingle, to
+become one; now it was in the hope of a union of soul that Owen sought
+her, his kisses were for this end. She had read his desire in his eyes.
+But the barrier of the flesh, which at first could barely sunder them,
+now seemed to have acquired a personal life, a separate entity; it
+seemed like some invisible force thrusting them apart. The flesh which
+had brought them together now seemed to have had enough of them; the
+flesh, once gentle and persuasive, seemed to have become stern,
+relentless as the commander in "Don Juan." She thought of it as the
+forest in "Macbeth"; of something that had come out of the inanimate,
+angry and determined--a terrible thing this angry, frustrated flesh.
+Like the commander, it seemed to grasp and hurry her away from Owen, and
+she seemed to hear it mutter, "This vain noise must cease." The idea of
+the flesh was not their pleasure, but the next generation; the
+frustrated flesh was now putting them apart. She hummed the music, and
+the life she had lived continued to loom up and fall back into darkness
+like shapes seen in a faded picture. She had loved Owen, and sung a few
+operas, that was all. She remembered that everything was passing; the
+notes she sang existed only while she sang them, each was a little past.
+A moment approaches; it is ours, and no sooner is it ours than it has
+slipped behind us, even in the space of the indrawing of a breath. No
+wonder, then, that men had come to seek reality beyond this life; it was
+natural to believe that this life must be the shadow of another life
+lying beyond it, and she leaned forward, pale and nervous, in the pale
+grace of the Sheraton sofa.
+
+Her depression that morning was itself a mystery. What did it mean?
+Whence did it proceed? She had not lost her voice. Owen did not love her
+less. Ulick was coming to see her; but within her was an unendurable
+anxiety. It proceeded from nothing without; it was her own mind that
+frightened her. But just now she had been exalted and happy in the
+memory of that deeply emotional music. She tried to remember the exact
+moment when this strange, penetrating sorrow had fallen upon her.
+Whence had it come, and what did it mean? A few minutes ago it was not
+with her. She knew that it would not always be with her, yet it did not
+seem as if it would ever leave her. She could not think of herself as
+ever being happy again. But Ulick would distract this misery from her
+brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the
+music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above
+sorrow, would bear her out of and above the circle of personal
+despondency. Ulick might help her; she could not help herself. She was
+incapable of going to the piano, though she was fully conscious that her
+mood would pass away in music. She walked across the room, her eyes
+contracted with suffering, and she stretched herself like one who would
+rid herself of a burden.
+
+She felt as if she could resign with a little smile the part that she
+had to play in life. Not the past, that was no longer hers either to
+preserve or to blot out; she could not wish herself different from what
+she had been; but the future--was that to be the same as the past? Then,
+with an apparent contradiction to what she had been thinking a few
+moments before regarding the worthlessness of life, she began to think
+that her unhappiness was possibly the result of her eccentric life. She
+had lived in defiance of rules, governed by individual caprice.
+Apparently it had succeeded, but only apparently. Underneath the surface
+of her life she had always been unhappy. All her talent, all her
+intelligence had not been able to save her. And Owen? All that pride of
+intelligence had resulted in unhappiness in his case as in hers. Both
+had disobeyed the law which we feel to be right when we look into the
+very recesses of our soul, and that these laws seem foolish and
+illogical when criticised by the light of reason does not prove their
+untruth. There is something beyond reason, and to become concentric, to
+enter into the conventions, seemed to her in a vague and distant manner
+to be indispensable. She was weary of living in the inhospitable regions
+outside of prejudice and authority.... She felt that it was prejudice
+and authority that gave a meaning, or a sufficient semblance of a
+meaning, to life as it was; she was a helpless atom tossed hither and
+thither by every gust of passion as a leaf in a whirlwind, and she
+longed to understand herself and her mission in life.
+
+In her present attitude towards life, nothing mattered except the
+present reality, the satisfaction of the moment; her present conception
+of life only counselled sacrifice of personal desires for the sake of
+larger desires. But these larger satisfactions did not differ in kind
+from the lesser, and all went the same way, the pleasure we take in a
+bunch of violets, or that which a love story brings, and both pass, but
+one leaves neither remorse nor bitterness behind. A thought told her
+that she was, while in the midst of these moral reflections, preparing
+herself to be Ulick's mistress. She denied the thought and put it
+behind her angrily, attributing its intrusion to her nerves, and to
+separate herself from it she allowed thoughts on the mutability of
+things to again exclusively occupy her. If she were to get up from the
+sofa she would create another division in her life, and to-morrow she
+would not remember her mood of to-day; it would have vanished as if it
+had never been. She asked, What do we live for? and rose nervously from
+the sofa, and then stood still. That half-hour was now behind her; again
+her place in life had been shifted. Yesterday, too, was gone, and with
+it the pleasure of her walk with Ulick. She had walked with him
+yesterday in the Green Park, in the still crystal evening. She could
+almost see the two figures, she could see them at one spot, but if she
+looked too long they disappeared from her eyes. She remembered nothing
+of what they had said, only that the colour of the evening was pale
+blue, with a little east wind in it, and that was yesterday! They had
+talked and walked, and been tremulously interested in each other; but
+she remembered nothing that had been said until they turned to go home.
+Then arose an exact vision of herself and Ulick walking under the
+graceful trees which overhung the Piccadilly railings. There the park
+had been shaped into little dells, and it had reminded her of the
+picture in the Dulwich Gallery. There his pleading was more passionate.
+He had begged her to go away with him, and she had had to answer that
+she could not give Owen up. She had felt that it was better to speak
+frankly, though she was sorry to have to say things that would give him
+pain. She had told him the truth, and was glad she had done so, but she
+liked him very much, and had said it was a pity they had not met
+earlier. "I missed you by about a year," he answered. His words came
+back to her, and she wondered if there was a cause for the accident, and
+if it could have been predicted. They had walked slowly up the pathways,
+and seeing the young summer in the sky and trees, they had walked as
+upon air, borne up by the sadness of finding themselves divided. They
+had thought of what forms and colours their lives would have taken if
+she had waited a few months, if she had not gone away with Owen; or,
+better still, if she had never met Owen. She was conscious that such
+thoughts amounted to an infidelity, and she knew that she did love Ulick
+as she loved Owen. But the temptation was cruelly intense, and she could
+not wrench herself out of its grip. Their voices had fallen, they
+suffocated in the silence. Ulick had mentioned Blake's name, and she had
+accepted an artistic discussion as an escapement, but their hearts were
+overloaded, and it was in answer to his own thoughts that Ulick had
+spoken of the eighteenth-century mystic. For the question had arisen in
+him whether the passions of the flesh are not destructive of spiritual
+exaltation, and he told her that exaltation was the gospel according to
+Blake. We must seek to exalt ourselves, to live in the idea; sexual
+passion was a merely inferior state, but mean content was the true
+degradation.
+
+"Then passion is the highest plane to which the materialist can rise?"
+asked Evelyn, thinking of Owen.
+
+"Yes; I don't think I'm wrong in admitting that, in the main, that is
+Blake's contention."
+
+But at this point he had broken off his discourse, and told an anecdote
+in his half-witty, half-wistful way about an article which he had
+written on Blake and which had somehow strayed into the hands of a man
+and his wife living in Normandy. This couple were at the time engaged in
+continuing the tradition of Bastien Lepage. They laboriously copied what
+they saw in the fields--grey days, hobnailed boots and the rest of it.
+His article had, however, awakened them to the vanity of realism; and
+they had taken their pictures to a neighbouring tower, and at the top of
+it made a holocaust of all their abominable endeavour. And a few days
+after, two faded human beings had presented themselves at Ulick's
+lodgings in Bloomsbury, seemingly at once unhappy and excited, and
+professing their complete willingness to accept the gospel of life
+according to Blake. It was the man who did the talking, the woman, who
+was dressed in olive-green garments, acquiesced in what he said. They
+were tired of materialism; they had trudged that bleak road till they
+were weary, and now they desired Blake, submission to Blake, and were
+therefore disappointed when Ulick explained that Blake's doctrine was
+not subordination to Blake, but the very opposite, the development of
+self, the cultivation of personal will.
+
+"It was clear to me," Ulick said, "that the woman had abased herself
+before the man, that she ate what he ate, drank what he drank, thought
+what he thought, so I decided that we should begin with first
+principles; that the woman should decide for herself, without referring
+to her husband, what she should eat for dinner. But after some efforts
+to attain sufficient personal will, she confessed her incapacity, and I
+therefore proposed to the husband that she should be kept in her room
+until she had regained her will. They went away hopeful, but he called a
+few days after to tell me that the experiment had failed. For after
+striving for many hours to decide between soles and plaice, she had
+burst into tears, and I felt I could not advise him further."
+
+It had seemed a pity to ask Ulick how much of this story was true, how
+much invention; and it was a remembrance of the will-less lady in the
+olive-green gown that caused Evelyn's face to light up into smiles as
+she stood at the window watching for his coming.
+
+Her excuse for not marrying Owen was that she would have to retire from
+the stage. But she was not convinced that that was the real reason.
+There seemed to be another reason at the back of her mind which her
+reason could not drag out. She tried again and again, but it eluded
+her, and it was frightening to find that she had so little knowledge of
+the motives that had determined her life. Feeling that she must change
+her thoughts, she asked herself what a man like Ulick, of spiritual
+temperament, but uninfected with religious dogma, would think of her
+relations with Owen. "Ah, that was the front door bell!" She waited in a
+delicious tremble of expectation, and the servant announcing Sir Owen
+awoke her, and with a shock as painful as if she had been struck on the
+nape of the neck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+On account of the numerous rehearsals demanded by Evelyn for the
+production of "Tristan and Isolde," Mr. Hermann Goetze's opera season
+was limited to four nights a week. But the hours she spent in the
+theatre were only a small part of the time she devoted to her idea. Her
+entire life was lived in or about the new incarnation, her whole life
+seemed to converge and rush into an ultimate channel, and Lady Ascott
+sought her in vain. She avoided social distractions, and the friends she
+saw were those who could talk to her about her idea. But while listening
+she forgot them, and absorbed in her dream strayed round the piano. She
+meditated journeys to Cornwall and Brittany; and one day when Owen
+called he heard that she had gone to Ireland, and was expected back
+to-morrow evening. She read Isolde into the morning paper, receiving
+hints from the cases that came up before the magistrates. She found
+Isolde in every book, all that happened seemed extraordinarily
+fortuitous, the light of her idea revealing significance in the most
+ordinary things. Her life was ransacked like an old work-box, all kinds
+of stages of mentality, opinions, beliefs, prejudices, trite and
+conventional enough, came up and were thrown aside. But now and then the
+memory of an emotion, of a feeling, would prove to be just what she
+wanted to add a moment's life to her Isolde; the memory of a gesture, of
+a look was sufficient, and she sank back in her chair, her eyes dilated
+and moody, thinking how she could work this truth to herself into the
+harmony of the picture she was elaborating.
+
+Evelyn had seen Rosa Sucher play the part, and had admired her rendering
+as far as we can admire that which is not only antagonistic, but even
+discordant to our own natures. She admitted it to be very sweeping,
+triumphant and loud, a fine braying of trumpets from the rise to the
+fall of the curtain. Rosa Sucher had no doubt attained an extraordinary
+oneness of idea, but at what price? Her Isolde was a hurricane, a sort
+of avalanche; and the woman was lost in the storm. She had missed the
+magic of the woman who, personal to our flesh and dream, breaks upon our
+life like the Spring; and this was just what Evelyn wanted to out on the
+stage. There was plenty of breadth, but it was breadth at the price of
+accent. There was a great frame and a sort of design within the frame,
+but in Evelyn's sense the picture was wanting. There was an
+extraordinary and incomprehensible neglect of that personal accent
+without which there is no life. And the difference between the Isolde
+who has not drunk, and the Isolde who has drunk the love potion which
+she, Evelyn, was so intent upon indicating, had never occurred to Rosa
+Sucher, or if it had, it had been swept aside as a negligible detail.
+After all, Isolde has to be a woman a man could be in love with, and
+that is not the impact and the shriek of a gale from the south-west. No
+doubt Rosa Sucher's idea of the part was Wagner's idea at one moment of
+his life. Wagner was a man with hundreds of ideas; he tried them all,
+retaining some and discarding others. Some half-dozen have fixed
+themselves immutably in certain minds, and an undue importance is given
+to them, an importance that Wagner would never have allowed. The absurd
+idea, propounded in the heat of controversy, that all the arts were to
+wax to one art in the music drama, that even sculpture was to be
+represented by attitudes of the actors and actresses! Wagner had written
+this thing in order to confound his enemies and bring the weak-kneed to
+his side, or maybe, it was merely written to make himself clear to
+himself. For it was impossible that a man of genius should be so
+seriously wanting in appreciation of sculpture as to think with the
+centre of his brain, that an actor standing, his hand on his hip, could
+fill the place hitherto occupied in the mind by, let us say, the Hermes
+of Praxiteles. Yet this idea still obtained at Bayreuth, and Rosa Sucher
+walked about, her arms raised and posed above her head, in the
+conventional, statuesque attitude designed for the decoration of beer
+gardens.
+
+"It really is very sad," Evelyn said, her eyes twinkling with the humour
+of the idea, "that anyone should think that such figuration could
+replace sculpture."
+
+"But you will not deny that the actor and the actress can supply part of
+the picturesqueness of a dramatic action."
+
+"No, indeed; but not by attitudinising, but by gestures that tell the
+emotion that is in the mind."
+
+By some obscure route of which they were not aware, these artistic
+discussions wound around the idea which dominated their minds, and they
+were led back to it continually. The story of "Tristan and Isolde"
+seemed to be their own story, and when their eyes met, each divined what
+was passing in the other's mind. The music was afloat on the currents of
+their blood. It gathered in the brain, paralysing it, and the nervous
+exhaustion was unbearable about six, when the servant had taken away the
+tea things; and as the afternoon drooped and the beauty of the summer
+evening began in the park, speech seemed vain, and they could not bring
+themselves to argue any longer.
+
+It was quite true that she had begun to feel the blankness of the
+positivist creed, if it were possible to call it a creed. There seemed
+nothing left of it, it seemed to have shrivelled up like a little
+withered leaf; true or false, it meant nothing to her, it crushed up
+like a dried leaf, and the dust escaped through her fingers. Then
+without any particular reason she remembered a phrase she had heard in
+the theatre.
+
+"As I always says, if one man isn't enough for a woman, twenty aren't
+too many."
+
+The homeliness of this speech seemed to accentuate the moral truth, and
+making application of it to herself, she felt that if she were to take
+another lover she would not stop at twenty. Her face contracted in an
+expression of disgust at this glimpse of her inner nature which had been
+flashed upon her; and looking into herself she could discover nothing
+but a talent for singing and acting. If she had not had her voice, God
+only knows what she would have been, and she turned her eyes from a
+vision of gradual decadence. If she were not to sink to the lowest, she
+must hold to her love of Owen, and not yield to her love of Ulick. This
+low nature which she could distinguish in herself she must conquer, or
+it would conquer her. "If one man isn't enough for a woman, twenty are
+not too many." The humble working woman who had uttered these words was
+right.... If she were to give way she would have twenty and would end by
+throwing herself over one of the bridges.
+
+She felt that she must marry Owen, and under this conclusion she stopped
+like one who has come face to face with a blank wall. But did she love
+him well enough to marry him? She loved him, but was her present love as
+intense as the love that had obsessed her whole nature in Paris six
+years ago? She tried to think that it was, and found casual consolation
+in the thought that if she were not so mad about him now as she was
+then, her love was deeper; it had become a part of herself, and was
+founded on such knowledge of his character that nothing could change or
+alter it. She knew now that in spite of all his faults she could trust
+him, and that was something; she knew that his love for her was
+enduring, that it was not a mere passing passion, as it easily might
+have been. He had given her fame, wealth, position--everything a woman
+could desire. Some might blame him for having taken her away from her
+home, but she did not blame him, for she knew that she could not have
+remained with her father at that time. If she had not gone away with
+Owen she might have killed herself; something had given way within her,
+she had to do what she had done.
+
+But did she love Owen, or was she getting tired of him? It was so easy
+to ask and so difficult to answer these questions. However closely we
+look into our souls, some part of the truth escapes us. One always
+slurred something or exaggerated something.... She remembered that Owen
+had been very tiresome lately; his egoism was ceaseless; it got upon her
+nerves, and she felt that, no matter what happened to her, she could
+not endure it. There were his songs! How tired she was of talking about
+his songs, the long considerations whether this chord or the other
+chord, this modulation or another, were the better. He could not compose
+a dozen bars without having them engraved and sending copies to his
+friends. He wished the whole world to be occupied about him and his
+affairs. He was so childish about his music. Other people said, "Oh,
+yes, very pretty," but she had to sing it. If she refused, it meant
+unpleasantness, and though he did not often say so, a charge of
+ingratitude, for, of course, without him she wouldn't have been able to
+sing at all. The worst of it was that he did not see the ridiculous
+side.
+
+When singing some of his songs, she had caught a look in people's eyes,
+a pitying look, and she could not help wondering if they thought that
+she liked such commonplace, or worse still, if they thought that she was
+obliged to sing it. But when she had remembered all he had done for her,
+it seemed quite a disgrace that she should hate to sing his songs. It
+was the one thing she could do to please him, and she reflected on her
+selfishness. She seemed to have no moral qualities; the idea she had
+expressed to Ulick regarding the necessity of chastity in women
+returned, and she felt sure that in women at least every other virtue is
+dependent on that virtue. But when Owen was ill she had travelled
+hundreds of miles to nurse him; she had not hesitated a moment, and she
+might have caught the fever. She wouldn't have done that if she did not
+love him.... She was always thinking how she could help him, she would
+do anything for him. But he was such a strange man. There were times
+when there was no one kinder, gentler, more affectionate, but at other
+times he turned round and snapped like a mad dog. The desire to be rude
+took him at times like a disease; this was his most obvious fault. But
+his worst fault, at least in her eyes, was his love of parade; his
+determination to appear to the world in the aspect which he thought was
+his by birth and position. Notwithstanding a seeming absence of
+affection and candour, he was always acting a part. True that he played
+the part very well; and his snobbery was never vulgar.
+
+Thinking of him profoundly, looking into his nature with the clear sight
+of six years of life with him, she decided that the essential fault was
+an inability to forego the temptation of the moment. For him the
+temptation of the moment was the greatest of all. He was the essential
+child, and had carried all the child's passionate egoism into his middle
+age. One gave way because everything seemed to mean so much more to him
+that it could to oneself. He could not be deprived of his toy; his toy
+came before everything. But why did he make himself offensive to many
+people by speaking against Christianity? It was so illogical to love
+art as he did and to hate religion.... He had listened much more
+indulgently to Ulick than she had expected, and seemed to perceive the
+picturesqueness of the gods, Angus and Lir. It was Christianity that
+irritated and changed him to the cynic he was not, and forced him into
+arguments which she hated: "that when you went to the root of things, no
+one ever acted except from a selfish motive" and his aphorism, "I don't
+believe in temptations that one doesn't yield to." Her thoughts went
+back over years, to the very day he had said the words to her for the
+first time.... It was true in a way, but it was not the whole truth. But
+to him it was the whole truth, that was the unfortunate part of it, and
+his life was a complete exemplification of this theory, and the result
+was one of the unhappiest men on the face of the earth. He would tell
+you he had the finest place in the world, and the finest pictures in the
+world, yet these things did not save him from unhappiness. He could not
+understand that happiness is attained through renunciation. He had never
+renounced anything, and so his life was a mere triviality. The clearness
+of her vision surprised her; she paused a moment and then continued. He
+must always be amused, he could not bear to be alone. Distraction,
+distraction, distraction was his one cry. She had to combat the spectre
+of boredom and save the man from himself. Hitherto she had done this, it
+had been her pleasure, but if she married him it would become her
+mission, her duty, her life. Could she undertake it? Her heart sank. He
+had worn her out, she could do no more. She grew frightened, life seemed
+too much for her; and then she bit her lips, and vowed that whatever it
+cost her she would marry him if he wished her to.... If she did not mean
+to take the consequences, she ought not to have gone away with him. To
+be Owen's wife was perchance her mission.
+
+It had always been arranged that they were to be married when she left
+the stage. But he wished her to remain on the stage till she had played
+Kundry; but if she were going to leave the stage she did not care to
+delay, nor did she care for the part of Kundry. The meaning of the part
+escaped her.... So the time had come for her to offer herself to Owen.
+Whatever his desires might be, his honour would force him to say Yes. So
+there was no escape. Fate had decreed it so, she was to be his wife; but
+one thing she need not endure, and that was unnecessary suspense. She
+had decided to go to Lady Ascott's ball.... But she wouldn't see him
+there. He was kept indoors by the gout. He had written asking her to
+come and pass the evening with him.... She might call to see him on her
+way to the ball; yes, that is what she would do, and she sat down at
+once and wrote a note.
+
+And she laughed and talked during dinner, and was surprised when Lady
+Duckle remarked how pale and ill she was looking, for she thought she
+was making a fine outward show of high spirits. She and Lady Duckle
+were dining alone, and she tried to devise a plan for going to Berkeley
+Square without taking Lady Duckle into her confidence. The horrible
+scene with Owen flitted before her eyes while talking of other things.
+And so the evening dragged itself out in the drawing-room.
+
+"Olive, I want to make a call before going to Lady Ascott's; I will send
+the carriage back for you."
+
+"But we need not get there until a quarter to one. There will be plenty
+of time."
+
+"Very well," Evelyn answered, as unconcernedly as she could. "I'll be
+here a little after twelve."
+
+In the carriage she remembered that she was going to the same house to
+tell him that she would be his wife as she had gone to tell him she
+would be his mistress.
+
+"Sir Owen has been very bad to-day, miss," the butler said in a
+confidential undertone. "It has taken him again in his right toe;" and
+he leaned forward to open the door of Owen's private sitting-room.
+
+She passed in, the door closed softly behind her, and she saw her lover
+lying in a large, chintz-covered arm-chair, full of cushions, deep like
+a feather bed. He held his book high, so that all the light of the
+electric lamp fell upon it, and the small, wrinkled face seemed to have
+suddenly grown older behind the spectacles, and the appearance at that
+moment was of a man just slipping over the years that divides middle
+from old age.
+
+In the single second that elapsed before they spoke, Evelyn felt and
+understood a great deal. Never had Owen seemed so like himself; the old
+age which so visibly had laid its wrinkles and infirmities upon him was
+clearly his old age, and the old age of his fathers before him. He was
+in his own old room, planned and ordered by himself. Even his arm-chair
+seemed characteristic of him. With whatever hardships he might put up in
+the hunting field or the deer forest, he believed in the deepest
+arm-chair that upholstery could stuff when he came home. In this room
+were his personal pictures, those he had bought himself. They, of
+course, included a beautiful woman by Gainsborough, and a pellucid
+evening sky, with a group of pensive trees, by Corot. There were
+beautiful painted tables and chairs, and marble and ormolu clocks, the
+refined and gracious designs of the best periods; and the sight of Owen
+sitting amid all these attempts to capture happiness, revealed to her
+the moral idea of which this man was but a symbol; and the thought that
+life without a moral purpose is but a passing spectre, and that our
+immortality lies in our religious life, occurred to her again. His first
+remark, too, about his gout, that it wasn't much, but just enough to
+make life a curse--could she tell him what end was served by torturing
+us in this way?--laid, as it were, an accent upon the thoughts of him
+that were passing in her mind.
+
+It was that crouching attitude in the arm-chair that had made him seem
+so old. Now that he had taken off his spectacles, and was standing up,
+he did not look older than his age. He wore a silk shirt and a black
+velvet smoking suit, and had kept his figure--it still went in at the
+waist. She admired him for a moment and then pitied him, for he limped
+painfully and pulled over one of his own chairs for her. But she
+declined it, choosing a less comfortable one, feeling that she must sit
+straight up if she were to moralise. She had imagined that the subject
+would introduce itself in the course of conversation, and that it would
+develop imperceptibly. She had imagined that they would speak of the
+first performance of "Tristan and Isolde," now distant but a couple of
+days, or of Lady Ascott's ball, at which she had promised to appear. But
+Owen had spoken of a song which he had re-written that afternoon, not
+having anything else to do. He believed he had immensely improved it,
+and wished that she would try it over. To sing one of his songs, to
+decipher manuscript, was the last thing she felt she could do, and the
+proposal irritated her. Her whole life was at stake; it had cost her a
+great deal to come to the decision that she must either marry him or
+send him away. Partly on purpose, and partly because she could not help
+it, her face assumed a calm and fixed expression which he knew well.
+
+"Evelyn, you're going to say something disagreeable. Don't, I've had
+enough to worry me lately; there's my mother's health, and this,
+miserable attack of gout."
+
+"I hope you won't think what I've come to say disagreeable, but one
+never knows." He waited anxiously, and after some pause she said, though
+it seemed to her that she had come to the point much too abruptly,
+"Owen, was it not arranged that we should marry when I left the stage?"
+She had not been able to lend herself to the diplomatic subtleties which
+she had been considering all the evening, and had stumbled in the first
+step. But the mistake had been made, they were face to face with the
+question--it was for her not to give way. She had noticed the look that
+had passed between his eyes, and she was not surprised at the slight
+evasion of his answer, "But you are going to sing Kundry next year?" for
+she knew him to be naturally as averse to marriage as she was herself.
+
+"I don't think I should succeed as Kundry. I don't know what the part
+means."
+
+"But she's a penitent. You like penitents; your Elisabeth--"
+
+"Elizabeth is different. Elizabeth is an inward penitent, Kundry is an
+external, and you know I can do nothing with externalities."
+
+He did not understand, and it was impossible to explain without entering
+into a complete exposition of Ulick's idea regarding "Parsifal." The
+subject of "Parsifal" had always been disagreeable to him, but he had
+not been able to find any argument against the art of it. So the
+criticism "revolting hypocrisy," "externality," and the statement that
+the prelude to "Lohengrin" was an inspiration, whereas the prelude to
+"Parsifal" was but a marvellous piece of handicraft, delighted him. He
+had always known these things, but had not been able to give them
+expression. He wondered how Evelyn had attained to so clear an
+understanding, and then, unconsciously detecting another mind in the
+argument, he said--
+
+"I wonder what Ulick Dean thinks of 'Parsifal?' Something original, I'm
+sure."
+
+She could not explain that she had not intended to deceive; she could
+not tell him that she was so pressed and obsessed by the question of her
+marriage that she hardly knew what she was saying, and had repeated
+Ulick's ideas mechanically. She already seemed to stand convicted of
+insincerity. He evidently suspected her, and all the while he spoke of
+Ulick and "Parsifal," she suffered a sort of trembling sickness, and
+that he should have perceived whence her enlightenment had come
+embittered her against him. Suddenly he came to the end of what he had
+to say; their eyes met, and he said,--
+
+"Very well, Evelyn, we'll be married next week; is that soon enough?"
+
+The abruptness of his choice fell upon her so suddenly, that she
+answered stupidly that next week would do very well. She felt that she
+ought to get up and kiss him, and she was painfully conscious that her
+expression was the reverse of pleased.
+
+"I don't want to limp to the altar; were it not for the gout I'd say
+to-morrow.... But something has happened, something has forced you to
+this?"
+
+He did not dare to suggest scruples of conscience. But his thoughts were
+already back in Florence.
+
+"Only that you often have said you'd like to marry me. One never knows
+if such things are true. It may have been mere gallantry on your part;
+on the other hand, I am vain enough to believe that perhaps you meant
+it." Then it seemed to her that she must be sincere. "As I am determined
+that our present relations shall cease, there was no help for it but to
+come and tell you."
+
+Her eyes were cast down; the expression of her face was calm resolution,
+whereas his face betrayed anxiety, and the twitching and pallor of the
+eyes a secret indecision with which he was struggling.
+
+"Then I suppose it is scruples of conscience.... You've been to Mass at
+St. Joseph's."
+
+"We won't enter into that question. We've talked it for the last six
+years; you cannot change me."
+
+The desire to please was inveterate in her, and she felt that she had
+never been so displeasing, and she was aware that he was showing to
+better advantage in this scene than she was. She wished that he had
+hesitated; if he had only given her some excuse for--She did not finish
+the sentence in her mind, but thought instead that she liked him better
+when he wasn't so good; goodness did not seem to suit him.
+
+She wore a beautiful attractive gown, a mauve silk embroidered with
+silver irises, and he regretted his gout which kept him from the ball.
+He caught sight of her as she passed down the glittering floor, saving
+with a pretty movement of her shoulders the dress that was slipping from
+them, he saw himself dancing with her.... They passed in front of a
+mirror, and looking straight over her shoulder his eyes followed the
+tremulous sparkle of the diamond wings which she wore in her hair. Then,
+yielding to an impulse of which he was not ashamed, for it was as much
+affection as it was sensual, he drew over a chair--he would have knelt
+at her feet had it not been for his gout--and passing his arm about her
+waist, he said--
+
+"Dearest, I'm very fond of you, you know that. It is not my fault if I
+prefer to be your lover rather than your husband." He kissed her on her
+shoulders, laying his cheek on her bosom. "Don't you believe that I am
+fond of you, Evelyn?"
+
+"Yes, Owen, I think you are."
+
+"Not a very enthusiastic reply. It used to be you who delighted to throw
+your arms about my neck. But all that is over and done with."
+
+"One is not always in such humours, Owen."
+
+Watching each other's eyes they were conscious of their souls; every
+moment it seemed as if their souls must float up and be discovered; and,
+while fearing discovery, there came a yearning to stand out of all
+shadow in the full light. But they could not tell their souls; words
+fell back abortive; and they recognised the mortal lot of alienation;
+and rebelling against it, he held her face, he sought her lips, but she
+turned her face aside, leaving him her cheek.
+
+"Why do you turn your lips away? It is a long time since I've kissed you
+... you're cold and indifferent lately, Evelyn."
+
+A memory of Ulick shot through her mind, and he would have divined her
+thought if his perception had not been blinded by the passion which
+swayed him.
+
+"No, Owen, no. We're an engaged couple; we're no longer lovers."
+
+"And you think that we should begin by respecting the marriage
+ceremony?"
+
+She seemed to lose sight of him, she perceived only the general idea,
+that outline of her life which he represented, and which she could in a
+way trace in the furniture of the room. It was in this room she had said
+she would be his mistress. It was from this room she had started for
+Paris. Her eyes lighted on the harpsichord. He had bought it in some
+vague intention of presenting it to her father, some day when they were
+reconciled; the viola da gamba he had bought for her sake; it was the
+poor little excuse he had devised for coming to see her at Dulwich.
+
+She saw the Gainsborough: how strange and remote it seemed! She looked
+at the Corot, its sentimentality was an irritation. In the Chippendale
+bookcases there were many books she had given him; and the white chimney
+piece was covered with her photographs. There he was, a tall, thin man,
+elegant and attractive notwithstanding the forty-five years, dressed in
+a silk shirt and a black smoking suit. Their eyes met again, she could
+see that he was thinking it over; but it was all settled now, neither
+could draw back, and the moments were tense and silent; and as if
+confronted by some imminent peril, she wondered.
+
+"You arranged that I should leave the stage when I married, and you say
+that we are to be married next week. You don't want me to throw up my
+engagement at Covent Garden? I should like to play Isolde."
+
+"Of course you must play Isolde; I must hear you sing Isolde."
+
+She felt that she must get up and thank him, she felt that she must be
+nice to him; and laying her hand on his shoulder, she said--
+
+"I hope I don't seem ungrateful; you have always been very good to me,
+Owen. I hope I shall make a good wife."
+
+"I think I am less changed than you; I don't think you care for me as
+you used to."
+
+"Yes, I do, Owen, but I am not always the same. I can't help myself."
+
+He watched her face; she had forgotten him, she was again thinking of
+herself. She had tried to be sincere, but again had been mastered by her
+mood. No, she did not dislike him, but she wished for an interval, a
+temporary separation. It seemed to her that she didn't want to see him
+for some weeks, some months, perhaps. If he would consent to such an
+alienation, she felt that she would come back fonder of him than ever.
+All this did not seem very sane, but she could not think otherwise, and
+the desire of departure was violent in her as a nostalgia.
+
+"We have been very fond of each other. I wonder if we shall be as happy
+in married life? Do you think we shall?"
+
+"I hope so, Owen, but somehow I don't see myself as Lady Asher."
+
+"You know everyone--Lady Ascott, Lady. Somersdean, they are all your
+friends, it will be just the same."
+
+"Yes, it'll be just the same."
+
+He did not catch the significance of the repetition. He was thinking of
+the credit she would do him as Lady Asher. He heard his friends
+discussing his marriage at the clubs. She was going to Lady Ascott's
+ball, and would announce her engagement there. To-morrow everyone would
+be talking about it. He would like his engagement known, but not while
+she was on the stage. But when he mentioned this, she said she did not
+see why their engagement should be kept a secret. It did not matter
+much; he was quite ready to give way, but he could not understand why
+the remark should have angered her. And her obstinacy frightened him not
+a little. If he were to find a different woman in his wife from the
+woman he had loved in the opera singer!
+
+"Evelyn, you have lived with me in spite of your scruples for the last
+six years; why should we not go on for one more year? When you have sung
+Kundry, we can be married."
+
+"Owen, do you think you want to marry me? Is not your offer mere
+chivalry? _Noblesse oblige_?"
+
+That he was still master of the situation caused a delicious pride to
+mount to his head. For a moment he could not answer, then he asked if
+she were sure that she had not come to care for someone else, and
+feeling this to be ineffective, he added--
+
+"I've always noticed that when women change their affections, they
+become a prey to scruples of conscience."
+
+"If I cared for anyone else, should I come to you to-night and offer to
+marry you?"
+
+"You're a strange woman; it would not surprise me if the reason why you
+wish to be married is because you're afraid of a second lover. That
+would be very like you."
+
+His words startled her in the very bottom of her soul; she had not
+thought of such a thing, but now he mentioned it, she was not sure that
+he had not guessed rightly.
+
+How well he understood one side of her nature; how he failed to
+understand the other! It was this want in him that made marriage between
+them impossible. She smiled mysteriously, for she was thinking how far
+and how near he had always been.
+
+"Tell me, Evelyn, tell me truly, is it on account of religious scruples,
+or is it because you are afraid of falling in love with Ulick Dean, that
+you came here to-night and asked me to marry you?"
+
+"Owen, we can live in contradiction to our theories, but not in
+contradiction to our feelings, and you know that my life has always
+seemed to me fundamentally wrong."
+
+For a moment he seemed to understand, but his egotism intervened, and a
+moment after he understood nothing, except that for some stupid morality
+she was about to break her artistic career sharp off.
+
+He strove to think what was passing behind that forehead. He tried to
+read her soul in the rounded temples, the bright, nervous eyes. His and
+her understanding of life and the mystery of life were as wide apart as
+the earth and the moon, and he could but stare wondering. No inkling of
+the truth reached him. As he strove to understand her mind he grew
+irritated, and turned against that shadow religion which had always
+separated them. Without knowing why--almost in spite of himself--he
+began to argue with her. He reminded her of her inconsistencies. She had
+always said that a lover was much more exciting than a husband. If it
+had not been for her religion, he did not believe they would have
+thought of marriage, they would have gone on to the end as they had
+begun. The sound of his voice entered her ears, but the meaning of the
+words did not reach her brain, and when she had said that she had come
+to him not on account of Ulick, but on account of her conscience, she
+sat perplexed, trying to discover if she had told the truth.
+
+"You're not listening, Evelyn."
+
+"Yes, I am, Owen. You said that I had always said that a lover was much
+more exciting than a husband."
+
+"If so, why then--"
+
+They stared blankly at each other. Everything had been said. They were
+engaged to be married. What was the use of further argument? She
+mentioned that it was getting late, and that Lady Duckle was waiting for
+her.
+
+"She will tell her first," he thought, "and she'll tell Lady Ascott.
+They'll all be talking of it at supper. 'So Owen has gone off at last,'
+they'll say. I'll hear of it at the club to-morrow."
+
+"I wonder what Lady Ascott will think?" he said, as he put her into the
+carriage.
+
+"I don't know.... I shall not go to the ball. Tell him to take me home."
+
+She lay back in the blue shadows of the brougham, striving to come to
+terms with herself, to arrive at some plain conclusion. It seemed to her
+that she had been animated by an honest and noble purpose. She had gone
+to Owen in the intention of marrying him if he wished to marry her,
+because it had seemed to her that it was her duty to marry him. But
+everything had turned out the very opposite of what she had intended,
+and looking back upon the hour she had spent with him, it seemed to her
+that she had certainly deceived him. She certainly had deceived herself.
+
+She could not believe that she was going to marry Owen. She felt that it
+was not to be, and before the presentiment her her soul paused. She
+asked herself why she felt that it was not to be. There was no reason;
+but she felt quite clear on the point, and could not combat the clear
+conviction. She began thinking the obvious drama--Owen discovering her
+with Ulick, declining ever to see her again, her suicide or his, etc.
+But she could not believe that Owen would decline ever to see her again
+even if--but she was not going to go wrong with Ulick, there was no use
+supposing such things, And again her thoughts paused, and like things
+frightened by the dark, withdrew silently, not daring to look further.
+
+She met Ulick every night at the theatre, and she had him to sit with
+her in her dressing-room during the entr'actes.... She remembered the
+pleasure she had taken in these conversations, and the strange, whirling
+impulse which drew them all the while closer, until they dreaded the
+touching of their knees. She had taken him back in the carriage and he
+had kissed her; she had allowed him to kiss her the other night, and she
+knew that if she were alone with him again that she would not be able to
+resist the temptation. Her thoughts turned a little, and she considered
+what her life would be if she were to yield to Ulick. Her life would
+become a series of subterfuges, and in a flash of thought she saw how,
+after spending the afternoon with Ulick, she would come home to find
+Owen waiting for her: he would take her in his arms, she would have to
+free herself, and, feeling his breath upon her cheek, save herself
+somehow from his kiss. He would suspect and question her. He would say,
+"Give me your word of honour that Ulick Dean is not your lover;" and she
+heard herself pledge her word in a lie, and the lie would have to be
+repeated again and again.
+
+Until she had met Ulick, she had not seen a man for years whose thoughts
+ranged above the gross pleasure of the moment, the pleasure of eating,
+of drinking, of love-making ... and she was growing like those people.
+The other night at dinner at the Savoy she had looked round the table at
+the men's faces, some seven or eight, varying in age from twenty-four to
+forty-eight, and she had said to herself, "Not one of these men has done
+anything worth doing, not one has even tried." Looking at the men of
+twenty-four, she had said to herself, "He will do all the man of
+forty-eight has done,--the same dinners, the same women, the same
+racecourses, the same shooting, the same tireless search after
+amusement, the same life unlit by any ideal." She was no better, Owen
+was no better. There was no hope for either of them? He had surrounded
+her with his friends, and she thought of the invitations ahead of her.
+Her profession of an opera singer chained her to this life.... She felt
+that a miracle would have to happen to extricate her from the social
+mire into which she was sinking, sinking.
+
+To give up Ulick would only make matters worse. He was the plank she
+clung to in the shipwreck of all her convictions. She could not tell how
+or why, but the conviction was overpowering that she could not give him
+up. Happen what might happen, she must see him. If Owen were to go for a
+sea voyage.... In three or four months she would have acquired that
+something which he could give her and which was necessary to complete
+her soul. She seemed to be quite certain on this point, and she lay back
+in the brougham lost in vague wonderment.  Her thoughts sank still
+deeper, and thoughts came to her that had never come before, that she
+had never dared to think before. Even if she were not done with Ulick
+when Owen returned, it seemed to her that she could make them and
+herself very happy; they both seemed necessary to her happiness, to her
+fulfilment; and in her dream, for she was not responsible for her
+thoughts, the enjoyment of this double love seemed to her natural and
+beautiful....
+
+But she awoke from her dream frightened, and feeling like one who has
+lost the clue which was to lead her out of the labyrinth.
+
+Instead of sending the footman to tell Lady Duckle that the carriage was
+waiting, Evelyn got out and went up to the drawing-room.
+
+"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Olive, but I can't go with you.
+Tell Lady Ascott I am very sorry. Good-night, I'm going to my room."
+
+"Oh, my dear Evelyn, not going ... and now that you're dressed."
+
+Evelyn allowed herself to be persuaded. If she went to bed now she would
+not sleep. She went to the ball with Lady Duckle, and as she went round
+in the lancers, giving her hand first to one and then to the other, she
+heard a voice crying within her, "Why are you doing these things? They
+don't interest you at all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+"Eternal night, oh, lovely night, oh, holy night of love." Rapture
+succeeded rapture, and the souls of the lovers rose, nearer to the
+surface of life. In a shudder of silver chords he saw them float away
+like little clouds towards the low rim of the universe.
+
+But at that moment of escape reality broke in upon the dream. Melot had
+betrayed them, and Ulick heard King Mark's noble and grave reproaches
+like a prophecy, "Thou wert my friend and didst deceive me," he sang,
+and his melancholy motive seemed to echo like a cry along the shore of
+Ulick's own life. Amid calm and mysteriously exalted melodies,
+expressive of the terror and pathos of fate fulfilled, Tristan's resolve
+took shape, and as he fell mortally wounded, the melancholy Mark motive
+was heard again, and again Ulick asked what meaning it might have for
+him. He heard the applause, loud in the stalls, growing faint as it rose
+tier above tier. Baskets of flowers, wreaths and bouquets were thrown
+from the boxes or handed up from the orchestra, the curtain was rung up
+again, and her name was called from different parts of the theatre. And
+when the curtain was down for the last time, he saw her in the middle of
+the stage talking to Tristan and Brangäne. The garden scene was being
+carried away, and to escape from it Evelyn took Tristan's hand and ran
+to the spot where Ulick was standing. She loosed the hand of her stage
+lover, and dropping a bouquet, held out two small hands to Ulick covered
+with violet powder. The hallucination of the great love scene was still
+in her eyes; it still, he could see, surged in her blood. She had nearly
+thrown herself into his arms, seemed regardless of those around; she
+seemed to have only eyes for him; he heard her say under her breath,"
+That music maddens me," then with sudden composure, but looking at him
+intently, she asked him to come upstairs with her.
+
+For the last few days he had been engaged in prediction, and last night
+he had been visited by dreams, the significance of which he could not
+doubt. But his reading of her horoscope had been incomplete, or else he
+had failed to understand the answers. That he was a momentous event in
+her life seemed clear, yet all the signs were set against their
+marriage; but what was happening had been revealed--that he should stand
+with her in a room where the carpet was blue, and they were there; that
+the furniture should be of last century, and he examined the cabinets in
+the corners, which were satinwood inlaid with delicate traceries, and on
+the walls were many mirrors and gold and mahogany frames.
+
+"Merat!" The maid came from the dressing-room. "You have some friends in
+front. You can go and sit with them. I sha'n't want you till the end."
+When the door closed, their eyes met, and they trembled and were in
+dread. "Come and sit by me." She indicated his place by her side on the
+sofa. "We are all alone. Talk to me. How did I sing to-night?"
+
+"Never did the music ever mean so much as it did to-night," he said,
+sitting down.
+
+"What did it mean?"
+
+"Everything. All the beauty and the woe of existence were in the music
+to-night."
+
+Their thoughts wandered from the music, and an effort was required to
+return to it.
+
+"Do you remember," she said, with a little gasp in her voice, "how the
+music sinks into the slumber motive, 'Hark, beloved;' then he answers,
+'Let me die'?"
+
+"Yes, and with the last note the undulating tune of the harps begins in
+the orchestra. Brangäne is heard warning them."
+
+They sat looking at each other. In sheer desperation she said--
+
+"And that last phrase of all, when the souls of the lovers seemed to
+float away."
+
+"Over the low rim of the universe--like little clouds."
+
+"And then?"
+
+He tried to speak of his ideas, but he could not collect his thoughts,
+and after a few sentences he said, "I cannot talk of these things."
+
+The room seemed to sway and cloud, and her arms to reach out
+instinctively to him, and she would have fallen into his arms if he had
+not suddenly asked her what had been decided at Sir Owen Asher's.
+
+"Let me kiss you, Evelyn," he said, "or I shall go mad."
+
+"No, Ulick, this is not nice of you. I shall not be able to ask you to
+my room again."
+
+He let go her hand, and she said--
+
+"I'm not going to marry Sir Owen, but I must not let you kiss me."
+
+"But you must, Evelyn, you must."
+
+"Why must I?"
+
+"Do you not feel that it is to be?"
+
+"What is to be?"
+
+"I do not know what, but I have been drawn towards you so long a
+while--long before I saw you, ever since I heard your name, the moment I
+saw that old photograph in the music-room, I knew."
+
+"What did you know?"
+
+"When I heard your name it called up an image in my mind, and that image
+has never wholly left me--it comes back often like a ghost."
+
+"When you were thinking of something different?"
+
+"I am your destiny, or one of your destinies."
+
+Her eyes were fixed eagerly upon him; his darkness and the mysteries he
+represented attracted her, and she even felt she could follow. At the
+same moment his eyes seemed the most beautiful in the world, and she
+desired him to make love to her. While enticing, she resisted him, now
+more feebly, and when he let go her hands she sat looking at him,
+wondering how she was to get through the evening without kissing him....
+She spoke to him about his opera. He asked her if she were going to sing
+it, and she looked at him with vague, uncertain eyes. He said he knew
+she never would. She asked him why he thought so, and again a great
+longing bent him towards her. She withdrew her hands and face from his
+lips, and they had begun to talk of other things when he perceived her
+face close to his. Unable to resist he kissed her cheek, fearing that
+she would order him from the room. But at the instant of the touching of
+his lips, she threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down as a
+mermaiden draws her mortal lover into the depths, and in a wondering
+world of miraculous happiness he surrendered himself.
+
+"Dearest, dearest," he said, raising himself to look at her.
+
+"Ulick, Ulick," she said, "let me kiss you, I've longed such a while."
+
+He thought he had never seen so radiant a face. What disguise had
+fallen? And looking at her, he strove to discover the woman who had
+denied him so often. This new woman seemed made all of light and love
+and transport, the woman of all his divinations, the being the old
+photograph in the old music-room had warned him of, the being that the
+voice of his destiny had told him he was to meet. And as they stood by
+the fireplace looking into each other's eyes, he gradually became aware
+of his happiness. It broke in his heart with a thrill and shiver like an
+exquisite dawn, opal and rose; the brilliancy of her eyes, the rapture
+of her face, the magnetic stirring of the little gold curls along her
+forehead were so wonderful that he feared her as an enchanter fears the
+spirit he has raised. Like one who has suddenly chanced on the hilltop,
+he gazed on the prospect, believing it all to be his. They stood gazing
+into each other's eyes too eager to speak, and when she called his name
+he remembered the legended forest, and replied with the song of the bird
+that leads Siegfried to Brunnhilde. She laughed, and sang the next two
+bars, and then seemed to forget everything.
+
+"Dearest, of what are you thinking?"
+
+"Only if I ever shall kiss you again, Ulick."
+
+"You will always kiss me!"
+
+She did not answer, and, frightened by her irresponsive eyes, he said--
+
+"But, Evelyn, you must love me, me--only me; you will never see him
+again?"
+
+She did not answer, and when he spoke, his voice trembled.
+
+"But it is impossible you can ever marry him now."
+
+"I am not going to marry Owen."
+
+"You told him so the other night?"
+
+"Yes, I told him, or very nearly, that I could not marry him."
+
+"You cannot marry him, you love me.... But why don't you answer. What
+are you thinking of?"
+
+"Only of you, dear.... Let me kiss you again," and in the embrace he
+forgot for the moment the inquietude her answer had caused him.
+
+"That is my call," she said. "How am I to sing the Liebestod after all
+this? How does it begin?"
+
+Ulick sang the opening phrase, and she continued the music for some
+bars.
+
+"I hope I shall get through it all right. Then," she said, "we shall go
+home together in the brougham."
+
+At that moment a knock was heard, and Merat entered. "Mademoiselle, you
+have no time to lose."
+
+The call boy's voice was heard on the stairs, and Evelyn hastened away.
+Ulick followed, and the first thing he heard when he got on the stage
+was Tristan's death motive. He listened, not so much to the music itself
+as to its occult significance regarding Evelyn and himself. And as
+Isolde's grief changed from wild lament for sensual delight to a
+resigned and noble prayer, the figure of ecstasy broke with a sound as
+of wings shaking, and Ulick seemed to witness a soul's transfiguration.
+He watched it rising in several ascensions, like a lark's flight. For an
+instant it seemed to float in some divine consummation, then, like the
+bird, to suddenly quench in the radiance of the sky. The harps wept
+farewell over the bodies of the lovers, then all was done, and he stood
+at the wings listening to the applause. She came to him at once, as soon
+as the curtain was down.
+
+"How did I sing it?"
+
+"As well as ever."
+
+"But you seem sad; what is it?"
+
+"It seemed to mean something--something, I cannot tell what, something
+to do with us."
+
+"No," she said, looking at him. "I was only thinking of the music. Wait
+for me, dear, I shall not keep you long."
+
+He walked up and down the stage, and in his hand was a wreath that some
+admirer had kept for the last. For excitement he could hardly bid the
+singers good-night as they passed him. Now it was Tristan, now Brangäne,
+now one of the chorus. The question raged within him. Was it fated that
+she should marry him? So far as he understood the omens she would not;
+but the readings were obscure, and his will threw itself out in
+opposition to the influence of Sir Owen. But he was not certain that
+that was the direction whence the danger was coming. He could only
+exert, however, his will in that direction. At last he saw her coming
+down the steep stairs, wrapped in a white opera cloak. They walked in
+silence--she all rapture, but his happiness already clouded. The
+brougham was so full of flowers that they, could hardly find place for
+themselves. She drew him closer, and said--
+
+"What is the matter, dear? Am I not nice to you?"
+
+"Yes, Evelyn, you're an enchantment. Only--"
+
+"Only what, dear?"
+
+"I fear our future. I fear I shall lose you. All has come true so far,
+the end must happen."
+
+She drew his arm about her waist, and laid his face on her bare
+shoulder.
+
+"Let there be no foreboding. Live in the present."
+
+"The future is too near us. Say you'll marry me, or else I shall lose
+you altogether. It is the one influence on our side."
+
+She was born, he said, under two great influences, but each could be
+modified; one might be widened, the other lessened, and both
+modifications might finally resolve into her destiny. So far as he could
+read her future, it centred in him or another. That other, he was sure,
+was not Sir Owen, nor was it himself, he thought; for when she and he
+had met in the theatre, she had experienced no dread, but he had dreaded
+her, recognising her as his destiny. He had even recognised her as
+Evelyn Innes before she had been pointed out to him.
+
+"But you had seen my photograph?"
+
+"But it was not by your photograph that I knew you."
+
+"And you knew that I should care for you?"
+
+"I knew that something had to happen. But you did not feel that I was
+your destiny. You said you experienced no dread, but when you met Sir
+Owen did you experience none?"
+
+"I suppose I did. I was afraid of him. At first I think I hated him."
+
+"Ah, Evelyn, we shall not marry--it is not our fate. You see that you
+cannot say you will marry me. Another fate is beckoning you."
+
+"Who is it who beckons me? Have I already met him?"
+
+He fell to dreaming again, and Evelyn asked him vainly to describe this
+other man.
+
+"Why are you singing that melancholy Mark motive?"
+
+"I did not know I was singing it." He returned to his dream again, but
+starting from it, he seized her hands.
+
+"Evelyn," he said, "we must marry; a reason obliges us. Have you not
+thought of it?" And then, as if he had not noticed that she had not
+answered his question, he said, "On your father's account, if he should
+ever know. Think what my position is. I have betrayed my friend. That is
+why the Marie motive has been singing in my head. Evelyn, you must say
+you will marry me. We must marry at once, for your father's sake. I have
+betrayed him, my best friend.... I have acted worse than that other
+man."
+
+"Ulick, dear, open the window; the scent of these flowers is
+overpowering.... That is better. Throw some of those bouquets into the
+street. We might give them to those poor men, they might be able to sell
+them.... Tell the coachman to stop."
+
+The chime of destiny sounded clearer than ever in their ears; it seemed
+as if they could almost catch the tune, and with a convulsive movement
+Evelyn drew her lover towards her.
+
+"Every hour threatens us," he said. "Can you not hear? Do not go to Park
+Lane--Park Lane threatens; your friend Lady Duckle threatens. I see
+nothing but threats and menaces; all are leagued against us."
+
+"Dearest, we cannot spend the night driving about London."
+
+He sighed on his mistress's shoulder. She threw his black hair from his
+forehead.
+
+"There is no hope. We shall be separated, scattered to different winds."
+
+"Why do you think that? How do you know these things, Ulick?"
+
+"Evelyn, in losing you I lose the principle of my life, but you will
+lose nothing in losing me. So it is written. But you are not listening;
+I am wearying you; you're clinging to the present, knowing that you will
+soon lose it."
+
+She threw herself upon him, and kissed him as if she would annihilate
+destiny on his lips, and until they reached Park Lane there was no
+future, only a delirious present for both of them.
+
+"I won't ask you in; I am tired. Good-bye, dearest, good-bye. I'll
+write."
+
+"Remember that my time is short," and there was a strange accent in his
+voice which she did not hear till long after. She had locked herself
+into the sensual present, and, lulled in happy sensations of gratified
+sense, she allowed Merat to undress her. She thought of the soft luxury
+of her bed, and lay down, her brain full of floating impressions of
+flowers, music and of love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+And when Merat called her in the morning, she was dreaming of love. She
+turned over, and, closing her eyes, strove to continue her dream, but it
+fled like moonshine from her memory, and was soon so far distant that
+she could not even perceive the subject of it. And she awoke in spite of
+herself, and sat up in bed sipping her chocolate; and then lay back upon
+the pillow with Ulick for the inner circle of her thought. It seemed
+that she could think of him for hours; the romance of his personality
+carried her on and on. At one moment she dwelt on the gold glow in his
+dark eyes, the paint-like blackness of his hair, and his long thin
+hands. At another her fancy liked to evoke his superstitions. For him
+the past, present and future were not twain, but one thing. And every
+time she saw him, she was more and more interested. Every time she
+discovered something new in him--he did not exist on the surface of
+things, but deep in himself; and she wondered if she would ever know
+him.
+
+Her thoughts paused a moment, and then she remembered something he had
+said. It had struck her at the time, but now it appeared to her more
+than ever interesting. Catholicism, he had said, had not fallen from
+him--he had merely learnt that it was only part of the truth; he had
+gone further, he had raised himself to a higher spirituality. It was not
+that he wanted less, but more than Catholicism could give him. In
+religion, as in art, there were higher and lower states. We began by
+admiring "Faust," and went on to Wagner, hence to Beethoven and
+Palestrina. Catholicism was the spiritual fare of the multitude; there
+was a closer communion with the divine essence. She had forgotten what
+came next.... He held that we are always warned of our destiny and it
+had been proved that in the hypnotic sleep, when the pulse of life was
+weakest, almost at pause, there was a heightening of the powers of
+vision and hearing. A patient whose eyes had been covered with layers of
+cotton wool had been able to read the newspaper. Another patient had
+been able to tell what was passing in another mind, and at a distance of
+a mile. The only explanation that Charcot could give of this second
+experiment was that the knowledge had been conveyed through the rustling
+of the blood in the veins, which the hypnotic sleep had enabled the
+patient to hear. And Ulick submitted that this scientific explanation
+was more incredible than any spiritual one. There was much else. There
+was all Ulick's wonderful talk about the creation of things by thought,
+and his references to the mysterious Kabbala had strangely interested
+her. But suddenly she remembered that perchance his spiritualism was
+allied to the black art of the necromancers; and her Catholic conscience
+was mysteriously affrighted, and she experienced the attraction of
+terror. Was it possible that he believed that all the accidents, or what
+we suppose are accidents, have been earned in a preceding life? Did he
+really believe that lovers may tempt each other life after life, that a
+group of people may come together again?
+
+"Mademoiselle, it is half-past ten."
+
+"Very well, Merat, I will get up. I will ring for you when I have had my
+bath."
+
+"Lady Duckle has gone out, and will not be home for lunch."
+
+There was not even a letter, and the day stretched out before her. Ulick
+might call, but she did not think he would. She thought of a visit to
+her father, but something held her back, and Dulwich was a long way.
+After breakfast she went to the piano and sang some of Ulick's music;
+stopping suddenly in the middle of a bar, she thought she would send him
+a note asking him to come to lunch. But what should she do till two
+o'clock? it was now only eleven. Suddenly it struck her that she might
+take a hansom and go and see him. She had never seen his rooms, and to
+visit him there would be more amusing than for him to come to Park Lane;
+and she imagined his surprise and delight at seeing her. Her thoughts
+went to the frock she would wear--a new one had come home
+yesterday--this would be an excellent opportunity to wear it. She would
+take him to lunch with her at some restaurant! She was in excellent
+humour. Her thoughts amused her, and she reflected that she had done
+well to choose the pale shot silk with green shades in it. It was
+trimmed with black lace, and she selected a large black hat with black
+ostrich feathers to wear with it.
+
+And seeing the people in the streets as she drove past, she wondered if
+they were as happy as she was. She speculated on their errands, and
+wondered if many of the women were going, like her, to their lovers. She
+wondered what their lovers were like, and she laughed at her thoughts.
+Seeing that she was passing through a very mean street, she hoped that
+Ulick's rooms were not too Bohemian, and felt relieved when she found
+that the street she dreaded led into a square. A square, she reflected,
+always means a certain measure of respectability. And the faded,
+old-fashioned neighbourhood pleased her. Some of the houses seemed as if
+they had known more fashionable days; and the square exhaled a tender
+melancholy; it suggested a vision of dreamy lives--lives lived in
+ideas, lives of students who lived in books unaware of the externality
+of things.
+
+But the cabman could not find the number, and Evelyn impatiently
+inquired it from the vagrant children. There were groups of them on the
+wide doorstep, and Evelyn imagined the interior of the house, wide
+passages, gently-sloping staircase, its heavy banisters. It surprised
+and amused her to find that she had imagined it quite correctly; and
+when she reached the landing to which she had been directed, she
+stopped, hearing his voice. He was only talking to himself; she pushed
+the door and called to him.
+
+"Oh, it is you?" he said; "you have come sooner than I expected."
+
+"Then you expected me, Ulick?"
+
+"Yes, I expected you."
+
+"Expected me ...to-day! But, Ulick, what were you saying when I came
+in?"
+
+"Only some Kabbalistic formula," he replied, quite naturally.
+
+"But you don't really believe in such superstitions, and it surely is
+very wrong."
+
+He looked at her incredulously, as he might at some beautiful apparition
+likely at any moment to vanish from his sight, then reverentially drew
+her towards him and kissed her. Her hand was laid on his shoulder, and
+in a delicious apprehension she stood looking at him.
+
+"Where shall we sit?"
+
+He threw some books and papers from a long cane chair, and she lay down
+in it. He sat on the arm, and then tried to talk.
+
+"Let me take your hat."
+
+She unpinned it, and he placed it on the piano.
+
+His room was lighted by two square windows looking on the open space in
+front of the square, where the vagrant children gathered in noisy groups
+round a dripping iron fountain. The floor was covered with grey-green
+drugget, and near the fireplace, drawn in front of the window, was a
+large oak table covered with papers of various kinds. Against the end
+wall there was a bookcase, and there were shelves filled with books.
+There were two arm-chairs, a piano, and some prints of Blake's
+illustrations to Dante on the wall. The writing table, covered with
+manuscript music, roused Evelyn's curiosity. She glanced down a page of
+orchestration, and then picked up the first pages of an article, and
+having read them she said--
+
+"How severe you are in your articles. You are gentler in your music,
+more like yourself; but I see your servant does not waste her time
+dusting your books ...and that is your bedroom, may I see it?"
+
+He looked at her abashed. "I am afraid my room will seem to you very
+unluxurious. I have read of prima donnas' bed-rooms."
+
+But the bare simplicity of the room did not displease her; it seemed to
+her more natural to sleep in a low, narrow bed like his, than in fine
+linen and eiderdown quilts, and she liked the scant, bleak furniture,
+the two chairs, the iron wash-hand stand, and the window curtained with
+a bit of Indian muslin. They stood talking, hardly knowing what they
+were saying. Her eyes embarrassed him, and she stopped in the middle of
+a sentence.
+
+"Now, Ulick," she said, turning towards the door, "I want you to take me
+to lunch. We'll go to the Savoy."
+
+He had to admit he had not sufficient money. Three shillings and
+sixpence were what remained until he received the cheque from one of his
+newspapers.
+
+"But I am not going to have you pay for my lunch, Ulick. I am asking
+you. Be nice, don't refuse; what does it matter? What does money matter
+to me? It comes in so fast that I don't know what to do with it."
+
+It was at the end of the season, and there were not many people in the
+low-ceilinged dining-room. All the waiters knew Evelyn, and she was
+conducted ceremoniously to a table. And as she passed up the room, she
+wondered what was being thought of Ulick. He was so different from the
+exquisite, foppish elegance of the man she was usually seen with. He was
+strange-looking, but Ulick was as distinguished as Owen, only the
+distinction was of another kind.
+
+He always remembered how at the end of lunch she took out her gold
+knitted purse, and emptied its contents on the tablecloth. And he was
+astonished at the casualness with which she spent money in every shop
+that caught her fancy. The afternoon included a visit to the saddler's,
+where she had to make inquiries about bits and bridles. She called at
+two jewellers, where she had left things to be mended. She ordered a
+dozen pair of boots, and purchased a large quantity of stationery after
+a long discussion about dies, stamps and monograms. And when all this
+was finished, she proposed they should have tea in Kensington Gardens.
+
+Ulick knew very little of London. He knew Victoria Station, for he took
+the train there to Dulwich; the Strand, for he went there to see
+editors; and Bloomsbury, because he lived there. But he had never been
+to the park, and seemed puzzled when Evelyn spoke of the Serpentine and
+the round pond. It was surprising, he said, to find forest groves in the
+heart of London. They had tea at a little table set beneath huge
+branches, and after tea they sat on a sloping lawn facing the long
+water. She wondered if he were aware of the beauty of things, the wonder
+of life, the blue of the sky, the romance of the clouds. But she was
+bent on hearing of the invisible world apparently always so visible to
+him, and she tried to win his thoughts away from the park, and to lead
+him to speak of his visions. She did not know if she believed in them,
+but she pined for exaltation, for, an unloosening of the materialistic
+terror in which Owen had tied her, and in this mood Ulick's dreams
+floated up in her life, like clouds in a cloudless sky. He sat talking,
+lost in his dreams, and she sat listening like one enchanted. Now their
+talk had strayed from the descriptions of visions beheld by folk who
+lived in back parlours in Bloomsbury squares to the philosophy of his
+own belief; and she smiled for delight at seeing the Druid in him. The
+ancient faiths had survived in him, and it seemed natural and even right
+that he should believe that after death men pass to the great plain of
+the land over the sea, the land of the children of Dana. Men lived
+there, he said, for a while, enjoying all their desires, and at the end
+of this period they are born again. Man lives between two desires--his
+desire of spiritual peace and happiness, and his desire of earthly
+experience.
+
+"Oh, how true that is!"
+
+"Man's desire of earthly experience," Ulick continued, "draws him to
+re-birth, and he is born into a form that fits his nature as a glove
+fits a hand; the soul of a warrior passes into the robust form of a
+warrior; the soul of a poet into the most sensitive body of a poet; so
+you see how modern science has only robbed the myths of their beauty."
+
+He spoke of the old Irish legend of Mongan and the Bard, and Evelyn
+begged of him to tell it her.
+
+"Mongan," he said, "had been Fin MacCool two hundred years before. When
+he was Fin he had been present at the death of a certain king. The bard
+was singing before Mongan, and mis-stated the place of the king's death.
+Mongan corrected him, and the Bard was so incensed at the correction
+that he threatened to satirise the kingdom so that it should become
+barren. And he would only agree to withhold his terrible satire if
+Mongan would give him his wife.
+
+"Mrs. Mongan?"
+
+"Yes, just so," Ulick replied, laughing. "Mongan asked for three days'
+delay to consider the dreadful dilemma in which the Bard's threat had
+placed him. And during that time Mongan sat with his wife consoling her,
+saying, "A man will come to us, his feet are already upon the western
+sea." And at the time when the Bard stood up to claim the wife, a
+strange warrior came into the encampment, holding a barbless spear. He
+said that he was Caolte, one of Fin's famous warriors, that the king
+whose place of death was in dispute was killed where Mongan had said,
+that if they dug down into the earth they would find the spear-head,
+that it would fit the shaft he held in his hand, that it was the
+spear-head that had killed the king."
+
+"Go on, and tell me some more stories. I love to listen to you--you are
+better than any play."
+
+And she wondered if he were indeed an ancient Druid come to life again,
+and that the instinct of the ancient rites lingered in him. However this
+might be, he could answer all her questions, and she was much interested
+when at the end of another tale he told her of Blake's visions and
+prophetic books. She knew little about Blake, and listened to Ulick's
+account of his visions and prophecies. Evelyn thought of Owen, and to
+escape from the thought she spoke of a legend which Ulick had once
+mentioned to her.
+
+"You did not tell it to me, only the end; the very last phrase is all I
+know of it, 'and the further adventures of Bran are unknown.'"
+
+"Bran, the son of Feval, is the story of a man who went to the great
+plain, the land over the sea, the land of the children of Dana. He was
+sitting in his court when a beautiful woman appeared, and she told him
+to man his ship and sail to the land of the Gods, the land where no one
+dies, where blossoms fall for ever.... I have forgotten the song, what a
+wonderful song it is. Ah, I remember, 'Where music is not born, but
+continually is there, where' ... no, I can't remember it. Bran sails
+away, and after sailing for some days he meets a man driving a chariot
+over the waves. This man says, 'To my eyes you are sailing over the tops
+of a forest,' and in many other ways makes clear to him that all things
+are but appearances, and change with the eye that sees them."
+
+"How true that is. At Lady Ascott's ball I was enjoying myself,
+delighted with the brilliancy of the dresses, the jewellery and the
+flowers, and in a moment they all passed away; I only saw a little
+triviality and heard a voice crying within me, 'Why are you here, why
+are you doing these things? This ball means nothing to you.'"
+
+"That was the voice of your destiny; your life is no longer with Owen."
+
+"With whom is it, Ulick? Tell me, you can see into the future."
+
+"I know no more than I told you last night. I am your destiny for
+to-day."
+
+They looked at each other in fear and sadness--and though both knew the
+truth, neither could speak it.
+
+"Then what happens to Bran, the son of Feval?"
+
+"Bran visits many islands of many delights, but wishing to see his
+native land once more, he sails away, but the people of those islands
+have told him that he must not set foot on any earthly shore, or he will
+perish. So he sails close to his native land, but does not leave the
+ship. The inhabitants ask him who he is; he tells them, and they reply,
+'The voyage of Bran, son of Feval, is among our most ancient stories.'
+One man swims ashore, and the moment his foot touches earth he becomes a
+heap of dust. Bran sails away, and the story ends with a phrase which
+you already know--'The further adventures of Bran are unknown.'"
+
+"How true! how true! the stories of our lives are known up to a certain
+point, and our further adventures are unknown."
+
+They were glad of a little silence, and Evelyn sat striving to read her
+own destiny in the legend. Bran visited many islands of many delights,
+but when he wished to return to his native land he was told that he must
+do no more than to sail along its coast, that if he set foot on any
+earthly shore he would perish. But what did this story mean, what
+meaning had it for her? She had visited many islands of many delights,
+and had come home again! What meaning had this story for her? why had
+she remembered the last phrase? why had she been impelled to ask Ulick
+to tell her this story? She looked at him--he sat with his eyes on the
+ground absorbed in thought, but she did not think he was thinking of the
+legend, but of how soon he would lose her, and she shuddered in the warm
+summer evening as from a sudden chill. It was now nearly seven
+o'clock--she would soon have to go home to dress for dinner. They were
+dining out, she and Lady Duckle, and she would meet once more Lady
+Ascott, Lady Summersdean, those people whose lives she had begun to feel
+had no further concern for her.
+
+The hour was inexpressibly calm and alluring; the blue pallor of the sky
+and the fading of the sunset behind the tall Bayswater houses raised the
+soul with a tingling sense of exalted happiness and delicious
+melancholy? She did not ask herself if she loved Ulick better than Owen;
+she only knew that she must act as she was acting--that the moment had
+not come when she would escape from herself. They walked by the water's
+edge, their souls still like the water, and like it, full of calm
+reflections. They were aware of the evening's sad serenity, and the
+little struggling passions of their lives. Very often Nature seemed on
+the very point of whispering her secret, but it escaped her ears like an
+echo in the far distance, like a phantom that disappears in the mist.
+
+"Will you come and see me to-morrow?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"We had better not see each other every day," she said; "still, I don't
+see there would be any harm if you came to see me in the afternoon."
+
+Her conscience drowsed like this heavy, somnolent evening, and a red
+moon rose behind the tall trees.
+
+"The time will come," he said, "when you will hate me, Evelyn."
+
+"I don't think I shall be as unjust as that. Good-bye, dear, the
+afternoon has passed very pleasantly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+
+Owen had telegraphed to her and she had come at once. But how callous
+and unsympathetic she was. If people knew what she was, no one would
+speak to her. If Owen knew that she had desired his mother's death ...
+But had she? She had only thought that, if Lady Asher were not to
+recover, it were better that she died before she, Evelyn, arrived at
+Riversdale. As the carriage drove through the woods she noticed that
+they were empty and silent, save for the screech of one incessant bird,
+and she thought of the dead woman's face, and contrasted it with the
+summer time.
+
+The house stood on the side of some rising ground in the midst of the
+green park. Cattle were grazing dreamily in the grass, which grew rich
+and long about a string of ponds, and she could see Owen walking under
+the colonnade. As the carriage came round the gravel space, his eyes
+sought her in the brougham, and she knew the wild and perplexed look on
+his face.
+
+"No, don't let's go into the house unless you're tired," he said, and
+they walked down the drive under the branches, making, they knew not
+why, for the open park. "This is terrible, isn't it? And this beautiful
+summer's day too, not a cloud in the sky, not a wind in all the air. How
+peaceful the cattle are in the meadow, and the swans in the pond. But we
+are unhappy. Why is this? You say that it is the will of God. That is no
+answer. But you think it is?"
+
+Fearing to irritate him, she did not speak, but he would not be put off,
+and she said--
+
+"Do not let us argue, Owen, dear. Tell me about it. It was quite
+unexpected?"
+
+"She had been in ill-health, as you know, for some time. Let us go this
+way."
+
+He led her through the shrubbery and through the wicket into the meadows
+which lay under the terrace, and, thinking of the dead woman, she
+wondered at the strange, somnolent life of the cattle in the meadows and
+the swans on the pond. The willows, as if exhausted by the heat, seemed
+to bend under the stream, and their eyes followed the lines of the woods
+and looked into the burning blue of the sky, striving to read the secret
+there. A rim of moist earth under their feet, and above their heads the
+infinite blue! The stillness of the summer was in every blade of grass,
+in every leaf, and the pond reflected the sky and willows in hard,
+immovable reflections. An occasional ripple of the water-fowl in the
+reeds impressed upon them the mystery of Nature's indifference to human
+suffering.
+
+"In that house behind that colonnade she lies dead. Good God! isn't it
+awful! We shall never see her. But you think we shall?"
+
+"Owen, dear, let as avoid all discussion. She was a good woman. She was
+very good to me."
+
+"I haven't told you that it was by her wish that I sent for you. She
+wanted to ask you to promise to marry me.... I told her that I had asked
+you, and that in a way we were engaged. I could not say more. You seemed
+unsettled, you seemed to wish to get out of your promise--is not that
+so?"
+
+Evelyn thought of the scene by Lady Asher's bedside that an accident had
+saved her from. Marriage was more than ever impossible. What should she
+have said if Lady Asher had not died before she arrived? The dying
+woman's eyes, the dying woman's voice! Good heavens! what would she have
+said? But she had considered nothing. After glancing at the telegram,
+she had told Merat to pack a few clothes, and had rushed away. She
+pondered the various excuses she might have sent. She might have said
+she was not in when the telegram came, she had only just caught the
+train as it was; if she had not got the telegram before eleven o'clock
+she would have been safe. But all that was past now, Lady Asher had died
+before she arrived. It were better that she had died--anything were
+better rather than that scene should have taken place; for she could not
+have promised to marry Owen. What would she have done? Refused while
+looking into her dying eyes, or run out of the room?
+
+"You don't answer me, Evelyn."
+
+"Owen, don't press me. Enough has been said on that subject. This is no
+time to discuss such questions."
+
+"But it is Evelyn--it was her dearest wish.... Is it then impossible?
+Have you entirely ceased to care?"
+
+"No, Owen, I'm very fond of you. But you don't really want to marry me,
+it is because your mother wished it."
+
+His face changed expression, and she knew that he was not certain on the
+point himself.
+
+"Yes, Evelyn, I do, indeed I do;" and convinced for the moment that what
+he said was true, he took her hands, and looking at her he added, "It
+was her wish, and if what you believe be true, she is listening now from
+behind that blue sky."
+
+Both were trembling, and while the swans floated by, they considered the
+depth of blue contained in the sky. He was taken with a little dread,
+and was surprised to find in himself a vague, haunting belief in the
+possibility of an after life. Suddenly his self-consciousness fell from
+him, was merged in his instinct of the woman.
+
+"Evelyn, if I don't marry you I shall lose you. I cannot lose you, that
+would be to lose everything. I don't ask any questions, whether you like
+Ulick Dean, nor even what your relations are. I only want to know if you
+will marry me."
+
+He read in her eyes that the tale of their love was ended, and heard his
+future life ring hollow. It seemed strange that at such a moment the
+serene swans should float about them, that the water-fowl should move in
+and out of the reeds, and that the green park and the cloudless sky were
+like painted paper.
+
+"Then everything is over, everything I had to live for, all is a blank.
+But when you sent me away before, you had to take me back; you're not a
+woman who can live without a lover."
+
+"It is difficult, I know."
+
+"What has come between us, tell me? This fellow Ulick Dean or religious
+scruples?"
+
+"I have no right to talk about religious scruples."
+
+"Then it is this man. You love him, you've ceased to care for me, and
+you ask me to barter my right to kiss you, to take you in my arms, so
+that I may remain your friend." "Why, Evelyn, have you got tired of me?"
+
+"But I have not got tired of you, Owen. I am very fond of you."
+
+"Yes, but you don't care any more for me to make love to you."
+
+"Of course it is not the same as it was in the beginning, but there is
+affection."
+
+"When passion is dead, all is dead, the rest is nothing."
+
+It seemed so shameful that he should suffer like this, and she strove to
+rouse herself out of her stony determination. She was like one upon a
+rampart; she could see the surrounding country, but could not escape to
+it; this rampart was the instinct, in which Nature had shut her soul.
+But she could not bear to see him cry.
+
+"Oh, Evelyn, this cannot be."
+
+Then, feeling that the reality was too brutal, she yielded to the
+temptation to disguise the truth.
+
+"I don't know what I shall do, Owen; there would be no use making
+promises."
+
+"Then you do love me a little, Evelyn?"
+
+"Yes, Owen, you must never doubt that. I shall always be fond of you;
+remember that, whatever happens."
+
+"Yes, I know, as a friend. Look round! the earth and the sky are quiet,
+and one day we shall be quiet too, only that is sure."
+
+As they walked towards the house, their self-consciousness rose to so
+high a pitch that the park and house seemed to them like a thin
+illusion, a sort of painted paper reality, which might fall to pieces
+at any moment. He thought how little were the hours between the present
+moment and the moment when she would be taken from him. Whereas she was
+thinking that these hours would never pass. She realised the long hours
+before the sunlight waned. She thought of their lonely dinner and their
+evening after it. All that while she would witness his grief for the
+love that had gone from her, a love which she could no more give than
+she could once withhold. The great green park lay before their eyes,
+they strayed through the woods talking of her Isolde. He had not seen
+the performance. He had been called away the day she played it, but his
+pockets were full of the articles that had been written about her. The
+leaves of the beech trees shimmered in the steady sunlight, and they
+could see the green park through the drooping branches. She often
+detected a sob in his voice, and once, while sitting under a cedar tree
+at the edge of the terrace, he had to turn aside to hide his tears, and
+the sadness of everything made her sick and ill.
+
+They had tea in the west hall. Owen had ceased to complain, and she had
+begun to think that she could not give him up entirely.
+
+The day had passed somehow; dinner was over. Around the green park the
+last light of the sunset grew narrower, and the cattle faded
+mysteriously into the gathering gloom. Owen held converse with himself,
+but with recognition of the fact that he was listened to by the second
+subject of his discourse, and that they themselves were his ideas, the
+figuration of his teaching, endowed his philosophy with a dramatic
+intensity.
+
+"How you used to hang round my neck and listen with eager nervous eyes.
+You always had the genius of exaltation. You were wonderful; I watched
+you, I understood you, I appreciated you; you were a marvellous jewel I
+had found, and of which I was excessively proud. I hardly lived at all
+for myself. You were my life; my life lived in you. Every time I went to
+see you, every appointment was a thrill, a wonder, a mystery. But it was
+not until you took me back after that separation at Florence that I sank
+into the depths of love. Then I became like a diver in the deep sea.
+What I had known before were but the shallows of passion. What I felt
+after Florence was the translucid calm of the ocean's depth. I lived in
+the light of an inner consciousness, seeing you always, your face always
+before me, and my whole being held in a rapt devotion, a
+self-sufficiency, an exaltation beyond the reach of words. Oh, Evelyn, I
+have been extraordinarily in love. But all this is nothing to you; it
+even bores you."
+
+"No, Owen, no, but you don't understand."
+
+The desire to tell him the truth came up in her throat, but the moment
+she sought to express it in words it became untruth, and it was to save
+herself from falsehood that she remained silent.
+
+"I knew my mistake, but the temptation was irresistible. I wanted so to
+tell you that I loved you. I could not deny myself, effusion, tears,
+aspiration. I gained two very wonderful years, and so I lost you. I
+wonder if any lover would have the courage to forswear these joys so
+that he might retain his mistress? Would any mistress be worthy of the
+sacrifice? 'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'"
+
+"Owen, dear, you're very cruel. Why do you speak like that? I shall
+never cease to love you. Owen, dear, you don't hate me?" she said,
+turning towards him.
+
+The silence was intense. It seemed to enter her ears and eyes like water
+or fire, and with dim sight and a dissolution of personal control of her
+body, she was moved towards him, and without any sort of thrill of
+desire she was drawn, almost thrown at his feet.
+
+She accepted his kisses wearily. There was a strange look in her eyes
+which he could not interpret, and she could not confide her secret, and
+there was an inexpressible sadness in these last kisses, and Owen's
+heart seemed to stand still when he said,--
+
+"Her last wish was our marriage; she would be glad if she could see us."
+
+Evelyn hid her face on his shoulders several times. He thought she was
+weeping, but her eyes remained dry. He came to her room that evening,
+and now that they were lovers again, it seemed to him impossible that
+she could refuse to marry him. But she stood looking at him, absorbed,
+in the presence of her future life, her eyes full of a strange farewell.
+He could extort no words from her, and her eyes retained their strange
+melancholy till her departure; his last memory of her visit was their
+melancholy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+The forces within her were at truce. She was conscious of a suspension
+of hostilities. The moment was one in which she saw, as in a mirror, her
+poor, vague little soul in its hopeless wandering through life. She drew
+back, not daring to see herself, and then was drawn forward by a febrile
+curiosity. She felt towards them so differently that she could not think
+of herself as the same person when she was with Owen as she was when she
+was with Ulick. She remembered what she had heard the "dresser" say, and
+she remembered the sin. But apart from the deception she practised upon
+both men, there was the wrong-doing. Her conscience did not assail her
+now; but she knew that she would suffer to-morrow or next day. That
+sense of sin which she could not obliterate from her nature would rise
+to her lips like a salt wave, and poison her life with its bitterness,
+and she asked herself vain questions: Why had she left her father? Why
+had she two lovers? Why did she rise to seek things that made her
+unhappy? She thought of yesterday's journey to see a dying woman, and of
+to-night's performance of "Tristan and Isolde." What an unhappy,
+maddening jingle. The bitter wave of conscience, which rose to her lips
+and poisoned her taste, forced from her an avowal that she would mend
+her life. She foresaw nothing but deception, and easily imagined that
+not a day would pass without lies. All her life would be a lie, and when
+her nature rose in vehement revolt, she looked round for means to free
+herself from the fetters and chains in which she had locked herself.
+Thinking of Owen, she vowed that it must not happen again. But what
+excuse would she give? Should she tell him that Ulick was her lover?
+That was the only way, only it seemed so brutal. Even so she would have
+a lover; and strictly speaking, she ought to send them both away. Very
+probably that is what she would do in the end.... In the meantime, she
+would keep them both on! Her face contracted in an expression of terror
+and disgust. Had her moralising, then, ended in such miserable
+selfishness as this?
+
+To escape from her thoughts she looked out at the landscape, hoping it
+would distract her. But she could take no interest in it. Yesterday it
+had seemed so beautiful, but to-day it was all reversed, and the light
+was different. She preferred to remember it. She thought that they must
+be nearing the river, and she remembered how in one place it ran round a
+field, making a silver horse shoe in the green land, they had crossed it
+twice in the space of a quarter of a mile; then it followed the railway,
+placid, docile, reflecting the trees and sky. Then like a child it was
+soon taken with a new idea; it ran far away out of sight, and Evelyn
+thought it would never return. But it came back again, turbulent and
+shallow; and with woods on the steep hillside, and spanned by a
+beautiful stone bridge. A little later its wanderings grew still more
+perplexing, and she was not sure that it had not been joined in some
+strange way by another river. But flowing round a low-lying field,
+coming suddenly from behind a bend in the land, it had seemed in that
+place like a pond. One bank was lined with bushes, the other lay open to
+a view of a treeless plain divided by ditches. Three ladies had held
+their light boat in the deep current, and she had wondered who they
+were, and what was their manner of living and their desires, and though
+she would never know these things, the image of these ladies in their
+boat had fixed itself in her mind for ever.
+
+Soon after the train began to slacken speed, and nervously she awaited
+her destiny.
+
+For she was uncertain whether she would send Ulick a telegram, telling
+him to come to Park Lane, or whether she would drive straight to his
+lodgings. At the bottom of her heart she knew that when she arrived at
+St. Pancras she would tell the cabman, "Queen's Square, Bloomsbury." And
+an hour later, nervous with expectation, she sat in the cab, seeing the
+streets pass behind her. She was beginning to know the characteristics
+of the neighbourhood, and in the afternoon light they awoke her out of a
+trembling lethargy. She recognised the old iron gateway, the open space,
+the thirsty fountain and the troop of neglected children. She liked the
+forlorn and rusty square. She experienced a sort of sinking anguish
+while waiting on the doorstep, lest he might not be at home. But when
+the servant girl said Mr. Dean was upstairs, she liked her dirty,
+good-natured smile, and she loved the stairs and banisters--it was all
+wonderful, and she could hardly believe that in a few moments more she
+would catch the first sight of his face. She would have to tell some
+part of the truth; and since Lady Asher was dead, he could not fail to
+believe. He would never think of asking her--she put the ugly thought
+aside, and ran up the second flight.
+
+In the pauses of their love-making, they often wandered round the walls
+participating in the mystery of the Wanderers, and the sempiternal
+loveliness of figures who stood with raised arms, by the streams of
+Paradise. It seemed a profanation to turn from these aspirations to the
+enjoyment of material love, and Evelyn looked at Ulick questioningly.
+But he said that life only became wrong when it ceased to aspire. In an
+Indian temple, it had once been asked who was the most holy man of all.
+A young saint who had not eaten for ten days had been pointed out, but
+he said that the holiest man who ever lived stood yonder. It was then
+noticed that the man pointed to was drunk ... Ulick explained that the
+drunkenness did not matter; it was an unimportant detail in the man's
+life, for none aspired as he did; and laughing at the story, they stood
+by the dusty, windy pane, her hand resting on his shoulder, and they
+always remembered that that day they had seen the foliage in the square.
+
+Lady Duckle had gone to Homburg; Owen had been obliged to go to Bath on
+account of his gout; and Evelyn was free to abandon herself to her love
+of Ulick and to her love of her father, and she begged him not to spoil
+her happiness, but to come to Dulwich with her. His scruples were easily
+argued away. She urged that he had not taken her away, he had brought
+her back to her father. This last argument was convincing, and the
+happiest time in their lives was the week they spent in Dulwich. They
+sat down together to dinner under the lamp at the round table in the
+little back room, and their evenings were passed at the harpsichord and
+the clavichord; and amid the dreams and aspirations of great men they
+attained their sublime nature. The music that had been given and that
+was to be given at St. Joseph's furnished a never-failing subject of
+discussion, and Mr. Innes told them stories of Italy in the sixteenth
+century. How almost every Sunday there was a festival in some church
+where the most beautiful music was heard. Along the nave were eight
+choirs, four on one side and four on the other, raised on stages eight
+to ten feet high, and facing one another at equal distances. Each choir
+had a portable organ, and the _maître composateur_ beat the time for the
+principal choir. And Mr. Innes's eyes lighted up when he spoke of the
+admirable _style recitatif_ in the oratory of St. Marcellus when there
+was a congregation of the Brothers of the Holy Crucifix. This order was
+composed of the chief noblemen of Rome, who had therefore the power of
+bringing together the rarest musicians Italy could produce. The voices
+began with a psalm in motet form, and then the instruments played a
+symphony, after which the voices sang a story from the Old Testament.
+Each chorister represented a personage in the story, etc. He spoke of
+the great organist at St. Peter's, and the wonderful inventions he is
+said to have displayed in his improvisations. No one since had played
+the harp like the renowned Horatio, but there was no one who could play
+the lyre like the renowned Ferrabosco in England. Evelyn leaned across
+the table, transported three centuries back, hearing all this music,
+which she had known from her earliest years, performed by virtue of her
+father's description in Italy, in St. Peter's, in the oratory of St.
+Marcellus and in the church of Minerva. Sometimes her father and Ulick
+began an argument, her sympathies alternated between them; she spoke
+very little, preferring to listen, not liking to side with either,
+agreeing with them, sometimes angering her father by her neutrality. But
+one evening he was a little too insistent, and Evelyn burst into tears,
+and ran upstairs to her room. The two men looked at each other, and Mr.
+Innes begged Ulick to tell him if he had been unkind, and then besought
+him to go upstairs and try to induce Evelyn to come down. Her face
+brightened into merry laughter at her own folly, and it called from her
+many entertaining remarks, so Ulick was tempted to set them one against
+the other, and to do so he had only to ask if Evelyn could sing such
+light soprano parts as Zerlina or Rosetta as well as her mother.
+
+In the mornings Evelyn and Ulick lingered in the shade of the chestnut
+trees or loitered in the lanes. At one moment they were telling each
+other of the fatality of their passion; in the next, by some transition
+of which they were not aware, they found themselves discussing some
+musical question. They went for long drives; and Richmond Park, not more
+than eight or ten miles distant, was at this season a beautiful,
+plaintive languor. There was a strange stillness in the air and a tender
+bloom upon the blue sky which spoke to the heart as no words, as only
+music could. The shadows moved listlessly among the bracken, and every
+vista was an enticement. Soft rain had allayed the dust of the road, and
+the distant hillsides seemed in the morning mists extraordinarily blue
+and romantic. There were wide prospects suggesting some great domain,
+and about the large oaks which stood in these open spaces herds of deer
+browsed, themselves the colour of the approaching month. About a sudden
+hillside, brilliantly blue, the evanescent mist hung over the heavy
+fronds, going out in the sunlight that was breaking through a grey sky.
+Ulick exclaimed, "How beautiful," and at the same moment Evelyn said,
+"Look at the deer, they are going to jump the railings." But the deer
+ran underneath, and galloped down the sloping park between a line of
+massive oaks; and the white and the tan hinds and fawns expressed in
+their life and beauty something which thrilled in the heart, and
+perforce Evelyn and Ulick remained silent. The park was wreathed that
+morning in sunlight and mist, it seemed to invite confidences, and the
+lovers dreamed of a perfect union of soul. The carriage was told to wait
+for them, and they took a path leading under a long line of trees toward
+high ground. Carts had passed there, and the ruts were full of water,
+but the earth about them was a little crisp, as if there had been frost
+during the night. They had brought with them a score of "Parsifal," for
+it was not yet certain that Evelyn would not play the part of Kundry.
+Notwithstanding Ulick's criticism, she thought she would like to act in
+the third act. But they were too interested in each other to open the
+score, and they were excited by the wonder of Nature in the still
+morning. The sky was all silver, and a very little distance bathed the
+hillsides in beautiful blue tones. The leaves of the oak trees hung
+languidly, as if considering the lowly earth to which they must soon
+return. Yet the blood was hot and the nerves were highly strung, and
+life seemed capable of great things in this moody, contemplative
+morning. There was a wonder in the little wren that picked her way among
+the fronds, and a thrill in the scurry of the watchful rabbit; and when
+they reached the crest of the upland and saw an open expanse of park,
+with the deer moving away through the mist, their souls dilated, and in
+happy ecstasy they looked upon Nature with the same innocent wonderment
+as the first man and woman.
+
+The morning seemed to inspire adventure, and the little tale that Evelyn
+was telling was just what was required to enhance its suggestion. By
+some accident in the conversation she had been led to speak of how she
+had been nearly captured by pirates in the Mediterranean. They were
+becalmed off the African coast, and a boat had rowed out with fruits and
+vegetables. The suspicious countenances of this boat's crew did not
+strike them at the time. But they were a reconnoitring party, and next
+day about four in the afternoon they noticed a vessel propelled by sails
+and oars steering straight for them, as if in the intention of running
+them down. It paid no attention to the cries of the captain, but came
+straight at them, and would have succeeded in its design if the yacht
+had not been going through the water faster than the pirates supposed,
+so they fell astern, and no one thought any more of them till they
+tacked, and they had almost overtaken the yacht, they were hardly
+distant more than fifty yards, when their intention was suspected. The
+captain put the _Medusa's_ head up to the wind, and she soon began to
+leave her pursuer behind.
+
+"We had no arms on board, they were fifty to twenty; the men would have
+been massacred, and I should have finished my days in a harem."
+
+Ulick had brought his violin with him, and they walked under the
+drooping boughs, she singing and he playing old-world melodies by Lulli
+and Rameau. Sometimes a passer-by stopped, and peering through,
+discovered them in a hollow sitting under an oak. A snake crawled out of
+its hole, and Ulick was about to rush forward to kill it, but Evelyn
+laid her hand upon his, and said--
+
+"Let it listen, poor thing. No living thing should meet its death for
+its love of music."
+
+"You're no longer the Evelyn Innes that loved Owen Asher."
+
+"I think I have changed a great deal. I was very young when I knew him
+first."
+
+She spoke of the influence he had exercised over her, but now his ideas
+meant as little as he did himself--it was all far away. Only a little
+trick of speech and a turn of phrase remained to recall his passage
+through her life. When they returned home she found a letter from him on
+the table, and her face clouded as she read his letter, for it announced
+an intention to call when he came to town, and to avoid his visit she
+thought she would stop in Dulwich. But if she stayed over Saturday, she
+would have to go to Mass on Sunday. Last Sunday she escaped by pleading
+indisposition. She wondered which she would prefer, to face Owen or to
+brave the effect that she knew Mass would produce upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+
+She was in the music-room, looking through the first act of "Grania,"
+and thinking that perhaps after all she might remain on the stage and
+create the part. Her father had gone to St. Joseph's for choir practice,
+Ulick had gone to London for strings for her viola da gamba; and all the
+morning she had been uneasy and expectant. The feeling never quite left
+her that something was about to happen, that she was to meet
+someone--someone for whom she had been waiting a long while. So she
+started on hearing the front door bell ring. She could think of no one
+whom it might be unless Owen. If it were, what would she say? And she
+waited, eager for the servant to announce the visitor. It was Monsignor
+Mostyn.
+
+She was dressed in a muslin tea-gown over shot green silk, and was
+conscious of her triviality as she stood before the tall, spare
+ecclesiastic. She admired the calm, refined beauty of his face, the
+bright, dark eyes and the thin features, steadfast and aloof as some
+saints she had seen in pictures.
+
+"I called to see your father, Miss Innes, but he is not in, and hearing
+that you were, I asked to see you. For my business is really with you,
+that is, if you can spare the time?"
+
+"Won't you sit down, Monsignor?"
+
+"I have come, Miss Innes, to remind you of a promise that you once made
+me."
+
+The colour returned to her cheeks, and a smile to her lips. But she did
+not remember, and was slightly embarrassed.
+
+"Did I make you a promise?"
+
+"Have you forgotten my speaking to you about some poor sisters who might
+be driven from their convent if they failed to pay the interest on a
+mortgage?"
+
+"Ah, yes, on the night of the concert."
+
+"They have paid the interest and kept a roof over their heads, but in
+doing so they have exhausted their resources; and not to put too fine a
+point upon it, I am afraid they often have not enough to eat. Something
+must be done for them. I thought that a concert would be the quickest
+way of getting them some money."
+
+"You want me to sing?"
+
+"It really would be a charitable action."
+
+"I shall be delighted to sing for them. Where is this convent?"
+
+"At Wimbledon."
+
+"My old convent! The Passionist Sisters!"
+
+"Your old convent?"
+
+"Yes," Evelyn replied, the colour rising slightly to her cheeks. "I made
+a retreat there, long ago, before I went on the stage."
+
+She was grieved to hear that the Reverend Mother she had known was dead;
+she had died two years ago, and Mother Margaret was dead too. Monsignor
+could tell her nothing about Sister Bonaventure. Mother Philippa was the
+sub-prioress; and in the midst of her questions he explained how the
+financial difficulties had arisen. They were, he said, the result of the
+imprudences of the late Reverend Mother, one of the best and holiest of
+women, but unfortunately not endowed with sufficient business foresight.
+He was quite prepared to admit that the little wooden chapel which had
+preceded the present chapel was inadequate, and that she was justified
+in building another, but not in expending nearly one thousand pounds in
+stained glass. The new chapel had cost ten thousand pounds, and the
+interest of this money had to be paid. There were other debts--
+
+"But there is no reason why I should weary you with an exact statement."
+
+"But you do not weary me, Monsignor; I am, on the contrary, deeply
+interested."
+
+"The convent owes a great deal to the late Reverend Mother, and the last
+thing I wish to express is disapproval. We do not know the
+circumstances, and must not judge her; we know that she acted for the
+best. No doubt she is now praying to God to secure the safety of her
+convent."
+
+Evelyn sat watching him, fascinated by the clear, peremptory,
+ecclesiastical dignity which he represented. If he had a singing voice,
+she said to herself, it would be a tenor. He had allowed the
+conversation to wander from the convent to the concert; and they were
+soon talking of their musical preferences. There was an impersonal
+tenderness, a spiritual solicitude in his voice which enchained her; no
+single idea held her, but wave after wave of sensation passed,
+transforming and dissolving, changeable as a cloud. Human life demands
+hope, and the priest is a symbol of hope; there is always a moment when
+the religionist doubts, and there is also a moment when the atheist
+says, "Who knows, perhaps." And this man had done what she had not been
+able to do: he had put aside the paltry pleasures of the world, he
+placed his faith in things beyond the world, pleasures which perchance
+were not paltry. An entirely sensual life was a terrible oppression;
+hers often weighed upon her like a nightmare; to be happy one must have
+an ideal and strive to live up to it. Her mind flickered and sank,
+changing rapidly as an evening sky, never coming to anything distinct
+enough to be called a thought. She desired to hear him speak, she felt
+that she must speak to him about religion; she wanted to know if he were
+sure, and how he had arrived at his certitudes.... She wanted to talk to
+him about life, death and immortality. She had tried to lead the
+conversation into a religious discussion, but he seemed to avoid it, and
+just as she was about to put a definite question, Ulick came into the
+room. He stood crushing his grey felt hat between his hands, a somewhat
+curious figure, and she watched him talking to Monsignor, thinking of
+the difference of vision. As Ulick said, everything was in that. Men
+were divided by the difference of their visions. She was curious to know
+how the dogmatic and ritualistic vision of Monsignor affected Ulick, and
+when the prelate left she asked him.
+
+He was as ingenuous and unexpected on this subject as he was on all
+subjects. If the antique priest, he said, clothed himself in purple, it
+was to produce an exaltation in himself which would bring him closer to
+the idea, which would render him, as it were, accessible to it. But the
+vestments of the modern priest had lost their original meaning, they
+were mere parade. This explanation was very like Ulick; she smiled, and
+was interested, but her interest was passing and superficial. The advent
+of the priest had moved her in the depths of her being, and her mind was
+thick with lees of ancient sentiment, and wrecks of belief had floated
+up and hung in mid memory. She knew that the beauty of the ritual, the
+eternal psalms, the divine sacrifice, the very ring of the bell, the
+antiquity of the language, lifted her out of herself, and into a higher,
+a more intense ecstasy than the low medium of this world's desires. And
+if she did not believe that the bread and wine were the true body and
+blood of God, she still believed in the real Presence. She was aware of
+it as she might be of the presence of someone in the room, though he
+might be hidden from her eyes. Though the bread and wine might not be
+the body and blood of Christ, still the act of consecration did seem to
+her to call down the spirit of God, and it had seemed to her to inhabit
+the church at the moment of consecration. It might not be true to Owen,
+nor yet to Ulick, but it was true to her--it was a difference of
+vision.... She sat buried in herself. Then she walked to the window
+confused and absorbed, with something of the dread of a woman who finds
+herself suddenly with child. When Ulick came to her she did not notice
+him, and when he asked her to do some music with him she refused, and
+when he put his arms about her she drew away sullenly, almost
+resentfully.
+
+A few days after she was in Park Lane. She had gone there to pay some
+bills, and she was going through them when she was startled by the front
+door bell. It was a visitor without doubt. Her thoughts leaped to
+Monsignor, and her face lighted up. But he did not know she was at Park
+Lane; he would not go there.... It was Owen come up from Bath. What
+should she say to him? Good heavens! It was too late to say she was not
+at home. He was already on the stairs. And when he entered he divined
+that he was not welcome. They sat opposite each other, trying to talk.
+Suddenly he besought her not to throw him over.... She had to refuse to
+kiss him, and that was convincing, he said. Once a woman was not greedy
+for kisses, the end was near. And his questions were to the point, and
+irritatingly categorical. Had she ever been unfaithful to him? Did she
+love Ulick Dean? Not content with a simple denial, he took her by both
+hands, and looking her straight in the face, asked her to give him her
+word of honour that Ulick Dean was not her lover, that she had never
+kissed him, that she had never even desired to kiss him, that no idea of
+love making had ever arisen between them. She pledged her word on every
+point, and this was the second time that her _liaison_ with Ulick had
+obliged her to lie, deliberately in so many words. Nor did the lying
+even end there. He wanted her to stay, to dine with him; she had to
+invent excuses--more lies.
+
+She was returning to Dulwich in her carriage, and until she arrived home
+her thoughts hankered and gnawed, pestered and terrified her. Never had
+she felt so ashamed, so disgusted with herself, and the after taste of
+the falsehoods she had told came back into her mouth, and her face grew
+dark in the beautiful summer evening. Her brows were knit, and she
+resolved that if the occasion happened again, she would tell Owen the
+truth. This was no mock determination; on this point she was quite sure
+of herself. Looking round she saw the mean streets of Camberwell. She
+saw them for a moment, and then she sank back into her reverie.
+
+She was deceiving Owen, she was deceiving her father, she was deceiving
+Ulick, she was deceiving Monsignor--he would not have thought of asking
+her to sing at the concert if he knew what a life was hers. Nor would
+those good women at the convent accept her aid if they knew what kind of
+woman she was. And the strange thing was that she did not believe
+herself to be a bad woman; at the bottom of her heart she loved truth
+and sincerity. She wished to have an ideal and to live up to it, yet she
+was doing the very opposite. That was what was so strange, that was what
+she did not understand, that was what made her incomprehensible to
+herself. She sighed, and at the bottom of her heart there lay an immense
+weariness, a weariness of life, of the life she was leading, and she
+longed for a life that would coincide with her principles, and she felt
+that if she did not change her life, she would do something desperate.
+She might kill herself.
+
+It is true that man is a moral animal, but it is not true that there is
+but one morality; there are a thousand, the morality of each race is
+different, the morality of every individual differs. The origin of each
+sect is the desire to affirm certain moral ideas which particularly
+appeal to it; every change of faith is determined by the moral
+temperament of the individual; we prefer this religion to that religion
+because our moral ideas are more implicit in these affirmations than in
+those.
+
+The restriction of sexual intercourse is the moral ideal of Western
+Europe; it is the one point on which all Christians are agreed; it is
+the one point on which they all feel alike. So inherent is the idea of
+sexual continence in the Western hemisphere that even those whose
+practice does not coincide with their theory rarely impugn the wisdom of
+the law which they break; they prefer to plead the weakness of the flesh
+as their excuse, and it is with reluctance that they admit that without
+an appeal to conscience it would be impossible to prove that it is wrong
+for two unmarried people to live together. It is not perceived that the
+fact that no material proof can be produced strengthens rather than
+weakens the position of the moralist. To do unto others as you would be
+done unto, to love your neighbour as yourself, are practical moralities
+which may be derived from social necessities, but the abstract
+moralities, that sexual intercourse is wrong except between married
+people, and that it is wrong to tell a lie, even if the lie be a
+perfectly harmless one, exist of themselves. That we cannot bring
+abstract moralities into the focus of our understanding is no argument.
+As well deny the stars because we cannot understand them. That abstract
+moralities impose on us should be a sufficient argument that they cannot
+be the futilities that Owen would argue them to be--not them, he only
+protested against one.... (She had not thought of that before--Owen was
+no more rational than she.) That the idea of chastity should persist in
+spite of reason is proof of its truth. For what more valid argument in
+favour of a chaste life than that the instinct of chastity abides in us?
+After all, what we feel to be true is for us the greatest truth, if not
+the only real truth. Ulick was nearer the truth than Owen. He had said,
+"A sense which eludes all the other senses and which is not
+apprehensible to reason governs the world, all the rest is
+circumstantial, ephemeral. Were man stripped one by one of all his
+attributes, his intelligence, his knowledge, his industry, as each of
+these shunks was broken up and thrown aside, the kernel about which they
+had gathered would be a moral sense."
+
+Evelyn remembered that when she had sent Owen away before, he had said,
+"Sexual continence at best is not the whole of morality; from your use
+of the word one would think that it was." But for her the sexual
+conscience was the entire conscience--she had no temptation to steal.
+There was lying, but she was never tempted to tell lies except for one
+reason; she could not think of herself telling a lie for any other. To
+her the sexual sin included all the others. She turned her head aside,
+for the bitterness of her conscience was unendurable, and she vowed
+that, whatever happened, she would speak the truth if Owen questioned
+her again. She could never bring herself to tell such horrible
+falsehoods again.
+
+These revulsions of feeling alternated with remembrances of Owen's
+tenderness; fugitive sensations of him tingled in her veins, and
+ill-disposed her to Ulick. She spoke little, and sat with averted eyes.
+When he asked her if he should come to her room, she answered him
+peremptorily; and he heard her lock her door with a determined hand.
+
+As she lay in bed, conscious of the inextricable tangle of her life, it
+was knotting so closely and rapidly that her present double life could
+not endure much longer, the odious taste of the lies she had told that
+afternoon rose again to her lips, and, as if to quench the bitterness,
+she vowed that she would tell Owen the truth ... if he asked her. If he
+did not ask her she would have to bear the burden of her lies. She tried
+not to wish that he might ask her. Then questions sallied from every
+side. She could not marry Owen without telling him about Ulick. She
+could not marry Ulick without telling him that she had been unfaithful
+to him with Owen. Should she send away Owen and marry Ulick, or would it
+be better to send away Ulick and marry Owen--if he would marry her after
+he had heard her confession? It was unendurable to have to tell lies all
+day long--yes, all day long--of one sort or another. She ought to send
+them both away.... But could she remain on the stage without a lover?
+Could she go to Bayreuth by herself? Could she give up the stage? And
+then?
+
+She awoke in a different mood--at least, it seemed to her that her mood
+was different. She was not thinking of Owen, of the lies she had told
+him; and she could talk gaily with Ulick about the concert she had
+promised to sing at. She seemed inclined to take the whole
+responsibility of this concert upon her own shoulders. As Ulick said, it
+was impossible for her to take a small part in any concert.
+
+They were driving in Richmond Park, not far from the convent. The
+autumn-tinted landscape, the vicissitudes of the woods, and the
+plaintive air brought a tender yearning into her mood, and she
+contrasted the lives of those poor, holy women with her own life. Ulick
+did not intrude himself; he sat silent by her, and she thought of
+Monsignor. Sometimes he was no more than a little shadow in the
+background of her mind; but he was never wholly absent, and that day all
+matters were unconsciously referred to him. She was curious to know what
+his opinions were of the stage; and as they returned home in the short,
+luminous autumn evening, she seemed to discover suddenly the fact that
+she was no longer as much interested in the stage as she used to be. She
+even thought that she would not greatly care if she never sang on the
+stage again. Last night she had put the thought aside as if it were
+madness, to-day it seemed almost natural. Thinking of the poor sisters
+who lived in prayer and poverty on the edge of the common, she
+remembered that her life was given up to the portrayal of sensual
+emotion on the stage. She remembered the fierce egotism of the stage--an
+egotism which pursued her into every corner of her life. Compared with
+the lives of the poor sisters who had renounced all that was base in
+them, her life was very base indeed. In her stage life she was an agent
+of the sensual passion, not only with her voice, but with her arms, her
+neck and hair, and every expression of her face, and it was the craving
+of the music that had thrown her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated
+her, how much more would it subjugate and hold within its sensual
+persuasion the ignorant listener--the listener who would perceive in the
+music nothing but its sensuality. Why had the Church not placed stage
+life under the ban of mortal sin? It would have done so if it knew what
+stage life was, and must always be. She then wondered what Monsignor
+thought of the stage, and from the moment her curiosity was engaged on
+this point it did not cease to trouble her till it brought her to the
+door of the presbytery. The ostensible object of her visit was to make
+certain proposals to Monsignor regarding the music she was to sing at
+the concert.
+
+She was shown into a small room; its one window was so high up on the
+wall that the light was dim in the room, though outside there was
+brilliant sunshine. The sadness of the little room struck cold upon her,
+and she noticed the little space of floor covered with cocoa-nut
+matting, and how it grated under the feet. The furniture was a polished
+oak table, with six chairs to match. A pious print hung on each wall.
+One was St. Monica and St. Augustine, and the rapt expression of their
+faces reminded her that she might be bartering a divine inheritance for
+a coarse pleasure that left but regret in the heart. And it was in such
+heartsick humour that Monsignor found her. He seemed to assume that she
+needed his help, and the tender solicitude with which he wished to come
+to her aid was in itself a consolation. She was already an incipient
+penitent as she told him of her project to bring an orchestra at her own
+expense to Wimbledon, and give the forest murmurs with the Bird Song
+from "Siegfried." Monsignor left everything to her; he placed himself
+unreservedly in her hands. After a long silence she pushed a cheque for
+fifty pounds across the table, begging him not to mention the name of
+the giver. She was singing for them, that was sufficient obligation. He
+approved of her delicacy of feeling, thanked her for her generosity,
+and the business of the interview seemed ended.
+
+"I'm so much obliged to you, Monsignor Mostyn, for having come to me,
+for having given me an opportunity of doing some good with my money.
+Hitherto, I'm ashamed to say, I've spent it all on myself. It has often
+seemed to me intolerably selfish, and I often felt that I must do
+something, only I did not know what to do."
+
+Then, feeling that she must take him into her confidence, she asked him
+what proportion of our income we should devote to charity. He said it
+was impossible to fix a precise sum, but he knew many deserving cases,
+and offered to advise her in the distribution of whatever money she
+might decide to spend in charity. Suddenly his manner changed; he even
+seemed to wish her to stay, and the conversation turned back to music.
+The conversation was mundane as possible, and it was only now and then,
+by some slight allusion to the Church, that he reminded Evelyn, and
+perchance himself, that the essential must be distinguished from the
+circumstantial.
+
+Again and again the temptation rose up, it seemed to look out from her
+very eyes, and she was so conscious of this irresistible desire to speak
+to him of herself that she no longer heard him, and hardly saw the blank
+wall with the pious print upon it.
+
+"I have not told you, Monsignor," she said at last, "that I am leaving
+the stage."
+
+She knew that he must ask her what had induced her to think of taking so
+important a step, and then she would have an opportunity of asking his
+opinion of the stage. Of course neither Ulick's nor Owen's name would be
+mentioned.
+
+"As at present constituted, the stage is a dangerous influence. Some
+women no doubt are capable of resisting evil even when surrounded by
+evil. Even so they set a bad example, for the very knowledge of their
+virtue tempts others less sure of themselves to engage in the same life,
+and these weak ones fall. The virtuous actress is like a false light,
+which instead of warning vessels from the rocks entices them to their
+ruin."
+
+He did not indite the Oberammergau Passion Play, but he could not accept
+"Parsifal." He had heard Catholics aver, while approving of the
+performance of "Parsifal," that they would not wish to see the piece
+performed out of Bayreuth. But he failed to understand this point of
+view altogether. It seemed to assume that a parody of the Mass was
+unobjectionable at Bayreuth, though not elsewhere. If there was no
+parody of the Mass, why should they say that they would not like to see
+the piece performed elsewhere? He had read the book and knew the music,
+and could not understand how a great work of art could contain scenes
+from real life. Whether these be religious ceremonies or social
+functions, the artistic sin is the same. He asked Evelyn why she was
+smiling, and she told him that it was because the only two whom she had
+heard disapprove of "Parsifal" were Monsignor Mostyn and Ulick Dean. It
+seemed strange that two such extremes should agree regarding the
+profligacy of "Parsifal." Monsignor was interested for a moment in Ulick
+Dean's views, and then he said--
+
+"But was it with the intention of consulting me, Miss Innes, that you
+introduced the subject? I hear that you are going to play the principal
+part next year--Kundry."
+
+"Nothing is settled. As I told you just now, Monsignor, I am thinking of
+leaving the stage, and your opinions concerning it do not encourage me
+to remain an actress."
+
+"My dear child, you have had the good fortune to be brought up in holy
+Church. You have, I hope, constant recourse to the sacraments. You have
+confided the difficulties of your stage life to your confessor. How does
+he advise you?"
+
+Raising her eyes, Evelyn said in a sinking voice--
+
+"Even if one has doubts about the whole doctrine of the Church, it is
+still possible to wish to lead a good life. Don't you think so,
+Monsignor?"
+
+"There are many Protestants who lead excellent lives. But I have always
+noticed that when a Catholic begins to question the doctrine of the
+Church, his or her doubts were preceded by a desire to lead an irregular
+life."
+
+And in the silence Evelyn became aware of the afternoon sun shining
+through the window above their heads, enlivening the dark parlour. It
+seemed strange to sit discussing such subjects in the sunshine. The ray
+that fell through the window lighted up the priest's thin face till it
+seemed like one of the wood carvings she had seen in Germany. When he
+resumed the conversation it was to lead her to speak of herself and the
+reasons which had suggested an abandonment of her stage career. The
+tender, impersonal kindness of the priest drew her out of herself, and
+she told him how she had begun to perceive that the stage had ceased to
+interest her as it had once done; she spoke of vulgarity and parade, yet
+that was not quite what she meant; it had come to seem to her like so
+much waste, as if she were wasting her time in doing things that did not
+matter, like grown people would feel if they were asked to pass the
+afternoon playing with dolls. Shrugging her shoulders hysterically, she
+said she could not explain.
+
+"But have you an idea of what life you wish to lead?"
+
+"No, I don't think I have; I only know that I am not happy in my present
+life."
+
+"I believe you see a good deal of Sir Owen Asher. He helped you, did he
+not, in your musical education?"
+
+"Yes," she answered under her breath. "He is an intimate friend." In a
+moment of unexpected courage, she said, "Do you know him, Monsignor?"
+
+"I have heard a good deal about him, and nothing, I regret to say, to
+his credit. He is, I believe, an avowed atheist, and does not hesitate
+to declare his unbelief in every society, and to make open boast of an
+immoral life. He has read and tried to understand a little more than the
+people with whom he associates. I suppose the doubts you entertain
+regarding the doctrine of the Church are the result of his teaching?"
+
+With a little pathetic air, Evelyn admitted that Owen had used every
+possible argument to destroy her faith. She had read Huxley, Darwin, and
+a little Herbert Spencer.
+
+"Herbert Spencer! Miserable collections of trivial facts, bearing upon
+nothing. Of what value, I ask, can it be to suffering humanity to know
+that such and such a fact has been observed and described? Then the
+general law! rubbish, ridiculous rubbish!"
+
+"The scientists fail to see that what we feel matters much more than
+what we know."
+
+"True, quite true," he said, turning sharply and looking at her with
+admiration. Then, recollecting himself, he said, "But God does not exist
+because we feel He exists. He exists not through us, but through
+Himself, from all time and through all eternity. To feel is better than
+to observe, to pray is better than to inquire, but indiscriminate
+abandonment to our feelings would lead us to give credence to every
+superstition. You have, I perceive, escaped from the rank materialism of
+Sir Owen's teaching, but whither are you drifting, my dear child? You
+must return to the Church; without the Church, we are as vessels without
+a rudder or compass."
+
+He walked up and down the room as though debating with himself. Evelyn
+held her breath, wondering what new turn the conversation would take.
+Suddenly she lost her courage, and overcome with fear got up to go, and
+Monsignor, considering that enough had been said, did not attempt to
+detain her. But as he bade her good-bye at the door, his keen eye fixed
+upon her, he added, "Remember, I do not admit your difficulties to be
+intellectual ones. When you come to realise that for yourself, I shall
+be glad to do all in my power to help you. God bless you, my child!"
+
+If only she could put the whole thing aside--refuse to bother her head
+any more, or else believe blindly what she was told. She hated wobbling,
+yet she did nothing else. Suddenly she felt that if she were to believe
+at all, it must be like Monsignor. The magnetism of his faith thrilled
+her, and, in a moment, it had all became real to her. But it was too
+late. She could never do all her religion asked. Her whole life would
+have to come to pieces; nothing of it would remain, and she entirely
+lost heart when she considered in detail the sacrifices she would have
+to make. She saw herself at Dulwich with her father, giving singing
+lessons, attending the services, and living about St. Joseph's. She saw
+herself singing operas in every capital, and always a new lover at her
+heels. Both lives were equally impossible to her. As she lay back in her
+carriage driving through the lazy summer streets, she almost wished she
+had no conscience at all. What was the use of it? She had just enough to
+spoil her happiness in wrong-doing, yet not enough to prevent her doing
+what deep down in her heart she knew to be wrong.
+
+That evening she wrote a number of letters, and begged a subscription of
+every friend--Owen was out of the question and she hesitated whether she
+should make use of Ulick. She would have liked to have left him out of
+this concert altogether, and it was only because she had no one else
+whom she could depend upon that she consented to let him go off in
+search of the necessary tenor. But to take him to the concert did not
+seem right.
+
+She dipped her pen in the ink, and then laid it down, overcome by a
+sudden and intolerable melancholy. She could have cried, so great was
+her weariness with the world, so worthless did her life seem. She had
+begged her father's forgiveness; he had forgiven her, but she had not
+sent away her lover.... She had told Monsignor that, in consequence of
+certain scruples of conscience, she intended to give up the stage, but
+she had not told him that she had taken another lover and brought him to
+live with her under her father's roof. Whether there was a God and a
+hereafter, or merely oblivion, such conduct as hers was surely wrong.
+She walked to and fro, and came to a resolution regarding her relations
+with Ulick, at all events in her father's house.
+
+Then life seemed perfectly hopeless, and she wished Monsignor had not
+come to see her. What could she do to shake off this clammy and
+unhealthy depression which hung about her? She might go for a walk, but
+where? The perspective of the street recalled the days when she used to
+stand at the window wondering if nothing would ever happen to her. She
+remembered the moment with singular distinctness when she heard the
+voice crying within her? "Will nothing ever happen? Will this go on for
+ever?" She remembered the very tree and the very angle of the house!
+Dulwich was too familiar; it was like living in a room where there was
+nothing but mirrors. Dulwich was one vast mirror of her past life. In
+Dulwich she was never living in the present. She could not see Dulwich,
+she could only remember it. One walk more in that ornamental park! She
+knew it too well! And the picture gallery meant Owen--she would only see
+him and hear his remarks. Her thoughts reverted to his proposal of
+marriage and her acceptance. Not for the whole world! Why, she did not
+know. He had been very good to her. Her ingratitude shocked her. She
+shrugged her shoulders hysterically; she could not help it--that was how
+she felt.
+
+But Ulick? Should she marry him and accept the Gods? That would settle
+everything.
+
+But a sense of humour solves nothing, and at that moment the servant
+brought her a small brown paper parcel. It looked like a book. It was a
+book. She opened it. Monsignor had sent her a book. As she turned the
+leaves she remembered the parcels of books from Owen which she used to
+open in the same room, sitting in the same chair. _Sin and its
+Consequences_! She began reading it. On one point she was sure, that sin
+did exist.... If we felt certain things to be wrong, they were wrong; at
+least they were wrong for those who thought them wrong, and she had
+never been able to feel that it was right to live with a man to whom she
+was not married. Everyone had a moral code. Owen would not cheat at
+cards, and he thought it mean to tell lies--a very poor code it was, but
+still he acted up to it. She did not know how Ulick felt on such
+matters; his beliefs, though numerous and picturesque, supplied no moral
+code, and she could not live on symbols, though perhaps they were better
+than Owen's theories. Her mistake from the beginning was in trying to
+acquire a code of morals which did not coincide with her feelings. But
+the teaching in this book did coincide with her feelings. Could she
+follow it? That was the point. Could she live without a lover? Owen
+thought not. She laughed and then walked about the room, unable to shake
+off a dead weight of melancholy. Though the Church was all wrong, and
+there was no God, she was still leading a life which she felt to be
+wrong; and if the Church were right, and there was a resurrection, her
+soul was lost. She took up the book and read till her fears became so
+intense that she could read no more, and she walked up and down the
+room, her nerves partially unstrung. In the evening she talked a great
+deal and rapidly, apparently not quite aware of what she was saying, or
+else her face wore a brooding look; sometimes it awakened a little, and
+then her eyes were fixed on Ulick.
+
+The next day was Friday, and as the train service seemed complex and
+inconvenient, and as she had not at Dulwich a suitable dress to wear at
+the concert, she decided to sleep at Park Lane and drive to Wimbledon in
+the afternoon. She left her father, promising to return to him soon, and
+she had told Ulick that she thought it better he should return by train.
+She saw that he had noticed the book in her hand, and she knew that he
+understood her plea that she did not wish to be seen driving with him to
+mean that she was going to call on Monsignor on her way home. She had
+thought of calling at St. Joseph's, but, unable to think of a
+sufficient excuse for the visit, had abandoned the idea. She knew the
+time was not opportune. Monsignor would be hearing confessions. But as
+the carriage turned out of Camberwell, she remembered that it would be
+polite to thank him for the book, and leaning forward she told the
+coachman to drive to St. Joseph's.... So after all she was going
+there.... Ulick was right.
+
+The attendant told her that Monsignor was hearing confessions, and would
+not be free for another half-hour. She drew a breath of relief, for this
+second visit had frightened her. The attendant asked her if she would
+wait. She thought she would like to wait in church. She desired its
+collectedness, its peace. But the thought of Monsignor's confessional
+frightened her, and she thanked the attendant hurriedly, and went slowly
+to her carriage.
+
+When Ulick came in that evening she was seated on the corner of the sofa
+near the window. The moon was shining on the breathless park, and a moth
+whirled between the still flames of the candles which burned on the
+piano. He noticed that her mood was subdued and reflective. She liked
+him to sit by her, to take her hand and tell her he loved her. She liked
+to listen to him, but not to music; nor would she sing that evening, and
+his questions as to the cause remained unanswered. Her voice was calm
+and even, and seemed to come from far away. There was a tremor in his,
+and between whiles they watched and wondered at the flight of the moth.
+It seemed attracted equally by darkness and light. It emerged from the
+darkness, fluttered round the perilous lights and returned again to its
+natural gloom. But the temptation could not be resisted, and it fell
+singed on the piano.
+
+"We ought to have quenched those candles," Evelyn said.
+
+"It would have found others," Ulick answered, and he took the maimed
+moth on to the balcony and trod it out of its misery. They sat there
+under the little green verandah, and in the colour of the clear night
+their talk turned on the stars and the Zodiacal signs. Ulick was born
+under the sign of Aquarius, and all the important events of his life
+began when Aquarius was rising. Pointing to a certain group of stars, he
+said--
+
+"The story of Grania is no more than our story, your story, my story,
+and the story of Sir Owen Asher, and I had written my poem before I saw
+you." Then, as a comment on this fact, he added, "We should be careful
+what we write, for what we write will happen. Grania is the beautiful
+fortune which we will strive for, which chooses one man to-day and
+another to-morrow."
+
+The idea interested her for a moment, but she was thinking of her
+project to find out if, like Owen, he thought that the virtue of
+chastity was non-essential in women, or if the other virtues were
+dependent upon it. But how to lead the conversation back to this
+question she did not for the moment know. At last she said--"You ask me
+to love you--but to be my lover you would have to surrender all your
+spiritual life, that which is most to you, that which makes your genius.
+Do you think it worth it?"
+
+He hesitated, then answered her with some vague reference to destiny,
+but she guessed the truth. As free as Owen himself from ethical
+scruples, he still felt that we should overcome our sexual nature. She
+asked herself why: and she wondered just as Owen wondered when
+confronted by her religious conscience. They looked at each other long
+and gravely, and he told her of the great seer who had collected in her
+own person all the cryptic revelation, all the esoteric lore of the
+East. He admitted that she had allowed carnal intercourse to some of her
+disciples while forbidding it to others.
+
+"Evidently judging chastity to be in some cases essential to the other
+virtues."
+
+She heard him say that a sect of mystics to which he belonged, or
+perhaps it was whose society he frequented, advised the married state
+but with this important reservation, that instead of corporal possession
+they should endeavour to aid each other to rise to a higher spiritual
+plane, anticipating in this life a little the perfect communion of
+spirit which awaited them in the next. But such theories did not appeal
+to Evelyn. She could only understand the renunciation of the married
+state for the sake of closer intimacy with the spiritual life; and she
+was more interested when he told her of the cruelties, the macerations
+and the abstinences which the Indian seers resorted to, so that the
+opacity of the fleshly envelope might be diminished and let the soul
+through. In modern, as in the most ancient ages, with the scientist as
+with the seer, marvels and prodigies are reached through the subjugation
+of the flesh; as life dwindles like a flame that a breath will quench,
+the spirit attains its maximum, and the abiding and unchanging life that
+lies beyond death waxes till it becomes the real life.
+
+"Is this life, then, not real?"
+
+"If reality means what we understand, could anything be more unreal?"
+
+"Then you do believe in a future state?"
+
+"Yes, I certainly believe in a future state.... So much so that it seems
+impossible to believe that life ends utterly with death."
+
+But to Evelyn's surprise, he seemed to doubt the immortality of this
+future state, and fell back on the Irish doctrine which holds that after
+death you pass to the great plain or land under the sea, or the land
+over the sea, or the land of the children of the goddess Dana.
+
+"Even now my destiny is accomplishing."
+
+The true Celt is still a pagan--Christianity has been superimposed. It
+is little more than veneer, and in the crises of life the Celt turns to
+the ancient belief of his race. But did Ulick really believe in Angus
+and Lir and the Great Mother Dana? Perhaps he merely believed that as a
+man of genius it was his business to enroll himself in the original
+instincts and traditions of his race.
+
+They were as unquiet as cattle before an approaching storm, and when
+they returned to the drawing-room it seemed to him like a scene in a
+theatre about to be withdrawn to make way for another part of the story.
+Even while looking at it, it seemed to have receded a little.
+
+At last it was time for Ulick to go. As they said good-night he asked
+her if he should come to lunch. She looked at him, uncertain if she
+ought to take him to the concert at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+Monsignor, who was waiting for her at the steps of the hall which had
+been hired for the concert, introduced her to Father Daly, the convent
+chaplain. She shook hands with him, and caught sight of him as she did
+so. It was but a passing glance of a small, blonde man with white
+eyelashes, seemingly too shy to raise his eyes; and she was too
+stringently occupied with other thoughts to notice him further.
+
+Owing to her exertions and Monsignor Mostyn's, a large audience had been
+collected, and though the month was September, there were many
+fashionable, influential and musical people present.
+
+The idea of the band, which Evelyn had thought of bringing down in the
+intention of giving the Forest Murmurs and the Bird Music, had been
+abandoned, but the finest exponent of Wagner on the piano had come to
+play the usual things: the closing scene of the "Walküre," the overture
+of the "Meistersinger" and the Prelude of "Tristan." And, mingled with
+the students and apostles from London, were a goodly number of young men
+and women from the various villas. Every degree of Wagner culture was
+present, from the ten-antlered stag who had seen "Parsifal" given under
+the eye of the master to the skipping fawns eagerly browsing upon the
+motives. "That is the motive of the Ride; that, dear, is the motive of
+the Fire; that is the motive of Slumber in the Fire, and that is the
+motive of Siegfried, the pure hero who will be born to save Valhalla."
+The class above had some knowledge of the orchestration. "You see," said
+a young man, pointing to the score, "here he is writing for the entire
+orchestra." "Three bars farther on he is writing for three violins and a
+flute. He withdraws his instruments in a couple of bars; it would take
+anyone else five-and-twenty." At a little distance the old stag who had
+never missed a festival at Bayreuth was telling the young lady at his
+side that the "Walküre" is written in the same style as the "Rheingold"
+and the first two acts of "Siegfried." Another distinct change of style
+came with the third act of "Siegfried" and the "Dusk of the Gods," which
+were not composed till some years later. "Ah, that wonderful later
+style! That scale of half-notes! Flats and sharps introduced into every
+bar; C, C sharp; D, D sharp; E, F, F sharp; G, G sharp; A, B flat, B,
+C. In that scale, or what would seem to be that scale, he balances
+himself like an acrobat, springing on to the desired key without
+preparation," and so on until the old stag was interrupted by a friend,
+a lady who had just recognised him. As she squeezed past, she stopped to
+tell him that Wagner had spoiled her for all other music. She had been
+to hear Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony once more, but it had seemed to
+her like a pious book.
+
+Evelyn sang "Elsa's Dream," "Elizabeth's Prayer" and the "Liebestod,"
+and when she was recalled at the end of the concert, she sang Senta's
+ballad as a _bonne bouche_, something that the audience had not
+expected, and would send her friends away more than ever pleased with
+her.
+
+Her father had not been able to come--that was a disappointment--but
+Ulick had accompanied her beautifully, following her voice, making the
+most of it at every moment. When she left the platform, she took both
+his hands and thanked him. She loved him in that instant as a musician
+and as a mistress. But the joy of the moment, the ecstasy of admiration,
+was interrupted by Monsignor Mostyn and Father Daly. They too wished to
+thank her. In his courtly manner, Monsignor told her of the pleasure her
+singing had given him. But when Father Daly mentioned that the nuns
+expected her to tea, her courage seemed to slip away. The idea of a
+convent frightened her, and she tried to excuse herself, arguing that
+she had to go back to London.
+
+"If you're engaged for dinner, I'm afraid there will not be time,"
+Monsignor said. She looked up, and, meeting his eyes, did not dare to
+lie to him.
+
+"No; I'm not dining out, but I promised to take Mr. Dean back in my
+carriage."
+
+"Mr. Dean will, I'm sure, not mind waiting."
+
+It seemed to Evelyn that Monsignor suspected her relations with Ulick,
+and to refuse to go to the convent, she thought, would only confirm him
+in his suspicions. So she accepted the invitation abruptly, and when
+they turned to go, she said--
+
+"My carriage is here; I'll drive you," and, at the same moment, she
+remembered that Ulick was waiting. But she felt that she could not drive
+back to London with him after leaving the convent, and she hoped that
+Monsignor would not correctly interpret the disappointment which was
+plain upon his face. No; he must go back by train--no, there would be no
+use his calling that evening at Park Lane.
+
+She wore a black and white striped silk dress, with a sort of muslin
+bodice covered with lace, and there was a large bunch of violets in her
+waistband. The horses were beautiful in the sunshine, and their red
+hides glistened in the long, slanting rays. She put up her parasol and
+tried to understand, but she could only see the angles of houses, and
+the eccentricity of every passer-by. She saw very clearly the thin,
+facial line, and her eyes rested on the touch of purple at the throat to
+mark his Roman dignity. Father Daly sat opposite, rubbing his thumbs
+like one in the presence of a superior. He was not ill-looking, but so
+shy that his features passed unperceived, and it was some time before
+she saw his eyes; they were always cast down, and his thin, well-cut
+nose disappeared in his freckled cheeks. The cloth he wore was coarser
+than Monsignor's; his heavy shoes contrasted with the finely-stitched
+and buckled shoes of the Papal prelate.
+
+This visit to the convent frightened Evelyn more than the largest
+audience that had ever assembled to hear her, and, until they got clear
+of the town, she was not certain she would not plead some excuse and
+tell the coachman to turn back. But now it was too late. The carriage
+ascended the steep street, and, at the top of it, the town ended
+abruptly at the edge of the common. On one side was a high brick wall,
+hiding the grounds and gardens of the villas; on the other was the
+common, seen through the leaves of a line of thin trees. In her nervous
+agitation, she saw very distinctly--the foreground teeming with the
+animation of cricket, the more remote parts solitary, the windmill
+hovering in a corner out of the way of the sunset, and two horsemen and
+a horsewoman cantering along the edge of the long valley into which the
+plain dropped precipitously. The sun sank in a white sky, and Evelyn
+caught the point of one of the ribs of her parasol, so that she could
+hold it in a better position to shade her eyes, and she saw how the
+houses stretched into a point, the last being an inn, no doubt the noisy
+resort of the cricketers and the landscape painters. There was a painter
+making his way towards the valley, his paint-box on his back. But at
+that moment the carriage turned into a lane where a paling enclosed the
+small gardens. She then noticed the decaying pear or apple tree, to
+which was attached a clothes-line. Enormous sunflowers weltered in the
+dusty corners. The brick was crumbling and broken, beautiful in colour,
+"And in every one of these cottages someone is living; someone is
+laughing; someone will soon be dead. Good heavens, how strange!"
+
+"We are nearly there."
+
+Evelyn started; it was Father Daly speaking to her. "The cottages have
+spoilt the appearance on this side, but the view is splendid from the
+other."
+
+The lane ascended and Evelyn remembered how the house stood inside a
+wall behind some trees, looking westward, the last southern end of the
+common land as the windmill was the last northern end. There had been
+iron gates when a great City merchant lived in the Georgian house, which
+had been gradually transformed to suit the requirements of the sisters.
+The melancholy little peal of the bell hanging on a loose wire sounded
+far away, and in the interval Evelyn noticed the large double door,
+from which the old green paint was peeling. A step was heard within, and
+the little shutter which closed the grated peephole in the panel of the
+door was drawn back; the eyes and forehead band of a nun appeared for an
+instant in the opening; and then with a rattle of keys the door was
+hastily opened and the little porteress, with ruddy cheeks and a shy
+smile, stood aside to let Evelyn pass in. She kissed the hand of
+Monsignor as he turned to her with a kindly word of salutation. "The
+Reverend Mother is expecting you," she said, her agitation being due to
+the importance of the occasion.
+
+"No doubt they have been praying that I might sing well, poor dears,"
+Evelyn thought, as she followed the nun up the paved, covered way.
+Through the iron frame-work, woven through and through with creepers and
+monthly roses, she caught glimpses of the partly-obliterated carriage
+drive, and of the neatly-kept flower beds filled with geraniums and
+tall, white asters.
+
+In the hall an Adam's ceiling radiated in graceful lines from a central
+medallion, and before a statue of the Sacred Heart a light was burning.
+Evelyn remembered how the poor lay sisters laboured to keep the stone
+floor spotless, and it was into the parlour on the left, which Evelyn
+remembered to be the best parlour, that Sister Angela ushered them.
+
+In the old days, before a sudden crisis on the Stock Exchange had
+obliged the owner to sell the house for much less than its true value to
+the little community of sisters of the Passion who were then seeking a
+permanent house, this room, round which Evelyn and the two priests were
+looking for seats, had been used as a morning-room. Three long French
+windows looked out on the garden, and the flowers and air made it a
+bright, cheerful room, in spite of the severe pictures on the walls. She
+recognised at once the engraving of Leonardo's "Last Supper" which hung
+over the solid marble chimney piece a little above the statue of Our
+Lady of Lourdes and the two blue vases, and also the pale, distempered
+walls, and the coloured, smiling portrait of the Pope, and a full-length
+photograph of Cardinal Manning, signed in his own clear, neat
+handwriting.
+
+Evelyn and the priests, still undecided where they should sit, looked at
+the little horsehair sofa. Monsignor brought forward for her one of the
+six high, straight-backed chairs, and they sat at the circular table
+laid out with severe books; a volume of the _Lives of the Saints_ lay
+under her hand, and she glanced at a little box for contributions. She
+looked at the priests and then round the room, striving to penetrate the
+meaning which it vaguely conveyed to her--an indescribable air of
+scrupulous neatness and cleanliness, a sense of virginal dulness. But
+suddenly a startling sense of the incongruity came upon her, that she,
+the opera-singer, Owen Asher's mistress, should be admitted into a
+convent, should be received, the honoured guest of holy women. And she
+got up, leaving the two priests to discuss the financial results of the
+concert, and stood gazing out at the window. There was the rosery with
+the lilac bushes shutting out the view of the green fields beyond; and
+this was the portion of the garden given up to visitors and boarders.
+She used to walk there during the retreat. Away to the right was the
+big, sunny garden where the nuns went for their daily recreation. By
+special permission she had once been allowed there; she remembered the
+sloping lawns, the fringe of stately elms, and over them the view
+westward of Richmond Park. She thought of the nuns walking under their
+trees, half ghost-like, half sybil-like they used to seem in their grey
+habits with their long grey veils falling picturesquely, their thoughts
+fixed on an infinite life, and this life never seeming more to them than
+a little passing shadow.
+
+Evelyn returned slowly to the table. The priests were talking of the
+convent choir; Monsignor turned to address a question to her, but before
+he spoke, the door opened and two nuns entered, hardly of this world did
+they seem in their long grey habits.
+
+The Reverend Mother, a small, thin woman, with eager eyes and a nervous,
+intimate manner, hastened forward. Evelyn felt that the Reverend Mother
+could not be less than sixty, yet she did not think of her as an old
+woman. Between her rapid utterances an expression of sadness came upon
+her face, instilled through the bright eyes, and Evelyn contrasted her
+with Mother Philippa, the sub-prioress. Even the touch of these women's
+hands was different. There was a nervous emotion in the Reverend
+Mother's hand. Mother Philippa's hand when it touched Evelyn's expressed
+somehow a simpler humanity.
+
+She was a short, rather stout, homely-faced Englishwoman, about
+thirty-eight or forty, such a woman as is met daily on the croquet lawns
+in our suburbs, probably one of three plain sisters, and never could
+have doubted her vocation.
+
+"I cannot tell you how grateful we are, Miss Innes, for what you have
+done for us. Monsignor will have told you of the straits we are in....
+But you are an old friend, I understand of our convent. Mother Philippa,
+our sub-prioress, tells me you made a retreat here seven or eight years
+ago."
+
+"I don't think it was more than six years," Mother Philippa said,
+correcting the Reverend Mother. "I remember you very well, Miss Innes.
+You left us one Easter morning."
+
+Evelyn liked her plain, matter-of-fact face, a short face
+undistinguished by any special characteristic, yet once seen it could
+not be forgotten, so implicit was it of her practical mind and a desire
+to serve someone.
+
+"That silly Sister Agnes has forgotten the strawberry jam," she said,
+when the porteress brought in the tea. "I will run and fetch it; I
+shan't be a moment."
+
+"Oh, Mother Philippa, pray don't trouble; I prefer some of that cake."
+
+"No, no, I've been thinking all the afternoon of this jam; we make it
+ourselves; you must have some."
+
+The Reverend Mother apologised for having put sugar in Evelyn's tea, for
+she remembered now that Evelyn had said that she did not like sugar; and
+Monsignor took advantage of the occasion to reassure the Reverend Mother
+that the success of the concert had been much greater than he had
+anticipated.... Thanks to Miss Innes, he hoped to be able to hand her a
+cheque for more than two hundred pounds. This was more than double the
+sum she had hoped to receive.
+
+"We shall always pray for you," she said, taking Evelyn's hand. "I
+cannot tell you what a load you have taken off my shoulders, for, of
+course, the main responsibility rests upon me."
+
+Evelyn regretted that the nuns could not have tea with her, and wondered
+whether they were ever allowed to partake of their own excellent
+home-made cake. She was beginning to enjoy her visit, and to acquire an
+interest in the welfare of the convent. She had hitherto only devoted
+her money to selfish ends; but now she resolved that, if she could help
+it, these poor sisters should not be driven from their convent. Mother
+Phillippa asked her suddenly why she had not been to see them before.
+Evelyn answered that she had been abroad. But living abroad meant to the
+nun the pleasure of living in Catholic countries, and she was eager to
+know if Evelyn had had the privilege of going to Rome. She smiled at the
+nun's innocent curiosity, which she was glad to gratify, and told her
+about the old Romanesque churches on the Rhine, and the hundred marble
+spires of the Cathedral of Milan. But in the midst of such pleasant
+conversation came an unfortunate question. Mother Philippa asked if
+Evelyn had travelled with her father. Any simple answer would have
+sufficed, but she lost her presence of mind, and the "No," which came at
+last was so weak and equivocal that the Reverend Mother divined in that
+moment some part of the truth. Evelyn sat as if tongue-tied, and it was
+Monsignor who came to her rescue by explaining that she had sung in St.
+Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, and all the capitals of Europe.
+
+"You must excuse us," the Reverend Mother said, "for not knowing, but
+these things do not penetrate convent walls."
+
+The conversation dropped, and the Reverend Mother took advantage of the
+occasion to suggest that they should visit the chapel.
+
+Mother Philippa walked on with the priests in front, leaving Evelyn with
+the Reverend Mother.
+
+"I am forced to walk very slowly on account of my heart. I hope you
+don't mind, Miss Innes?"
+
+"Your heart, Reverend Mother? You suffer from your heart? I'm so sorry."
+
+The Reverend Mother said the new chapel had been built by the celebrated
+Catholic architect, and mentioned how the last three years of the
+Reverend Mother's life had been given over to this work Evelyn knew that
+the mouldings and carving and the stained glass had caused the pecuniary
+embarrassments of the convent, and did not speak of them She was told
+that the architect had insisted that every detail should be in keeping,
+and understood that the thirteenth century had proved the ruin of the
+convent; every minor decoration was faithful to it--the very patterns
+stitched in wool on the cushions of the _prie-dieu_ were strictly Gothic
+in character.
+
+Only the lower end of the nave was open to the public; the greater part
+was enclosed within a high grille of gilded ironwork of an elaborate
+design, through which Evelyn could vaguely discern the plain oak stalls
+of the nuns on either side, stretching towards the ornate altar, carved
+in white stone. And falling through the pointed windows, the long rays
+slanted across the empty chapel; in the golden air there was a faint
+sense of incense; it recalled the Benediction and the figures of the
+departed watchers who had knelt motionless all day before the elevated
+Host. The faintly-burning lamp remained to inspire the mind with
+instinctive awe and a desire of worship. And as always, in the presence
+of the Blessed Sacrament, Evelyn's doubts vanished, and she knelt in
+momentary prayer beside the two nuns.
+
+Then at her request they went into the garden. It was the part of the
+convent she remembered best. She recognised at once the broad terrace
+walk extending the full length of the house, from the new wing to the
+rose garden whence some steps led to the lower grounds. They were
+several acres in extent and sloped gently to the south-west. The
+Reverend Mother and the priests had turned to the left; they had
+business matters to discuss and were going round the garden by the outer
+walk. Evelyn and Mother Philippa chose the middle path. The sunset was
+before them, and the wistfulness of a distant park sinking into blue
+mist. Evelyn thought that in all her travels she had never seen anything
+so lovely as the convent garden in that evening light. It filled her
+soul with an ecstatic sense of peace and joy, and a sudden passionate
+desire to share this life of calm and happy seclusion brought tears to
+her eyes. She could not speak, but Mother Philippa, with a single, quick
+glance, seemed instinctively to understand, and it was in silence that
+they walked down a grassy path, that led between the narrow beds filled
+with a gay tangle of old-fashioned flowers, to a little summer-house.
+Behind the summer-house, at the bottom of the garden, was a broad walk
+pleasantly shaded by the overhanging branches of the elms.
+
+"We call this St. Peter's path," Mother Philippa said placidly, "and for
+his feast the novices put up his statue in the summer-house and decorate
+it with flowers. They always come here for their mid-day recreation."
+
+"Your garden is quite lovely, Mother Philippa; I remember it all so
+well."
+
+They wandered on, past the apple and plum trees laden with fruit--they
+made a pretty orchard in one corner; and while the nun passed here and
+there gathering flowers, Evelyn stood gazing, recalling all her girlish
+impressions. Almost every turn in the walks recalled some innocent
+aspiration, some girlish feeling of love and reverence. In every nook
+there was a statue of the Virgin, or a cross whereby the thoughts of the
+passer-by might be recalled to the essential object of her life. She
+remembered how she had stopped one morning before the crucifix which
+stood on the top of some rocks at the end of the garden. She had stopped
+as in a dream, and for a long while had stood looking at the face of the
+dying Redeemer, praying to his Father for pardon for them that
+persecuted him. She had felt as if crazed with love, and had walked up
+the pathway feeling that the one thing of worth in the world was to live
+for him who had died for her. But she had betrayed him. She had chosen
+Owen!
+
+Mother Philippa added another flower to the bouquet. She looked at it
+and, regarding it as finished, she presented it to Evelyn.
+
+"I hope I did not say anything that caused you pain in the parlour. If I
+did you must know that I did not mean it. I I hope your father is quite
+well."
+
+"Yes, he's quite well. You did not offend me, Mother Philippa," she
+said, raising her eyes, and in that moment the two women felt they
+understood each other in some mute and far-off way.
+
+"The day you left us was Easter Sunday. It was a beautiful morning, and
+you walked round the rose garden with an old lady; she asked you to
+sing, and you sung her two little songs."
+
+"Yes, I remember; her hair was quite white, and she walked with a
+stick."
+
+"I am glad you remember; I feared that you had forgotten, as you were so
+long coming back. I often prayed for you that you might come and see us.
+I always felt that you would come back, and when one feels like that, it
+generally happens."
+
+Evelyn raised her eyes, drawing delight from the nun's happy and
+contented face. She experienced an exquisite idea, a holy intimacy of
+feeling; there was a breathless exaltation in the heavens and on the
+earth, and the wild cry of a startled bird darting through the
+shrubberies sounded like a challenge or defiance. The sunset grew
+narrower in the slate-coloured sky, and the long plain of the common
+showed under two bars of belated purple. The priests and the Reverend
+Mother went up the steps and were about to enter the convent. Evelyn and
+Mother Philippa lingered by a distant corner of the garden marked by
+nine tall crosses.
+
+"When I was here there were but six. I remember Sister Bonaventure, thin
+and white, and so weak that she could not move. She was dying far from
+all she knew, yet she was quite happy. It was we who were unhappy."
+
+"She was happy, for her thoughts were set upon God. How could she be
+otherwise than happy when she knew she was going to him?"
+
+A few minutes after, Evelyn was bidding the nuns good-night. The
+Reverend Mother hoped that when she made another retreat she would be
+their guest. Mother Philippa was disappointed that they had not heard
+her sing. Perhaps one day she might sing to them. They would see how it
+could be arranged: perhaps at Benediction when she came to make another
+retreat. Evelyn smiled, and the carriage passed into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+
+The dawn crept through her closed eyelids, and burying her face in the
+pillows, she sought to retain the receding dream.
+
+But out of the gloom which she divined and through which a face looked,
+a face which she could not understand, but which she must follow, there
+came a sound as of someone moving. The dream dissolved in the sound, she
+opened her eyes, and upon her lips there was terror, and she could not
+move.... Nor did she dare to look, and when her eyes turned towards the
+doorway she could not see beyond it; she could not remember if she had
+left the door ajar. Shadows gathered, and again came the awful sound of
+someone; she slipped under the bedclothes, and lay there stark, frozen
+with terror. When she summoned sufficient courage, she looked towards
+the shadowy doorway, but the passage beyond it was filled with nameless
+foreboding shapes from an under-world; and the thought that the sound
+she had heard had been caused by her clothes slipping from a chair
+failed to reassure her. She was as cold as a corpse in a grave. She felt
+that it was her duty to explore the dark, but to get out of bed to stand
+in that grey room and look into the passage was more than she dared; she
+could only lie still and endure the sensation of hands at her throat and
+breath above her face.
+
+A little later she was able to distinguish the pattern of the
+wall-paper, and as she followed its design human life seemed black and
+intolerably loathsome. She strove against the thought, but she saw the
+creature leer so plainly that there was no way of escaping from the
+conviction that what she had accepted as life was but a mask worn by a
+leper. The vision persisted for what seemed a long while, and when it
+faded it was pictures of her own life that she read upon the wall; her
+soul cried out against the miserable record of her sins, and turning on
+her pillow she saw the dawn--the inexorable light that was taking her
+back to life, to sin, and all the miserable routine of vanity and
+selfishness which she would have to begin again. She had left her
+father, though she knew he would be lonely and unhappy without her. She
+had lived with Owen when she knew it was wrong, and she had acquiesced
+in his blasphemies, and by reading evil books she had striven to
+undermine her faith in God. It seemed to her incredible that anyone
+should be capable of such wickedness, yet she was that very one; she
+had committed all sins, and in her great misery she wished herself dead,
+so that she might think no more.
+
+With eyes wide open to the dawn and to her soul she lay hour after hour.
+She heard the French clock strike six sharp strokes, and unable to
+endure her hot bed any longer, she got up, slipped her arms into a
+dressing-gown, and went down to the drawing-room. It was filled with a
+grey twilight, and the street was grey-blue and silent save for the
+sparrows. Sitting on the edge of the sofa she remembered the convent.
+The nuns had thought her a good Catholic, and she had had to pretend she
+was. Monsignor, it is true, had turned the conversation and saved her
+from exposure. But what then? She knew, and he knew, everyone knew; Lady
+Ascott, Lady Mersey, Lady Duckle very probably didn't care, but
+appearances had to be preserved, and she had to tell lies to them all.
+Her life had become a network of lies. There was no corner of her life
+into which she could look without finding a lie. She had been faithful
+to no one, not even to Owen. She had another lover, and she had sent
+Owen away on account of scruples of conscience! She could not understand
+herself; she had taken Ulick to Dowlands and had lived with him
+there--in her father's house. So awful did her life seem to her that her
+thoughts stopped, and she became possessed of the desire of escape which
+takes a trapped animal and forces it to gnaw off one of its legs. She
+must escape from this life of lies whatever it cost her; she must free
+herself. But how? If she went to Monsignor he would tell her she must
+leave the stage, and she had promised to create the part of Grania. She
+had promised, and she hated not keeping her promise. He would say it was
+impossible for her to remain on the stage and live a virtuous life; he
+would tell her that she must refuse to see Owen. She was still very fond
+of him, and would like to see him sometimes. What reason could she give
+to her friends for refusing to see him? what reason could she give for
+leaving the stage?--to do so would set everyone talking. Everyone would
+want to know why; Lady Ascott, Lady Mersey, all her friends. How was she
+to separate herself from her surroundings? Wherever she went she would
+be known. Her friends would follow her, lovers would follow her,
+temptations would begin again, would she have strength to resist? "Not
+always," was the answer her heart gave back. A great despair fell upon
+her, and she walked up the room. Stopping at the window she looked out,
+and all reform of her life seemed to her impossible. She was hemmed in
+on every side. If she could only think of it no more! She had adopted an
+evil life and must pursue it to the end. She must be wretched in this
+life, and be punished eternally in the next.
+
+Hearing a footstep on the stairs, she drew herself behind the door, and
+when the sound passed downstairs she tried to reason with herself. After
+all, the housemaid would have been merely surprised to find her in the
+drawing-room at that hour. She could not have guessed why she was there.
+She ran up the stairs, and when she had closed the door of her room she
+stood looking at the clock. It was not yet seven, and Herat did not come
+to her room till half-past nine. She must try to get to sleep between
+this and then. She lay with her eyes closed, and did not perceive that a
+thin, shallow sleep had come upon her, for she continued to think the
+same thoughts; fear of God and hatred of sin assumed even more
+terrifying proportions, and she started like a hunted animal when Merat
+came in with her bath. "I hope Mademoiselle is not ill?" "No, I am not
+ill, only I have not slept at all."
+
+In order to distract her thoughts, she went for a walk after breakfast
+in the park, but any casual sight sufficed to recall them to the one
+important question. She could not see the children sailing their toy
+boats without thinking her ambitions were as futile, and a chance
+glimpse of a church spire frightened her so that she turned her back and
+walked the other way. In the afternoon she tried to interest herself in
+some music, but her hands dropped from the keys, so useless did it
+appear to her. At four she was dreaming of Owen in an armchair. The
+servant suddenly announced him, and he came in, seemingly recovered from
+his gout and his old age. His figure was the perfect elegance of a man
+of forty-three, and in such beautiful balance that an old admiration
+awakened in her. His "waistcoats and his valet," she thought, catching
+sight of the embroideries and the pale, subdued, terrified air of the
+personal servant. The valet carried a parcel which Evelyn guessed to be
+a present for her. It was a tea-service of old Crown Derby that Owen had
+happened upon in Bath, and they spent some time examining its pale roses
+and gilt pattern. She expected him to refer to their last interview, but
+he avoided doing so, preferring to take it for granted that he still was
+her lover, and he did so without giving her sufficient occasion to
+correct him on this point. He was affectionate and intimate; he sat
+beside her on the sofa, and talked pleasantly of the benefit he had
+derived from the waters, of the boredom of hotel life, and of a concert
+given in aid of a charity.
+
+"But that reminds me," he said; "I heard about the Wimbledon concert,
+and was sorry you did not write to me for a subscription. Lady
+Merrington told me about the nuns; they spent all their money building a
+chapel, and had not enough to eat."
+
+"I didn't think you would care to subscribe to a convent."
+
+"Now, why did you think that? Poor devils of nuns, shut up in a convent
+without enough to eat. Of course I'll subscribe; I'll send them a cheque
+for ten pounds to-morrow."
+
+This afternoon, whether by accident or design, he said no word that
+might jar on her religious scruples; he even appeared to sympathise with
+religious life, and admitted that the world was not much, and to
+renounce the world was sublime. The conversation paused, and he said, "I
+think the tea-service suits the room. You haven't thanked me for it yet,
+Evelyn."
+
+"I don't know that I ought to accept any more presents from you. I have
+accepted too much as it is."
+
+She was conscious of her feebleness. It would have been better to have
+said, "I am another man's mistress," but she could not speak the words,
+and he asked if they might have tea in the new service. She did not
+answer, so he rang, and when the servant left the room he took her hands
+and drew her closer to him. "I am another man's mistress, you must not
+touch me," rang in her brain, but he did not kiss her, and the truth was
+not spoken.
+
+"Lady Duckle is still at Homburg, is she not?" he asked, but he was
+thinking of the inexplicable event each had been in the other's life.
+They had wandered thus far, now their paths divided, for nothing
+endures. That is the sadness, the incurable sadness! He was getting too
+old for her; in a few more years he would be fifty. But he had hoped
+that this friendship would continue to the end of the chapter. And while
+he was thinking these things, Evelyn was telling him that Lady Duckle
+had met Lady Mersey at Homburg, and had gone on with her to Lucerne,
+where they hoped to meet Lady Ascott.
+
+"You are going to shoot with Lord Ascott next month?" she said, and
+looking at him she wondered if their relations were after all no more
+than a chance meeting and parting. While he spoke of Lord Ascott's
+pheasant shooting, she felt that whatever happened neither could divorce
+the other from his or her faults.
+
+"How beautiful the park is now, I like the view from your windows. I
+like this hour; a sense of resignation is in the air."
+
+"Yes," she said, "the sky is beautifully calm," and she experienced a
+return of old tendernesses, and she had no scruple, for he did not make
+love to her, and did not kiss her until he rose to leave. Then he kissed
+her on the forehead and on the cheek, and refrained from asking if they
+were reconciled.
+
+Never had he been nicer than he had been that afternoon, and she dared
+not look into her heart, for she did not wish to think that she would
+send him away. Why should she send him away? why not the other? She
+could not answer this question; she only knew that the choice had fallen
+upon Owen. She must send him away, but what reasons should she give? She
+felt that her conduct that afternoon had rendered a complete rupture in
+their relations more difficult than ever. It was as she lay sleepless in
+bed long after midnight that the solution of the difficulty suddenly
+sounded in her brain. She must write to him saying that he might come to
+see her once more, but that it must be for the last time. This was the
+way out of her difficulty, and she turned over in her bed, feeling she
+might now get to sleep. But instead of sleep there began the very words
+of this last interview, and her brain teemed with different plans for
+escape from her lover. She saw herself on ocean steamers, in desert
+isles, and riding wild horses through mountain passes. Barred doors,
+changes of name, all means were passed and reviewed; each was in turn
+dismissed, and the darkness about her bed was like a flame. There was no
+doubt that she was doomed to another night of insomnia. The bell of the
+French clock struck three, and, quite exhausted, she got up and walked
+about the room. "In another hour I shall hear the screech of the sparrow
+on the window-sill, and may lie awake till Merat comes to call me." She
+lay down, folded her arms, closed her eyes and began to count the sheep
+as they came through the gate. But thoughts of Owen began to loom up,
+and in spite of her efforts to repress them, they grew more and more
+distinct. The clock struck four, and soon after it seemed to her that
+the darkness was lightening. For a long while she did not dare to open
+her eyes. At last she had to open them, and the grey-blue light was
+indescribably mournful. Again her life seemed small, black and evil. She
+jumped out of bed, passed her arms into a tea-gown, and paced the room.
+She must see Owen. She must tell him the truth. Once he knew the truth
+he would not care for her, and that would make the parting easier for
+both. She did not believe that this was so, but she had to believe
+something, and she went down to the drawing-room and wrote--
+
+"DEAR OWEN--You may come and see me to-morrow if you care to. I am
+afraid that your visit will not be a pleasant one. I don't think I could
+be an agreeable companion to anyone at present, but I cannot send you
+away without explaining why. However painful that explanation may be to
+you, there is at all events this to be said, that it will be doubly
+painful to me. I am not, dear Owen, ungrateful; that you should think me
+so is the hardest punishment of all, and I am sorry I have not made you
+happier. I know other women don't feel as I do, but I can't change
+myself. I feel dreadfully hypocritical writing in this strain. I, less
+than anyone have a right to do so, especially now. But you will try to
+understand. You know that I am not a hypocrite at heart. I am determined
+to tell you all, and you will then see that no course is open to me but
+to send you away. Even if you were to promise that we should be friends
+we must not see each other, but I don't think that you would care to see
+me on those terms. I should have stopped you yesterday when you took my
+hand, when you kissed me, but I was weak and cowardly. Somehow I could
+not bring myself to tell you the truth. I shall expect you in the
+afternoon, and will tell you all. I am punishing myself as well as you.
+So please don't try to make things more difficult than they are.--Yours
+very sincerely, EVELYN INNES."
+
+Leaving this letter with directions that it should be posted at once,
+weary, and with her brain as clear as crystal, she threw herself upon
+her bed. Folding her arms, she closed her eyes, and strove to banish
+thoughts of Owen and the confession she was to make that afternoon. But
+when sleep gathered about her eyes, the memory of past sins, at first
+dense, then with greater clearness, shone through, and the traitor sleep
+moved away. Or she would suddenly find herself in the middle of the
+interview, the entire dialogue standing clear cut in her brain, she
+could almost see the punctuation of every sentence. Once more she
+counted the sheep coming through the gate; she counted and counted,
+until her imagination failed her, and in spite of herself, her eyes
+opened upon the dreaded room. She heard the clock strike nine. Merat
+would knock at her door in another half-hour, and she lay waiting,
+fearing her arrival. But at last her face grew quieter, she seemed to
+see Monsignor vaguely, she could not tell where nor how he had come to
+her, but she heard him saying distinctly that she must never sing Isolde
+again. He seemed to bar her way to the stage, and the music that was to
+bring her on sounded in her ears, yet she could see the shape of her
+room and its furniture. A knock came at the door, and she was surprised
+to find that she had been asleep.
+
+Her brain was a ferment; it seemed as if it were about to fall out of
+her head; she feared the day, its meal times and the long hours of
+morning and evening sunshine. The idea of the coming interview with Owen
+was intolerable. Her brain was splitting, she could not think of what
+she would say. But her letter had gone! After breakfast she felt a
+little rested, and went into the park and remained there till lunch
+time, dimly aware of the open air, the waving of branches, the sound of
+human voices. Beyond these, and much more distinct, was a vision of her
+evil life, and the cold, stern face of the priest watching her. She
+wandered about, and then hastened back to Park Lane. Owen had been. He
+had left word that he would call again about three o'clock. He would
+have stayed, but had an engagement to lunch with friends. She lunched
+alone, and was sitting on the corner of the sofa, heavy-eyed and weary,
+but determined to be true to her resolutions, when the servant announced
+him. He came in hurriedly, his hat in his hand, and his eyes went at
+once to where she was sitting. He saw she was looking ill, but there
+were more important matters to speak of.
+
+"I came at once, the moment I got your letter. I should have waited, but
+I was lunching with Lady Merrington. Such terribly boring people were
+there. It was all I could do to prevent myself from rushing out of the
+room. But, Evelyn, what are you determined to tell me? I thought we
+parted good friends yesterday. You have been thinking it over.... You're
+going to send me away." He sat beside her, he held his hat in both
+hands, and looked perplexed and worried. "But, Evelyn"--she sat like a
+figure of stone, there was no colour in her cheeks nor any expression in
+her eyes or mouth--"Evelyn, I am afraid you are ill, you are pale as a
+ghost."
+
+"I did not sleep last night, nor the night before."
+
+"Two nights of insomnia are enough to break anyone up. I am very sorry,
+Evelyn, dear--you ought to go away." Her silence perplexed him, and he
+said, "Evelyn, I have come to ask you to be my wife. Don't keep me in
+suspense. Will you give up the stage and be my wife? Why don't you
+answer? Oh, Evelyn, is it--are you married?"
+
+"No, I am not married, Owen. I don't suppose I ever shall be. If you had
+wished to marry me--"
+
+"I know all that, that if I wanted to marry you I ought to have done so
+long ago. But you said you were determined to tell me something--what is
+it?" The expression of her face did not change; her lips moved a little,
+she cast down her eyes, and said, "I've got another lover."
+
+He felt that he ought to get very angry, and that to do so was in a way
+expected of him. He thought he had better say something energetic, lest
+she should think that he did not care for her. But he was so overcome by
+the thought of his escape--it was now no longer possible for her to send
+him away--that he could think of nothing. It even seemed to him that
+everything was happening for the best, for he did not doubt that she
+would soon tire, if she were not tired already, of this musician, and
+then he would easily regain his old influence over her. Even if she did
+marry this musician, she'd get tired of him, and then who knows
+--anything was better than that she should go over to that infernal
+priest. While rejoicing in the defeat of his hated rival, he was anxious
+that Evelyn should not perceive what was passing in his mind, and,
+afraid to betray himself, he said nothing, leaving her to conjecture
+what she pleased from his silence.
+
+"I don't intend to defend my conduct; it is indefensible.... But, Owen,
+I want you to believe that I did not lie to you. Ulick was not my lover
+when I went to see you that evening in Berkeley Square."
+
+It was necessary to say something, and, feeling that any unguarded word
+would jeopardise his chances, he said--
+
+"I think I told you that night that you liked Ulick Dean. I can quite
+understand it; he is a nice fellow enough. Are you going to marry him?"
+
+"No, I am not in love with him--I never was. I liked him merely."
+
+"I can understand; all those hours you spent with him studying Isolde."
+
+"Yes, it was that music, it gets on one's nerves.... But, Owen, there is
+no excuse."
+
+"We'll think no more about it, Evelyn. I am glad you do not love him.
+My greatest fear was to lose you altogether."
+
+She was touched by his kindness, as he expected she would be, and he sat
+looking at her, keeping as well as he could all expression from his
+face. He thought that he had got over the greatest difficulty, and he
+congratulated himself on his cleverness. The question now was, what was
+the next move?
+
+"You are not looking very well, Evelyn. You don't sleep--you want a
+change. The _Medusa_ is at Cowes; what do you say for a sail?"
+
+"Owen, dear, I cannot go with you. If I did, you know how it would end,
+I being what I am, and you being what you are. There would be no sense
+in my going yachting unless I went as your mistress, and I cannot do
+that."
+
+"You love that fellow Ulick Dean too much."
+
+"I don't love him at all.... Owen, you will never understand."
+
+"Understand!" he cried, starting to his feet, "this is madness, Evelyn.
+I see! I suppose you think it wrong to have two lovers at the same time.
+Grace has come to you through sin. You are going to get rid of both of
+us."
+
+Evelyn sat quite still as if hypnotised. She was very sorry for him, but
+for no single moment did she think she would yield.
+
+Suddenly he asked her why he should be the one to be sent away, and he
+pleaded the rights of old friendship, going even so far as to suggest
+that even if she liked Ulick better she should not refuse to see him
+sometimes.
+
+"I have no right to seem shocked at anything you may say. I told you
+Ulick was my lover, but I did not say he was going to remain my lover."
+
+"Then what are you going to do? Will that priest get hold of you? I know
+him--I was at Eton with him. He always was--" and Owen muttered
+something under his breath. "Surely, Evelyn, you are not thinking of
+going to confession. After all my teaching has it come to this? My God!"
+he said, as he walked up the room, "I'd sooner Ulick got you than that
+damned hypocritical fool. You are much too good for God," he said,
+turning suddenly and looking at her, remarking at that moment the pretty
+oval of her face, the arched eyebrows, the clear, nervous eyes. "You'll
+be wasted on religion."
+
+"From your point of view, I suppose I shall be."
+
+They talked on and on, saying what they had said many times before.
+Sometimes Evelyn seemed to follow his arguments, and thinking that he
+was convincing her, he would break off suddenly. "Well, will you come
+for a cruise with me in the _Medusa_? I'll ask all your friends--we'll
+have such a pleasant time."
+
+"No, Owen, no, it's impossible, you don't understand. I don't blame
+you--you never will understand."
+
+And they looked at each other like wanderers standing on the straits
+dividing two worlds. The hands of the clock pointed to five o'clock. The
+servants had taken the tea-service away. Owen had urged Evelyn not to
+abandon the stage; he had urged the cause of Art; he had urged that her
+voice was her natural vocation; he had spoken of their love, and of the
+happiness they had found in each other--the conversation had drifted
+from an argument concerning the authenticity of the Gospels to a lake
+where they had spent a season five years ago. She saw again the reedy
+reaches and the steep mountain shores. They had been there in the month
+of September, and the leaves of the vine were drooping, and the grapes
+ready for gathering. They had been sweethearts only a little while, and
+the drives about the lake was one of his happiest memories.
+
+"Evelyn, you cannot mean that you will never see me again?"
+
+His eyes filled with tears, and she turned her head aside so that she
+might not see them.
+
+"Life is very difficult, Owen; try not to make it more difficult."
+
+"Evelyn, I had hoped that our friendship would have continued to the
+end. I never cared for any other woman, and when you are my age and look
+back, you will find that there is one, I don't say I shall be the one,
+who--" His voice trembled, and he passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"It's very sad, Owen, and life is very difficult.... There is this
+consolation for you, that I am not sending you away on account of anyone
+else. Ulick must go too."
+
+"That does not make it any better for me. By God, I'd sooner that he got
+you than that infernal religion. Evelyn, Evelyn, it is impossible that
+an idea, a mere idea, should take you from me. It is inhuman, unnatural,
+I can't realise it!"
+
+"Owen, you must go now."
+
+"Evelyn, I don't understand. It is just as if you told me you were
+tallow, and would melt if there was a fire lighted. But never mind, I'll
+accept your ideas--I'll accept anything. Let us be married to-morrow."
+
+She was frightened in the depths of her feelings, and seemed to lose all
+control of her will.
+
+"Owen, I cannot marry you. Why do you ask me? You know it is now more
+than ever impossible."
+
+His face changed expression, but he was urged forward by an irresistible
+force that seemed to rise up from the bottom of his being and blind his
+eyes.
+
+"You don't love him, it was only a caprice; we'll think no more about
+it."
+
+She sought the truth in her soul, but it seemed to elude her. She was
+like a blind person in a vague, unknown space, and not being able to
+discover the reason why she refused him, she insisted that Ulick was the
+reason.
+
+"Are you going to marry him?"
+
+"No, I don't think so."
+
+"Don't you wish to? He is your father's friend."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Destiny, I suppose."
+
+The question was too profound for discussion, and they sat silent for a
+long while. A chance remark turned their talk upon Balzac, and Owen
+spoke about _Le Lys dans la Vallèe_, and she asked him if he remembered
+the day he had first spoken to her about Balzac.
+
+"It was the day you took me to the races, our first week in Paris."
+
+"And a few days afterwards I took you to Madame Savelli's. She told you
+that you had the most beautiful voice she had ever heard. You could not
+speak; you were so excited that I was obliged to send you off for a
+drive in the Bois. Do you remember?"
+
+"Yes, I remember.... You were always very good to me."
+
+They talked on and on, conscious of the hands of the clock moving on
+towards their divided lives. When it struck seven, she said he must go,
+but he begged to be allowed to stay till a quarter past, and in this
+last period he urged that their separation should not be final. He
+pleaded that a time should be set on his alienation, and ended by
+extracting from her a sort of half promise that she would allow him to
+come and see her in three months. But he and she knew that they would
+never meet again, and the sad thought floated up into their eyes as they
+said good-bye. She went to the window, wondering if he would stay a
+moment to look back. He stood on the edge of the pavement, and she
+watched him unmoved. She was thinking of Monsignor, and of how he would
+approve of her conduct. He would tell her that what she liked and
+disliked was no longer the question. Owen still stood on the kerb, but
+she did not even see him. Her eyes looked into the sunset, and she was
+thrilled with a mysterious joy, a joy that came from the heart, not from
+passions, and it was exquisitely subtle as the light that faded in the
+remote west.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+
+
+He walked up Park Lane, staring now and then at the quaint balconies
+from a mere habit of admiration. But all were indifferent to him, even
+the one supported by the four Empire figures. It did not seem that
+anything in the world could interest him again, and he wondered how he
+would get through the years that remained to him to live. He was tired
+of hunting and shooting; he had seen everything there was to be seen; he
+had been round the world twice; it did not seem to him that he would
+ever care for another woman, and he reflected with pride that he had
+been faithful to Evelyn for six years. "But I shall never see her
+again," his heart wailed; "in three months she'll be a different woman;
+she won't want to see me, she'll find some excuse. That infernal priest
+will refuse his absolution if--" Owen stopped suddenly. Far away a
+little pink cloud dissolved mysteriously. "In another second," he
+thought, "it will be no more." In the Green Park the trees rocked in the
+soft autumn air, and he noticed that now and then a leaf broke from its
+twig, fluttered across the path, and fell by the iron railings.
+
+"Well, Asher, how is it that you are in town at this time of year?"
+
+It was a club acquaintance, one of the ordinary conventional men that
+Owen met by the dozen in every one of his clubs, a man whose next
+question would surely be, "How are your two-year-olds?"
+
+"I should like to hear that they had all broken their legs," Owen
+answered through his teeth, and the colour mounted in his cheeks.
+
+"Asher always was mad ... now he seems madder than ever. What did he
+mean by saying he wished his two-year-olds had all broken their legs?"
+
+Owen lingered on the kerb, inveighing against the stupidity of his set.
+He had thought of dining at the Turf Club, but after this irritating
+incident he felt that he dared not risk it; if anyone were to speak to
+him again of his two-year-olds, he felt he would not be able to control
+himself. Suddenly he thought of a friend. He must speak to someone....
+He need mention no names. He put up his stick and stopped a hansom. A
+few minutes took him to Harding's rooms.
+
+The unexpectedness of the visit, and the manner in which Owen strode
+about the room, trying to talk of the things that he generally talked
+about, while clearly thinking of something quite different, struck
+Harding as unusual, and a suspicion of the truth had just begun to dawn
+upon him, when, breaking off suddenly, Owen said--
+
+"Swear you'll never speak of what I am going to say--and don't ask for
+names."
+
+"I'll tell no one," said Harding, "and the name does not interest me."
+
+"It's this: a woman whom I have known many years--a friendship that I
+thought would go on to the end of the chapter--told me to-day that it
+was all finished, that she never wanted to see me again."
+
+"A friendship! Were you her lover?"
+
+"What does it matter? Suffice it to say that she was my dearest friend,
+and now I have lost her. She has been taken from me," he said, throwing
+his arms into the air. It was a superb gesture of despair, and Harding
+could not help smiling.
+
+"So Evelyn has left him. I wonder for whom?" Then, with as much sympathy
+as he could call into his voice, he asked if the lady had given any
+reason for this sudden dismissal.
+
+"Only that she thinks it wrong; we've been discussing it all the
+afternoon. It has made me quite ill;" and he dropped into a chair.
+
+Harding knew perfectly well of whom they were speaking, and Owen knew
+that he knew, but it seemed more decorous to refrain from mentioning
+names, and Evelyn's soul was discussed as if it were an abstract
+quantity, and all indication of the individual incarnation was avoided.
+Owen admitted that, notwithstanding many seeming contradictory
+appearances, Evelyn had always thought it wrong to live with him, and
+yet, notwithstanding her being very fond of him, she had never shown any
+eagerness to be married. "Of course it is very wrong," she would say in
+her own enchanting way, "but a lover is very exciting, and a husband
+always seems dull. I don't think you'd be half as nice as a husband as
+you are as a lover." The recital of the Florence episode interested
+Harding, but it was the opposition of the priest and the musician that
+made the story from his point of view one of the most fascinating he had
+ever heard in his life.
+
+They dined together in an old-fashioned club, in a room lighted by wax
+candles in silver candlesticks. Tall mirrors in gold frames reflected
+the black mahogany furniture. In answer to Owen, who lamented that
+Evelyn was sacrificing everything for an idea, Harding spoke, and with
+his usual conscious exaltation, of the Christian martyrs, the Spanish
+Inquisition, and then Robespierre seemed to him the most striking
+example of what men will do for an idea. He mentioned a portrait by
+Greuze in which Robespierre appears as a beautiful young man. "Such a
+face," he said, "as we might imagine for a lover or a poet, a sort of
+Lucien de Rubempré, but in his brain there was a cell containing the
+pedantic idea, and for this idea he cut off a thousand heads, and would
+have cut off a million. The world must conform to his idea, or it was a
+lost world."
+
+Towards the end of dinner, the head waiter interrupted their
+conversation. He lingered about the table, anxious to hear something of
+Lord Ascott's two-year-olds; but, in the smoking-room over their coffee,
+they returned to the more vital question--the sentimental affections.
+They were agreed that the pleasure of love is in loving, not in being
+loved, and their reasons were incontrovertible.
+
+"It is the letters," said Harding, "that we write at three in the
+morning to tell her how enchanting she was; it is the flowers we send,
+the words of love that we speak in her ear, that are our undoing. So
+long as we are indifferent, they love us."
+
+"Quite true. At first I did not care for her as much as she did for me,
+and I noticed that as soon as I began to fall in love--"
+
+"To aspire, to suffer. Maybe there is no deep pleasure in contentment.
+In casting you out she has given you a more intense life."
+
+Owen did not seem to understand. His eye wandered, then returning to
+Harding, he said--
+
+"We cannot worship and be worshipped; is that what you mean? If so, I
+agree with you. But I'd sooner lose her as I have done than not have
+told her that I loved her.... There never was anyone like her. Sympathy,
+understanding, appreciation and enthusiasm! it was like living in a
+dream. Good God! to think that that priest should have got her; that,
+after all my teaching, she should think it wrong to have a lover! I
+don't know if you know of whom we are speaking. If you suspect, I can't
+help it, but don't ask me. I shouldn't speak of her at all; it is wrong
+to speak of her, even though I don't mention her name, but it is
+impossible to help it. If you are proud of a woman you must speak of
+her--and I was so proud of her. It is very easy to be discreet when you
+are ashamed of them," he added, with a laugh. "When I had nothing to do,
+I used to sit down and think of her, and I used to say to myself that if
+I were the king of the whole world I could not get anything better. But
+it is all over now."
+
+"Well, you've had six years, the very prime of her life."
+
+"That's true; you're very sympathetic, Harding. Have another cigarette.
+I was faithful to her for six years--you can't understand that, but it
+is quite true, and I had plenty of chances, but, when I came to think
+of it, it always seemed that I liked her the best."
+
+At the same moment Evelyn stood on her balcony, watching the evening.
+The park was breathless, and the sky rose high and pale, and calm as
+marble. But the houses seemed to speak unutterable things, and she
+closed the window and stood looking across the room. Then walking
+towards the sofa as if she were going to sit down, she flung herself
+upon it and buried her face among the cushions. She lay there weeping,
+and when she raised her face she dashed the tears from her streaming
+cheeks, but this pause was only the prelude to another passionate
+outbreak, and she wept again, finding in tears fatigue, and in fatigue
+relief. She sobbed until she could sob no more, and so tired was she
+that she no longer cared what happened; very tired, and her head heavy,
+she went upstairs, eager for sleep. And closing her eyes she felt a
+delicious numbing of sense, a dissolution of her being into darkness....
+
+But in her waking there was a consciousness, a foreboding of a nameless
+dread, of a heavy weight upon her, and when the foreboding in her ears
+grew louder, she seemed to know that an irreparable calamity had
+happened, and trying to fathom it, she saw the wall-paper, and it told
+her she was in her own room. She seemed to be trying to read something
+on it, but what she was trying to read and understand seemed to move
+away, and her brain laboured in anxious pursuit. Her eyes opened, and
+she remembered her interview with Owen. She had sent him away, she
+understood it all now, she had sent Owen away! She had told him that
+Ulick was her lover, so even if he were to come back it never could be
+the same as it was. Why had she told him about Ulick? It was bad enough
+to send him away, but she had degraded his memory of her, and the
+thought that she had not deceived him, but had told him what he
+otherwise might never have known, did not console her just then. She lay
+quite still, face to face with, seeing as it were into the eyes of the
+Irreparable. Never again would a man hold her in his arms, saying,
+"Darling, I am very fond of you!" Take love out of her life, and what
+barrenness, what weariness! After all, she was only seven-and-twenty,
+and the thought came upon her that she might have waited until she was a
+little older. The word "never" rang in her ears, and she realised as she
+had not done before all that a lover meant to her--romance, adventure,
+the brilliancy and sparkle of life. What was life without the delightful
+excitement of the chase, the delicious doubts regarding the hidden
+significance of every look and word, then the rapture of the final
+abandonment? She tried to think that the life she proposed to relinquish
+had not brought her happiness, but she could not put back memory of the
+enchanting days she had spent with her lovers. Oh, the intense hours of
+anticipation! and the wonderful recollections! rich and red as the
+heart of a flower! Such rapture seemed to her to be worth the remorse
+that came after, and the peace of mind that a chaste life would secure,
+a poor recompense for dreary days and months. She realised the length
+and the colour of the time--grey week after grey week, blank month after
+blank month, void year after void year! And she always getting a little
+older, getting older in a drab, lifeless time, in a lifeless life, a
+weary life filled with intolerable craving! She had endured it once, a
+feeling as if she wanted to go mad.... She picked up her letters.
+
+Among the letters she received that morning was one from Ulick. He was
+still in Paris, and would not be back for another week or ten days. He
+had been lonely, he had missed her, and looked forward to their meeting.
+He told her about the opera, the people he had met, and what they had
+said about his music. But the tender affection of his letter was not to
+her mind. Why did he not say that he longed to take her in his arms and
+kiss her on the lips? Knitting her brows, she tried to think that if he
+had written more passionately she would have taken the train and gone to
+him. She had sent Owen away on account of scruples of conscience, and a
+life of chastity extended indefinitely before her. But who was this
+woman to whom Ulick had shown his music, and who had said that if
+anything happened to prevent Evelyn Innes from singing the part, she
+hoped that Ulick would give it to her? Why should she have thought that
+something would happen to prevent Evelyn Innes from creating Grania? Had
+Ulick suggested it to her? But how could Ulick know? She tried to think
+if she had ever told him she was tired of the stage. Perhaps he had
+consulted the stars and had divined her future. This woman seemed to
+know that something might happen, and something was happening, there
+could be no doubt about that.
+
+There was no doubt that she was tired of the stage, but perhaps that was
+on account of hard work, perhaps she required a rest; in two or three
+months she might return eagerly to the study of Grania; for the sake of
+Ulick, she might remain on the stage till she had established the
+success of his opera. This might be if she and Ulick were not lovers.
+She had promised Owen that she would not keep him for her lover, but
+that did not mean that she would not sing his opera. If she didn't,
+another woman would, some wretched singer who did not understand the
+music, and it would be a failure. Ulick would hate her; he would believe
+that her refusal to sing his opera was a vile plan to do him an injury.
+He did not know what conscience meant--he only understood the legends
+and the Gods! She laughed, and a moment afterwards was submerged in
+difficulties. Her conduct would seem more incomprehensible to him than
+it did to Owen; she did not wish him to hate her, but he would hate her,
+and to avoid seeing her he would not go to Dowlands, and so she would
+rob her father of his friend--the friend who had kept him company when
+she deserted him. There was another alternative. If she liked him well
+enough to be his mistress, she should like him well enough to be his
+wife. But knowing that she would not marry him, she took up her other
+letters and began reading them.
+
+Lady Duckle liked Homburg; everyone was there, and she hoped Evelyn
+would not be detained in London much longer. The Duke of Berwick had
+proposed to Miss Beale, and Lady Mersey was always about with young Mr.
+So-and-So. Evelyn didn't read it all. She lay back thinking, for this
+letter, about things that interested her no longer, had led her thoughts
+back to self, and she inquired why in the midst of all her enjoyments
+she had felt that her real life was elsewhere, why she had always known
+that sooner or later the hour would come when she would leave the things
+which she enjoyed so intensely. The idea of departure had never quite
+died down in her, and she had always known that she would be one day
+quite a different woman. She had often had glimpses of her future self
+and of her future life, but the moment she tried to distinguish what was
+there, the vision faded. Even now she knew that she would not marry
+Ulick, and this not because she would refuse her father anything, but
+merely because it was not to be. Her eyes went to the piano, but on the
+way there she stopped to ask herself a question. Why was she in London
+at this time of year? She knew why she did not care to go to
+Homburg--because she was tired of society. But why did she not go to
+some quiet seaside place where she could enjoy the summer weather? She
+would like to sit on the beach and hear the sea. Her soul threatened to
+give back a direct answer, and she dismissed the question.
+
+She paced the empty alley facing the Bayswater Road. No one was there
+except a nursemaid and a small child, and she and they shared the
+solitude. She could see the omnibuses passing, and hear the clank of the
+heavy harness, and seated on one of the seats she drew diagrams on the
+gravel with her parasol. Owen said there was no meaning in life, that it
+was no more than an unfortunate accident between two eternal sleeps. But
+she had never been able to believe that this was so; and if she had
+sought to disbelieve in God, it was as Monsignor had said, because she
+wished to lead a sinful life. And if she could not believe in
+annihilation, there could be no annihilation for her, that was Ulick's
+theory. The name of her lover brought up the faded Bloomsbury Square,
+the litter of manuscript and the books on magic! She had tried to
+believe in readings of the stars. But such vague beliefs had not helped
+her. In spite of all her efforts, the world was slipping behind her;
+Owen and Ulick and her stage career seemed very little compared with the
+certainty within her that she was leading a sinful life, and she was
+only really certain of that. The omnibuses in the road outside, the
+railways beyond the town, the ships upon the sea, what were these things
+to her--or yet the singing of operas? The only thing that really
+mattered was her conscience.
+
+Then, almost without thinking at all, in a sort of stupor, she walked
+over the hill and descended the slope, and leaning over the balustrade
+she looked at the fountains. But the splashing water explained nothing,
+and she turned to resume her walk; and she reflected that to send away
+her lovers would avail her nothing, unless she subsequently confessed
+her sins and obtained the priest's absolution. Monsignor would tell her
+that to send away her lovers was not sufficient, and he would refuse his
+absolution unless she promised him not to see them any more. That
+promise she could not give, for she had promised Ulick that she would
+sing Grania, and she had promised Owen to see him in three months. It
+seemed to her both weak and shameful to break either of these promises.
+The spire of Kensington Church showed sharp as a needle on a calm sky,
+and it was in a sudden anguish of mind that she determined that her
+repentance must be postponed. She had considered the question from every
+point of view, and could not at once reverse her life; the change must
+come gradually. She had sent Owen away; that was enough for the present.
+
+The numerous pea-fowls had gathered in a bare roosting tree on an
+opposite hillside, and the immense tails of the cock-birds swept the
+evening sky. Owen would have certainly compared it to a picture by
+Honderhoker. The ducks clambered out of the water, keeping their cunning
+black eyes fixed on the loitering children whom the nursemaid was urging
+to return home. In Kensington Gardens, the glades were green and gold,
+and for some little while Evelyn watched the delicate spectacle of the
+fading light, and insensibly she began to feel that a life of spiritual
+endeavour was the only life possible to her, and that, however much it
+might cost her, she must make the effort to attain it. Even to feel that
+she was capable of desiring this ideal life was a delicious happiness,
+and her thoughts flowed on for a long while, unmindful of practical
+difficulties. Suddenly it came upon her like a sudden illumination, that
+sooner or later she would have to make all the sacrifices that this
+ideal demanded, that she would not have any peace of mind until she had
+made them. But even at the same moment the insuperable difficulties of
+the task before her appeared, and she despaired. The last obstacle was
+money. As she crossed the road dividing Kensington Gardens from Hyde
+Park, she understood that the simple fact of owing a few thousand pounds
+rendered her immediate retirement from the stage impossible. She had
+insisted that the money she required to live in Paris and study with
+Madame Savelli should be considered as a debt, which she would repay out
+of her first earnings. But Owen had laughed at her. He had refused to
+accept it, and he would never tell her the rent of the house in the Rue
+Balzac; he had urged that as he had made use of the house he could not
+allow her to pay for it. In the rough, she supposed that a thousand
+pounds would settle her debt for the year they had spent in Paris.
+
+Since then she had, however, insisted on keeping herself, but now that
+she came to think it out, it did not seem that she had done much more
+than pay her dressmaker's bills. She grew alarmed at the amount of her
+debt, which seemed in her excited imagination so large that all her
+savings, amounting to about six or seven thousand pounds, would not
+suffice to pay it off. Most of her jewellery had been given to her by
+Owen; there was the furniture, the pictures and the china in Park Lane!
+She would have to return all these, and the horses, too, if she wished
+to pay everything, and the net result would be that she would mortally
+offend the man who had done everything for her. She knew he would not
+forgive her if she sent back the presents he had made her, nor could she
+blame him, and she decided that such complete restitution was
+impossible. But, for all she knew, Monsignor might insist upon it. If he
+did? She felt that she would go mad if she did not put aside these
+scruples, which she knew to be in a measure fictitious, but which she
+was nevertheless unable to shake off. And she could not help thinking,
+though she knew that such thoughts were both foolish and unjust, that
+Owen had purposely contrived this thraldom. Then there was only one
+thing for her to do, to go to Paris after Ulick.... A moment after there
+came a sinking feeling. She knew that she could not. But what was she to
+do? All this uncertainty was loosening her brain.... She might go to
+Monsignor and lay the whole matter before him and take his advice. But
+she knew if she went to him she must confess. Better that, she thought,
+than that the intolerable present should endure.
+
+Mental depression and sleepless nights had produced nervous pains in her
+neck and arms. She could hardly drag herself along for very weariness.
+The very substance of her being seemed to waste away; that amount of
+unconsciousness without which life is an agony had been abstracted,
+leaving nothing but a fierce mentality.
+
+She slept a little after dinner, and awakening about eleven, she foresaw
+another night of insomnia. The chatter of her conscience continued,
+tireless as a cricket, and she had lost hope of being able to silence
+it. The hysterical tears of last night had brought her four hours of
+sleep, but there was no chance of any repetition of them. It would be
+useless to go upstairs. She sang through the greater part of
+"Lohengrin," and then took up the "Meistersinger," and read it till it
+fell from her hands. ... It was three o'clock; and feeling very tired,
+she thought that she might be able to sleep. But all night long she saw
+her life from end to end. Her miserable passage through this life, the
+weakness of her character and the vileness of her sins were shown to her
+in a hideous magnification. She was exhibited to herself like an insect
+in a crystal, and she perceived the remotest antennae of her being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+
+
+One night it occurred to her that she might ring for Merat and send her
+to the chemist's for a sleeping draught. But it was four o'clock in the
+morning, and she did not like to impose such a task on her maid.
+Moreover, she might get to sleep a little later on, so she wrote on a
+piece of paper that Merat was not to come to her room until she rang for
+her, and she lay down and folded her arms, and once more began to count
+the sheep through the gate. But that night sleep seemed further than
+ever from her eyes, and at eight she was obliged to ring. "Merat, I have
+not closed my eyes all night."
+
+"Mademoiselle ought to have a sleeping draught."
+
+"Yes, I'll take one to-night Get me some tea. Another night like this
+will drive me mad."
+
+Late in the afternoon she slept for an hour in an armchair, and, a
+little rested, went to walk in the park. She was not feeling so dazed;
+her brain was not so light, and the sense of whiteness was gone; the
+pains in the neck and arms too had died down; they were now like a dim
+suggestion, a memory. But the greatest relief of all was that she was
+not thinking, conscience was quiescent and in the calm of the evening
+and the gentleness of the light, life seemed easier to bear. If she
+could only get a night's sleep! Now she did not know which was the
+worst--the reality, the memory, or the anticipation of a sleepless
+night. She had wandered round the park by the Marble Arch, and had
+continued her walk through Kensington Gardens, and sitting on the
+hillside by the Long Water, with the bridge on her left hand and the
+fountains under her eyes, she looked towards Kensington. There an
+iridescent sky floated like a bubble among the autumn-tinted trees. She
+was then thinking of her music and her friends; she hardly knew of what
+she was thinking, when a thought so clear that it sounded like a bell
+spoke within her, and it said that the things of which she was thinking
+were as nothing, and that Life was but a little moment compared with
+Eternity, and she seemed to see into the final time which lay beyond the
+grave. "There and not here are the true realities," said the voice, and
+she got up and walked hurriedly down the hillside, fearing lest the
+fierce conflict of conscience should begin again in her. She walked as
+fast as she was able, hoping to extinguish in action the conscience
+that she dreaded, but she was weak and almost helpless, and had to pause
+to rest. She stood, one hand on the balustrade, not daring to turn her
+head lest she should see the spire of the Kensington Church.
+
+She walked across the gardens, through the great groves, and sat down.
+The grass was worn away about the roots of the trees and through the
+gnarled trunks she could see the keeper's cottage covered with reddened
+creeper. Perhaps it was the calm and seclusion that called her thoughts
+to the convent garden, and she reflected that if she had not accepted
+the nuns' invitation to tea, her life might have continued without
+deviation. She was impressed with the slightness of the thread on which
+our destiny hangs, and then by the inevitableness of our lives. We
+perceive the governing rule only when we look back. The present always
+seems chaos, but when we look back, we distinguish the reason of every
+action, and we recognise the perfect fulfilment of what must be. Her
+visit to the convent--how little it was when looked at from one side,
+when looked at from another how extraordinary! If she had known that
+Monsignor was going to ask her to go there, she would have invented a
+plausible excuse, but she had had no time to think; his kind eyes were
+fixed upon her, and he seemed so ready to believe all she said, that her
+courage sank within her, and she could not lie to him. Perhaps all this
+was by intention, by the very grace of God! The Virgin might have
+interceded on her behalf, for is it not said that whoever wears the
+scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel cannot lose his soul? But for the
+last two years, for more than two years, she has not worn her scapular.
+The strings had broken, and they had not been mended. She had intended
+to buy another, but had not been able to bring herself to do so, so
+hypocritical did it seem.
+
+It might be that these dreadful nights of insomnia had been sent so that
+she might have an opportunity of realising the wickedness of her life,
+and the risk she incurred of losing her immortal soul. She dare not have
+recourse to the sleeping draught, and must endure perhaps another
+sleepless night. If they had been sent, as she thought they were, for a
+purpose, she must not dare to hush, by artificial means, the sense God
+had awakened in her; to do so would be like flying in the face of
+Providence. She had never suffered from sleeplessness before, and could
+not think that this insomnia was accidental. No, she dare not have
+recourse to sleeping draughts, at least not till she had been to
+confession. If afterwards she did not get to sleep, it would be
+different. The fear arose in her of taking too much, of dying in her
+sleep. If she were to awake in hell! And that evening, when Merat
+reminded her of the draught, she said it was to be left on the table,
+and that she would take it if she required it.
+
+The darkness could not hide the slim bottle corked with a slim blond
+cork, and so clear was the vision that she could read the label through
+the darkness. It was only partially gummed on the bottom, and she could
+read the pale writing. "To be taken before bedtime." The temptation
+struck through the darkness, sweet and dreamily seductive it entered her
+brain. She was tempted as by a dark, dreamless river; hushed in an
+unconscious darkness she would be upon that river, floating through a
+long, winding night towards a dim, very distant day. If she were to
+drink, darkness would sink upon her, and all this visible world, the
+continual sight of which she felt must end in lunacy, would pass from
+her. So great was the temptation that she did not dare to get out of bed
+and put the bottle away--if she did she must drink it, so she lay quite
+still, her face turned against the wall, trying to find courage in the
+thought that God had imposed the torture of these sleepless nights upon
+her in order that she might be saved from the eternal sleeplessness of
+hell.
+
+Mistakes are made in the preparation of medicines, but if no mistake had
+been made, a change in her health might unfit her for so large a dose,
+and if through either of these chances she were to die in her sleep,
+there was no question that she must awake in hell. She did not dare to
+go to the draught, but lay quite still, her head close against the wall,
+praying for darkness, crying for relief from this too fierce mentality;
+it seemed to be eating up the very substance of her brain.
+
+On the following evening she sat in her armchair watching the clock. It
+had struck eleven--that was the time for her going to bed, but the hour
+had become a redoubtable one. Bedtime filled her with fear, and the
+thought of another sleepless night deprived her of all courage. She did
+not dare to go upstairs. She sat in her armchair as if in terror of a
+mortal enemy. She had hidden the bottle, but her maid had ordered
+another. There were now two, sufficient to procure death, said her
+conscience, and since dinner the temptation to commit suicide had been
+growing in her brain; like a vulture perched upon a jag of mountain
+rock, she could see the temptation watching her. She tried not to see,
+but the thought grew blacker and larger--its beak was in her brain, and
+she was drawn, as if by talons, tremblingly from her chair. She was so
+weak that she could hardly cross the room; but the thought of death
+seemed to give her courage, and without it she thought she never would
+have had the strength to get upstairs. The attraction was extraordinary,
+and her powerlessness to resist it was part of the fascination, and she
+looked round the room like a victim looking for the knife. She could not
+see the bottle on her dressing-table, and accepting this as a favourable
+omen, she undressed and lay down.
+
+After all, she might sleep without having recourse to death; but, lying
+on the pillow, she could think of nothing but the slim bottle and the
+slim blond cork, and a thick white liquid, and the dark river into
+which she would sink, the winding darkness on which she would float, and
+she had not strength to think whither it led. Her only thought was not
+to see this world any more; her only desire not to think of Ulick or
+Owen, and to be tortured no longer by doubt of what was right and what
+was wrong. She was aware that she was losing possession of her
+self-control, and would be soon drawn into the dreaded but much-desired
+abyss; and in this delirium, produced by long insomnia, she began to
+conceive her suicide as an act of defiance against God, and she rejoiced
+in her hatred of God, who had afflicted her so cruelly--for it was
+hatred that had come to her aid, and would enable her to secure a long,
+long sleep. "Out of the sight of this world"--she muttered the words as
+she sought the chloral--"I'll sleep, I'll sleep, I must sleep. Sleep or
+death, one or the other, so long as I am out of the sight of this
+world." But in her frenzy of desire for sleep she overlooked the slim
+bottle with the slim blond cork. Yet it stood on the toilet-table amid
+other bottles, right under her eyes, but over and over again she passed
+it by, until, frightened at not finding it, she opened drawer after
+drawer, and rushed to her wardrobe thinking it might be there. She
+sought for it, throwing her things about, and, not finding it anywhere,
+a cold sweat broke over her forehead. Another sleepless night and she
+must go mad. If she did not find it, she must find another way out of
+this agony, and the thought of cutting her throat, or throwing herself
+out of the window, flashed across her mind. "Sleep I must have--sleep,
+sleep, sleep!" she muttered, as with fearing fingers she emptied out the
+contents of her little workbox, where odds and ends collected. It was
+her scapular that came up under her hand, and at the sight of it, all
+her mad revolt was hushed, and a calm settled upon her. "A miracle, a
+miracle," she murmured, "the Virgin has done this; she interceded for
+me;" and at the same moment, catching sight of the chloral right under
+her very eyes, she could no longer doubt the miraculous interposition of
+the Virgin. For how otherwise could that bottle have escaped her notice?
+She had looked at the very place where it stood many times, and had not
+seen it; she had moved the other bottles and she had not seen it. The
+Virgin had taken it away--she was sure it was not there five minutes
+ago--or else the Virgin had blinded her eyes to it. A miracle had
+happened; and in a quivering peace of mind and an intense joy of the
+heart, she mended the strings of her broken scapular. Then she hung it
+round her neck, and kneeling by the bedside, she said the prayers that
+it enjoined; and when she got into bed she saw a light shining in one
+corner of the room, and, sure that it was the Virgin who had come in
+person to visit her, she continued her prayers till she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+
+A knock came at her door, and Merat was glad to hear that Mademoiselle
+had slept. She noticed that the sleeping-draught had not been taken, and
+picking up the various things that Evelyn had scattered in her search,
+she wondered at the disorder of the room, making Evelyn feel
+uncomfortable by her remarks. Evelyn knew it would be impossible for
+Merat to guess the cause of it all. But when she hesitated about what
+dress she would wear, declaring against this one and that one, her
+choice all the time being fixed on a black crepon, Merat glanced
+suspiciously at her mistress; and when Evelyn put aside her rings,
+selecting in preference two which she did not usually wear, the maid was
+convinced that some disaster had happened, and was ready to conclude
+that Ulick Dean was the cause of these sleepless nights.
+
+Evelyn had chosen this dress because she was going to St. Joseph's or
+because she supposed she was going there. It did not seem to her that
+she could confess to anyone but Monsignor. But why he? one priest would
+do as well as another. She was too tired to think.
+
+Her brain was like one of those autumn days when clouds hang low, and a
+dimness broods between sky and earth. True that there were the events of
+last night--her search for the chloral, the finding of her scapular, her
+belief in a special interposition of Providence, and then her resolution
+to go to confession. It was all there; she knew it all, but did not want
+to think about it. She had been thinking for a week, and this was the
+first respite she had had from thought, and she wished this stupor of
+brain to continue till four o'clock. That was the time she would have to
+be at St. Joseph's. He was generally there at that time.
+
+She had lain down on the sofa after breakfast, hoping to sleep a little;
+if she didn't, the time would be very long; but as she dozed, she began
+to see the thin, worn face and the piercing eyes, and the intonation of
+his voice began to ring in her ears. As she thought or as she dreamed,
+the striking of the clock reminded her of the number of hours that
+separated them. Only four hours and she would be kneeling at his feet!
+Then she felt that she had advanced a stage, and was appreciably nearer
+the inevitable end, and lay staring at the sequence of events. She saw
+the hours stretching out reaching to him, and she, all the while, was
+moving through the hours automatically. All kind of similes presented
+themselves to her mind. She asked herself how it was that Monsignor had
+come into her life. She had not sought him; she had not wanted him in
+her life, but he had come! She remembered the first time she saw
+him--that Sunday morning when she went to St. Joseph's to meet her
+father's choir--and could recall the exact appearance of the church as
+he walked across the aisle to the pulpit. It was illuminated by a sudden
+ray of sunlight falling through one of the eastern windows, and she
+remembered how it had lighted up the thin, narrow face, bringing a glow
+of colour to the dark skin till it seemed like one of the carved saints
+she had seen in Romanesque churches on the Rhine. She remembered the
+shape of the small head, carried well back, and how she had been
+impressed by the slow stride with which he crossed the sanctuary. Then
+her thoughts passed to the moment when, standing in the pulpit, he had
+looked out on the congregation, seeming to divine the presence of some
+great sinner there. She had felt that he was aware of her existence, for
+in that moment the thin grey eyes seemed to see her, even to think her,
+and they had frightened her, they were so clear, so set on some
+purpose--God's or the Church's. She had met him that evening at a
+concert, and how well she remembered her father introducing him! He had
+spoken to her several minutes; everyone in the room was looking at them,
+and she recalled the scene--all the girls, their dresses, and the
+expression of their eyes. But she could not recall what Monsignor had
+said, only her impressions; the same strange fascination and fear which
+she had experienced when Owen came to the concerts long ago--that loud
+winter's night, harsh and hard as iron. Owen had stood talking to her
+too, and she had been fascinated.... He had admired her singing, and
+Monsignor had admired her singing; but she was determined not to sing
+until Monsignor had asked her to sing, and when he has asked her to go
+to the convent she had gone. It was very strange; she could not account
+for it. It was all beyond herself, outside of her, far away like the
+stars, and she felt now as she did whenever she looked at the stars. Was
+her character essentially weak, and was she liable to all these
+influences, these facile assimilations? Was there nothing within her, no
+abiding principle, nothing that she could call her own? She walked up
+the room, and tried to understand herself--what was she, bad or good,
+weak or strong? If she only knew what she was, then she would know how
+to act.
+
+There were her sins against faith. She had striven to undermine her
+belief in God. She had read Darwin and Huxley for this purpose, and not
+in the least to obtain knowledge. As Monsignor has said, "When a
+Catholic loses his faith, it is because he desires to lead a loose
+life," and she hardly dared to look into her soul, knowing that she
+would find confirmation of this opinion. She had not been to Mass,
+because at the Elevation she believed in spite of herself; so she had
+been as insincere in her unfaith as in her faith. Then there were the
+sins of the flesh, and their number and their blackness terrified her.
+There were sins that she strove to put out of her mind at once, sins she
+was even ashamed to think of; and the thought of confessing them struck
+her down, and once more it seemed that she could never raise herself out
+of the slough into which she had fallen. She had all along taken it for
+granted that a general admission that she had lived with Owen as his
+wife would be sufficient. But now it seemed to her that she would have
+to tell Monsignor how gross her life had been.
+
+In a corner of the room her sins crowded, and covering her face with her
+hands, she was convinced that she could not go to confession.
+
+Before she went away with Owen she had had no sins to confess, or only
+venial sins; that she had been late for Mass through her own fault; that
+she had omitted her evening prayers. Her worst sin was the reading of a
+novel which she thought she ought not to have read, but now her life was
+all sin. If the priest questioned her she could not answer, she must
+refuse to answer. So there seemed no hope for her. She could not confess
+everything, and the conviction suddenly possessed her that God had
+deserted her, and she could not hope for redemption from her present
+life. For she could not confess all her sins; her heart would fail her,
+she would be tempted to conceal something, and then to her other sins
+she would add the sin of a bad confession.
+
+Nervous pains began again in her arms and neck, and she experienced the
+same wasting away of the very substance of her being, of the protecting
+envelope of the unconscious. She was again a mere mentality, and she
+looked round the room with a frightened, distracted air. On the table
+was the book Monsignor had given her, _Sin and Its Consequences_. But
+she turned from it with a smile. She did not need anyone to tell her
+what were the consequences of sin--and the familiar proverb of bringing
+coals to Newcastle rose up in her mind. At the same moment she caught
+sight of the clock; it was half-past twelve, and she remembered that in
+about three hours and a half it would be time to go to St. Joseph's.
+Then like a flash the question came, was it Monsignor's influence that
+had induced this desire of a pure life in her? She could not deny to
+herself that she was attracted by his personality. So the question was,
+how far his personality accounted for the change that had come over her
+life? Was it the mere personal influence of the prelate, or an inherent
+sense of right and wrong that compelled her to send her lovers away and
+change her life? If it were the mere personal influence of Monsignor,
+her desire of a pure life would not last, and to attain something that
+was not natural to her she would have ruined her life to no purpose.
+Owen's influence had died in her; how did she know that Monsignor's
+would continue even so long? She had lived an evil life for six years;
+would she lead a good one for the same time? If she knew this she would
+know how to act. But not only for six years would she have to lead a
+good life, but till the very end of her life. If she did not persevere
+till the very end, all this present struggle and the years of
+self-denial which she was was about to enter on would be useless. She
+might just as well have had a good time all along. A good time! That was
+just it. She could not have a good time. She dare not face the agony,
+the agony which she was at present enduring, so she must go to
+confession, she must have inward peace.
+
+"So my life is over and done," she said, "and at seven-and-twenty!"
+
+She twisted in her fingers a letter which she had received that morning
+from Mademoiselle Helbrun. She was staying at the Savoy Hotel, and had
+just returned from Munich. Evelyn felt she would like to hear about her
+success as Frika, and how So-and-So had sung Brunnhilde, and the rest of
+the little gossip about the profession. She would like to lunch with
+Louise in the restaurant, at a table by the window. She would like to
+see the Thames, and hear things that she might never hear again. But was
+it possible that she was never going to join again in the tumult of the
+Valkyrie? She remembered her war gear, the white tunic with gold
+breastplates. Was it possible that she would never cry their cry from
+the top of the rocks; and her favourite horse, the horse that Owen had
+given her for the part, what would become of him? What would become of
+her jewellery, of her house, of her fame, of everything? She attempted a
+last stand against her conscience. Her scruples were imaginary. Owen had
+said it could not matter to God whether she kissed him or not. But she
+did not pursue this train of reasoning. She felt it to be wrong. But she
+could not confess--she could not explain everything, and again she was
+struck with a sort of mental paralysis. Why Monsignor--why not another
+priest? No, not another. She could not say why, but not another; he was
+the one. But perhaps she only wanted to tell someone, a woman--Louise,
+for instance. If she were to tell Louise--she put the idea out of mind,
+feeling it to be vain, and trying to think that there was no need why
+she should leave the stage, and uncertain whether she should stay on the
+stage if Monsignor forbade her, or if she wanted to even if he allowed
+her, she put on her hat and went to lunch with Louise. It would help her
+to pass the time; it would save her from thinking. She must speak to
+someone. But the Savoy was on her way to St. Joseph's. It was half-way
+there. A little overcome by the coincidence, she told her servant to
+call a hansom, and as she drove to the hotel she wondered why she had
+thought of going to see Louise.
+
+She met her in the courtyard, and the vivacious little woman cried, "My
+dear, how glad I am to see you!" and she stretched out both hands.
+Evelyn was more pleased to see her friend than she expected to be, and
+while listening to her she envied her for being so happy, and she
+wondered why she was so happy; and while asking herself these questions
+she noticed her dress. Mademoiselle Helbrun's plump figure was set off
+to full advantage in a black and white check silk dress, and she wore a
+wonderful arched hat with flowing plumes of the bird of paradise. She
+was a prima-donna every inch of her, standing on the steps of her hotel,
+whereas the operatic stage could hardly be distinguished at all in
+Evelyn's dress. With the black crepon skirt she wore a heliotrope
+blouse, and she stood, one foot showing beyond the skirt, in a
+statue-like attitude, her pale parasol held negligently over one
+shoulder.
+
+"My dear," she said, "I have come to ask you to let me lunch with you."
+
+"But I shall be enchanted, my dear. I wrote on the chance, never
+thinking that you would be in town this season."
+
+"Yes, it is strange. I don't know why I am here. There's no one in
+town."
+
+"Where would you like to lunch? In my room or in the restaurant?"
+
+"It will be gayer in the restaurant. I haven't seen a soul for nearly a
+week."
+
+"My dear!"
+
+Louise gave her a sharp look, in which the passing thought that Evelyn
+might be in want of money was dismissed as ridiculous. Louise thought of
+some unhappy love affair, and when they sat down to lunch she noticed
+that Evelyn avoided answering a question regarding herself, and turned
+the conversation on to the Munich performance. The evident desire of
+Evelyn not to talk about herself clouded Louise's pleasure in talking of
+herself, and she paused in her account of the Wotan, the Brunnhilde, the
+conductor and the Rhine Maidens to tell Evelyn of the inquiries that had
+been made about her--all were looking forward to her Kundry next year.
+Madame Wagner had said that there never had been such a Brunnhilde.
+
+"I daresay she said so, but at the bottom of her heart she did not like
+my Brunnhilde. It was against her ideas. She always thought I was too
+much woman. She said that I forgot that I was a Goddess. And she was
+right. I never could remember the Goddess. I never remember anything on
+the stage. 'Tisn't my way. I simply live it all out. I was enthusiastic
+when Siegfried came to release me, because I should have been
+enthusiastic about him." Evelyn's thoughts went back to Owen, and she
+remembered how he had released her from the bondage of music lessons
+with a kiss.
+
+"But when I came to tell you about the ruined Valhala and the poor
+fallen Gods you were sorry?"
+
+"Yes, I was sorry for father."
+
+"The All-Father?"
+
+Evelyn laughed.
+
+"No, my own father. That's my way. I think of what has happened to me
+and I act that. But tell me about the Munich performances."
+
+While Mademoiselle Helbrun told of the different points in which they
+excelled, Evelyn thought and thought of the strange charm of the woman
+who had so ably continued the Master's work. She recalled the tall,
+bending figure, she saw the alley of clipped limes, she remembered the
+spacious rooms, and then his study, the walls lined with bookcases,
+books of legends and philosophical works, the room in which he had
+written "The Dusk of the Gods" and "Parsifal." Thinking of the studious
+months she had spent in that house, a vivid memory of one night shot
+across her brain. It was a heavy, breathless night, without star or
+moon. She had wandered into the dark garden; she had found her way to
+the grave, and standing by the Master's side she had listened to the
+music and seen the guests passing across the lighted windows. The warble
+of the fountain had seemed to her like the pulse of Eternity. All that
+was three years ago. "It is very wonderful, very wonderful," she
+thought, and she awoke with a start, and Mademoiselle Helbrun saw she
+had not been listening. She answered Louise's subsequent remarks, and
+was glad that what had been had been. She was giving it all up, it was
+true, but it was not as if she had not known life.
+
+The sun was shining on the great brown river, and out of the
+smoke-dimmed sky white creamy clouds were faintly rising. Evelyn's eyes
+had wandered out there, and she seemed to see a thin face and hard, cold
+eyes, and she asked Louise abruptly what the time was, for she had
+forgotten her watch. It was only just three o'clock. She returned to the
+Munich performances, but Louise could see that Evelyn was all the time
+struggling against an overmastering fate. The only thing she could think
+of was that Evelyn was being forced into a marriage or an elopement
+against her will. Once or twice she thought that Evelyn was going to
+confide in her. She waited, afraid to say a word lest she should check
+the confidences that her friend seemed tempted to entrust her with.
+Evelyn's eyes were dull and lifeless. Louise could see that they did not
+see her, and it was with an effort that Evelyn said, "I am sorry I did
+not see your Frika;" and once started she rattled on for some time,
+hardly knowing what she was saying, arguing about the music and
+expressing opinions about everything and everybody. Stopping abruptly,
+she again asked her friend what time it was. Louise said that she must
+not go, and then tried to induce her to come for a drive with her; but
+Evelyn shook her head--she was engaged. There was no trace of colour in
+her face, and when Louise asked when they should meet again, she said
+she did not know, but she hoped very soon. She might be obliged to go to
+Paris to-morrow, and she had to pay some visits to Scotland at the end
+of the month. Louise did not like to question her, for she was sure that
+some momentous event was about to happen. As she drove away Louise said,
+"I should not be surprised if she did not play Kundry next year."
+
+While wondering at the grotesque movement of the trotting horse, Evelyn
+tried once more to save herself from this visit to St. Joseph's. She
+thought of what it would cost her--her present life! Her lovers were
+gone already, and Monsignor would tell her that she must give up the
+stage. But these considerations did not alter the fact that she was
+going to St. Joseph's. She was rolling thither, like a stone down a
+hill. She saw the streets and people as she passed them, as a stone
+might if it had eyes. All power of will had been taken from her; it was
+the same as when she went to meet Owen at Berkeley Square, and in a
+strange lucidity of mind, she asked herself if it were not true that we
+are never more than mere machines set in motion by a master hand,
+predestined to certain courses, purblind creatures who do not perceive
+their own helplessness, except in rare moments of heightened
+consciousness. As if to convince herself on this point, she strove to
+raise her hand to open the trap in the roof of the hansom, and her fear
+increased on finding that she could not. To acquire the necessary
+strength, she reminded herself that she was wrecking her whole life for
+an idea, for, perhaps, nothing more than a desire to confess her sins.
+Again she tried to raise her hand, and she looked round, feeling that
+nothing short of some extraordinary accident could save her, nothing
+except an accident to the horse or carriage could save her artistic
+life. Some material accident, nothing else.... Monsignor might not be at
+St. Joseph's. Perhaps he had left town. Nobody stayed in town in
+September, and for a moment it seemed hardly worth while to continue her
+drive. Her thoughts came to a standstill, and, as in a nervous vision,
+Evelyn saw that the whole of her future life depended on her seeing
+Monsignor that day. She foresaw that if she were turned away from the
+door of St. Joseph's, she would never come back; never would she be able
+to bring herself to the point again. She would find Owen waiting for
+her; wherever she went, she would meet him; sooner or later the
+temptation to return to him would overcome her. Then, indeed, she would
+be lost; then, indeed, her tragedy would begin.... Ah! if she could only
+cease to think for a little while; only for a little while. She had
+tried to escape from him once before, and had not succeeded because
+there was no one to help her. Now there was Monsignor. The reflection
+cheered her, and a few minutes were left to discover how much of her
+conversion was owing to her original nature, and how much to Monsignor's
+influence. It seemed to her that if she were certain of this point, she
+would know whether she should go forward or back. But her heart gave
+back no answer, and she grew more helpless, and terrified, like a bird
+fallen into the fascination of a serpent. She was uncertain if she could
+lead a good life. She no longer desired anything. She was conscious of
+no sensation, except that she was rolling independent of her own will,
+like a stone. A moment after, the gable of the church appeared against
+the sky, and she recognised the poor, ridiculous creature in the
+tattered black bonnet, whose stiff, crooked appearance she had known
+since childhood. She had changed little in the last twenty years. She
+walked with the same sidling gait her hands crossed in front of her like
+a doll. Her life had been lived about St. Joseph's; the church had
+always been the theatre and centre of her thoughts. Doubtless she was on
+her way to Benediction, and the temptation to follow her arose, but was
+easily resisted. Evelyn paid the cabman his fare, and in an increasing
+tremor of nervous agitation, she crossed the gravelled space in front of
+the presbytery. The attendant showed her into the same bare room, where
+there was nothing to distract her thoughts from herself except the four
+prints on the walls. She had recourse to them in the hope of stimulating
+her religious fervour, but as she gazed at St. Monica and St. Augustine
+she remembered the poor woman she had just seen. There had been scorn of
+her ridiculous appearance in her heart, and pride that she, Evelyn, had
+been given a more beautiful body, more perfect health, and a clearer
+intelligence. So she was overcome with shame. How dare she have scorned
+this holy woman. If she had been more richly gifted by Nature, to what
+shameful usage had she put her body and her talents? And Evelyn thought
+how much more lovely in God's eyes was this poor deformed woman. To sin
+is the common lot of humanity; but she had done more than commit sins,
+she had committed _the_ sin, she had striven to tear out of her heart
+that sense of right and wrong which God had planted there. She had
+denied the ideal as the Jews had denied Christ. Owen had not done that;
+he lived up to his principles, such as they were. But she had not
+thought she was acting right, she had always known that she was doing
+wrong, and she had gone on doing wrong, stifling her conscience, hoping
+always that it would be the last time.
+
+That poor woman whose appearance had raised a contemptuous thought in
+her heart had never sinned against her faith. She had not sought to
+raise doubts in her heart concerning God and morals; she had lived in
+ardent belief and love, never doubting that God watched her from his
+heaven, whither he would call her in good time. Almighty God! She was
+struck with fear lest she did not believe all that this poor woman
+believed. Did she believe that she, Evelyn Innes, would appear at the
+final judgment and be assigned a place for ever and ever in either
+eternal bliss or torment? She did not know if she believed this. Last
+night she was sure she believed, but to-day she did not know.... She did
+not know that heaven was as this poor woman imagined it. She asked
+herself if she believed in a future life of any sort? She was not sure,
+she did not know; she was only sure that whether there be a future life
+or none, our obligation to live according to the dictates of our
+conscience remains the same. But Monsignor might not deem this
+sufficient, and might refuse her absolution. She strove to convince
+herself, hurriedly, aware that the moments were fleeting, that she had a
+soul. That sense of right and wrong which, like a whip, had driven her
+here could be nothing else but the voice of her soul; therefore there
+was a soul, and if there was a soul it could not die, and if it did not
+die it must go somewhere; therefore there was a heaven and a hell. But
+in spite of her desire to convince herself, remembrance of Owen's
+arguments whistled like a wind through her pious exhortations, and all
+that she had read in Huxley and Darwin and Spencer; the very words came
+back thick and distinct, and like one who finds progress impossible in
+the face of the gale, she stopped thinking. "We know nothing ... we know
+nothing," were the words she heard in the shriek of the wind, and
+revealed religion appeared in tattered, miserable plight, a forlorn
+spectre borne away on the wind. So distinct was the vision, so explicit
+her hearing, that she could not pretend to herself that she was a
+Christian in any but a moral sense, and this would not satisfy
+Monsignor. Then question after question pealed in her ears. What should
+she say when he came? Was it not better for her to leave at once? But
+then? She took one step towards the door. However thin and shallow her
+belief might be, she must confess her sins. She felt that she must
+confess her sins even if she did not believe in confession. Her thoughts
+paused, and she was terrified by the mystery which her own existence
+presented to herself.
+
+The door opened, and the priest stood looking at her. She could see that
+he divined the truth. In the first glance he read that Evelyn had come
+to confession, and it was for him a moment of extraordinary spiritual
+elation.
+
+Monsignor Mostyn and Sir Owen had been at school together, and though
+they had not met since, they frequently heard of each other. Owen's
+ideas of marriage and religion were well known to the priest. He had
+heard soon after she had gone away that she had gone with Asher, his old
+schoolfellow. He knew the pride that Asher would take in destroying her
+faith, and this diabolic project he had determined to frustrate; and
+every year when he returned from Rome, he asked if Evelyn was expected
+to sing in London that season. As year after year went by, his chance of
+saving her soul seemed to grow more remote; but at the bottom of his
+heart he believed that he was the chosen instrument of God's grace. That
+night at the concert in her father's house, the first words--something
+in her manner, the expression in her eyes, had led him to think that the
+conversion would be an easy one. But it had come about quicker than he
+had expected. And as he stood looking at her, he was aware of an alloy
+of personal vanity and strove to stifle it; he thought of himself as the
+humble instrument selected to win her from this infamous, this renegade
+Catholic, and the trouble so visible in her was confirmation of his
+belief that there can be no peace for a Catholic outside the pale of the
+Church.
+
+"I have wanted to see you so much," she began hurriedly. "There is a
+great deal I want to tell you. But perhaps you have no time now."
+
+"My dear child, I have ample time, I am only too pleased to be of
+service to you. I am afraid you are in trouble, you look quite ill."
+
+The kindness of the voice filled her eyes with tears, and she understood
+in a moment the relief it would be to tell her troubles to this kind
+friend; to feel his kind advice allaying them one by one, and to know
+that the sleepless solitude in which she had tried to grapple with them
+was over at last. To give her time to recover herself, Monsignor spoke
+of a letter he had received that morning from the Superior of the
+Passionist Convent.
+
+"I will not trouble you with her repeated thanks for what you have done
+for her. She begs me to tell you that she and the sisters unite in
+inviting you to spend a few days with them. They suggest that you should
+choose your own time."
+
+"Oh, Monsignor, how can I go and stay with them! I thought I should have
+died of shame when I went there after the concert with you. Mother
+Philippa asked me if I had travelled with my father when I went abroad.
+You must remember, for you came to my assistance."
+
+"I turned the conversation, seeing that it embarrassed you."
+
+"But you must have guessed."
+
+"On account of your father's position at St. Joseph's, I had heard of
+you.... I had heard of your intimacy with Sir Owen Asher, and the life
+of an opera singer is not one to which a good Catholic can easily
+reconcile herself."
+
+As they sat on either side of the table, Evelyn was attracted, and then
+absorbed, by the distinctive appearance of the priest. His mind was in
+his face. The long, high forehead, with black hair growing sparely upon
+it; the small, brilliant eyes, and the long, firm line of the jaw, now
+distinct, for the head was turned almost in profile. The face was a
+perfect symbol of the mind behind it; and the intimate concurrence of
+the appearance and the thought was the reason of its attractiveness. It
+was the beauty of unity; here was a man whose ideas are so deeply rooted
+that they express themselves in his flesh. In him there was nothing
+floating or undecided; and in the line of the thin, small mouth and the
+square nostrils, Evelyn divined a perfect certainty on all points. In
+this way she was attracted to his spiritual guidance, and desired the
+support of his knowledge, as she had desired Ulick's knowledge when she
+was studying Isolde. Ulick's technical knowledge had been useful to her;
+upon it she had raised herself, through it she had attained her idea.
+And in the same way Monsignor's knowledge on all points of doctrine
+would free her from doubt. Then she would be able to rise above the
+degradation of earthly passion to that purer and higher passion, the
+love of God. Doctrine she did not love for its own sake as Monsignor
+loved it. She regarded it as the musician regards crotchets and quavers,
+as a means of expression; and she now felt that without doctrine she
+could not acquire the love which she desired; without doctrine she could
+not free herself from the bondage of the flesh, and every moment the
+temptation to give her soul into his keeping grew more irresistible.
+Rising from her chair, she said--
+
+"Will you hear my confession now, Monsignor?"
+
+"The priest looked at her, his narrow, hard face concentrated in an
+ardent scrutiny.
+
+"Certainly, my child, if you think you are sufficiently prepared."
+
+"I must confess now; I could not put it off again;" and glancing round
+the room, she slipped suddenly upon her knees.
+
+The priest put on his stole and murmured a Latin prayer, making the sign
+of the Cross over the head of his penitent.
+
+"I fear I shall never remember all my sins. I have been living in mortal
+sin so many years."
+
+"I remember that you spoke to me of intellectual
+difficulties--concerning faith. You see now, my dear child, that you
+were deceiving yourself. Your real difficulties were quite different."
+
+"I think that my doubts were sincere," Evelyn replied tremblingly, for
+she felt that Monsignor expected her to agree with him.
+
+"If your doubts were sincere, what has removed them? What has convinced
+you of the existence of a future life? That, I believe, was one of your
+chief difficulties. Have you examined the evidence?"
+
+Evelyn murmured that that sense of right and wrong which she had never
+been able to drive out of her heart implied the existence of God.
+
+"But savages, to whom the Scriptures are unknown, have a sense of right
+and wrong. Those who lived before the birth of Christ--the Greeks and
+Romans--had a sense of right and wrong."
+
+Knowing that the priest's absolution depended upon her acceptance of the
+doctrine of a future life, she strove to believe as a little child. But
+it was her sins of the flesh that she wanted to confess, and this
+argument about the Incarnation had begun to seem out of place. Suddenly
+it seemed to hear inexpressibly ludicrous that she should be kneeling
+beside the priest. She could not help wondering what Owen would think of
+her. She remembered his pointing out that it is stated in the Gospel
+that the Messiah should be descended from David. Now, Mary was not of
+royal blood, so it was through Joseph, who was not his father, that
+Christ was descended from David. But these discrepancies did not matter.
+She felt the Church to be necessary to her, and that its teaching
+coincided with her deepest feeling seemed to her enough. But Monsignor
+was insistent, and he pressed dogma after dogma upon her. All the while
+the cocoa-nut matting ate into her knees, and she was perplexed by
+remembrances of sexual abandonments. How to speak of them she did not
+know, and she was haunted and terrified by the idea of concealing
+anything which would invalidate her confession. So she hastily availed
+herself of the first pause to tell him that she had lived with Owen
+Asher for the last six years. The priest did not trouble to inquire
+further, and she felt that she could not leave him under the impression
+that she had lived with Owen the moderate, sexual life which she
+believed was maintained between husband and wife.
+
+"My life during the last six years," she said, interrupting him, "has
+been so abandoned. There are few--there are no excesses of which I have
+not been guilty."
+
+"You have said enough on that point," he answered, to her great relief.
+But at that moment she remembered Ulick, and she felt that she must
+mention him. To do so she had again to interrupt the priest.
+
+"But I must tell you--Sir Owen was not the only one"--she bowed her
+head--"there was another." Then, yielding to the temptation to explain
+herself, she told Monsignor how it was this second sin that had awakened
+her conscience. She had tried to look upon Sir Owen as her husband. "But
+one night at the theatre, during a performance of 'Tristan and Isolde,'
+I sinned with this second man."
+
+"And this showed you, my dear child, the impossibility of a moral life
+for one who was born a Catholic except when protected by the doctrine
+and the sacraments of our Holy Church. And that brings us back to the
+point from which we started--the necessity of an unquestioning
+acceptance of the entire doctrine, and, I may add, a general
+acquiescence in Catholic belief. It seems strange to you that I am more
+anxious about your sins against faith than your sins of the flesh. It
+is because I know that without faith you will fall again. It is because
+I know the danger, the seduction of the theory that even if there be
+neither hell nor heaven, yet the obligation to lead a moral life exists.
+Such theory is in essence Protestantism and a delicious flattery of the
+vanity of human nature. It has been the cause of the loss of millions of
+souls. You yourself are a living testimony of the untrustworthiness of
+this shelter, and it is entirely contrary to the spirit of the teaching
+of the Church, which is that we must lead a moral life in order to gain
+heaven and avoid the pain of hell."
+
+She leaned heavily on the table to relieve her knees from as much weight
+as possible, and she thought of the possibility of getting her
+handkerchief out of her pocket and placing it under her. But when her
+confession turned from her sins against faith to her sins of the flesh,
+she forgot the pain of her knees.
+
+"There is one more question I must ask you. You have lived with this man
+as his mistress for six years, you have spoken of the excesses to which
+you abandoned yourself, but more important than these is whether you
+deliberately avoided the probable consequences of your sin--I mean in
+regard to children?"
+
+"If we sin we must needs avoid the consequences of our sin. I know that
+it is forbidden--but my profession--I had to think of others--my
+father--"
+
+"Your answer, my dear child, does not surprise me. It shows me into what
+depths you have fallen. That you should think like this is part of the
+teaching of the man whose object was to undermine your faith; it is part
+of the teaching of Darwin and Huxley and Spencer. You were persuaded
+that to live with a man to whom you were not married differed in no wise
+from living with your husband. The result has proved how false is such
+teaching. The sacrament of marriage was instituted to save the weak from
+the danger of temptation, and human nature is essentially weak, and
+without the protection of the Church it falls. The doctrine of the
+Church is our only safeguard. But that you should have proved unfaithful
+to this man--this second sin which shocked you so much, and which I am
+thankful awakened in you a sense of sin, is not more important than to
+thwart the design of Nature. It is important that you should understand
+this, for an understanding on this point will show you how false, how
+contradictory, is the teaching of the naturalistic philosophy in which
+you placed your trust. These men put aside revealed religion and refer
+everything to Nature, but they do not hesitate to oppose the designs of
+Nature when it suits their purpose. The doctrine of the Church has
+always been one wife, one husband. Polygamy and polyandry are relatively
+sterile. It is the acknowledged wife and the acknowledged husband that
+are fruitful; it is the husband and wife who furnish the world with men
+and heaven with souls, whereas the lover and the mistress fulfil no
+purpose, they merely encumber the world with their vice, they are
+useless to Nature, and are hateful in God's sight; the nations that do
+not cast them out soon become decrepid. If we go to the root of things,
+we find that the law of the Church coincides very closely with the law
+of Nature, and that the so-called natural sciences are but a nineteenth
+century figment. I hope all this is quite clear to you?"
+
+Evelyn acquiesced. Her natural instinct forbade her the original
+sin--what happened after did not appeal to her; she could feel no
+interest in the question he had raised. But she was determined to avoid
+all falsehood--on that question her instinct was again explicit--and
+when he returned again in his irritation at her insubordination to his
+ideas, and questioned her regarding her belief as to a future life, her
+answer was so doubtful that after a moment's hesitation he said--
+
+"If you are not convinced on so cardinal a point of dogma, it is
+impossible for me to give you absolution."
+
+"Do not deny me your absolution. I cannot face my life without some sign
+of forgiveness. I believe--I think I believe. You probe too deeply.
+Sometimes it seems to me that there must be a future life, sometimes it
+seems to me--that it would be too terrible if we were to live again."
+
+"It would be too terrible indeed, my dear child, if we were to live
+again unassoiled, unpurified, in all our miserable imperfections. But
+these have been removed by the priest's absolution, by the sinner's
+repentance in this world and by purgatory in the next. Those who have
+the happiness to live in the sight of God are without stain."
+
+"I only know that I must lead a moral life, and that religion will help
+me to do so. I try to speak the truth, but the truth shifts and veers,
+and in trying to tell the whole truth perhaps I leave an impression that
+I believe less than I do. You must make allowance for my ignorance and
+incapacity. I cannot find words as you do to express myself. Do not
+refuse me absolution, for without it I shall not have strength to
+persevere.... I fear what may become of me. If you knew the effort it
+has cost me to come to you. I have not slept for many nights for
+thinking of my sins."
+
+"There is one promise you must make me before I give you absolution; you
+must not seek either of these men again who have been to you a cause of
+sin."
+
+The pain from her knees was expressed in her voice, and it was almost
+with a cry that she answered--
+
+"But I have promised to sing his opera."
+
+"I thought, my dear child, that you told me you intended to give up the
+stage. I feel bound to tell you that I do not see how you are to remain
+on the stage if you wish to lead a new life"
+
+"I have been kneeling a long while," and a cry escaped her, so acute was
+the pain. She struggled to her feet and stood leaning against the table,
+waiting for the pain to die out of her limbs. "The other man is father's
+friend. If I tell him or if I write to him that he may not come to the
+house, father will suspect. Then I have promised to sing his opera. Oh,
+Monsignor--"
+
+"These difficulties," said Monsignor, as he rose from his chair, "appear
+to you very serious. You are overcome by their importance because you
+have not adequately realised the awfulness of your state in the sight of
+God. If you were to die now, your soul would be lost. Once you have
+grasped this central fact in its full significance, the rest will seem
+easy. I will lend you a book which I think will help you."
+
+"But, Monsignor, are you going to refuse me your absolution?"
+
+"My dear child, you are in doubt regarding the essential doctrine of the
+resurrection, and you are unable to promise me not to see one of the men
+who have been to you a cause of sin."
+
+Her clear, nervous vision met the dry, narrow vision that was the
+priest, and there was a pause in the conflict of their wills. He saw
+that his penitent was moved to the depth of her being, and had lost
+control of herself. He feared to send her away without absolution, yet
+he felt that she must be forced into submission--she must accept the
+entire doctrine of the Church. He could not understand, and therefore
+could not sympathise with her hesitation on points of doctrine. If the
+penitent accepted the Church as the true Church, conscience was laid
+aside for doctrine. The value of the Church was that it relieved the
+individual of the responsibility of life. So it was by an effort of will
+that he retained his patience. He was determined to reduce her to his
+mind, but he was instinctively aware of the danger of refusing her
+absolution; to do so might fling her back upon agnosticism. He was
+contending with vast passions. An unexpected wave might carry her beyond
+his reach. The stakes were high; he was playing for her soul with Owen
+Asher. He had decided to yield a point if necessary, but his voice was
+so kind, so irresistibly kind, that she heard nothing but it. However
+she might think when she had left him, she could not withstand the
+kindness of that voice; it seemed to enter into her life like some
+extraordinary music or perfume. He could see the effect he was producing
+on her; he watched her eyes growing bright until a slight dread crossed
+his mind. She seemed like one fascinated, trembling in bonds that were
+loosening, and that in the next moment would break, leaving her
+free--perhaps to throw herself into his arms; he did not dare to
+withdraw his eyes. An awful moment passed, and she turned slowly as if
+to leave the room. But at the moment of so doing a light seemed to break
+upon her brain; where there was darkness there was light. He saw her
+walk suddenly forward. She threw herself upon her knees at the table,
+and like one to whom speech had suddenly come back, she said--
+
+"I believe in our holy Church and all that she teaches. Father, I
+beseech you to absolve me from my sins."
+
+So striking was the change that the priest himself was cowed by it, and
+his personal pride in his conquest of her soul was drowned in a great
+awe. He had first to thank God for having chosen him as the instrument
+of his will, and then he spoke to Evelyn of the wonder and magnitude of
+God's mercies. That at the very height of her artistic career he should
+have roused her to a sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle
+of his grace.
+
+His presence by her at that moment was a balm. She heard him say that
+life would not be an easy one, but that she must not be discouraged,
+that she must remember that she had made her peace with God, and would
+derive strength from his sacraments. An extraordinary sweetness came
+over her, she seemed borne away upon a delicious sweetness; she was
+conscious of an extraordinary inward presence. She did not dare to look
+up, or even to think, but buried herself in prayer, experiencing all the
+while the most wonderful and continuous sensation of delight. She had
+been racked and torn, and had fallen at his feet a helpless mass of
+suffering humanity. He had healed her, and she felt hope and life
+returning to her again, and sufficient strength to get up and continue
+her way. Never again would she be alone; he would be always near to
+guide her. She heard him tell her that she must recite daily for penance
+the hymn _veni sanctus spiritus_, and the thought of this obedience to
+him refreshed her as the first draught of spring water refreshes the
+wanderer who for weeks has hesitated between the tortures of thirst and
+the foul water of brackish desert pools. She was conscious that he was
+making the sign of the cross over her bowed head, the murmured Latin
+formula sounded strangely familiar and delicious in her ears, with the
+more clearly enunciated "_Ego te absolvo_" towards the close. In that
+supreme moment for which she had longed, the last traces of Owen's
+agnostic teaching seemed to fall from her, and she was carried back to
+the days of her girlhood, to the days of her old prayer-book, a "Garden
+of the Soul" bound in ivory; and she rose from her knees, weak, but
+happy as a convalescent.
+
+"I hope you will sleep well to-night," said Monsignor, kindly, noticing
+the signs of physical exhaustion in Evelyn as she stood mechanically
+drawing down her veil and putting on her gloves. "A good conscience is
+the best of all narcotics." Evelyn smiled through her tears, but could
+not trust herself to speak. "But I don't really like you living alone in
+Park Lane. It is too great a strain on your nerves. Could you not go to
+your father's for a time?"
+
+"Yes, perhaps, I don't know. Dear father would like to have me."
+
+He told her that the Mass he was to say to-morrow he would offer up for
+her; and as she drove home her joy grew more intense, and in a sort of
+spiritual intoxication she identified herself with the faith of her
+childhood. Life again presented possibilities of infinite perfection,
+and she was astonished that the difficulties which she had thought
+insuperable had been so easily overcome.
+
+All that evening she thought of God and his sacraments, and remembering
+the moment when his grace had descended upon her and all had become
+clear, she perforce believed in a miracle--a miracle of grace had
+certainly happened.
+
+She looked forward to the moment when her maid would leave the room, and
+she would throw herself on her knees and lose herself in prayer, as she
+had lost herself when she knelt beside Monsignor, and he absolved her
+from sin. But when the door closed she was incapable of prayer, she only
+desired sleep. Her whole mind seemed to have veered. She had exaggerated
+everything, conducted herself strangely, hysterically, and her prayers
+were repeated without ardour, almost indifferently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
+
+
+But the next day she could not account to herself for the extraordinary
+relief she had derived from her confession. For years she had battled
+with life alone, with no light to guide her, blown hither and thither by
+the gusts of her own emotions. But now she was at peace, she was
+reconciled to the Church; she would never be alone again. The struggle
+of her life still lay before her, and yet in a sense it was a thing of
+the past. She felt like a ship that has passed from the roar of the surf
+into the shelter of the embaying land, and in the distance stretched the
+long peacefulness of the winding harbour.
+
+The solution of her monetary obligations to Sir Owen still perplexed
+her. She regretted not having laid the matter before Monsignor, and
+looked forward to doing so. She could hear his clear, explicit voice
+telling her what she must do, and guidance was such a sweet thing. He
+would say that to try to calculate hotel bills and railway fares was out
+of the question; but if she had said that the money Sir Owen had
+advanced her to pay Madame Savelli was to be considered as a debt, she
+must offer to return it. She knew that Owen would not accept it. It
+would be horrid of him if he did, but it would be still more horrid of
+her if she did not offer to return it.
+
+She had not really begun to make money till the last few years, and as
+there had been no need for her to make money, she had sacrificed money
+to her pleasure and to Owen's. She had refused profitable engagements
+because Owen wanted her to go yachting, or because he wanted to go to
+Riversdale to hunt, or because she did not like the conductor. So it
+happened that she had very little money--about five thousand pounds, and
+her jewellery would fetch about half what was paid for it.
+
+If she were to remain on the stage another year she could perhaps treble
+the amount, and to leave the stage she would have to provide herself
+with an adequate income. There was the tiara which the subscribers to
+the opera in New York had presented her with--that would fetch a good
+deal. It didn't become her, but it recalled a time of her life that was
+very dear to her, and she would be sorry to part with it. But from the
+point of view of ornament, she liked better the band of diamonds which
+a young Russian prince had sent to her anonymously. A few nights after,
+she had been introduced to him at a ball. His eyes went at once to the
+diamonds, a look of rapture had come into his face, and she had at once
+suspected he was the sender. They had danced many times, and retired for
+long, eager talks into distant corners. And the following evening she
+had found him waiting for her at the stage door. He had begged her to
+meet him in a park outside the city. He was attractive, young, and she
+was alone. Owen was away. She had thought that she liked him, and it was
+exciting to meet him in this distant park, their carriages waiting for
+them below the hill. She could still see the grey, lowering sky and the
+trees hanging in green masses; she had thought all the time it was going
+to rain. She remembered his pale, interesting face and his eager,
+insinuating voice. But he had had to leave St. Petersburg the next day.
+It was one of those things that might have, but had not, happened. How
+strange! She might have liked him. How strange; she never would see him.
+And she sat dreaming a long while.
+
+Owen had given her a clasp, composed of two large emerald bosses set
+with curious antique gems, when she played Brunnhilde. The necklace of
+gem intaglios, in gold Etruscan filigree settings, he had given her for
+her Elsa--more than her Elsa was worth. For Elizabeth he had given her
+ropes of equal-sized pearls, and the lustre of the surfaces was
+considered extraordinary. For Isolde he had given her strings of black
+pearls which the jewellers of Europe had been collecting for more than a
+year. Every pearl had the same depth of colour, and hanging from it was
+a large black brilliant set in a mass of white brilliants. He had hung
+it round her neck as she went on the stage, and she had had only time to
+clasp his hands and say "dearest." These presents alone, she thought,
+could not be worth less than ten thousand pounds.
+
+She kept her jewels in a small iron safe; it stood in her dressing-room
+under her washhand stand, and Merat surprised her two hours later
+sitting on her bed, with everything, down to the rings which she wore
+daily, spread over the counterpane. The maid gave her mistress a sharp
+look, remarking that she hoped Mademoiselle did not miss anything. In
+her hand there was a brooch consisting of three large emeralds set with
+diamonds; she often wore it at the front of her dress, it went
+particularly well with a flowered silk which Owen always admired. She
+calculated the price it would fetch, and at the same time was convinced
+that Monsignor's permission to sing on the concert platform, and
+possibly to go to Bayreuth to sing Kundry, would not affect her
+decision. She wanted to leave the stage. Half-measures did not appeal to
+her in the least. If she was to give up the stage, she must give it up
+wholly. It must be a thing over and done with, or she must remain on
+the stage and sing for the good of Art and her lovers. Since that was no
+longer possible, she preferred never to sing a note again in public. The
+worst wrench of all was her promise to Monsignor not to sing Grania, and
+since she had made that sacrifice, she could not dally with lesser
+things. Then, resuming her search among her jewellery, she selected the
+few things she would like to keep. She examined a cameo brooch set in
+filigree gold, ornamented with old rose diamonds, and she picked up a
+strange ring which a man whom Owen knew had taken from the finger of a
+mummy. It was a large emerald set in plain gold. A man who had been
+present at the unswathing of this princess, dead at least three thousand
+years, had managed to secure it, and Owen had paid him a large sum for
+it. She put it on her finger, and decided to keep a dozen other rings,
+the earrings she wore, and a few bracelets. The rest of her jewellery
+she would sell, if Owen refused to have them back. Of course there would
+be her teaching; she could not live in Dulwich doing nothing, and would
+take up her mother's singing classes....
+
+Her mother had lost her voice in the middle of her career, and her
+daughter had abandoned the stage at the moment of her greatest triumph!
+Looking at her jewels scattered all over the bed, Evelyn wondered what
+was going to happen to her. Was she really going to leave the stage?
+She--Evelyn Innes? When she thought of it, it seemed impossible. If
+religion were only a craze. If she were to go back to Owen, or to other
+lovers? How strange it was; it seemed strange to be herself, and yet it
+was quite true. Remembering that on Sunday she would partake of the Body
+and Blood which her Saviour had given for the salvation of sinners, her
+soul suddenly hushed, and catching sight of the jewels which symbolised
+the sacrifice she was making, it seemed to her that she could afford
+much greater sacrifices for what she was going to receive....
+
+She saw lights dying down in the distance, and the world which had once
+seemed so desirable seemed to her strangely trivial and easily denied.
+Already she could look back at the poor struggling ones, struggling for
+what to-morrow will be abandoned, forgotten, passing illusions; and she
+wondered how it was that she had not always thought as she thought
+to-day. Her thoughts passed into reveries, and she awoke, remembering
+that Monsignor had told her that he did not like her living alone in
+Park Lane. But in Dulwich she would be with her father, whom she had
+long neglected, and she would be near St. Joseph's and her confessor. At
+the same moment she remembered that she could not write to her lovers
+from Park Lane. She put her jewels back in the safe, and told Merat to
+pack sufficient things for a month, and to follow her with them to
+Dulwich. Merat asked for more precise instruction, but Evelyn said she
+must use her good sense; she was going away at once, and Merat must
+follow by a later train.
+
+"Then Mademoiselle does not want the carriage?"
+
+"No, I shall go by train."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She found her father in the workroom, and the sight of him in his cap
+and apron mending an old musical instrument caused many home scenes to
+flash across her mind, and she did not know whether it was from
+curiosity or a desire to please him that she asked the name of the
+strange little instrument he was repairing. It looked like an overgrown
+concertina, and he explained that it was a tiny virginal, and pointed
+out the date; it was made in 1631, in Roman notation.
+
+"Father," she said, "I have come back to you; we shall never be
+separated any more--if you'll have me back."
+
+"Have you back, dear! What has happened now?"
+
+He stood with a chisel in his hand, and she noticed that he dug the
+point nervously into the soft deal plank. She sat down on a small wooden
+stool, and kicking the shavings with her feet, she said--
+
+"Father, a great deal has happened. I have sent Owen away ... I shall
+never see him again; I'm sorry to have to speak about him to you; you
+mustn't be angry; he was very good to me, and he asked me to marry him;
+he did everything--I'm afraid I've broken his heart."
+
+"You're very strange, Evelyn, and I don't know what answer to make to
+you.... Why did you send him away, and why did you refuse to marry him?"
+
+"I sent him away because I thought it wrong to live with him, and I
+refused to marry him--well, I don't know, father, I don't know why I
+refused to marry him. It seemed to me that if he had wished to marry me
+he ought to have done so long ago."
+
+"Is that the only reason you can give?"
+
+"It is the only reason I know. You seem sorry for him, father, are you?
+I hope you are. He has been very good to me. I've often wished to tell
+you; it has often been in my heart to tell you that you should not hate
+him. He was very good to me, no one could have been kinder; he was very
+fond of me, you must not bear him any ill will."
+
+"I never said that I bore him ill will. He made you a great singer, and
+you say he was very kind to you and wanted to marry you."
+
+"Yes, and he was most anxious to see you, and he went with me to St.
+Joseph's the Sunday you gave the great Mass of Pope Marcellus. He was
+distressed that he could not see you to tell you about the choir."
+
+"They sang better that Sunday than the Sunday you heard the 'Missa
+Brevis.' I have got two new trebles. One has an exquisite voice. I wish
+I could get a few good altos. It was the altos that were wrong when you
+heard the 'Missa Brevis.' But you didn't hear they were out of tune.
+That piano has falsified your ear, but it will come back to you."
+
+"Dear father, how funny you are! If nothing were more wrong than my
+ear ..."
+
+They glanced at each other hastily, and to change the subject he
+mentioned that he had had a letter that morning from Ulick. He had
+finished scoring the second act of Grania, and thinking that he was on
+safe ground, Mr. Innes told her that Ulick hoped to finish his score in
+the autumn. The third act would not take him long; he had a very
+complete sketch of the music, etc. "I shall enjoy going through his
+opera with him."
+
+"Father, I don't know how to tell you. Will you ever forgive me or him.
+Ulick must not come back here--at least not while I am here. Perhaps I
+had better go."
+
+The chisel dropped from his hand, and he stood looking at his daughter.
+His look was pitiful, and she could not bear to see him shake his head
+slowly from side to side.
+
+"Poor father is wondering why I am like this;" and to interrupt his
+reflections she said--
+
+"I don't know why I am like this; that's what you're thinking, father,
+but henceforth I'll be like mother and my aunts. They were all good
+women ... I have often wondered why I am like this." Their eyes met, and
+seized with a sudden dread lest he should think (if such were really the
+case) that he was the original cause--she seemed to read something like
+that in his eyes--she said, "You must forgive me, whatever I am; you
+know that we've always loved each other, and we always shall. Nothing
+can come between us; you must be sorry for me, and kiss me, and love me
+more than ever, for I've been very unhappy. I haven't told you all I
+have given up so that I might be a good woman; it is not easy to make
+the sacrifices I have made, but I am happier now that I have made them.
+Ulick--Ulick must not come here while I'm here, but you'll want to see
+him--I had better go. Father, dear, it is hard to say all these things.
+I've done nothing but bring you trouble. Now I've robbed you of your
+friend. For I've promised not to see Ulick again. If I stay here,
+father, he must not come--I'm ashamed to ask you this, but what am I to
+do? I bring trouble. Later on, perhaps, but for a long while he and I
+must not meet."
+
+Mr. Innes stood looking at his daughter, and a peculiar puzzled
+expression had begun in his eyes, and had spread over his face. He
+suddenly shrugged his shoulders; the movement was like Evelyn's shrug,
+it expressed the same nervous hopelessness.
+
+"I promised Monsignor that I would not see either."
+
+"You went to confession--to him?"
+
+Evelyn nodded.
+
+"But how about Grania?"
+
+"I'm not going to sing Grania. I've left the stage for good."
+
+"Left the stage?"
+
+"Yes, father, I've left the stage, and I could not go back even if
+Monsignor were to permit me. But you must not argue with me; I argued
+with myself until I nearly went mad. Night after night went by
+sleepless; I was mad one night, and should have poisoned myself if I had
+not found my scapular. But you mustn't question me. Some day when it is
+all far away I'll tell you the whole story. I cannot speak of it at
+present, it is all too near. Suffice it to say that I have repented, and
+have come to ask you if you'll have me back to live with you?"
+
+"You're my daughter, and you must do as you like. You were always
+different from anyone else, I cannot cope with you. So you have left the
+stage, left the stage! What will people think?"
+
+"I could not be a good woman and remain on the stage, that's what it
+comes to." In spite of the gravity of the scene, a smile trickled round
+Evelyn's lips, for she could not help seeing her father like a hen that
+has hatched out a duckling. He stood looking at her sadly. She had come
+back--but what new pond would she plunge into? "I am a very
+unsatisfactory person, I know that. I can't make people happy; but there
+it is, it can't be otherwise. If I don't sing on the stage, I can sing
+at your concerts. Come downstairs and let's have some music. We've
+talked enough.
+
+"What shall we play--a Bach sonata? Ah, I remember this," she said,
+catching sight of the harpsichord part of a suite by J.P. Rameau, for
+the harpsichord and viola da gamba. "Where is the viola da gamba part?"
+
+"In the bottom of that bookcase, I think; don't you remember it?"
+
+"Well, it is some time since I've played it," she said, smiling, "but
+I'll try."
+
+It seemed to her that she remembered it all wonderfully well, and she
+was surprised how every phrase came up correctly under her bow. But she
+stopped suddenly.
+
+"I don't remember what comes next."
+
+Mr. Innes played the phrase, she played it after him, but she broke down
+a little further on, and it took some time to find the music. "No, not
+in that shelf," cried Mr. Innes, "the next one; not that volume, the
+next."
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember the volume, about the middle?" When she found the
+place she said, "Oh, yes, of course," and he answered--
+
+"Ah, it seems simple enough now," and they went on together to the end.
+
+"I've not lost much of my playing, have I?"
+
+"A little stiffness, perhaps, and you've lost your sense of the old
+forms. Now let's play this rondeau of Marais."
+
+When they had finished, it was dinner-time, and after dinner they had
+more music. Before going upstairs, Evelyn asked Agnes if there was any
+ink in her room. She had to ask her father for some writing paper, she
+would have avoided doing so if she could have helped it. She feared he
+would guess that she was writing to her lovers. She smiled--so odd did
+her scruples seem to her--she was writing to send them away. Her
+father's house was surely the right place. If it were to make
+appointments, that would be different. It was long past midnight when
+she read over her letter to Owen.
+
+"Dear Owen,--A great deal has happened since we last met, and I am
+convinced that it would be unwise for me to see you in three months as I
+promised. My confessor is of the same opinion; he thinks three months
+too soon, and I must obey him. I have taken the step which I hope you
+will take some day, for you too are a Catholic. In going to confession
+and resolving not to see you again, I had a long struggle with my
+feelings; but God gave me grace to overcome them. You know me well
+enough by this time, and can have no doubt that I could not live with
+you again as your mistress, and as I do not feel that I could marry you,
+no course is open to me but to beg of you not to write to me, or to try
+to see me. Owen, I feel that all this is horrid, that I am horrid looked
+at from your side. I cannot seem anything else. I hate it all, but it
+has to be done. Perhaps one of these days you will see things as I do.
+
+"I owe you--I do not know how much, but I owe you a great deal of money.
+I remember saying that Savelli's lessons were to be considered as a
+debt, also the expenses of the house in the Rue Balzac. You never would
+tell me what the rent of that house was, but as well as I can calculate,
+I owe you a thousand pounds for that year in Paris." (Evelyn paused. "It
+must be," she thought, "much more, but it would be difficult for me to
+pay more.")
+
+"You have," she continued, "paid for a hundred other things besides
+Savelli's lessons and the house in the Rue Balzac, but it would be
+impossible to make out a correct account, I feel, too, that you gave me
+the greatest part of my jewellery thinking that one day I would be your
+wife; you would not have given me so much if you had not thought so.
+Therefore I feel it is only just to offer you the whole of it back. I
+will only ask you to allow me to keep a few trifles--the earrings you
+bought for me the day we arrived in Paris, the mummy's ring, etc., not
+more than half-a-dozen things in all. I should like to keep these in
+memory of a time which I ought to forget, but which I am afraid I shall
+never have the courage even to try to forget. Dear Owen, I cannot tell
+you why I cannot marry you, I only know that I cannot. I am obeying an
+instinct far stronger than I, and I cannot struggle against it any
+longer.
+
+"One day perhaps we may meet--but it may not be for years, until we are
+both quite different.
+
+"Sincerely yours,
+
+"EVELYN INNES."
+
+The moment she had written the address, she threw the pen aside, and she
+sat striving against an uncontrollable sense of misery. At last her
+pent-up tears ran over her eyelids. She flung herself on her bed, and
+lay weeping, shaken by short, choking sobs. All her courage of the
+morning had forsaken her; she could not face her new life, she could not
+send away Owen. Her inmost life rose in revolt. Why was this new
+sacrifice demanded of her? Why was her life to be made so hard, so
+impossible for her to endure? She felt she could not live in the life
+which she foresaw awaited her. Then she felt that she was being tried
+beyond the endurance of any woman. But the storm did not last, her sobs
+died away. She sat up, mopping her eyes with a soaking pocket
+handkerchief, and utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, she
+began to undress. She felt the impossibility of saying her prayers, her
+one longing was for sleep, oblivion; she wished herself dead, and was
+too worn out to put the thought from her, though she knew it was wrong.
+
+In the morning the first thing she saw was the letter to Owen. There it
+was! And every word and letter sank into her brain. "Sir Owen Asher,
+Bart., Riversdale, Northamptonshire." She would have to post it, and
+never again would she see him. She questioned the right of the priest in
+obtaining from her a promise not to see him, so long as she did not sin.
+But Owen was an approximate cause of mortal sin....
+
+Ashamed of her instability, and feeling herself unworthy and no longer
+pure as absolution had made her, she went that afternoon to St.
+Joseph's, and in confession laid the matter before Monsignor Mostyn.
+Regarding the money question, he approved of what she had written to Sir
+Owen, and he was far more indulgent regarding her breakdown than she had
+dared to hope. He had expected some such mental crisis. It was
+extraordinary the strength it gave her even to see his stern, grave
+face; she was thrilled by his certainty on all points, and it no longer
+seemed difficult to send the letter she had written, or to write a
+similar letter to Ulick, which he advised her to send by the same post.
+She began it the moment she got home, and she wrote in perfect
+confidence and courage, the words coming easily to her, so easily that
+there were times when she seemed to hear Monsignor speaking over her
+shoulder.
+
+"Dear Ulick,--A very great event has happened in my life since I saw
+you. The greatest event that can happen in any life--Grace has been
+vouchsafed to me. Now I understand how sinful my life has been, as much
+from a human as a religious point of view. I deserted my dear father, I
+left him alone to live as best he could. I was not even faithful to my
+lover. From a worldly point of view I owed him everything, yet for the
+sake of my passion for you I encouraged myself for a while to dwell on
+his faults, to see nothing in him but the small and the mean. I strove
+to degrade him in my eyes so that I might find some excuse for loving
+you. You were nice, Ulick, you were kind, you were good to me, and I was
+enthusiastic about your genius. One of my greatest troubles now is that
+I shall not be able to sing your opera. For a long while this very thing
+prevented my repentance. I said to myself, 'It is impossible, I cannot,
+I have promised, I must do what I said I would do. He will think me
+hateful if I do not create the part.' But these hesitations between what
+is certainly right and what is certainly wrong existed in me because I
+did not then perceive how very little the things of this world are,
+compared with eternal things, and that nothing matters compared with the
+necessity of saving our souls. All this is now quite clear to me, and it
+would therefore be madness for me to remain on the stage, recognising as
+I do that it is a source of grave temptation to me. You will try to
+understand, dear Ulick, you will try to look at things from my point of
+view. You will see that it is impossible for me to act otherwise.
+
+"I am living now with my father, and must not see you when you return to
+London. I have promised my confessor not to see you. One of these days,
+in years to come, when you and I are different beings, we may meet, but
+we must not see each other at present. I must beg of you not to write or
+to try to see me. My resolve is unalterable, and any attempt on your
+part to induce me to return to my old life will be useless. It as
+already far away and inconceivable to me. I know that by asking you not
+to come to Dulwich I am robbing my father of his friend. I have never
+brought happiness to anyone, not to father, not to Sir Owen, not to you,
+not to myself. If other proof were wanting, would not this fact be
+enough to convince me that my life has been all wrong? What it will be
+in the future I don't know, I have confidence in the goodness of God and
+in the wisdom of my spiritual adviser.--Sincerely yours,
+
+"EVELYN INNES."
+
+"_P.S._--In course of conversation with my father, I mentioned
+inadvertently that you were my lover; I begged him not to be angry with
+you, but I know that I should not have mentioned your name. I must ask
+you to forgive me this too."
+
+The next day and the day following were lived within herself, sometimes
+viewing God far away, as if at one end of a great plain, and herself
+kneeling penitent at the other. She was filled with thoughts of his
+infinite goodness and mercy, and of the miraculous intercession of the
+Virgin at the moment when she was about to commit a crime that would
+have lost her her soul for ever. She went to Mass daily, and took
+peculiar delight in reciting the hymn which Monsignor had given her for
+a penance. She regretted it was not more. It seemed to her such a
+trivial penance, and she reflected on the blackness of her sins, and the
+penances which the saints had imposed upon themselves. But her chief
+desire was to keep herself pure in thought, and she read pious books
+when she was alone, and encouraged her mind to dwell on the profound
+mystery in which she was going to participate, and to believe in the
+marvellous change it would produce in her.
+
+It was on Friday morning that Agnes handed her Ulick's letter. She did
+not read it at once, it lay on the table while she was dressing, and she
+was uncertain whether it would not be better to put off reading it until
+she came back from St. Joseph's.
+
+"Alas, from our first meeting, and before it, we were aware of the fate
+which has overtaken us. We heard it in our hearts, that numb
+restlessness, that vague disquietude, that prophetic echo which never
+dies out of ears attuned to the music of destiny ... Love you less, you
+who are the source of all joy to me? Evelyn, my heart aches and my brain
+is light with grief, but the terrible certitude persists that we are
+being drawn asunder. I see you like a ship that has cleared the harbour
+bar, and is already amid the tumult of the ocean.... We are ships, and
+the destiny of ships is the ocean, the ocean draws us both: we have
+rested as long as may be, we have delayed our departure, but the tide
+has lifted us from our moorings. With an agonised heart I watched the
+sails of your ship go up, and now I see that mine, too, are going aloft,
+hoisted by invisible hands. I look back upon the bright days and quiet
+nights we have rested in this tranquil harbour. Like ships that have
+rested a while in a casual harbour, blown hither by storms, we part,
+drawn apart by the eternal magnetism of the sea. I would go to you,
+Evelyn, if I could, and pray you not to leave me. But you would not
+hear: destiny hears no prayers. In the depths of our consciousness,
+below the misery of the moment, there lies a certain sense that our ways
+are different ways, and that we must fare forth alone, whither we know
+not, over the ocean's rim; and in this sense of destiny we must find
+comfort. Will resignation, which is the highest comfort, come to us in
+time? My eyes fall upon my music paper, and at the same time your eyes
+turn to the crucifix. Ours is the same adventure, though a different
+breeze fills the sails, though the prows are set to a different horizon.
+God is our quest--you seek him in dogma, I in art.
+
+"But, Evelyn, my heart is aching so. How awful the word never, and the
+years are filled with its echoes. And the wide ocean which lies outside
+the harbour is so lonely, and I have no heart for any other joy. 'May we
+not meet again?' my heart cries from time to time; 'may not some
+propitious storm blow us to the same anchorage again, into the same
+port?' Ah, the suns and the seas we shall have sailed through would
+render us unrecognisable, we should not know each other. Last night I
+wandered by the quays, and, watching the constellations, I asked if we
+were divided for ever, if, when the earth has become part and parcel of
+the stars, our love will not reappear in some starry affinity, in some
+stellar friendship.--Yours,
+
+"ULICK DEAN."
+
+The symbol of the ships seemed to Evelyn to express the union and the
+division and the destiny that had overtaken them. She sat and pondered,
+and in her vision ships hailed each other as they crossed in mid-ocean.
+Ships drew together as they entered a harbour. Ships separated as they
+fared forth, their prows set towards different horizons. She sat
+absorbed in the mystery of destiny. Like two ships, they had rested side
+by side in a casual harbour. They had loved each other as well as their
+different destinies had allowed them. None can do more. She loved him
+better--in a way--but he was less to her than Owen. She felt that, and
+he had felt that.... As he said, if they were to meet again they would
+not recognise each other, so different were the suns that would shine
+upon them and the oceans they would travel through. She understood what
+he meant, and a prevision of her future life seemed to nicker up in her
+brain, like the sea seen through a mist; and through vistas in the haze
+she saw the lonely ocean, and her bark was already putting off from the
+shore. All she had known she was leaving behind. The destiny of ships is
+the ocean.
+
+Owen's letter she received in the evening about six o'clock. She changed
+colour at the sight of it, and her hand trembled, and she tore the
+envelope across as she opened it.
+
+"You ask me to make no attempt to save you. You ask me to stand on the
+bank while you struggle and are dragged down by the current. Evelyn, I
+have never disobeyed your slightest wish before, but I declare my right
+to use all means to save you from a terrible fate. I return to London to
+do so. God only knows if I shall succeed.... In any case I hope you will
+never allude again to any money questions. What I gave, I gave, and
+unless you want to kill me outright, never speak again of returning my
+presents.--As ever,
+
+OWEN ASHER."
+
+Her eyes ran through the lines, and her heart said, "How he loves me."
+But the temptation to see him quenched instantly in remembrance of her
+Communion, and she tore the letter hastily into two pieces, as if by
+destroying it she destroyed the difficulty it had created for her. She
+must not see him. But how was she to avoid meeting him? To-morrow be
+would be waiting in the street for her, and she walked about the room
+too agitated to think clearly. He seemed like the devil trying to come
+between her and God. She must not see him, of that she was quite sure.
+She would lock herself in her room. But then she would miss Holy
+Communion, and her heart was set on the Sacrament; the Sacrament alone
+could give her strength to persevere. To see him and to hear him would
+ruin her peace of mind, and peace of mind was essential to the reverent
+reception of the Sacrament. It was lost already, or very nearly. She
+stopped in her walk, she looked into her soul, she asked herself if any
+thought had crossed her mind which would render her unfit for Communion
+... and on the spot she resolved to go straight to Monsignor and consult
+him. He would advise her, he would find some way out of the difficulty.
+But it was now six; she could not get to St. Joseph's before seven. It
+was late, but she did not think he would refuse to see her; he would
+know that it was only a matter of the greatest moment that would bring
+her to inquire for him at that hour.
+
+It was as she expected. Monsignor did not receive anyone so late in the
+evening.
+
+"Yes, I know, but I think Monsignor Mostyn will see me. Tell him--tell
+him that my business does not admit delay."
+
+She was shown into the same waiting-room. This seemed to her a
+favourable presage, and she offered up a prayer that Monsignor would not
+refuse to see her; everything depended on that. She listened for his
+step; twice she was mistaken; at last the door opened. It was he, and he
+guessed, before she had time to speak, what had happened.
+
+"One of those men," he said, "has come again into your life?"
+
+She nodded, and, still unable to speak, she searched in her pocket for
+their letters.
+
+"I received these letters to-day--one this morning, the other, Sir
+Owen's, just now. That was why I came. I felt that I had to see you."
+
+"Pray sit down, my child, you are agitated." He handed her a chair.
+
+"You remember you said I might go to Communion on Sunday, and if I were
+to meet him to-morrow it would--there is no temptation, I don't mean
+that--but I do not wish to be reminded of things which you told me I was
+to try to forget."
+
+The priest stood reading the letters, and Evelyn sat looking into space,
+absorbed in the desire to escape from Owen. All her faith was in
+Monsignor, and she believed he would be able to save her from Owen's
+intrusion.
+
+"I don't think you need fear anything from Mr. Dean."
+
+"No, not from him."
+
+Monsignor continued to read Ulick's letter. Evelyn wished he would read
+Owen's; Ulick's interested her not in the least.
+
+"Mr. Dean seems a very extraordinary person. Does he believed in
+astrology, the casting of horoscopes, or is it mere affectation?"
+
+"I don't know; he always talks like that. He believes, or says he
+believes, in Lir and the great Mother Dana, in the old Irish Gods. But,
+Monsignor, please read Sir Owen's letter. I want to know what I am to
+do."
+
+He walked once across the room, and when he returned to the table he
+said half to himself, as if his thoughts had long out-stripped his
+words--
+
+"I am glad I advised you to leave Park Lane, for of course he will go
+there first."
+
+"He will easily find out I'm at Dulwich, he need not even ask--he will
+guess it at once."
+
+"Yes, to be sure."
+
+"If I am not to meet him I must go away--but where? All my friends and
+acquaintances are his friends. You would approve of none of them
+Monsignor," she said, smiling a little.
+
+He did not seem to hear her. Suddenly he said, "I think you had better
+go and spend a few days at the Passionist Convent. The Reverend Mother
+sent you an invitation through me, you remember, so we need have no
+hesitation in proposing it. Indeed, I feel confident that they will
+receive you with the greatest pleasure. It will do you a great deal of
+good. You will have peace and quiet, my child; you will find yourself in
+an atmosphere of faith and purity which cannot but be helpful to you in
+your present unsettled state."
+
+It seemed to Evelyn that that was what she had wanted all the time, only
+she had not been able to say so. Yes; to spend a week with those dear
+nuns, to sit in the convent garden, to kneel before the Blessed
+Sacrament in the convent church, it would be a real spiritual luxury.
+
+"Yes, I should love to go," she said. "I feel it is just what I need. I
+have so much to think out, so much to learn, and at home there are a
+hundred things to distract me."
+
+"Very well, then, that is settled. I will send the Reverend Mother word
+to-morrow; but there is no necessity, you can write yourself, and say
+you are coming in the afternoon; she will only have to get your room
+ready."
+
+"But, Monsignor, my Communion? I had forgotten it was from you I was to
+receive Holy Communion. Of course I know it doesn't really make any
+difference, but still, you heard my confession, and I would far rather
+receive Communion this first time from you than from anyone else. I
+don't think it could be quite the same thing--if it weren't from you."
+
+"And I should be sorry too, my child, as by God's grace I have been the
+means of bringing you thus far, not to complete your reconciliation to
+him. But I think we can manage that too without much difficulty. I say
+Mass to-morrow at nine o'clock, and will give you Communion then, and
+you can go to the convent for your retreat early in the afternoon. Will
+that suit you?"
+
+And Evelyn could not find words to express her gratitude.
+
+That evening she sat with her father. He was busy stringing a lute, and
+they had not spoken for some time; they often spent quite long whiles
+without speaking, and only occasionally they raised their eyes to see
+each other. The sensation of the other's presence was sufficient for
+their happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
+
+
+It being Saturday, there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, and when
+Evelyn returned her father had left, and she breakfasted alone. After
+breakfast she sat absorbed in the mysteries of the Sacrament she had
+received. But in the middle of her exaltation doubt intervened, and
+Owen's arguments flashed through her mind. She strove to banish them; it
+was terrible that she should think such things over again, and on the
+morning of her Communion. Her spiritual joy was blighted; she could only
+hope that these dreadful thoughts were temptations of the devil, and
+that she was in no wise responsible. She stood in the middle of the
+room, asking herself if she had not in some slight measure yielded to
+them. No direct answer came to her question, but the words, "When I'm a
+bad woman I believe, when I'm a good woman I doubt," sounded clear and
+distinct in her brain, and she remained thinking a long while.
+
+Her father came in after lunch. And while she spoke about his trebles
+and his altos, she was thinking how she should tell him that she was
+going away that afternoon.
+
+"You're very silent."
+
+"I was at Holy Communion this morning."
+
+"This morning? I thought you were going to Communion on Sunday?"
+
+"Yes, so I was, but I received a letter from Owen Asher saying he
+intended to see me. I took it to Monsignor; he said it was necessary
+that I should not see Owen, and he advised me to go and stay with the
+Sisters at Wimbledon. That is why I went to Communion this morning; I
+wanted Monsignor to give me Communion. Father, I cannot remain here, I
+should be sure to meet him."
+
+"He will not come here."
+
+"No, but he'll be waiting in the street."
+
+"When are you going?"
+
+"This afternoon," she answered, and handed him Owen's letter. He glanced
+at it, and said--
+
+"He seems very fond of you."
+
+The answer shocked her, and nothing more was said on the subject. A
+little later she asked him about the trains. She did not know how she
+was to get from Dulwich to Wimbledon. Neither were very apt in looking
+out the trains, and eventually it was Agnes who discovered the changes
+that would have to be made. She would have to go first to Victoria, and
+then she would have to drive from Victoria to Waterloo, and this seemed
+so complicated and roundabout that she decided to drive all the way in a
+hansom. Dulwich and Wimbledon could not be more than ten miles apart.
+
+"I must go upstairs now, father, and pack my things."
+
+Her father followed her and stood by, while she hesitated what she
+should take. Smiling, she rejected a tea-gown as unsuitable for convent
+wear, and put in a black lace scarf which she thought would be useful
+for wearing in church; it would look better in the convent chapel than a
+hat. Instead of a flowered silk she chose a grey alpaca. Then she
+remembered that she must take some books with her. It would be useless
+to bring pious books with her, she would find plenty of those in the
+convent.
+
+"Have you any books, father? I must have something to read."
+
+"There are a few books downstairs; you know them all."
+
+"You don't read much, father?"
+
+"Not much, except music. But Ulick brings books here, you may find
+something among them."
+
+She returned with Berlioz's _Memoirs_, Pater's _Imaginary Portraits_,
+and Blake's _Songs of Innocence and Experience_.
+
+"I suppose these books belong to Ulick. I don't know if I ought to take
+them."
+
+"I cannot advise you; you must do as you like. I suppose you'll bring
+them back?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course I shall bring them back."
+
+"Evelyn, dear, is it quite essential that you should go?"
+
+"Yes, father, yes, it is quite; but I don't know how I am to get away."
+
+"How you're to get away! What do you mean?"
+
+"Well," she answered, laughing, "you see in his letter he says he's
+coming to watch me. Father, I can see that you pity him; you're sorry
+for him, aren't you?"
+
+"Well, Evelyn, he offered to marry you, he made you a great singer, and
+you say he'd do anything for you. I suppose I am sorry for him."
+
+They stood looking out of the window.
+
+"You know I'd like to stop with you; it can't be helped; but I shall
+come back."
+
+"Do you think you'll come back?"
+
+"Of course I shall come back. Where should I go if I did not come back?"
+
+At that moment Agnes drove up in a hansom; she ran up the little garden,
+and carried out Evelyn's bag and placed it in the hansom.
+
+"I must go now, father; good-bye, darling. I shan't be away more than
+seven or eight days."
+
+A moment after her dear father was behind her, and she was alone in the
+hansom, driving towards the convent. About her were villas engarlanded
+with reddening creeper. On one lawn a family had assembled under the
+shade of a dwarf cedar, and miles of this kind of landscape lay before
+her. It seemed to her like painted paper, an illusion that might pass
+away at any moment. Her truth was no longer in the external world, but
+in her own soul. Her soul was making for a goal which she could not
+discern. She was leaving a life of wealth and fame and love for a life
+of poverty, chastity and obscurity. All the joy and emulation of the
+stage she was relinquishing for a dull, narrow, bare life at Dulwich,
+giving singing lessons and saying prayers at St. Joseph's. Yet there was
+no question which she would choose, and she marvelled at the strangeness
+of her choice.
+
+The road lay through fields and past farmhouses, but the suburban street
+was never quite lost sight of. Its blue roofs and cheap porticos
+appeared unexpectedly at the end of an otherwise romantic prospect, and
+so on and so on, until the driver let his horse walk up Wimbledon hill.
+When they reached the top she craned her neck, and was in time to catch
+a glimpse of the windmill far away to the right. The inn was in front of
+her, the end of a long point of houses stretching into the common, and
+the hansom rolled easily on the wide, curving roads. She anticipated the
+choked gardens, the decaying pear trees, the gold crowns of sunflowers;
+and a moment after the hansom passed these things and she saw the old
+green door, and heard the jangling peal. The eyes of the lay sister
+looked through the barred loop-hole.
+
+"How do you do, sister? I suppose you expected me?"
+
+The cabman put the trunk inside the long passage, and Evelyn said--
+
+"But my luggage."
+
+"If you'll come into the parlour I'll get one of the sisters to help me
+to carry it upstairs."
+
+Evelyn was sitting at the table turning over the leaves of the
+Confessions of St. Augustine, when the Reverend Mother entered. She
+seemed to Evelyn even smaller than she had done on the first occasion
+they had met; she seemed lost in the voluminous grey habit, and the
+long, light veil floated in the wind of her quick step.
+
+"I'm glad you were able to come so soon. All the sisters are anxious to
+meet you, you who have done so much for us."
+
+"I've done very little, Reverend Mother. Could I have done less for my
+old convent? I hope that your difficulties are at an end."
+
+"At an end, no, but you helped us over a critical moment in the fortunes
+of our convent."
+
+Her hands were leaned against the edge of the table, her white fingers,
+white with age, played with the hem of her veil, her blue, anxious eyes
+were fixed on Evelyn at once tenderly, expectantly, and compassionately.
+Her voice was the clear, refined voice which signifies society, and
+Evelyn would not have been surprised to learn that she belonged to an
+old aristocratic family, Evelyn imagined her to be a woman in whom the
+genius of government dominated, and who, not having found an outlet into
+the world, had turned to the cloister. Was that her story? Evelyn
+wondered, and suddenly seemed to forsee a day when she would hear the
+story which shone behind those clear blue eyes, and obliterated age from
+the white face.
+
+They went up the circular staircase, at the top of which was a large
+landing; there were two rooms at the head of the stairs, and the
+Reverend Mother said--
+
+"These are our guest chambers." Standing on a second landing, one step
+higher than the first, a solid wooden partition had been erected, and
+pointing to a door the nun said with a laugh, "That door leads to the
+sisters' cells. You must not make a mistake."
+
+Evelyn was pleased to see that her room had two windows overlooking the
+garden. There was a table covered by a cloth at which she could write,
+and she bent over the bowl of roses and wondered which kind nun had
+gathered them. The Reverend Mother left her, saying that she would be
+told when supper was ready, and on looking round the room she perceived
+her portmanteau, which the lay sister had not unstrapped. She would have
+to unstrap it herself. She remembered that she had brought very few
+things with her, and yet she was surprised at the smallness of her
+luggage. For she usually took half-a-dozen dresses with her, now she had
+only brought one change, a grey alpaca. She thought she might have left
+her dressing-case behind, a plain brush and comb would have been all she
+needed. But at the last moment, she had felt that she could not do
+without these bottles of scent and brushes and nicknacks; they had
+seemed indispensable. The dressing-case was Owen's influence still
+pursuing her. She had not known why she was compelled to bring the
+dressing-case, now she knew--Owen! Never would she be able to wholly
+separate herself from him. He had become part of her.
+
+As she stood in the convent room noticing the beeswaxed floor and the
+two rugs, one by the small iron bed, she remembered a hunting morning
+three years ago at Riversdale. She had gone to Owen's room to see if he
+were ready. A multitude of orders were being given there, the valet was
+searching anxiously in the large wardrobe, piled high with many various
+coats and trousers; Owen stood before the looking-glass tying a white
+scarf, and two footmen watched each movement, dreading a mistake. She
+remembered that she had been amused at the time, and she never recalled
+the scene without smiling. But she had liked Owen better for the
+innumerable superfluities, all of which were necessary to his happiness,
+the breakdown of any one of which made him the most miserable man alive.
+She remembered how she had secretly imitated him, and how she had
+gathered about her a mass of superfluous necessities. But they had never
+become necessities to her, they had always galled her. It was in a
+spirit of perversity she had imitated him. She had always felt it to be
+wrong to eat peaches at five francs a piece, and had always been aware
+of an inward resentment against the extravagance of a reserved carriage
+on the railway and private saloon on board the boat. She had always
+desired a simple life; the life of these nuns was a simple life, simpler
+perhaps than she cared for. There was no hot water in her room, she
+wondered how she would wash her hands, and smiling at her philosophical
+reflections, she thought how Owen would laugh if he could see her in her
+present situation--in a convent, crying out for a constant supply of hot
+water and her maid. A religious life with home comforts, that was what
+she wanted.
+
+She was always a subject of amusement to herself, and she was still
+smiling when a knock awoke her from her whimsical reveries. She answered
+"Come in," and an elderly nun told her that supper was ready in the
+parlour. In this room, furnished with a table and six chairs and four
+pious prints, Evelyn ate her convent meal, a sort of mixed meal, which
+included soup, cold meat, coffee, jam and some unripe pears. The
+porteress took the plates away, and somehow Evelyn could not help
+feeling that she was giving a good deal of trouble. She could see that
+the nuns did everything for themselves, and she abandoned hope of ever
+finding a can of hot water in her room. She remembered that when she
+made her retreat some years ago, she had not noticed these things. She
+owed all her wants to Owen. Mother Philippa came in, delighted to see
+her, and anxious to know if she had everything she wanted.
+
+"I thought you would be sure to be going abroad, and that next Easter,
+the time you were here before, would be the time to ask you."
+
+"But the Reverend Mother thought that now would be a better time."
+
+"Yes, she said that Easter was a long way off, and that a rest would do
+you good after singing all the season in London."
+
+Evelyn wondered what idea the phrase "the season in London" awoke in the
+mind of the nun. A little puzzled look did pass in her eyes, and then
+she resumed her friendly chatter. Evelyn listened, more interested in
+Mother Philippa's kind, amicable nature than in what she said. She
+imagined in different circumstances what a good wife she would have
+been, and what a good mother! "But she is happier as she is." Evelyn
+could not imagine any soul-rending uncertainties in Mother Philippa. At
+a certain age, at seventeen or eighteen, she had felt that she would
+like to be a nun; very probably she was not any more pious than her
+sisters; she had merely felt that the life would suit her. That was her
+story. Evelyn smiled, and looked into Mother Philippa's mild eyes, in
+which there was nothing but simple kindness, and with a yes and a no she
+kept the conversation going till the bell rang for Office.
+
+"I do not know if you would care to come to church. Perhaps you are
+tired after your journey?"
+
+"Journey! I have only driven a few miles."
+
+Evelyn ran upstairs for her hat, and she followed the nun down the
+cloister which led to the church.
+
+"That is your door, it will take you into the outer church."
+
+The nuns' choir was still empty, but the two candles on the high altar
+were already lit, ready for Matins and Lauds. Evelyn had only just taken
+her place, when at that moment a door opened on the other side of the
+grille, and the grey figures, their heads a little bent, came in couples
+and took their place in the stalls. They were wonderfully beautiful and
+impressive, and the idea they represented seemed to Evelyn
+extraordinary, simple and true. For, once we are convinced that there is
+a God, and that we are here to save our souls, it were surely folly to
+think of anything else. Our loves and our ambitions, what are they when
+we consider him? and Evelyn remembered how he waits for us in an
+eternity of bliss and love, only asking for our love. These were the
+wise ones, they thought of the essential and let the ephemeral and
+circumstantial go by them. Even from a worldly point of view, their life
+was the wiser, since it produced the greater happiness. Owen was a proof
+of this. She remembered how he used to say he had the finest place, the
+most beautiful pictures, and the most desirable mistress in Europe. Yet
+he was always the unhappiest man she knew. His life had been an
+unceasing effort to capture happiness, and he had failed because he had
+sought happiness from without instead of seeking it from within. He
+lived in externals, he was dependent on a multitude of things, the
+breakdown of any one of which was sufficient to cause him the acutest
+misery. The howl of a dog, the smell of a cigar, any trifle was
+sufficient to wreck his happiness. He had taught her to live in external
+things, to place her faith in the world instead of in her own
+conscience. How unhappy she had been; she had been driven to the brink
+of suicide. Ah, if it had not been for Monsignor. She bent her face on
+her hands, and did not dare to think further.
+
+When her prayer was finished, she listened to the high monotonous chant
+of the nuns reciting Matins. It sank into her soul, soothing it, and at
+the same time inspiring an ardent melancholy. The long, unbroken rhythm
+flowed on and on, each side of the choir chanting an alternate verse. In
+the dimness of her sensation, Evelyn lost count of time, nor did she
+know of what she was thinking. She was suddenly awakened by a sound of
+shuffling. The nuns had risen to their feet, and in the middle of the
+floor a sister began the lessons in a shrill voice, keeping always on
+the same note, never letting her voice fall at the close of the
+sentences. Evelyn grew more interested; the rite was full of a
+penetrating mystery. She viewed the lines of grey nuns and heard the
+Latin syllables. These poor nuns whom she was just now pitying for their
+ignorance of life could at all events read the Office in Latin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
+
+When she opened her eyes and saw the convent room, she remembered how
+she had come there. Her still dreaming face lighted up with a smile, and
+she began to wonder what was going to happen next. Soon after, someone
+knocked. It was the little porteress telling her that it was seven
+o'clock. Evelyn expected her to come in, pull up the blinds and pour out
+her bath. But she did not even open the door, and Evelyn lay looking
+through the strange room, unable to face the discomfort of a small basin
+of cold water. She would have to do her hair herself, and there was no
+toilette table. The convent seemed suddenly a place to flee from; she
+hadn't realised that it would be like this.... But it would never do for
+her to miss Mass, and she sat on the edge of the bed, unable to think of
+any solution of her difficulties. The only glass in the room was about a
+foot square; it had been placed on the chest of drawers, and nothing
+seemed to Evelyn more inefficient than this wretched glass. Its very
+position on the top of the chest of drawers was vexatious. She could not
+even get it into the proper angle, and when she removed the piece of
+paper that held it in position, it swung round and its back confronted
+her. That morning it seemed as if she could not dress herself. Her hair
+had curled itself into many a knot; she nearly broke the comb, and her
+hand dropped by her side, and then she laughed outright, having caught
+sight of some part of her dejection. As she hooked on her skirt she
+reflected on the necessity of not leaving bottles of scent nor too many
+sponges for the observation of the nuns; and the nightgown she had
+brought was certainly not a conventual garment.
+
+She hurried downstairs, and was just in time to see the nuns coming into
+church. They came in by a side door, walking two by two, and Evelyn was
+again struck by the beauty and mystery of this grey procession. She had
+seen on the stage the outward show of men who had renounced the
+world--the pilgrims in "Tannhäuser," the knights in "Parsifal," but this
+was no outward show. The women she was now witnessing had renounced the
+world; the life she was witnessing was the life they lived from hour to
+hour, from day to day, from year to year. She had included lovers amid
+their renunciations; such inclusion was ridiculous, for of such sins as
+hers they had not even dreamed. To pass through life without knowing
+life! To have renounced, to have refused love, friends, art, everything,
+dinner-parties, conversations, all the distractions which we believe
+make life endurable, to have refused these things from the
+beginning--not even to have been tempted to taste, not even to have
+desired to put life to the test of a fugitive personal experience, but
+to have divined from the first, by instinct, by the grace of God, the
+worthlessness of life--that was what was so wonderful. Mother Philippa,
+that simple nun, had done this, instinct had led her--there was no other
+explanation. She had arrived at the same conclusion as the wisest of the
+philosophers and without any soul-searching, by instinct--each of the
+humble lay sisters, the little porteress had done this. And Evelyn was
+filled with shame when she thought of the effort it had cost her to free
+herself from a life of sin.
+
+In extraordinary beauty of grey habit and veil and solemn procession,
+the nuns passed to their seats. Now they were kneeling altarwise, and
+Evelyn was still occupied by the thought that this was not outward show
+as she had often seen it on the stage, but the thing itself. This was
+not acting, this was truth, the truth of all their lifetimes.
+
+Suddenly began the plaint of the organ, and some half-dozen voices sang
+a hymn; and these pale, etiolated voices interested her. It was not the
+clear, sexless voice of boys, these were women's voices, out of which
+sex had faded like colour out of flowers; and these pale, deciduous
+voices wailing a poor, pathetic music, so weak and feeble that it was
+almost interesting through its very feebleness, interested Evelyn. Tears
+trembled in her eyes, and she listened to the poor voices rising and
+falling, breaking forth spasmodically in the lamentable hymn. "Desolate"
+and "forgotten" were the words that came up in her mind.
+
+They were still kneeling altarwise; their profiles turned from her.
+Outside of the choir stalls, on either side of the church, were two
+special stalls, and the Reverend Mother and the sub-prioress knelt
+apart. Their backs were turned to Evelyn, and she noticed the fine
+delicate shoulders of the Reverend Mother, and the heavy figure of
+Mother Philippa. "Even in their backs they are like themselves," she
+thought. She smiled at her descriptive style, "like themselves," and
+then, seeing that Mass had begun, she resolutely repressed all levity,
+and began her prayers. She had not felt especially pious till that
+moment, and to rouse herself she remembered Monsignor's words, "That at
+the height of her artistic career she should have been awakened to a
+sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle of his grace," and
+she felt that the devotion of her whole life to his service would not be
+a sufficient return for what he had done for her. But in spite of her
+efforts she followed the sacrifice of the Mass in her normal
+consciousness until the bell rang for the Elevation. When the priest
+raised the Host she was conscious of the Real Presence. She raised her
+eyes a little, and the bent figures of the nuns, their veils hanging
+loose about them, contributed to her exaltation, and with a last effort,
+holding as it were her life in her hands, she asked pardon of God for
+her sins.
+
+Then the pale, etiolated voices of the nuns, the wailing of these weak
+voices--there were three altos, three sopranos--began again. They were
+singing an Agnus Dei, a simple little music nowise ugly, merely feeble,
+touchingly commonplace; they were singing in unison thirds and fifths,
+and the indifferent wailing of the voices contrasted with the firmness
+of the organist's touch; and Evelyn knew that they had one musician
+among them. She listened, touched by the plaintive voices, so feeble in
+the ears of man, but beautiful in God's ears. God heard beyond the mere
+notes; the music of the intention was what reached God's ears. The music
+of these poor voices was more favourable in his ears than her voice.
+Months she had spent seeking the exact rhythm of a phrase intended to
+depict and to rouse a sinful desire. Though the hymns were ugly--and
+they were very ugly--she would have done better to sing them; and she
+sought to press herself into the admission that art which does not tend
+to the glory of God is vain and harmful. Far better these hideous hymns,
+if singing them conducts to everlasting life. But every time she pressed
+her mind towards an inevitable conclusion, it turned off into an obscure
+bypath. She brought it back like an intractable ass, but the stubborn
+beast again dodged her, and she had to abandon the attempt to convince
+herself that art which did not tend to the honour and glory of God
+should be suppressed--should be at least avoided. Once we were convinced
+that there was a God and a resurrection, this world must become as
+nothing in our eyes, only it didn't become as nothing in our eyes; every
+sacrifice should become easy, but every sacrifice didn't become easy.
+That was the point; to these nuns, perhaps, not to her. At least not
+yet.
+
+She had fussed a great deal this morning because she had no hot water to
+wash with. Seven o'clock had seemed to her somewhat early to get up. But
+they had been up long before. She had heard of nuns who got up at four
+in the morning to say the Office. She did not know what time these nuns
+got up, but she felt that she was not capable of much greater sacrifice
+than six or seven o'clock. These nuns lived on a little coarse food, and
+spent the day in prayer. She thought of their aching knees in the long
+vigils of their adorations. She understood that the inward happiness
+their life gives them compensates them for all their privations. She
+understood that they are the only ones who are happy, yet the knowledge
+did not help her; she felt that she would never be happy in their
+happiness, and a great sorrow came over her. Mass was over, and again
+the beautiful procession, with bowed heads and meekly folded veils,
+glided out of the church. Only the watchers remained.
+
+Last night she had sat watching the stars shining on the convent garden.
+There were, as Owen said, twenty millions of suns in the Milky Way;
+beyond the Milky Way there were other constellations of which we know
+nothing, nebulæ which time has not yet resolved into stars, or stars so
+distant that time has not yet brought their light hither. But why seek
+mystery beyond this poor planet? It furnishes enough, surely. That we
+should see the stars, that we should know the stars, that we should
+place God above the stars--are not these common facts as wonderful as
+the stars themselves? That those twenty or five-and-twenty women should
+give up all the seduction of life for the sake of an idea, accepting
+Owen's theory that it is but an idea, even so the wonder of it is not
+less; even from Owen's point of view is not this convent as wonderful as
+the stars?
+
+On coming out of church, she was told that in half-an-hour her breakfast
+would be ready in the parlour, and to loosen the mental tension--she had
+thought and felt a great deal in the last hour--she asked the lay sister
+who were the nuns who sang in the choir. The lay sister answered her
+perfunctorily. Evelyn could see that she was not open at that moment to
+conversation. She guessed that the sister had work to attend to, and was
+not surprised that she did not come back to take the things away.
+Although only just begun, the day had already begun to seem long. She
+proposed to herself some pious reading; and wondered how she was going
+to get through the day. She would have liked to go into the garden; but
+she did not know the rules of the convent, and feared to transgress
+them. However, she was free to go to her room. The books she had brought
+with her would help her to get through the morning.
+
+Berlioz's _Memoirs I_ The faded voices she had heard that morning
+singing dreary hymns were more wonderful than his orchestral dreams. Nor
+did she find the spiritual stimulus she needed in Pater's _Imaginary
+Portraits_. Some moody souls reflecting with no undue haste, without
+undue desire to arrive at any definite opinion concerning certain
+artistic problems, did not appeal to her. She put the book aside,
+fearing that she was in no humour for reading that morning; and with
+little hope of being interested, she took up another book. The size of
+the volume and the disproportion of the type seemed to drag her to it,
+and the title was a sort of prophetic echo of the interest she was to
+find in the book. Her thoughts clouded in a sense of delight as she
+read; she followed as a child follows a butterfly, until the fluttering
+colour disappears in the sky. And before she was aware of any idea, the
+harmony of the gentle prose captivated her, and she sat down, holding in
+her heart the certitude that she was going to be enchanted. The book
+procured for her the delicious sensualism of reading things at once new
+and old. It seemed to her that she was reading things that she had known
+always, but which she had somehow neglected to think out for herself.
+The book seemed like her inner self suddenly made clear. All that the
+author said on the value of Silence was so true. She raised her eyes
+from the page to think. She seemed to understand something, but she
+could not tell what it was. The object of every soul is to unite itself
+to another soul, to be absorbed in another, to find life and happiness
+in another; the desire of unison is the deepest instinct in man. But how
+little, the author asked, do words help us to understand? We talk and
+talk, and nothing is really said; the conversation falls, we walk side
+by side, our eyes fixed on the quiet skies, and lo! our souls come
+together and are united in their immortal destiny. She again raised her
+eyes from the page--now she understood, and she thought a long while.
+The chapter entitled "The Profound Life" interested her equally. The
+nuns realised it, but those who live in the world live on the surface of
+things. To live a life of silence and devotion, illumined not from
+without but from within, the eternal light that never fails or withers,
+and to live unconscious of the great stream of things, our back turned
+to that great stream flowing mysteriously, solemnly, like a river! The
+chapter entitled "Warnings" had for her a strangely personal meaning.
+How true it is that we know everything, only we have not acquired the
+art of saying it. Had she not always known that her destiny was not with
+Owen, that he was but a passing, not the abiding event of her life? She
+looked through the convent room, and the abiding event of her life now
+seemed to murmur in her ear, seemed to pass like a shadow before her
+eyes. At the moment when she thought she was about to hear and see, a
+knock came at her door, and the revelation of her destiny passed, with a
+little ironical smile, out of her eyes and ears.
+
+Her visitor was a strange little nun whom she had not seen before. Over
+her slim figure the white serge habit fell in such graceful, mediæval
+lines as Evelyn had seen in German cathedrals; and her face was delicate
+and childlike beneath the white forehead band. She came forward with a
+diffident little smile.
+
+"Reverend Mother sent me to you; she is watching now, or she would have
+come herself, but she thought you might like me to take you round the
+garden. She will join us there when she comes out of church. But
+Reverend Mother said you must do just as you liked."
+
+The little nun corresponded to her mood even as the book had done; she
+seemed an apparition, a ghost risen from its pages. Her face was a thin
+oval, and the purity of the outline was accentuated by the white
+kerchief which surrounded it. The nose was slightly aquiline, the chin
+a little pointed, the lips well cut, but thin and colourless--lips that
+Evelyn thought had never been kissed, and that never would be kissed.
+The thought seemed disgraceful, and Evelyn noticed hastily the dark
+almond eyes that saved the face from insipidity; the black eyebrows were
+firmly and delicately drawn, her complexion, without being pale, was
+extraordinarily transparent, and the thin hands and long, narrow
+fingers, half hidden beneath the long sleeves, were in the same idea of
+mediæval delicacy.
+
+"I was longing to go out, but I had not the courage. I feared it might
+be against the rule for me to go into the garden alone. But tell me
+first who you are."
+
+"Oh, I'm Sister Veronica. I'm only a novice as yet."
+
+Evelyn noticed that, unlike the other nuns she had seen, Sister Veronica
+wore neither the silver heart on her breast, suspended by a red cord,
+nor the long straight scapular which gave such dignity to the religious
+habit. Her habit was held in at the waist by a leather girdle; it looked
+as though it might slip any moment over the slight, boyish hips, and by
+her side hung a rosary of large black beads.
+
+Sister Veronica warned Evelyn that she must be careful how she went down
+the staircase, as it was very slippery. Evelyn said she would be
+careful; she added that the sisters kept the stairs in beautiful order,
+and wondered what her next remark would be. She was nervous in the
+presence of these convent women, lest by some unfortunate remark she
+should betray herself. And when they reached the garden it was Sister
+Veronica who was the most self-possessed--she was already confessing to
+Evelyn that they had all felt very nervous knowing that a "real" singer
+was listening to them.
+
+"Oh, do you sing?" Evelyn asked eagerly.
+
+"Well, I have to try," Sister Veronica answered, with a little laugh.
+"Mother Prioress thought perhaps I might learn, so she put me in the
+choir, but Sister Mary John says I shall never be the least use."
+
+"Is Sister Mary John the sister who teaches you?"
+
+"Yes; it is she who played the organ at Mass. She loves music. She is
+simply longing to hear you sing, Miss Innes. Do you think you will sing
+at Benediction this afternoon for us? It would be lovely."
+
+"I don't know, really. You see I haven't been asked yet."
+
+"Oh, Reverend Mother is sure to ask you--at least I hope she will. We
+all want to hear you so much."
+
+They were sitting in the shadow of a great elm; all around was a
+wonderful silence, and to turn the conversation from herself, Evelyn
+asked Sister Veronica if she didn't care for their beautiful garden.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed I do. I'm glad you like it.... When I was a child my
+greatest treat was to be allowed to play in the nuns' garden."
+
+"Then you knew the convent long before you came to be a nun yourself?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I've known it all my life."
+
+"So it was not strange when you came here first?"
+
+"No, it was like coming home."
+
+Evelyn repeated the nun's words to herself, "Like coming home." And she
+seemed to see far into their meaning. Here was an illustration of what
+she had read in the book--she and Veronica seemed to understand each
+other in the silence. But it became necessary to speak, and in answer to
+a question, Sister Veronica told Evelyn that there were four novices and
+two postulants in the novitiate, and that the name of the novice
+mistress was Mother Mary Hilda. The novitiate was in the upper storey of
+the new wing, above the convent refectory.
+
+"And here is Reverend Mother," and Sister Veronica suddenly got up.
+Evelyn got up too, and they waited till the elderly nun slowly crossed
+the lawn. Evelyn noticed, even when the Reverend Mother was seated, that
+Veronica remained standing.
+
+"You can go now, Veronica."
+
+Veronica smiled a little good-bye to Evelyn, and left them immediately.
+
+"Veronica told you, Miss Innes, I was taking my watch?"
+
+"Yes, Reverend Mother."
+
+"I hope she has not been wearying you with the details of our life?"
+
+"On the contrary, I have been very much interested.... Your life here is
+so beautiful that I long to know more about it. At present my knowledge
+is confined to the fact that the second storey in the new wing is the
+novitiate, and that there are four novices and two postulants." The
+Reverend Mother smiled, and after a pause Evelyn added--
+
+"But Sister Veronica is very young."
+
+"She is older than she looks, she is nearly twenty. Ever since she was
+quite a child she wished to be a nun. Even then her mind was quite made
+up."
+
+"She told me that when she was a child her great pleasure was to be
+allowed to walk in the convent garden."
+
+"Yes. You don't know, perhaps, that she is my niece. My poor brother's
+child. She was left an orphan at a very early age. Her's is a sad story.
+But God has been good: she never doubted her vocation, she passed from
+an innocent childhood to a life dedicated to God. So she has been spared
+the trouble that is the lot of those who live in the world."
+
+An accent of past but unforgotten sorrow had crept into her voice; and
+once more Evelyn was convinced that she had not, like Veronica, passed
+from innocent childhood into the blameless dream of convent life. She
+had known the world and had renounced it. In the silence that had fallen
+Evelyn wondered what her story might be, and whether she would ever hear
+it. But she knew that in the convent no allusion is made to the past,
+that there the past is really the past.
+
+"I hope that you will sing for us at Benediction. All the sisters are
+longing to hear you. It will be such a pleasure to them."
+
+"I shall be very glad ... only I have brought nothing with me. But I
+daresay I shall find something among the music you have here."
+
+"Sister Mary John will find you something; she is our organist."
+
+"And an excellent musician. I noticed her playing."
+
+"She has always been anxious to improve the choir, but unfortunately
+none of the sisters except her has any voice to speak of.... You might
+sing Gounod's 'Ave Maria' at Benediction; you know it, of course, what a
+beautiful piece of music it is. But I see that you don't admire it."
+
+"Well," Evelyn said, smiling, "it is contrary to all the principles I've
+been brought up in."
+
+"We might walk a little; we are at the end of the summer, and the air is
+a little cold. You do not mind walking very slowly? I'm forbidden to
+walk fast on account of my heart."
+
+They crossed the sloping lawn, and walking slowly up St. Peter's walk,
+amid sad flutterings of leaves from the branches of the elms, Evelyn
+told the Reverend Mother the story of the musical reformation which her
+father had achieved. She asked Evelyn if it would be possible to give
+Palestrina at the convent and they reached the end of the walk. It was
+flushed with September, and in the glittering stillness the name of
+Palestrina was exquisite to speak. They passed the tall cross standing
+at the top of the rocks, and the Reverend Mother said, speaking out of
+long reflection--"Have I never heard any of the music you sing? Wagner I
+have never heard, but the Italian operas, 'Lucia' and 'Trovatore,' or
+Mozart? Have you never sung Mozart?"
+
+"Very little. I am what is called a dramatic soprano. The only Italian
+opera I've sung is 'Norma.' Do you know it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've sung Leonore--not in 'Trovatore,' in 'Fidelio.'"
+
+"But surely you admire 'Trovatore'--the 'Miserere,' for instance. Is not
+that beautiful?"
+
+"It is no doubt very effective, but it is considered very common now."
+Evelyn hummed snatches of the opera; then the waltz from "Traviata."
+"I've sung Margaret."
+
+"Ah."
+
+And as she hummed the Jewel Song she watched the Reverend Mother's
+face, and was certain that the nun had heard the music on the stage. But
+at that moment the angelus bell rang. Evelyn had forgotten the
+responses, and as she walked towards the convent she asked the Reverend
+Mother to repeat them once again, so that she might have them by heart.
+She excused herself, saying how difficult was the observance of
+religious forms for those who live in the world.
+
+After dinner she wrote two letters. One was to her father, the other was
+to Monsignor, and having directed the letters she imagined the postal
+arrangement to be somewhat irregular. After Benediction she would ask
+Veronica what time the letters left the convent. And looking across the
+abyss which separated them, she saw her passionate self-centred past and
+Veronica's little transit from the schoolroom to the convent. It seemed
+strange to her that she never had what might be called a girl friend.
+But she had arrived at a time when a woman friend was a necessity, and
+it now suddenly occurred to her that there would be something
+wonderfully sweet and satisfying in the uncritical love of a woman
+younger than herself. She felt that the love of this innocent creature
+who knew nothing, who never would know anything, and who therefore would
+suspect nothing, would help her to forget her past as Monsignor wished.
+She felt a sympathy awaken in her for her own sex which she had never
+known before, and this yearning was confounded in a desire to be among
+those who knew nothing of her past. Now she was glad that she had
+refrained from taking the Reverend Mother into her confidence, and she
+wondered how much Monsignor had told her the day they had walked in the
+garden; it relieved her to remember that he knew very little except what
+she had told him in confession.
+
+Someone knocked. She answered, "Come in." It was Mother Philippa and
+another nun.
+
+"I hope we're not interrupting.... But you're reading, I see."
+
+"No, I was thinking;" and glad of the interruption, she let the book
+fall on her knees. "Pray come in, Mother Philippa," and Evelyn rose to
+detain her.
+
+The nuns entered very shyly. Evelyn handed them chairs, and as she did
+so she remarked the tall, angular nun who followed Mother Philippa, and
+whose face expressed so much energy.
+
+"Good afternoon, Miss Innes. I hope you slept well last night, and did
+not find your bed too uncomfortable?"
+
+"Thank you, Mother Philippa. I liked my bed. I slept very well." Evelyn
+drew two chairs forward, and Mother Philippa introduced Evelyn to Sister
+Mary John. And while she explained that she had heard from the Reverend
+Mother that Miss Innes had promised to sing at Benediction, Sister Mary
+John sat watching Evelyn, her large brown eyes wide open. Her eagerness
+was even a little comical, and Evelyn smiled through her growing liking
+for this nun. She was unlike any other nun she had seen. Nuns were
+usually formal and placid, but Sister Mary John was so irreparably
+herself that while the others presented feeble imitations of the
+Reverend Mother's manner, her walk and speech, Sister Mary John
+continued to slouch along, to cross her legs, to swing her arms, to lean
+forward and interrupt when she was interested in the conversation; when
+she was not, she did not attempt to hide her indifference. Evelyn
+thought that she must be about eight-and-twenty or thirty. The eyes were
+brown and exultant, and the eyebrows seemed very straight and black in
+the sallow complexion. All the features were large, but a little of the
+radiant smile that had lit up all her features when she came forward to
+greet Evelyn still lingered on her face. Now and then she seemed to grow
+impatient, and then she forgot her impatience and the smile floated back
+again. At last her opportunity came, and she seized it eagerly.
+
+"I'm quite ashamed, Miss Innes, we sang so badly this morning; our
+little choir can do better than that."
+
+"I was interested; the organ was very well played."
+
+"Did you think so? I have not sufficient time for practice, but I love
+music, and am longing to hear you sing. But the Reverend Mother says
+that you have brought no music with you."
+
+"I hear," said Mother Philippa, "that you do not care for Gounod's 'Ave
+Maria.'"
+
+"If the Reverend Mother wishes me to sing it, I shall be delighted to do
+so, if Sister Mary John has the music."
+
+Sister Mary John shook her head authoritatively, and said that she quite
+understood that Miss Innes did not approve of the liberty of writing any
+melody over Bach's beautiful prelude. Besides, it required a violin. The
+conversation then turned on the music at St. Joseph's. Sister Mary John
+listened, breaking suddenly in with some question regarding Palestrina.
+She had never heard any of his music; would Miss Innes lend her some?
+Was there nothing of his that they could sing in the convent?
+
+"I do not know anything of his written for two voices. You might play
+the other parts on the organ, but I'm afraid it would sound not a little
+ridiculous."
+
+"But have you heard the Benedictine nuns sing the plain chant; they
+pause in the middle of the verse--that is the tradition, is it not?"
+
+Meanwhile Mother Philippa sat forgotten. Evelyn noticed her isolation
+before Sister Mary John, and addressed an observation to her. But Mother
+Philippa said she knew nothing about music, and that they were to go on
+talking as if she weren't there. But a mere listener is a dead weight in
+a conversation; and whenever Evelyn's eyes went that way, she could see
+that Mother Philippa was thinking of something else; and when she
+looked towards Sister Mary John she could see that she was longing to be
+alone with her. A delightful hour of conversation awaited them if they
+could only find some excuse to get away together, and Evelyn looked at
+Sister Mary John, saying with her eyes that the suggestion must come
+from her.
+
+"If I were to take Miss Innes to the organ loft and show her what music
+we have--don't you think so, Mother Philippa?'
+
+"Yes, I think that would be the best thing to do.... I'm sure the
+Reverend Mother would see no objection to your taking Miss Innes to the
+organ loft."
+
+Mother Philippa did not see the look of relief and delight that passed
+in Sister Mary John's eyes, and it was Evelyn who had a scruple about
+getting rid of Mother Philippa.
+
+"I was so disappointed not to have seen you the day you came here; and
+what made it so hard was that it was first arranged that it was the
+Reverend Mother and I who were to meet you. I had looked forward to
+seeing you. I love music, and it is seven years since I've spoken to
+anyone who could tell the difference between a third and a fourth.
+There's no one here who cares about music."
+
+It seemed to Evelyn that the problem of life must have presented itself
+to Sister Mary John very much as it presents itself to a woman who is
+suddenly called to join her husband in India. The woman hates leaving
+London, her friends, and all the habits of life in which she has grown
+up; but she does not hesitate to give up these things to follow the man
+she loves out to India.
+
+"I don't know why it was settled that Mother Philippa was to meet you
+instead of me; it seemed so useless, meeting you meant so little to her
+and so much to me; I'm always inclined to argue, but that day the
+Reverend Mother's heart was very bad; she had had a fainting fit in the
+early morning; we all got up to pray for her."
+
+"Yet she was quite cheerful; I never should have guessed."
+
+"Mother Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda tried to dissuade her. But she
+would see you."
+
+"Then it is with her heart disease that the Reverend Mother rules the
+convent," Evelyn thought, as she followed Sister Mary John up the spiral
+staircase to the organ loft. She looked over the curtained railing into
+the church. The watcher knelt there, her head bowed, her habit still as
+sculpture, and Evelyn heard Sister Mary John pulling out her music. She
+could not find what she wanted, and she sat with her legs apart,
+throwing from side to side piles of old torn music.
+
+"Never can one find a piece of music when one wants it: I don't know if
+you have noticed that nothing is so difficult to find as a piece of
+music. Day after day it is under your hands, it would seem as if there
+was not another piece in the organ loft, but the moment you want it, it
+has disappeared. I don't know how it is."
+
+"What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help you."
+
+"Well, I was thinking that you might like"--Sister Mary John looked up
+at Evelyn--"I suppose you can sing B flat, or even C?"
+
+"Yes, I can sing C;" and Evelyn thought of the last page of the "Dusk of
+the Gods." "But what are you looking for?"
+
+Sister Mary John did not answer. She threw the music from side to side,
+every minute growing more impatient. "It is most strange," she said at
+last, looking up at Evelyn. Evelyn smiled. With all her brusque,
+self-willed ways, Sister Mary John was clearly a lady born and an
+intelligent woman.
+
+"I'm afraid I shall not be able to find you anything that you'd care to
+sing."
+
+"Oh, yes, I shall," Evelyn replied encouragingly.
+
+"It is all such poor stuff. We've no singers here. Do you know, I've
+never heard a great singer, and I've often wished to. The only thing I
+regret is not having heard a little music before I came here. But I've
+heard of Wagner; you sing Wagner, don't you, Miss Innes?"
+
+"Yes, I sing little else. 'Fidelio'--"
+
+"Ah, I know some of the music. Do you sing--"
+
+Sister Mary John hummed a few bars.
+
+"Yes, I sing that."
+
+"Well, I shall hear you sing to-day. I've been wishing to go to St.
+Joseph's to hear Palestrina. You were brought up on music. You can sing
+at sight--in the key that it is written in?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"But all prima-donnas can do that?"
+
+"No; on the contrary, I think I'm the only one. Singers on the operatic
+stage learn their parts at the piano."
+
+She could see that to Sister Mary John music was the temptation of her
+life, and she imagined that her confession must be a little musical
+record. She had lost her temper with Sister So-and-So because she could
+not, etc. But time was getting on. If she was to sing that afternoon,
+she must find something, and seeing that Sister Mary John lingered over
+some sheets of music, as if she thought that it presented some
+possibility, Evelyn asked her what it was. It was a Mass by Mozart for
+four voices, which Sister Mary John had arranged for a single voice.
+
+"The choir and I sing the melody in unison, and I play the entire Mass
+on the organ."
+
+Evelyn smiled, and seeing that the smile distressed the nun, she was
+sorry.
+
+"To you, of course, it would sound absurd, it does to me too, but it was
+a little change, it was the only thing I could think of. We have some
+pieces written for two voices, but I can hardly get them sung. I have
+to teach the sisters the parts separately. Till they know them by heart,
+I can't trust them. It is impossible sometimes not to lose one's temper.
+If we had a few good voices, people would come to hear them, the convent
+would be spoken about, and some charitable people would come forward and
+pay off our mortgages. I've lain awake at night thinking of it; the
+Reverend Mother agrees with me. But in the way of voices we've been as
+unlucky as we could well be. I've been here eight years--there was one,
+but she died six years ago of consumption. It is heartbreaking. I play
+the organ, I beat the time, and, as I said to them the other day, 'There
+are five of you, and I'm the only one that sings.'"
+
+Sister Mary John asked Evelyn if she composed. Evelyn told her that she
+did not compose, and remembering Owen's compositions, she hoped that
+Sister Mary John had not an "O Salutaris" in manuscript.
+
+"Let me look through the music; we are talking of other things instead
+of looking."
+
+"So we are.... Let us look." At the bottom of a heap, Sister Mary John
+found Cherubini's "Ave Maria."
+
+"Could you sing this? It is a beautiful piece of music."
+
+Evelyn read it over.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I can sing it, but it wants careful playing; the end
+is a sort of little duet between the voice and the organ. If you don't
+follow me exactly, the effect will be like this," and she showed what it
+would be on the mute keyboard.
+
+"You haven't confidence in my playing."
+
+"Every confidence, Sister Mary John, but remember I don't know the
+piece, and it is not easy. I think we had better try it over together."
+
+"I should like to very much, but you will not sing with all your voice?"
+
+"No, we'll just run through it...."
+
+The nun followed in a sort of ecstasy, and when they came to what Evelyn
+had called the duet, she played the beautiful antiphonal music looking
+up at the singer. The second time Evelyn was surer of herself, and she
+let her voice flow out a little in suave vocalisation, so that she might
+judge of the effect.
+
+"I told you that I had never heard anyone sing before. If you were one
+of us!"
+
+Evelyn laughed, and then, catching sight of the nun's eyes fixed very
+intently upon her, she spoke of the beauty of the "Ave Maria," and was
+surprised that she did not know anything of Cherubini's.
+
+"Gracious, how the time has gone! That is the first bell for vespers."
+
+She hurried away, forgetting all about Evelyn, leaving her to find her
+way back to her room as best she could. But Evelyn found Sister Mary
+John waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. She had come back for
+her, she had just remembered her, and Sister Mary John apologised for
+her absence of mind, and seemed distressed at her apparent rudeness.
+They walked a little way together, and the nun explained that it was not
+her fault; her absence of mind was an inheritance from her father.
+Everything she had she had inherited from him--"my love of music and my
+absence of mind."
+
+She was intensely herself, quaint, eccentric, but she was, Evelyn
+reflected, perhaps more distinctly from the English upper classes than
+any of the nuns she had seen yet. She had not the sweetness of manner of
+the Reverend Mother, her manners were the oddest; but withal she had
+that refinement which Evelyn had first noticed in Owen, and afterwards
+in his friends, that style which is inheritance, which tradition alone
+can give. She had spoken of her father, and Evelyn could easily imagine
+Sister Mary John's father--a lord of old lineage dwelling in an
+eighteenth century house in the middle of a flat park in the Midlands.
+She could see a piece of artificial lake obtained by the damming of a
+small stream; one end full of thick reeds, in which the chatter of wild
+ducks was unceasing. But her family, her past, her name--all was lost in
+the convent, in the veil. The question was, had she renounced the world,
+or had she refused the world? Evelyn could not even conjecture. Sister
+Mary John was outside not only of her experience, but also of her
+present perception of things. Evelyn wondered why one of such marked
+individuality, of such intense personal will, had chosen a life the very
+_raison d'être_ of which was the merging of the individual will in the
+will of the community? Why should one, the essential delight of whose
+life was music, choose a life in which music hardly appeared? Was her
+piety so great that it absorbed every other inclination? Sister Mary
+John did not strike her as being especially religious. What instinct
+behind those brown eyes had led her to this sacrifice? Apparently at
+pains to conceal nothing, Sister Mary John concealed the essential.
+Evelyn could even imagine her as being attractive to men--that radiant
+smile, the beautiful teeth, and the tall, supple figure, united to that
+distinct personality, would not have failed to attract. God did not get
+her because men did not want her, of that Evelyn was quite sure.
+
+There were on that afternoon assembled in the little white chapel of the
+Passionist Sisters about a dozen elderly ladies, about nine or ten stout
+ladies dressed in black, who might be widows, and perhaps three or four
+spare women who wore a little more colour in their hats; these might be
+spinsters, of ages varying between forty and fifty-five. Amid these
+Evelyn was surprised and glad to perceive three or four young men; they
+did not look, she thought, particularly pious, and perceiving that they
+wore knickerbockers, she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up
+from Richmond Park. They had come in probably to rest, having left
+their machines at the inn. Even though she was converted, she did not
+wish to sing only to women, and it amused her to perceive that something
+of the original Eve still existed in her. But if any one of these young
+men should happen to have any knowledge of music, he could hardly fail
+to notice that it was not a nun who was singing. He would ride away
+astonished, mystified; he would seek the explanation of the mystery, and
+would bring his friend to hear the wonderful voice at the Passionist
+Convent. By the time he came again she would be gone, and his friend
+would say that he had had too much to drink that afternoon at the inn.
+They would not be long in finding an explanation; but should there
+happen to be a journalist there, he would put a paragraph in the papers,
+and all sorts of people would come to the convent and go away
+disappointed.
+
+She looked round the church, calculating its resonance, and thought with
+how much of her voice she should sing so as to produce an effect
+without, however, startling the little congregation. The sermon seemed
+to her very long; she was unable to fix her attention, and though all
+Father Daly said was very edifying, her thoughts wandered, and wonderful
+legends and tales about a voice heard for one week at the Wimbledon
+Convent thronged her brain, and she invented quite a comic little
+episode, in which some dozen or so of London managers met at
+Benediction. She thought that their excuses one to the other would be
+very comic.
+
+She was wearing the black lace scarf instead of a hat; it went well with
+the grey alpaca, and under it was her fair hair; and when she got up to
+go to the organ loft after the sermon, she felt that the old ladies and
+the bicyclists were already wondering who she was. Her involuntary
+levity annoyed her, and she forced a certain seriousness upon herself as
+she climbed the steep spiral staircase.
+
+"So you have found your way ... this is our choir," and she introduced
+Evelyn to the five sisters, hurrying through their names in a low
+whisper. "We don't sing the 'O Salutaris,' as there has been exposition.
+We'll sing this hymn instead, and immediately after you'll sing the 'Ave
+Maria'; it will take the place of the Litany."
+
+Then the six pale voices began to wail out the hymn, wobbling and
+fluctuating, the only steady voice being Sister Mary John's. Though
+mortally afraid of the Latin syllables, Evelyn seconded Sister Mary
+John's efforts, and the others, taking courage, sang better than usual.
+Sister Mary John turned delighted from the organ, and, her eyes bright
+with anticipation, said, "Now."
+
+She played the introduction, Evelyn opened her music. The moment was one
+of intense excitement among the five nuns. They had gathered together in
+a group. The great singer who had saved their convent (had it not been
+for her they would have been thrown back upon the world) was going to
+sing. Evelyn knew what was passing in their minds, and was a little
+nervous. She wished they would not look at her so, and she turned away
+from them. Sister Mary John played the chord, and the voice began.
+
+Owen often said that if Evelyn had two more notes in her voice she would
+have ranked with the finest. She sang from the low A, and she could take
+the high C. From B to B every note was clear and full, one as the other;
+he delighted especially in the middle of her voice; for one whole
+octave, and more than an octave, her voice was pure and sonorous and as
+romantic as the finest 'cello. And the romance of her voice transpired
+in the beautiful Beethoven-like phrase of Cherubini's "Ave Maria." It
+was as if he had had her voice singing in his ear while he was writing,
+when he placed the little grace notes on the last syllable of Maria. The
+phrase rose, still remaining well within the medium of her voice, and
+the same interval happened again as the voice swelled up on the word
+"plena." In the beautiful classical melody her voice was like a 'cello
+heard in the twilight. In the music itself there is neither belief nor
+prayer, but a severe dignity of line, the romance of columns and
+peristyle in the exaltation of a calm evening. Very gradually she poured
+her voice into the song, and her lips seemed to achieve sculpture. The
+lines of a Greek vase seemed to rise before the eye, and the voice
+swelled on from note to note with the noble movement of the bas-relief
+decoration of the vase. The harmonious interludes which Sister Mary John
+played aided the excitement, and the nuns, who knelt in two grey lines,
+were afraid to look up. In a remote consciousness they feared it was not
+right to feel so keenly; the harmonious depth of the voice entered their
+very blood, summoning visions of angel faces. But it was an old man with
+a white beard that Veronica saw, a hermit in the wilderness; she was
+bringing him vestments, and when the vision vanished Evelyn was singing
+the opening phrase, now a little altered on the words Santa Maria.
+
+There came the little duet between the voice and the organ, in which any
+want of precision on the part of Sister Mary John would spoil the effect
+of the song; but the nun's right hand answered Evelyn in perfect
+concord. And then began the runs introduced in the Amen in order to
+exhibit the skill of the singer. The voice was no longer a 'cello, deep
+and resonant, but a lonely flute or silver bugle announcing some joyous
+reverie in a landscape at the close of day. The song closed on the
+keynote, and Sister Mary John turned from the instrument and looked at
+the singer. She could not speak, she seemed overpowered by the music,
+and like one more dreaming than waking, and sitting half turned round on
+her seat, she looked at Evelyn.
+
+"You sing beautifully," she said. "I never heard singing before."
+
+And she sat like one stupefied, still hearing Evelyn's singing in her
+brain, until one of the sisters advanced close and said, "Sister, we
+must sing the 'Tantum ergo.'"
+
+"Of course we must. I believe if you hadn't reminded me I should have
+forgotten it. Gracious! I don't know what it will sound like after
+singing like that. But you'll lead them?"
+
+Evelyn hummed the plain chant under her breath, afraid lest she should
+extinguish the pale voices, and surprised how expressive the antique
+chant was when sung by these etiolated, sexless voices. She had never
+known how much of her life of passion and desire had entered into her
+voice, and she was shocked at its impurity. Her singing sounded like
+silken raiment among sackcloth, and she lowered her voice, feeling it to
+be indecorous and out of place in the antique hymn. Her voice, she felt,
+must have revealed her past life to the nuns, her voice must have
+shocked them a little; her voice must have brought the world before them
+too vividly. For all her life was in her voice, she would never be able
+to sing this hymn with the same sexless grace as they did. Her voice
+would be always Evelyn Innes--Owen Asher's mistress.
+
+The priest turned the Host toward them, and she saw the two long rows of
+grey-habited nuns leaning their veiled heads, and knew that this was the
+moment they lived for, the essential moment when the body which the
+Redeemer gave in expiation of the sins of the world is revealed.
+Evelyn's soul hushed in awe, and all that she had renounced seemed very
+little in this moment of mystery and exaltation.
+
+"What am I to say, Miss Innes? I shall think of this day when I am an
+old woman. But you'll sing again before you leave?"
+
+"Yes, sister, whenever you like."
+
+"When I like? That would be all day. But I did follow you in the duet, I
+was so anxious. I hope I did not spoil it?"
+
+"I was never better accompanied. You made no mistake."
+
+As they passed by her the other nuns thanked her under their breath. She
+could see that they looked upon her as a providence sent by God to save
+them from being cast back upon the world they dreaded, the world from
+which they had fled. But all this extraordinary drama, this intensity of
+feeling, remained inarticulate. They could only say, "Thank you, Miss
+Innes; it was very good of you to come to sing for us." It was their
+very dumbness that made them seem so wonderful. It was the dumbness of
+these women--they could only speak in prayer--it was that that overcame
+her. But the Reverend Mother was different. Evelyn listened to her,
+thinking of nothing but her, and when the Reverend Mother left her,
+Evelyn moved away, still under the spell of the authoritative sweetness
+which her presence and manner exhaled. But the Reverend Mother was only
+a part of a scheme of life founded on principles the very opposite to
+those on which she had attempted to construct her life. Even in singing
+the "Ave Maria," she had not been able to subdue her vanity. Her
+pleasure in singing it had in a measure sprung out of the somewhat mean
+desire to proclaim her superiority over those who had attained the
+highest plane by renouncing all personal pride. They had proclaimed
+their superiority in their obeisance. It was in giving, not in
+receiving, praise that we rise above ourselves. This was the lesson that
+every moment of her convent life impressed upon her. Her thoughts went
+back to the Reverend Mother, and Evelyn thought of her as of some woman
+who had come to some terrible crisis in her worldly life--some crisis
+violent as the crisis that had come in her own life. The Reverend Mother
+must have perceived, just as she had done, as all must do sooner or
+later, that life out of the shelter of religion becomes a sort of
+nightmare, an intolerable torture. Then she wondered if the Reverend
+Mother were a widow--that appeared to her likely. One who had suffered
+some great disaster--that too seemed to her likely. She had been an
+ambitious woman. Was she not so still? Is a passion ever obliterated? Is
+it not rather transformed? If she had been personally ambitious, she was
+now ambitious only for her convent: her passion had taken another
+direction. And applying the same reasoning to herself, she seemed to see
+a future for herself in which her love passions would become transformed
+and find their complete expressions in the love of God.
+
+The Reverend Mother again addressed her, and Evelyn considered what age
+she might be. Between sixty and seventy in point of years, but she
+seemed so full of intelligence, wisdom and sweetness that she did not
+suggest age; one did not think of her as an old woman. Her slight figure
+still retained its grace, and though a small woman, she suggested a tall
+one; and the moment she spoke there was the voice which drew you like
+silk and entangled you as in a soft winding web. Evelyn smiled a little
+as she listened, for she was thinking how the Reverend Mother as a young
+woman must have swayed men. Presumably at one time it had pleased her to
+sway men's passion, or at least it pleased Evelyn's imagination to think
+it had. Not that she thought the Reverend Mother had ever been anything
+but a good woman, but she had been a woman of the world, and Evelyn
+attributed no sin to that. Even the world is not wholly bad; the
+Reverend Mother and Monsignor owed their personal magnetism to the
+world. Without the world they would have been like Father Daly and
+Mother Philippa--holy simplicities. She looked at the quiet nun, and her
+simple good nature touched her. Evelyn went toward her. Sister Mary John
+broke into the conversation so often that the Reverend Mother had once
+to check her.
+
+"Sister Mary John, we hope that Miss Innes will sing to-morrow and every
+day while she is with us. But she must do as she likes, and these
+musical questions are not what we are talking about now."
+
+But Sister Mary John was hardly at all abashed at this reproof. She was
+clearly the only one who stood in no awe of the Reverend Mother.
+
+They were sitting on the terrace, and a mauve sunset faded in the grey
+sky. There was a strange wistfulness in the autumn air and in the dim
+garden where the gentle nuns were taking their recreation. There was a
+subtle harmony in the grey habits and floating veils; they blended and
+mingled with the blue mist that was rising among the trees. And a pale
+light fell across the faded lawns, and Evelyn looked into the light, and
+felt the pang that the passing of things brings into the heart. This
+spectacle of life seemed to her strangely pathetic, and it seemed to
+mean something which eluded her, and which she would have given a great
+deal to have been able to express. Music alone could express the
+yearning that haunted her heart, the plaint of the Rhine Maidens was the
+nearest to what she felt, and she began to sing their song. Sister Mary
+John asked her eagerly what she was singing. She would have told her,
+but the Reverend Mother grew impatient with Sister Mary John.
+
+"You must be introduced to Mother Mary Hilda, our novice mistress, then
+you will know all the mothers except our dear Mother Christina, who is
+quite an invalid now, and rarely leaves her cell."
+
+On St. Peter's path a little group of nuns were walking up and down,
+pressing round a central figure. They were faint grey shadows, and their
+meaning would not be distinguished in the violet dusk. It was like a
+half-effaced picture in which the figures are nearly lost in the
+background; their voices, however, sounded clear, and their laughter was
+mysterious and far distant, yet distinct in the heart. Evelyn again
+began to hum the plaint of the Rhine Maidens. But the voices of the
+novices were more joyous, for they, Evelyn thought, have renounced both
+love and gold. The Reverend Mother clapped her hands to attract
+attention, and one of the novices, it was Sister Veronica, ran to them.
+
+"Ask Mother Mary Hilda to come and speak to me, Veronica."
+
+"Yes, Reverend Mother;" and Veronica ran with the message without once
+looking at Evelyn. Mother Mary Hilda crossed the lawn toward them, and
+Evelyn noticed her gliding, youthful walk. She was younger than the
+prioress or even the sub-prioress. And she had that attractive
+youthfulness of manner which often survives in the cloister after middle
+age.
+
+"Here is Miss Innes," said the prioress; "I know you wished to make her
+acquaintance."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+Evelyn noticed the bright eyes and the small, clearly cut nose and the
+pointed chin, but her liveliest sensation was of Mother Hilda's hand; so
+small was it and soft that it seemed like a little crushed bird in
+Evelyn's hand, and Evelyn did not think that hers was a large hand.
+
+"I am sure, Miss Innes, you feel that you have been thanked sufficiently
+for all you have done for us, but you'll forgive us if we feel that we
+cannot thank you often enough. Your singing at Benediction to-day was a
+great pleasure to us all. Whose 'Ave Maria' was it, Miss Innes?"
+
+Evelyn told them, and thinking it would interest the nuns, she admitted
+that her father would not allow it to be sacred music. This led the
+conversation on to the question of Palestrina, and how the old music had
+rescued the Jesuits from their pecuniary embarrassments. A casual
+mention of Wagner showed her that the Reverend Mother was interested,
+and she said that she might sing them Elizabeth's prayer. Evelyn spoke
+of the Chorale in the first act of the "Meistersinger," and this led her
+into quite a little account of the music she sang on the stage. It
+pleased her to notice the different effect of her account of her art on
+the four nuns. The conversation, she could see, carried the prioress
+back into the past, but she put aside these memories of long ago and
+affected a polite interest in the stage. Mother Philippa listened as she
+might to a story, too far removed from her for her to be more than
+vaguely interested; Sister Mary John listened in the hopes that Evelyn
+would illustrate her experience with some few bars of the music--with
+her it was the music and nothing else; Mother Mary Hilda listened very
+prettily, and Evelyn noticed that it was she who asked the most
+questions. Mother Mary Hilda was the most fearless, and showed the least
+dread in the conversation. Yet for no single moment did Evelyn think
+that she was the worldliest of the four nuns. Evelyn thought that
+probably she was the least. Her trivial utterances were the necessity of
+the unimportant moment, and she seemed to bring to them the
+enlightenment of her own vivid faith. The holiness that shone out of her
+eyes inspired the calm, tender smile, and was in her whole manner. "She
+speaks," Evelyn thought, "of worldly things without affectation, but how
+clear it is that they lie outside, far outside, of her real life."
+
+Evelyn was saying that it was a long while since she had sung any sacred
+music, and, referring to the difference of the rule in France and in
+England, she mentioned that in Paris the opera singers frequently sang
+in the churches.
+
+"It must be hard on Catholics with beautiful voices like yours that they
+may not be allowed to sing in church choirs, for there can be nothing
+so delightful as to bring a great gift to God's service."
+
+It was the prioress who broke off the conversation, to Evelyn's regret.
+
+"Mother Hilda, I am afraid we are forgetting your young charges."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I must run back to my children. Good-bye, Miss Innes, I am
+so glad that you have come to us;" and the warm, soft clasp of the
+little hand was to Evelyn a further assurance of friendly welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
+
+
+She was ashamed not to be able to follow the Office in chapel, so at the
+Reverend Mother's suggestion she consented to employ part of her long
+convent leisure in taking lessons in Latin. Mother Mary Hilda was to be
+her instructress.
+
+The library was a long, rather narrow room, once the drawing-room of the
+Georgian mansion. Only a carved Adams' chimney-piece, now painted over
+in imitation of oak remained of its former adornment; the tall windows
+were eighteenth century, and with that air they looked upon the terrace.
+The walls had been lined by the nuns with plain wooden shelves, and upon
+them were what seemed to be a thousand books, every one in a grey linen
+wrapper, with the title neatly written on a white label pasted on the
+back. Evelyn's first thought was of the time it must have taken to cover
+them, but she remembered that in a convent time is of no consequence. If
+a thing can be done better in three hours than in one, there is no
+reason why three hours should not be spent upon it. She had noticed,
+too, that the sisters regarded the library with a little air of demure
+pride. Mother Mary Hilda had told her that the large tin boxes were
+filled with the convent archives. There were piles of unbound
+magazines--the _Month_ and the _Dublin Review_. There was a ponderous
+writing-table, with many pigeon-holes; Evelyn concluded it to be the
+gift of a wealthy convert, and she turned the immense globe which showed
+the stars and planets, and wondered how the nuns had become possessed of
+such a thing, and how they could have imagined that it could ever be of
+any use to them. She grew fond of this room, and divided her time
+between it and the garden. It had none of the primness of the convent
+parlour, which gave her a little shiver every time she entered it. In
+the further window there stood a deep-seated, venerable arm-chair,
+covered in worn green leather, the one comfortable chair, Evelyn often
+thought, in the convent. And in this chair she spent many hours, either
+learning to construe the Office with Mother Mary Hilda, or reading by
+herself. The investigation of the shelves was an occupation, and the
+time went quickly, taking down book after book, and she seemed to
+penetrate further into the spirit of the convent through the medium of
+the convent books.
+
+The light literature of the convent were improving little tales of
+conversion, and edifying stories of Catholic girls who decline to enter
+into mixed marriages, and she thought of the novices reading this
+artless literature on Sunday afternoons. There were endless volumes of
+meditations, mostly translations from the French, full of Gallicisms and
+parenthetical phrases, and Evelyn often began a paragraph a second time;
+but in spite of her efforts to control her thoughts they wandered, and
+her eyes, lost in reverie, were fixed on the sunny garden.
+
+She returned the volumes to the shelves, and remembering Mother Mary
+Hilda's recommendation, she took down a volume of Faber's works. She
+found his effusive, sentimental style unendurable; and had turned to go
+to her room for one of the books she had brought with her when her eyes
+lighted upon Father Dalgairn's _Frequent Communion_. The father's
+account of the various customs of the Church regarding the
+administration of the Sacrament--the early rigorism of the African
+fathers, and the later rigorism of the Jansenists at once interested
+her, and, lifting her eyes from the book, she remembered that the
+Sacrament had always been the central light around which the spiritual
+belief of the church had revolved. Her instinctive religion had always
+been the Sacrament. When Huxley and Darwin and Spencer had undermined
+the foundations of her faith, and the entire fabric of revelation was
+showering about her, her belief in the Divine Presence had remained,
+burning like a lamp, inviolate among the débris of a temple. She had
+never been able to resist the Sacrament. She had put her belief in the
+mystery of transubstantiation to the test, and when the sanctus bell
+rang, her head had solemnly bowed; softer than rose leaves or
+snowflakes, belief had rained down upon her choked heart. She had never
+been able to reason about the Divine Presence--she felt it. She had
+believed whether she willed it or not. Owen's arguments had made no
+difference. Her desire of the Sacrament had more than once altered the
+course of her life, and that she should have unconsciously wandered back
+to the Passionist Convent, a convent vowed to Perpetual Adoration,
+seemed to her to be full of significance.
+
+Father Dalgairn's book had made clear to her that wherever she went and
+whatever she did she would always believe in the Divine Presence. His
+book had discovered to her the instinctive nature of her belief in the
+Sacrament, but it had not widened her spiritual perceptions, still less
+her artistic: the delicious terror and irresistible curiosity which she
+experienced on opening St. Teresa's _Book of Her Life_ she had never
+experienced before. It was like re-birth, being born to a new
+experience, to a purer sensation of life. It was like throwing open the
+door of a small, confined garden, and looking upon the wide land of the
+world. It was like breathing the wide air of eternity after that of a
+close-scented room. She knew that she was not capable of such pure
+ecstasy, yet it seemed to her very human to think and feel like this;
+and the saint's holy rapture seemed as natural--she thought for a
+moment--even more natural, even more truly human than the rapture which
+she had found in sinful love.
+
+Before she had read a dozen pages, she seemed to know her like her own
+soul, though yet unaware whether the saint lived in this century or a
+dozen centuries ago. For all she said about the material facts of her
+life St. Teresa might be alive to-day and in England. She lived in
+aspiration, out of time and place; and like one who, standing upon a
+hill top, sees a bird soaring, a wild bird with the light of the heavens
+upon its wings, Evelyn seemed to see this soul waving its wings in its
+flight towards God. The soul sang love, love, love, and heaven was
+overflowed with cries for its Divine Master, for its adorable Master,
+for its Bridegroom-elect.
+
+The extraordinary vehemence and passion, the daring realism of St.
+Teresa reminded Evelyn of Vittoria. She found the same unrestrained
+passionate realism in both; she thought of Belasquez's early pictures,
+and then of Ribera. Then of Ulick, who had told her that the great
+artist dared everything. St. Teresa had dared everything. She had dared
+even to discriminate between the love of God the Father and God the Son.
+It was God the Father that inspired in her the highest ecstasy, the most
+complete abandonment of self. In these supreme moments the human form of
+Jesus Christ was a hindrance, as in a lower level of spiritual
+exaltation it was a help.
+
+"The moment my prayer began to pass from the natural to the
+supernatural, I strove to obliterate from my soul every physical
+obstacle. To lift my soul up, to contemplate, I dared not; aware of my
+imperfection it seemed over bold. Nevertheless I knew the presence of
+God to be about me, and I tried to gather myself in him. And nothing
+could then induce me to return to the sacred humanity of the Saviour."
+
+But how touching is the saint's repentance for this infidelity to the
+Divine Bridegroom.
+
+"O Lord of my soul, of all my goods, Jesus crucified, I shall never
+remember without pain that I once thought this thing. I shall think of
+it as a great treason, and I stand convicted before the Good Master; and
+though it proceeded from my ignorance, I shall never expiate it with
+tears."
+
+Just as every variation of habit, of fashion is noticeable to those who
+live outside themselves, so the changes and complexities in the life of
+the soul are perceived by them who live within themselves. The saint
+relates how for many months she refrained from prayer, and as we know
+that prayer was the source of all her joy, a joy touching ecstasy, often
+above the earth and resplendent with vision, we can imagine the anguish
+that these abstinences must have caused her.
+
+"To destroy confidence in God the Demon spread a snare, his most
+insidious snare. He persuaded me that owing to my imperfections I could
+not, without being wanting in humility, present myself in prayer to God.
+This caused me such anguish that for a year and a half I refrained. For
+at least a year, for the six months following I am not sure of my
+memory. Unfortunate one, what did I do! By my own act I plunged myself
+in hell without demons being about to drag me there."
+
+This scruple is followed by others. The saint suspects the entire
+holiness of her joy in prayer, and she asks if these transports, these
+ravishments, these moments in which she lies exhausted in the arms of
+the Beloved Bridegroom, were contrived by the Demon or if they were
+granted to her by God. Her anxiety is great, and men learned in holy
+doctrine are consulted. They incline to the belief that her visions
+proceed from God, and encourage her to persevere. Then she cries to her
+Divine Master, to the Lord of her soul, to her adorable Master, to the
+adorable Bridegroom.
+
+"Cannot we say of a soul to whom God extends this solicitude and these
+delicacies of love that the soul has made for our Lord a bed of roses
+and lilies, and that it is impossible that this adorable Master will not
+come, though he may delay, and take his delight with her."
+
+This saint, in whom religion was genius, was one of Ulick's most
+unqualified admirations. He never spoke of her that his voice did not
+acquire an accent of conviction, or without alluding to the line of an
+old English poet, who had addressed her:
+
+  'Oh, thou undaunted daughter of desires.'
+
+She recalled with a smile his contempt of the Austins and the Eliots,
+those most materialistic writers, he would say, whose interest in
+humanity and whose knowledge of it is limited to social habits and
+customs. But St. Teresa he placed among the highest writers, among the
+great visionaries. "Her desire sings," he said, "like the sea and the
+winds, and it breaks like fire about God's feet." He had said that the
+soul that flashed from her pages was more intense than any soul in
+Shakespeare or Balzac. "They had created many, she but one incomparable
+soul--her own, and in surging drift of vehement aspiration, and in
+recession of temporal things we hear the singing of the stars, the
+beating of the eternal pulse."
+
+On Friday she had finished the autobiography, and before going into the
+garden she took down another of the saint's works, _The Way of
+Perfection_, intending to look through it in some sunny corner.
+
+She had slipped easily into the early hours of the convent. After
+breakfast she had the morning to herself, and she divided it between the
+library and the garden. The leaves were beginning to fall, and in the
+thinning branches there seemed to be an appearance of spring. From St.
+Peter's walk she strolled into the orchard, and then into the piece of
+uncultivated ground at the end of it. Some of the original furze bushes
+remained, and among these a streamlet trickled through the long grasses,
+and following it she found that it led her to the fish pond in the
+shrubbery, at the back of St. Peter's walk. There was there a pleasant,
+shady place, where she could sit and read. She stood for a moment
+watching the fish. They were so tame that they would take the bread from
+the novices' hands. She had brought some bread, but she had to throw it
+to them. She divided it amongst them, not forgetting to favour the
+little ones, and she thought it strange that they could distinguish her
+from the novices. That much they knew of the upper air. The fish watched
+her out of their beady eyes, stirring in their dim atmosphere with a
+strange, finny motion.
+
+At that hour of the day the sun was warm enough to sit out; the little
+shiver in the air was not unpleasant; and sitting on the garden bench,
+she opened her book in a little tremor of excitement. Her thoughts
+fluttered, and she strove to imagine what book the saint could have
+written to justify so beautiful a title. Her expectations were realised.
+The character of the book is clearly defined in the first pages: she
+perceived it to be a complete manual of convent life, a perfect
+compendium of a nun's soul. On its pages lay that shadowy, evanescent
+and hardly apprehensible thing--the soul of a nun, only the soul, not a
+word regarding her daily life: any mother-abbess could have written such
+a materialistic book: St. Teresa, with the instinct of her genius,
+addressed herself to the task which none but she could fulfil--the
+evolution of a nun's soul. And as Evelyn read she marked the passages
+that specially caught her attention.
+
+
+     "Do not imagine, my daughters, that it is useless to pray, as you
+     are constantly praying, for the defenders of the Church: Have a
+     care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it
+     seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves.
+     Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of
+     which I am speaking. Perhaps you fear that it will not go to
+     diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory: I answer
+     that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless.
+     Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer--well,
+     let it be so."
+
+"Oh, to be good like that," she thought. And her soul raised its eyes
+in a little shy emulation.... A few pages further on she read--
+
+
+     "That all may take heed. For neglect of this counsel a nun may find
+     herself in an entanglement from which she may not find strength to
+     free herself. And then, great God! What feebleness, what puerile
+     complaisances this particular friendship may not be the source. It
+     is impossible to say what number, none but an eye-witness may
+     believe. They are but trifles, and I see no reason for specifying
+     them here. I merely add: in whosoever it is found it is an evil, in
+     a superior it is a plague spot....
+
+     "An excellent remedy is to be together only at those times enjoined
+     by the rule, on other occasions to refrain from speech, as is now
+     our custom, and to live separately each in her cell as the rule
+     ordains. And, although it be a praiseworthy custom to unite for
+     work in a community room, I desire that the nuns of the convent of
+     St. Joseph shall be freed from this custom, for it is much easier
+     to keep silence if each works in her cell. Moreover, it is of the
+     first importance to accustom oneself to solitude, in order to
+     advance oneself in prayer; and as prayer should be the mortar of
+     this monastery, we should cherish all that which increases the
+     spirit in us."
+
+Glancing down the pages, her eyes were arrested by a passage of even
+more subtle, more penetrating wisdom.
+
+
+     "Would you know a certain sign, my daughters, by which you may
+     judge of your progress in virtue? Let each one look within herself
+     and discover if she believes herself to be the unworthiest of you
+     all, and if for the benefit of the others she makes it visible by
+     her actions that she really thinks that this is so, that is the
+     certain sign of spiritual advancement, and not delight in prayer,
+     nor ravishment, nor visions, and such like favours which God grants
+     to souls when he is so pleased. We shall only know the value of
+     such favours in the next world. It is not so with
+     humility--humility is a money which is always current, it is safely
+     invested capital, a perpetual income; but extraordinary favours are
+     money which is lent for a time and may at any moment be called in.
+     I repeat, our true treasure is profound humility, great
+     mortification, and an obedience which, seeing God in the superior,
+     submits to his every order."
+
+The saint's delicate yet virile perception, and her power of expressing
+the shadowy and evanescent, filled Evelyn with admiration; and the saint
+appeared to her in the light of a great novelist; she wondered if Balzac
+had ever read these pages.
+
+
+     "The best remedy, in my opinion, that a nun can employ to conquer
+     the imperfect affection which she still bears her parents, is to
+     abstain from seeing them until by patient prayer she has obtained
+     from God the freedom of her soul; when she is so disposed that
+     their visit is a cross, let her see them by all means. For then she
+     will bring good to their souls, and do no harm to her own."
+
+This seemed not a little grim. But how touching is the personal
+confession which appears on the following page.
+
+
+     "My parents loved me extremely, according to what they said, and I
+     loved them in a way that did not allow them to forget me.
+     Nevertheless I have seen from what has happened to me, and what has
+     happened to other nuns, how little we may count upon their
+     affection for us."
+
+The unselfishness of such conduct seemed open to doubt. But
+unselfishness is a word that none may speak without calling into
+question the entire conduct of his or her life. Evelyn remembered that
+she had left her father for the sake of her voice, and that she had
+refused to marry Owen because marriage, especially marriage with Owen,
+did not seem compatible with her soul's safety. Looked at from a certain
+side, her life did seem self-centred, but allowance, she thought, must
+be made for the difficulties--the entanglements in which the first false
+step had involved her. But in any case she must not question the
+efficacy of prayer, that was a dogma of the Church. The mission of the
+contemplative orders is to pray for those who do not pray for
+themselves, and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer, we need not
+scruple to leave our parents to live in a monastery where, by our
+prayers, we held them to eternal salvation. We leave them for a little
+while, but only that we may live with them for ever.
+
+
+     "Believe me, my dear sisters, if you serve him well you will not
+     find better parents than those the Divine Master sends you. I know
+     that it is even so."
+
+"What beauty there is in her sternness," Evelyn thought.
+
+
+     "I repeat that those whose trend is toward worldly things and who
+     do not make progress in virtue, shall leave this monastery; should
+     she persist in remaining a nun let her enter another convent; for
+     if she doesn't she will see what will happen to her. Nor must she
+     complain about me; nor accuse me of not having make known to her
+     the practical life of the monastery I founded. If there is an
+     earthly paradise it is in this house, but only for souls who desire
+     nothing but to please God, who have no thought for themselves; for
+     these the life here is infinitely agreeable."
+
+This passage is one of the very few in which appears the wise, practical
+woman, the founder of an order and of many monasteries, who lived side by
+side in the same body, the constant associate of the lyrical saint.
+Evelyn tried to picture her to herself, and two pictures alternated in
+her thoughts. She saw deep, eager, passionate eyes, and a frail,
+exhausted body borne along easily by the soul, and doing the work of the
+unconquerable soul. In the second picture, there were the same consuming
+eyes, the same wasted body, but the expression was quite different. The
+saint's manner was the liveliest, happiest manner, and Evelyn thought of
+the privilege of such companionship, and she envied those who had walked
+with her, hearing her speak.
+
+The little pond at her feet was full of fair reflections of the sky and
+trees, and the idea of convent life lay on the pages of the book even as
+fair. In itself it was disparate and vague, but on the pages of the book
+it floated clear and distinct. She asked if any of the Wimbledon nuns
+lived a life of that intense inward rapture which St. Teresa deemed
+essential if a sister were to be allowed to remain in the convent of St.
+Joseph at Avila, and the coincidence of the names gave her pause. This
+convent's patron saint was St. Joseph, and she sought for some
+resemblance between the Reverend Mother and St. Teresa. She wondered if
+she, Evelyn, were a nun, towards which of the nuns would her personal
+sympathies incline: would she love better Sister Veronica or Sister Mary
+John? It might be Mother Mary Hilda. It would be one of the three. There
+was not one among the others likely to interest her in the least. She
+tried to imagine this friendship: it assumed a vague shape and then
+dissolved in the distance. But would the Reverend Mother tolerate this
+friendship, or would it be promptly cut down to the root according to
+the advice of St. Teresa?
+
+Her thoughts pursued their way, now and then splashing as they leaped
+out of the soul's dimness. Only the splashing of the fish broke the
+stillness of the garden, and startled at a sudden gurgling sound, she
+rose, in time to see a shadowy shape sinking with a motion of fins amid
+the weeds. That she should be living in a convent, that she should have
+repented of her sins, that the fish should leap and fall back with
+strange, gurgling sound, filled her with wonderment. The vague autumn
+blue expressed some vague yearning, some indistinct aspiration; the air
+was like crystal, the leaves were falling.... We have perceptions of the
+outer forms of things, but that is all we know of them. The only thing
+we are sure of is what is in ourselves. We know the difference between
+right and wrong. She stood for a long time at the edge of the fish pond,
+gazing into the vague depths. Then she walked, exalted, overcome by the
+mystery of things. She seemed to walk upon air, the world was a-thrill
+with spiritual significances, all was symbol and exaltation. Her past
+life shrank to a tiny speck, and she knew that she had been happy only
+since she had been in the convent. Ah, that little chapel, haunted by
+prayers! it breathed prayer, in that chapel contemplation was never far
+off. She had prayed there as she had never prayed before, and she
+wondered if she should attribute the difference in her prayers to the
+chapel or to herself. She had always felt, in a dumb, instinctive way,
+that to her at least everything depended on her chastity.... She had
+been chaste now a long while. The explanation seemed to have come to
+her. Yes, it is by denial of the sexual instinct that we become
+religious.
+
+As she passed through the orchard she caught sight of the strange little
+person whom she had seen in chapel with a pile of prayer books beside
+her, and who always wore something startlingly blue, whether skirt,
+handkerchief or cloak. She had met her in the garden before, but she had
+hurried away, her eyes fixed on the ground. Mother Philippa had spoken
+of a Miss Dingle, a simple-minded person who had been sent by her family
+to the convent to be looked after by the nuns, and Evelyn concluded that
+it must be she. But at that moment other thoughts engaged her attention;
+and she lingered in the orchard, returning slowly by St. Peter's walk.
+As she passed the Georgian temple or summer-house, she was taken by a
+desire to examine it, and there she found Miss Dingle. She was seated on
+the floor, engaged, so Evelyn thought, in a surreptitious game of
+Patience. That was only how she could account for Miss Dingle's
+consternation and fear at seeing her. But what she had taken for cards
+were pious pictures. Evelyn stood in the doorway, and for the first time
+had an opportunity of seeing what Miss Dingle was really like. It was
+difficult to say whether her face was ugly or pretty; the features were
+not amiss--it was the expression, vague and dim like that of an animal,
+that puzzled Evelyn.
+
+"Please let me help you to pick up your pictures." Miss Dingle did not
+answer, and Evelyn feared for a moment that she had offended her. "Won't
+you let me help you to pick up your pictures?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "you may help me to pick them up, but you must be very
+quick."
+
+"But why must I be quick? Are you in such a very great hurry?"
+
+Miss Dingle seemed uncertain of her own thoughts, and to reassure her,
+Evelyn asked her if she would not like to walk with her in the orchard.
+
+"Oh," she said, looking at Evelyn shyly--it was a sort of child-like
+curiosity, "I dare not go into the orchard to-day.... I brought these
+pictures to keep him from me. I know that he is about."
+
+"Who is about?"
+
+"I'm afraid he might hurt me."
+
+"But who would hurt you?"
+
+"Well," she said cautiously, "perhaps he'd be afraid to come near me
+to-day," and she glanced at her frock. "But I'm sure he's about. Did
+you see any one as you came through the furze bushes?"
+
+"No," Evelyn answered; and trying to conceal her astonishment, she said,
+"I'm sure there's no one there."
+
+"Ah, he knows it would be useless." She glanced again at her frock. "You
+see my blue skirt, that has perhaps frightened him away."
+
+"But who has gone away?"
+
+"Oh, the devil is always about."
+
+"But you don't think he would hurt you?"
+
+Miss Dingle looked suspiciously at Evelyn, and some dim thought whether
+Evelyn was the devil in disguise must have crossed her mind. But
+whatever the thought was, it was but a flitting thought; it passed in a
+moment, and Miss Dingle said--"But the devil is always trying to hurt
+us. That is what he comes for."
+
+"So that is why you surrounded yourself with pious pictures--to keep him
+away?"
+
+Miss Dingle nodded.
+
+"What a nice dress you have on. I suppose you like blue. I always notice
+you wear it."
+
+"I wear blue, as much blue as I can, for blue is the colour of the
+Virgin Mary, and he dare not attack me while I have it on. But I wear
+sometimes only a handkerchief, sometimes only a skirt, but now that he
+is about so frequently, I have to dress entirely in blue."
+
+Evelyn asked her if she had lived in the convent long, and Miss Dingle
+told her she had lived there for the last three or four years, but she
+would give no precise answer when Evelyn asked if she hoped to become a
+nun, or whether she liked her home or the convent the better.
+
+"Now," she said, "I must really go and say some prayers in the church."
+
+Evelyn offered to accompany her, but she said she was well armed, and
+showed Evelyn several rosaries, which in case of need she would wave in
+his face.
+
+Sister Mary John was digging in the kitchen garden, and Evelyn told her
+how she had come upon Miss Dingle in the summer-house surrounded by
+pious pictures. Leaning on her spade, Sister Mary John looked across the
+beds thinking, and Evelyn wondered of what. She said at last that Miss
+Dingle thought too much of the devil.
+
+"We should not waste thoughts on him, all our thoughts should be for
+God; there is much more pleasure and profit in such thoughts."
+
+"But it does seem a little absurd to imagine that the devil is hiding
+behind gooseberry bushes."
+
+"The devil is everywhere, temptation is always near."
+
+Evelyn saw that the nun did not care for discussion on the subject of
+the devil's objectivity, and in the pause in the conversation she
+noticed Sister Mary John's enormous boots. They looked like a man's
+boots, and she had a full view of them, for Sister Mary John wore her
+skirt very short, so that she might be able to dig with greater ease.
+
+"One of the disadvantages of convent life are the few facilities it
+affords for exercise and for music," she added, with her beautiful
+smile. "I must have exercise, I can't live without it.... It is
+extraordinary how differently people are constituted. There is Mother
+Mary Hilda, she had never been for what I should call a good sharp walk
+in her life, and she does not know what an ache or a pain is."
+
+The nun pointed with admiration to the bed which she had dug up that
+morning, and complained of the laziness of the gardener: he had not done
+this nor that, but he was such a good man--since he became a Catholic.
+
+"He and I used to talk about things while we were at work: he said that
+he had never had it properly explained to him that there should only be
+one true religion.
+
+"Since he became a Catholic, has he not done as much work as he used to
+do?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid he has not," Sister Mary John answered. "Indeed, we have
+been thinking of sending him away, but it would be difficult for him to
+get another Catholic situation, and his faith would be endangered if he
+lived among Protestants."
+
+At this moment they were interrupted by a loud caw, and looking round,
+Evelyn saw the convent jackdaw. The bird had hopped within a few yards,
+cawing all the while, evidently desirous of attracting their attention.
+With grey head a-slanted, the bird watched them out of sly eyes. "Pay no
+attention to him; you'll see what he'll do," said Sister Mary John, and
+while Evelyn waited, a little afraid of the bird who seemingly had
+selected her for some purpose of his own, she listened to the story of
+his domestication. He had been hatched out in the hen-house, and had
+tamed himself; he had declined to go wild, preferring a sage convent
+life to the irregularity of the world. The bird hopped about, feigning
+an interest in the worms, but getting gradually nearer the two women. At
+last, with a triumphant caw caw, he flew on to Sister Mary John's
+shoulder, eyeing Evelyn all the while, clearly bent on making her
+acquaintance.
+
+"He'll come on your shoulder presently," said Sister Mary John, and
+after some plausive coquetting the bird fluttered on to Evelyn's
+shoulder, and Sister Mary John said--
+
+"You wait; you'll see what he will do."
+
+Evelyn remained quite still, feeling the bird's bill caressing her neck.
+When she looked round she noticed a wicked expression gathering in his
+eyes.
+
+"Pretend," said Sister Mary John, "not to see him."
+
+Evelyn did as she was bidden, and, satisfied that he was no longer
+observed, the bird plunged his beak into Evelyn's hair, pulled at it as
+hard as he could, and then flew away, cawing with delight.
+
+"That is one of his favourite tricks. We are so fond of him, and so
+afraid that one day a cat will take him. But there is Mother Mary Hilda
+coming to fetch you for your lesson."
+
+Evelyn bade Sister Mary John good-bye, and went forward to meet her
+instructress.
+
+The morning seemed full of adventure. There were Miss Dingle, her pious
+pictures, and the devil behind the gooseberry bushes. There was the
+picturesque figure of Sister Mary John, digging, making ready for the
+winter cabbages. There was the jackdaw, his story and his humours, and
+there was her discovery of the genius of St. Teresa. All these things
+had happened that morning, and Evelyn walked a little elated, her heart
+full of spiritual enthusiasm. The project was already astir in her for
+the acquisition of an edition in the original Spanish, and she looked
+forward to a study of that language as a pleasant and suitable
+occupation when she returned to London. She questioned Mother Mary Hilda
+regarding the merits of the English translation; the French, she said,
+she could read no longer. She described the worthy father's prose as
+asthmatic; she laughed at his long, wheezy sentences, but Sister Mary
+Hilda seemed inclined to set store on the Jesuit's pious intentions. The
+spirit was more essential than the form, and it was with this argument
+on their lips they sat down to the Latin lesson. The nun had opened the
+book, and Evelyn was about to read the first sentence, when, raising her
+eyes and voice, she said--
+
+"Oh! Mother Mary Hilda, you've forgotten ... this is my last lesson, I
+am going away to-morrow."
+
+"Even so it need not be the last lesson; you will come and see us during
+the winter, if you are in London. I don't remember that you said that
+you are going abroad to sing."
+
+"Mother Mary Hilda, I'm thinking of leaving the stage."
+
+The nun turned the leaves of the breviary, and it seemed to Evelyn that
+she dreaded the intrusion on her thoughts of a side of life the very
+existence of which she had almost succeeded in forgetting; and, feeling
+a little humbled, Evelyn applied herself to the lesson. And it was just
+as Mary Hilda's hand closed the books that the door opened and the
+Reverend Mother entered, bringing, it seemed, a new idea and a new
+conception of life into the room. Mother Mary Hilda gathered up her
+books, and having answered the Reverend Mother's questions in her own
+blithe voice, each word illuminated by the happy smile which Evelyn
+thought so beautiful, withdrew like an apparition.
+
+The Reverend Mother took the place that Mother Mary Hilda had left, and
+by her very manner of sitting down, showed that she had come on some
+special intention.
+
+"Miss Innes, I have come to ask you not to leave to-morrow. If you are
+not already tired of our life, it would give us great pleasure if you
+would stay with us till Monday."
+
+"It is very good of you to ask me to stay, I have been very happy;
+indeed, I dread returning; it is difficult to return to the life of the
+world after having seen what your life is here."
+
+"We should only be too happy if you will prolong your stay. You are free
+to remain as long as you please."
+
+"Thank you, Reverend Mother, it is very good of you, but I cannot live
+here in idleness, walking about the garden. What should I do if it were
+to rain?"
+
+"It looks like rain to-day. We have had a long term of fine weather."
+
+The nun's old white hand lay on the table, a little crippled, but still
+a nervous, determined hand, and the pale, sparkling eyes looked so deep
+into the enigma of Evelyn's soul that she lost her presence of mind; her
+breath came more quickly, and she hastily remembered that this retreat
+now drawing to a close had solved nothing, that the real solution of her
+life was as far off as ever.
+
+"Then I may take it that you will stay with us till Monday. I will not
+weary you with our repeated thanks for what you have done for us. You
+know that we are very grateful, and shall never forget you in our
+prayers, but you will not mind my thanking you again for the pleasure
+your singing has given us. You have sung every day. You really have been
+very kind."
+
+"I beg of you not to mention it, Reverend Mother; to sing for you and
+all the dear sisters was a great pleasure to me. I never enjoyed singing
+in a theatre so much."
+
+"I am glad you have enjoyed your stay, Miss Innes. Your room will always
+be ready. I hope you will often come to see us."
+
+"It will be a great advantage for me to come and stay with you from time
+to time." Neither spoke for a time, then Evelyn said, "Reverend Mother,
+is it not strange that I should have come back to this convent, my old
+convent? I never forgot it. I often wondered if I should come here
+again. When I was here before, it was just as now; it was in a great
+crisis of my life. It was just before I left home, just before I went to
+Paris to learn singing. I don't know if Monsignor has told you that I
+have decided to leave the stage."
+
+"Monsignor has entrusted you to me, and I should like to count you as
+one of my children. All the nuns tell me their little troubles. Though I
+have guessed there must be some great trouble in your life, I should
+like you to feel that you can tell me everything, if to do so can be the
+least help to you."
+
+Evelyn's eyes brightened, and, trembling with emotion, she leaned across
+the table; the Reverend Mother took her hand, and the touch of that old
+benign hand was a delight, and she felt that she must confide her story.
+
+"I have been several times on the point of speaking to you on the
+subject of my past, for if I am to come here again I feel that you
+should know something about me. But how to tell it. I had thought of
+asking Father Daly to tell you. To-day is your day for confession, but
+last week I confessed to Monsignor, and do not like to submit myself to
+another director. Do you understand?"
+
+"Father Daly is an excellent, worthy man, the convent is under the
+greatest obligations to him, but I could not recommend him as a very
+enlightened director of souls. That is why the nuns tell me all their
+troubles. I should like you to feel that you can tell me everything."
+
+"Reverend Mother, if you did not pass from the schoolroom to the convent
+like Veronica, you will have heard, you must know, that the life of an
+opera singer is generally a sinful life. I was very young at the time,
+only one-and-twenty. I knew that I had a beautiful voice, and that my
+father could not teach me to sing. But it was not for self-interest that
+I left him; I was genuinely in love with Sir Owen Asher. He was very
+good to me; he wanted to marry me; from the world's point of view I was
+very successful, but I was never happy. I felt that I was living a
+sinful life, and we cannot go on doing what we feel to be wrong and
+still be happy. Night after night I could not sleep. My conscience kept
+me awake. I strove against the inevitable, for it is very difficult to
+change one's life from end to end, but there was no help for it."
+
+Her story, as she told it, seemed to her very wonderful, more wonderful
+than she had thought it was, and she would have liked to have told the
+Reverend Mother all the torment and anguish of mind she had gone
+through. But she felt that she was on very thin ice, and trembled
+inwardly lest she was shocking the nun.
+
+It was exciting to tell that it was her visit to the convent that had
+brought about her repentance; how that very night her eyes had opened at
+dawn, and she had seen clearly the wickedness of her life, and she could
+not refrain from saying that it was Owen Asher's last letter, in which
+he said that at all hazards he would save her from losing herself in
+religion, that had sent her to Monsignor for advice. She noticed her
+omission of all mention of Ulick, and it seemed to her strange that she
+could still be interested in her sins, and at the same time genuinely
+determined to reform her life. The nun sat looking at her, thinking what
+answer she should make, and Evelyn wondered what that answer would be.
+
+"We shall pray for you.... You will not fall into sin again; it is our
+prayers that enable men to overcome their passions. Were it not for our
+prayers, God would have long ago destroyed the world. Think of the times
+of persecution and sacrilege, when prayer only survived in the
+monasteries."
+
+Evelyn could not but acquiesce: a world without prayer would be an
+intolerable world, as unendurable to man as to God. But if the Reverend
+Mother's explanation were a true one! If these poor forsakers of the
+world were in truth the saviours of the world, without whose aid the
+world would have perished long since!
+
+When she had gone, Evelyn sat thinking, her head leaned on her hand, her
+eyes fixed on the distant garden, seeing life from afar, strange and
+distant, like reflections in still waters. She could see distant figures
+in St. Peter's walk, tending the crosses and the statues of the Virgin
+placed in nooks, or hanging on the branches. Some four or five nuns were
+playing at ball on the terrace, and in the plaintive autumn afternoon,
+there was something extraordinarily touching in their simple amusement;
+and she had, perforce, to feel how much wiser was their childishness
+than the vanity of the world.
+
+Ulick had said that their adventure was the same, only their ways were
+different. He had said that he sought God in art, while she sought him
+in dogma. But if she accepted dogma, it was only as a cripple accepts a
+crutch, Catholicism was essential to her, without it she could not walk;
+but while conforming to dogma, it seemed possible to transcend its
+narrowness, and to attach to every petty belief a spiritual
+significance. It is right that we should acquiesce in these beliefs, for
+they are the symbols by which the faith was kept alive and handed down.
+God leads us by different ways, and though we may prefer to worship God
+in the open air, we should not despise him who builds a house for
+worship. The Real Being is all that we are sure of, for He is in our
+hearts, the rest is as little shadows. Ulick had quoted an Eastern
+mystic--'He that sees himself sees God, and in him there is neither I
+nor thou.'
+
+And, reflecting on the significance of these words, she turned with
+pensive fingers the leaves of _The Way of Perfection_.
+
+But she was going back to London on Monday! In London she would meet
+Owen and all her former life. She knew in a way how she was going to
+escape him. But her former life was everywhere. She got up and walked
+about the room, then she stood at the window, her hands held behind her
+back. She was sorely tried, and felt so weak in spirit that she was
+tempted, or fancied that she was tempted, to go away with Owen in the
+_Medusa_. Or she might tell him that she would marry him, and so end the
+whole matter. But she knew that she would do neither of these things.
+She knew that she would sacrifice Owen and her career as an opera singer
+so that she might lead a chaste life. Yet a life of prayer and chastity
+was not natural to her; her natural preferences were for lovers and
+worldly pleasures, but she was sacrificing all that she liked for all
+that she disliked. She wondered, quite unable to account for her choice
+to herself. Her life seemed very mad, but, mad or sane, she was going to
+sacrifice Owen and her career. She might sing at concerts, but she did
+not think such singing would mean much to her and she thought of the
+splendid successful life that lay before her if she remained on the
+stage. Again she wondered at her choice, seeking in herself the reason
+that impelled her to do what she was doing. She could not say that she
+liked living with her father in Dulwich, nor did she look forward to
+giving singing lessons, and yet that was what she was going to do. She
+strove to distinguish her soul; it seemed flying before her like a bird,
+making straight for some goal which she could not distinguish. She could
+distinguish its wings in the blue air, and then she lost sight of them;
+then she caught sight of them again, and they were then no more than a
+tremulous sparkle in the air. Suddenly the vision vanished, and she
+found herself face to face with herself--her prosaic self which she had
+known always, and would know until she ceased to know everything. She
+was here in the Wimbledon Convent, and Owen was in London waiting for
+her. She knew she never would live with him again. But how would she
+finally separate herself from him? How would it all come about? She
+could imagine herself yielding, but if she did, it would not last a
+week. Her life would be unendurable, and she would have to send him
+away. For it is not true that Tannhäuser goes back to Venus. He who
+repents, he who had once felt the ache and remorse of sin, may fall into
+sin again, but he quickly extricates himself; his sinning is of no long
+duration! It was the casual sin that she dreaded; at the bottom of her
+heart she knew that she would never live a life of sin again. But she
+trembled at the thought of losing the perfect peace and happiness which
+now reigned in her heart, even for a few hours. Her face contracted in
+an expression of terror at the thought of finding herself again involved
+in the anguish, revolt and despair which she had endured in Park Lane.
+She recalled the moments when she saw herself vile and loathsome, when
+she had turned from the image of her soul which had been shown to her.
+Then, to rid herself of the remembrance, she thought of the joy she had
+experienced that morning at hearing in the creed that God's kingdom
+shall never pass away. Her soul had kindled like a flame, and she had
+praised God, crying to herself, "Thy kingdom shall last for ever and
+ever." It had seemed to her that her soul had acquired kingship over all
+her faculties, over all her senses, for the time being it had ruled her
+utterly; and so delicious was its subjection that she had not dared to
+move lest she should lose this sweet peace. Her lips had murmured an Our
+Father, but so slowly that the Sanctus bell had rung before she had
+finished it. Nothing troubled her, nothing seemed capable of troubling
+her, and the torrent of delight which had flowed into and gently
+overflowed her soul had intoxicated and absorbed her until it had seemed
+to her that there was nothing further for her to desire.
+
+She remembered that when Mass was over she had risen from her knees
+elated, feeling that she had prayed even as the nuns prayed, and she had
+retired to her room, striving to restrain her looks and thoughts so that
+she might prolong this union with God.
+
+To remember this experience gave her courage. For she could not doubt
+that the intention of so special a favour was to convince her that she
+would not be lacking in courage when the time came to deny herself to
+Owen Asher. At the same time she was troubled, and she feared that she
+was not quite sincere with herself. She would easily resist him now; but
+in six months' time, in a year? Besides, she would meet other men; her
+thoughts even now went out towards one. Ah! wretched weakness,
+abominable sin! She was filled with contempt for herself, and yet at the
+bottom of her heart, like hope at the bottom of Pandora's box, there was
+tolerance. Her sins interested her; she would not be herself without
+them, and this being so, how could she hope to conquer herself?
+
+Saturday and Sunday were monotonous and anxious days. She had begun to
+wonder what was in the newspapers, and she had written to say that her
+carriage was to come to fetch her on Monday at three o'clock.
+
+There had not been a gleam of light since early morning, only a gentle
+diffused twilight, and the foliage in the garden was almost human in its
+listlessness; a flat grey sky hung about the trees like a shroud. Mother
+Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda were walking with her about the
+grass-grown drive. They were waiting for the Reverend Mother, who had
+gone to fetch a medal for Evelyn. She heard her chestnuts champing their
+bits ready to take her back to London, and she could not listen to
+Mother Philippa's conversation, for she had been suddenly taken with a
+desire to say one last prayer in the chapel. She must say one more
+prayer in the presence of the Sacrament. So, excusing herself, she ran
+back, and, kneeling down, she buried her face in her hands. At once all
+her thoughts hushed within her; it was like bees entering a hive to make
+honey. Prayer came to her without difficulty, without even asking, and
+she enjoyed almost five minutes' breathless adoration.
+
+The three nuns kissed her, and as the Reverend Mother hung the medal
+round her neck, she told her that prayers would be constantly offered up
+for her preservation. The chestnuts plunged at starting.... If she were
+killed now it would not matter. But the horses soon settled down into
+their long swinging trot of ten miles an hour, and all the way to London
+she reflected. The Reverend Mother had said that the prayers of nuns and
+monks were the wall and bastion tower which saved a sinful world from
+the wrath of God, and she thought of the fume of prayer ascending night
+and day from this convent as from a censer. Men had always prayed, since
+the beginning of things men had prayed, and as Ulick had said, wisdom
+was not invented yesterday. He agreed with the naturalistic philosophers
+that force is indestructible, only objecting that the naturalistic
+philosophers did not go far enough, the theory of the indestructibility
+of force being equally applicable to the spiritual world. The world
+exists not in itself, but in man's thought.... Often an intense
+evocation has brought the absent one before the seer's eyes, and that
+there are sympathies which transcend and overrule the laws of time and
+space hardly admits of doubt. Life is but a continual hypnotism; and the
+thoughts of others reach us from every side, determining in some measure
+our actions. It was therefore certain that she would be influenced by
+the prayers that would be offered up for her by the convent. She
+imagined these prayers intervening between her and sin, coming to her
+aid in some moment of perilous temptation, and perhaps in the end
+determining the course of her life.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+_Printed and Made in Great Britain by
+The Crypt House Press Limited
+Gloucester and London_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Evelyn Innes, by George Moore
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+    "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Evelyn Innes, by George Moore.
+    </title>
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Evelyn Innes, by George Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Evelyn Innes
+
+Author: George Moore
+
+Release Date: August 17, 2004 [EBook #13201]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVELYN INNES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_ONE'><b>CHAPTER ONE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWO'><b>CHAPTER TWO</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THREE'><b>CHAPTER THREE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_FOUR'><b>CHAPTER FOUR</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_FIVE'><b>CHAPTER FIVE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_SIX'><b>CHAPTER SIX</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_SEVEN'><b>CHAPTER SEVEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_EIGHT'><b>CHAPTER EIGHT</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_NINE'><b>CHAPTER NINE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TEN'><b>CHAPTER TEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_ELEVEN'><b>CHAPTER ELEVEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWELVE'><b>CHAPTER TWELVE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THIRTEEN'><b>CHAPTER THIRTEEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_FOURTEEN'><b>CHAPTER FOURTEEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_FIFTEEN'><b>CHAPTER FIFTEEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_SIXTEEN'><b>CHAPTER SIXTEEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_SEVENTEEN'><b>CHAPTER SEVENTEEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_EIGHTEEN'><b>CHAPTER EIGHTEEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_NINETEEN'><b>CHAPTER NINETEEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_ONE'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_TWO'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_THREE'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_FOUR'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_FIVE'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_SIX'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_SEVEN'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_EIGHT'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_TWENTY_NINE'><b>CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THIRTY'><b>CHAPTER THIRTY</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THIRTY_ONE'><b>CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THIRTY_TWO'><b>CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THIRTY_THREE'><b>CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THIRTY_FOUR'><b>CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#CHAPTER_THIRTY_FIVE'><b>CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE</b></a><br />
+ <a href='#THE_END'><b>THE END</b></a><br />
+
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h3>BENN'S ESSEX LIBRARY</h3>
+
+<h3><i>Edited by Edward G. Hawke, M.A.</i></h3>
+<br />
+
+
+<h1>EVELYN INNES</h1>
+<br />
+
+<h2>GEORGE MOORE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<center><p><i>First published</i> 1898</p>
+
+<p><i>Reprinted (Essex Library</i>) 1929</p></center>
+
+
+<center><i>To<br />
+Arthur Symons and W.B. Yeats<br />
+Two contemporary writers<br />
+with whom<br />
+I am in sympathy</i><br /></center>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_ONE'></a><h2>CHAPTER ONE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The thin winter day had died early, and at four o'clock it was dark
+night in the long room in which Mr. Innes gave his concerts of early
+music. An Elizabethan virginal had come to him to be repaired, and he
+had worked all the afternoon, and when overtaken by the dusk, he had
+impatiently sought a candle end, lit it, and placed it so that its light
+fell upon the jacks.... Only one more remained to be adjusted. He picked
+it up, touched the quill and dropped it into its place, rapidly tuned
+the instrument, and ran his fingers over the keys.</p>
+
+<p>Iron-grey hair hung in thick locks over his forehead, and, shining
+through their shadows, his eyes drew attention from the rest of his
+face, so that none noticed at first the small and firmly cut nose, nor
+the scanty growth of beard twisted to a point by a movement habitual to
+the weak, white hand. His face was in his eyes: they reflected the flame
+of faith and of mission; they were the eyes of one whom fate had thrown
+on an obscure wayside of dreams, the face of a dreamer and propagandist
+of old-time music and its instruments. He sat at the virginal, like one
+who loved its old design and sweet tone, in such strict keeping with the
+music he was playing&mdash;a piece by W. Byrd, &quot;John, come kiss me now&quot;&mdash;and
+when it was finished, his fingers strayed into another, &quot;Nancie,&quot; by
+Thomas Morley. His hands moved over the keyboard softly, as if they
+loved it, and his thoughts, though deep in the gentle music, entertained
+casual admiration of the sixteenth century organ, which had lately come
+into his possession, and which he could see at the end of the room on a
+slightly raised platform. Its beautiful shape, and the shape of the old
+instruments, vaguely perceived, lent an enchantment to the darkness. In
+the corner was a viola da gamba, and against the walls a harpsichord and
+a clavichord.</p>
+
+<p>Above the virginal on which Mr. Innes was playing there hung a portrait
+of a woman, and, happening to look up, a sudden memory came upon him,
+and he began to play an aria out of <i>Don Giovanni</i>. But he stopped
+before many bars, and holding the candle end high, so that he could see
+the face, continued the melody with his right hand. To see her lips and
+to strike the notes was almost like hearing her sing it again. Her voice
+came to him through many years, from the first evening he had heard her
+sing at La Scala. Then he was a young man spending a holiday in Italy,
+and she had made his fortune for the time by singing one of his songs.
+They were married in Italy, and at the end of some months they had gone
+to Paris and to Brussels, where Mrs. Innes had engagements to fulfil. It
+was in Brussels that she had lost her voice. For a long while it was
+believed that she might recover it, but these hopes proved illusory,
+and, in trying to regain what she had lost irrevocably, the money she
+had earned dwindled to a last few hundred pounds. The Innes had returned
+to London, and, with a baby-daughter, settled in Dulwich. Mr. Innes
+accepted the post of organist at St. Joseph's, the parish church in
+Southwark, and Mrs. Innes had begun her singing classes.</p>
+
+<p>Her reputation as a singer favoured her, and an aptitude for teaching
+enabled her to maintain, for many years, a distinguished position in the
+musical world. Mr. Innes's abilities contributed to their success, and
+he might have become a famous London organist if he had devoted himself
+to the instrument. But one day seeing in a book the words &quot;viola
+d'amore,&quot; he fancied he would like to possess an instrument with such a
+name. The instrument demanded the music that had been written for it.
+Byrd's beautiful vocal Mass had led him to Palestrina and Vittoria, and
+these wakened in him dreams of a sufficient choir at St. Joseph's for a
+revival of their works.</p>
+
+<p>So when Evelyn clambered on her father's knee, it was to learn the
+chants that he hummed from old manuscripts and missals, and it was the
+contrapuntal fancies of the Elizabethan composers that he gave her to
+play on the virginal, or the preludes of Bach on the clavichord. Her
+infantile graces at these instruments were the delight and amazement of
+her parents. She warbled this old-time music as other children do the
+vulgar songs of the hour; she seemed less anxious to learn the operatic
+music which she heard in her mother's class-rooms, and there was a shade
+of uneasiness in Mrs. Innes's admiration of the beauty of Evelyn's
+taste; but Mr. Innes said that it was better that her first love should
+be for the best, and he could not help hoping that it would not be with
+the airs of <i>Lucia</i> and <i>Traviata</i> that she would become famous. As if
+in answer, the child began to hum the celebrated waltz, a moment after a
+beautiful Ave Maria, composed by a Fleming at the end of the fifteenth
+century, a quick, sobbing rhythm, expressive of na&iuml;ve petulance at delay
+in the Virgin's intercession. Mr. Innes called it natural music&mdash;music
+which the modern Church abhorred and shamefully ostracised; and the
+conversation turned on the incurably bad taste and the musical misdeeds
+of a certain priest, Father Gordon, whom Mr. Innes judged to be
+responsible for all the bad music to be heard at St. Joseph's.</p>
+
+<p>For Mr. Innes's ambition was to restore the liturgical chants of the
+early centuries, from John Ockeghem, the Flemish silver-smith of Louis
+XI., whose recreation it was to compose motets, to Thomas da Vittoria;
+and, after having made known the works of Palestrina and of those who
+gravitated around the great Roman composer, he hoped to disinter the
+masses of Orlando di Lasso, of Goudimel and Josquin des Pr&egrave;s, the motets
+of Nannini, of Felice Anerio, of Clemens non Papa.... He would go still
+further back. For before this music was the plain chant or Gregorian,
+bequeathed to us by the early Church, coming down to her, perhaps, from
+Egyptian civilisation, the mother of all art and all religion, an
+incomparable treasure which unworthy inheritors have mutilated for
+centuries. It was Mr. Innes's belief that the supple, free melody of the
+Gregorian was lost in the shouting of operatic tenors and organ
+accompaniments. The tradition of its true interpretation had been lost,
+and the text itself, but by long study of ancient missals, Mr. Innes had
+penetrated the secret of the ancient notation, vague as the eyeballs of
+the blind, and in the absence of a choir that could read this strange
+alphabet of sound, he cherished a plan for an edition of these old
+chants, re-written by him into the ordinary notation of our day. But
+impassable obstacles intervened: the apathy and indifference of the
+Jesuits, and their fear lest such radical innovations should prove
+unpopular and divert the congregation of St. Joseph's elsewhere. He had
+abandoned hope of converting them from their error, but he was confident
+that reaction was preparing against the jovialities of Rossini, whose
+<i>Stabat Mater</i>, he said, still desecrated Good Friday, and against the
+erotics of M. Gounod and his suite. And this inevitable reaction Mr.
+Innes strove to advance by his pupils. Many became disciples and helped
+to preach the new musical gospel. He induced them to learn the old
+instruments, and among them found material for his concerts. Though a
+weak man in practical conduct, he was steadfast in his ideas. His
+concerts had begun to attract a little attention; he was receiving
+support from some rich amateurs, and was able to continue his propaganda
+under the noses of the worthy fathers in whose church he was now
+serving, but where he knew that one day he would be master.</p>
+
+<p>But, unfortunately, Mr. Innes could only give a small part of his time
+to these concerts. Notwithstanding his persuasiveness, there remained on
+his hands some intractable pupils who would not hear of viol or
+harpsichord, who insisted upon being taught to play modern masses on the
+organ, and these he could not afford to refuse. For of late years his
+wife's failing health had forced her to relinquish teaching, and the
+burden of earning their living had fallen entirely upon him. She hoped
+that a long rest might improve her in health, and that in some
+months&mdash;six, she imagined as a sufficient interval&mdash;she would be able to
+undertake in full earnestness her daughter's education. To do this had
+become her dearest wish; for there could now be little doubt that Evelyn
+had inherited her voice, the same beautiful quality and fluency in
+vocalisation; and thinking of it, Mrs. Innes held out her hands and
+looked at them, striving to read in them the progress of her illness.
+Evelyn wondered why, just at that moment, her father had turned from the
+bedside overcome by sudden tears. But whoever dies, life goes on the
+same, our interests and necessities brook little interference.
+Meal-times are always fixed times, and when father and daughter met in
+the parlour&mdash;it was just below the room in which Mrs. Innes was
+dying&mdash;Evelyn asked why her mother had looked at her hands so
+significantly.</p>
+
+<p>He said that it was thus her mother foreshadowed Violetta's death, when
+Armand's visit is announced to her.</p>
+
+<p>In the silence which followed this explanation their souls seemed to say
+what their lips could not. Sympathies and perceptions hitherto dormant
+were awakened; he recognised in her, and she, in herself, an unsuspected
+inheritance. Her voice she had received from her mother, but all else
+came from her father. She felt his life and character stirring in her,
+and moved as by a new instinct, she sat by his side, holding his hand.
+They sat waiting for the announcement of the death which could not be
+delayed much longer, and each thought of the difference the passing
+would make in their lives! It was her death that had brought them
+together, that had given them a new and mutual life. And in those hours
+their eyes had seemed to seal a compact of love and fealty.</p>
+
+<p>This was three years ago; but since Mrs. Innes's death very little had
+been done with Evelyn's voice. The Jesuits had spent money in increasing
+their choir and orchestra, and Mr. Innes was constantly rehearsing the
+latest novelties in religious music. All his spare time was occupied
+with private teaching; and discovering in his daughter a real aptitude
+for the lute, he had taught her that instrument, likewise the viola da
+gamba, for which she soon displayed even more original talent. She
+played both instruments at his concerts, and as several pupils offered
+themselves, he encouraged her to give lessons&mdash;he had made of her an
+excellent musician, able to write fugue and counterpoint; only the
+production of the voice he had neglected. Now and again, in a fit of
+repentance, he had insisted on her singing some scales, but his heart
+was not in the lesson, and it fell through.</p>
+
+<p>He was suspicious that she knew she could not learn singing from him;
+but an avowal of his inability to teach her would necessitate some
+departure from his own ideas, and, like all men with a mission, Mr.
+Innes was deficient in moral courage, and in spite of himself he evaded
+all that did not coincide with the purpose of his life. He loved his
+daughter above everything, except his music, and the thought that he was
+sacrificing her to his ambition afflicted him with cruel assaults of
+conscience. Often he asked himself if he were capable of redeeming his
+promise to his dead wife, or if he shirked the uncongenial labour it
+entailed? And it was this tormenting question that had impelled him to
+light the candle, and raise it so that he could better see his wife's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>Though an indifferent painting, the picture was elaborately like the
+sitter. The pointed oval of the face had been faithfully drawn, and its
+straight nose and small brown eyes were set characteristically in the
+head. Remembering a photograph of his daughter, Mr. Innes fetched it
+from the other end of the room, and stood with it under the portrait, so
+that he could compare both faces, feature by feature. Evelyn's face was
+rounder, her eyes were not deep-set like her mother's; they lay nearly
+on the surface, pools of light illuminating a very white and flower-like
+complexion. The nose was short and high; the line of the chin deflected,
+giving an expression of wistfulness to the face in certain aspects. Her
+father was still bent in examination of the photograph when she entered.
+It was very like her, and at first sight Nature revealed only two more
+significant facts: her height&mdash;she was a tall girl&mdash;and a beautiful
+undulation in her walk, occasioned by the slight droop in her shoulders.
+She was dressed in dark green woollen, with a large hat to match.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, darling! and how have you been getting on?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The vague pathos of his grey face was met by the bright effusion of
+hers, and throwing her arms about him, she kissed him on the cheek.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pretty well, dear; pretty well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only pretty well,&quot; she answered reproachfully. &quot;No one has been here to
+interrupt you; you have had all the afternoon for finishing that
+virginal, and you've only been getting on 'pretty well.' But I see your
+necktie has come undone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then overlooking him from head to foot&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you have been making a day of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, these are my old clothes&mdash;that is glue; don't look at me&mdash;I had an
+accident with the glue-pot; and that's paint. Yes; I must get some new
+shirts, these won't hold a button any longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The conversation paused a few seconds, then running her finger down the
+keys, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it goes admirably.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; I've finished it now; it is an exquisite instrument. I could not
+leave it till it was finished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what are you complaining of, darling? Has Father Gordon been here?
+Has he discovered any new Belgian composer, and does he want all his
+music to be given at St. Joseph's?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; Father Gordon hasn't been here, and as for the Belgian composers,
+there are none left; he has discovered them all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you've been thinking about me, about my voice. That's it,&quot; she
+said, catching sight of her own photograph. &quot;You've been frowning over
+that photograph, thinking&quot;&mdash;her eyes went up to her mother's
+portrait&mdash;&quot;all sorts of nonsense, making yourself miserable, reproaching
+yourself that you do not teach me to vocalise, a thing which you know
+nothing about, or lamenting that you are not rich enough to send me
+abroad, where I could be taught it.&quot; Then, with a pensive note in her
+voice which did not escape him, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As if there was any need to worry. I'm not twenty yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, you're not twenty yet, but you will be very soon. Time is going
+by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, let time go by, I don't care. I'm happy here with you, father. I
+wouldn't go away, even if you had the money to send me. I intend to help
+you make the concerts a success. Then, perhaps, I shall go abroad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His heart went out to his daughter. He was proud of her, and her fine
+nature was a compensation for many disappointments. He took her in his
+arms and thankfully kissed her. She was touched by his emotion, and
+conscious that her eyes were threatening tears, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't stand this gloom. I must have some light. I'll go and get a
+lamp. Besides, it must be getting late. I wonder what kind of a dinner
+Margaret has got for us. I left it to her. A good one, I hope. I'm
+ravenous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after she appeared in the doorway, holding a lamp high,
+the light showing over her white skin and pale gold hair. &quot;Margaret has
+excelled herself&mdash;boiled haddock, melted butter, a neck of mutton and a
+rice pudding. And I have brought back a bag of oranges. Now come,
+darling. You've done enough to that virginal. Run upstairs and wash your
+hands, and remember that the fish is getting cold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was waiting for him in the little back room&mdash;the lamp was on the
+table&mdash;and when they sat down to dinner she began the tale of her day's
+doings. But she hadn't got farther than the fact that they had asked her
+to stay to tea at Queen's Gate, when her tongue, which always went quite
+as fast as her thoughts, betrayed her, and before she was aware, she had
+said that her pupil's sister was in delicate health and that the family
+was going abroad for the winter. This was equivalent to saying she had
+lost a pupil. So she rattled on, hoping that her father would not
+perceive the inference.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There doesn't seem to be much luck about at present,&quot; he said. &quot;That's
+the third pupil you've lost this month.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is unfortunate ... and just as I was beginning to save a little
+money.&quot; A moment after her voice had recovered its habitual note of
+cheerfulness. &quot;Then what do you think I did? An idea struck me; I took
+the omnibus and went straight to St. James's Hall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To St. James's Hall!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you old darling; don't you know that M. Desjardin, the French
+composer, has come over to give a series of concerts. I thought I should
+like him to try my voice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You didn't see him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes I did. When I asked for him, the clerk said, pointing to a
+gentleman coming downstairs, that is Monsieur Desjardin. I went straight
+up to him, and told him who I was, and asked him if he had ever heard of
+mother. Just fancy, he never had; but he seemed interested when I told
+him that everyone said my voice was as good as mother's. We went into
+the hall, and I sang to him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did you sing to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Have you seen but a white lily grow?' and 'Que vous me co&ucirc;tez cher,
+mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! that music must have surprised him. What did he say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think I sang very well, but he seemed pleased, and asked me if
+I knew any modern music. I said 'Very little.' He was surprised at that.
+But he said I had a very fine voice, and sang the old music beautifully,
+but that it would be impossible for me to sing modern music without
+ruining my voice, until I had been taught. I asked him if it would not
+be well to try to earn a little money by concert singing, so that I
+might go abroad later on. He said, 'I am glad that all my arrangements
+are made, otherwise I might be tempted to offer you an engagement. One
+engagement leads to another, and if you sing before your voice is
+properly placed'&mdash;'pos&eacute;e' was the word he used&mdash;'you will ruin it.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that all?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that's all.&quot; Then, noticing the pained look that had come into her
+father's face, she added, &quot;It was nice to hear that he thought well of
+my voice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But she could tell what he was thinking of, and regretting her tongue's
+indiscretion, she tried to divert his thoughts from herself. His
+brooding look continued, and to remove it she had to fetch his pipe and
+tobacco. When he had filled it for the third time he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is the Bach and the Handel sonata waiting for us; we ought to be
+getting to work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm quite ready, father. I suppose I must not eat any more oranges,&quot;
+and she surveyed her plate full of skins.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Innes took up the lamp, Evelyn called to the servant to get another,
+and followed him into the music-room. The lamps were placed on the
+harpsichord. She lighted some candles, and in the moods and aspirations
+of great men they found a fairyland, and the lights disappeared from the
+windows opposite, leaving them still there.</p>
+
+<p>The wings of the hours were light&mdash;weariness could not reach them&mdash;and
+at half-past eleven Mr. Innes was speaking of a beautiful motet, &quot;O
+Magnum Mysterium,&quot; by Vittoria. His fingers lingered in the wailing
+chords, and he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is where Wagner went for his chorus of youths in the cupola. The
+critics haven't discovered it yet; they are still talking of
+Palestrina.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWO'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWO</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Jesuits from St. Joseph's were not infrequently seen at Mr. Innes's
+concerts. The worthy fathers, although they did not see their way to
+guaranteeing a yearly grant of money sufficient to ensure adequate
+performances of Palestrina's finest works, were glad to support, with
+occasional guineas, their organist's concerts. Painters and men of
+letters were attracted by them; musicians seldom. Nor did Mr. Innes
+encourage their presence. Musicians were of no use to him. They were, he
+said, divided into two classes&mdash;those who came to scoff, and those who
+came to steal. He did not want either sort.</p>
+
+<p>The rare music interested but a handful, and the audience that had come
+from London shivered in remembrance of the east wind which had
+accompanied their journey. But this little martyrdom did not seem to be
+entirely without its satisfactions, and conscious of superiority, they
+settled themselves to listen to the few words of explanation with which
+Mr. Innes was accustomed to introduce the music that was going to be
+played. He was speaking, when he was interrupted by the servant-maid,
+who whispered and gave him a card: &quot;Sir Owen Asher, Bart., 27 Berkeley
+Square.&quot; He left the room hurriedly, and his audience surmised from his
+manner that something important had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Owen, seemingly a tall man, certainly above the medium height, was
+waiting for him in the passage. His thin figure was wrapped tightly in
+an overcoat, most of his face was concealed in the collar, and the pale
+gold-coloured moustache showed in contrast to the dark brown fur. The
+face, wide across the forehead, acquired an accent in the pointed chin
+and strongly marked jaw. The straight nose was thin and well shaped in
+the nostrils. &quot;An attractive man of forty&quot; would be the criticism of a
+woman. Sir Owen's attractiveness concentrated in his sparkling eyes and
+his manner, which was at once courteous and manly. He told Mr. Innes
+that he had heard of his concerts that morning at the office of the
+<i>Wagnerian Review</i>, and Mr. Innes indulged in his habitual dream of a
+wealthy patron who would help him to realise his musical ambitions. Sir
+Owen had just bought the periodical, he intended to make it an organ of
+advanced musical culture, and would like to include a criticism of these
+concerts. Mr. Innes begged Sir Owen to come into the concert-room. But
+while taking off his coat, Sir Owen mentioned what he had heard
+regarding Mr. Innes's desire to revive the vocal masses of the sixteenth
+century at St. Joseph's, and the interest of this conversation delayed
+them a little in the passage.</p>
+
+<p>The baronet's evening clothes were too well cut for those of a poet, a
+designer of wall paper, or a journalist, and his hands were too white
+and well cared for at the nails. His hair was pale brown, curling a
+little at the ends, and carefully brushed and looking as if it had been
+freshened by some faintest application of perfumed essence. Three pearl
+studs fastened his shirt front, and his necktie was tied in a butterfly
+bow. He displayed some of the nonchalant ease which wealth and position
+create, smiled a little on catching sight of the jersey worn by a lady
+who had neglected to fasten the back of her bodice, and strove to
+decipher the impression the faces conveyed to him. He grew aware of that
+flitting anxiety which is inseparable from the task of finding a daily
+living, and that pathos which tells of fidelity to idea and abstinence
+from gross pleasure. A young man, who stood apart, in a carefully
+studied attitude, a dark lock of hair falling over his forehead, amused
+him, and the young man in the chair next Sir Owen wore a threadbare coat
+and clumsy boots, and sat bolt upright. Sir Owen pitied him and imagined
+him working all day in some obscure employment, finding his life's
+pleasure once a week in a score by Bach. Catching sight of a priest's
+profile, a look of contempt appeared on his face.</p>
+
+<p>He was of his class, he had lived its life and lived it still, in a
+measure, but from the beginning his ideas and tastes had been superior
+to those of a merely fashionable man. At five-and-twenty he had
+purchased a Gainsborough, and at thirty he had spent a large sum of
+money in exhuming some sonatas of Bach from the dust in which they were
+lying. At three-and-thirty he had wrecked the career of a fashionable
+soprano by inspiring her with the belief that she might become a great
+singer, a great artist; at five-and-thirty Bayreuth and its world of
+musical culture and ideas had interested him in spite of his
+unconquerable aversion to long hair and dirty hands. After some
+association with geniuses he withdrew from the art-world, confessing
+himself unable to bear the society of those who did not dress for
+dinner; but while repudiating, he continued to spy the art-world from a
+distance. An audience is, however, necessary to a 'cello player, and the
+Turf Club and the Royal Yacht Club contained not a dozen members, he
+said, who would recognise the Heroica Symphony if they happened to hear
+it, which was not likely. Lately he had declared openly that he was
+afraid of entering any of his clubs, lest he should be asked once more
+what he thought of the Spring Handicaps, and if he intended sailing the
+<i>Medusa</i> in the Solent this season. Nevertheless, his journey to
+Bayreuth could not but produce an effect. He had purchased the
+<i>Wagnerian Review</i>; it had led him to Mr. Innes's concerts, and he was
+already interested in the prospect of reviving the early music and its
+instruments. That this new movement should be begun in Dulwich, a suburb
+he would never have heard of if it had not been for its picture gallery,
+stimulated his curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>It is the variation, not the ordinary specimen, that is most typical,
+for the variation contains the rule in essence, and the deviation
+elucidates the rule. So in his revolt against the habitual pleasures and
+ideas of his class, Sir Owen became more explanatory of that class than
+if he had acquiesced in the usual ignorance of &pound;20,000 a year. To the
+ordinary eye he was merely the conventional standard of the English
+upper classes, but more intimate observation revealed the slight glaze
+of Bohemianism which natural inclination and many adventures in that
+land had left upon him. He listened without parade, his grey eyes
+following the music&mdash;they, not the head, seeming to nod to it; and when
+Mr. Innes approached to ask him his opinion, he sprang to his feet to
+tell him.</p>
+
+<p>One of the pieces they had heard was a pavane for five viols and a
+harpsichord, composed by Ferrabosco, son of the Italian musician who had
+settled in Greenwich at the end of the sixteenth century. Sir Owen was
+extraordinarily pleased and interested, and declared the pavane to be as
+complete as a sonata by Bach or Beethoven; but his appreciation was
+suddenly interrupted by someone looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>At a little distance, Evelyn stood looking at him. The moment she had
+seen him she had stopped, and her eyes were delighted as by a vision.
+Though he represented to her the completely unknown, she seemed to have
+known him always in her heart; she seemed to have been waiting for
+knowledge of this unknown, and the rumour of the future grew loud in her
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his eyes and saw a tall, fair girl dressed in pale green. Mr.
+Innes introduced them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My daughter&mdash;Sir Owen Asher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the little while which he took to decide whether he would take tea or
+coffee, he thought that something could be said for her figure, and he
+liked her hair, but, on the whole, he did not think he cared for her.
+She seemed to him an unimportant variety of what he had met before. He
+said he would take tea, and then he changed his mind and said he would
+have coffee, but Evelyn came back with a cup of tea, and perceiving her
+mistake, she laughed abstractedly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are going to sing two songs, Miss Innes. I'm glad; I hear your
+voice is wonderful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sound of his voice conveyed a penetrating sense of his presence. It
+was the same happiness which the very sight of him had awakened in her,
+and she felt herself yielding to it as to a current. She was borne far
+away into mists of dream, where she seemed to live a long while. Time
+seemed to have ceased and the outside world to have fallen behind her.
+The sensation was the most delicious she had ever experienced. She
+hardly heard the answers that she made to his questions, and when her
+father called her, it was like returning after a long absence.</p>
+
+<p>She sang much more beautifully than he had expected, and during the
+preludes and fugues and the sonatas by Bach, which finished the
+programme, he thought of her voice, occasionally questioning himself
+regarding his taste for her. Even in this short while he had come to
+like her better. She had beautiful teeth and hair, and he liked her
+figure, notwithstanding the fact that her shoulders sloped a
+little&mdash;perhaps because they did slope a little. He noticed, whether her
+eyes wandered or remained fixed, that they returned to him, and that
+their glance was one of interrogation, as if all depended upon him. When
+the concert was over he was anxious to speak to her, so that he grew
+impatient with the people who stopped his way. The back room was filled
+with musical instruments&mdash;there were two harpsichords, a clavichord and
+an organ, and Mr. Innes insisted on explaining these instruments to him.
+He seemed to Owen to pay too slight a heed to his daughter's voice. That
+she played the viola da gamba very well was true enough, but what sense
+was there in a girl like that playing an instrument? Her voice was her
+instrument.</p>
+
+<p>When he was able to get a few words with her, he told her about Madame
+Savelli. There was no one else, he said, who could teach singing. She
+must go to France at once, and he seemed to take it for granted that she
+might start at the end of the week, if she only made up her mind. She
+did not know what answer to make, and was painfully conscious how silly
+she must look standing before him unable to say a word. It was no longer
+the same; some of the dream had been swept aside, and reality had begun
+to look through it. Her intense consciousness of this tall, aristocratic
+man frightened her. She saw the embroidered waistcoat, the slight hips,
+the gold moustache, and the sparkling grey eyes asked her questions to
+which her whole nature violently responded, and, though her feelings
+were inexplicable to herself, she was overcome with physical shame.
+Father Railston was looking at her, and the thought crossed her mind
+that he would not approve of Sir Owen Asher. Feeling very uncomfortable,
+she seized an opportunity of saying good-bye to a friend, and escaped
+from Sir Owen, leaving him, as she knew, under the impression that she
+was a little fool not worth taking further trouble about. But his ideas
+were different from all that she had been taught, and it would be better
+if she never saw him again. She did not doubt, however, that she would
+see him again, and when, two days after, the servant announced him and
+he walked into the music room, she was less surprised than her father.</p>
+
+<p>The review, he said, could not go to press without an article on the
+concert, but to do this article he must consult Mr. Innes, for in the
+first piece, &quot;La my,&quot; the viols had seemed to him out of tune. Of course
+this was not so&mdash;perhaps one of the players had played a wrong note;
+that might be the explanation. But on referring to the music, Mr. Innes
+discovered a better one. &quot;From the twelfth to the fifteenth century,
+writers,&quot; he said, &quot;did not consider their music as moderns do. Now we
+watch the effect of a chord, a combination of notes heard at the same
+moment, the top note of which is the tune, but the older writers used
+their skill in divining musical phrases which could be followed
+simultaneously, each one going logically its own way, irrespective of
+some temporary clashing. They considered their music horizontally, as
+the parts went on; we consider it vertically, each chord producing its
+impression in turn. To them all the parts were of equal importance.
+Their music was a purely decorative interweaving of melodies. Now we
+have a tune with accompanying parts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a wonderful knowledge of music your father has, Miss Innes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, father reads old MSS. that no one else can decipher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These discords happened,&quot; Mr. Innes said, as he went to the
+harpsichord, &quot;when a composition was based upon some old plain song
+melody, the notes of which could not be altered. Then the musician did
+not scruple to write in one of the other parts the same note altered by
+a sharp or flat to suit the passing requirement of the musical phrase
+allotted to that part. You could thus have together, say an F natural in
+one part and an F sharp in another. This to modern ears, not trained to
+understanding the meaning of the two parts, is intolerable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he spoke of the relative fineness of the ancient and modern ear,
+maintaining that the reason ancient singers could sing without an
+accompaniment was that they were trained to sing from the monochord,
+Owen considered the figure of this tall, fair girl, and wondered if she
+would elect to remain with her father, playing the viola da gamba in
+Dulwich, or bolt with a manager&mdash;that was what generally happened. Her
+father was a most interesting old man, a genius in his way, but just
+such an one as might prove his daughter's ruin. He would keep her
+singing the old music, perhaps marry her to a clerk, and she would be a
+fat, prosaic mother of three in five years.</p>
+
+<p>However this might be, he, Owen, was interested in her voice, and, if he
+had never met Georgina, he might have liked this girl. It would be
+better that he should take her away than that she should go away with a
+manager who would rob and beat her. But, if he were to take her away, he
+would be tied to her; it would be like marrying her. Far better stick to
+married women, and he remembered his epigram of last night. It was at
+Lady. Ascott's dinner-party, the conversation had turned on marriage,
+and its necessity had been questioned. &quot;But, of course, marriage is
+necessary,&quot; he had answered. &quot;You can't have husbands without marriage,
+and if there were no husbands, who would look after our mistresses?&quot; A
+lot of hypocrites had chosen to look shocked; Georgina had said it was a
+horrid remark and had hardly spoken to him all the evening; and this
+afternoon she had said she should not come and see him any more&mdash;she was
+afraid her husband suspected, her children were growing up, etc. When
+women cease to care for one, how importunate their consciences are! A
+little terror took him, and he wondered if he were about to lose
+Georgina, or if she were only trying to make him jealous. Perhaps he
+could not do better than make her jealous. For that purpose this young
+girl was just the thing.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, he was interested in the revival of Palestrina at St.
+Joseph's, and he liked Ferrabosco's pavane. He would like to have a
+harpsichord; even if he did not play on it much, it would be a
+beautiful, characteristic piece of furniture.... And it would be a good
+idea to ask Mr. Innes to bring all his queer instruments to Berkeley
+Square, and give a concert to-morrow night after his dinner-party. His
+friends had bored him with Hungarian bands, and the improvisations the
+bands had been improvising for the last ten years, and he saw no reason
+why he should not bore them, just for a change, with Mr. Innes.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment his reflections were interrupted by Mr. Innes, who wanted
+to know if he did not agree with him regarding the necessity for the
+re-introduction of the monochord, if the sixteenth century masses were
+ever to be sung again properly. All this was old story to Evelyn. In a
+sort of dream, through a sort of mist, she saw the embroidered waistcoat
+and the gold moustache, and when the small, grey, smiling eyes were
+raised from her father's face and looked at her, a delicious sensation
+penetrated through the very tissues of her flesh, and she experienced
+the tremor of a decisive moment; and then there came again a gentle
+sense of delicious bewilderment and illusion.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know how it would all happen, but her life seemed for the
+first time to have come to a definite issue. The very moment he had
+spoken of Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, it was as if a
+light had begun in her brain, and she saw a faint horizon line; she
+seemed to see Paris from afar; she knew she would go there to study, and
+that night she had fallen asleep listening to the applause of three
+thousand hands.</p>
+
+<p>But she did not like to stand before him, offering him first the cup of
+tea, then the milk and sugar, then the cake, and bread and butter. Her
+repugnance had nothing to do with him; it was an obscure feeling, quite
+incomprehensible to herself. When he looked up she answered him with a
+smile which she felt to be mysterious, and he perceived its mystery, for
+he compared it to the hesitating smile of the Monna Lisa, a print of
+which hung on the wall. But the remark increased her foreboding and
+premonition. And she was sorry for her father, who was saying that he
+hoped to send her abroad in the spring; that he would have done so
+before, but she was studying harmony with him. And she could see that
+Owen was bored. He was only staying on in the hope of speaking to her,
+but she knew that her father was not going out, so there was no chance
+of their having a few words together. His invitation to Mr. Innes to
+bring the instruments to London, and give a concert to-morrow night at
+Berkeley Square, he had reserved till the moment he had got up to go.
+Mr. Innes was taken aback. He doubted if there would be time to get the
+instruments to London. But Owen said that all that was necessary was a
+Pickford van, and that if he would say &quot;Yes,&quot; the van and a competent
+staff of packers would be at Dulwich in the morning, and would take all
+further trouble off his hands. The question was debated. Mr. Innes
+thought the instruments had better go by train, and Owen could not help
+smiling when he said that he would arrive with the big harpsichord and
+Evelyn about nine or half-past.</p>
+
+<p>She had two evening gowns&mdash;a pale green silk and a white. The pale green
+looked very nice; it had cost her three pounds. The white had nearly
+ruined her, but it had seemed to suit her so well that she had not been
+able to resist, and had paid five pounds ten, a great deal for her to
+spend on a dress. Its great fault was that it soiled at the least touch.
+She had worn it three times, and could not wear it again till it had
+been cleaned. It was a pity, but there was no help for it. She would
+have to wear the green, and to console herself she thought of the
+compliments she had had for it at different parties. But these seemed
+insignificant when she thought of the party she was going to to-night.</p>
+
+<p>She had never been to Berkeley Square, and expected to be surprised. But
+it lay in a hollow, a dignified, secluded square, exactly as she had
+imagined it. Nor did the great doorway, and the carpet that stretched
+across the pavement for her to walk upon, surprise her, nor the lines of
+footmen, nor the natural grace of the wide staircase. She seemed to have
+seen it all before, only she could not remember where. It came back to
+her like a dream. She seemed to recognise the pictures of the goddesses,
+the Holy Families and the gold mirrors; and lifting her eyes, she saw
+Owen at the head of the stairs, and he smiled so familiarly, that it
+seemed strange to think that this was only the third time she had seen
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He introduced her father to a fashionable musician, whose pavanes and
+sonatas were composed with that lack of matter and excess of erudition
+which delight the amateur and irritate the artist, and he walked down
+the rooms looking for seats where they could talk undisturbed for a few
+minutes. He was nervous lest Georgina should find him sitting with this
+girl in an intimate corner, but he did not expect her for another
+half-hour, and could not resist the temptation. He was curious to know
+how far Evelyn acquiesced in the obscure lot which her father imposed
+upon her, to play the viola da gamba, and sing old music, instead of
+singing for her own fame upon the stage. But had she a great voice? If
+she had, he would like to help her. The discovery of a new prima donna
+would be a fine feather in his cap. Above all, he was also curious to
+find out if she were the innocent maiden she appeared to be, or if she
+had had flirtations with the clerks in the neighbourhood, and he found
+his opportunity to speak to her on this subject in the first line of a
+French song she was going to sing:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Que vous me co&ucirc;tez cher, mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His appreciation of her changed every moment. Truly her eyes lit up with
+a beautiful light, and her remarks about the length of our payment for
+our pleasures revealed an apprehension which he had not credited her
+with. But he was alarmed at the quickness with which they had strayed to
+the very verge of things: From the other room they would seem very
+intimate, sitting on a sofa together, and he was expecting Georgina
+every minute. If she were to see them, it would lead to further
+discussion, and supply her with an excuse. But his curiosity was
+kindled, and while he considered how he could lead Evelyn into
+confidences, he saw her arm trembling through the gauze sleeve, for it
+seemed to her that all that was happening now had happened before. The
+walls covered with red pleated silk, the bracket-clocks, the
+brocade-covered chairs: where had she seen them? And Owen's grey eyes
+fixed upon her: where had she seen them? In a dream perhaps. She asked
+him if he had ever experienced the sensation of having already lived
+through a scene that was happening at the very moment. He did not seem
+to hear; he seemed expecting someone; and then the vision returned to
+her again, and she could not but think that she had known Sir Owen long
+ago, but how and where she could not tell. At that moment she noticed
+his absent-mindedness, and it was suddenly flashed upon her that he was
+in love with some woman and was waiting for her, and almost at the same
+moment she saw a tall, red-haired woman cross the further room. The
+woman paused in the doorway, as if looking for someone. She nodded to
+Owen and engaged in conversation with a group of men standing by the
+fireplace. Something told Evelyn that that smooth, cream-coloured neck
+was the woman Owen was in love with, and the sudden formality of his
+manner convinced her that she was right, that that was the woman he was
+in love with. He said that he must go and see after his other guests,
+and, as she expected, he went straight to the woman with the red hair.
+But she did not leave her friends. After shaking hands with Owen, she
+continued talking to them, and he was left out of the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>The concert began with a sonata for the harpsichord and the viola da
+gamba, and then Evelyn sang her two songs. She sang for Owen, and it
+seemed to her that she was telling him that she was sorry that it had
+all happened as it had happened, and that he must go away and be happy
+with the woman he loved. She did not think that she sang particularly
+well, but Owen came and told her that she had sung charmingly, and in
+their eyes were strange questions and excuses, and an avowal of regret
+that things were not different. Slim women in delicious gowns glided up
+and praised her, but she did not think that they had been as much
+impressed by her singing as they said; distinguished men were introduced
+to her, and she felt she had nothing to say to them; and looking round
+the circle of men and women she saw Owen in the doorway, and noticed
+that his eyes were restless and constantly wandered in the direction of
+the tall woman with the red hair, who sat calmly talking to her friends,
+never noticing him. He seemed waiting for a look that never came; his
+glances were furtive and quickly withdrawn, as if he feared he was being
+watched. When she got up to leave, Owen came forward and spoke to her,
+but she barely replied, and left the room alone. Evelyn saw all this,
+and she was surprised when Owen came rapidly through the room and sat
+down by her. He was painfully absent-minded, and so nervous that he did
+not seem to know what he was saying: indeed, that was the only excuse
+she could make for his remarks. She hardly recognised this man as the
+man she had hitherto known. She hated all his sentiments and his ideas;
+she thought them horrid, and was glad when her father came to tell her
+it was time for her to go.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You didn't sing well,&quot; he said, as they went home. &quot;What was the matter
+with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen and the red-haired lady seemed to fall behind this last misfortune.
+If she had lost her voice she was no longer herself, and as she went to
+her teaching she saw herself a music mistress to the end of her days.</p>
+
+<p>But on Sunday morning she came down stairs singing, and Mr. Innes heard
+a future prima donna in her voice. Her face lit up, and she said, &quot;Do
+you think so, dear. It was unlucky I sang so badly the other night. I
+seemed to have no voice at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He told her that there were times when her mother suddenly lost her
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, father, you are not fit to go out, and can't go out in that
+state.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the matter?&quot; and his hand went to his shirt collar.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, your necktie is all right. Ah! there you've untied it; I'll tie it
+for you. It's your coat that wants brushing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The black frock coat which he wore on Sundays was too small for him. If
+he buttoned it, it wrinkled round the waist and across the chest; if he
+left it open, its meagre width and the shortness of the skirts (they
+were the fashion of more than ten years ago) made it seem ridiculous.
+At the elbows the cloth was shiny with long wear, and the cuffs were
+frayed. His hat was as antiquated as his coat. It was a mere pulp,
+greasy inside and brown outside; the brim was too small, it was too low
+in the crown, and after the severest brushing it remained rough like a
+blanket. Evelyn handed it back to him in despair. He thanked his
+daughter, put it on his head, and forgot its appearance. But in spite of
+shabby coat and shabbier hat, Mr. Innes remained free from suspicion of
+vulgarity&mdash;the sad dignity of his grey face and the dreams that haunted
+his eyes saved him from that.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And whose mass are you going to play to-day?&quot; she asked him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A mass by Hummel, in B; on Thursday, a mass by Dr. Gladstone; and next
+Sunday, Mozart's Twelfth, beloved of Father Gordon and village choirs. I
+wonder if he will allow the Reproaches to be sung in Holy Week? He will
+insist on the expense of the double choir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, father, do you think that the congregation of St. Joseph's is one
+that would care for the refinement of Palestrina? Would you not require
+a cultivated West-end audience&mdash;the Oratory or Farm Street?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is Sir Owen's opinion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never heard him say so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>How had she come to repeat anything she had heard him say? Moreover, why
+had she said that she had not heard him say so? And Evelyn argued with
+herself until the train reached their station&mdash;it was one of those
+absurd little mental complications, the infinitesimal life that
+flourishes deep in the soul.</p>
+
+<p>A little way down a side street, a few yards from the main thoroughfare,
+where the roads branched, the great gaunt fa&ccedil;ade of St. Joseph's pointed
+against a yellow sky. Its foundations had been laid and its walls built
+by a priest, who had collected large sums of money in America, and whose
+desire had been to have the largest church that could be built for the
+least money, in the shortest possible time. The result was the great,
+sprawling, grey stone building with a desolate spire, now fading into
+the darkness of the snow-storm. Money had run short. The church had not
+been completed when its founder died; then another energetic priest had
+raised another subscription. Doors and stained glass had been added,
+and, for a while, St. Joseph's had become a flourishing parish church,
+supported by various suburbs, and projects for the completion of its
+interior decoration had begun to be entertained; but while these
+projects were under consideration, the suburbs had acquired churches of
+their own, and the congregation of St. Joseph's had dwindled until it
+had lost all means of support, except the meagre assistance it received
+from the poor Irish and Italians of the neighbourhood. There had been
+talk of closing the church, and it would have had to be closed if the
+Jesuits had not accepted the mission. Another subscription had been
+started, but the greater part of this third subscription the Jesuits had
+spent upon their schools, so the fate of St. Joseph's seemed to be to
+remain, as someone had said, an unfinished ruin. Their resources were
+exhausted, and they surveyed the barren aisles, dreaming of the painting
+and mosaics they would put up when the promises of Father Gordon were
+realised. For it was understood that their fortunes should be retrieved
+by his musical abilities, and his competence to select the most
+attractive masses. Father Gordon was a type often found among amateur
+musicians&mdash;a man with a slight technical knowledge, a good ear, a nice
+voice, and absolutely no taste whatever. His natural ear was for obvious
+rhythm, his taste coincided with the popular taste, and as the necessity
+of attracting a congregation was paramount, it is easy to imagine how
+easily he conceded to his natural inclinations. And the arguments with
+which he rebutted those of his opponents were unanswerable, that
+whatever moved the heart to the love of God was right; that if the plain
+chant failed to help the soul to aspiration, we were justified in
+substituting Rossini's <i>Stabat Mater</i>, or whatever other musical idiom
+the neighbourhood craved for.</p>
+
+<p>Religious rite, according to Father Gordon, should conform to the
+artistic taste of the congregation, and he urged, with some force, that
+the artistic taste of Southwark stood on quite as high a level as that
+of Mayfair. To get a Mayfair audience they had only to follow the taste
+of Southwark. And so, under his guidance, the Jesuits had increased
+their orchestra and employed the best tenors that could be hired.
+Nevertheless, their progress was slow. Father Gordon pleaded patience.
+The neighbourhood was unfashionable; it was difficult to persuade their
+friends to come so far. Mr. Innes answered that if they gave him a choir
+of forty-five voices&mdash;he could do nothing with less&mdash;the West-end would
+come at once to hear Palestrina. The distance, and the fact of the
+church being in a slum, he maintained, would not be in itself a
+drawback. Half the success of Bayreuth, he urged, is owing to its being
+so far off. And this plan, too, seemed to possess some elements of
+success, and so the Jesuits hesitated between very divergent methods by
+which the same result might be attained.</p>
+
+<p>A few flakes of snow were falling, and Evelyn and her father put up
+their umbrellas as they crossed the road to the church. Three steps led
+to the pointed door above which was the figure of the patron saint.</p>
+
+<p>The nakedness of the unfinished and undecorated church was hidden in the
+twilight of the approaching storm, and Evelyn trembled as she walked up
+the aisle, so menacing seemed the darkness that descended from the sky.
+The stained glass, blackened by the smoke of the factory chimneys, let
+in but little light, the aisles were plunged in darkness, and kneeling
+in her favourite place the ineffectual gaslight seemed to her like
+painted flames on a dark background. The side chapels which opened on to
+the aisles were shut off by no ornamental screens, indeed, the only
+piece of decoration seemed to be the fine modern ironwork which veiled
+the sanctuary.</p>
+
+<p>She opened her prayer book, but in the shadow of the pillar where she
+was kneeling there was not sufficient light for her to read, so she bent
+her face upon her hands, intent upon losing herself in prayer. She
+abased herself before her Father in Heaven; attaining once more the
+wonderful human moment when the creature who crouches on this rim of
+earth implores pardon for her trespass from the beneficent Creator of
+things. But to-day her devotional mood was interrupted by sudden thought
+and sensation of Owen's presence; she was forced to look up, and
+convinced that he was very near her, she sought him amid the crowd of
+people who sat and knelt in front of her, blackening the dusk, a vague
+darkness in which she could at first distinguish nothing but an
+occasional white plume and a bald head. But her eyes grew accustomed to
+the darkness, and above the uninteresting backs of middle-aged men she
+recognised his thin sharp shoulders. She had been compelled to look up
+from her prayers, and she wondered if he had been thinking of her. If
+so, it was very wrong of him to interrupt her at her prayers. But a
+sensation of pleasure arose spontaneously in her. At that moment he had
+to remove his hat from the chair on which he had placed it, and she
+noticed the gold stud links in his large shirt cuffs, the rough material
+of which the coat was made, and how well it lay along the thin arm. She
+imagined the look of vexation on the grave interesting face, and laughed
+a little to herself. What was the poor woman to do? She had a right to
+her chair. But she did look so frightened, and was visibly perturbed by
+the presence of so fine a gentleman. Evelyn knew the woman by sight&mdash;a
+curious thin and crooked creature, who wore a strange bonnet and a
+little black mantle, and walked up the church, her hands crossed like a
+doll....</p>
+
+<p>No doubt he had driven all the way from Berkeley Square. She could see
+him leaning back in his brougham, humming various music, or plaintively
+thinking about the lady with the red hair, who did not care for him. Her
+breath caught her in the throat. That was the reason why he had come to
+St. Joseph's. It was all over with the red-haired lady, and it was for
+her that he had come to St. Joseph's! But that could not be.... She saw
+him moving in rich and elegant society, where everyone had a title, and
+the narrowness of her life compared with his dismayed her. It was
+impossible that he could care for her. She was remaining in Dulwich,
+with nothing but a few music lessons to look forward to.... But when she
+reached the operatic stage her life would be like his, and the vision
+of her future passed before her eyes&mdash;diamonds in stars, baskets of
+wonderful flowers, applause, and the perfume of a love story, swinging
+like a censer over it all.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the priests entered; mass began. She opened her prayer
+book, but, however firmly she fixed her thoughts in prayer, they sprang
+back, without her knowing it, to Owen and the red-haired woman, with the
+smooth, cream-coloured shoulders. Without being aware of it, she was
+looking at him, and it was such a delight to think of him that she could
+not refrain. His chair was the last on the third line from the altar
+rail, and she noticed that he wore patent leather shoes; the hitching of
+the dark grey trousers displayed a silk sock; but he suddenly uncrossed
+his legs, and assumed a less negligent attitude. In a sudden little
+melancholy she remembered how he had watched the woman with the red
+hair, and the determined indifference of this woman's face as she left
+the room. Immediately after she was amused at the way in which his face
+expressed his opinion of the music, and she had to admit to herself that
+he listened as if he understood it.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until her father began to play the offertory, one of
+Schubert's beautiful inspirations, that she noticed the look of real
+delight that held the florid profile till the last note, and for some
+seconds after. &quot;He certainly does love music,&quot; she thought; and when the
+bell rang for the Elevation, she bowed her head and became aware of the
+Real Presence. When it rang a second time she felt life stifle in her.
+When it rang a third time she again became conscious of time and place.
+But the sensation of awe which the accomplishment of the mystery had
+inspired was dissipated in the tumult of a very hideous Agnus Dei, in
+the voice of a certain concert singer, who seemed determined to shout
+down the organ. Evelyn had some difficulty in keeping her countenance,
+so plain was the expression of amazement upon the profile in front of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Then the book was carried from the right to the left side of the altar,
+and when the priest had read the Gospel, she began once more to ask
+herself the reason that had brought Sir Owen to St. Joseph's. The manner
+in which he genuflected before the altar told her that he was a
+Catholic; perhaps he had come to St. Joseph's merely to hear mass.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have come to see your father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will find him in the organ loft.... But he'll be down presently.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And at the end of the church, in a corner out of the way of the crowd,
+they waited for Mr. Innes, and she learnt almost at once, from his face
+and the remarks that he addressed to her, that it was not for her that
+he had come to St. Joseph's. His carriage was waiting, he told the
+coachman to follow; all three tramped through the snow together to the
+station. In this miserable walk she learnt that he had decided to go for
+a trip round the world in his yacht, and expected to be away for nearly
+a year. As he bade them good-bye he looked at her, and his eyes seemed
+to say he was sorry that it was so, that he wished it were otherwise.
+She felt that if she had been able to ask him to stay he would have
+stayed; but, of course, that was impossible, and the last she saw of him
+was as he turned, just before getting into his brougham, to tell her
+father that the best critic of the <i>Review</i> should attend the concerts,
+and that he hoped that what he would write would bring some people of
+taste to hear them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THREE'></a><h2>CHAPTER THREE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The name was no indication. None remembered that Dowlands was the name
+of Henry the Eight's favourite lute player, and there was nothing in the
+snug masonry to suggest an &aelig;stheticism of any kind. The dulcimers, lutes
+and virginals surprised the visitor coming in from the street, and he
+stayed his steps as he might on the threshold of a fairy land.</p>
+
+<p>The villas, of which Dowlands was one, were a builder's experiment. They
+had been built in the hopes of attracting wealthy business West-end
+shopkeepers; but Dulwich had failed to become a fashionable suburb. Many
+had remained empty, and when Mr. Innes had entered into negotiations
+with the house agents, they declared themselves willing to entertain all
+his proposals, and finally he had acquired a lease at a greatly reduced
+rental.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with his and Mrs. Innes's wishes, the house had been
+considerably altered. Partition walls had been taken away, and
+practically the whole ground floor converted into class-rooms, leaving
+free only one little room at the back where they had their meals. During
+his wife's lifetime the house suited their requirements. The train
+service from Victoria was frequent, and on the back of their notepaper
+was printed a little map, whereby pupils coming and going from the
+station could find their way. On the second floor was Mr. Innes's
+workshop, where he restored the old instruments or made new ones after
+the old models. There was Evelyn's bedroom&mdash;her mother had re-furnished
+it before she died&mdash;and she often sat there; it was, in truth, the most
+habitable room in the house. There was Evelyn's old nursery, now an
+unoccupied room; and there were two other empty rooms. She had tried to
+convert one into a little oratory. She had placed there a statue of the
+Virgin, and hung a crucifix on the wall, and bought a <i>prie-Dieu</i> and
+put it there. But the room was too lonely, and she found she could say
+her prayers more fervently by her bedside. Their one servant slept
+downstairs in a room behind the kitchen. So the house often had the
+appearance of a deserted house; and Evelyn, when she returned from
+London, where she went almost daily to give music lessons, often paused
+on the threshold, afraid to enter till her ear detected some slight
+sound of her servant at work. Then she cried, &quot;Is that you, Margaret?&quot;
+and she advanced cautiously, till Margaret answered, &quot;Yes, miss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The last summer and autumn had been the pleasantest in her life since
+her mother's death. Her pupils interested her&mdash;she had some six or
+seven. Her flow of bright talk, her eager manner, her beautiful playing
+of the viola da gamba, her singing of certain old songs, her mother's
+fame, and the hopes she entertained of one day achieving success on the
+stage made her a heroine among her little circle of friends. Her father
+was a remarkable man, but he seemed to her the most wonderful of men. It
+was exciting to go to London with him, to bid him good-bye at
+Victoria&mdash;she to her lessons, he to his&mdash;to meet him in the evenings,
+and in conjunction to arrange the programme of their next concert. These
+interests and ambitions had sufficed to fill her life, and to keep the
+greater ambition out of sight; and since her mother's death she had
+lived happily with her father, helping him in his work. But lately
+things had changed. Some of her pupils had gone abroad, others had
+married, and interest in the concerts declined. For a little while the
+old music had seemed as if it were going to attract sufficient
+attention, but already their friends had heard enough, and Mr. Innes had
+been compelled to postpone the next, which had been announced for the
+beginning of February. There would be no concert now till March, perhaps
+not even then; so there was nothing for her to look forward to, and the
+wet windy weather which swept the suburb contributed to her
+disheartenment. The only event of the day seemed to be her father's
+departure in the morning. Immediately after breakfast he tied up his
+music in a brown paper parcel and put his violin into its case; he spoke
+of missing his train, and, from the windows of the music-room, she saw
+him hastening down the road. She had asked him if there were any MSS. he
+wished copied in the British Museum; absent-mindedly he had answered
+&quot;No;&quot; and, drumming on the glass with her fingers, she wondered how the
+day would pass. There was nothing to do; there was nothing even to think
+about. She was tired of thinking that a pupil might come back&mdash;that a
+new pupil might at any moment knock at the door. She was tired of
+wondering if her father's concerts would ever pay&mdash;if the firm of music
+publishers with whom he was now in treaty would come to terms and enable
+him to give a concert in their hall, or if they would break off
+negotiations, as many had done before. And, more than of everything
+else, she was tired of thinking if her father would ever have money to
+send her abroad, or if she would remain in Dulwich always.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, as she was returning from Dulwich, where she had gone to
+pay the weekly bills, she discovered that she was no longer happy. She
+stopped, and, with an empty heart, saw the low-lying fields with poultry
+pens, and the hobbled horse grazing by the broken hedge. The old
+village was her prison, and she longed as a bird longs. She had trundled
+her hoop there; she ought to love it, but she didn't, and, looking on
+its too familiar aspect, her aching heart asked if it would never pass
+from her. It seemed to her that she had not strength nor will to return
+home. A little further on she met the vicar. He bowed, and she wondered
+how he could have thought that she could care for him. Oh, to live in
+that Rectory with him! She pitied the young man who wore brown clothes,
+and whose employment in a bank prevented him from going abroad for his
+health. These people were well enough, but they were not for her. She
+seemed to see beyond London, beyond the seas, whither she could not say,
+and she could not quell the yearning which rose to her lips like a wave,
+and over them.</p>
+
+<p>Formerly, when there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, she used to go
+there and meet her father, but lately, for some reason which she could
+not explain to herself, she had refrained. The thought of this church
+had become distasteful to her, and she returned home indifferent to
+everything, to music and religion alike. Her eyes turned from the pile
+of volumes&mdash;part of Bach's interminable works&mdash;and all the old
+furniture, and she stood at the window and watched the rain dripping
+into the patch of black garden in front of the house, surrounded by a
+low stone wall. The villas opposite suggested a desolation which found a
+parallel in her heart; the sloppy road and the pale brown sky frightened
+her, so menacing seemed their monotony. She knew all this suburb; it was
+all graven on her mind, and all that ornamental park where she must go,
+if it cleared a little, for her afternoon walk. She must tramp round
+that park once more. She strove to keep out of her mind its symmetrical
+walls, its stone basins, where the swans floated like white china
+ornaments, almost as lifeless. But worse even than these afternoons were
+the hours between six and eight. For very often her father was detained,
+and if he missed the half-past six train he had to come by the half-past
+seven, and in those hours of waiting the dusk grew oppressive and
+fearful in the music-room. Startled by a strange shadow, she crouched in
+her armchair, and when the feeling of dread passed she was weak from
+want of food. Why did her father keep her waiting? Hungry, faint and
+weary of life, she opened a volume of Bach; but there was no pleasure
+for her in the music, and if she opened a volume of songs she had
+neither strength nor will to persevere even through the first, and,
+rising from the instrument, she walked across the room, stretching her
+arms in a feverish despair. She had not eaten for many hours, and out of
+the vacuity of the stomach a dimness rose into her eyes. Pressing her
+eyes with her hand, she leaned against the door.</p>
+
+<p>One evening she walked into the garden. The silence and damp of the
+earth revived her, and the sensation of the cold stone, against which
+she was leaning, was agreeable. Little stars speckled a mauve and misty
+sky, and out of the mysterious spring twilight there came a strange and
+ultimate yearning, a craving which nothing she had ever known could
+assuage. But those stars&mdash;could they tell her nothing? One, large almost
+as the moon itself, flamed up in the sky, and a voice within her
+whispered that that was her star, that it held the secret of her
+destiny. She gazed till her father called to her from the gate; and all
+that evening she could think of nothing else. The conviction flowed
+within her that the secret of her destiny was there; and as she lay in
+bed the star seemed to take a visible shape.</p>
+
+<p>A face rose out of the gulf beneath her. She could not distinguish
+whether it was the face of man or woman; it was an idea rather than a
+face. The ears were turned to her for her to take the earrings, the
+throat was deeply curved, the lips were large and rose-red, the eyes
+were nearly closed, and the hair was curled close over a straight, low
+forehead. The face rose up to hers. She looked into the subtle eyes, and
+the thrill of the lips, just touching hers, awakened a sense of sin, and
+her eyes when they opened were frightened and weary. And as she sat up
+in her bed, trembling, striving vainly to separate the real from the
+unreal, she saw the star still shining. She hid her face in the pillow,
+and was only calmed by the thought that it was watching her.</p>
+
+<p>She went into the garden every evening to see it rise, and a desire of
+worship grew up in her heart; and thinking of the daffodils, it occurred
+to her to lay these flowers on the wall as an offering. Even wilder
+thoughts passed through her brain; she could not keep them back, and
+more than once asked herself if she were giving way to an idolatrous
+intention. If so, she would have to tell the foolish story to her
+confessor. But she could hardly bring herself to tell him such
+nonsense.... If she didn't, the omission might make her confession a
+false one; and she was so much perplexed that it seemed to her as if the
+devil took the opportunity to insinuate that she might put off going to
+confession. This decided her. She resolved to combat the Evil One.
+To-day was Thursday. She would confess on Saturday, and go to Communion
+on Sunday.</p>
+
+<p>Till quite lately her confessor had been Father Knight&mdash;a tall, spare,
+thin-lipped, aristocratic ecclesiastic, in whom Evelyn had expected to
+find a romantic personality. She had looked forward to thrilling
+confessions, but had been disappointed. The romance his appearance
+suggested was not borne out; he seemed unable to take that special
+interest in her which she desired; her confessions were barren of
+spiritual adventure, and after some hesitations her choice dropped upon
+Father Railston. In this selection the law of contrast played an
+important part. The men were very opposites. One walked erect and tall,
+with measured gait; the other walked according to the impulse of the
+moment, wearing his biretta either on one side of the head or the
+other. One was reserved; the other voluble in speech. One was of
+handsome and regular features; the other's face was plain but
+expressive. Evelyn had grown interested in Father Railston's dark,
+melancholy eyes; and his voice was a human voice vibrant with the terror
+and suffering of life. In listening to her sins he seemed to remember
+his own. She had accused herself of impatience at the circumstances
+which kept her at home, of even nourishing, she would not say projects,
+but thoughts, of escape.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, my child, are you so anxious to change your present life for that
+of the stage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You weary of the simplicity of your present life, and sigh for the
+brilliancy of the stage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid I do.&quot; It was thrilling to admit so much, especially as the
+life of an actress was not in itself sinful. &quot;I feel that I should die
+very soon if I were to hear I should never leave Dulwich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The priest did not speak for a long while, and raising her eyes she
+watched his expression. It seemed to her that her confession of her
+desire of the world had recalled memories, and she wondered what were
+they.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am more than forty&mdash;I'm nearly fifty&mdash;and my life has passed like a
+dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He seemed about to tell her the secret of life, and had stopped. But the
+phrase lingered through her whole life, and eventually became part of
+it. &quot;My life has passed like a dream.&quot; She did not remember what he had
+said after, and she had gone away wondering if life seemed to everyone
+like a dream when they were forty, and if his life would have seemed
+more real to him if he had given it to the world instead of to God? Her
+subsequent confessions seemed trite and commonplace. Not that Father
+Railston failed to listen with kind interest to her; not that he failed
+to divine that she was passing through a physical and spiritual crisis.
+His admonitions were comforting in her weariness of mind and body; but
+notwithstanding her affection for him, she felt that beyond that one
+phrase he had no influence over her. She almost felt that he was too
+gentle and indulgent, and the thought she would have liked a confessor
+who was severe, who would have inflicted heavier penances, compelled her
+to fast and pray, who would have listened in deeper sternness to the
+sins of thought which she with averted face shamefully owned to having
+entertained. She was disappointed that he did not warn her with the loss
+of her soul, that he did not invent specious expedients for her use,
+whereby the Evil One might be successfully checked.</p>
+
+<p>One Sunday morning the servant told Mr. Innes that Miss Evelyn has left
+a little earlier, as she was going to Communion. She remained in church
+for High Mass, and when chided for such long abstinence, she smiled
+sadly and said that she did not think that it would do her much harm.
+During the following week he noticed that she hardly touched breakfast,
+and the only reason she gave was that she thought she would like to
+fast. No, she had not obtained leave from her confessor; she had not
+even consulted him. She, of course, knew that she was not obliged to
+fast, not being of age; but she was not doing any work; she had no
+pupils; the concert had been postponed; she thought she would like to
+fast. Father and daughter looked at each other; they felt that they did
+not understand, that there was nothing to be done, and Mr. Innes put his
+fiddle into its case and went to London, deeply concerned about his
+daughter, and utterly unable to arrive at any conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>She fasted, and she broke through her fast, and as Lent drew to a close
+she asked her father if she might make a week's retreat in a convent at
+Wimbledon where she had some friends. There was no need for her at home;
+it would be at least change of air and she pressed him to allow her to
+go. He feared the influence the convent might have upon her, and
+admitted that his selfishness was largely accountable for this religious
+reaction. No doubt she wanted change, she was looking very poorly. He
+spoke of the sea, but who was to take her to Brighton or Margate? The
+convent seemed the only solution of the difficulty, and he had to
+consent to her departure.</p>
+
+<p>The retreat was to last four days, but Evelyn begged that she might stay
+on till Easter Tuesday. This would give her a clear week away from home,
+and the improvement that this little change wrought in her was
+surprising. The convent had made her cheeks fair as roses, and given her
+back all her sunny happiness and abundant conversation. She delighted in
+telling her father of her week's experience. For four days she had not
+spoken (perhaps that was the reason she was talking so much now), and
+during these four days they were nearly always in chapel; but somehow it
+hadn't seemed long, the services were so beautiful. The nuns wore grey
+serge robes and head-dresses, the novices white head-dresses; what had
+struck her most was the expression of happy content on their faces.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish, father, you had seen them come into church&mdash;their long robes
+and beautiful white faces. I don't think there is anything as beautiful
+as a nun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The mother prioress was a small woman, with an eager manner. She looked
+so unimportant that Evelyn had wondered why she had been chosen, but the
+moment she spoke you came under the spell of her keen, grey eyes and
+clear voice.... Mother Philippa, the mistress of the novices, was quite
+different&mdash;stout and middle-aged, and she wore spectacles. She was
+beautiful notwithstanding; her goodness was like a soft light upon her
+face. ...Evelyn paused. She could not find words to describe her; at
+last she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When she comes into the room, I always feel happy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She could not say which she liked the better, but branched off into a
+description of the Carmelite who had given the retreat&mdash;strong,
+eagle-faced man, with thin hair drawn back from his forehead, and
+intense eyes. He wore sandals, and his white frock was tied with a
+leather belt, and every word he spoke had entered into her heart. He
+gave the meditations, which were held in the darkened library. They
+could not see each other's faces; they could only see the white figure
+at the end of the room.</p>
+
+<p>She had had her meals in the parlour with two other ladies who had come
+to the convent for the retreat. They were both elderly women, and Evelyn
+fancied that they belonged to the grandest society. She could tell that
+by their voices. The one she liked best had quite white hair, and her
+expression was almost that of a nun. She was tall, very stout, and
+walked with a stick. On Easter Sunday this old lady had asked her if she
+would care to come into the garden with her. It was such a beautiful
+morning, she said, that it would do both of them good. The old lady
+walked very slowly with her stick. But though Evelyn thought that she
+must be at least a countess, she did not think she was very rich&mdash;she
+had probably lost her money. The black dress she wore was thin and
+almost threadbare, and it was a little too long for her; she held it up
+in her left hand as she walked&mdash;a most beautiful hand for an old woman.
+Both these ladies had been very kind to her; she had often walked with
+them in the garden&mdash;a fine old garden. There were tall, shady trees;
+these were sprinkled with the first tiny leaves; and the currant and
+raspberry bushes were all out. And there was a fishpond swarming with
+gold fish, and they were so tame that they took bread from the novices'
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation had begun about the convent, and after speaking of its
+good sisters, the old lady, whose hair was quite white, had asked Evelyn
+about herself. Had she ever thought of being a nun? Evelyn had answered
+that she had not. She had never considered the question whether she had
+a vocation.... She had been brought up to believe that she was going on
+the stage to sing grand opera.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is hardly for me to advise you. But I know how dangerous the life of
+an opera singer is. I shall pray God that He may watch over you. Promise
+me always to remember our holy religion. It is the only thing we have
+that is worth having; all the rest passes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, we were close by the edge of the fishpond, and all the greedy
+fish swarmed to the surface, thinking we had come to feed them. She
+said, 'I cannot walk further without resting; come, my dear, let me sit
+down on that bench, and do you sing me a little song, very low, so that
+no one shall hear you but I.' I sang her &quot;John, come kiss me now,&quot; and
+she said, &quot;My dear, you have a beautiful voice, I pray that you make
+good use of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But not in one day could all Evelyn's convent experiences be related,
+and it was not until the end of the week that Evelyn told how Mother
+Philippa, at the end of a long talk in which she had spoken to Evelyn
+about the impulses which had led her to embrace a religious life (she
+had been twenty years in this convent), had taken her upstairs to the
+infirmary to see Sister Bonaventure, an American girl, only twenty-one,
+who was dying of consumption. She lay on a couch in grey robes, her
+hands and face waxen white, and a smile of happy resignation on her lips
+and in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; exclaimed Evelyn, &quot;they told me she would die within the
+fortnight, so she may be dead now; if not to-day, to-morrow or after. I
+hadn't thought of that.... I shall never forget her, every few minutes
+she coughed&mdash;that horrible cough! I thought she was going to die before
+my eyes, but in the intervals she chattered and even laughed, and no
+word of complaint escaped her. She was only twenty-one ... had known
+nothing of life; all was unknown to her, except God, and she was going
+to Heaven. She seemed quite happy, yet to me it seemed the saddest sight
+in the world.... She'll be buried in a few days in the sunniest corner
+of the garden, away from the house&mdash;that is their graveyard. The mother
+Prioress, the founder of the convent, is buried there; a little
+dedicatory chapel has been built, and on the green turf, tall wooden
+crosses mark the graves of six nuns; next week there'll be one more
+cross.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The conversation paused, and Evelyn sat looking into the corner of the
+room, her large clear eyes wide open and fixed. Presently she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father,&quot; I've often thought I should like to be a nun.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You a nun! And with that voice!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him, smiling a little.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What matter! Have you not thought&mdash;but I understand; you mean that your
+voice is wasted here, that we shall never have the means to go
+abroad.... But we shall.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, dear, I wasn't thinking of that. I do believe that means will
+be found to send me abroad to study. But what then? Shall I be happy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Fame, fortune, art!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Those nuns have none of those things, and they are happy. As that old
+lady said their happiness comes from within.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you'll be happy with those things, as happy as they are without
+them. You're in a melancholy mood; come, we'll think of the work before
+us. I've decided that we give our concert the week after next. That will
+give us ten clear days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He entered into the reasons which had induced him to give this concert.
+But Evelyn had heard all about the firm of musical publishers, who
+possibly might ask him to bring up the old instruments to London, and
+give a concert in a fashionable West-end hall. Seeing that she was not
+listening, he broke off his narrative with the remark that he had
+received a letter that morning from Sir Owen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he coming home? I thought he was going round the world and would not
+be back for a year.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He has changed his mind. This letter was posted at Malta&mdash;a most
+interesting letter it is;&quot; and while Mr. Innes read Sir Owen's account
+of the discovery of the musical text of an ancient hymn which had been
+unearthed in his presence, Evelyn wondered if he had come home for her
+or&mdash;the thought entered her heart with a pang&mdash;if he had come home for
+the red-haired woman. Mr. Innes stopped suddenly in his reading, and
+asked her of what she was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't seem to take any interest. The text is incomplete, and some
+notes have been conjecturally added by a French musician.&quot; But much more
+interesting to Evelyn was his account of the storm that had overtaken
+his yacht on the coast of Asia Minor. He had had to take his turn at the
+helm, all the sailors being engaged at the sails, and, with the waves
+breaking over him, he had kept her head to the wind for more than two
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can hardly fancy him braving the elements, can you, Evelyn?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, father,&quot; she said, startled by the question, for at that
+moment she had seen him in imagination as clearly as if he were present.
+She had seen him leaning against the door-post, a half-cynical,
+half-kindly smile floating through his gold moustache. &quot;Do you think he
+will like the music you are going to give at the next concert? He is
+coming, I suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is just possible he may arrive in time; but I should hardly think
+so. I've written to invite him; he'll like the music; it is the most
+interesting programme we've had&mdash;an unpublished sonata by Bach&mdash;one of
+the most interesting, too. If that is not good enough for him&mdash;by the
+way, have you looked through that sonata?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, father, but I will do so this afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And while practising the sonata, Evelyn felt as if life had begun again.
+The third movement of the sonata was an exquisite piece of musical
+colour, and, if she played it properly, he could not fail to come and
+congratulate her.... But he would not be here in time for the concert
+... not unless he came straight through, and he would not do that after
+having nearly escaped shipwreck. She was sure he would not arrive in
+time, but the possibility that he might gave her additional interest in
+the sonata, and every day, all through the week, she discovered more and
+more surprising beauties in it.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_FOUR'></a><h2>CHAPTER FOUR</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>She was alone in the music-room reading a piece of music, and her back
+was to the door when he entered. She hardly recognised him, tired and
+tossed as he was by long journeying, and his grey travelling suit was
+like a disguise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that you, Sir Owen?... You've come back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come back, yes, I have come back. I travelled straight through from
+Marseilles, a pretty stiff journey.... We were nearly shipwrecked off
+Marseilles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought it was off the coast of Asia Minor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was another storm. We have had rough weather lately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The music dropped from her hand, and she stood looking at him, for he
+stood before her like an ancient seafarer. His grey tweed suit buttoned
+tightly about him set off every line of his spare figure. His light
+brown hair was tossed all over his head, and she could not reconcile
+this rough traveller with the elegant fribble whom she had hitherto
+known as Sir Owen. But she liked him in this grey suit, dusty after long
+travel. He was picturesque and remote as a legend. A smile was on his
+lips; it showed through the frizzled moustache, and his eyes sparkled
+with pleasure at sight of her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why did you travel straight through? You might have slept at
+Marseilles or Paris.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of these days I will tell you about the gale. I wonder I am not at
+the bottom of that treacherous sea; it did blow my poor old yacht
+about&mdash;I thought it was her last cruise; and when we got to the hotel I
+was handed your father's letter. As I did not want to miss the concert,
+I came straight through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must be very fond of music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I am.... Music can be heard anywhere, but your voice can only be
+heard at Dulwich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Was it to hear me sing that you came back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She had spoken unawares, and felt that the question was a foolish one,
+and was trembling lest he should be inwardly laughing at her. But the
+earnest expression into which his little grey eyes concentrated
+reassured her. She seemed to lose herself a little, to drift into a sort
+of dream in which even he seemed to recede, and so intense and personal
+was her sensation that she could not follow his tale of adventure. It
+was an effort to listen to it at that moment, and she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you must be tired, you've not had a proper night's sleep ... for a
+week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm not very tired, I slept in the train, but I'm hungry. I've not had
+anything since ten o'clock this morning. There was no time to get
+anything at Victoria. I was told that the next train for Dulwich started
+in five minutes. I left my valet to take my trunks home; he will bring
+my evening clothes on here for the concert. Can you let me have a room
+to dress in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course; but you must have something to eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought of going round to the inn and having a chop.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had a beefsteak pudding for dinner; I wonder if you could eat
+beefsteak pudding?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's nothing better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Warmed up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, warmed up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I may run and tell Margaret?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall be much obliged if you will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She liked to wait upon him, and her pleasure quickened when she handed
+him bread or poured out ale, making it foam in the glass, for
+refreshment after his long journey; and when she sat opposite, her eyes
+fixed on him, and he told her his tale of adventure, her happy flushed
+face reminded him of that exquisite promise, the pink almond blossom
+showing through the wintry wood.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you didn't believe me when I said that it was to hear you sing that
+I came back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That you renounced your trip round the world?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I renounced my trip round the world to hear you sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer, and he put the question again.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can understand that there might be sufficient reason for your giving
+up your trip round the world. I thought that perhaps&mdash;no, I cannot
+say&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had been thinking of each other, and had taken up their interest in
+each other at their last thoughts rather than at their last words. She
+was more conscious of the reason of their sudden intimacy than he was,
+but he too felt that they had advanced a long way in their knowledge of
+each other, and their intuition was so much in advance of facts that
+they sat looking at each other embarrassed, their words unable to keep
+pace with their perceptions.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn suddenly felt as if she were being borne forward, but at that
+moment her father entered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, Sir Owen was famishing when he arrived. He wanted to go to the
+inn and eat a chop, but I persuaded him to stop and have some beefsteak
+pudding.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am so glad ... you've arrived just in time, Sir Owen. The concert is
+to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He came straight through without stopping; he has not been home. So,
+father, you will never be able to say again that your concerts are not
+appreciated.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I don't think that you will be disappointed, Sir Owen. This is
+one of the most interesting programmes we have had. You remember
+Ferrabosco's pavane which you liked so much&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Margaret announced the arrival of Sir Owen's valet, and while Mr. Innes
+begged of Sir Owen not to put himself to the trouble of dressing, Owen
+wondered at his own folly in yielding to a sudden caprice to see the
+girl. However, he did not regret; she was a prettier girl than he had
+thought, and her welcome was the pleasantest thing that had happened to
+him for many a day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My poor valet, I am afraid, is quite <i>hors de combat</i>. He was
+dreadfully ill while we were beating up against that gale, and the long
+train journey has about finished him. At Victoria he looked more dead
+than alive.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn went out to see this pale victim of sea sickness and expedition.
+She offered him dinner and then tea, but he said he had had all he could
+eat at the refreshment bars, and struggled upstairs with the portmanteau
+of his too exigent master.</p>
+
+<p>A few of her guests had already arrived, and Evelyn was talking to
+Father Railston when Sir Owen came into the room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall not want you again to-night,&quot; he said, turning towards the door
+to speak to his valet. &quot;Don't sit up for me, and don't call me to-morrow
+before ten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She had not yet had time to speak to Owen of a dream which she had
+dreamed a few nights before, and in which she was much interested. She
+had seen him borne on the top of a huge wave, clinging to a piece of
+wreckage, alone in the solitary circle of the sea. But Owen, when he
+came downstairs dressed for the concert, looked no longer like a
+seafarer. He wore an embroidered waistcoat, his necktie was tied in a
+butterfly bow, and the three pearl studs, which she remembered, fastened
+the perfectly-fitting shirt. She was a little disappointed, and thought
+that she liked him better in the rough grey suit, with his hair tossed,
+just come out of his travelling cap. Now it was brushed about his ears,
+and it glistened as if from some application of brilliantine or other
+toilet essence. Now he was more prosaic, but he had been extraordinarily
+romantic when he ran in to see her, his grey travelling cap just
+snatched from his head. It was then she should have told him her dream.
+All this was a very faint impression, half humorous, half regretful, it
+passed, almost without her being aware of it, in the background of her
+mind. But she was keenly disappointed that he was not impressed by her
+dream, and was inclined to consider it in the light of a mere
+coincidence. In the first place, he hadn't been shipwrecked, and that
+she should dream of shipwreck was most natural since she knew that he
+had gone a-seafaring, and any gust of wind in the street was enough to
+excite the idea of a castaway in the unclosed cellular tissues of her
+brain. She did not answer, and he stood trying to force an answer from
+her, but she could not, nor did she wish to think that her dream was no
+more than a merely physiological phenomenon. But just at that moment Mr.
+Innes was waiting to speak to Sir Owen.</p>
+
+<p>He had a great deal to say on the subject of the disgraceful neglect of
+the present Royal Family in not publishing the works of their single
+artistic ancestor, Henry VIII. Up to the present time none of his
+numerous writings, except one anthem played in the Chapel at Windsor,
+was known; the pieces that were going to be played that evening lay in
+MS. in the British Museum, and had probably not been heard for two,
+maybe three hundred years. Encouraged by Sir Owen's sympathy, he
+referred again, in his speech to his audience, to the indifference of
+the present Royal Family to art, and he added that it was strange that
+he should be doing at Dowlands what the Queen or the Prince of Wales
+should have done long ago, namely, the publication of their ancestor's
+work with all the prestige that their editorship or their patronage
+could give it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must go,&quot; she said; &quot;they are waiting for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She took her place among the viol players and began playing; but she had
+forgotten to tune her instrument, and her father stopped the
+performance. She looked at him, a little frightened, and laughed at her
+mistake. The piece they were playing was by Henry VIII., a masterpiece,
+Mr. Innes had declared it to be, so, to stop the performance on account
+of Evelyn's viola da gamba, and then to hear her play worse than he had
+ever heard her play before, was very disappointing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the matter? Aren't you well? I never heard you play so badly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He hoped that she would play better in the next piece, and he besought
+her with a look before he signed to the players to begin. She resolved
+not to think of Owen, and she played so well that the next piece was
+applauded. Except for her father's sake she cared very little how she
+played; she tried to play well to please him, but she was anxious to
+sing well&mdash;she was singing for herself and for Owen, which was the same
+thing&mdash;and she sang beautifully in the King's madrigal and the two songs
+accompanied by the lute&mdash;&quot;I loathe what I did love,&quot; and &quot;My lytell
+pretty one,&quot; both anonymous, composed in 1520, and discovered by Mr.
+Innes in the British Museum. The musical interest of these two songs was
+slight, and Owen reflected that all Mr. Innes's discoveries at the
+British Museum were not of equal importance. But she had sung divinely,
+and he thought how he should praise her at the end of the concert.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn hoped he would tell her that she had sung better than she had
+sung on the fatal night of the party in Berkeley Square. This was what
+she wished him to say, and she wished it partly because she knew that
+that was what he would say. That party had not yet been spoken of, but
+she felt sure it would be, for it seemed a decisive point in their
+lives.</p>
+
+<p>She was not playing in the next two pieces&mdash;fantasies for treble and
+tenor viols&mdash;and she sat in the background, catching glimpses of Owen
+between the hands and the heads of the viol players, and over the rims
+of their, instruments. She sat apart, not hearing a note of the music,
+absorbed in herself, a little exaltation afloat in her brain, her flesh
+glowing as in the warmth of an inward fire, her whole instinct telling
+her that Owen had not come back for the red-haired woman; he had gone
+away for her, perhaps, but he had not come back for her&mdash;of that she was
+sure In spite of herself, the conviction was forced upon her that the
+future was for her. The red-haired lady was a past which he would tell
+her some day, and that day she knew to be not very far distant.</p>
+
+<p>The programme was divided into two parts, and after the first, there was
+a little interval during which tea and cake were handed round. Evelyn
+helped to hand them round, and when she held the cake tray to Owen, she
+raised her eyes and they looked at each other, and in that interval it
+almost seemed as if they kissed each other.</p>
+
+<p>They met again at the end of the concert, and she waited anxiously for
+him to speak. He told her, as she expected he would, that she had sung
+to-night much better than she had sung at his party. But they were
+surrounded by people seeking their coats and umbrellas; it was
+impossible to speak without being overheard; he had told her that she
+had sung to his satisfaction; that was sufficient, and they felt that
+all had been said, and that they understood each other perfectly.</p>
+
+<p>As she lay in bed, the thought came that he might write to her a letter
+asking her to meet him, to keep an appointment. But she would have to
+refuse, it would be wrong; but it was not wrong to think about it. He
+would be there before her; the moment he saw her coming his eyes would
+light up in a smile, and they would walk on together some little way
+without speaking. Then he would say, &quot;Dearest, there will be a carriage
+waiting at the corner of the road&quot;&mdash;and then? She could see his face and
+his tall, thin figure, she could picture it all so distinctly that it
+was almost the same as if it were happening. All he said, as well as all
+she said, kept pouring in upon her brain without a missing word, and she
+hugged herself in the delight of these imaginings, and the hours went by
+without weariness for her. She lay, her arms folded, thinking,
+thinking, seeing him through the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>He came to see them the following day. Her father was there all the
+time, but to hear and see him was almost enough for her. She seemed to
+lose sight of everything and to be engulfed in her own joy. When he had
+gone away she remembered the smile which had lit up some pretty thought
+of her; her ears were full of his voice, and she heard the lilt that
+charmed her whenever she pleased. Then she asked herself the meaning of
+some casual remark, and her mind repeated all he had said like a
+phonograph. She already knew his habitual turns of speech; they had
+begun to appear in her own conversation, and all that was not connected
+with him lost interest for her. Once or twice during the week she went
+to bed early so that she might not fancy her father was looking at her
+while she thought of Owen.</p>
+
+<p>Owen called at the end of the week&mdash;the <i>Wagnerian Review</i> always
+supplied him with sufficient excuse for a visit&mdash;but he had to spend his
+visit in discussing the text of a Greek hymn which he had seen
+disinterred in Greece. She was sorry for him, sorrier than she was for
+herself, for she could always find him in her thoughts.... She wondered
+if he could find her as vividly in his thoughts as she settled herself
+(the next day was Sunday) in the corner of her pew, resolved from the
+beginning not to hear a word of the sermon, but to think of Owen the
+whole time. She wanted to hear why he had left England so suddenly, and
+why he had returned so suddenly. She was sure that she and the
+red-haired lady were the cause of one or the other, and that neither was
+the cause of both. These two facts served for a warp upon which she
+could weave endless mental embroideries, tales as real as the tales of
+old tapestry, tales of love and jealousy, and unexpected meetings, in
+which she and Owen and the red-haired lady met and re-met. Whilst Father
+Railston was preaching, these tales flowed on and on, subtle as silk,
+illusive as evening tinted clouds; and it was not until she had
+exhausted her fancy, and Owen had made one more fruitless visit to
+Dulwich, that she began to scheme how she might see him alone. There was
+so much that they could only talk about if they were alone; and then she
+wanted so much to hear the story of the red-haired lady. If she did not
+contrive an opportunity for being with him alone, she might never hear
+why he had left England for a trip round the world, and had returned
+suddenly from the Mediterranean. She felt that, however difficult and
+however wrong it might be, she must find this opportunity. She thought
+of asking him the hour of the train by which he generally came to
+Dulwich, so that she might meet him in the station. Other schemes came
+into her mind, but she could think of nothing that was just right.</p>
+
+<p>But one day, as she was running to post a letter, she saw Owen, more
+beautifully dressed than ever, coming toward her. Her feet and her
+heart stood still, for she wore her old morning gown and a pair of old
+house slippers. But he had already seen her and was lifting his hat, and
+with easy effrontery he told her that he had come to Dulwich to consult
+her father about the Greek hymn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But father is at St. Joseph's,&quot; she said, and then she stopped; and
+then, before she saw his smile, she knew why he had come to Dulwich so
+early.</p>
+
+<p>The shadows of the leaves on the pavement drew pretty pattern for their
+feet, and they strolled meditatively through the subdued sunlight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did you stop and look so startled when you saw me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I am so badly dressed; my old house slippers and this&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You look very well&mdash;dress matters nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one would gather your opinions from your appearance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen laughed, and admired the girl's wit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you want to see father very much about the Greek hymn?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he said, and he looked at her questioningly, and not liking to
+tell her in so many words that he had come to Dulwich to see her, he
+entered into the question of the text of the hymn, which was imperfect.
+Many notes were missing, and had been conjecturely added by a French
+musician, and he had wished to consult Mr. Innes about them. So a good
+deal of time was wasted in conversation in which neither was interested.
+Before they were aware, they were at Dowlands, and with an accent of
+regret in her voice, which Owen noticed with pleasure, she held out her
+hand and said good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you very busy, then, are you expecting a pupil?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I have nothing to do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then why should we say good-bye? It is hardly worth while getting up so
+early in the morning to discuss the text of an ancient Greek hymn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His frankness was unexpected, and it pleased her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I don't suppose it is; Greek music at eleven o'clock in the morning
+would be a little trying.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A delicious sense of humour lit up in her eyes, and he felt his interest
+in her advance a further stage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you have nothing to do we might go to the picture gallery. There is
+a wonderful Watteau&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Watteau at eleven, Greek hymn at one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But she felt, all the same, that she would give everything to go to the
+picture gallery with him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I am not dressed, this is an old thing I wear in the morning; not
+that there would be many people there, only the curator and a girl
+copying at eleven in the morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But is your father coming back at one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you ask?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because you said Greek hymn at one. The time will pass quickly between
+eleven and one. You need not change your dress.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, with an expressive little glance which went straight to his heart,
+she noted his fastidious dress, the mauve necktie, the perfectly fitting
+morning coat buttoned across the chest, the yellow-brown trousers, and
+the long laced boots, half of patent and half of tan coloured leather.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not walk about with you in this dress and hat, but I sha'n't
+keep you long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While he waited he congratulated himself on the moment when he had
+determined to abandon his tour round the world, and come back to seek
+Evelyn Innes at Dulwich.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is much nicer, a hundred times more exciting than I thought.
+Poetry, sympathy, it is like living in a dream.&quot; He asked himself if he
+liked her better than Georgina, and answered himself that he did; but
+deep down in his heart he knew that the other woman had given him deeper
+and more poignant emotions, and he knit his brows, for he hated
+Georgina.</p>
+
+<p>Owen was the first temptation in Evelyn's life, and it carried her
+forward with the force of a swirling river. She tried to think, but
+thoughts failed her, and she hooked her black cloth skirt and thrust her
+arms into her black cloth jacket with puffed sleeves. She opened her
+wardrobe, and wondered which hat he would like, chose one, and hastened
+downstairs.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've not been long ... you look very nice. Yes, that is an
+improvement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His notice of her occasioned in her a little flutter of joy, a little
+exaltation of the senses, and she walked on without speaking, deep in
+her pleasure, and as the sensation died she became aware that she was
+very happy. The quiet silence of the Spring morning corresponded to her
+mood, and the rustle of last year's leaves communicated a delicious
+emotion which seemed to sing in the currents of her blood, and a little
+madness danced in her brain at the ordinary sight of nature. &quot;This way,&quot;
+she said, and they turned into a lane which almost looked like country.
+There were hedges and fields; and the sunlight dozed amid the cows, and
+over the branches of the high elm the Spring was already shaking a soft
+green dust. There were nests in the bare boughs&mdash;whether last year's or
+this year's was not certain. Further on there was a stile, and she
+thought that she would like to lean upon it and look straight through
+the dim fields, gathering the meaning which they seemed to express. She
+wondered if Owen felt as she did, if he shared her admiration of the
+sunlight which fell about the stile through the woven branches, making
+round white spots on the roadway.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you were surprised to hear that I had given up my trip round the
+world?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was surprised to hear you had given it up so that you might hear me
+sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You think a man incapable of giving up anything for a woman?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was trembling, and his voice was confused; experience did not alter
+him; on the verge of an avowal he was nervous as a schoolboy. He watched
+to see if she were moved, but she did not seem to be; he waited for her
+to contest the point he had raised, but her reply, which was quite
+different, took him aback.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You say you came back to hear me sing. Was it not for another woman
+that you went away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but how did you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The woman with the red hair who was at your party?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The tale of a past love affair often served Owen as a plank of
+transition to another. He told her the tale. It seemed to him
+extraordinary because it had happened to him, and it seemed to Evelyn
+very extraordinary because it was her first experience of the ways of
+love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then it was she who got tired of you? Why did she get tired of you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why anything? Why did she fall in love with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it, then, the same thing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He judged it necessary to dissemble, and he advanced the theory which he
+always made use of on these occasions&mdash;that women were more capricious
+than men, that so far as his experience counted for anything, he had
+invariably been thrown over. The object of this theory was two-fold. It
+impressed his listener with an idea of his fidelity, which was essential
+if she were a woman. It also suggested that he had inspired a large
+number of caprices, thereby he gratified his vanity and inspired hope in
+the lady that as a lover he would prove equal to her desire. It also
+helped to establish the moral atmosphere in which an intrigue might
+develop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you love her very much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I was crazy about her. If I hadn't been, should I have rushed off
+in my old yacht for a tour round the world?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He felt the light of romance fall upon him, and this, he thought, was
+how he ought to appear to her.</p>
+
+<p>Yet he was sincere. He admired Evelyn, he thought he might like to be
+her lover, and he regarded their present talk as a necessary subterfuge,
+the habitual comedy in which we live. So, when Evelyn asked him if he
+still loved Georgina, he answered that he hated her, which was only
+partly true; and when she asked him if he would go back to her if she
+were to invite him, he said that nothing in the world would induce him
+to do so, which was wholly untrue, though he would not admit it to
+himself. He knew that if Georgina were to hold up her little finger he
+would leave Evelyn without a second thought, however foolish he might
+know such conduct to be.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did you not marry her when she was in love with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can love a woman very well indeed without wanting to marry her;
+besides, she is married. But are you sure we're going right?...Is this
+the way to the picture gallery?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, the picture gallery, I had forgotten. We have passed it a long
+while.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They turned and went back, and, in the silence, Owen considered if he
+had not been too abrupt. His dealings with women had always been
+conducted with the same honour that characterised his dealings on the
+turf, but he need not have informed her so early in their
+acquaintanceship of his vow of celibacy. While he thought how he might
+retrieve his slight indiscretion, she struggled in a little crisis of
+soul. Owen's words, tone of voice, manner were explicit; she could not
+doubt that he hoped to induce her to leave her father, and she felt that
+she ought not to see him any more. She must see him, she must go out to
+walk with him, and her will fluttered like a feather in space. She
+remembered with a gasp that he was the only thing between herself and
+Dulwich, and at the same moment he decided that he could not do better
+than to suggest to her that her father was sacrificing her to his
+ambitions.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder,&quot; he said, assuming a meditative air, &quot;what will become of
+you? Eventually, I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you think?&quot; Her eagerness told him that he had struck the right
+note.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have grown up in an atmosphere of great music, far removed from the
+tendencies of our day. You have received from your father an
+extraordinary musical education. He has prepared you on all points but
+one for your career, he has not developed your voice; his ambition
+intervened&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not say that. Father does not allow his ambition to interfere
+with his duties regarding me. You only think that because you do not
+know him; you don't know all the difficulties he has to contend with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen smiled inwardly, pleased at the perception he had shown in divining
+her feelings, and he congratulated himself on having sown some slight
+seed of discontent; and then, as if he were withdrawing, or at least
+attenuating, the suggestion he had thrown out, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Anyone can see that you and your father are very attached to each
+other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Can they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You always like to be near him, and your favourite attitude is with
+your hand on his shoulder.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So many people have noticed that. Yes, I am very fond of father. We
+were always very fond of each other, but now we are more like pals than
+father and daughter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He encouraged her to talk of herself, to tell him the story of her
+childhood, and how she and her father formed this great friendship.
+Evelyn's story of her mother's death would have interested him if he had
+been able to bestow sufficient attention upon it, but the intricacy of
+the intrigue he was entering upon engrossed his thoughts. There were her
+love of her father, her duty towards him, and her piety to be overcome.
+Against these three considerable influences there were her personal
+ambition and her love of him. A very evenly matched game, he thought,
+and for nothing in the world would he have missed this love adventure.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the words, &quot;A few days later she died,&quot; caught on his
+ear. So he called all the sorrow and reverence he could into his eyes,
+sighed, and raised his eyebrows expressing such philosophic resignation
+in our mortal lot as might suffice to excuse a change in the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is the picture gallery,&quot; Evelyn said, pointing to a low brick
+building, almost hidden at the back of a well-kept garden. The
+unobtrusive doorway was covered with a massive creeper, just beginning
+to emerge from it's winter's rust. &quot;Do you care to go in?&quot; she said
+negligently.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know the pictures so well, I am afraid they will bore you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I should like to see them with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He could see that her &aelig;sthetic taste had been absorbed by music, and
+that pictures meant nothing to her, but they meant a great deal to him,
+and, unable to resist the temptation, he said&mdash;&quot;Let us go in for a
+little while, though it does seem a pity to waste this beautiful Spring
+day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was an official who took her parasol and his cane, and they were
+impressed by the fact of having to write their names side by side in the
+book&mdash;Sir Owen Asher, Evelyn Innes.</p>
+
+<p>On pushing through the swing-door, they found themselves in a small room
+hung with the Dutch school. There were other rooms, some four or five,
+opening one into the other, and lighted so that the light fell sideways
+on to the pictures. Owen praised the architecture. It was, he said, the
+most perfectly-constructed little gallery he had ever seen, and he ought
+to know, for he had seen every gallery in Europe. But he had not been
+here for many years and had quite forgotten it. &quot;A veritable radiation
+of masterpieces,&quot; he said, stepping aside to see one. But the girl was
+the greater attraction, and only half satisfied he returned to her, and
+when the attraction of the pictures grew irresistible he tried to engage
+her attention in their beauties, so that he might be allowed to enjoy
+them. To his surprise and pleasure the remarks he had hazarded provoked
+an extraordinary interest in her, and she begged of him to tell her more
+about the paintings. He was not without suspicion that the pictures were
+a secondary interest; but as it was clear that to hear him talk excited
+her admiration, he favoured her with all he knew regarding the Dutch
+school. She followed attentive as a peahen, he spreading a gorgeous tail
+of accumulated information. He asked if the dark background in Cuyp's
+picture, &quot;The White Horse and the Riding School,&quot; was not admirable? And
+that old woman peeling onions in her little kitchen, painted by a modern
+would be realistic and vulgar; but the Dutchman knew that by light and
+shade the meanest subject could be made as romantic as a fairy tale. As
+dreamers and thinkers they did not compare with the Italians, but as
+painters they were equal to any. They were the first to introduce the
+trivialities of daily life into Art&mdash;the toil of the field, the gross
+pleasures of the tavern. &quot;Look at these boors drinking; they are by
+Ostade. Are they not admirably drawn and painted? &quot;Brick-making in a
+Landscape, by Teniers the younger.&quot; Won't you look at this? How
+beautiful! How interesting is its grey sky! Here are a set of pictures
+by Wouvermans&mdash;pictures of hawking. Here is a Brouwer, a very rare Dutch
+master, a very fine example too. And here is a Gerard Dow. Miss Innes,
+will you look at this composition? Is it not admirable? That rich
+curtain hung across the room, how beautifully painted, how sonorous in
+colour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! she's playing a virginal!&quot; said Evelyn, suddenly. &quot;She is like me,
+playing and thinking of other things. You can see she is not thinking of
+the music. She is thinking ... she is thinking of the world outside.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This pleased him, and he said, &quot;Yes, I suppose it is like your life; it
+is full of the same romance and mystery.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What romance, what mystery? Tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They sat down on the bench in the third room, opposite the colonnade by
+Watteau, to which his thoughts frequently went, while telling her how,
+when cruising among the Greek Islands, he had often seen her, sometimes
+sitting in the music-room playing the virginal, sometimes walking in the
+ornamental park under a wet, grey sky, a somewhat desolate figure
+hurrying through shadows of storm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How strange you should think all that. It is quite true. I often walked
+in that hateful park.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will never be able to stand another winter in Dulwich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes, and he noticed with an inward glee their little
+frightened look.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought of you in that ornamental park watching London from the crest
+of the hill; and I thought of London&mdash;great, unconscious London&mdash;waiting
+to be awakened with the chime of your voice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She turned her head aside, overcome by his praise, and he exulted,
+seeing the soft rose tint mount into the whiteness of her face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not say such things to me. How you do know how to praise!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't realise how wonderful you are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You should not say such things, for if they are not true, I shall be so
+miserable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course they are true,&quot; he said, hushing his voice; and in his
+exultation there was a savour of cruelty. &quot;You don't realise how
+wonderful your story is. As I sailed through the Greek Isles, I thought
+less and less of that horrid, red-haired woman; your face, dim at first,
+grew clearer and clearer.... All my thoughts, all things converged to
+you and were absorbed in you, until, one day on the deck, I felt that
+you were unhappy; the knowledge came, how and whence I know not; I only
+know that the impulse to return was irresistible. I called to the
+skipper, and told him to put her head about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you did think of me whilst you were away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn looked at him with her soft, female eyes, and meeting his keen,
+bright, male eyes, she drew away from him with a little dread.
+Immediately after, this sensation of dread gave way to a delicious joy;
+an irresponsible joy deep down in her heart, a joy so intimate that she
+was thankful to know that none could know it but herself.</p>
+
+<p>Her woman's instinct told her that many women had loved him. She
+suspected that the little lilt in his voice, and the glance that
+accompanied it, were the relics of an old love affair. She hoped it was
+not a survival of Georgina.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must be nearly one o'clock. It is time for you to come to talk to
+father about the Greek hymn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let's look at this picture first&mdash;'The F&ecirc;te beneath the Colonnade'&mdash;it
+is one of the most beautiful things in the world.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_FIVE'></a><h2>CHAPTER FIVE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Sipping her coffee, her feet on the fender, she abandoned herself to
+memories of the afternoon. She had been to the Carmelite Church in
+Kensington, to hear the music of a new and very realistic Belgian
+composer; and, walking down the High Street after Mass, she and Owen had
+argued his artistic intentions. At the end of the High Street, he had
+proposed that they should walk in the Gardens. The broad walk was full
+of the colour of Spring and its perfume, the thick grass was like a
+carpet beneath their feet; they had lingered by a pond, and she had
+watched the little yachts, carrying each a portent of her own success or
+failure. The Albert Hall curved over the tops of the trees, and sheep
+strayed through the deep May grass in Arcadian peacefulness; but the
+most vivid impression was when they had come upon a lawn stretching
+gently to the water's edge. Owen had feared the day was too cold for
+sitting out, but at that moment the sun contradicted him with a broad,
+warm gleam. He had fetched two chairs from a pile stacked under a tree,
+and sitting on that lawn, swept by the shadow of softly moving trees,
+they had talked an hour or more. The scene came back to her as she sat
+looking into the fire. She saw the Spring, easily victorious amid the
+low bushes, capturing the rough branches of the elms one by one, and the
+distant slopes of the park, grey like a piece of faded tapestry. And as
+in a tapestry, the ducks came through the mist in long, pulsing flight,
+and when the day cleared the pea fowl were seen across the water,
+sunning themselves on the high branches. While watching the spectacle of
+the Spring, Owen had talked to Evelyn about herself, and now their
+entire conversation floated back, transposed into a higher key.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want your life to be a great success.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think anyone's life can be that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is a long discussion; if we seek the bottom of things, none is
+less futile than another. But what passes for success, wealth and
+renown, are easily within your reach.... If it be too much trouble to
+raise your hand, let me shake the branches, and they'll fall into your
+lap.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder if they would seem as precious to me when I had got them as
+they do now. Once I did not know what it was to despond, but I lost my
+pupils last winter, and everything seemed hopeless. I am not vain or
+egotistic; I do not pine for applause and wealth, but I should like to
+sing.... I've heard so much about my voice that I'm curious to know what
+people will think of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once I was afraid that you were without ambition, and were content to
+live unknown, a little suburban legend, a suburban might-have-been.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was long ago.... I've been thinking about myself a great deal
+lately. Something seems always crying within me, 'You're wasting your
+life; you must become a great singer and shine like a star in the
+world.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is the voice of vocation speaking within you, a voice that may not
+be disobeyed. It is what the swallows feel when the time for departure
+has come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes, what the swallows feel.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A yearning for that which one has never known, for distant places, for
+the sunshine which instinct tells us we must breathe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, that is it. I used to feel all that in the afternoons in that
+ornamental park. I used to stop in my walk, for I seemed to see far
+away, to perceive dimly as in a dream, another country.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And since I came back have you wished to go away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No ... for you come to see me, and when I go out with you I'm amused.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid I do little to amuse you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You do a great deal&mdash;you lend me books. I never cared to read, now I'm
+very fond of reading&mdash;and I think more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of what do you think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see, I never met anyone like you before. You've travelled; you've
+seen everything; you know everything and everyone. When you come I seem
+to see in you all the grand world of fashion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which you used to see far away as in a dream?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, the world of fashion I did not think of till I saw you. Since you
+came back I have thought of it a little. You seem to express it somehow
+in your look and dress; and the men who nodded to you in Piccadilly, and
+the women who bowed to you, all wore the same look, and when they spoke
+they seemed to know all about you&mdash;where you were last summer, and where
+you are going to spend this autumn. Their friends are your friends;
+you're all like one family.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're very observant. I never noticed the things you speak of, but no
+doubt it is so. But society is ready to receive you; society, believe
+me, is most anxious for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After some pause she heard him say&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you must not delay to go abroad and study.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell me, do you think the concerts will ever pay?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not in the sense of your requirements. Evelyn, since you ask me, I
+must speak the truth. Those concerts may come to pay their expenses,
+with a little over, but it is the veriest delusion to imagine that they
+will bring enough money to take you and your father abroad. Moreover,
+your father would have to resign his position at St. Joseph's, where he
+is required; there his mission is. It is painful for me to tell you
+these things, but I cannot see you waste your life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What you say is quite true.... I've known it all along.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only you have shut your eyes to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that's it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't look so frightened, Evelyn. It was better that you should be
+brought face to face with the truth. You'll have to go abroad and
+study.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And my father! Don't advise me to leave him. I couldn't do that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why make my task more difficult than it is? I wish to be honest. I
+should speak just the same, believe me, if your father were present. Is
+not our first duty towards ourselves? The rest is vague and uncertain,
+the development of our own faculties is, after all, that which is most
+sure.... I'm uttering no paradox when I say that we serve others best by
+considering our own interests. Let us suppose that you sacrifice
+yourself, that you dedicate your life to your father, that you do all
+that conventional morality says you should do. You look after his house,
+you sing at his concerts, you give music lessons. Ten, fifteen years
+pass, and then, remembering what might have been, but what is no longer
+possible, you forgive him, and he, overcome with remorse for the wrong
+he did you, sinks into the grave broken-hearted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I had done my
+duty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Words, Evelyn, words. Take your life into your keeping, go abroad and
+study, come back a great success.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He would never forgive me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You do not think so.... Evelyn, you do not believe that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But even if I wished to leave home, I could not. Where should I get the
+money? You have not thought what it would cost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you forgotten the knight that came to release the sleeping beauty
+of the woods from her bondage? Fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds
+would be ample. I can easily afford it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I cannot afford to accept it. Father would not allow me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can pay it all back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I could do that. But why don't you offer to help father instead?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why are you what you are? Why am I interested in you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I went abroad to study, I should not see you again for a long
+while&mdash;two years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could go to Paris.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She did not remember what answer she had made, if she had made any
+answer, but as she leaned forward and stirred the fire, she saw his
+hands, their strength and comeliness, the kindliness of his eyes. She
+was not sure that he was fond of, but she thought that she could make
+him like her. At that moment he seemed to take her in his arms and kiss
+her, and the illusion was so vivid that she was taken in an instant's
+swoon, and shuddered through her entire flesh. When her thoughts
+returned she found herself thinking of a volume of verses which had come
+to be mentioned as they walked through the Gardens. He had told her of
+the author, a Persian poet who had lived in a rose-garden a thousand
+years ago. He had compared life to a rose, an exquisite flower to be
+caught in the hand and enjoyed for a passionate moment, and had recited
+many of the verses, and she had listened, enchanted by the rapid
+interchange of sorrow, and gladness, and lofty resignation before the
+inevitable. Often it seemed as if her own soul were speaking in the
+verses. &quot;So do not refuse to accept the flowers and fruit that hang in
+reach of your hands, for to-morrow you may be where there are none....
+The caravan will have reached the nothing it set out from.... Surely the
+potter will not toss to hell the pots he marred in the making.&quot; She
+started from her reverie, and suddenly grew aware of his very words,
+&quot;However we may strive to catch a glimpse of to-morrow, we must fall
+back on to-day as the only solid ground we have to stand on, though it
+be slipping momentarily from under our feet.&quot; She recalled the
+intonation of his sigh as he spoke of the inscrutable nature of things,
+and she wondered if he, too, with all his friends and possessions, was
+unhappy. She seemed to have exhausted her thoughts about him, and in the
+silence of her mind, her self came up for consideration.... Owen
+intended to ask her to go away with him; but he did not intend to marry
+her. It was shocking to think that he could be so wicked, and then with
+a thrill of pleasure that it would be much more exciting to run away
+with him than to be married to him by Father Railston. But how very
+wicked of her to think such things, and she was frightened to find that
+she could not think differently; and with sensations of an elopement
+clattering in her brain, she sat still striving to restrain her
+thoughts.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_SIX'></a><h2>CHAPTER SIX</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>On leaving her at Victoria, he had walked down the Buckingham Palace
+Road, not quite knowing where he was going. Suddenly an idea struck him.
+He put up his stick, stopped a hansom, and drove to Georgina; for he was
+curious to see what impression she would make upon him. He spent an hour
+with her, and returned to Berkeley Square to dine alone. He was sure
+that he cared no more for Georgina, that she was less than nothing to
+him. He dismissed her from his thoughts, and fixed them on Evelyn. He
+had said he would send her a book. It stood next to his hand, on the
+shelf by the round table where he wrote his articles. After dinner, he
+would walk from the dining-room into the library, take down the volume
+and pack it up, leaving orders that it should be sent off by the first
+post.</p>
+
+<p>When man ceased to capture women, he reflected, man invented art whereby
+he might win them. The first melody blown through a reed pipe was surely
+intended for woman's ears. The first verses were composed in a like
+intention. Afterwards man began to take an interest in art for its own
+sake.... Women, having no necessity for art, have not been artists. The
+idea amused him, and he remembered that while Evelyn's romantic eyes and
+gold hair were sufficient to win his regard, he had availed himself of a
+dozen devices to tempt her. Suddenly his face grew grave, and he asked
+himself how this flirtation was to end. As a sufficient excuse for
+seeing her he was taking music lessons; he wrote to her every other day
+and often sent her books and music. They had met in London.... He had
+been observed walking with her, and at Lady Ascott's lunch the
+conversation had suddenly turned on a tall girl with gold hair and an
+undulating walk. Pointed observations had been made.... Lady Lovedale
+had looked none too well pleased. He didn't wish to be cynical, but he
+did want to know whether he was going to fall in love?... They had now
+arrived at that point when love-making or an interruption in their
+intimacy was imperative. He did not regret having offered her the money
+to go abroad to study, it was well he should have done so, but he should
+not have said, &quot;But <i>I'll</i> go to see you in Paris.&quot; She was a clever
+girl, and knew as well as he how such adventures must end.... She was a
+religious girl, a devout Catholic, and as he had himself been brought
+up in that religion, he knew how it restrained the sexual passion or
+fashioned it in the mould of its dogma. But we are animals first, we are
+religious animals afterwards. Religious defences must yield before the
+pressure of the more original instinct, unless, indeed, hers was a
+merely sexual conscience. The lowest forms of Anglicanism are reduced to
+perceiving conscience nowhere except in sex. The Catholic was more
+concerned with matters of faith. Not in France, Italy or Spain did
+Catholicism enter so largely into the private life of the individual as
+it did in England. The foreign, or to be more exact, the native Catholic
+had worn the yoke till it fitted loose on his shoulders. His was a more
+eclectic Christianity; he took what suited him and left the rest. But in
+England Romanism had never shaken itself free from the Anglican
+conscience. The convert never acquired the humanities of Rome, and in
+addition the lover had to contend against the confessional. But in
+Evelyn's case he could set against the confessional the delirium of
+success, the joy of art, the passion of emulation, jealousy and
+ambition, and last, but far from least, the ache of her own passionate
+body. Remembering the fear and humility with which he had been used to
+approach the priest, and the terror of eternal fire in which he had
+waited for him to pronounce absolution, Owen paused to think how far
+such belief was from him now. Yet he had once believed&mdash;in a way. He
+wondered at the survival of such a belief in the nineteenth century, and
+asked himself if confession were not inveterate in man. The artist in
+his studio, the writer in his study, strive to tell their soul's secret;
+the peasant throws himself at the feet of the priest, for, like them, he
+would unburden himself of that terrible weight of inwardness which is
+man. Is not the most mendacious mistress often taken with the desire of
+confession ... the wish to reveal herself? Upon this bed rock of human
+nature the confessional has been built. And Owen admired the humanity of
+Rome. Rome was terribly human. No Church, he reflected, was so human.
+Her doctrine may seem at times quaint, medieval, even gross, but when
+tested by the only test that can be applied, power to reach to human
+needs, and administer consolation to the greatest number, the most
+obtuse-minded cannot fail to see that Rome easily distances her rivals.
+Her dogma and ceremonial are alike conceived in extraordinary sympathy
+with man's common nature....</p>
+
+<p>Our lives are enveloped in mystery, the scientist concedes that, and the
+woof of which the stuff of life is woven is shot through with many a
+thread of unknown origin, untraceable to any earthly shuttle. There is a
+mystery, and in the elucidation of that mystery man never tires; the
+Sovereign Pontiff and the humblest crystal gazer are engaged in the same
+adventure. The mystery is so intense, and lives so intimately in all,
+that Rome dared to come forward with a complete explanation. And her
+necessarily perfunctory explanation she drapes in a ritual so
+magnificent, that even the philosopher ceases to question, and pauses
+abashed by the grandeur of the symbolism. High Mass in its own home,
+under the arches of a Gothic cathedral, appealed alike to the loftiest
+and humblest intelligence. Owen paused to think if there was not
+something vulgar in the parade of the Mass. A simple prayer breathed by
+a burdened heart in secret awaked a more immediate and intimate response
+in him. That was Anglicanism. Perhaps he preferred Anglicanism. The
+truth was, he was deficient in the religious instinct.</p>
+
+<p>Awaking from his reverie, he raised himself from the mantelpiece against
+which he was leaning. Never had he thought so brilliantly, and he
+regretted that no magical stenographer should be there to register his
+thoughts as they passed. But they were gone.... Resuming his position
+against the mantelpiece, he continued his interrupted train of thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>There would be the priest's interdiction ... unless, indeed, he could
+win Evelyn to agnosticism. In his own case he could imagine a sort of
+religious agnosticism. But is a woman capable of such a serene
+contemplation and comprehension of the mystery, which perforce we must
+admit envelops us, and which often seems charged with murmurs,
+recollections and warnings of the under world? Does not woman need the
+grosser aid of dogma to raise her sensual nature out of complete
+abjection? But all this was very metaphysical. The probability was that
+Evelyn would lead the life of the ordinary prima donna until she was
+fifty, that she would then retire to a suburb in receipt of a handsome
+income, and having nothing to do, she would begin to think again of the
+state of her soul. The line of her chin deflected; some would call it a
+weak chin, but he had observed the same in men of genius&mdash;her father,
+for instance. None could be more resolute than he in the pursuance of
+his ideas. The mother's thin, stubborn mouth must find expression
+somewhere in her daughter. But where? Evelyn's mouth was thin and it
+drooped at the ends.... But she was only twenty; at five-and-twenty, at
+thirty, she might be possessed by new ideas, new passions.... The moment
+we look into life and examine the weft a little, what a mystery it
+becomes, how occult the design, and out of what impenetrable darkness
+the shuttle passes, weaving a strange pattern, harmonious in a way, and
+yet deducible to none of our laws! This little adventure, the little
+fact of his becoming Evelyn's lover, was sown with every eventuality....
+If, instead of his winning her to agnosticism, she should win him to
+Rome! They then would have to separate or marry, otherwise they would
+burn in hell for ever.</p>
+
+<p>But he would never be fool enough as to accept such a story as that
+again. That God should concern himself at all in our affairs was
+strange enough, that he should do so seemed little creditable to him,
+but that he should manage us to the extent of the mere registration of a
+cohabitation in the parish books was&mdash;. Owen flung out his arms in an
+admirable gesture of despair, and crossed the room. After a while he
+returned to the fireplace calmer, and he considered the question anew.
+By no means did he deny the existence of conscience; his own was
+particularly exact on certain points. In money matters he believed
+himself to be absolutely straight. He had never even sold a friend a
+horse knowing it to be unsound; and he had always avoided&mdash;no, not
+making love to his friends' wives (to whose wives are you to make love
+if not to your friends'?)&mdash;he had avoided making women unhappy. But much
+more than in morals his conscience found expression in art. That Evelyn
+should use her voice except for the interpretation of masterpieces would
+shock him quite as much as an elopement would shock the worthy Fathers
+of St. Joseph's. He smiled at his thoughts, and remembered that it was
+through fear of not making a woman happy that he had not married. He
+hated unhappiness. His wish had always been to see people happy. Was not
+that why he wished to go away with Evelyn? A particularly foolish woman
+had once told him that she liked going out hunting because she liked to
+see people amused.... He did not pretend to such altruism as hers, and
+he remembered how he used to watch for her at the window as she came
+across the square with her dog. But Evelyn was quite different. He could
+not have her to luncheon or tea, and send her back to her father.
+Somehow, it would not seem fair to her. No; he must break with her, or
+they must go away together. Which was it to be? Mrs. Hartrick had
+written three times that week! And there was Lady Lovedale. She had
+promised to come to tea on Friday. Was he going to renounce the list, or
+was he going to put all his eggs in one basket? The list promised much
+agreeable intercourse, but it was wholly lacking in unexpectedness. He
+had been through it all before, and knew how each story would end. In
+mutual indifference or in a tiff because he wearied of accompanying her
+to all racecourses and all theatres. Another would pretend that her
+husband was jealous, and that she daren't come to see him any more. But
+Evelyn would be quite different. In her case, he could not see further
+than driving to Charing Cross and getting into the mail train for Paris.
+She was worth the list, not a doubt of it. If he were only sure that he
+loved her, he would not hesitate. He was interested in her, he admired
+her, but did he love her? A genuine passion alone would make an
+elopement excusable.</p>
+
+<p>One of his moralities was that a man who did not love his mistress was a
+beast, and that a man who loved a woman who wasn't, was a fool. Another
+was that although every man of the world knew a <i>liaison</i> would not
+last for ever, he should not begin one unless it seemed as if it were
+going to. In other words, you should not be able to see the end before
+you began. But he had never even kissed Evelyn, and it was impossible
+even to guess, even approximately, if you were going to like a girl
+before you had kissed her. There could be no harm in kissing her. Then,
+if he was sure he loved her, they might go away together. Of course,
+there were hypocrites who would say that he had seduced her, that he had
+ruined her, robbed Mr. Innes of his only daughter. But he was not
+concerned with conventional, but with real morality. If he did not go
+away with her, what would happen? He had told her the truth in the park
+that morning, and he believed every word he had said.... If she did not
+leave her father she would learn to hate him. It was terrible to think
+of, but it was so, and nothing could change it. He tried to recall his
+exact words, and easily imagined her father stricken with remorse, and
+Evelyn looking across the table, hating him in spite of herself. But if
+he could persuade her to leave him for two years he would engage to
+bring her back a great singer. And what an interest it would be to watch
+the development of that voice, surely the most beautiful soprano he had
+ever heard! She might begin with &quot;Margaret&quot; and &quot;Norma,&quot; if she liked,
+for in singing these popular operas she would acquire the whole of her
+voice, and also the great reputation which should precede and herald the
+final stage of her career. &quot;Isolde,&quot; &quot;Brunnhilde,&quot; &quot;Kundry,&quot; Wagner's
+finest works, had remained unsung&mdash;they en merely howled. Evelyn should
+be the first to sing them. His eyes glowed with subdued passion as he
+thought of an afternoon, some three years hence, in the great theatre
+planned by the master himself, when he should see her rush in as the
+Witch Kundry. The marvellous evocation of Arabia flashed upon him....
+Would he ever hear her sing it?... Yes, if she would consent to go away
+with him he would hear her sing it. But would she go away with him? Her
+love of her father, and her religion, might prevent her.... She might
+not even care for him.... She might be thinking of marrying him. Was it
+possible that she was such a fool! What good would it do her to marry
+him? She could not go on the stage as Lady Asher. Lady Asher as Kundry!
+Could anything be more grotesque? How beset life was with difficulties!
+Without her vocation she was no longer the Evelyn Innes he was in love
+with.... Someone else, a pretty, interesting girl, the daughter of a
+suburban organist. To marry her now would be to ruin her. But he might
+marry her five or six years hence, for there was no reason why she
+should continue singing &quot;Isolde&quot; and &quot;Brunnhilde&quot; till she had no shred
+of voice left. When she had established a standard she would have
+achieved her mission, then it would be for others to maintain the
+standard. In the full blaze of her glory she might become Lady Asher. He
+would have to end his life somehow, that way as well as another. Five
+years are a long while&mdash;anything might happen. She might leave him for
+someone else ... anything&mdash;anything&mdash;anything might happen. It was
+impossible to divine the turn human lives would take. The simple fact of
+his elopement contained a dozen different stories in germ. Each would
+find opportunities of development; they would struggle for mastery;
+which would succeed?... Keep women you couldn't; he had long ago found
+out that. Marry them, and they came to hate the way you walked across
+the room; remain their lover, and they jilted you at the end of six
+months. He had hardly ever heard of a <i>liaison</i> lasting more than a year
+or eighteen months, and Evelyn would meet all the nicest men in Europe.
+All Europe would be his rival&mdash;really it would be better to give her
+up.... She was the kind of woman who, if she once let herself go, would
+play the devil. Turning from the fire he looked into the glass.... He
+admitted to eight-and-thirty, he was forty&mdash;a very well-preserved forty.
+There were times when he did not look more than five-and-thirty. His
+hair was paler than it used to be; it was growing a little thin on the
+forehead, otherwise he was the same as when he was five-and-twenty. But
+he was forty, and a man of forty cannot marry a prima donna of twenty.
+Five pleasant years they might have together, five delicious years; it
+were vain to expect more. But he would not get her to go away with him
+under a promise of marriage; all such deception he held to be as
+dishonourable as cheating at cards. So in their next interview it would
+have to be suggested that there could be no question of marriage, at
+least for the present. At the same time he would have her understand
+that he intended to shirk no responsibility. But if he were to tire of
+her! That was another possibility, and a hateful one; he would prefer
+that she should jilt him. Perhaps it would be better to give her up, and
+throw his fate in with the list. But he was tired of country houses,
+with or without a <i>liaison</i>, and felt that he could not go through
+another season's hunting; he had no horses that suited him, and didn't
+seem to be able to find any. To go abroad with Evelyn, watch over the
+cultivation of her voice, see her fame rising, that was his mission! The
+only question to decide was whether he was in love with her. He would
+not hesitate a moment if he were only sure of that. He thought of the
+women he knew. Georgina was the first to come up in his mind. He had
+been to see her, and had come away at a loss to understand what he had
+ever seen in her. She had struck him as vulgar and middle-class, sly,
+with a taste for intrigue. He remembered that was how she had struck him
+when he first saw her. But if anyone had described her as vulgar and
+middle-class six months ago. Good heavens!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_SEVEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER SEVEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The day grew too fine, as he said, for false notes, so the music lesson
+was abandoned, and they went to sit in the garden behind the picture
+gallery, a green sward with high walls covered with creeper, and at one
+end a great cedar with a seat built about the trunk; a quiet place rife
+with songs of birds, and unfrequented save by them. They had taken with
+them Omar's verses, and Evelyn hoped that he would talk to her about
+them, for the garden of the Persian poet she felt to be separated only
+by a wicket from theirs. But Owen did not respond to her humour. He was
+prepense to argue about the difficulties of her life, and of the urgent
+necessity of vanquishing these.</p>
+
+<p>He had noticed, he said, as they sat in the park, that she had a weak
+face. Her thoughts were far away; he had caught her face, as it were,
+napping, and had seen through it to the root of her being. The
+conclusion at which he had arrived was that she was not capable of
+leading an independent life.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Am I not right? Isn't it so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You think that because I don't leave father and go abroad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You might go abroad and lead a dependent life; you might stay at home
+and lead an independent life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He asked her what offers of marriage she had had.</p>
+
+<p>One was from the Vicar, a widower, a man of fifty, the other from a
+young man in a solicitor's office. She did not care for either, and had
+not entertained their proposals for a second.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you marry anyone, it must be a duke. Life is a battle; society will
+get the better of us unless we get the better of society. Everyone must
+realise that&mdash;every young man, every young woman. We must conquer or be
+conquered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Society, he argued, did not require a chaperon from her; society would,
+indeed, resent a chaperon if she were to appear with one. Society not
+only granted her freedom, but demanded that she should exercise it. As a
+freelance she would be taken notice of, as a respectable, marriageable
+girl she would be passed over. The cradle and the masterpiece were
+irreconcilable ideals. He drew an amusing picture of the prima donna's
+husband, the fellow who waits with a scarf ready to wind it round the
+throat of his musical instrument; the fellow who is always on the watch
+lest someone should walk off with his means of subsistence. Evelyn
+listened because she liked to hear him talk; she knew that he was trying
+to influence her with argument, but it was he himself who was
+influencing her, she dreaded his presence, not his argument.</p>
+
+<p>She got up and walked across the sward; and as they returned through the
+flowery village street, the faint May breeze shed the white chestnut
+bloom about their feet. It seemed to him better to say nothing; there
+are times when silence is more potent than speech. They were walking
+under the trees of the old Dulwich street, and so charming were the
+hedge-hidden gardens, and the eighteenth-century houses with white
+porticoes, that Owen could not but think Dulwich at that moment seemed
+the natural nativity of the young girl's career. A few moments after
+they were at Dowlands. She was trembling, and had no strength of will to
+refuse to ask him in. She would have had the strength if she had not
+been obliged to give him her hand. She had tried to bid him good-bye
+without giving her hand, and had not succeeded, and while he held her
+hand her lips said the words without her knowing it. She spoke
+unconsciously, and did not know what she had said till she had said it.</p>
+
+<p>And while they waited for tea, Evelyn lay back in a wicker chair
+thinking. He had said that life without love was a desert, and many
+times the conversation trembled on the edge of a personal avowal, and
+now he was playing love music out of &quot;Tristan&quot; on the harpsichord. The
+gnawing, creeping sensuality of the phrase brought little shudders into
+her flesh; all life seemed dissolved into a dim tremor and rustling of
+blood; vague colour floated into her eyes, and there were moments when
+she could hardly restrain herself from jumping to her feet and begging
+of him to stop.... The servant brought in the tea, and she thought she
+would feel better when the music ceased. But neither did the silence nor
+the tea help her. He sat opposite her, his eyes fixed upon her, that
+half-kindly, half-cynical face of his showing through the gold of his
+moustache. He seemed to know that she could not follow the conversation,
+and seemed determined to drive the malady that was devouring her to a
+head. He continued to speak of the motive of the love call, how it is
+interwoven with the hunting fanfare; when the fanfare dies in the
+twilight, how it is then heard in the dark loneliness of the garden. She
+heard him speak of the handkerchief motive, of thirty violins playing
+three notes in ever precipitated rhythm, until we feel that the world
+reels behind the woman, that only one thing exists for her&mdash;Tristan. A
+giddiness gathered in Evelyn's brain, and she fell back in her chair,
+slightly to the left side, and letting her hand slip towards him, said,
+with a beseeching look&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot go on talking, I am too tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if she were going to faint, and this made it easy and
+natural for him to take her hand, to put his arm about her, and then to
+whisper&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, dear, what is the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She opened her eyes; their look was sufficient answer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest Evelyn,&quot; he said; and bending over, he kissed her on the cheek.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is very foolish of me,&quot; she said, and throwing her arm about his
+neck, she kissed him on the mouth. &quot;But you are fond of me?&quot; she said
+impulsively, laying her hand on his shoulder. It was a movement full of
+affectionate intimacy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he said, moving her face again towards him. &quot;I love you, I've
+always loved you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; she said, &quot;you didn't, not always; I know when you began to care
+for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you returned from Greece, at the moment when you said you wanted
+me to like you. Is it not true?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen dared not tell her that it was at the moment of kissing her that he
+had really begun to love her. In that moment he had entered into her
+atmosphere; it was fragrant as a flower, and it had decided him to use
+every effort to become her lover.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; she said, &quot;you must not kiss me again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She got up from the low wicker chair; he followed her, and they sat
+close together on two low seats. He put his arm round her and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I love to kiss you.... Why do you turn away your head?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because it is wrong; I shall be miserable to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't think it wrong to kiss me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then turning her face to his, she kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who taught you to kiss like that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one, I never kissed anyone before&mdash;father, of course. You know what
+I mean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She'll be an adorable mistress,&quot; he thought, &quot;and in four years the
+greatest singer in England. I shall get very fond of her. I like her
+very much as it is, and when she gets over her religious scruples&mdash;when
+I've reformed her&mdash;she'll be enchanting. It is lucky she met me; without
+me she'd have come to nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She asked him what he was thinking about, and he answered of the
+happiness he had begun to feel was in store for them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What happiness?&quot; she asked; and he answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The happiness of seeing each other constantly&mdash;the happiness of lovers.
+Now we must see each other more often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How often? Every day?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He wondered what was the exact colour of her eyes, and he pressed her to
+answer. At last she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You cannot come here oftener than you do at present. I'm deceiving
+father about these lessons. What will you do if he asks you to play to
+him? What excuse will you give? You daren't attempt the simplest
+exercise, you haven't got over the difference of the bowing; you'd play
+false notes all the time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he said; &quot;I've not made much progress, have I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, you haven't; but that isn't my fault.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the days I don't see you seem so long!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think they do not seem long to me? I've nothing to think about
+but you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, on your weariest days, come and see me. We can always see each
+other in Berkeley Square. Send me a wire saying you are coming.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not come to see you,&quot; she said, still looking at him fixedly;
+&quot;you know that I could not.... Then why do you ask me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I want you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know that I'd like to come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, if you do, you'll come. I don't believe in temptations that we
+don't yield to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose that the temptation that we yield to is the temptation?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course. But, Evelyn, you are not going to waste your life in
+Dulwich. Come and see me to-morrow and, if you like, we'll decide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On what?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know what I mean, dearest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I think I do,&quot; she said, smiling at once sadly and ardently; &quot;but
+I'm afraid it wouldn't succeed. I'm not the kind of woman to play the
+part to advantage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm very fond of you, and I think you're very fond of me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't think about it&mdash;you know I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then why did you say you would not come and see me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not say so. But something tells me that if I did go away with you
+it would not succeed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you think that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know. Something whispers that it wouldn't succeed. All my
+people were good people&mdash;my mother, my grandmother, my aunts. I never
+had a relative against whom anything could be said, so I don't know why
+I am what I am. For I'm only half good. It is you who make me bad, Owen;
+it isn't nice of you.&quot; She flung her arms about him, and then recoiled
+from him in a sudden revulsion of feeling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you go away I shall be miserable; I shall repent of all this ...
+I'm horrid.&quot; She covered her face in her hands. &quot;I didn't know I was
+like this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A moment after she reached out her hand to him saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're not angry with me? I can't help it if I'm like this. I should
+like to go and see you; it would be so much to me. But I must not. But
+why mustn't I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know no reason, except that you don't care for me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you know that isn't so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, dearest, be reasonable. You're not going to stop here all your
+life playing the viola da gamba. The hour of departure has come,&quot; he
+said, perceiving her very thought; &quot;be reasonable, come and see me
+to-morrow. Come to lunch, and I'll arrange. You know that you&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I believe that,&quot; she said, in response to a change which had come
+into her appreciation. &quot;But can I trust myself? Suppose I did go away,
+and repented and left you. Where should I go? I could not come back
+here. Father would forgive me, I daresay, but I could not come back
+here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Repented,' Those are fairy tales,&quot; he said lifting her gold hair from
+her ear and kissing it. &quot;A woman does not leave the man who adores her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You told me they often did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How funny you are.... They do sometimes, but not because they repent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her head was on his shoulder, and she stood looking at him a long while
+without speaking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you do love me, dearest? Tell me so again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Kissing her gently on the mouth and eyes, he answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know very well that I do. Come and see me to-morrow. Say you will,
+for I must go now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go now!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know what time it is? It is past seven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She followed him to the gate of the little garden. The lamps were
+lighted far away in the suburbs. Again he asked her to come and see him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot to-morrow; to-morrow will be Sunday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His footsteps echoed through the chill twilight, and seeing a thin moon
+afloat like a feather in the sky, she thought of Omar's moon, that used
+to seek the lovers in their garden, and that one evening sought one of
+them in vain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_EIGHT'></a><h2>CHAPTER EIGHT</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>There was no other place except the picture gallery where they could see
+each other alone. But the dignity of Velasquez and the opulence of
+Rubens distracted their thoughts, and they were ill at ease on a
+backless seat in front of a masterpiece. Owen regretted the Hobbema; it
+was less aggressive than the colonnade. A sun-lit clearing in a wood and
+a water mill raised no moral question. He turned his eyes from the
+dancers, but however he resisted them, their frivolous life found its
+way into the conversation. They were the wise ones, he said. They lived
+for art and love, and what else was there in life? A few sonatas, a few
+operas, a few pictures, a few books, and a love story; we had always to
+come back to that in the end. He spoke with conviction, his only
+insincerity being the alteration of a plural into a singular. But no, he
+did not think he had lied; he had spoken what seemed to him the truth at
+the present moment. Had he used the singular instead of the plural a
+fortnight ago, he would have lied, but within the last week his feelings
+for Evelyn had changed. If she had broken with him a week ago, he would
+have found easy consolation in the list, but now it was not women, but a
+woman that he desired. A mere sexual curiosity, and the artistic desire
+to save a beautiful voice from being wasted, had given way to a more
+personal emotion in which affection was beginning. Looking at him,
+thinking over what he had just said, unable to stifle the hope that
+those women in the picture were the wise ones, she heard life calling
+her. The art call and the love call, subtly interwoven, were modulated
+now on the violins now on the flutes of an invisible orchestra. At the
+same moment his immeshed senses, like greedy fish, swam hither and
+thither, perplexed and terrified, finding no way of escape, and he
+dreaded lest he had lost his balance and fallen into the net he had cast
+so often. He had begun to see that she was afraid of the sin, and not at
+all of him. She had never asked him if he would always love her&mdash;that
+she seemed to take for granted&mdash;and he had, or fancied he had, begun to
+feel that he would never cease to love her. He looked into the future
+far enough to see that it would be she who would tire of him, and that
+another would appear two or three years hence who would appeal to her
+sensual imagination just as he did to-day. She would strive to resist
+it, she would argue with herself, but the enticing illusion would draw
+her as in a silken net. He was now engaged in the destruction of her
+moral scruples&mdash;in other words, making the way easy for his successor.</p>
+
+<p>They were in the gallery alone, and, taking her hand, he considered in
+detail the trouble this <i>liaison</i> would bring in its train. He no longer
+doubted that she would go abroad with him sooner or later. He hoped it
+would be sooner, for he had begun to perceive the absurdity of his
+visits to Dulwich. The question was whether she was worth an exile in a
+foreign country. He would have to devote himself to her and to her
+interests. She would have a chaperon. There would be no use in their
+openly living together&mdash;that he could not stand. But at that moment the
+exquisite happiness of seeing her every day, coming into the room where
+she was reading or singing, and kissing her as he leaned over her chair
+affectionately, as a matter of course, deriving his enjoyment from the
+prescriptive right to do so, and then talking to her about ordinary
+affairs of life, came upon him suddenly like a vision; and this imagined
+life was so intense that for one moment it was equivalent to the
+reality. He saw himself taking her home from the theatre at night in the
+brougham. In the next instant they were in the train going to Bayreuth.
+In the next he saw her as Kundry rush on to the stage. He felt that,
+whatever it cost him, that was the life he must obtain. He felt that he
+could not live if he did not acquire it, and so intense was the vision
+that, unable to endure its torment, he got up and proposed they should
+go into the garden and sit under the cedar.</p>
+
+<p>They were alone in the garden as they were in the gallery, but lovers
+are averse to open spaces, and Owen felt that their appearance coincided
+too closely with that of lovers in many popular engravings. He hoped he
+was not observed, and regretted he had often spoken of the picture
+gallery to his friends. An unlucky chance might bring one of them down.</p>
+
+<p>It was in this garden, amid the scent and colour of May, that the most
+beautiful part of their love story was woven. It was in this garden that
+they talked about love and happiness, and the mystery of the attraction
+of one person to another, and whilst listening to him, a poignant memory
+of the afternoon when he had first kissed her often crossed her mind.
+Little faintnesses took her in the eyes and heart. Their voices broke,
+and it seemed that they could not continue to talk any longer of life
+and art. It was in this garden that they forgot each other. Their
+thoughts wandered far away, and then, when one called the other's
+attention, he or she relinquished scenes and sensations and came back
+appearing suddenly like someone out of a mist. Each asked the other what
+he or she had been dreaming. Once he told her his dream. It was of a
+villa in the middle of a large garden surrounded by chestnut trees and
+planted with rhododendrons. In this villa there dwelt a great singer
+whose name was a glory in the world, and to this villa there came very
+often a tall, thin, ugly man, and, seeing the beautiful singer walking
+with him, the folk wondered how she could love him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sort of delicious death, a swooning ecstasy, an absorption of
+her individuality in his. Just as the spring gradually displaced the
+winter by a new branch of blossom, and in that corner of the garden by
+the winsome mauve of a lilac bush, without her knowing it his ideas
+caught root in her. New thoughts and perceptions were in growth within
+her, and every day she discovered the new where she had been accustomed
+to meet the familiar idea. She seemed to be slipping out of herself as
+out of a soft, white garment, unconsciously, without any effort on her
+part.</p>
+
+<p>Very often they discussed whether sacrifice of self is not the first of
+the sins against life. &quot;That is the sin,&quot; he said, &quot;that cries loudest
+to Nature for vengeance. To discover our best gift from Nature, and to
+cultivate that gift, is the first law of life.&quot; If she could not accept
+this theory of life as valid and justifiable, she had at least begun to
+consider it. Another of Owen's ideas that interested her was his theory
+of beauty. He said that he could not accept the ordinary statement that
+a woman was beautiful and stupid. Beauty and stupidity could not exist
+in the same face, stupidity being the ugliest thing on earth; and he
+contended that two-thirds of human beauty were the illumination of
+matter by the intelligence, and but one-third proportion and delicacy of
+line. After some hesitation, he admitted that at first he had been
+disappointed in her, but now everything about her was an enchantment,
+and when she was not present, he lived in memories of her. He spoke
+without emphasis, almost as if he were speaking to himself, and she
+could not answer for delight.</p>
+
+<p>Her father was vaguely conscious of some change in his daughter, and
+when one day he heard her singing &quot;Faust,&quot; he was perplexed; and when
+she argued that it was a beautiful and human aspiration, he looked at
+her as if he had never seen her before. He asked her how she had come to
+think such a thing, and was perplexed by her embarrassments. She was
+sorry for her liking for Gounod's melodies. It seemed to alienate them;
+they seemed to have drifted apart. She saw a silently widening distance,
+as if two ships were moving away. One day he asked her if she were going
+to communion next Sunday. She answered that she did not think so, and
+sat thinking a long while, for she had become suddenly aware that she
+was not as pious as she used to be. She did not think that Owen's
+arguments had touched her faith, but she no longer felt the same
+interest in religion; and in thinking over this change, which seemed so
+independent of her own will, she grew pensive and perplexed. Her
+melancholy was a sort of voluptuous meditation. She was conscious all
+the while of Owen's presence. It was as if he were standing by her, and
+she felt that he must be thinking of her.</p>
+
+<p>He had often spoken of going away with her; she had smiled plaintively,
+never regarding an elopement as possible. But one evening her father had
+gone to dine with a certain Roman prelate who believed in the advantage
+to the Catholic Church of a musical reformation. And she had gone to
+meet Owen, who had driven from London. They had walked two hours in the
+lanes, and when she got home she ran to her room and undressed
+hurriedly, thinking how delightful it would be to lie awake in the dark
+and remember it all. And feeling the cool sheets about her she folded
+her arms and abandoned herself to every recollection. Her imagination,
+heightened as by a drug, enabled her to see the white, dusty road and
+the sickly, yellow moon rising through the branches. Again she was
+standing by him, her arms were on his neck; again they stood looking
+into the vague distance, seeing the broken paling in the moonlight.
+There were his eyes and hands and lips to think about, and when she had
+exhausted these memories, others sprang upon her. It was in the very
+centre of her being that she was thinking of the moment when she had
+spied his horse's head over the hill top. She had recognised his
+silhouette against the sky. He had whipped up the horse, he had thrown
+the reins to the groom, he had sprung from the step. The evening was
+then lighted by the sunset, and as the sky darkened, their love had
+seemed to grow brighter. In comparison with this last meeting, all past
+meetings seemed shadowy and unreal. She had never loved him before, and
+if her smile had dwindled when he asked her to come away with him, she
+had liked to hear him say the dogcart was waiting at the inn. But when
+they stood by the stile where cattle were breathing softly, and the moon
+shone over the sheepfold like a shepherd's lantern, her love had grown
+wilful, and she had liked to say that she would go away with him. She
+knew not whether she could fulfil her promise, but it had been a joy to
+give it. They had walked slowly towards Dulwich, the groom had brought
+round the dog-cart; Owen had asked her once more to get in. Oh, to drive
+away with him through the night! &quot;Owen, it is impossible,&quot; she said; &quot;I
+cannot, at least not now. But I will one day very soon, sooner perhaps
+than you think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He had driven away, and, standing on the moon-whitened road, she had
+watched the white dust whirl about the wheels.</p>
+
+<p>One of the difficulties in the indulgence of these voluptuous
+meditations was that they necessitated the omission of her evening
+prayers. She could not kneel by her bedside and pray to God to deliver
+her from evil, all the while nourishing in her heart the intention of
+abandoning herself to the thought of Owen the moment she got into bed.
+Nor did the omission of her evening prayers quite solve the difficulty,
+for when she could think no more of Owen, the fear of God returned. She
+dared not go to sleep, and lay terrified, dreading the devil in every
+corner of the room. Lest she might die in her sleep and be summoned
+before the judgment seat, she lay awake as long as she could.</p>
+
+<p>When she fell asleep she dreamed of the stage when the world was won,
+and when it seemed she had only to stretch her hands to the sky to take
+the stars. But in the midst of her triumph she perceived that she could
+no longer sing the music the world required; a new music was drumming in
+her ears, drowning the old music, a music written in a melancholy mode,
+and played on invisible harps. Owen told her it was madness to listen,
+and she strove to close her ears against it. In great trouble of mind
+she awoke; it was only a dream, and she had not lost her voice. She lay
+back upon the pillow and tried to recall the music which she had heard
+on the invisible harps, but already it was forgotten; it faded from her
+brain like mist from the surface of a mere. But the humour that the
+dream had created endured after the dream was dead. She felt no longer
+as she had felt over night, and lay in a sort of obtuse sensibility of
+conscience. She got up and dressed, her mind still clouded and sullen,
+and her prayers were said in a sort of middle state between fervour and
+indifference. Her father attributed her mood to the old cause; several
+times he was on the point of speaking, and she held him for the moment
+by the lappet of his coat and looked affectionately into his face. But
+something told her that if she were to confide her trouble to anyone,
+she would lose the power she had acquired over herself. Something told
+her that all the strength on her side was reposed in the secrecy of the
+combat. If it were known, she could imagine herself saying&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, nothing matters now; let us go away, Owen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was coming to see her between eleven and twelve&mdash;at the very time he
+knew her father would be away from home, and this very fact stimulated
+her ethical perception. Her manner was in accordance with her mood, and
+the moment he entered he saw that something had happened, that she was
+no longer the same Evelyn from whom he had parted a couple of nights
+before.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I can see you have changed your mind; so we are not going away
+together. Evelyn, dear, is it not so? Tell me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He was a little ashamed of his hypocrisy, for, as he had driven home in
+the dogcart, the adventure he was engaged in had appeared to him under
+every disagreeable aspect. He could not but think that the truth of the
+story would leak out, and he could hear all the women he knew speaking
+of Evelyn as a girl he had picked up in the suburbs&mdash;an organist's
+daughter. He had thought again of the responsibility that going away
+with this girl imposed upon him, and he had come to the conclusion that
+it would be wiser to drop the whole thing and get out of it while there
+was time. That night, as he lay in bed, he saw himself telling people
+how many operas she knew; and the tales of her successes in Vienna and
+Naples.... But he need not always be with her, she would have a
+chaperon; and he had fallen asleep thinking which among his friends
+would undertake the task for him. In the morning he had awakened in the
+same nervous indecision, and had gone to Dulwich disheartened, provoked
+at his own folly. It therefore happened that her refusal to go away with
+him coincided exactly with his humour. So all that was necessary was a
+mere polite attempt to persuade her that she was sacrificing her career,
+but without too much insistence on the point; a promise to call again
+soon; then a letter saying he was unwell, or was going to Paris or to
+Riversdale. A month after they could meet at a concert, but he must be
+careful not to be alone with her, and very soon the incident&mdash;after all,
+he had only kissed her&mdash;would be forgotten. But as he sat face to face
+with her, all his carefully considered plans seemed to drop behind him
+in ruins, and he doubted if he would be able to deny himself the
+pleasure of taking her away. That is to say, if he could induce her to
+go, which no longer seemed very sure. She might be one of those women in
+whom the sense of sin was so obdurate that they could not but remain
+virtuous.</p>
+
+<p>But of what was she thinking? he asked himself; and he scanned the
+yielding face, reading the struggle in a sudden suppressed look or
+nervous twitching of the lips.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest Evelyn, I love you. Life would be nothing without you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, I am very fond of you, but there would be no use in my going away
+with you. I should be miserable. I know I am not the kind of woman who
+would play the part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her words roused new doubts. It would be useless to go away with her if
+she were to be miserable all the while. He did not want to make anyone
+miserable; he wanted to make people happy. He indulged in a moment of
+complacent self-admiration, and then reflected that this adventure would
+cost a great deal of time and money, and if he were really to get
+nothing out of it but tears and repentance, he had better take her at
+her word, bid her good-bye, and write to-morrow saying he was called
+away to Riversdale on business.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you are not cross with me? You will come to see me all the same?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He wondered if she were tortured with as many different and opposing
+desires as he was. Perhaps not, and he watched her tender, truthful
+eyes. In her truthful nature, filled full of passion and conscience,
+there was no place for any slightest calculation. But he was
+mistrustful, and asked himself if all this resistance was a blind to
+induce him to marry her. If he thought that, he would drop her at once.
+This suspicion was lost sight of in a sudden lighting of her hair,
+caused by a slight turning of her head. Beyond doubt she was a fresh and
+delicious thing, and if he did not take her, someone else would, and
+then he would curse his indecision; and if she had a great voice, he
+would for ever regret he had not taken her when he could get her. If he
+did not take her now, the chance was gone for ever. She was the
+adventure he had dreamed all his life. At last it had come to him,
+perhaps through the sheer force of his desire, and now, should he
+refrain from the dream, or should he dream it? He saw the exquisite
+sensual life that awaited him and her in Paris. He saw her, pale and
+pathetic, and thought of her eager eyes and lips.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn sat crestfallen and repentant, but her melancholy was a pretty,
+smiling melancholy, and her voice had not quite lost the sparkle and
+savour of wit. She regretted her sin, admitted her culpability, and he
+was forced to admit that sorrow and virtue sat becomingly upon her. Her
+mood was in a measure contagious, and he talked gently and gaily about
+herself, and the day when the world would listen to her with delight and
+approbation. But while he talked, he was like a man on the rack. He was
+dragged from different sides, and the questioner was at his ear.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto he had never compromised himself in his relations with women.
+As he had often said of himself, he had inspired no great passion, but a
+multitude of caprices. But now he had begun to feel that it is one love
+and not twenty that makes a life memorable, he wished to redeem his life
+from intrigues, and here was the very chance he was waiting for. But
+habit had rendered him cowardly, and this seduction frightened him
+almost as much as marriage had done. To go away with her, he felt, was
+equivalent to marrying her. His life would never be the same again. The
+list would be lost to him for ever, no more lists for him; he would be
+known as the man who lived with&mdash;lived with whom? A girl picked up in
+the suburbs, and sang rather prettily. If she were a great singer he
+would not mind, but he could not stand a mediocre singer about whom he
+would have to talk continual nonsense: conspiracies that were in
+continual progress against her at Covent Garden, etc. He had heard all
+that sort of thing before.... What should he do? He must make up his
+mind. It might be as well if he were to ask her to come to his house;
+then in some three or four months he would be able to see if she were
+worth the great sacrifice he was going to make for her.</p>
+
+<p>Her hand lay on her knees. He knew that he should not take it, but it
+lay on her knees so plaintively, that in spite of all his resistance he
+took it and examined it. It did not strike him as a particularly
+beautiful hand. It was long and white, and exceedingly flexible. It was
+large, and the finger-tips were pointed. The palms curved voluptuously,
+but the slender fingers closed and opened with a virile movement which
+suggested active and spontaneous impulses. In taking her hand and
+caressing it, he knew he was prejudicing his chances of escape, and
+fearing the hand he held in his might never let him go again, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If your destiny should be to play the viola da gamba in Dulwich, and
+mine to set forth again on my trip round the world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In an instant, in a rapid succession of scenes, the horrible winter she
+had spent in Dulwich passed before her eyes. She saw herself stopping at
+the corner of a street, and looking at a certain tree and the slope of a
+certain house, and asking herself if her life would go on for ever, if
+there would be no change. She saw herself star-gazing, with daffodils
+for offerings in her hands; and the memory of the hungry hours when she
+waited for her father to come home to dinner was so vivid, that she
+thought she felt the same wearying pain and the exhausting yearning
+behind her eyes, and that feeling as if she wanted to go mad. No; she
+could not endure it again, and she cried plaintively, falling slightly
+forward&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, don't make things more difficult than they are. Why is it wrong
+for me to go away with you? I don't do any harm to anyone. God is
+merciful after all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I were to marry you, you could not go on the stage; you would have
+to live at Riversdale and look after your children.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I don't want children. I want to sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I want you to sing. No one but husbands have children, exception
+the stage and in novels.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would be much more exciting to run away together, than to be married
+by the Vicar. It is very wicked to say these things. It is you who make
+me wicked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A mist blinded her eyes, and a sickness seemed instilled in her very
+blood, and in a dubious faintness she was conscious of his lips. He
+hardly heard the words he uttered, so loud was the clatter of his
+thoughts, and he seemed to see the trail of his destiny unwinding itself
+from the distaff in the hands of Fate. He was frightened, and an impulse
+strove to force him to his feet, and hence, with a rapid good-bye, to
+the door. But instead, he leaned forth his hands, he sought her, but she
+shrank away, and turning her face from him, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, you must not kiss me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Again he might choose between sailing the <i>Medusa</i> in search of
+adventure, or crossing the Channel in the mail packet in search of art.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will you come away with me?&quot; he said. His heart sank, and he thought of
+the Rubicon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't mean this very instant? I could not go away without seeing
+father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not? You don't intend to tell him you are going away with me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; it is not the sort of thing one generally tells one's father,
+but&mdash;I cannot go away with you now&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When will you come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, don't press me for an answer. I don't know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The way of escape is still open to me,&quot; he thought; but he could not
+resist the temptation that this girl's face and voice presented to his
+imagination.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_NINE'></a><h2>CHAPTER NINE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>She sat in the music-room thinking, asking herself what use it would be
+to meet him in Berkeley Square unless to go away with him to Paris. She
+sat engrossed in her emotion; it was like looking into water where weeds
+are carried by a current out of the dim depths into the light of day. In
+a pensive atmosphere, a quiet daylight, his motives were revealed to
+her. She was in the humour to look at things sympathetically, and she
+understood that for him to run away with her entailed as much sacrifice
+on his part as on hers. It meant a giving up of his friends, pursuits
+and habits of life. There were sacrifices to be made by him as well as
+by her, and she smiled a little sadly as she thought of the differences
+of their several renunciations. She was asked to surrender her peace of
+mind, he his worldly pleasure. Often the sensation was almost physical;
+it rose up like a hand and seemed to sweep her heart clear, and at the
+same moment a voice said&mdash;It is not right. Owen had argued with her, but
+she could not quench the feeling that it was not right, and yet, when he
+asked her to explain, she could give no other reason except that it was
+forbidden by the Church.</p>
+
+<p>Each thought that very little was asked from the other. To him her
+conscience seemed a slight forfeit, and worldly pleasure seemed very
+little to her. She thought that she would readily forfeit this world for
+him.... But eternity was her forfeit; even that she might sacrifice if
+she were sure her conscience would not trouble her in this world. She
+followed her conscience like a river; it fluttered along full of
+unexpected eddies and picturesque shallows, and there were pools so deep
+that she could not see to the bottom.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the vision changed. She was no longer in Dulwich with her
+father. She saw railway trains and steamboats, and then the faint
+outline of the coast of France. Her foreboding was so clear and distinct
+that she could not doubt that Owen was the future that awaited her. The
+presentiment filled her with delight and fear, and both sensations were
+mingled at the same moment in her heart as she rose from her chair. She
+stood rigid as a visionary; then, hoping she would not be disturbed, she
+sank back into her chair and allowed her thoughts their will. She
+followed the course of the journey to France, and at every moment the
+sensation grew more exquisite. She heard him say what she wished him to
+say, and she saw the white villa in its garden planted with
+rhododendrons and chestnut trees in flower. The mild spring air, faint
+with perfume, dilated her nostrils, and her eyes drank in the soft
+colour of the light shadows passing over the delicate grass and the
+light shadows moving among the trees. She lay back in her chair, her
+eyes fixed on a distant corner of the room, and her life went by, clear
+and surprising as pictures seen in a crystal. When she grew weary of the
+villa, she saw herself on the stage, and heard her own voice singing as
+she wished to sing. Nor did she forsee any break in the lulling
+enchantment of her life of music and love. She knew that Owen did not
+love her at present, but she never doubted that she could get him to
+love her, and once he loved her it seemed to her that he must always
+love her. What she had heard and read in books concerning the treachery
+of men, she remembered, but she was not influenced, for it did not seem
+to her that any such things were to happen to her. She closed her eyes
+so that she might drink more deeply of the vision, so that she might
+bring it more clearly before her. Like aspects seen on a misty river, it
+was as beautiful shadows of things rather than the things themselves.
+The meditation grew voluptuous, and as she saw him come into her room
+and take her in his arms, her conscience warned her that she should
+cease to indulge in these thoughts; but it was impossible to check them,
+and she dreamed on and on in kisses and tendernesses of speech.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon she was going to have tea with some friends, and as she
+paused to pin her hat before the glass, she remembered that if Owen were
+right, and that there was no future life, the only life that she was
+sure of would be wasted. Then she would endure the burden of life for
+naught; she would not have attained its recompense; the calamity would
+be irreparable; it would be just as if she had not lived at all. Thought
+succeeded thought in instantaneous succession, contradicting and
+refuting each other. No, her life would not be wasted, it would be an
+example to others, it was in renunciation that we rose above the animal
+and attained spiritual existence. At that moment it seemed to her that
+she could renounce everything but love. Could she renounce her art? But
+her art was not a merely personal sacrifice. In the renunciation of her
+art she was denying a great gift that had been given to her by Nature,
+that had come she knew not whence nor how, but clearly for exercise and
+for the admiration of the world. It therefore could not have been given
+to her to hide or to waste; she would be held responsible for it. Her
+voice was one of her responsibilities; not to cultivate her voice would
+be a sort of suicide. This seemed quite clear to her, and she reflected,
+and with some personal satisfaction, that she had incurred duties toward
+herself. Right and wrong, as Owen said, was a question of time and
+place. What was right here was wrong there, but oneself was the one
+certain thing, and to remain with her father meant the abandonment of
+herself.... She wanted herself! Ah, she wanted to live, and how well she
+knew that she was not living, and could never live, in Dulwich. The
+nuns! Strange were their renunciations! For they yielded the present
+moment, which Owen and a Persian poet called our one possession. She
+seemed to see them fading in a pathetic decadence, falling like
+etiolated flowers, and their holy simplicities seemed merely pathetic.</p>
+
+<p>And in the exaltation of her resolution to live, her soul melted again
+into Owen's kisses, and she drew herself together, and the spasm was so
+intense and penetrating that to overcome it she walked across the room
+stretching her arms. It seemed to her more than impossible that she
+could endure Dulwich any longer. The life of love and art tore at her
+heart; always she saw Owen offering her love, fame, wealth; his hands
+were full of gifts; he seemed to drop them at her feet, and taking her
+in his arms, his lips closed upon hers, and her life seemed to run down
+like the last struggling sand in a glass.</p>
+
+<p>Besides this personal desire there was in her brain a strange
+alienation. Paris rose up before her, and Italy, and they were so vague
+that she hardly knew whether they were remembrances or dreams, and she
+was compelled by a force so exterior to herself that she looked round
+frightened, as if she believed she would find someone at her elbow. She
+did not seem to be alone, there seemed to be others in the room,
+presences from which she could not escape; she could not see them, but
+she felt them about her, and as she sought them with fearing eyes,
+voices seemed speaking inside her, and it was with extreme terror that
+she heard the proposal that she was to be one of God's virgins. The hell
+which opened on the other side of Owen ceased to frighten her. The
+devils waiting there for her soul grew less substantial, and thoughts
+and things seemed to converge more and more, to draw together and become
+one. She was aware of the hallucination in her brain, but could not
+repress it, nor all sorts of rapid questions and arguments. Suddenly a
+voice reminded her that if she were going to abandon the life of the
+soul for the life of the flesh, that she should accept the flesh wholly,
+and not subvert its intentions. She should become the mother of
+children. Life was concerned more intimately with children than with her
+art. But somehow it did not seem the same renunciation, and she stood
+perplexed before the enigma of her conscience.</p>
+
+<p>She looked round the room, dreading and half believing in some diabolic
+influence at her elbow, but perceiving nothing, an ungovernable impulse
+took her, and her steps strayed to the door, in the desire and almost in
+the intention of going to London. But if she went there, how would she
+explain her visit?... Owen would understand; but if he were not in, she
+could not wait until he came in. She paused to consider the look of
+pleasure that would come upon his face when he came in and found her
+there. There would be just one look, and they would throw themselves
+into each other's arms. She was about to rush away, having forgotten all
+else but him, when she remembered her father. If she were to go now she
+must leave a letter for him explaining&mdash;telling him the story. And who
+would play the viola da gamba at his concerts? and there would be no one
+to see that he had his meals.</p>
+
+<p>Was she or was she not going away with Owen to Paris on Thursday night?
+The agonising question continued at every moment to present itself.
+Whatever she was doing or saying, she was always conscious of it, and as
+the time drew near, with every hour, it seemed to approach and menace
+her. She seemed to feel it beating like a neuralgic pain behind her
+eyes; and though she laughed and talked a great deal, her father noticed
+that her animation was strained and nervous, and he noticed, too, that
+in no part of their conversation was she ever entirely with him, and he
+wondered what were the sights and scenes he faintly discerned in her
+changing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>On getting up on Wednesday morning, she remembered that the best train
+from Dulwich was at three o'clock, and she asked herself why she had
+thought of this train, and that she should have thought of it seemed to
+her like an omen. Her father sat opposite, looking at her across the
+table. It was all so clear in her mind that she was ashamed to sit
+thinking these things, for thinking as clearly as she was thinking
+seemed equivalent to accomplishment; and the difference between what she
+thought and what she said was so repulsive to her that she was on the
+point of flinging herself at his feet several times.</p>
+
+<p>There were times when the temptation seemed to have left her, when she
+smiled at her own weakness and folly; and having reproved herself
+sufficiently, she thought of other things. It seemed to her
+extraordinary why she should argue and trouble about a thing which she
+really had no intention of doing. But at that moment her heart told her
+that this was not so, that she would go to meet Owen in Berkeley Square,
+and she was again taken with an extraordinary inward trembling.</p>
+
+<p>Our actions obey an unknown law, implicit in ourselves, but which does
+not conform to our logic. So we very often succeed in proving to
+ourselves that a certain course is the proper one for us to follow, in
+preference to another course, but, when it comes for us to act, we do
+not act as we intended, and we ascribe the discrepancy between what we
+think and what we do to a deficiency of will power. Man dares not admit
+that he acts according to his instincts, that his instincts are his
+destiny.</p>
+
+<p>We make up our mind to change our conduct in certain matters, but we go
+on acting just the same; and in spite of every reason, Evelyn was still
+undecided whether she should go to meet Sir Owen. It was quite clear
+that it was wrong for her to go, and it seemed all settled in her mind;
+but at the bottom of her heart something over which she had no kind of
+control told her that in the end nothing could prevent her from going to
+meet him. She stopped, amazed and terrified, asking herself why she was
+going to do a thing which she seemed no longer even to desire.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon some girl friends came to see her. She played and sang
+and talked to them, but they, too, noticed that she was never really
+with them, and her friends could see that she saw and heard things
+invisible and inaudible to them. In the middle of some trifling
+chatter&mdash;whether one colour or another was likely to be fashionable in
+the coming season&mdash;she had to put her hand in her pocket for her
+handkerchief, and happened to meet the key of the square, and it brought
+back to her in a moment the entire drama of her destiny. Was she going
+to take the three o'clock train to London, or to remain in Dulwich with
+her father? She thought that she would not mind whatever happened, if
+she only knew what would happen. Either lot seemed better to her than
+the uncertainty. She rattled on, talking with fictitious gaiety about
+the colour of bonnets and a party at which Julia had sung, not even
+hearing what she was saying. Wednesday evening passed with an inward
+vision so intense that all the outer world had receded from her, she was
+like one alone in a desert, and she ate without tasting, saw without
+seeing what she looked at, spoke without knowing what she was saying,
+heard without hearing what was said to her, and moved without knowing
+where she was going.</p>
+
+<p>On Thursday morning the obsession of her destiny took all colour from
+her cheek, and her eyes were nervous.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is it, my girl?&quot; Her father said, taking her hand, and the music
+he was tying up dropped on the floor. &quot;Tell me, Evelyn; something, I can
+see, is the matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was like the breaking of a spring. Something seemed to give way
+within her, and slipping on her knees, she threw her arms about him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am very unhappy. I wish I were dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He strove to raise her from her knees, but the attitude expressed her
+feelings, and she remained, leaning her face against him. Nor could he
+coax any information from her. At last she said, raising her tearful
+eyes&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I were to leave you, father, you would never forgive me? But I am
+your only daughter, and you would forgive me; whatever happened, we
+should always love one another?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why should you leave me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But if I loved someone? I don't mean as I love you. I could never love
+anyone so tenderly; I mean quite differently. Don't make me say more. I
+am so ashamed of myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are in love with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and he has asked me to go away with him.&quot; And as she answered, she
+wondered at the quickness with which her father had guessed that it was
+Owen. He was such a clever man; the moment his thoughts were diverted
+from his music, he understood things as well as the most worldly, and
+she felt that he would understand her, that she must open her heart to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I don't go away with him I shall die, or kill myself, or go mad. It
+is terrible to have to tell you these things, father, I know, but I
+must. I was ill when he went away to Greece, you remember. It was
+nothing but love of him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did he not ask you to marry him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, he will never marry anyone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And that made no difference to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, father, don't be angry, don't think me horrid. You are looking at
+me as if you never saw me before. I know I ought to have been angry when
+he asked me to go away with him, but somehow I wasn't. I don't know that
+I even wanted him to marry me. I want to go away and be a great singer,
+and he is not more to blame than I am. I can't tell lies. What is the
+use of telling lies? If I were to tell you anything else, it would be
+untrue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But are you going away with him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know. Not if I can help it;&quot; and at that moment her eyes went
+to the portrait of her mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You lost your mother very early, and I have neglected you. She ought to
+be here to protect you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, father; she would not understand me as well as you do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you are glad that she is not here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn nodded, and then she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If he were to go away and I were left here again, I don't know what
+would become of me. It isn't my fault, father; I can't help it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not know that you were like this. Your mother&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah I mother and I are quite different. I am more like you, father. You
+can't blame me; you have been in love with women&mdash;with mother, at
+least&mdash;and ought to understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn ... these are subjects that cannot be discussed between us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the mother watched them, and there was something in her
+cold, distant glance which went to their hearts, but they could not
+interpret its meaning.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I either had to go away, father, telling you nothing, or I had to tell
+you everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will go to Sir Owen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, father, you mustn't. Promise me you won't. I have trusted you, and
+you mustn't make me regret my trust. This is my secret.&quot; He was
+frightened by the strange light that appeared in her eyes, and he felt
+that an appeal to Owen would be like throwing oil on a flame. &quot;You
+mustn't go to Sir Owen; you have promised you won't. I don't know what
+would happen if you did.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His daughter's confession had frightened him, and he knew not what
+answer to make to her. When the depths find voice we stand aghast,
+knowing neither ourselves nor those whom we have lived with always. He
+was caught in the very den of his being, and seemed at every moment to
+be turning over a leaf of his past life.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you had only patience, Evelyn&mdash;ah! you have heard what I am going to
+say so often, but I don't blame your incredulity. That was why I did not
+tell you before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What has happened?&quot; she asked eagerly; for she, too, wished for a lull
+in this stress of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; he said, &quot;Monsignor Mostyn, the great Roman prelate, who has
+just arrived from Rome, and is staying with the Jesuits, shares all my
+views regarding the necessity of a musical reformation. He believes that
+a revival of Palestrina and Vittoria would be of great use to the
+Catholic cause in England. He says that he can secure the special
+intervention of the Pope, and, what is much more important, he will
+subscribe largely, and has no doubt that sufficient money can be
+collected.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn listened, smiling through her sorrow, like a bird when the rain
+has ceased for a moment, and she asked questions, anxious to delay the
+inevitable return to her own unhappy condition. She was interested in
+the luck that had come to her father, and was sorry that her conduct had
+clouded or spoilt it. At last a feeling of shame came upon them that at
+such a time they should be engaged in speaking of such singularly
+irrelevant topics. She could see that the same thought had come upon
+him, and she noticed his trim, square figure, and the old blue jacket
+which she had known so many years, as he walked up and down the room. He
+was getting very grey lately, and when she returned he might be quite
+white.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, father, father,&quot; she exclaimed, covering her face with her hands,
+&quot;how unhappy I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall send a telegram to Monsignor saying I can't see him this
+morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! you have to see him this morning;&quot; and she did not know whether she
+was glad or sorry. Perhaps she was more frightened than either, for the
+appointment left her quite free to go to London by the three o'clock
+train.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't leave you alone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Darling, if I had wanted to deceive you, I should have told you
+nothing; and, however you were to watch me, I could always get away if I
+chose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was right, he could not keep her by force, he could do nothing;
+shame prevented him from appealing to her affection for him, for it was
+in his interest she should stay. After all, Sir Owen will make a great
+singer of her. The thought had come and gone before he was aware, and to
+atone for this involuntary thought he spoke to her about her religion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I used to be religious,&quot; she said, &quot;but I am religious no longer. I can
+hardly say my prayers now. I said them last night, but this morning I
+couldn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He passed his hand across his eyes, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems all like a bad dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He felt that he ought to stay with her, and at the same time he felt
+that she was right; that his intervention would be unavailing, for the
+struggle resided in herself. But if she should learn from Sir Owen to
+forget him; if he were to lose her altogether; if she should never
+return? The thought of such a calamity was the rudest blow of all, and
+the possibility of her going away for a time, shocking as it was, seemed
+almost light beside it. He struggled against these thoughts, for he
+hated and was ashamed of them. They came into his mind unasked, and he
+hoped that they represented nothing of his real feeling. Suddenly his
+face changed, he remembered his passion for her mother. He had suffered
+what Evelyn was suffering now. She had divined it by some instinct;
+true, they were very much like each other. Nothing would have kept him
+from Gertrude. But all that was so long ago. Good God! It was not the
+same thing, and at the very same moment he regretted that it was not a
+music lesson he was going to, for an appointment with Monsignor
+introduced a personal interest, and if he were not to stay by her, it
+would seem that he was indifferent to what became of her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Evelyn, I shan't go; I will stay here, I will stay by you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I don't know that I am going away with Sir Owen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You said just now that you were.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did I say so? Father, you must keep your appointment with Monsignor,
+and you must say nothing to Owen if you should meet him; you promise me
+that? It rests with me, father, it is all in the heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking at her, twisting his beard into a point, and while she
+wondered whether he would go or stay, she admired the delicacy of his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Think of the disgrace you will bring upon me, and just at the time,
+too, when Monsignor is beginning to see that a really great choir in
+London&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, father, you do think that my going away will prejudice him
+against you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't say that. I mean that this time seems less&mdash;Of course you
+cannot go. It is very shocking that we should be discussing the subject
+together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A sudden fortitude came upon her, and a sudden desire to sacrifice
+herself to her father.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then, father, I shall stay. I will do nothing that will interfere with
+your work.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dearest child, it is not for me&mdash;it is yourself&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She threw herself into his arms, begging him to forgive her. She wanted
+to stay with him. She loved him better than her voice, better than
+anything in the world. He did not answer, and when she raised her eyes
+she caught a slight look of doubt upon his face, and wondered what it
+could mean. At the very moment she had determined to stay with him, and
+forfeit her love and her art for his sake, a keen sense of his
+responsibility towards her was borne in upon him, and the feeling within
+him crushed like a stone that he could never do anything for her, nor
+anything else except, perchance, achieve that reformation of Church
+music upon which his heart was set. He understood in that instant that
+she was sacrificing all her life to his, and he feared the sacrifice she
+was making, and anticipated in some measure the remorse he would suffer.
+But he dared not think that she had better go and achieve her destiny in
+the only way that was open to her. He urged himself to believe that she
+was acting rightly, it was impossible for him to hold any other opinion.
+The thoughts that came upon him he strove to think were merely nervous
+accidents, and he forced himself to accept the irresponsibility of the
+sacrifice. He wished not to be selfish, but, however he acted, he always
+seemed to be acting in his own interest. Since she had promised him not
+to go away with Sir Owen, he was quite free to keep his appointment with
+Monsignor, and he gathered up his music, and then he let it fall again,
+fearing that she would interpret his action to mean that he was glad to
+get away.</p>
+
+<p>She besought him to go; she said she was tired and wanted to lie down,
+and all the while he spoke she was tortured with an uncertainty as to
+whether she was speaking the truth or not; and he had not been gone many
+minutes when she remembered that she had not told him that Owen had
+asked her to meet him that very afternoon in Berkeley Square, and that
+the key of the square lay in her pocket. Like one with outstretched
+hands, striving to feel her way in the dark, she sought to discover in
+her soul whether she had deliberately suppressed or accidentally omitted
+the fact of her appointment with Owen. It might be that the conversation
+had taken a sudden turn, at the moment she was about to tell him, for
+the thought had crossed her mind that she ought to tell him. Then she
+seemed to lose count of everything, and was unable to distinguish truth
+from falsehood.</p>
+
+<p>To increase her difficulties, she remembered that she had betrayed
+Owen's confidence. She could not quite admit to herself that she had a
+right to tell her father that it was he. But he had guessed it.... It
+seemed impossible to do right. Perhaps there was no right and no wrong,
+as Owen said; and a wish rose from the bottom of her heart that it might
+be so, and then she feared she had been guilty of blasphemy. Perhaps she
+should warn Owen of her indiscretion, and she thought of herself going
+to London for this purpose, and smiled as she detected the deception
+which she was trying to practise on herself.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing for her to do in the house, and when she had walked an
+hour in the ornamental park, she strayed into the picture gallery, and
+stood a long time looking at the Dutch lady who was playing the
+virginal, and whose life passed peacefully apparently without any
+emotion, in a silent house amid rich furniture. But she was soon drawn
+to the Watteau, where a rich evening hushes about a beautiful carven
+colonnade, under which the court is seated; where gallants wear deep
+crimson and azure cloaks, and the ladies striped gowns of dainty
+refinement; where all the rows are full of amorous intrigue, and vows
+are being pleaded, and mandolines are playing; where a fountain sings in
+the garden and dancers perform their pavane or minuet, the lady holding
+out her striped skirt, and the gentleman bowing to her with a deference
+that seems a little mocking. An hour of pensive attitudes and whispered
+confidences, and over every fan a face wonders if there is truth in
+love.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is strange,&quot; Evelyn thought, &quot;how one woman lives in obscurity, and
+another in admiration and success. That woman playing the virginal is
+not ugly; if she were dressed like these seated under the colonnade, she
+would be quite as pretty; but she is not as clever, Owen would say, or
+she wouldn't be playing the virginal in a village. It is strange how I
+remember everything he says.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She thought of herself as the lady in the centre, the one that looked
+like the queen, and to whom a tall young man in a lovely cloak was being
+introduced, and then imagined herself one of the less important ladies
+who, for the sake of her beautiful voice, would be surrounded and
+admired by all men; she would create bitter jealousies and annoy a
+number of women, which, however, she would endeavour to overcome by
+giving back to them the several lovers whom she did not want for
+herself.</p>
+
+<p>The life in this picture would be hers if she took the three o'clock
+train and went to Berkeley Square. The life in the other picture would
+be hers if she remained in Dulwich.</p>
+
+<p>Only one more hour remained between her and the moment when she would be
+getting into the train, and on going out of the gallery her senses all
+seemed awake at the same moment; she saw and felt and heard with equal
+distinctness, and she seemed to be walking automatically, to be moving
+forward as if on wheels. She met a friend on her way home, but it was
+like talking to one across a river or gulf; she wondered what she had
+said, and hardly heard, on account of the tumult within her, what was
+being said to her. When she got home, she noticed that she did not take
+off her hat; and she ate her lunch without tasting it. Her thoughts were
+loud as the clock which ticked out the last minutes she was to remain at
+home, and trying not to hear them, she turned to the Monna Lisa,
+wondering what Owen meant when he had said that the hesitating smile in
+the picture was like her smile. Her thoughts ran on ticking in her brain
+like the clock in the corner of a room, and though she would have given
+anything to stop thinking, she could not.</p>
+
+<p>Every moment the agony of anxiety and nervousness increased, and it was
+almost a relief when the clock pointed to the time when she would have
+to go to the station. She looked round the room, a great despair mounted
+into her eyes, and she walked quickly out of the house. As she went down
+the street she tried to think that she was going to Owen to tell him she
+had told her father that she was resolved to give him up. It seemed no
+longer difficult to do this, for, on looking into her mind, she could
+discover neither desire nor love, nor any wish to see him. She was only
+conscious of a nervous agitation which she could not control, and
+through this waking nightmare she walked steadily, thinking with
+extraordinary clearness.</p>
+
+<p>In the railway carriage the passengers noticed her pallor, and they
+wondered what her trouble was, and at Victoria the omnibus conductor
+just saved her from being run over. The omnibus jogged on, stopping now
+and then for people to get in and out, and Evelyn wondered at the
+extraordinary mechanism of life, and she took note of everyone's
+peculiarities, wondering what were their business and desires, and
+wondering also at the conductor's voice crying out the different parts
+of the town the omnibus would pass through.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is Berkeley Street, miss, if you are getting out here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She waited a few minutes at the corner, and then wandered down the
+street, asking herself if it was yet too late to turn back.</p>
+
+<p>The sun glanced through the foliage, and glittered on the cockades of
+the coachmen and on the shining hides of the horses. It was the height
+of the season, and the young beauties of the year, and the fashionable
+beauties of the last decade, lay back, sunning themselves under the
+shade of their parasols. The carriages came round the square close to
+the curb, under the waving branches, and, waiting for an opportunity to
+cross, Evelyn's eyes followed an unusually beautiful carriage, drawn by
+a pair of chestnut horses. She did not see the lady's face, but she wore
+a yellow dress, and the irises in her bonnet nodded over the hood of the
+carriage. This lady, graceful and idle, seemed to mean something, but
+what? Evelyn thought of the picture of the colonnade in the gallery.</p>
+
+<p>The men to whom the stately servants opened the doors wore long frock
+coats pinched at the waist, and they swung their canes and carried their
+thick, yellow gloves in their hands. They were all like Owen. They all
+lived as he lived, for pleasure; they were all here for the season, for
+balls and dinner parties, for love-making and the opera.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are the people,&quot; Evelyn thought, &quot;who will pay thousands to hear
+me sing. They are the people who will invite me to their houses. If my
+voice is cultivated, if I ever go abroad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She ran across the street and walked under the branches until she came
+to a gate. But why not go straight to the house? She did not know....
+She was at the gate, and the square looked green and cool. The gate
+swung to and closed with a snap; but she had the key and could leave
+when she liked, and worn out with various fears she walked aimlessly
+about the grass plots. There was no one in the square, so if he were
+watching for her he could not fail to see her. Once more a puerile hope
+crossed her mind fitfully, that perhaps it would be as well if he failed
+to see her. But no, since she had gone so far she was determined to go
+on to the end, and before this determination, her spirits revived, and
+she waited for him to come to her. But for shyness she did not dare to
+look round, and the minutes she walked under the shady trees were very
+delightful, for she was penetrated with an intimate conviction that she
+would not be disappointed. And one of the moments of her life that fixed
+itself most vividly on her mind was when she saw Owen coming towards her
+through the trees. He was so tall and thin, and walked so gracefully;
+there was something in his walk that delighted her; it seemed to her
+that it was like the long, soft stride of a cat.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad you have come,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p>But she could not answer. A moment afterwards he said, and she noticed
+that his voice trembled, &quot;You are coming in to tea?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Again she did not answer, and thinking it safer to take things for
+granted, he walked towards the gate. He was at the point of saying,
+&quot;That is my house,&quot; but he checked himself, thinking that silence was
+safer than speech. He could not get the gate open, and while he wrenched
+at the lock, he dreaded that delay might give her time to change her
+mind. But Evelyn was now quite determined. Her brain seemed to
+effervesce and her blood to bubble with joy, a triumphant happiness
+filled her, for no doubt remained that she was going to Paris to-night.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let us have tea as soon as possible, and tell Stanley to bring the
+brougham round at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did you order the brougham?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you not&mdash;? I thought&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The brilliancy of her eyes answered him, and he took her hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you are coming with me to Paris?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, if you like, Owen, anywhere.... But let me kiss you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she stood in a beautiful, amorous attitude, her arm thrown about his
+neck, her eyes aflame.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The brougham will be round in half an hour. There is a train at six to
+Dover. It gets there at nine. So we shall have time to dine at the Lord
+Warden, and get on board the boat before the mail arrives.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I have no clothes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The night is fine; we shall have a lovely crossing; you will only want
+a shawl and a rug.... But what are you thinking of? You don't regret?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His eyes were tenderer than hers. She perceived in their grey lights a
+tenderness, as affection which seemed in contradiction to his nature as
+she had hitherto understood it. Even the thought flashed dimly in the
+background of her mind that his love was truer than hers; his cynicism,
+which had often frightened her, seemed to have vanished; indeed, there
+was something different in him from the man she had hitherto known&mdash;a
+difference which was rendered evident by the accent with which he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest Evelyn, this is the happiest moment of my life. I have spent
+two terrible days wondering if you would come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you, dear? Did you think of me? Are you fond of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He pressed her hand, and with one look answered her question, and she
+saw the streets flash past her&mdash;for they were in the brougham driving to
+Charing Cross. There was still the danger of meeting Mr. Innes at the
+station; but the danger was slight. She knew of no business that would
+take him to Charing Cross, and they were thankful the train did not
+start from Victoria.</p>
+
+<p>Owen called to his coachman to hasten. They had wasted, he said, too
+much time over the tea-table, and might miss the train. But they did not
+miss it, and through the heat of the long, summer afternoon the slow
+train jogged peacefully through the beautiful undulations of the
+southern counties. The sky was quiet gold and torquoise blue, and far
+away were ruby tinted clouds. A peaceful light floated over the
+hillsides and dozed in the hollows, and the happiness of the world
+seemed eternal. Deep, cool shadows filled the copses, and the green corn
+was a foot high in the fields, and every gate and hedgerow wore a
+picturesque aspect. Evelyn and Owen sat opposite each other, talking in
+whispers, for they were not alone; they had not been in time to secure a
+private carriage. The delight that filled their hearts was tender as the
+light in the valleys and the hill sides. But Evelyn's feelings were the
+more boisterous, for she was entering into life, whereas Owen thought he
+was at last within reach of the ideal he had sought from the beginning
+of his life.</p>
+
+<p>This feeling, which was very present in his mind, appeared somehow
+through his eyes and in his manner, and even through the tumult of her
+emotions she was vaguely aware that he was even nicer than she had
+thought. She had never loved him so much as now; and again the thought
+passed that she had not known him before, and far down in her happiness
+she wondered which was the true man.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER TEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>From Dover they telegraphed to Mr. Innes&mdash;&quot;Your daughter is safe. She
+has gone abroad to study singing;&quot; and at midnight they were on board
+the boat. The night was strangely calm and blue; a little mist was
+about, and they stood watching the circle of light which the vessel shed
+upon the water, moving ever onwards, with darkness before and after.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest, what are you thinking of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of father. He has received our message by now. Poor dad, he won't sleep
+to-night. To-morrow they will all have the news, and on Sunday in church
+they will 'be talking about it.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But your voice would have been wasted. Your father would have
+reproached himself; he would think he had sacrificed you to his music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which wouldn't be true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True or false, he'd think it. Besides, it would be true in a measure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn told Owen of her interview with her father that morning, and he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You acted nobly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nobly? Owen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There was nobility in your conduct.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He'll be so lonely, so lonely. And,&quot; she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
+&quot;who will play the viola da gamba?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I bring you back a great singer ... there'll be substantial
+consolation in that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But he won't close his eyes to-night, and he'll miss me at breakfast
+and at dinner&mdash;his poor dinner all by himself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you don't want to go back to him? You love me as much as your
+father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They pressed each other's hands, and, striving to see through the blue
+hollow of the night, they thought of the adventure of the voyage they
+had undertaken. Spectral ships loomed up and vanished in the spectral
+stillness; and only within the little circle of light could they
+perceive the waves over which they floated. The moon drifted, and a few
+stars showed through the white wrack. Whither were their lives striving?
+She had thought that her life in Dulwich must endure for ever, but it
+had passed from her like a dream; it had snapped suddenly, and she
+floated on another voyage, and still the same mystery encircled her as
+before. She knew that Owen loved her. This was the little circle of life
+in which she lived, and beyond it she might imagine any story she
+pleased.</p>
+
+<p>Her thoughts reverted to the Eastern dreamer, and she realised that she
+was living through the tragedy which he had written about a thousand
+years ago in his rose garden. She might imagine what she pleased&mdash;that
+she was going to become a great singer, that artistic success was the
+harbour whither she steered, but in truth she did not know. She could
+not believe such an end to be her destiny. Then what was her destiny?
+All she had ever known was behind her, had floated into the darkness as
+easily as those spectral ships; her religion, her father, her home, all
+had vanished, and all she knew was that she was sailing through the
+darkness without them. Seen for a moment in the light of the high moon,
+and then in shrouded blue light, a great ship came and went, and Evelyn
+clung to the arm of her lover. He folded the rough shawl he had bought
+at Charing Cross about her shoulders. The lights of Calais harbour grew
+larger, the foghorn snorted, the vessel veered, and there was
+preparation on board; the crowd thickened, and as the night grew fainter
+they saw between the dawn and the silvery moon the long low sandhills of
+the French coast. The vessel veered and entered the harbour, and as she
+churned alongside the windy piers, the mystery with which a moonlit sea
+had filled their hearts passed, and they were taken in an access of
+happiness; and they cried to each other for sheer joy as they struggled
+up the gangway.</p>
+
+<p>They were in France! their life of love was before them! He could hardly
+take his eyes off the delicious girl; and soon two or three waiters
+attended at her first meal, her first acquaintance with French food and
+wine! Owen was known on the line, and the obsequiousness shown to him
+flattered her, and it was thrilling to read his name on the window of
+their carriage. Her foot was on the footboard, and seeing the empty
+carriage the thought struck her, &quot;We shall be alone; he'll be able to
+kiss me.&quot; And, her heart beating with fear and delight, she got in and
+sat speechless in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>As the train moved out of the station he took her hand, and said that he
+hoped they would be very happy together. She looked at him, and in her
+eyes there was a little questioning, almost cynical look, which
+perplexed him. The part he had to play was a difficult one, and on board
+the boat, in the pauses of their conversation, he had felt that his
+future influence over Evelyn depended upon his conduct during the
+forthcoming week. This foresight had its origin in his temperament. It
+was his temperament to suggest and to lead, and as he talked to her of
+Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, and Lady Duckle, a lady whom
+he hoped to induce to come to Paris to chaperon her, he saw the hotel
+sitting-room at the moment when the waiter, having brought in the
+coffee, and delayed his departure as long as he possibly could, would
+finally close the door. Nervousness dilated her eyes, and his thoughts
+were often far from his words. He often had to catch his breath, and he
+quailed before the dread interrogation which often looked out of her
+eyes. They had passed Boulogne, and through the dawn, vague as an opal,
+appeared a low range of hills, and as these receded, the landscape
+flattened out into a bleak, morose plain.</p>
+
+<p>What lives were lived yonder in that low grange, crouching under the
+five melancholy poplars? An hour later father and son would go forth in
+that treacherous quaking boat, lying amid the sedge, and cast their net
+into one of those black pools. But these pictures of primeval
+simplicities which the landscape evoked were not in accord with a
+journey toward love and pleasure. Evelyn and Owen did not dare to
+contrast their lives with those of the Picardy peasants, and that they
+should see not roses and sunshine, but a broken and abandoned boat amid
+the sedge, and mournful hills faintly outlined against the heavy,
+lowering sky seemed to them significant. They watched the filmy,
+diffused, opal light of the dawn, and they were filled with nervous
+expectation. The man who appeared at the end of the plain in his
+primitive guise of a shepherd driving his flock towards the hard thin
+grass of the uplands seemed menacing and hostile. His tall felt hat
+seemed like a helmet in the dusk, his crook like a lance, and Owen
+understood that the dawn was the end of the truce, that the battle with
+Nature was about to begin again. At that moment she was thinking that if
+she had done wrong in leaving home, the sin was worth all the scruples
+she might endure, and she rejoiced that she endured none. He folded her
+in his rug. The train seemed to stop, and the names of the stations
+sounded dim in her ears. Her perceptions rose and sank, and, as they
+sank, the villa engarlanded, of which Owen had spoken, seemed there. Its
+gates, though unbarred, were impassable. She thought she was shaking
+them, but when she opened her eyes it was Owen telling her that they had
+passed the fortifications, that they were in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>He had brought with him only his dressing-bag, so they were not detained
+at the Customs. His valet was following with the rest of his luggage,
+and as soon as she had had a few hours' sleep, he would take her to
+different shops. She clung on to his arm. Paris seemed very cold and
+cheerless, and she did not like the tall, haggard houses, nor the
+slattern waiter arranging chairs in front of an early caf&eacute;, nor the
+humble servant clattering down the pavement in wooden shoes. She saw
+these things with tired eyes, and she was dimly aware of a decrepit
+carriage drawn by two decrepit horses, and then of a great hotel built
+about a courtyard. She heard Owen arguing about rooms, but it seemed to
+her that a room where there was a bed was all that she desired.</p>
+
+<p>But the blank hotel bedroom, so formal and cheerless, frightened her,
+and it seemed to her that she could not undress and climb into that high
+bed, and she had no clothes&mdash;not even a nightgown. The chambermaid
+brought her a cup of chocolate, and when she had drunk it she fell
+asleep, seeing the wood fire burning, and thinking how tired she was.</p>
+
+<p>It was the chambermaid knocking. It was time for her to get up, and Owen
+had sent her a brush and comb. She could only wash her face with the
+corner of a damp towel. Her stockings were full of dust; her chemise was
+like a rag&mdash;all, she reflected, the discomforts of an elopement. As she
+brushed out her hair with Owen's brush, she wondered what he could see
+to like in her. She admired his discretion in not coming to her room.
+But really, this hotel seemed as unlikely a place for love-making as the
+gloomy plain of Picardy.</p>
+
+<p>She was pinning on her hat when he knocked. He told her that he had been
+promised some nice rooms on the second floor later in the day, and they
+went to breakfast at Voisin's. The rest of the day was spent getting in
+and out of cabs.</p>
+
+<p>They took the shops as they came. The first was a boot and shoe maker,
+and in a few moments between four and five hundred francs had been
+spent. This seemed to Evelyn an unheard-of extravagance. Tea-gowns at
+five hundred and six hundred francs apiece were a joy to behold and a
+delicacy to touch. The discovery that every petticoat cost fifty francs
+seriously alarmed her. They visited the bonnet shop later in the
+afternoon. By that time she had grown hardened, and it seemed almost
+natural to pay two hundred francs for a hat. Two of her dresses were
+bought ready made. A saleswoman held out the skirt of a flowered silk,
+which she was to wear that night at the opera; another stood by, waiting
+for her and Owen to approve of the stockings she held in her hands. Some
+were open-work and embroidered, and the cheapest were fifteen francs a
+pair. It had to be decided whether these should be upheld by suspenders
+or by garters. Owen's taste was for garters, and the choice of a pair
+filled them with a pleasurable embarrassment. In the next shop&mdash;it was a
+glove shop&mdash;as she was about to consult him regarding the number of
+buttons, she remembered, in a sudden moment of painful realisation, the
+end for which they had met. She turned pale, and the words caught in her
+throat. Fortunately, his eyes were turned from her, and he perceived
+nothing of the nervous agitation which consumed her; but on leaving the
+shop, a little way down the street, when she had recovered herself
+sufficiently to observe him, she perceived that he was suffering from
+the same agitation. He seemed unable to fix his attention upon the
+present moment. He seemed to have wandered far afield, and when with an
+effort he returned from the ever nearing future, he seemed like a man
+coming out of another atmosphere&mdash;out of a mist!</p>
+
+<p>At six they were back at their hotel, surveying the sitting-rooms,
+already littered with cardboard boxes. But he hurried her off to the Rue
+de la Paix, saying that she must have some jewels. Trays of diamonds,
+rubies, emeralds and pearls were presented to her for choice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're not looking,&quot; he said, feigning surprise. &quot;You take no interest
+in jewels; aren't you well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, dearest; but I'm bewildered.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When they returned to the hotel, the gown she was to wear that night at
+the opera had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must have cost twenty pounds, and I usen't to spend much more than
+that in a whole year on my clothes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Neither cared to go to the opera; but half-past ten seemed to him quite
+a proper time for them to return home, and for this makeshift propriety
+he was so bored with &quot;Lohengrin&quot; that he never saw it afterwards with
+the old pleasure; and Evelyn's glances told of the wasted hours. While
+Elsa sang her dream, he realised the depth of his folly. If something
+were to happen? If they were to find Mr. Innes waiting at the door of
+the hotel? If he were robbed of her, it would serve him right. The aria
+in the second act was beautifully sung, and it helped them to forget;
+but with the rather rough chorus of men in the second half of the second
+act, their nervous boredom began again, and Evelyn's face was explicit.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're tired, Evelyn; you're too tired to listen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I'm tired, let's go; give me my cloak.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't care much for the nuptial music,&quot; he remarked accidentally; and
+then, feeling obliged to take advantage of the slip of the tongue, he
+said, &quot;Lohengrin and Elsa are in the bridal chamber in the next act.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He felt her hand tremble on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In two years hence you'll be singing here.... But you don't answer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, dear, I'm thinking of you now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her answer was a delicious flattery, and he hurried her to the carriage.
+The moment his arm was about her she leaned over him, and when their
+lips parted he uttered a little cry. But in the middle of the
+sitting-room she stopped and faced him, barring the way. He took her
+cloak from her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, dear, if anything should happen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But it was not till the third night that they entered into the full
+possession of their delight. Every night after seemed more exquisite
+than the last, like sunset skies, as beautiful and as unrememberable.
+She could recall only the moment when from the threshold he looked back,
+nodded a good-night, and then told her he would call her when it was
+time to get up. Then in a happy weariness she closed her eyes; and when
+they opened she closed them quickly, and curled herself into dreams and
+thoughts of Owen.</p>
+
+<p>They were going to the races, and he would come and tell her when it was
+time to get up. She hoped this would not be till she had dreamed to the
+end of her dream. But her eyes opened, and she saw him in his dressing
+gown with blue facings standing in the middle of the room watching her.
+His little smile was in his eyes; they seemed to say, So there you are;
+I haven't lost you.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're the loveliest thing,&quot; he said, &quot;in God's earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest Owen, I'm very fond of you;&quot; and there was a plaintive and
+amorous cry in her voice which found echo in the movement with which she
+threw herself into her lover's arms, and laid her head upon his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've never seen such a hand, it is like a spray of fern; and those
+eyes&mdash;look at me, Eve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you call me Eve? No one ever called me Eve before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sometimes they are as green as sea water, at other times they are grey
+or nearly grey, most often they are hazel green. And your feet are like
+hands, and your ankle&mdash;see, I can span it between forefinger and
+thumb.... Your hair is faint, like flowers. Your throat is too thick,
+you have the real singer's throat; thousands of pounds lie hidden in
+that whiteness, which is mine&mdash;the whiteness, not the gold.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How you know how to praise, Owen!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I love that sweet indecision of chin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A retreating chin means want of character.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have not what I call a retreating chin, the line merely deflects.
+Nothing more unlovable than a firm chin. It means a hard, unimaginative
+nature. Eve, you're adorable. Where should I find a sweetheart equal to
+you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That isn't the way I want you to love me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Isn't it? Are you sure of that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know&mdash;perhaps not. But why do you make me say these things?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She held his face between her hands, and moved aside his moustache with
+her lips.... Suddenly freeing herself from his embraces, she said, &quot;I
+don't want to kiss you any more. Let's talk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest, do you know what time is it? You must get up and dress
+yourself. It is past nine o'clock. We are going to the races. I'll send
+you the chambermaid. You promise me to get up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was these little authoritative airs that enchanted her remembrance of
+him; and while the chambermaid poured out her bath she thought of the
+gown she was going to wear. She knew that she had some pink silk
+stockings to match it, but it took her a long while to find them. She
+opened all the wrong boxes. &quot;It's extraordinary,&quot; she thought, &quot;how long
+it takes one to dress sometimes; all one's things get wrong.&quot; And when
+hooking the skirt she suddenly remembered she had no parasol suitable to
+the gown. It was Sunday; it would be impossible to buy one. There was
+nothing for it but to send for Owen. If there was anything wrong with
+her gown he would give her no peace. He wished her to wear a
+flower-embroidered dress, but her fancy was set on a pale yellow muslin,
+and it amused her to get cross with him and to send him out of the room;
+but when the door closed she was moved to run after him. The grave
+question as to what she would wear dispelled other thoughts. She must be
+serious; and to please him she decided she would wear the gown he liked,
+and as she fixed the hat that went with it she admired the contrast of
+its purple with her rich hair. Owen was always right. She had never
+thought that she could look so well, and it was a happy moment when he
+took her by both hands and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest, you are delicious&mdash;quite delicious. You'll be the prettiest
+woman at Longchamps to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She asked for tea, but he said they were in France, and must conform to
+French taste. When Marie Antoinette was informed that the people wanted
+bread, etc., Evelyn thought Marie Antoinette must have been a cruel
+woman. But she liked chocolate and the brioche, and henceforth they were
+brought to her bedside, and in a S&egrave;vres service, a present from Owen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When they had finished the little meal he rang for writing material,
+and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, my dear Evelyn, you must write to your father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Must</i> I? What shall I say? Oh, Owen, I cannot write. If I did, father
+would come over here, and then&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll tell you what to say. I'll dictate the letter you ought to write.
+You need not give him any address, but you must let him know you're
+well, and why you intend to remain abroad. It is by relieving his mind
+on these subjects that you'll save yourself from the vexation of his
+hunting you up here.... Come, now,&quot; he said, noticing the agonised and
+bewildered look on Evelyn's face, &quot;this is the only disagreeable hour in
+the day&mdash;you must put up with it. Here is the pen. Now write&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'My DEAR FATHER,&mdash;I should be happy in Paris, very happy, if it were
+not for the knowledge of the grief that my flight must have occasioned
+you. Of course I have acted very wrongly, very wickedly&mdash;'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But,&quot; said Evelyn, &quot;you told me I was acting rightly, that to do
+otherwise would be madness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and I only told you the truth. But in writing to your father you
+must adopt the conventional tone. There's no use in trying to persuade
+your father you did right.... I don't know, though. Scratch out 'I have
+acted wrongly and very wickedly,' and write&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'I will not ask you to think that I have acted otherwise than wrongly,
+for, of course, as a father you can hold no other opinion, but being
+also a clever man, an artist, you will perhaps be inclined to admit that
+my wrong-doing is not so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been
+in other and easily imagined circumstances.'&quot; Full stop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've got that&mdash;'so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been in
+other and easily imagined circumstances'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Father dear, you know that if I had remained in Dulwich my voice would
+have been wasted, not through my fault or yours, but through the fault
+of circumstances.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have got circumstances a few lines higher up, so put 'through the
+fault of fate.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father will never believe that I wrote this letter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That doesn't matter&mdash;the truth is the truth from whoever it comes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'We should have gone on deceiving ourselves, or trying to deceive
+ourselves, hoping as soon as the concerts paid that I should go abroad
+with a proper chaperon. You know, father dear, how we used to talk, both
+knowing well that no such thing could be. The years would have slipped
+by, and at five-and-thirty, when it would have been too late, I should
+have found myself exactly where I was when mother died. You would have
+reproached yourself, you would have suffered remorse, we should have
+both been miserable; whereas now I hope that we shall both be happy. You
+will bring about a revival of Palestrina, and I shall sing opera. Be
+reasonable, father, and remember that it had to be. Write to me if you
+can; to hear from you will make me very happy. But do not try to seek me
+out and endeavour to induce me to return home. Any meeting between us
+now would merely mean intolerable suffering to both of us, and it would
+serve no purpose whatever. A little later, when I have succeeded, when I
+am a great singer, I will come and see you, that is to say if you will
+see me. Meanwhile; for a year or two we had better not meet, but I'll
+write constantly, and shall look forward to your letters. Again, my dear
+father, I beseech you to be reasonable; everything will come right in
+the end. I will not conceal from you the fact that Sir Owen Asher
+advised me to this step. He is very fond of me, and is determined to
+help me in every way. When he brings me back to England a great singer,
+he hopes you will try to look on his fault with as much leniency as may
+be. He asks me to warn you against speaking of him in connection with
+me, for any accusation brought against him will injure me. He intends to
+provide me with a proper chaperon. I need not mention her name; suffice
+it to say that she is a very grand lady, so appearances will be
+preserved. No one need know anything for certain if you do not tell
+them. If you will promise to do this, I will send the name of the lady
+with whom I am going to live. You can say that I am living with her; her
+name will be a sufficient cloak&mdash;everyone will be satisfied.
+Interference can be productive of no good, remember that; let things
+take their natural course, and they will come right in the end. If you
+decide to do as I ask you, write at once to me, and address your letter
+to 31 Rue Faubourg St Honore, care of Monsieur Blanco.&mdash;Always, dear
+father, Your affectionate daughter,&mdash;EVELYN INNES.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How clever you are,&quot; she said, looking up. &quot;You have written just the
+kind of letter that will influence father. I have lived with father all
+my life, and yet I couldn't have known how to write that letter. How did
+you think of it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've put the case truthfully, haven't I? Now, do you copy out that
+letter and address it; meanwhile I'll go round to Voisin's and order
+breakfast. Try to have it finished by the time I get back. We'll post it
+on our way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She promised that she would do so, but instead sat a long while with the
+letter in her hands. It was so unlike herself that she could not bring
+herself to send it. It would not satisfy her father, he would sooner
+receive something from her own familiar heart, and, obeying a sudden
+impulse, she wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My DARLING,&mdash;What must you think of me, I wonder! that I am an
+ungrateful girl? I hope not. I don't think you would be so unjust as to
+think such things of me. I have been very wicked, but I have always
+loved you, father, and never more than now; and had anything in the
+world been able to stop me, it would have been my love of you. But,
+father dear, it was just as I told you; I was determined to resist the
+temptation if I could, but when the time came I could not. I did my
+best, indeed I did. I went through agony after agony after you left, and
+in the end I had to go whether I desired it or not. I could not have
+stopped in Dulwich any longer; if I had I should have died, and then you
+would have lost me altogether. You would not have liked to see me pine
+away, grow white, and lie coughing on the sofa like poor mother. No, you
+would not. It would have killed you. You remember how ill I was last
+Easter when he was away in the Mediterranean, darling. We've always been
+pals, we've always told each other everything, we never had any secrets,
+and never shall. I should have died if I hadn't gone away. Now I've told
+you everything&mdash;isn't that so?&mdash;and when I come back a great success,
+you'll come and hear me sing. My success would mean very little if you
+were not there. I would sooner see your dear, darling face in a box than
+any crowned head in Europe. If I were only sure that you would forgive
+me. Everything else will turn out right. Owen will be good to me, I
+shall get on; I have little fear on that score. If I could only know
+that you were not too lonely, that you were not grieving too much. I
+shall write to Margaret and beg her to look after you. But she is very
+careless, and the grocer often puts down things in his book that we
+never had. A couple of years, and then we shall see each other again. Do
+you think, darling, you can live all that time without me? I must try to
+live that time without you. It will be hard to do so, I shall miss you
+dreadfully, so if you could manage to write to me, not too cross a
+letter, it would make a great deal of difference. Of course, you are
+thinking of the disgrace I have brought on you. There need be none. Owen
+is going to provide me with a chaperon&mdash;a lady, he says, in the best
+society. I will send you her name next week, as soon as Owen hears from
+her. He may hear to-morrow, and if you say that I'm living with her, no
+one will know anything. It is deceitful, I know; I told Owen so, but he
+says that we are not obliged to take the whole world into our
+confidence. I don't like it, but I suppose if one does the things one
+must put up with the consequences. Now, I must say good-bye. I've
+expressed myself badly, but you'll know what I mean&mdash;that I love you
+very dearly, that I hope you'll forgive me, and be glad to see me when I
+come back, that I shall always be,&mdash;Your affectionate
+daughter,&mdash;EVELYN.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She put the letter into an envelope, and was addressing it when Owen
+came into the room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you copied the letter, dear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him inquiringly, and he wondered at her embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; she said, &quot;I have written quite a different letter. Yours was very
+clever, of course, but it was not like me. I've written a stupid little
+letter, but one which will please father better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I daresay you're right. If your father suspected the letter was
+dictated by me he would resent it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's just what I thought.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me see the letter you have written.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; don't look at it. I'd rather you didn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why, dearest? Because there's something about me in it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, indeed. I would not write anything about you that I wouldn't show
+you. No; what I don't want you to see is about myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About yourself! Well, as you like, don't show me anything you don't
+want to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I don't like to have secrets from you, Owen; I hate secrets.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of these days you'll tell me what you've written. I'm quite
+satisfied.&quot; He raised her face and kissed her tenderly, and she felt
+that she loved him better for his well-assumed indifference. Then they
+went downstairs, and she admired her dress in the long glasses on the
+landings. She listened to his French as he asked for a stamp. The
+courtyard was full of sunlight and carriages. The pages pushed open the
+glass doors for them to pass, and, tingling with health and all the
+happiness and enchantment of love, she walked by his side under the
+arcade&mdash;glad when, in walking, they came against each other&mdash;swinging
+her parasol pensively, wondering what happy word to say, a little
+perplexed that she should have a secret from him, and all the while
+healthily hungry. Suddenly she recognised the street as the one where
+they had dined on Friday night. He pushed open a white-painted door, and
+it seemed to her that all the white-aproned waiters advanced to meet
+her; and the one who drew the table forward that she might pass seemed
+to fully appreciate the honour of serving them. A number of <i>hors
+d'oeuvres</i> were placed before her, but she only ate bread and butter and
+a radish, until Owen insisted on her trying the <i>filets d'anchois</i>&mdash;the
+very ones she was originally most averse from. The sole was cooked very
+elaborately in a rich brown sauce. The tiny chicken which followed it
+was first shown to her in a tin saucepan; then the waiter took it away
+and carved it at a side table. She enjoyed the melon which, for her
+sake, ended instead of beginning the meal, as Owen said it should.</p>
+
+<p>An Englishman, a friend of Owen's, sat at the next table, and she could
+see he regretted that Owen had not introduced him. Most of his
+conversation seemed designed for that end, and when they got up to go,
+his eyes surely said, &quot;Well, I wish that he had introduced us; I think
+we should have got on together.&quot; And the eyes of the young man who sat
+at the opposite table said, as plain as any words, &quot;I'd have given
+anything to have been introduced! Shall we ever meet again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So her exit was very thrilling; and no sooner were they on the pavement
+than another surprise was in store for her.</p>
+
+<p>A smart coachman touched his hat, and Owen stepped back for her to get
+into the victoria.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But this is not our carriage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You did not think we were going to the Lonchamps in a <i>fiacre</i>, did
+you? This is your carriage&mdash;I bought these horses yesterday for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You bought this carriage and these horses for me, Owen?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, dear, I did; don't let's waste time. <i>Aux courses!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, dear, I cannot accept such a present. I appreciate your kindness,
+but you will not ask me to accept this carriage and horses.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn thought for some time before answering.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would only make people think that I was an amateur. The fine clothes
+you have bought me I shall not be able to wear, except when I want you
+to think me nice. I shall have to learn Italian, of which I don't know
+a word, and French, of which I know very little.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen looked at her, at once pleased and surprised.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're quite right,&quot; he said; &quot;this carriage and these horses are
+unsuitable to your present circumstances. The chestnuts took my fancy
+... however, I haven't paid for them. I'll send them back for the
+present; they, or a pair like them, will come in all right later on.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After a slight pause she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not want to run into your debt more than I can help. If my voice
+develops, if it be all you think it is, I shall be able to go on the
+stage in a year, at latest in a year and a half from now. My mother was
+paid three and four hundred a week. Unless I fail altogether, I shall
+have no difficulty in paying you back the money you so generously lent
+me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why do you want to cost me nothing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know. Why shouldn't I pay you back? If I succeed I shall have
+plenty of money; if I don't, I daresay you'll overlook the debt. Owen,
+dear, how enchanting it is to be with you in Paris, to wear these
+beautiful dresses, to drive in this carriage, to see those lovely
+horses, and to wonder what the races will be like. You're not
+disappointed in me? I'm as nice as you thought I'd be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; you're a great deal nicer. I was afraid at one time you might be a
+bore; scruples of conscience aren't very interesting. But somehow in
+your case they don't seem to matter.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do try to keep them to myself. There's no use in inflicting one's
+personal worries on others. I am all one thing or all the other. When
+I'm with you, I'm afraid I'm all the other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He had always known that he could &quot;make something of her,&quot; as he used to
+put it to himself, but she exceeded his expectations; she certainly was
+an admirable mistress. Her scruples did not bore him; they were, indeed,
+a novelty and an excitement which he would not willingly be without.
+Moreover, she was so intelligent he had not yet heard her make a stupid
+remark. She had always been interested in the right things; and, excited
+by her admiration of the wooden balconies&mdash;the metal lanterns hanging
+from them, the vases standing on the steps leading to the porticoes, he
+attempted a reading of these villas.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How plain is this paganism,&quot; he said. &quot;Seeing them, we cannot but think
+of their deep feather beds, the savoury omelettes made of new-laid eggs
+served at mid-day, and followed by juicy beefsteaks cooked in the best
+butter. Those villas are not only typical of Passy, but of France; their
+excellent life ascends from the peasant's cottage; they are the result
+of agriculture, which is the original loveliness. All that springs from
+agriculture must be beautiful, just as all that springs from commerce
+must be vile. Manchester is the ugliest place on the earth, and the
+money of every individual cotton spinner serves to multiply the
+original ugliness&mdash;the house he builds, the pictures he buys. Isn't that
+so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say, dear; I have never been to Manchester. But how can you
+think of such things?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you like those villas? I love them, and their comfort is secure;
+its root is in the earth, the only thing we are sure of. There is more
+pagan of life and sentiment in France than elsewhere. Would you not like
+to have a Passy villa? Would you not like to live here?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of these days I may buy one, then you shall come to breakfast, and
+I'll give you an omelette and a beefsteak. For the present, I shall have
+to put up with something less expensive. I must be near my music
+lessons. Thanks all the same, dearest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sought a reason for the expression of thoughtfulness which had
+suddenly come over his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know how it is, but I never see Paris without thinking of
+Balzac. You don't know Balzac; one of these days you must read him. The
+moment I begin to notice Paris, I think, feel, see and speak Balzac.
+That dark woman yonder, with her scornful face, fills my mind with
+Balzacian phrases&mdash;the celebrated courtesan, celebrated for her diamonds
+and her vices, and so on. The little woman in the next carriage, the
+Princess de Saxeville, would delight him. He would devote an entire page
+to the description of her coat of arms&mdash;three azure panels, and so on.
+And I should read it, for Balzac made all the world beautiful, even
+snobbery. All interesting people are Balzacians. The moment I know that
+a man is an admirer of Balzac, a sort of Freemasonry is established
+between us, and I am interested in him, as I should be in a man who had
+loved a woman whom I had loved.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I shouldn't like a woman because I knew that you had loved her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a woman; but men who have loved the same woman will seek each
+other from the ends of the earth, and will take an intense pleasure in
+their recollections. I don't know whether that aphorism is to be found
+in Balzac; if not, it is an accident that prevented him from writing it,
+for it is quite Balzacian&mdash;only he would give it a turn, an air of
+philosophic distinction to which it would be useless for me to pretend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder if I should like him. Tell me about him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You would be more likely than most women to appreciate him. Supposing
+you put the matter to the test. You would not accept these horses, maybe
+you will not refuse a humbler present&mdash;an edition of Balzac. There's a
+very good one in fifty-two volumes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So many as that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; and not one too many&mdash;each is a masterpiece. In this enormous
+work there are something like two thousand characters, and these appear
+in some books in principal, in other books in subordinate, parts. Balzac
+speaks of them as we should of real people. A young lady is going to the
+opera and to a ball afterwards, and he says&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'It is easy to imagine her delight and expectation, for was she not
+going to meet the delicious Duchesse de la Maufregneuse, and her friend
+the celebrated Madame d'Espard, Coralis, Lucien de Rubempr&eacute; and
+Rastignac.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These people are only mentioned in the <i>M&eacute;moires de deux jeunes
+Mari&eacute;es</i>. But they are heroes and heroines in other books, in <i>Les
+Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan, Le P&egrave;re Goriot</i>, and <i>Les Illusions
+Perdues</i>.&quot; Before you even begin to know Balzac, you must have read at
+least twenty volumes. There is a vulgarity about those who don't know
+Balzac; we, his worshippers, recognise in each other a refinement of
+sense and a peculiar comprehension of life. We are beings apart; we are
+branded with the seal of that great mind. You should hear us talk among
+ourselves. Everyone knows that Popinot is the sublime hero of
+<i>L'Interdiction</i>, but for the moment some feeble Balzacian does not
+remember the other books he appears in, and is ashamed to ask.... But
+I'm boring you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no; I love to listen. It is more interesting than any play.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen looked at her questioningly, as if he doubted the flattery, which,
+at the bottom of his heart, he knew to be quite sincere.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You cannot understand Paris until you have read Balzac. Balzac
+discovered Paris; he created Paris. You remember just now what I said of
+those villas? I was thinking at the moment of Balzac. For he begins one
+story by a reading of the human characteristics to be perceived in its
+streets. He says that there are mean streets, and streets that are
+merely honest; there are young streets about whose morality the public
+has not yet formed any opinion; there are murderous streets&mdash;streets
+older than the oldest hags; streets that we may esteem&mdash;clean streets,
+work-a-day streets and commercial streets. Some streets, he says, begin
+well and end badly. The Rue Montmartre, for instance, has a fine head,
+but it ends in the tail of a fish. How good that is. You don't know the
+Rue Montmartre? I'll point it out next time we're that way. But you know
+the Rue de la Paix?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; what does that mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Rue de la Paix, he says, is a large street, and a grand street, but
+it certainly doesn't awaken the gracious and noble thoughts that the Rue
+Royale suggests to every sensitive mind; nor has it the dignity of the
+Place Vend&ocirc;me. The Place de la Bourse, he says, is in the daytime babble
+and prostitution, but at night it is beautiful. At two o'clock in the
+morning, by moonlight, it is a dream of old Greece.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't see much in that. What you said about the villas was quite as
+good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fearing that the conversation lacked a familiar and personal interest,
+he sought a transition, an idea by which he could connect it with Evelyn
+herself. With this object he called her attention to two young men who,
+he pretended, reminded him of Rastignac and Morny. That woman in the
+mail phaeton was an incipient Madame Marneffe; that dark woman now
+looking at them with ardent, amorous eyes might be an Esther.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We're all creatures of Balzac's imagination. You,&quot; he said, turning a
+little so that he might see her better, &quot;are intensely Balzacian.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do I remind you of one of his characters?&quot; Evelyn became more keenly
+interested. &quot;Which one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are more like a character he might have painted than anyone I can
+think of in the Human Comedy. He certainly would have been interested in
+your temperament. But I can't think which of his women is like you. You
+are more like the adorable Lucien; that is to say, up to the present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who was Lucien?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He was the young poet whom all Paris fell in love with. He came up to
+Paris with a married woman; I think they came from Angouleme. I haven't
+read <i>Lost Illusions</i> for twenty years. She and he were the stars in the
+society of some provincial town, but when they arrived in Paris each
+thought the other very common and countrified. He compares her with
+Madame d'Espard; she compares him with Rastignac; Balzac completes the
+picture with a touch of pure genius&mdash;'They forgot that six months would
+transform them both into exquisite Parisians.' How good that is, what
+wonderful insight into life!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And do they become Parisians?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and then they both regret that they broke off&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Could they not begin it again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; it is rarely that a <i>liaison</i> can be begun again&mdash;life is too
+hurried. We may not go back; the past may never become the
+present&mdash;ghosts come between.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then if I broke it off with you, or you broke it off with me, it would
+be for ever?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not let us discuss such unpleasant possibilities;&quot; and he continued
+to search the <i>Human Comedy</i> for a woman resembling Evelyn. &quot;You are
+essentially Balzacian&mdash;all interesting things are&mdash;but I cannot remember
+any woman in the <i>Human Comedy</i> like you&mdash;Honorine, perhaps.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What does she do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She's a married woman who has left her husband for a lover who very
+soon deserts her. Her husband tries in vain to love other women, but
+his wife holds his affections and he makes every effort to win her back.
+The story is mainly an account of these efforts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does he succeed?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. Honorine goes back to her husband, but it cost her her life. She
+cannot live with a man she doesn't love. That is the point of the
+story.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder why that should remind you of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is something delicate, rare, and mystical about you both. But I
+can't say I place <i>Honorine</i> very high among Balzac's works. There are
+beautiful touches in it, but I think he failed to realise the type. You
+are more virile, more real to me than Honorine. No; on the whole, Balzac
+has not done you. He perceived you dimly. If he had lived it might, it
+certainly would, have been otherwise. There is, of course, the Duchesse
+Langeais. There is something of you in her; but she is no more than a
+brilliant sketch, no better than Honorine. There is Eugene Grandet. But
+no; Balzac never painted your portrait.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Like all good talkers, he knew how to delude his listeners into the
+belief that they were taking an important part in the conversation. He
+allowed them to speak, he solicited their opinions, and listened as if
+they awakened the keenest interest in him; he developed what they had
+vaguely suggested. He paused before their remarks, he tempted his
+listener into personal appreciations and sudden revelations of
+character. He addressed an intimate vanity and became the inspiration of
+every choice, and in a mysterious reticulation of emotions, tastes and
+ideas, life itself seemed to converge to his ultimate authority. And
+having induced recognition of the wisdom of his wishes, he knew how to
+make his yoke agreeable to bear; it never galled the back that bore it,
+it lay upon it soft as a silken gown. Evelyn enjoyed the gentle
+imposition of his will. Obedience became a delight, and in its
+intellectual sloth life floated as in an opium dream without end,
+dissolving as the sunset dissolves in various modulations. Obedience is
+a divine sensualism; it is the sensualism of the saints; its lassitudes
+are animated with deep pauses and thrills of love and worship. We lift
+our eyes, and a great joy fills our hearts, and we sink away into
+blisses of remote consciousness. The delights of obedience are the
+highest felicities of love, and these Evelyn had begun to experience.
+She had ascended already into this happy nowhere. She was aware of him,
+and a little of the brilliant goal whither he was leading her. She was
+the instrument, he was the hand that played upon it, and all that had
+happened from hour to hour in their mutual existence revealed in some
+new and unexpected way his mastery over life. She had seen great ladies
+bowing to him, smiling upon him in a way that told their intention to
+get him away from her. She had heard scraps of his conversation with the
+French and English noblemen who had stopped to speak to him; and now,
+as Owen was getting into the victoria, after a brief visit to some great
+lady who had sent her footman to fetch him, a man, who looked to Evelyn
+like a sort of superior groom, came breathless to their carriage. He had
+only just heard that Owen was on the course. He was the great English
+trainer from Chantilly, and had tried Armide II. to win with a stone
+more on his back than he had to carry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is the horse,&quot; and Owen pointed to a big chestnut. &quot;The third
+horse&mdash;orange and white sleeves, black cap ... they are going now for
+the preliminary canter. We shall have just time to back him. There is a
+Pari Mutuel a little way down the course; or shall we back the horse in
+the ring? No, it is too late to get across the course. The Pari Mutuel
+will do. Isn't the racecourse like an English lawn, like an overgrown
+croquet ground? and the horses go round by these plantations.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was not fashionable, he admitted, for a lady to leave her carriage,
+but no one knew her. It did not matter, and the spectacle amused her.
+But there was only time to catch a glimpse of beautiful toilettes,
+actresses and princesses, and the young men standing on the steps of the
+carriages. Owen whispered the names of the most celebrated, and told her
+she should know them when she was on the stage. At present it would be
+better for her to live quietly&mdash;unknown; her lessons would take all her
+time. He talked as he hastened her towards where a crowd had collected.
+She saw what looked like a small omnibus, with a man distributing
+tickets. Owen took five louis out of her purse and handed them to the
+man, who in return handed her a ticket. They would see the race better
+from their carriage, but it was pleasanter to stroll about the warm
+grass and admire the little woods which surrounded this elegant
+pleasure-ground, the white painted stands with all their flags flying on
+the blue summer air, the glitter of the carriages, the colour of the
+parasols, the bright jackets and caps of the jockeys, the rhythmical
+movement of the horses. Some sailed along with their heads low, others
+bounded, their heads high in the air. While Owen watched Evelyn's
+pleasure, his face expressed a cynical good humour. He was glad she was
+pleased, and he was flattered that he was influencing her. No longer was
+she wasting her life, the one life which she had to live. He was proud
+of his disciple, and he delighted in her astonishment, when, having made
+sure that Armide II. had won, he led her back to the Pari Mutuel, and,
+bidding her hold out her hands, saw that forty louis were poured into
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Then Evelyn could not believe that she was in her waking senses, and it
+took some time to explain to her how she had won so much money; and when
+she asked why all the poor people did not come and do likewise, since it
+was so easy, Owen said that he had had more sport seeing her win five
+and thirty louis than he had when he won the gold cup at Ascot. It
+almost inclined him to go in for racing again. Evelyn could not
+understand the circumstance and, still explaining the odds, he told the
+coachman that they would not wait for the last race. He had tied her
+forty louis into her pocket-handkerchief, and feeling the weight of the
+gold in her hand she leant back in the victoria, lost in the bright,
+penetrating happiness of that summer evening. Paris, graceful and
+indolent&mdash;Paris returning through a whirl of wheels, through
+pleasure-grounds, green swards and long, shining roads&mdash;instilled a
+fever of desire into the blood, and the soul cried that life should be
+made wholly of such light distraction.</p>
+
+<p>The wistful light seemed to breathe all vulgarity from the procession of
+pleasure-seekers returning from the races. An aspect of vision stole
+over the scene. Owen pointed to the group of pines by the lake's edge,
+to the gondola-like boat moving through the pink stillness; and the
+cloud in the water, he said, was more beautiful than the cloud in
+heaven. He spoke of the tea-house on the island, of the shade of the
+trees, of the lush grass, of the chatter of the nursemaids and ducks. He
+proposed, and she accepted, that they should go there to-morrow. The
+secret of their lips floated into their eyes, its echoes drifted through
+their souls like a faint strain played on violins; and neither spoke for
+fear of losing one of the faint vibrations. Evelyn settled her
+embroidered gown over her feet as the carriage swept around the Arc de
+Triomphe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is our rose garden,&quot; he said, pointing to Paris, which lay below
+them glittering in the evening light, &quot;You remember that I used to read
+you Omar?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I remember. Not three days ago, yet it seems far away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you do not regret&mdash;you would not go back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not if I would.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It has been a charming day, hasn't it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And it isn't over yet. I have ordered dinner at the Caf&eacute; des
+Ambassadeurs. I've got a table on the balcony. The balcony overlooks the
+garden, and the stage is at the end of the garden, so we shall see the
+performance as we dine. The comic songs, the can-can dancers and the
+acrobats will be a change after Wagner. I hope you'll like the dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took a card from his pocket and read the menu.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no place in Paris where you get a better <i>petite marmite</i> than
+the Ambassadeurs. I have ordered, you see, <i>filets de volaille, pointes
+d'asperges</i>. The <i>filets de volaille</i> are the backs of the chickens, the
+tit-bits; the rest&mdash;the legs and the wings&mdash;go to make the stock; that
+is why the <i>marmite</i> is so good. <i>Timbale de homard &agrave; l'Americaine</i> is
+served with a brown sauce garnished with rice. You ought to find it
+excellent. If we were in autumn I should have ordered a pheasant
+<i>Sauvaroff</i>. A bird being impossible, I allowed myself to be advised by
+the head waiter. He assured me they have some very special legs of lamb;
+they have just received them from Normandy; you will not recognise it as
+the stringy, tasteless thing that in England we know as leg of lamb.
+<i>Souffl&eacute; au paprike</i>&mdash;this <i>souffl&eacute;</i> is seasoned not with red pepper,
+which would produce an intolerable thirst, nor with ordinary pepper,
+which would be arid and tasteless, but with an intermediate pepper which
+will just give a zest to the last glass of champagne. There is a
+<i>parfait</i>&mdash;that comes before the <i>souffl&eacute;</i> of course. I don't think we
+can do much better.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_ELEVEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER ELEVEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The appointment had been made, and he was coming back at half-past three
+to take her to Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, and at four
+her fate would be decided. She would then learn beyond cavil or doubt if
+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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 &pound;400 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.... Lady Duckle was coming that
+evening&mdash;the woman whom she was going to live with&mdash;an unfortunate day
+for her to arrive; if Madame Savelli thought that she, Evelyn, had no
+voice to speak of, the secret could not be kept from her. Lady Duckle
+would know her for a poor little fool who had been wheedled from her
+home, and on the pretext that she was to become the greatest singer in
+Europe. It was all horrid.</p>
+
+<p>And when Owen returned he found Evelyn in tears. But with his scrupulous
+tact he avoided any allusion to her grief, and while she bathed her eyes
+she thanked him in her heart for this. Her father would have fretted and
+fussed and maddened her with questions, but Owen cheered her with
+sanguine smiles and seemed to look forward to her success as a natural
+sequence, any interruption to which it would be idle to anticipate; and
+he cleverly drew her thoughts from doubt in her own ability into
+consideration of the music she was going to sing. She suggested the
+jewel song in &quot;Faust,&quot; or the waltz in &quot;Romeo and Juliet.&quot; But he was of
+the opinion that she had better sing the music she was in the habit of
+singing; for choice, one of Purcell's songs, the &quot;Epithalamium,&quot; or the
+song from the &quot;Indian Queen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Savelli doesn't know the music; it will interest her. The other things
+she hears every day of her life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I haven't the music&mdash;I don't know the accompaniments.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The music is here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very thoughtful of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Henceforth it must be my business to be thoughtful.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They descended the hotel staircase very slowly, seeing themselves in the
+tall mirrors on the landings. The bright courtyard glittered through the
+glass verandah; it was full of carriages. Owen signed to his coachman.
+They got into the victoria, and a moment after were passing through the
+streets, turning in and out. But not a word did they speak, for the
+poison of doubt had entered into his, as it had into her, soul. He had
+begun to ask himself if he was mistaken&mdash;if she had really this
+wonderful voice, or if it only existed in his imagination? True it was
+that everyone who had heard her sing thought the same; but the last time
+he had heard her, had not her voice sounded a little thin? He had
+doubts, too, about her power of passionate interpretation.... She had a
+beautiful voice&mdash;there could be no doubt on that point&mdash;but a beautiful
+voice might be heard to a very great disadvantage on the stage.
+Moreover, could she sing florid music? Of course, the &quot;Epithalamium&quot;
+she was going to sing was as florid as it could be. Purcell had suited
+it to his own singing.... A woman did not always sing to an orchestra as
+well as to a single instrument. That was only when the singer was an
+insufficient musician. Evelyn was an excellent musician.... If a woman
+had the loveliest voice, and was as great a musician as Wagner himself,
+it would profit her nothing if she had not the strength to stand the
+wear and tear of rehearsals. He looked at Evelyn, and calculated her
+physical strength. She was a rather tall and strongly-built girl, but
+the Wagnerian bosom was wanting. He had always considered a large bosom
+to be a dreadful deformity. A bosom should be an indication, a hint; a
+positive statement he viewed with abhorrence. And he paused to think if
+he would be willing to forego his natural and cultured taste in female
+beauty and accept those extravagant growths of flesh if they could be
+proved to be musical necessities. But Evelyn was by no means
+flat-chested ... and he remembered certain curves and plenitudes with
+satisfaction. Then, catching sight of Evelyn's frightened face, he
+forced himself to invent conversation. That was the Madeleine, a fine
+building, in a way; and the boulevard they had just entered was the
+Boulevard Malesherbes, which was called after a celebrated French
+lawyer. The name Haussmann recalled the Second Empire, and he ransacked
+his memory for anecdotes. But soon his conversation grew stilted&mdash;even
+painful. He could continue it no longer, and, taking her hand, he
+assured her that, if she did not sing well, she should come to Madame
+Savelli again. Evelyn's face lighted up, and she said that what had
+frightened her was the finality of the decision&mdash;a few minutes in which
+she might not be able to sing at all. Owen reproved her. How could she
+think that he would permit such a barbarism? It really did not matter a
+brass button whether she sang well or ill on this particular day; if she
+did not do herself justice, another appointment should be made. He had
+money enough to hire Madame Savelli to listen to her for the next six
+months, if it were required.</p>
+
+<p>He was truly sorry for her. Poor little girl! it really was a dreadful
+ordeal. Yet he had never seen her look better. What a difference
+dressing her had made! Her manner, too, had improved. That was the
+influence of his society. By degrees, he'd get rid of all her absurd
+ideas. But he sorely wished that Madame Savelli's verdict would prove
+him right&mdash;not for his sake&mdash;it didn't matter to him&mdash;such teeth, such
+hands, such skin, such eyes and hair! Voice or no voice, he had
+certainly got the most charming mistress in Europe! But, if she did
+happen to have a great voice it would make matters so much better for
+them. He had plenty of money&mdash;twenty thousand lying idle&mdash;but it was
+better that she should earn money. It would save her reputation ... in
+every way it would be better. If she had a voice, and were a success,
+this <i>liaison</i> would be one of the most successful things in his life.
+If he were wrong, they'd have to get on as best they could, but he
+didn't think that he could be altogether mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened by a footman in livery, and they ascended
+half-a-dozen steps into the house. Then, off a wide passage, a door was
+opened, and they found themselves in a great saloon with polished oak
+floor. There was hardly any furniture&mdash;three or four chairs, some
+benches against the walls and a grand piano. The mantelpiece was covered
+with photographs, and there were life-sized photographs in frames on the
+walls. Owen pointed to one of a somewhat stout woman in evening-dress,
+and he whispered an illustrious name.</p>
+
+<p>A moment after madame entered.</p>
+
+<p>She was of medium height, thin and somewhat flat-chested. Her hair was
+iron-grey, and the face was marked with patches of vivid colouring. The
+mouth was a long, determined line, and the lines of the hips asserted
+themselves beneath the black silk dress. She glanced quickly at Evelyn
+as she went towards Sir Owen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This is the young lady of whom you spoke to me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, madame, it is she. Let me introduce you. Madame Savelli&mdash;Miss
+Evelyn Innes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Does mademoiselle wish to sing as a professional or as an amateur?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The question was addressed at once to Evelyn and to Owen, and, while
+Evelyn hesitated with the French words, Owen answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mademoiselle will be guided by your advice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They all say that; however, we shall see. Will mademoiselle sing to me?
+Does mademoiselle speak French?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, a little,&quot; Evelyn replied, timidly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, very good. Has mademoiselle studied music?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; my father is a musician, but he only cares for the very early
+music, and I have hardly ever touched a piano, but I play the
+harpsichord.... My instrument is the viola da gamba.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The harpsichord and the viola da gamba! That is very interesting,
+but&quot;&mdash;and Madame Savelli laughed good-naturedly&mdash;&quot;unfortunately we have
+no harpsichord here, nor yet a spinet only the humble piano.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Innes will be quite satisfied with your piano, Madame Savelli.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Sir Owen, I will not have you get cross with me. I must always
+have my little pleasantry. Does he get cross with you like that, Miss
+Innes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't get cross with you, Madame Savelli.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You wanted to, but I would not let you&mdash;and because I regretted I had
+not a harpsichord, only a humble piano! Mademoiselle knows, I suppose,
+all the church songs. I only know operas.... You see, Sir Owen, you
+cannot silence me; I will have my little pleasantry. I only know opera,
+and have nothing but the humble piano. But, joking apart, mademoiselle
+wants to study serious opera.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; mademoiselle intends to study for the stage, not for the church.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I will teach her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have three classes here. Mademoiselle would like to go into the
+opera class.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the opera class I How you do go on, Sir Owen! If mademoiselle can go
+into the opera class next year, I shall be more than satisfied,
+astonished.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Perhaps you'll be able to say better if mademoiselle will be able to go
+into the opera class when you have heard her sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I know, my dear Sir Owen, that is impossible. You don't believe me.
+Well, I am prepared to be surprised. It matters not to me. Mademoiselle
+can go into the opera class in three months if she is sufficiently
+advanced. Will mademoiselle sing to me? Are these her songs?&quot; Madame
+Savelli took the music out of Sir Owen's hands. &quot;I can see that this
+music would sound better on the harpsichord or the spinet.... Now, Sir
+Owen, I see you are getting angry again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm not angry, Madame Savelli&mdash;no one could be angry with you&mdash;only
+mademoiselle is rather nervous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then perhaps my pleasantry was inexpedient. Let me see&mdash;this is it,
+isn't it?&quot; she said, running her fingers through the first bars.... &quot;But
+perhaps you would like to accompany mademoiselle?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which would you like, Evelyn?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You, dear; I should be too nervous with Madame Savelli.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen explained, and madame gave him her place at the piano with
+alacrity, and took a seat far away by the fireplace. Evelyn sang
+Purcell's beautiful wedding song, full of roulades, grave pauses and
+long-sustained notes, and when she had finished Owen signed to madame
+not to speak. &quot;Now, the song from the 'Indian Queen.' You sang
+capitally,&quot; he whispered to Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>And, thus encouraged, she poured all her soul and all the pure melody of
+her voice into this music, at once religious and voluptuous, seemingly
+the rapture of a nun that remembrance has overtaken and for the moment
+overpowered. When she had done, Madame Savelli jumped from her chair,
+and seizing her by both hands said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you'll stop with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then without another word she ran out of the room, leaving the door
+open behind her, and a few moments after they heard her calling on the
+stairs to her husband.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come down at once; come down, I've found a star.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then she thinks I've a good voice?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should think so indeed. She won't get over the start you've given her
+for the next six months.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you sure, Owen? Are you sure she's not laughing at us?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Laughing at us? She's calling for her husband to come down. She's
+shouting to him that she's found a star.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then the joy that rose up in Evelyn's heart blinded her eyes so that she
+could not see, and she seemed to lose sense of what was happening. It
+was as if she were going to swoon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have told her,&quot; Madame Savelli said to her husband, who followed her
+into the room, &quot;that, if she will remain a year with me, I'll make
+something wonderful of her. And you will stay with me, my dear....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen thought that this was the moment to mention the fact that Evelyn
+was the daughter of the famous Madame Innes.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Savelli raised his bushy eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew your mother, mademoiselle. If you have a voice like hers&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In a year, if she will remain with me, she will have twice the voice
+her mother had. Mademoiselle must go into the opera class at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought you said that such a thing could not be; that no pupil of
+yours had ever gone straight into the opera class?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Savelli's grey eyes laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! I was mistaken.... I had forgotten that all the other classes are
+full. There is no room for Miss Innes in the other classes. It is
+against all precedence; it will create much jealousy, but it can't be
+helped. She must go straight into the opera class. When will
+mademoiselle begin? The sooner the better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Next Monday. Will that be soon enough?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On Monday I'll begin to teach her the <i>r&ocirc;le</i> of Marguerite. Such a
+thing was never heard of; but then mademoiselle's voice is one such as
+one never hears.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turning to her husband, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, little girl, what do you think? Everything is all right now. It
+happened even better than I expected.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She wiped away her tears.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, half that would do, half that; I only want to know that it is
+all true.&quot; Tears again rose to her eyes. &quot;I mean,&quot; she said, laughing,
+&quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, she said you would be a great singer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you remember the lessons that you gave me on the viola da gamba?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him beseechingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then it is true. I suppose it is true, but I wish I could feel this
+life to be true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She looked up and saw the clouds moving across the sky; she looked down
+and saw the people passing along the streets.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that throat there are thousands of pounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn put her hand to her throat to assure herself that it was still on
+her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder, I wonder. To think that in a year&mdash;in a year and a half&mdash;I
+shall be singing on the stage! They will throw me bouquets, I suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seems impossible that I&mdash;poor, miserable I&mdash;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite certain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then why can't I imagine it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We cannot imagine ourselves in other than our present circumstances;
+the most commonplace future is as unimaginable as the most extravagant.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose that is so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The carriage stopped at the Continental, and he asked her what she would
+like to do. It was just five.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come and have a cup of tea in the Rue Cambon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She consented, and, after tea, he said, standing with one foot on the
+carriage step&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;May I not come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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&mdash;nothing else would interest you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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 Elys&eacute;es 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&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you will stay a year with me, I'll make something wonderful of
+you.&quot; &quot;Was there ever such happiness? Can it be true? Then I am
+wonderful&mdash;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.&quot; And
+the word sang sweeter in her ears than the violins in &quot;Lohengrin.&quot; ...
+&quot;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&mdash;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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 Elys&eacute;es 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&mdash;a woman of about fifty, who, catching sight of her,
+whispered something to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn.... This is Lady Duckle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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.&quot; 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.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sit down, Evelyn, you look tired.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'm not tired ... but I walked from the Arc de Triomphe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Walked! Why did you walk?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn did not answer, and Lady Duckle said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Owen tells me that you'll surely succeed in singing Wagner&mdash;that I
+shall be converted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lady Duckle is a heretic.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;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&mdash;a charming woman&mdash;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!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;&quot;such booing!&quot;&mdash;they had all shouted themselves
+hoarse&mdash;such wandering from key to key.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hoping, I suppose, that in the end they'd hit off the right ones. And
+that trick of going up in fifths. And then they go up in fifths on the
+half notes. I said if they do that again, I'll leave the theatre.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn could see that Owen liked Lady Duckle, and her conversation,
+which at first might have seemed extravagant and a little foolish, was
+illuminated with knowledge and a vague sense of humour which was
+captivating. Her story of how she had met Rossini in her early youth,
+and the praise he had bestowed on her voice, and his intention of
+writing an opera for her, seemed fanciful enough, but every now and then
+some slight detail inspired the suspicion that there was perhaps more
+truth in what she was saying than appeared at first hearing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why did he not write the opera, Olive?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was just as he was ill, when he lived in Rue Monsieur. And he said
+he was afraid he was not equal to writing down so many notes. Poor old
+man! I can still see him sitting in his arm-chair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to have been on terms of friendship with the most celebrated
+men of the time. Her little book entitled <i>Souvenirs of Some Great
+Composers</i> was alluded to, and Owen mentioned that at that time she was
+the great Parisian beauty.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But instead of going on the stage, I married Lord Duckle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And this early mistake she seemed to consider as sufficient explanation
+for all subsequent misfortunes. Evelyn wondered what these might be, and
+Owen said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The most celebrated singers are glad to sing at Lady Duckle's
+afternoons; no reputation is considered complete till it has received
+her sanction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is going too far, Owen; but it is true that nearly all the great
+singers have been heard at my house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen begged Evelyn to get ready for dinner, and as she stood waiting for
+the lift, she saw him resume confidential conversation with Lady Duckle.
+They were, she knew, making preparations for her future life, and this
+was the woman she was going to live with for the next few years! The
+thought gave her pause. She dried her hands and hastened downstairs.
+They were still talking in the verandah just as she had left them. Owen
+signed to the coachman and told him to drive to Durand's. They were
+dining in a private room, and during dinner the conversation constantly
+harked back to the success that Evelyn had achieved that afternoon. Owen
+told the story in well-turned sentences. His eyes were generally fixed
+on Lady Duckle, and Evelyn sat listening and feeling, as Owen intended
+she should feel, like the heroine of a fairy tale. She laughed nervously
+when, imitating Madame Savelli's accent, he described how she had said,
+&quot;If you'll stop with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you.&quot; Lady Duckle leaned across the table, glancing from time to time at
+Evelyn, as if to assure herself that she was still in the presence of
+this extraordinary person, and murmured something about having the
+honour of assisting at what she was sure would be a great career.</p>
+
+<p>Owen noticed that Evelyn seemed preoccupied, and did not respond very
+eagerly to Lady Duckle's advances. He wondered if she suspected him of
+having been Lady Duckle's lover.... Evelyn was thinking entirely of Lady
+Duckle herself, trying to divine the real woman that was behind all this
+talk of great men and social notabilities. One phrase let drop seemed to
+let in some light on the mystery. Talking of her, Lady Duckle said that
+it was only necessary to know what road we wanted to walk in to succeed,
+and instantly Lady Duckle appeared to her as one who had never selected
+a road. She seemed to have walked a little way on all roads, and her
+face expressed a life of many wanderings, straying from place to place.
+There was nothing as she said, worth doing that she had not done, but
+she had clearly accomplished nothing. As she watched her she feared,
+though she could not say what she feared. At bottom it was a suspicion
+of the deteriorating influence that Lady Duckle would exercise, must
+exercise, upon her&mdash;for were they not going to live together for years?
+And this companionship would be necessarily based on subterfuge and
+deceit. She would have to talk to her of her friendship for Owen. She
+could never speak of Owen to Lady Duckle as her lover. But as Evelyn
+listened to this pleasant, garrulous woman talking, and talking very
+well, about music and literature, she could not but feel that she liked
+her, and that her easy humour and want of principle would make life
+comfortable and careless. She was not a saint; she could not expect a
+saint to chaperon her; nor did she want a saint. At that moment her
+spirits rose. She wanted Owen, and she loved him the more for the tact
+he had shown in finding Lady Duckle for her. She accepted the good
+lady's faults with reckless enthusiasm, and when they got back to the
+hotel she took the first occasion to whisper that she liked Lady Duckle
+and was sure they'd get on very well together.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, dear, I'm so happy, I don't know what to do with myself. I did
+enjoy my drive to the Bois. I never was so happy and I don't seem to be
+enjoying myself enough; I should like to sit up all night to think of
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There's no reason why you shouldn't.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only I should feel tired in the morning.... Are you coming to my room?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Unless you want me not to. Do you want me to come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do I look as if I didn't?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your eyes are shining like stars. It is worth while taking trouble to
+make you happy. You do enjoy it so.... We'll go upstairs now. We can't
+talk here, Lady Duckle is coming back. Leave your door ajar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't think she suspects?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It doesn't matter what people suspect, the essential is that they
+shouldn't know. I've lots to tell you. I've arranged everything with
+Lady Duckle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was just telling Miss Innes that in three years she'll probably be
+singing at the Opera House. In a year or a year and a half she'll have
+learnt all that Savelli can teach her. Isn't that so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The question was discussed for a while, and then Lady Duckle mentioned
+that it was getting late. It was an embarrassing moment when Owen
+stopped the lift and they bade her good-night. She was on the third,
+they were on the second floor. As Evelyn went down the passage, Owen
+stood to watch her sloping shoulders; they seemed to him like those of
+an old miniature. When she turned the corner a blankness came over him;
+things seemed to recede and he was strangely alone with himself as he
+strolled into his room. But standing before the glass, his heart was
+swollen with a great pride. He remarked in his eyes the strange,
+enigmatic look which he admired in Titian and Vandyke, and he thought
+of himself as a principle&mdash;as a force; he wondered if he were an evil
+influence, and lost himself in moody meditations concerning the mystery
+of the attractions he presented to women. But suddenly he remembered
+that in a few minutes she would be in his arms, and he closed his eyes
+as if to delight more deeply in the joy that she presented to his
+imagination. So intense was his desire that he could not believe that he
+was her lover, that he was going to her room, and that nothing could
+deprive him of this delight. Why should such rare delight happen to him?
+He did not know. What matter, since it was happening? She was his. It
+was like holding the rarest jewel in the world in the hollow of his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>That she was at that moment preparing to receive him brought a little
+dizziness into his eyes, and compelled him to tear off his necktie.
+Then, vaguely, like one in a dream, he began to undress, very slowly,
+for she had told him to wait a quarter of an hour before coming to her
+room. He examined his thin waist as he tied himself in blue silk
+pyjamas, and he paused to admire his long, straight feet before slipping
+them into a pair of black velvet slippers. He turned to glance at his
+watch, and to kill the last five minutes of the prescribed time he
+thought of Evelyn's scruples. She would have to read certain
+books&mdash;Darwin and Huxley he relied upon, and he reposed considerable
+faith in Herbert Spencer. But there were books of a lighter kind, and
+their influence he believed to be not less insidious. He took one out of
+his portmanteau&mdash;the book which he said, had influenced him more than
+any other. It opened at his favourite passage&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>'I am a man of the Homeric time; the world in which I live is not mine,
+and I know nothing of the society which surrounds me. I am as pagan as
+Alcibiades or as Phidias.... I never gathered on Golgotha the flowers of
+the Passion, and the deep stream which flowed from from the side of the
+Crucified and made a red girdle round the world never bathed me in its
+tide. I believe earth to be as beautiful as heaven, and I think that
+precision of form is virtue. Spirituality is not my strong point; I love
+a statue better than a phantom.' ... He could remember no further; he
+glanced at the text and was about to lay the book down, when, on second
+thoughts, he decided to take it with him.</p>
+
+<p>Her door was ajar; he pushed it open and then stopped for moment,
+surprised at his good fortune. And he never forgot that instant's
+impression of her body's beauty. But before he could snatch the long
+gauze wrapper from her, she had slipped her arm through the sleeves,
+and, joyous as a sunlit morning hour, she came forward and threw herself
+into his arms. Even then he could not believe that some evil accident
+would not rob him of her. He said some words to that effect, and often
+tried to recall her answer to them; he was only sure that it was
+exquisitely characteristic of her, as were all her answers&mdash;as her
+answer was that very evening when he told her that he would have to go
+to London at the end of the week.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But only for some days. You don't think that I shall be changed? You're
+not afraid that I shall love you less?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I was not thinking of you, dear. I know that you'll not be changed;
+I was thinking that I might be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He withdrew the arm that was round her, and, raising himself upon his
+elbow, he looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You've told me more about yourself in that single phrase than if you
+had been talking an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest Owen, let me kiss you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to them wonderful that they should be permitted to kiss each
+other so eagerly, and it sometimes was a still more intense rapture to
+lie in each other's arms and talk to each other.</p>
+
+<p>The dawn surprised them still talking, and it seemed to them as if
+nothing had been said. He was explaining his plans for her life. They
+were, he thought, going to live abroad for five, six, or seven years.
+Then Evelyn would go to London, to sing, preceded by an extraordinary
+reputation. But the first thing to do was to get a house in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We cannot stop at this hotel; we must have a house. I have heard of a
+charming hotel in the Rue Balzac.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the Rue Balzac! Is there a street called after him? Is it on account
+of the name you want me to live there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I don't think so, but perhaps the name had something to do with
+it&mdash;one never knows. But I always liked the street.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Which of his books is it like?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They laughed and kissed each other.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At the bottom of the street is the Avenue de Friedland; the tram passes
+there, and it will take you straight to Madame Savelli's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sparrows had begun to shrill in the courtyard, and their eyes ached
+with sleep.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Five or six years&mdash;you'll be at the height of your fame. They will pass
+only too quickly,&quot; he added.</p>
+
+<p>He was thinking what his age would be then. &quot;And when they have passed,
+it will seem like a dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Like a dream,&quot; she repeated, and she laid her face on the pillow where
+his had lain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWELVE'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWELVE</h2>
+
+<p>As she lay between sleeping and waking, she strove to grasp the
+haunting, fugitive idea, but shadows of sleep fell, and in her dream
+there appeared two Tristans, a fair and a dark. When the shadows were
+lifted and she thought with an awakening brain, she smiled at the
+absurdity, and, striving to get close to her idea, to grip it about its
+very loins, she asked herself how much of her own life she could express
+in the part, for she always acted one side of her character. Her pious
+girlhood found expression in the Elizabeth, and what she termed the
+other side of her character she was going to put on the stage in the
+character of Isolde. Again sleep thickened, and she found it impossible
+to follow her idea. It eluded her; she could not grasp it. It turned to
+a dream, a dream which she could not understand even while she dreamed
+it. But as she awaked, she uttered a cry. It happened to be the note she
+had to sing when the curtain goes up and Isolde lies on the couch
+yearning for Tristan, for assuagement of the fever which consumes her.
+All other actresses had striven to portray an Irish princess, or what
+they believed an Irish princess might be. But she cared nothing for the
+Irish princess, and a great deal for the physical and mental distress of
+a woman sick with love.</p>
+
+<p>Her power of recalling her sensations was so intense, that in her warm
+bed she lived again the long, aching evenings of the long winter in
+Dulwich, before she went away with Owen. She saw again the Spring
+twilight in the scrap of black garden, where she used to stand watching
+the stars. She remembered the dread craving to worship them, the anguish
+of remorse and fear on her bed, her visions of distant countries and the
+gleam of eyes which looked at her through the dead of night. How
+miserable she had been in that time&mdash;in those months. She had wanted to
+sing, and she could not, and she had wanted&mdash;she had not known what was
+the matter with her. That feeling (how well she remembered it!) as if
+she wanted to go mad! And all those lightnesses of the brain she could
+introduce in the opening scene&mdash;the very opening cry was one of them.
+And with these two themes she thought she could create an Isolde more
+intense than the Isolde of the fat women whom she had seen walking about
+the stage, lifting their arms and trying to look like sculpture.</p>
+
+<p>No one whom she had seen had attempted to differentiate between Isolde
+before she drinks and after she has drunk the love potion, and, to avoid
+this mistake, she felt that she would only have to be true to herself.
+After the love potion had been drunk, the moment of her life to put on
+the stage was its moment of highest sexual exaltation. Which was that?
+There were so many, she smiled in her doze. Perhaps the most wonderful
+day of her life was the day Madame Savelli had said, &quot;If you'll stay
+with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of you.&quot; She recalled
+the drive in the Bois, and she saw again the greensward, the poplars,
+and the stream of carriages. She had hardly been able so resist
+springing up in the carriage and singing to the people; she had wanted
+to tell them what Madame Savelli had said. She had wished to cry to
+them, &quot;In two years all you people will be going to the opera to hear
+me.&quot; What had stopped her was the dread that it might not happen. But it
+had happened! That was the evening she had met Olive. She could see the
+exact spot. Although Olive had only just arrived, she had been up to her
+room and put on a pair of slippers. They had dined at a caf&eacute;, and all
+through dinner she had longed to be alone with Owen, and after dinner
+the time had seemed so long. Before going up in the lift he had asked
+her if he might come to her room. In a quarter of an hour, she had said,
+but he had come sooner than she expected, and she remembered slipping
+her arm into a gauze wrapper. How she had flung herself into his arms!
+That was the moment of her life to put upon the stage when she and
+Tristan look at each other after drinking the love potion.</p>
+
+<p>In the second act Tristan lives through her. She is the will to live;
+and if she ultimately consents to follow him into the shadowy land, it
+is for love of him. But of his desire for death she understands nothing;
+all through the duet it is she who desires to quench this desire with
+kisses. That was her conception of women's mission, and that was her own
+life with Owen; it was her love that compelled him to live down his
+despondencies. So her Isolde would have an intense and a personal life
+that no Isolde had had before. And in holding up her own soul to view,
+she would hold up the universal soul, and people would be afraid to turn
+their heads lest they should catch each other's eyes. But was not a
+portrayal of sexual passion such as she intended very sinful? It could
+not fail to suggest sinful thoughts.... She could not help what folk
+thought&mdash;that was their affair. She had turned her back upon all such
+scruples, and this last one she contemptuously picked up and tossed
+aside like a briar.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes opened and she gazed sleepily into the twilight of mauve
+curtains, and dreaded her maid's knock. &quot;It must be nearly eight,&quot; she
+thought, and she strove to pick up the thread of her lost thoughts. But
+a sharp rap at her door awakened her, and a tall, spare figure crossed
+the room. As the maid was about to draw the curtains, Evelyn cried to
+her&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, wait a moment, Herat.... I'm so tired. I didn't get to bed till
+two o'clock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mademoiselle forgets that she told me to awaken her very early.
+Mademoiselle said she wanted to go for a long drive to the other end of
+London before she went to rehearsal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Merat's logic seemed a little severe for eight o'clock in the morning,
+and Evelyn believed that her conception of Isolde had suffered from the
+interruption.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I am not to draw the curtains? Mademoiselle will sleep a little
+longer. I will return when it is time for mademoiselle to go to
+rehearsal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you say it was half-past eight, Merat?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, mademoiselle. The coachman is not quite sure of the way, and will
+have to ask it. This will delay him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, I know.... But I must sleep a little longer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then mademoiselle will not get up. I will take mademoiselle's chocolate
+away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'll have my chocolate,&quot; Evelyn said, rousing herself. &quot;Merat, you
+are very insistent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is one to do? Mademoiselle specially ordered me to wake her....
+Mademoiselle said that&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know what I said. I'll see how I feel when I have had my chocolate.
+The coachman had better get a map and look out the way upon it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She lay back on the pillow and regretted she had come to England. There
+was no reason why she should not have thrown over this engagement. It
+wouldn't have been the first. Owen had always told her that money ought
+never to tempt her to do anything she didn't like. He had persuaded her
+to accept this engagement, though he knew that she did not want to sing
+in London. How often before had she not refused, and with his
+approbation? But then his pleasure was involved in the refusal or the
+acceptance of the engagement. He did not mind her throwing over a
+valuable offer to sing if he wanted her to go yachting with him. Men
+were so selfish. She smiled, for she knew she was acting a little comedy
+with herself. &quot;But, quite seriously, I am annoyed with Owen. The London
+engagement&mdash;no, of course, I could not go on refusing to sing in
+London.&quot; She was annoyed with him because he had dissuaded her from
+doing what her instinct had told her was the right thing to do. She had
+wished to go to her father the moment she set foot in England, and beg
+his forgiveness. When they had arrived at Victoria, she had said that
+she would like to take the train to Dulwich. There happened to be one
+waiting. But they had had a rough crossing; she was very tired, and he
+had suggested she should postpone her visit to the next day. But next
+day her humour was different. She knew quite well that the sooner she
+went the easier it would be for her to press her father to forgive her,
+to entrap him into reconciliation. She had imagined that she could
+entrap her father into forgiving her by throwing herself into his arms,
+or with the mere phrase, &quot;Father, I've come to ask you how I sing.&quot; But
+she had not been able to overcome her aversion to going to Dulwich, and
+every time the question presented itself a look of distress came into
+her face. &quot;If I only knew what he would say when he sees me. If the
+first word were over&mdash;the 'entrance,'&quot; she added, with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>It was hopeless to argue with her, so Owen said that if she did not go
+before the end of the week it would be better to postpone her visit
+until after her first appearance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But supposing I fail. I never cared for my Margaret. Besides, it was
+mother's great part. He'll think me as bad an artist as I have been a
+bad daughter. Owen, dear, have patience with me, I know I'm very weak,
+but I dread a face of stone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Neither spoke for a long while. Then she said, &quot;If I had only gone to
+him last year. You remember he had written me a nice letter, but instead
+I went away yachting; you wanted to go to Greece.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, don't lay the blame on me; you wanted to go too.... I hope that
+when you do see your father you will say that it was not all my fault.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That what was not your fault, dear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well&mdash;I mean that it was not all my fault that we went away together.
+You know that I always liked your father. I was interested in his ideas;
+I do not want him to think too badly of me. You will say something in my
+favour. After all, I haven't treated you badly. If I didn't marry you,
+it was because&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest Owen, you've been very good to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He felt that to ask her again to go to see her father would only
+distress her. He said instead&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hear a great deal about your father's choir. It appears to be quite
+the fashion to hear high mass at St. Joseph's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father always said that Palestrina would draw all London, if properly
+given. Last Sunday he gave a mass by Vittoria; I longed to go. He'll
+never forgive me for not going to hear his choir. It is strange that we
+both should have succeeded&mdash;he with Palestrina, I with Wagner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it is strange.... But you promise me that you'll go and see him as
+soon as you've sung Margaret&mdash;the following day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, dear, I promise you I'll do that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll send him a box for the first night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He wouldn't sit in a box. If he went at all, it would be in some
+obscure place where he would not be seen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You had better send him a box, a stall and a dress circle, then he can
+take his choice.... But perhaps you had better not send. His presence
+among the audience would only make you nervous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, on the contrary, his presence would make me sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For whatever reason she had certainly sung and acted with exceptional
+force and genius, and Margaret was at once lifted out of the obscurity
+into which it was slipping and took rank with her Elizabeth and her
+Elsa. As they drove home together in the brougham after the performance,
+Owen assured her that she had infused a life and meaning into the part,
+and that henceforth her reading would have to be &quot;adopted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder if father was there? He was not in the box. Did you look in
+the stalls?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but he was not there. You'll go and see him to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not to-morrow, dear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not to-morrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I want him to see the papers. He may not have been in the
+theatre; on Thursday night is Lady Ascott's ball; then on Friday&mdash;I'll
+go and see father on Friday. I'll try to summon courage. But there is a
+rehearsal of 'Tannh&auml;user' on Friday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And so that she might not be too tired on Friday morning, Owen insisted
+on her leaving the ball-room at two o'clock, and their last words, as he
+left her on her doorstep, were that she would go to Dulwich before she
+went to rehearsal. But in the warmth of her bed, not occupied long
+enough to restore to the body the strength of which a ball-room had
+robbed it, her resolution waned, and her brain, weak from insufficient
+sleep, shrank from the prospect of a long drive and a face of stone at
+the end of it. She sat moodily sipping her chocolate and <i>brioche</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You were at the opera last night, Merat. Was Mademoiselle Helbrun a
+success?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, mademoiselle, I'm afraid not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot; Evelyn put down her cup and looked at her maid. &quot;I'm sorry, but I
+thought she wouldn't succeed in London. She was coldly received, was
+she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, mademoiselle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sorry, for she's a true artist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She has not the passion of mademoiselle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A little look of pleasure lit up Evelyn's face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is a charming singer. I can't think how she could have failed. Did
+you hear any reason given?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, mademoiselle, I met Mr. Ulick Dean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did he say? He'd know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He said that Mademoiselle Helbrun's was the true reading of the part.
+But 'Carmen' had lately been turned into a <i>femme de la balle</i>, and, of
+course, since the public had tasted realism it wanted more. I thought
+Mademoiselle Helbrun rather cold. But then I'm one of the public.
+Mademoiselle has not yet told me what I am to tell the coachman.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You do not listen to me, Merat,&quot; Evelyn answered in a sudden access of
+ill humour. &quot;Instead of accepting the answer I choose to give, you stop
+there in the intention of obtaining the answer which seems to you the
+most suitable. I told you to tell the coachman that he was to get a map
+and acquaint himself with the way to Dulwich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And to bring the interview to a close, she told Merat to take away the
+chocolate tray, and took up one of the scores which lay on a small table
+by the bedside&mdash;&quot;Tannh&auml;user&quot; and &quot;Tristan and Isolde.&quot; It would bore her
+to look at Elizabeth again; she knew it all. She chose Tristan instead,
+and began reading the second act at the place where Isolde, ignoring
+Brang&auml;ne's advice, signals to Tristan with the handkerchief. She glanced
+down the lines, hearing the motive on the 'cellos, then, in precipitated
+rhythm, taken up by the violins. When the emotion has reached breaking
+point, Tristan rushes into Isolde's arms, and the frantic happiness of
+the lovers is depicted in short, hurried phrases. The score slipped from
+her hands and her thoughts ran in reminiscence of a similar scene which
+she had endured in Venice nearly four years ago. She had not seen Owen
+for two months, and was expecting him every hour. The old walls of the
+palace, the black and watchful pictures, the watery odours and echoes
+from the canal had frightened and exhausted her. The persecution of
+passion in her brain and the fever of passion afloat in her blood waxed,
+and the minutes became each a separate torture. There was only one lamp.
+She had watched it, fearing every moment lest it should go out.... She
+had cast a frightened glance round the room, and it was the spectre of
+life that her exalted imagination saw, and her natural eyes a strange
+ascension of the moon. The moon rose out of a sullen sky, and its
+reflection trailed down the lagoon. Hardly any stars were visible, and
+everything was extraordinarily still. The houses leaned heavily forward
+and Evelyn feared she might go mad, and it was through this phantom
+world of lagoon and autumn mist that a gondola glided. This time her
+heart told her with a loud cry that he had come, and she had stood in
+the shadowy room waiting for him, her brain on fire. The emotion of that
+night came to her at will, and lying in her warm bed she considered the
+meeting of Tristan and Isolde in the garden, and the duet on the bank of
+sultry flowers. Like Tristan and Isolde, she and Owen had struggled to
+find expression for their emotion, but, not having music, it had lain
+cramped up in their hearts, and their kisses were vain to express it.
+She found it in these swift irregularities of rhythm, replying to every
+change of motion, and every change of key cried back some pang of the
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>This scene in the second act was certainly one of the most
+difficult&mdash;at least to her&mdash;and the one in which she most despaired of
+excelling. It suddenly occurred to her that she might study it with
+Ulick Dean. She had met him at rehearsal, and had been much interested
+in him. He had sent her six melodies&mdash;strange, old-world rhythms,
+recalling in a way the Gregorian she used to read in childhood in the
+missals, yet modulated as unintermittently as Wagner; the same chromatic
+scale and yet a haunting of the antique rhythm in the melody. Ulick knew
+her father; he had said, &quot;Mr. Innes is my greatest friend.&quot; He loved her
+father, she could see that, but she had not dared to question him.
+Talking to Owen was like the sunshine&mdash;the earth and only the earth was
+visible&mdash;whereas talking to Ulick was like the twilight through which
+the stars were shining. Dreams were to him the true realities; externals
+he accepted as other people accepted dreams&mdash;with diffidence. Evelyn
+laughed, much amused by herself and Ulick, and she laughed as she
+thought of his fixed and averted look as he related the tales of bards
+and warriors. Every now and then his dark eyes would light up with
+gleams of sunny humour; he probably believed that the legends contained
+certain eternal truths, and these he was shaping into operas. He was the
+most interesting young man she had met this long while.</p>
+
+<p>He had been about to tell her why he had recanted his Wagnerian faith
+when they had been interrupted by Owen.... She could conceive nothing
+more interesting than the recantation by a man of genius of the ideas
+that had first inspired him. His opera had been accepted, and would be
+produced if she undertook the principal part. Why should she not? They
+could both help each other. Truly, he was the person with whom she could
+study Isolde, and she imagined the flood of new light he would throw
+upon it. Her head drowsed on the pillow, and she dreamed the wonderful
+things he would tell her. But as she drowsed she thought of the article
+he had written about her Margaret, and it was the desire to read it
+again that awoke her. Stretching out her hand, she took it from the
+table at her bedside and began reading. He liked the dull green dress
+she wore in the first act; and the long braids of golden hair which he
+admired were her own. He had mentioned them and the dark velvet cape,
+which he could not remember whether she wore or carried. As a matter of
+fact, she carried it on her arm. His forgetfulness on this point seemed
+to her charming, and she smiled with pleasure. He said that she made
+good use of the cape in the next act, and she was glad that he had
+perceived that.</p>
+
+<p>Like every other Margaret, her prayer-book was in her hand when she
+first met Faust; but she dropped it as she saw him, and while she shyly
+and sweetly sang that she was neither a lady nor a beauty, she stooped
+and with some embarrassment picked up the book. She passed on, and did
+not stop to utter a mechanical cry when she saw Mephistopheles, and then
+run away. She hesitated a moment; Mephistopheles was not in sight, but
+Faust was just behind her, and over the face of Margaret flashed the
+thought, &quot;What a charming&mdash;what a lovely young man! I think I'll stop a
+little longer, and possibly he'll say something more. But no&mdash;after
+all&mdash;perhaps I'd better not,&quot; and, with a little sigh of regret, she
+turned and went, at first quietly and then more quickly, as though
+fearful of being tempted to change her mind.</p>
+
+<p>In the garden scene, she sang the first bars of the music
+absent-mindedly, dusting and folding her little cape, stopping when it
+was only half folded to stand forgetful a moment, her eyes far off,
+gazing back into the preceding act. Awaking with a little start, she
+went to her spinning-wheel, and, with her back to the audience, arranged
+the spindle and the flax. Then stopping in her work and standing in
+thought, she half hummed, half sang the song &quot;Le Roi de Thul&eacute;.&quot; Not till
+she had nearly finished did she sit down and spin, and then only for a
+moment, as though too restless and disturbed for work that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn was glad that Ulick had remarked that the jewels were not &quot;the
+ropes of pearls we are accustomed to, but strange, medi&aelig;val jewels,
+long, heavy earrings and girdles and broad bracelets.&quot; Owen had given
+her these. She remembered how she had put them on, just as Ulick said,
+with the joy of a child and the musical glee of a bird. &quot;She laughed out
+the jewel song,&quot; he said, &quot;with real laughter, returning lightly across
+the stage;&quot; and he said that they had &quot;wondered what was this lovely
+music which they had never heard before!&quot; And when she placed the jewels
+back, she did so lingeringly, regretfully, slowly, one by one, even
+forgetting the earrings, perhaps purposely, till just before she entered
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the duet with Faust,&quot; he said, &quot;we were drawn by that lovely voice
+as in a silken net, and life had for us but one meaning&mdash;the rapture of
+love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Has it got any other meaning?&quot; Evelyn paused a moment to think. She was
+afraid that it had long ceased to have any other meaning for her. But
+love did not seem to play a large part in Ulick's life. Yet that last
+sentence&mdash;to write like that he must feel like that. She wondered, and
+then continued reading his article.</p>
+
+<p>She was glad that he had noticed that when she fainted at the sight of
+Mephistopheles, she slowly revived as the curtain was falling and
+pointed to the place where he had been, seeing him again in her
+over-wrought brain. This she did think was a good idea, and, as he said,
+&quot;seemed to accomplish something.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He thought her idea for her entrance in the following act exceedingly
+well imagined, for, instead of coming on neatly dressed and smiling like
+the other Margarets, she came down the steps of the church with her
+dress and hair disordered, in the arms of two women, walking with
+difficulty, only half recovered from her fainting fit. &quot;It is by ideas
+like this,&quot; he said, &quot;that the singer carried forward the story, and
+made it seem like a real scene that was happening before our eyes. And
+after her brother had cursed Margaret, when he falls back dead, Miss
+Innes retreats, getting away from the body, half mad, half afraid. She
+did not rush immediately to him, as has been the operatic custom, kneel
+down, and, with one arm leaning heavily on Valentine's stomach, look up
+in the flies. Miss Innes, after backing far away from him, slowly
+returned, as if impelled to do so against her will, and, standing over
+the body, looked at it with curiosity, repulsion, terror; and then she
+burst into a whispered laugh, which communicated a feeling of real
+horror to the audience.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the last act, madness was tangled in her hair, and in her wide-open
+eyes were read the workings of her insane brain, and her every movement
+expressed the pathos of madness; her lovely voice told its sad tale
+without losing any of its sweetness and beauty. The pathos of the little
+souvenir phrases was almost unbearable, and the tragic power of the
+finish was extraordinary in a voice of such rare distinction and fluid
+utterance. Her singing and acting went hand in hand, twin sisters, equal
+and indivisible, and when the great moment in the trio came, she stepped
+forward and with an inspired intensity lifted her quivering hands above
+her head in a sort of mad ecstasy, and sang out the note clear and true,
+yet throbbing with emotion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The paper slid from Evelyn's hand. She could see from Ulick's
+description of her acting that she had acted very well; if she had not,
+he could not have written like that. But her acting only seemed
+extraordinary when she read about it. It was all so natural to her. She
+simply went on the stage, and once she was on the stage she could not do
+otherwise. She could not tell why she did things. Her acting was so much
+a part of herself that she could not think of it as an art at all; it
+was merely a medium through which she was able to re-live past phases of
+her life, or to exhibit her present life in a more intense and
+concentrated form. The dropping of the book was quite true; she had
+dropped a piece of music when she first saw Owen, and the omission of
+the scream was natural to her. She felt sure that she would not have
+seen Mephistopheles just then; she would have been too busy thinking of
+the young man. But she thought that she might take a little credit for
+her entrance in the third act. Somehow her predecessors had not seen
+that it was absurd to come smiling and tripping out of church, where she
+had seen Mephistopheles. She read the lines describing her power to
+depict madness. But even in the mad scenes she was not conscious of
+having invented anything. She had had sensations of madness&mdash;she
+supposed everyone had&mdash;and she threw herself into those sensations,
+intensifying them, giving them more prominence on the stage than they
+had had in her own personal life.</p>
+
+<p>Many had thought her a greater actress than a singer; and she had been
+advised to dispense with her voice and challenge a verdict on her
+speaking voice in one of Shakespeare's plays. Owen would have liked her
+to risk the adventure, but she dared not. It would seem a wanton insult
+to her voice. She had imagined that it might leave her as an offended
+spirit might leave its local habitation. Her Margaret had been accepted
+in Italy, so she must sing it as well as she acted it. But when she had
+asked the Marquis d'Albazzi if she sang it as well as her mother, he had
+said, &quot;Mademoiselle, the singers of my day were as exquisite flutes, and
+the singers of your day give emotions that no flute could give me,&quot; and
+when she had told him that she was going to be so bold as to attempt
+Norma, he had raised his eyebrows a little and said, &quot;Mademoiselle will
+sing it according to the fashion of to-day; we cannot compare the
+present with the past.&quot; Ah! <i>Ce vieux marquis &eacute;tait tr&egrave;s fin</i>. And her
+father would think the same; never would he admit that she could sing
+like her mother. But Ulick had said&mdash;and no doubt he had already read
+Ulick's article&mdash;that she had rescued the opera from the grave into
+which it was gliding. None of them liked it for itself. Her father spoke
+indulgently about it because her mother had sung it. Ulick praised it
+because he was tired of hearing Wagner praised, and she liked it because
+her first success had been made in it.</p>
+
+<p>These morning hours, how delicious they were! to roll over in one's silk
+nightgown, to feel it tighten round one's limbs and to think how easily
+success had come. Madame Savelli had taught her eight operas in ten
+months, and she had sung Margaret in Brussels&mdash;a very thin performance,
+no doubt, but she had always been a success. Ulick would not have
+thought much of her first Margaret. Almost all the points he admired she
+had since added. She had learnt the art of being herself on the stage.
+That was all she had learnt, and she very much doubted if there was
+anything else to learn. If Nature gives one a personality worth
+exhibiting, the art of acting is to get as much of one's personality
+into the part as possible. That was the A B C and the X Y Z of the art
+of acting. She had always found that when she was acting herself, she
+was acting something that had not been acted before. She did not compare
+her Margaret with her Elizabeth. With Margaret she was back in the
+schoolroom. Still she thought that Ulick was right; she had got a new
+thrill out of it. Her Margaret was unpublished, but her Elizabeth was
+three times as real. There was no comparison; not even in Isolde could
+she be more true to herself. Her Elizabeth was a side of her life that
+now only existed on the stage. Brunnhilde was her best part, for into it
+she poured all her joy of life, all her love of the blue sky with great
+white clouds floating, all her enthusiasm for life and for the hero who
+came to awaken her to life and to love. In Brunnhilde and Elizabeth all
+the humanity she represented&mdash;and she thought she was a fairly human
+person&mdash;was on the stage. But Elsa? That was the one part she was
+dissatisfied with. There were people who liked her Elsa. Oh, her Elsa
+had been greatly praised. Perhaps she was mistaken, but at the bottom of
+her heart she could not but feel that her Elsa was a failure. The truth
+was that she had never understood the story. It began beautifully, the
+beginning was wonderful&mdash;the maiden whom everyone was persecuting, who
+would be put to death if some knight did not come to her aid. She could
+sing the dream&mdash;that she understood. Then the silver-clad knight who
+comes from afar, down the winding river, past thorpe and town, to
+release her from those who were plotting against her. But afterwards?
+This knight who wanted to marry her, and who would not tell his name.
+What did it mean? And the celebrated duet in the nuptial chamber&mdash;what
+did it mean? It was beautiful music&mdash;but what did it mean? Could anyone
+tell her? She had often asked, but no one had ever been able to tell
+her.</p>
+
+<p>She knew very well the meaning of the duet, when Siegfried adventures
+through the fire-surrounded mountain and wakes Brunnhilde with a kiss.
+That duet meant the joy of life, the rapture of awakening to the
+adventure of life, the delight of the swirling current of ephemeral
+things. And the duet that she was going to sing; she knew what that
+meant too. It meant the desire to possess. Desire finding a barrier to
+complete possession in the flesh would break off the fleshly lease, and
+enter the great darkness where alone was union and rest.</p>
+
+<p>But she could not discover the idea in the &quot;Lohengrin&quot; duet? Senta she
+understood, and she thought she understood Kundry. She had not yet begun
+to study the part. But Elsa? Suddenly the thought that, if she was going
+to Dulwich, she must get up, struck her like a spur, and she sprang out
+of bed, and laying her finger on the electric bell she kept the button
+pressed till Merat arrived breathless.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merat, I shall get up at once; prepare my bath, and tell the coachman I
+shall be ready to start in twenty minutes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Twenty minutes? Mademoiselle is joking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I am not ... in twenty minutes&mdash;half-an-hour at the most.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would be impossible for me to dress you in less than three-quarters
+of an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall be dressed in half-an-hour. Go and tell the coachman at once; I
+shall have had my bath when you return.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her dressing was accomplished amid curt phrases. &quot;It doesn't matter,
+that will do.... I can't afford to waste time.... Come, Merat, try to
+get on with my hair.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And while Merat buttoned her boots, she buttoned her gloves. She wore a
+grey, tailor-made dress and a blue veil tied round a black hat with
+ostrich feathers. Escaping from her maid's hands, she ran downstairs.
+But the dining-room door opened, and Lady Duckle intervened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear girl, you really cannot go out before you have had something to
+eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot stay; I'll get something at the theatre.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do eat a cutlet, it will not take a moment ... a mouthful of omelette.
+Think of your voice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There were engravings after Morland on the walls, and the silver on the
+breakfast-table was Queen Anne&mdash;the little round tea urn Owen and Evelyn
+had picked up the other day in a suburban shop; the horses, whose
+glittering red hides could be seen through the window, had been bought
+last Saturday at Tattersall's. Evelyn went to the window to admire them,
+and Lady Duckle's thoughts turned to the coachman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He sent in just now to ask for a map of London. It appears he doesn't
+know the way, yet, when I took up his references, I was assured that he
+knew London perfectly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dulwich is very little known; it is at least five miles from here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Dulwich!... you're going there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I ought to have gone the day after we arrived in London. ... I
+wanted to; I've been thinking of it all the time, and the longer I put
+it off the more difficult it will become.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is true.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought I would drive there to-day before I went to rehearsal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why choose a day on which you have a rehearsal?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only because I've put it off so often. Something always happens to
+prevent me. I must see my father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you written to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but I sent him a paper containing an account of the first night. I
+thought he might have written to me about it, or he might have come to
+see me. He must know that I am dying to see him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think it would be better for you to go to see him in the first
+instance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Duckle meant Evelyn to understand that it would not be well to risk
+anything that might bring about a meeting between Sir Owen and Mr.
+Innes. But she did not dare to be more explicit. Owen had forbidden any
+discussion of his relations with Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course it would be nice for you to see your father. But you should,
+I think, go to him; surely that is the proper course.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We've written to each other from time to time, but not lately&mdash;not
+since we went to Greece.... I've neglected my correspondence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Tears rose to Evelyn's eyes, and Lady Duckle was sorely tempted to lead
+her into confidences. But Owen's counsels prevailed; she dissembled,
+saying that she knew how Evelyn loved her father, and how nice it would
+be for her to see him again after such a long absence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I dare say he'll forgive me, but there'll be reproaches. I don't think
+there's anyone who hates a scene more than I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I haven't lived with you five years without having found out that. But
+in avoiding a disagreeable scene we are often preparing one more
+disagreeable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is true.... I think I'll go to Dulwich.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Shall you have time?... You're not in the first act.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dulwich is not six miles from here. We can drive there easily in
+three-quarters of an hour. And three-quarters of an hour to get back.
+They won't begin to rehearse the second act before one. It is a little
+after ten now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then good-bye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Lady Duckle followed her to the front door and stood for a moment to
+admire the beauty of the morning. The chestnut horses pawed the ground
+restlessly, excited by the scent of the lilac which a wilful little
+breeze carried up from Hamilton Place. Every passing hansom was full of
+flowered silks, and the pale laburnum gold hung in loose tassels out of
+quaint garden inlets. The verandahed balconies seemed to hang lower than
+ever, and they were all hung and burdened with flowers. And of all these
+eighteenth century houses, Evelyn's was the cosiest, and the elder of
+the two men, who, from the opposite pavement, stood watching the prima
+donna stroking the quivering nostrils of her almost thoroughbred
+chestnuts with her white-gloved hand, could easily imagine her in her
+pretty drawing-room standing beside a cabinet filled with Worcester and
+old Battersea china, for he knew Owen's taste and was certain the Louis
+XVI. marble clock would be well chosen, and he would have bet
+five-and-twenty-pounds that there were some Watteau and Gainsborough
+drawings on the walls.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen is doing the thing well. Those horses must have cost four hundred.
+I know how much the Boucher drawing cost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you know there is a Boucher drawing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because we bid against each other for it at Christie's. A woman lying
+on her stomach, drawn very freely, very simply&mdash;quite a large
+drawing&mdash;just the thing for such a room as hers is, amid chintz and
+eighteenth century inlaid or painted tables.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder where she is going. Perhaps to see him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At ten o'clock in the morning! More likely that she will call at her
+dressmaker's on her way to rehearsal. She is to sing Elizabeth to-morrow
+night.&quot; And while discussing her singing, the elder man asked himself if
+he had ever had a mistress that would compare with her. &quot;She isn't by
+any means a beautiful woman,&quot; he said, &quot;but she's the sort of woman that
+if one did catch on to it would be for a long while.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The young man pitied Evelyn's misfortune of so elderly an admirer as
+Owen. It seemed to him impossible that she could like a man who must be
+over forty, and the thought saddened him that he might never possess so
+desirable a mistress.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder of she's faithful to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Faithful to him, after six years of <i>liaison!</i>&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, my dear Frank, we know you don't believe that any woman is
+straight. How do you know that he is her lover? Very often&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear Cyril, because you meet her at a ball at Lady Ascott's, and
+because she has lived with that Lady Duckle&mdash;an old thing who used to
+present the daughters of ironmongers at Court for a consideration&mdash;above
+all, because you want her yourself, you are ready to believe anything. I
+never did meet anyone who could deceive himself with the same ease.
+Besides, I know all about her. It's quite an extraordinary story.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How did he pick her up?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll tell you presently. She's got into her carriage; we shall be able
+to see if she rouges as she passes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn had noticed the men as she stood trying to explain as much of the
+way as she could to her somewhat obtuse coachman. Her bow was gracious
+as the chestnuts swept the light carriage by them; the young man pleased
+her fancy for the moment, and she tried to recall the few words they had
+exchanged as she left the ball. The elder man was a friend of Owen's.
+But his face was suddenly blotted from her mind. For if her father were
+to refuse to see her, if he were to cast her off for good and all, what
+would she do? Her life would be unendurable; she would go mad, mad as
+Margaret. But the picture did not frighten her, she knew it was
+fictitious; and looking into her soul for the truth, she saw the trees
+in the Green Park and the chimney pots of Walsingham House, and she
+realised that the nearest future is enveloped in obscurity. She had
+always dreaded the journey to London; she had been warned against
+London, and ever since she had consented to come she had been ill at
+ease and nervous&mdash;of what she did not know&mdash;of someone behind her, of
+someone lurking round her. She argued that she would not have had those
+feelings if there was not a reason. When she had them, something always
+happened to her, and nothing could convince her that London was not the
+turning-point in her fortune. The carriage seemed to be going very fast;
+they were already in Victoria Street; she cried to the coachman not to
+drive so fast, he answered that he must drive at that pace if he was to
+get there by eleven.... Surely her father would not refuse to see her.
+He could not, he would not take her by the shoulders and turn her out
+of the house&mdash;the house she had known all her life. Oh, good heavens! if
+he did, what would happen afterwards? She could not go back to Owen and
+sing operas at Covent Garden, and her soul wailed like a child and a
+deadly terror of her father came upon her. It might be her destiny never
+to speak to him again! That fate had been the fate of other women. Why
+should it not be hers? He might not send for her when he was dying, and
+if she were dying he might not come to her; and after death, would she
+see him? Would they then be reconciled? If she did not see her father in
+this world, she would never see him, for she had promised Owen to
+believe in oblivion, and she thought she did believe in nothing; but she
+felt now that she must say her prayers, she must pray that her father
+might forgive her. It might be absurd, but she felt that a prayer would
+ease her mind. It was dreadfully hypocritical to pray to a God one
+didn't believe in. There was no sense in it, nor was there much sense in
+much else one did.... She had promised Owen not to pray, and it was a
+sort of blasphemy to say prayers and lead a life of sin. She did not
+like to break her promise to Owen. She must make up her mind.... Her
+father might be at St. Joseph's! and it was with a sense of refreshing
+delight that she called the coachman and gave the order. The chestnuts
+were prancing like greyhounds amid heavy drays and clumsy, bear-like
+horses; the coachman was trying to hold them in and to understand the
+policeman, who shouted the way to him from the edge of the pavement.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THIRTEEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER THIRTEEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>But she ought not to go to St. Joseph's. She had promised Owen to avoid
+churches, priests&mdash;all that reminded her of religion. He had begged that
+until she was firm in her agnosticism she should not expose herself to
+influences which could but result in mental distress, and without any
+practical issue unless to separate them. She had escaped once; next time
+he might find it more difficult to win her back. How kind he was. He had
+not said a word about his own suffering.</p>
+
+<p>It had happened nearly three years ago in Florence, and an accident had
+brought it all about. One afternoon she was walking in the streets; she
+could still see the deep cornices showing distinct against the sky; she
+was admiring them when suddenly a church appeared; she could not tell
+how it was, but she had been propelled to enter.... A feeling which had
+arisen out of her heart, a sort of yearning&mdash;that was it. The church was
+almost empty; how restful it had seemed that afternoon, the rough
+plastered walls and the two figures of the nuns absorbed in prayer. Her
+heart had begun to ache, and her daily life with its riches and glories
+had seemed to concern her no longer. It was as if the light had changed,
+and she had become suddenly aware of her real self. A tall cross stood
+oddly placed between the arches; she had not seen it at first, but as
+her eyes rested upon it she had been drawn into wistful communion with
+her dying Redeemer. And all that had seemed false suddenly became true,
+and she had left the church overcome with remorse. That night her door
+was closed to Owen; she had pleaded indisposition, unable for some shame
+to speak the truth. On the next day and the day after the desire of
+forgiveness had sent her to the church and then to the priest, but the
+priest had refused her absolution till she separated from her lover. She
+had felt that she must obey. She had written a note&mdash;she could not think
+of it now&mdash;so cruel did it seem, yet at the time it had seemed quite
+natural. It was not until the next day, and the day after was worse
+still, that she began to plumb the depths of her own unhappiness; every
+day it seemed to grow deeper. She could not keep him out of her mind.
+She used to sit and try to do needlework in the hotel sitting-room. But
+how often had she had to put it down and to walk to the window to hide
+her tears? As the time drew near for her to go to the theatre, she had
+to vow not to cry again till she got home. He was always in his
+box&mdash;once she had nearly broken down, and, pitying her, he came no more.
+But not to see him at all was worse than the pain of seeing him. That
+empty box! And all through the night she thought of him in his hotel,
+only a street or two distant. She could not go through it again, nor
+could she think what would have happened if they had not met. Something
+had prompted her to go out one afternoon; she was weak with weeping and
+sick with love, and, feeling that there are burdens beyond our strength,
+she had walked with her eyes steadily fixed before her ... and somehow
+she was not surprised when she saw him coming towards her. He joined her
+quite naturally, as if by appointment, and they had walked on,
+instinctively finding their way out of the crowd. They had walked on and
+on, now and then exchanging remarks, waiting for a full explanation,
+wondering what form it would take. Cypresses and campanili defined
+themselves in the landscape as the evening advanced. Further on the
+country flattened out; there were urban gardens and dusty little
+vineyards. They had sat on a bench; above them was a statue of the
+Virgin; she remembered noticing it; it reminded her of her scapular, but
+nothing had mattered to her then but Owen. He said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well Evelyn, when is all this nonsense going to cease?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, Owen; I'm very unhappy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sense of reconciliation which overtook her was too delicious to be
+resisted, and she remembered how all the way home she had longed for the
+moment when she would throw herself into his arms. He had not reproved
+her nor reproached her; he had merely forgiven her the pain she had
+caused him. There were sounds of children's voices in the air and a glow
+of light upon the roofs. Their talk had been gentle and philosophic; she
+had listened eagerly, and had promised to shun influences which made her
+uselessly unhappy. And he had promised her that in time to come she
+would surely succeed in freeing herself from the tentacles of this
+church, and that the day would come when she would watch the Mass as she
+would some childish sport. &quot;Though,&quot; he added, smiling, &quot;it is doubtful
+if anyone can see his own rocking-horse without experiencing a desire to
+mount it.&quot; Nearly three years had passed since that time in Florence,
+and she was now going to put the strength of her agnosticism to the
+test.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They have not built a new entrance,&quot; she remarked to herself, as the
+coachman reined up the chestnuts before the meagre steps. &quot;But
+alterations are being made,&quot; she thought, catching sight of some
+scaffolding. As she stepped out of her carriage she remembered that her
+dress and horses could not fail to suggest Owen's money to her father.
+She paused, and then hoped he would remember that she was getting three
+hundred pounds a week, and could pay for her carriage and gowns
+herself. And, smiling at the idea of dressing herself in a humble frock
+suitable for reconciliation, she entered the church hurriedly. She did
+not care to meet him in open daylight, in the presence of her servants.
+The church would be a better place. He could not say much to her in
+church, and she thought she would like to meet him suddenly face to
+face; then there would be no time for explanations, and he could not
+refuse to speak to her. Looking round she saw that Mass was in progress
+at one of the side altars. The acolyte had just changed the book from
+the left to the right, and the congregation of about a dozen had risen
+for the reading of the Gospel. She knew that her father was not among
+them. She must have known all the while that he was not in church. If he
+were at St. Joseph's, he would be in the practising room. She might go
+round and ask for him ... and run the risk of meeting one of the
+priests! They were men of tact, and would refrain from unpleasant
+allusions. But they knew she was on the stage, that she had not been
+back since she had left home; they could not but suspect; however they
+might speak, she could not avoid reading meanings, which very likely
+were not intended, into their words.... And she would see the practising
+room full of faces, and her father, already angry at the interruption,
+opening the door to her. It would be worse than meeting him in the
+street. No, she would not seek him in the practising room&mdash;then
+where&mdash;Dulwich? Perhaps, but not to-day. She would wait in the church
+and see if the Elevation compelled her to bow her head.</p>
+
+<p>And in this intention she took a seat in full view of the altar where
+the priest was saying Mass. Every shape and every colour of this church,
+its slightest characteristics, brought back an impression of long ago;
+the very wording of her childish thoughts was suddenly remembered; and
+she felt, whether she believed or disbelieved, that it was pleasant to
+kneel where she knelt when she was a little girl. It was touching to see
+the poor folk pray. The poor Irish and Italians&mdash;especially the
+Irish&mdash;how simple they were; it was all real to them, however false it
+may have become to her. Her eyes wandered among the little congregation;
+only one she recognised&mdash;the strangely thin and crooked lady who, as far
+back as she could remember, used to walk up the aisle, her hands crossed
+in front of her like a wooden doll's. She had not altered at all; she
+wore the same battered black bonnet. This lonely lady had always been a
+subject of curiosity to Evelyn. She remembered how she used to invent
+houses for her to live in and suitable friends and evenings at home. The
+day that Owen came to St. Joseph's before he went away on his yacht to
+the Mediterranean, he had put his hat on this lady's chair, and she had
+had to ask him to remove it. How frightened she had looked, and he not
+too well pleased at having to sit beside her. That was six years ago,
+and Evelyn thought how much had happened to her in that time&mdash;a great
+deal to her and very little to that poor woman in the black bonnet. She
+must have some little income on which she lived in a room with wax fruit
+in the window. Every morning and evening she was at St. Joseph's. The
+church was her one distraction; it was her theatre, the theatre
+certainly of all her thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>But at that moment the new choir-loft caught Evelyn's eye, and she
+imagined the melodious choirs answering each other from opposite sides.
+No doubt her father had insisted on the addition, so that such
+antiphonal music as the Reproaches might be given. Some rich carpets had
+been laid down, some painting and cleaning had been done, and the
+fashionable names on the front seats reminded her of the Grand Circle at
+Covent Garden. Evidently the frequentation of St. Joseph's was much the
+same as the theatres. The congregation was attracted by the choirs, and,
+when these were silenced, the worship shrank into the mumbled prayers of
+a few Irish and Italians. Evelyn wondered if the poor lady could
+distinguish between her father's music and Father Gordon's. The only
+music she heard was the ceaseless music of her devout soul.</p>
+
+<p>Was it not strange that the paper she had sent her father containing an
+account of her success in the part of Margaret contained also an account
+of his choir? They had both succeeded. The old music had made St.
+Joseph's a fashionable church. So far she knew, and despite her strange
+terror of their first meeting, she longed to hear him tell her how he
+had overcome the opposition of Father Gordon.</p>
+
+<p>The Gospel ended, the little congregation sat down, and Evelyn reflected
+how much more difficult belief was to her than to the slightly-deformed
+woman in front of her. The doctrine that a merciful God has prepared a
+place of eternal torment for his erring creatures is hard enough to
+credit. She didn't think she could ever believe that again; or that God
+had sent his Son on earth to expiate on the cross the sins which he and
+his Father in conjunction with the Holy Ghost had fated them to commit;
+or that bread and wine becomes, at the bidding of the priest, the
+creator of all the stars we see at midnight. True that she believed
+these doctrines no longer, but, unfortunately, this advancement brought
+her no nearer to the solution of the question directly affecting her
+life. Owen encouraged her to persevere in her agnosticism. &quot;Old
+instincts,&quot; he said, &quot;are not conquered at once. You must be patient.
+The Scotch were converted about three or four hundred years after
+Christ. Christianity is therefore fourteen hundred years old, whereas
+the seed of agnosticism has been sown but a few years; give it time to
+catch root.&quot; She had laughed, his wit amused her, but our feelings
+are&mdash;well, they are ours, and we cannot separate ourselves from them.
+They are certain, though everything else is uncertain, and when she
+looked into her mind (she tried to avoid doing so as much as possible,
+but she could not always help herself) something told her that the
+present was but a passing stage. Often it seemed to her that she was
+like one out on a picnic&mdash;she was amused&mdash;she would be sorry when it
+ended; but she could not feel that it was to last. Other women were at
+home in their lives; she was not in hers. We all have a life that is
+more natural for us to live than any other; we all have a mission of
+some sort to accomplish, and the happiest are those whose lives
+correspond to their convictions. Even Owen's love did not quite
+compensate her for the lack of agreement between her outer and inner
+life.</p>
+
+<p>All this they had argued a hundred times, but their points of view were
+so different. Once, however, she thought she had made him understand.
+She had said, &quot;If you don't understand religion, you understand art.
+Well, then, imagine a man who wants to paint pictures; give him a palace
+to live in; place every pleasure at his call, imposing only one
+condition&mdash;that he is not to paint. His appetites may detain him in the
+palace for a while, but sooner or later he will cry out, 'All these
+pleasures are nothing to me; what I want is to paint pictures.'&quot; She
+could see that the parable had convinced him, or nearly. He had said he
+was afraid she was hopeless. But a moment after, drawing her toward him
+with quiet, masterful arm, and speaking with that hard voice that could
+become so soft, it had seemed as if heaven suddenly melted away, and his
+kisses were worth every sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>That was the worst of it. She was neither one thing nor the other. She
+desired two lives diametrically opposed to each other, consequently she
+would never be happy. But she was happy. She had everything; she could
+think of nothing that she wanted that she had not got: it was really too
+ridiculous for her to pretend to herself that she was not happy. So long
+as she had believed in religion she had not been happy, but now she
+believed no longer&mdash;she was happy. It was strange, however, that a
+church always brought the old feeling back again, and her thoughts
+paused, and in a silent awe of soul she asked herself if, at the bottom
+of her soul, she still disbelieved in God. But it was so silly to
+believe the story of the Virgin&mdash;think of it.... As Owen said, in no
+mythology was there anything more ridiculous. Nevertheless, she did not
+convince herself that the dim, vague, unquiet sensation which rankled in
+her was not a still unextirpated germ of the original faith. She tried
+to think it was not a religious feeling but the result of the terrible
+interview still hanging over her, the dread that her father might not
+forgive her. She tried to look into her mind to discover the impulse
+which had compelled her to turn from her intention and come to this
+church. She remembered the uncontrollable desire to say a prayer: that
+she could have resisted, but the moment after she had remembered that
+perhaps it was too late to find her father at home. But had she really
+hoped to find him at St. Joseph's, or had she used the pretext to
+deceive herself? She could not tell. But if religion was not true, if
+she did not believe, how was it that she had always thought it wrong to
+live with a man to whom she was not married? There was no use
+pretending, she never had quite got a haunting scruple on that point out
+of her mind.</p>
+
+<p>There could be but two reasons, he had insisted, for the maintenance of
+the matrimonial idea&mdash;the preservation of the race, and the belief that
+cohabitation without matrimony is an offence against God. But the race
+is antecedent to matrimony, and if there be no resurrection, there can
+be no religion.... If there be no personal God who manages our affairs
+and summons to everlasting bliss or torment, the matter is not worth
+thinking about&mdash;at least not to a Catholic. Pious agnosticism is a
+bauble unworthy to tempt anyone who has been brought up a Catholic. A
+Catholic remains a Catholic, or else becomes a frank agnostic. Only
+weak-minded Protestants run to that slender shelter&mdash;morality without
+God. &quot;But why are you like this?&quot; he had said, fixing his eyes.... &quot;I
+think I see. Your father comes of a long line of Scotch Protestants; he
+became a Catholic so that he might marry your mother. Your scruples must
+be a Protestant heredity. I wonder if it is so? In no other way can I
+account for the fact that although you no longer believe in a
+resurrection, you cling fast to the doctrine which declares it wrong for
+two people, both free, to live together, unless they register their
+cohabitation in the parish books. Our reason is our own. Our feelings we
+inherit. You are enslaved to your Scotch ancestors; you are a slave to
+the superstitions of your grandmother and your grand-aunts; you obey
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But do we not inherit our reason just as much as we inherit our
+feelings?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They had argued that point. She could not remember what his argument
+was, but she remembered that she had held her ground, that he had
+complimented her, not forgetting, however, to take the credit of the
+improvement in her intellectual equipment to himself, which was indeed
+no more than just. She would have been nothing without him. How he had
+altered her! She had come to think and feel like him. She often caught
+herself saying exactly what he would say in certain circumstances, and
+having heard him say how odours affected him, she had tried to acquire a
+like sensibility. Unconsciously she had assimilated a great deal. That
+little trick of his, using his eyes a certain way, that knowing little
+glance of his had become habitual to her. She had met men who were more
+profound, never anyone whose mind was more alert, more amusing and
+sufficient for every occasion. She sentimentalised a moment, and then
+remembered further similarities. They now ate the same dishes, and no
+longer had need to consult each other before ordering dinner. In their
+first week in Paris she had learnt to look forward to chocolate in the
+morning before she got up, and this taste was endeared to her, for it
+reminded her of him. In the picture galleries she had always tried to
+pick out the pictures he would like. If they could not decide how a
+passage should be sung, or were in doubt regarding the attitude and
+gesture best fitted to carry on a dramatic action, she had noticed that,
+if they separated so that they might arrive at individual conclusions,
+they almost always happened upon the same. To each other they now
+affected not to know from whom a certain quaint notion had come&mdash;clearly
+it had been inspired by him, but which had first expressed it was not
+sure&mdash;that the three great type operas were &quot;Tristan and Isolde,&quot; the
+&quot;Barber of Seville,&quot; and &quot;La Belle H&eacute;l&egrave;ne.&quot; Nor were they sure which had
+first suggested that in the last week of her stage career she should
+appear in all three parts. Evelyn Innes, as La Belle H&eacute;l&egrave;ne, would set
+musical London by the ears.</p>
+
+<p>She had often wondered whether, by having absorbed so much of Owen's
+character, she had proved herself deficient in character. Owen
+maintained, on the contrary, that the sign of genius is the power of
+recognising and assimilating that which is necessary to the development
+of oneself. He mentioned Goethe's life, which he said was but the tale
+of a long assimilation of ideas. The narrow, barren soul is narrow and
+barren because it cannot acquire. We come into the world with nothing in
+our own right except the capacity for the acquisition of ideas. We
+cannot invent ideas; we can only gather some of those in circulation
+since the beginning of the world. We endow them with the colour and form
+of our time, and, if that colour and form be of supreme quality, the
+work is preserved as representative of a period in the history of
+civilisation; a name may or may not be attached to each specimen. Genius
+is merely the power of assimilation; only the fool imagines he invents.
+Owen would go still further. He maintained that if the circumstances of
+a man's life admitted the acquisition of only one set of ideas, his work
+was thin; but if, on the contrary, circumstances threw him in the way of
+a new set of ideas, a set of ideas different from the first set, yet
+sufficiently near for the same brain to assimilate, then the work
+produced by that brain would be endowed with richer colour; or, in
+severer form, the idea was, he said, to a work of art what salt is to
+meat&mdash;it preserved works of art against the corrupting action of time.</p>
+
+<p>How they had talked! how they had discussed things! They had talked
+about everything, and she remembered all he said, as she recalled the
+arguments he had used. The scene of this last conversation passed and
+repassed in vanishing gleams&mdash;Bopart on the Rhine. They had stopped
+there on their way to Bayreuth, where she was going to sing Elsa. The
+maidens and their gold, the fire-surrounding Brunnhilde, the death of
+the hero, the end of the legends: these she knew, but of &quot;Parsifal&quot; she
+knew nothing&mdash;the story or the music. The time was propitious for him to
+tell it. The flame of the candle burnt in the still midnight, and she
+had listened with bated breath. She could see Owen leaning forward,
+telling the story, and she could even see her own listening face as he
+related how the poor fool rises through sanctification of faith and
+repudiation of doubt, how he heals the sick king with the sacred spear
+and becomes himself the high priest of the Grail. It had seemed to
+Evelyn that she had been carried beyond the limits of earthly things.
+The thrill and shiver of the dead man's genius haunted the liquid ripple
+of the river; the moment was ecstatic; the deep, windless night was full
+of the haunting ripple of the Rhine. And she remembered how she had
+clasped her hands ... her very words came back to her....</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is wonderful ... and we are listening to the Rhine; we shall never
+forget this midnight.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the Sanctus bell rang, and she remembered why she had
+stayed in church. She wished to discover what remnant, tatter or shred
+of her early faith still clung about her. She wished to put her
+agnosticism to the test. She wondered if at the moment of consecration
+she would be compelled to bow her head. The bell rang again.... She grew
+tremulous with expectation. She strove to refrain, but her head bowed a
+little, and her thoughts expanded into prayer; she was not sure that she
+actually prayed, for her thoughts did not divide into explicit words or
+phrases. There certainly followed a beautiful softening of her whole
+being, the bitterness of life extinguished; divine eyes seemed bent upon
+her, and she was in the midst of mercy, peace and love; and daring no
+longer to think she did not believe, she sat rapt till Mass was ended.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_FOURTEEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER FOURTEEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Still under the sweet influence of the church and the ceremony she got
+into her carriage. But the mystery engendered in her soul seemed to fade
+and die in the sunshine; she could almost perceive it going out like a
+gentle, evanescent mist on the surface of a pool; she remembered that
+she would very likely meet Ulick at rehearsal, and could find out from
+him how her father would be likely to receive her visit. Ulick seemed
+the solution of the difficulty&mdash;only he might tell her that her father
+did not wish to see her. She did not think he would say that, and the
+swing of her carriage and her thoughts went to the same rhythm until the
+carriage stopped before the stage door of Covent Garden Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>As she ascended the stairs the swing door was pushed open. The pilgrims'
+song drifted through it, and she knew that they had begun the overture.
+She crossed a stage in indescribable disorder. Scene-shifters were
+calling to each other, and there was an incessant hammering in the
+flies. &quot;We might as well rehearse in a barn with the threshing-machine
+going all the while,&quot; Evelyn thought. She had to pass down a long
+passage to get to the stalls, and, finding herself in inky darkness, she
+grew nervous, though she knew well enough whither it led. At last she
+perceived a little light, and, following it for a while, she happened to
+stumble into one of the boxes, and there she sat and indulged in angry
+comments on the negligence of English operatic management.</p>
+
+<p>Through the grey twilight of the auditorium she could see heads and
+hands, and shapes of musical instruments. The conductor's grey hair was
+combed back over his high forehead. He swung a lean body to the right
+and left. Suddenly he sprang up in his seat, and, looking in the
+direction of certain instruments, he brought down his stick
+determinedly, and, having obtained the effect he desired, his beat swung
+leisurely for a while.... &quot;'Cellos, crescendo,&quot; he cried. &quot;Ah, <i>mon
+Dieu!</i> Ta-ra-la-la-la! Now, gentlemen, number twenty-five, please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For a few bars the stick swung automatically, striking the harmonium as
+it descended. &quot;'Cellos, a sudden piano on the accent, and then no accent
+whatever. Ta-ra-ta-ta-ta!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the stalls the poor Italian chorus had gathered like a
+herd, not daring to sit in seats, the hire of which for a few hours
+equalled their weekly wages. But the English girls, whose musical tastes
+had compelled them from their suburban homes, had no such scruples.
+Confident of the cleanliness of their skirts and hats, they sat in the
+best stalls, their scores on their knees. One happened to look up as
+Evelyn entered. She whispered to her neighbours, and immediately after
+the row was discussing Bayreuth and Evelyn Innes.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the pilgrims' song grew more strenuous, until at last the
+trombones proclaimed, in unconquerable tones, Tannh&auml;user's abjuration of
+sensual life, and at that moment the tall, spare figure of Mr. Hermann
+Goetze, the manager, appeared in the doorway leading to the stalls. He
+was with his apparitor and satellite, Mr. Wheeler, a foppish little man,
+who seemed pleased at being in confidential conversation with his great
+chief. Catching sight of Evelyn in the box just above his eyes, he
+smiled and bowed obsequiously. A sudden thought seemed to strike him,
+and Evelyn said to herself, &quot;He's coming to talk with me about the
+Brang&auml;ne. I hope he has done what I told him, and engaged Helbrun for
+the part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment it flashed across her mind that Mademoiselle
+Helbrun's unsuccessful appearance in &quot;Carmen&quot; might cause Mr. Harmann
+Goetze to propose someone else. She hoped that this was not so, for she
+could not consent to sing Isolde to anyone but Helbrun's Brang&auml;ne, and
+it was in this resolute, almost aggressive, frame of mind that she
+received the manager.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you do, Mr. Hermann Goetze? Well, I hope you succeeded in
+inducing Mademoiselle Helbrun to play Brang&auml;ne?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have not had a moment, Miss Innes. I have not seen Mademoiselle
+Helbrun since last night. You will be sorry to hear that her Carmen was
+not considered a success.... Do you think&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no finer artist than Mademoiselle Helbrun. If you do not
+engage her&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hermann Goetze took his handkerchief from his pocket, and, upon
+inquiry, she learnt that he was suffering from toothache. Mr. Wheeler
+advised different remedies, but Mr. Hermann Goetze did not believe in
+remedies. There was nothing for it but to have it out. Evelyn suggested
+her dentist, and Mr. Hermann Goetze apologised for this interruption in
+the conversation. He begged of her not to think of him, and they entered
+into the difficult question of salary. He told her that Mademoiselle
+Helbrun would ask eighty pounds a performance, and such heavy salary
+added to the four hundred pounds a performance he was paying for the
+Tristan and Isolde would&mdash;But so intense was the pain from his tooth at
+this moment that he could not finish the sentence. A little alarmed,
+Evelyn waited until the spasm had ended, and when the manager's
+composure was somewhat restored, she spoke of the change and stress of
+emotion, often expressed in isolated notes and vehement declamation, and
+she reminded the poor man of Brang&auml;ne's long song in which she
+endeavours to appease Isolde. Mr. Hermann Goetze looked at her out of
+pain-stricken eyes, and said he was listening. She assured him that the
+melodious effect would be lost if Brang&auml;ne could not sing the long-drawn
+phrases in a single breath. But she stopped suddenly, perceiving that an
+&aelig;sthetic discussion was impossible with a man who was in violent pain.
+Mr. Wheeler proposed to go to the chemist for a remedy. Mr. Hermann
+Goetze shook his head; he had tried all remedies in vain; the dentist
+was the only resort, and he promised to go to Evelyn's when the
+rehearsal was over, and he retired from the box, holding his
+handkerchief to his face. When he got on to the stage, Evelyn was glad
+to see that he was a little better, and was able to give some directions
+regarding the stage management. She was genuinely sorry for him, for she
+had had toothache herself. Nevertheless, it was unfortunate that they
+had not been able to settle about Mademoiselle Helbrun's engagement. She
+pondered how this might be effected; perhaps, after rehearsal, Mr.
+Hermann Goetze might be feeling better, or she might ask him to dinner.
+As she considered the question, her eyes wandered over the auditorium in
+quest of Ulick Dean.</p>
+
+<p>She spied him sitting in the far corner, and wondered when he would look
+in her direction, and then remembering what he had said about the
+transmission of thought between sympathetic affinities, she sought to
+reach him with hers. She closed her eyes so that she might concentrate
+her will sufficiently for it to penetrate his brain. She sat tense with
+her desire, her hands clenched for more than a minute, but he did not
+answer to her will, and its tension relaxed in spite of herself. &quot;He
+sits there listening to the music as if he had never heard a note of it
+before. Why does he not come to me?&quot; As if in answer, Ulick got out of
+his stall and walked toward the entrance, seemingly in the intention of
+leaving the theatre. Evelyn felt that she must speak to him, and she was
+about to call to one of the chorus and ask him to tell Mr. Dean that she
+wanted to speak to him, but a vague inquietude seemed to awaken in him,
+and he seemed uncertain whether to go or stay, and he looked round the
+theatre as if seeking someone. He looked several times in the direction
+of Evelyn's box without seeing her, and she was at last obliged to wave
+her hand. Then the dream upon his face vanished, and his eyes lit up,
+and his nod was the nod of one whose soul is full of interesting story.</p>
+
+<p>He had one of those long Irish faces, all in a straight line, with flat,
+slightly hollow cheeks, and a long chin. It was clean shaven, and a
+heavy lock of black hair was always falling over his eyes. It was his
+eyes that gave its sombre ecstatic character to his face. They were
+large, dark, deeply set, singularly shaped, and they seemed to smoulder
+like fires in caves, leaping and sinking out of the darkness. He was a
+tall, thin young man, and he wore a black jacket and a large, blue
+necktie, tied with the ends hanging loose over his coat. Evelyn received
+him effusively, stretching both hands to him and telling him she was so
+glad he had come. She said she was delighted with his melodies, and
+would sing them as soon as she got an occasion. But he did not seem as
+pleased as he should have done; and sitting, his eyes fixed on the
+floor&mdash;now and then he muttered a word of thanks. His silence
+embarrassed her, and she felt suddenly that the talk which she had been
+looking forward to would be a failure, and she almost wished him out of
+her box. Neither had spoken for some time, and, to break an awkward
+silence, she said that she had been that morning at St. Joseph's. He
+looked up; their eyes met unexpectedly, and she seemed to read an
+impertinence in his eyes; they seemed to say, &quot;I wonder how you dared go
+there!&quot; But his words contradicted the idea which she thought she had
+read in his eyes. He asked her at once eagerly and sympathetically, if
+she had seen her father. No, he was not there, and, growing suddenly
+shy, she sought to change the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not a Roman Catholic, I think.... I know you were born a
+Catholic, but from something you said the other day I was led to think
+that you did not believe.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot think what I could have said to give you such an idea. Most
+people reproach me for believing too much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The other day you spoke of the ancient gods Angus and Lir, and the
+great mother Dana, as of real gods.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I spoke of them as real gods; I am a Celt, and they are real
+gods to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now his face had lighted up, and in clear, harmonious voice he was
+arguing that the gods of a nation cannot die to that nation until it be
+incorporated and lost in another nation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't see how you reconcile Angus and Lir with Christianity, that is
+all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I don't try to reconcile them; they do not need reconciliation; all
+the gods are part of one faith.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what do you believe ... seriously?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything except Atheism, and unthinking contentment. I believe in
+Christianity, but I am not so foolish as to limit myself to
+Christianity; I look upon Christianity as part of the truth, but not the
+whole truth. There is a continuous revelation: before Christ Buddha,
+before Buddha Krishna, who was crucified in mid-heaven, and the Gods of
+my race live too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She longed to ask Ulick so many questions that she could not frame one,
+so far had the idea of a continuous revelation carried her beyond the
+limits of her habitual thoughts; and while she was trying to think out
+his meaning in one direction, she lost a great deal of what he said
+subsequently, and her face wore an eager, puzzled and disappointed look.
+That she should have been the subject of this young man's thoughts, that
+she should have suggested his opera of Grania, and that he should have
+at last succeeded, by means of an old photograph, in imagining some sort
+of image of her, flattered her inmost vanity, and with still brightening
+eyes she hoped that he was not disappointed in her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When did you begin to write opera? You must come to see me. You will
+tell me about your opera, and we will go through the music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will you let me play my music to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I shall be delighted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At that moment she remarked that Ulick's teeth were almost the most
+beautiful she had ever seen, and that they shone like snow in his dark
+face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Some afternoon at the end of the week. We're friends&mdash;I feel that we
+are. You are father's friend; you were his friend when I was away. Tell
+me if he missed me very much. Tell me about him. I have been longing to
+ask you all the time. What is he doing? I have heard about his choir. He
+has got some wonderful treble voices.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is very busy now rehearsing the 'Missa Brevis.' It will be given
+next Sunday. It will be splendidly done ... You ought to come to hear
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like to, of course, but I am not certain that I shall not be
+able to go to St. Joseph's next Sunday. How did you and father become
+acquainted?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Through an article I wrote about the music of St. Joseph's. Mr. Innes
+said that it was written by a musician, and he wrote to the paper.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Asking you to come to see him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. Your father was the first friend I made in London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And that was some years ago?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About four years ago. I had come over from Ireland with a few pounds in
+my pocket, and a portmanteau full of music, which I soon found no one
+wanted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You had written music before you had met father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I was organist at St. Patrick's in Dublin for nearly three years.
+There's no one like your father, Miss Innes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No one, is there?&quot; she replied enthusiastically. &quot;There's no one like
+him. I'm so glad you are friends. You see him nearly every day, and you
+show him all your music.&quot; Then after a pause, she said, &quot;Tell me, did he
+miss me very much?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he missed you, of course. But he felt that you were not wholly to
+blame.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you took my place. I can see it all. It was father and son,
+instead of father and daughter. How well you must have got on together.
+What talks you must have had.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The silence was confidential, and though they both were thinking of Mr.
+Innes, they seemed to become intimately aware of each other.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But may I venture to advise you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. What?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sure you ought to go and see him, or at least write to him saying
+you'd like to see him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know&mdash;I know&mdash;I must go. He'll forgive me; he must forgive me. But I
+wish it were over. I'm afraid you think me very cowardly. You will not
+say you have seen me. You promise me to say nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick gave her the required promise, and she asked him again to come to
+see her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want you,&quot; she said, &quot;to go through Isolde's music with me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think I can tell you anything about the music you don't know
+already?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I think you can. You tell me things about myself that I did not
+know. I hardly knew that I acted as you describe in Margaret. I hope I
+did, for I seemed very good in your article. I read it over again this
+morning in bed. But tell me, did father come?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must not press me to answer that question. My advice to you is to
+go and see your father. He will tell you what he thought of your singing
+if he came here.... The act is over,&quot; he said suddenly, and he seemed
+glad of the interruption. &quot;I wonder what your Elizabeth will be like?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What do you think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're a clever woman; you will no doubt arrive at a very logical and
+clear conception of the part, but&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But we cannot act what is not in us. Is that what you were going to
+say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Something like that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You think I shall arrive at a logical and clear conception. Is that the
+way you think I arrived at my Margaret? Did it look like that? I may
+play the part of Elizabeth badly, but I sha'n't play it as you think I
+shall. This frock is against me. I've a mind to send you away.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_FIFTEEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER FIFTEEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Instead of rushing wildly from side to side according to custom, she
+advanced timidly, absorbed in deep memory; at every glance her face
+expressed a recollection; she seemed to alternate between a vague dread
+and an unconquerable delight; she seemed like a dim sky filled with an
+inner radiance, but for a time it seemed uncertain which would
+prevail&mdash;sunlight or shadow. But, like the sunlight, joy burst forth,
+scattering uncertainty and alarm, illuminating life from end to end; and
+her emotion vented itself in cries of April melody, and all the barren
+stage seemed in flower about her; she stood like a bird on a branch
+singing the spring time. And she sang every note with the same ease,
+each was equally round and clear, but what delighted Ulick was the
+perfect dramatic expression of her singing. It seemed to him that he was
+really listening to a very young girl who had just heard of the return
+of a man whom she had loved or might have loved. A bud last night slept
+close curled in virginal strictness, with the morning light it awoke a
+rose. But the core of the rose is still hidden from the light, only the
+outer leaves know it, and so Elizabeth is pure in her first aspiration;
+she rejoices as the lark rejoices in the sky, without desiring to
+possess the sky. Ulick could not explain to himself the obsession of
+this singing; he was thrall to the sensation of a staid German princess
+of the tenth century, and the wearing of a large hat with ostrich
+feathers, and tied with a blue veil, hindered no whit of it. And the
+tailor-made dress and six years of <i>liaison</i> with Owen Asher was no let
+to the medi&aelig;val virgin formulated in antique custom. In the duet with
+Tannh&auml;user she was benign and forgiving, the divine penitent who, having
+no sins of her own to do penance for, does penance for the sins of
+others.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that Ulick began to understand the secret of Evelyn's
+acting; in Elizabeth she had gone back to the Dulwich days before she
+knew Asher, and was acting what she then felt and thought. She believed
+she was living again with her father, and so intense was her conviction
+that it evoked the externals. Even her age vanished; she was but
+eighteen, a virgin whose sole reality has been her father and her
+ch&acirc;telaine, and whose vision of the world was, till now, a mere
+decoration&mdash;sentinels on the drawbridge, hunters assembling on the
+hillside, pictures hardly more real to her than those she weaves on her
+tapestry loom.</p>
+
+<p>Ulick leaned out of the box and applauded; he dared even to cry encore,
+and, following suit, the musicians laid aside their instruments and,
+standing up in the orchestra, applauded with him. The conductor tapped
+approval with his stick on the little harmonium, the chorus at the back
+cried encore. It was a curious scene; these folk, whose one idea at
+rehearsal is to get it over as soon as possible, conniving at their own
+retention in the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>The applause of her fellow artistes delighted her; she bowed to the
+orchestra, and, turning to the chorus, said that she would be pleased to
+sing the duet again if they did not mind the delay; and coming down the
+stage and standing in front of the box, she said to Ulick&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, are you satisfied?... Is that your idea of Elizabeth?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So far as we have gone, yes, but I shall not know if your Elizabeth is
+my Elizabeth until I have heard the end of the act.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Turning to Mr. Hermann Goetze, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Dean has very distinct ideas how this part should be played.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Dean,&quot; answered the manager, laughing, &quot;would not go to Bayreuth
+three years ago because they played 'Tannh&auml;user.' But one evening he
+took the score down to read the new music, and to his surprise he found
+that it was the old that interested him. Mr. Dean is always making
+discoveries; he discovers all my singers after he has heard them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And Mr. Hermann Goetze discovers his singers before <i>he</i> has heard
+them,&quot; cried Ulick.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hermann Goetze looked for a moment as if he were going to get angry,
+but remembering that Dean was critic to an important weekly, he laughed
+and put his handkerchief to his jaw, and Evelyn went up the stage to
+meet the Landgrave&mdash;her father&mdash;and she sang a duet with him. As soon as
+it was concluded, the introduction to the march brought the first
+courtiers and pages on the stage, and with the first strains of the
+march the assembly, which had been invited to witness the competitions,
+was seated in the circular benches ranged round the throne of the
+Landgrave and his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>Having consulted with his stage manager and superintended some
+alterations in the stage arrangements, Mr. Hermann Goetze, whose
+toothache seemed a little better again, left the stage, and coming into
+the box where Ulick was sitting, he sat beside him and affected some
+interest in his opinion regarding the grouping, for it had occurred to
+him that if Evelyn should take a fancy to this young man nothing was
+more likely than that she should ask to have his opera produced. With
+the plot and some of the music he was already vaguely acquainted; and
+he had gathered, in a general way, that Ulick Dean was considered to be
+a man of talent. The British public might demand a new opera, and there
+had been some talk of Celtic genius in the newspapers lately. Dean's
+&quot;Grania&quot; might make an admirable diversion in the Wagnerian
+repertoire&mdash;only it must not be too anti-Wagnerian. Mr. Goetze prided
+himself on being in the movement. Now, if Evelyn Innes would sing the
+title <i>r&ocirc;le</i>, &quot;Grania&quot; was the very thing he wanted. And in such a frame
+of mind, he listened to Ulick Dean. He was glad that &quot;Grania&quot; was based
+on a legend; Wagner had shown that an opera could not be written except
+on a legendary basis. The Irish legends were just the thing the public
+was prepared to take an interest in. But there was one thing he
+feared&mdash;that there were no motives.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell me more about the music? It is not like the opera you showed me a
+year or two ago in which instead of motives certain instruments
+introduce the characters? There is nothing Gregorian about this new
+work, is there?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing,&quot; Ulick answered, smiling contemptuously&mdash;nothing recognisable
+to uneducated ears.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Plenty of chromatic writing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I think I can assure you that there is plenty of modulation, some
+unresolved dissonances. I suppose that that is what you want. Alas,
+there are not many motives.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick waited to be asked if he could not introduce some. But at that
+moment Tannh&auml;user's avowal of the joys he had experienced with Venus in
+Mount Horsel had shocked the Landgrave's pious court. The dames and the
+wives of the burgesses had hastened away, leaving their husbands to
+avenge the affront offered to their modesty. The knights drew their
+swords; it was the moment when Elizabeth runs down the steps of the
+throne and demands mercy from her father for the man she loves. The idea
+of this scene was very dear to Ulick, and his whole attention was fixed
+on Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>He was only attracted by essential ideas, and the mysterious expectancy
+of the virgin awaiting the approach of the man she loves was surely the
+essential spirit of life&mdash;the ultimate meaning of things. The comedy of
+existence, the habit of life worn in different ages of the world had no
+interest for him; it was the essential that he sought and wished to put
+upon the stage&mdash;the striving and yearning, and then the inevitable
+acceptation of the burden of life; in other words, the entrance into the
+life of resignation. That was what he sought in his own operas, and from
+this ideal he had never wavered; all other art but this essential art
+was indifferent to him. It was no longer the beautiful writing of
+Wagner's later works that attracted him; he deemed this one to be,
+perhaps, the finest, being the sincerest, and &quot;Parsifal&quot; the worst,
+being the most hypocritical. Elizabeth was the essential penitent, she
+who does penance not for herself, she has committed no sin, but the
+sublime penitent who does penance for the sins of others. Not for a
+moment could he admit the penitence of Kundry. In her there was merely
+the external aspect. &quot;Parsifal&quot; was to Ulick a revolting hypocrisy, and
+Kundry the blot on Wagner's life. In the first act she is a sort of wild
+witch, not very explicit to any intelligence that probes below the
+surface. In the second, she is a courtesan with black diamonds. In the
+third, she wears the coarse habit of a penitent, and her waist is tied
+with a cord; but her repentance goes no further than these exterior
+signs. She says no word, and Ulick could not accept the descriptive
+music as sufficient explanation of her repentance, even if it were
+sincere, which it was not, and he spoke derisively of the amorous cries
+to be heard at every moment in the orchestra, while she is dragging
+herself to Parsifal's feet. Elizabeth's prayer was to him a perfect
+expression of a penitent soul. Kundry, he pointed out, had no such
+prayer, and he derisively sang the cries of amorous desire. The
+character of Parsifal he could admit even less than the character of
+Kundry. As he would say in discussion, &quot;If I am to discuss an artistic
+question, I must go to the very heart of it. Now, if we ask ourselves
+what Siegfried did, the answer is, that he forged the sword, killed the
+dragon and released Brunnhilde. But if, in like manner, we ask ourselves
+what Parsifal did, is not the answer, that he killed a swan and refused
+a kiss and with many morbid, suggestive and disagreeable remarks? These
+are the facts,&quot; he would say; &quot;confute them who may, explain them who
+can!&quot; And if it were urged, as it often was, that in Parsifal Wagner
+desired the very opposite to what he had in Siegfried, the Parsifal is
+opposed to Siegfried as Hamlet is opposed to Othello, Ulick eagerly
+accepted the challenge, and like one sure of his adversary's life, began
+the attack.</p>
+
+<p>Wagner had been all his life dreaming of an opera with a subjective
+hero. Christ first and then Buddha had suggested themselves as likely
+subjects. He had gone so far as to make sketches for both heroes, but
+both subjects had been rejected as unpractical, and he had fallen back
+on a pretty medi&aelig;val myth, and had shot into a pretty medi&aelig;val myth all
+the material he had accumulated for the other dramas, whose heroes were
+veritable heroes, men who had accomplished great things, men who had
+preached great doctrines and whose lives were symbols of their
+doctrines. The result of pouring this old wine into the new bottle was
+to burst the bottle.</p>
+
+<p>In neither Christ nor Buddha did the question of sex arise, and that was
+the reason that Wagner eventually rejected both. He was as full of
+sex&mdash;mysterious, sub-conscious sex&mdash;as Rossetti himself. In Christ's
+life there is the Magdalen, but how naturally harmonious, how implicit
+in the idea, are their relations, how concentric; but how excentric
+(using the word in its grammatical sense) are the relations of Parsifal
+to Kundry.... A redeemer is chaste, but he does not speak of his
+chastity nor does he think of it; he passes the question by. The figure
+of Christ is so noble, that whether God or man or both, it seems to us
+in harmony that the Magdalen should bathe his feet and wipe them with
+her hair, but the introduction of the same incident into &quot;Parsifal&quot;
+revolts. As Parsifal merely killed a swan and refused to be kissed&mdash;the
+other preached a doctrine in which beauty and wisdom touch the highest
+point, and his life was an exemplification of his doctrine of
+non-resistance&mdash;&quot;Take ye and eat, for this is my body, and this is my
+blood.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In &quot;Parsifal&quot; there was only the second act which he could admire
+without enormous reservations. The writing in the chorus of the &quot;Flower
+Maidens&quot; was, of course, irresistible&mdash;little cries, meaningless by
+themselves, but, when brought together, they created an enchanted
+garden, marvellous and seductive. But it was the duet that followed that
+compelled his admiration. Music hardly ever more than a recitative,
+hardly ever breaking into an air, and yet so beautiful! There the notes
+merely served to lift the words, to impregnate them with more terrible
+and subtle meaning; and the subdued harmonies enfolded them in an
+atmosphere, a sensual mood; and in this music we sink into depths of
+soul and float upon sullen and mysterious tides of life&mdash;those which
+roll beneath the phase of life which we call existence. But the vulgarly
+vaunted Good Friday music did not deceive him; at the second or third
+time of hearing he had perceived its insincerity. It was very beautiful
+music, but in such a situation sincerity was essential. The airs of this
+mock redeemer were truly unbearable, and the abjection of Kundry before
+this stuffed Christ revolted him. But the obtusely religious could not
+fail to be moved; the appeal of the chaste kiss, with little sexual
+cries all the while in the orchestra, could not but stir the vulgar
+heart to infinite delight, and the art was so dexterously beautiful that
+the intelligent were deceived. The artiste and the vulgarian held each
+other's hands for the first time; they gasped a mutual wonder at their
+own perception and their unsuspected nobility of soul. &quot;Parsifal,&quot; he
+declared, with true Celtic love of exaggeration, &quot;to be the oiliest
+flattery ever poured down the open throat of a liquorish humanity.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke such sentences his face would light up with malicious
+humour, and he was so interested in the subject he discussed that his
+listener was forced to follow him. It was only in such moments of
+artistic discussion that his real soul floated up to the surface, and
+he, as it were, achieved himself. He knew, too, how to play with his
+listener, to wheedle and beguile him, for after a particularly
+aggressive phrase he would drop into a minor key, and his criticism
+would suddenly become serious and illuminative. To him &quot;Parsifal&quot; was a
+fresco, a decoration painted by a man whose true genius it was to reveal
+the most intimate secrets of the soul, to tell the enigmatic soul of
+longing as Leonardo da Vinci had done. But he had been led from the true
+path of his genius into the false one of a rivalry with Veronese. Only
+where Wagner is confiding a soul's secret is he interesting, and in
+&quot;Tannh&auml;user,&quot; in this first flower of his dramatic and musical genius,
+he had perhaps told the story of his own soul more truly, more sincerely
+than elsewhere. To do that was the highest art. Sooner or later the
+sublimest imaginations pale before the simple telling of a personal
+truth, for the most personal truth is likewise the most universal.
+&quot;Tannh&auml;user&quot; is the story of humanity, for what is the human story if it
+isn't the pursuit of an ideal?</p>
+
+<p>And this essential and primal truth Evelyn revealed to him and the very
+spirit and sense of maidenhood, the centre and receptacle of life, the
+mysterious secret of things, the awful moment when the whisper of the
+will to live is heard in matter, the will which there is no denying, the
+surrender of matter, the awaking of consciousness in things. And united
+to the eternal idea of generation, he perceived the congenital idea
+which in remotest time seems to have sprung from it&mdash;that life is sin
+and must be atoned for by prayer. Evelyn's interpretation revealed his
+deepest ideas to himself, and at last he seemed to stand at the heart of
+life.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly his rapture was broken through; the singer had stopped the
+orchestra.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have cut some of the music, I see,&quot; she said, addressing the
+conductor.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only the usual cut, Miss Innes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;About twenty pages, I should think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The conductor counted them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Eighteen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Innes, that cut has been accepted everywhere&mdash;Munich, Berlin,
+Wiesbaden&mdash;everywhere except Bayreuth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Mr. Hermann Goetze, my agreement with you is that the operas I
+sing in are to be performed in their entirety.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In their entirety; that is to say, well&mdash;taken literally, I
+suppose&mdash;that the phrase 'In their entirety' could be held to mean
+without cuts; but surely, regarding this particular cut&mdash;I may say that
+I spoke to Sir Owen about it, and he agreed with me that it was
+impossible to get people into the theatre in London before half-past
+seven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Mr. Hermann Goetze, your agreement is with me, not with Sir Owen
+Asher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite so, Miss Innes, but&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If people don't care sufficiently for art to dine half-an-hour
+earlier, they had better stay away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you see, Miss Innes, you're not in the first act; there are the
+other artistes to consider. The 'Venusberg' will be sung to empty
+benches if you insist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed for a moment as if Mr. Hermann Goetze was going to have his
+way; and Ulick, while praying that she might remain firm, recognised how
+adroitly Hermann Goetze had contrived to place her in a false position
+regarding her fellow artistes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am quite willing to throw up the part; I can only sing the opera as
+it is written.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The conductor suggested a less decisive cut to Evelyn, and Mr. Hermann
+Goetze walked up and down the stage, overtaken by toothache. His agony
+was so complete that Evelyn's harshness yielded. She went to him, and,
+her hand laid commiseratingly on his arm, she begged him to go at once
+to the dentist.</p>
+
+<p>Then some of the musicians said that they could hardly read the music,
+so effectually had they scratched it out.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If the musicians cannot play the music, we had better go home,&quot; said
+Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the opera is announced for to-morrow night,&quot; Mr. Hermann Goetze
+replied dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wheeler suggested that they might go on with the rehearsal; the cut
+could be discussed afterwards. Groups formed, everyone had a different
+opinion. At last the conductor took up his stick and cried, &quot;Number 105,
+please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are going back,&quot; thought Ulick; &quot;she held her ground capitally.
+She has more strength of character than I thought. But Hermann Goetze
+has upset her; she won't be able to sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And it was as he expected; she could not recapture her lost inspiration;
+mood, Ulick could see, was the foundation and the keystone of her art.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; she said, &quot;I sang it horribly, I am all out of sorts, I don't feel
+what I am singing, and when the mood is not upon me, I am atrocious.
+What annoyed me was his attributing such selfishness to me, and such
+vulgar selfishness, too&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;However, you had your way about the cut.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, they'll have to sing the whole of the finale. But I am sorry about
+his tooth; I know that it is dreadful pain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick told an amusing story how he had once called on Hermann Goetze to
+ask if he had read the book of his opera.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He'd just gone into an adjoining room to fetch a clothes-brush&mdash;he had
+taken off his coat to brush it&mdash;but the moment he saw me, he whipped out
+his handkerchief and said that he must go to the dentist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And when I asked him to engage Helbrun to sing Brang&auml;ne, and give her
+eighty pounds a week if she wouldn't sing it for less, he whipped out
+his handkerchief as you say, and asked me if I knew a dentist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The idea of Wagner without cuts always brings on a violent attack,&quot; and
+Ulick imitated so well the expression of agony that had come into the
+manager's face that Evelyn exploded with laughter. She begged Ulick to
+desist.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shan't be able to sing at all. But I have not told you of my make up.
+I don't look at all pretty; the ugly curls I wear come from an old
+German print, and the staid, modest gown. But it is very provoking; I
+was singing well till that fiend began to argue. Don't make me laugh
+again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He became very grave.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can only think of the joy you gave me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His praise brightened her face, and she listened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot tell you now what I feel; perhaps I shall never find words to
+express what I feel about your Elizabeth. I shall be writing about it
+next week, and shall have to try.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do tell me now. You liked it better than my Margaret?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and they looked in each
+other's eyes, and could hardly speak, so extraordinary was their
+recognition of each other; it was so intense that they could hardly help
+laughing, so strange it seemed that they should never have met before,
+or should have been separated for such a long time. It really seemed to
+them as if they had known each other from all eternity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How can you act Elizabeth, she is so different from what you are?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her pale blue eyes seemed to open a little wider, and she looked at him
+searchingly. He could not keep back the words that rose to his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You mean that your dead life now lives in Elizabeth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I suppose that that is it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They asked each other whether any part of one's nature is ever really
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments after the pilgrims were heard singing, and Evelyn would
+have to go on the stage. She pressed her hands against her forehead,
+ridding herself by an effort of will of her present individuality. The
+strenuous chant of the pilgrims grew louder, the procession approached,
+and as it passed across the stage Elizabeth sought for Tannh&auml;user, but
+he was not among them. So her last earthly hope has perished, and she
+throws herself on her knees at the foot of the wayside cross. And it was
+the anguish of her soul that called forth that high note, a G repeated
+three times; and it seemed to Ulick that she seemed to throw herself
+upon that note, that reiterated note, as if she would reach God's ears
+with it and force him to listen to her. In the religious, almost
+Gregorian, strain her voice was pure as a little child, but when she
+spoke of her renunciation and the music grew more chromatic, her voice
+filled with colour&mdash;her sex appeared in it; and when the music returned
+to the peace of the religious strain, her voice grew blanched and faded
+like a nun's voice. Henceforth her life will be lived beyond this world,
+and as she walked up the stage, the flutes and clarionets seemed to lead
+her straight to God; they seemed to depict a narrow, shining path,
+shining and ascending till it disappeared amid the light of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; she said, &quot;did I sing it to your satisfaction?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're an astonishing artiste.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, that's just what I am not. I go on the stage and act; I couldn't
+tell you how I do it; I am conscious of no rule.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And the music?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The music the same. I have often been told that I might act
+Shakespeare, but without music I could not express myself. Words without
+music would seem barren; I never try to sing, I try to express myself.
+But you'll see, my father won't think much of my singing. He'll compare
+me to mother, and always to my disadvantage. I cannot phrase like her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you can; your phrasing is perfection. It is the very emotion&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father won't think so; if he only thought well of my singing he would
+forgive me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How unaffected you are; in hearing you speak one hears your very soul.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you? But tell me, is he very incensed? Shall I meet a face of
+stone?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He is incensed, no doubt, but he must forgive you. But every day's
+delay will make it more difficult.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know, I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You cannot go to-morrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To-morrow you sing this opera. Go on Saturday; you'll be sure to find
+him on Saturday afternoon. He has a rehearsal in the morning and will be
+at home about four in the afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As they walked through the scenery she said, &quot;You'll come to see me,&quot;
+and she reminded him of his promise to go through the Isolde music with
+her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mind, you have promised,&quot; she said as she got into her carriage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'll not forget Saturday afternoon,&quot; he said as he shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded and put up her umbrella, for it was beginning to rain.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_SIXTEEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER SIXTEEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Evelyn found Owen waiting for her. As soon as she came into the room he
+said, &quot;Well, have you seen your father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was not expecting him, and it was disagreeable to admit that she had
+not been to Dulwich. So she said that she had thought to find her father
+at St. Joseph's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how did you know he was not at home if you did not go to Dulwich?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My gracious, Owen, how you do question me! Now, perhaps you would like
+to know which of the priests told me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She walked to the window and stood with her left hand in the pocket of
+her jacket, and he feared that the irritation he had involuntarily
+caused her would interfere with his projects for the afternoon. There
+passed in his eyes that look of absorption in an object which marks the
+end of a long love affair&mdash;a look charged with remembrance, and wistful
+as an autumn day.</p>
+
+<p>The earth has grown weary of the sun and turns herself into the shadow,
+eager for rest. The sun has been too ardent a lover. But the gaze of the
+sun upon the receding earth is fonder than his look when she raised
+herself to his bright face. So in Owen's autumn-haunted eyes there was
+dread of the chances which he knew were accumulating against
+him&mdash;enemies, he divined, were gathering in the background; and how he
+might guard her, keep her for himself, became a daily inquisition.
+Nothing had happened to lead him to think that his possession was
+endangered, his fear proceeded from an instinct, which he could not
+subdue, that she was gliding from him; he wrestled with the intangible,
+and, striving to subordinate instinct to reason, he often refrained from
+kissing her; he imitated the indifference which in other times he could
+not dissimulate when the women who had really loved him besought him
+with tears. But there was no long gain-saying of the delight of telling
+her that he loved her, and when his aching heart forced him to question
+her regarding the truth of her feelings towards him, she merely told him
+that she loved him as much as ever, and the answer, instead of being a
+relief, was additional fuel upon the torturing flame of his uncertainty.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since their rupture and reconciliation in Florence, their relations
+had been so uncertain that Owen often wondered if he were her lover.
+Whether the reason for these periods of restraint was virtue or
+indifference he could never be quite sure. He believed that she always
+retained her conscience, but he could not forget that her love had once
+been sufficient compensation for what she suffered from it. &quot;The stage
+has not altered her,&quot; he thought, &quot;time has but nourished her
+idiosyncrasies.&quot; He had been hoping for one of her sudden and violent
+returnings to her former self, but such thing would not happen to-day,
+and hardly knowing what reply to make, he asked if she were free to come
+to look at some furniture. She mentioned several engagements, adding
+that he had made her too many presents already.</p>
+
+<p>She spoke of the rehearsal at considerable length, omitting, somehow, to
+speak of Ulick, and after lunch she seemed restless and proposed to go
+out at once.</p>
+
+<p>As they drove off to see the Sheraton sideboard, he asked her if she had
+seen Ulick Dean. To her great annoyance she said she had not, and this
+falsehood spoilt her afternoon for her. She could not discover why she
+had told this lie. The memory rankled in her and continued to take her
+unaware. She was tempted to confess the truth to Owen; the very words
+she thought she should use rose up in her mind several times. &quot;I told
+you a lie. I don't know why I did, for there was absolutely no reason
+why I should have said that I had not seen Ulick Dean.&quot; On Saturday the
+annoyance which this lie had caused in her was as keen as ever: and it
+was not until she had got into her carriage and was driving to Dulwich
+that her consciousness of it died in the importance of her interview
+with her father.</p>
+
+<p>In comparing her present attitude of mind with that of last Thursday,
+she was glad to notice that to-day she could not think that her father
+would not forgive her. Her talk on the subject with Ulick had reassured
+her. He would not have been so insistent if he had not been sure that
+her father would forgive her in the end. But there would be
+recriminations, and at the very thought of them she felt her courage
+sink, and she asked herself why he should make her miserable if he was
+going to forgive her in the end. Her plans were to talk to him about his
+choir, and, if that did not succeed, to throw herself on her knees. She
+remembered how she had thrown herself on her knees on the morning of the
+afternoon she had gone away. And since then she had thrown herself at
+his feet many times&mdash;every time she sang in the &quot;Valkyrie.&quot; The scene in
+which Wotan confides all his troubles and forebodings to Brunnhilde had
+never been different from the long talks she and her father used to drop
+into in the dim evenings in Dulwich. She had cheered him when he came
+home depressed after a talk with the impossible Father Gordon, as she
+had since cheered Wotan in his deep brooding over the doom of the gods
+predicted by Wala, when the dusky foe of love should beget a son in
+hate. Wotan had always been her father; Palestrina, Walhalla, and the
+stupid Jesuits, what were they? She had often tried to work out the
+allegory. It never came out quite right, but she always felt sure in
+setting down Father Gordon as Alberich. The scene in the third act, when
+she throws herself at Wotan's feet and begs his forgiveness (the music
+and the words together surged upon her brain), was the scene that now
+awaited her. She had at last come to this long-anticipated scene; and
+the fictitious scene she had acted as she was now going to act the real
+scene. True that Wotan forgave Brunnhilde after putting her to sleep on
+the fire-surrounded rock, where she should remain till a pure hero
+should come to release her. A nervous smile curled her lip for a moment;
+she trembled in her very entrails, and as they passed down the long,
+mean streets of Camberwell her thoughts frittered out in all sorts of
+trivial observation and reflection. She wondered if the mother who
+called down the narrow alley had ever been in love, if she had ever
+deceived her husband, if her father had reproved her about the young man
+she kept company with. The milkman presented to her strained mind some
+sort of problem, and the sight of the railway embankment told her she
+was nearing Dulwich. Then she saw the cedar at the top of the hill,
+whither she had once walked to meet Owen. ... Now it was London nearly
+all the way to Dulwich.</p>
+
+<p>But when they entered the familiar village street she was surprised at
+her dislike of it; even the chestnut trees, beautiful with white bloom,
+were distasteful to her, and life seemed contemptible beneath them. In
+Dulwich there was no surprise&mdash;life there was a sheeted phantom, it
+evoked a hundred dead Evelyns, and she felt she would rather live in any
+ghostly graveyard than in Dulwich. Her very knowledge of the place was
+an irritation to her, and she was pleased when she saw a house which had
+been built since she had been away. But every one of the fields she knew
+well, and the sight of every tree recalled a dead day, a dead event.
+That road to the right led to the picture gallery, and at the cross road
+she had been nearly run over by a waggon while trundling a hoop. But
+eyesight hardly helped her in Dulwich; she had only to think, to see it.
+The slates of a certain house told her that another minute would bring
+her to her father's door, and before the carriage turned the corner she
+foresaw the patch of black garden. But if her father were at home he
+might refuse to see her, and she was not certain if she should force her
+way past the servant or return home quietly. The entire dialogue of the
+scene between her and Margaret passed through her mind, and the very
+intonation of their voices. But it was not Margaret who opened the door
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This way, miss, please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'll wait in the music-room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Innes won't have no one wait there in his absence. Will you come
+into the parlour?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I think I'll wait in the music-room. I'm Miss Innes; Mr. Innes is
+my father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What, miss, are you the great singer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose I am.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you know, miss, something told me that you was. The moment I saw the
+carriage, I said, &quot;Here she is; this is her for certain.&quot; Will you come
+this way, miss? I'll run and get the key.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And who was it,&quot; Evelyn said, &quot;that told you I was a singer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lor'! miss, didn't half Dulwich go to hear you sing at the opera?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I didn't go, Miss, but I heard Mr. Dean and your father talking of
+you. I've read about you in the papers; only this morning there was a
+long piece.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If father talks of me he'll forgive me,&quot; thought Evelyn. The girl's
+wonderment made her smile, and she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you've not told me your name.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My name is Agnes, miss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you been long with my father? When I left, Margaret&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah! she's dead, miss. I came to your father the day after the funeral.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn walked up the room, overcome by the eternal absence of something
+which had hitherto been part of her life. For Margaret took her back to
+the time her mother was alive; farther back still&mdash;to the very beginning
+of her life. She had always reckoned on Margaret.... So Margaret was
+dead. Margaret would never know of this meeting. Margaret might have
+helped her. Poor Margaret! At that moment she caught sight of her
+mother's eyes. They seemed to watch her; she seemed to know all about
+Owen, and afraid of the haunting, reproving look, Evelyn studied the
+long oval face and the small brown eyes so unlike hers. One thing only
+she had inherited from her mother&mdash;her voice. She had certainly not
+inherited her conduct from her mother; her mother was one of the few
+great artistes against whom nothing could be said. Her mother was a good
+woman.... What did she think of her daughter? And seeing her cold,
+narrow face, she feared her mother would regard her conduct even more
+severely than her father.... &quot;But if she had lived I should have had no
+occasion to go away with Owen.&quot; She wondered. At the bottom of her heart
+she knew that Owen was as much as anything else a necessity in her
+life.... She moved about the room and wished the hands of the clock
+could be advanced a couple of hours, for then the terrible scene with
+her father would be over. If he could only forgive her at once, and not
+make her miserable with reproaches, they could have such a pleasant
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>In this room her past life was blown about her like spray about a rock.
+She remembered the days when she went to London with her father to give
+lessons; the miserable winter when she lost her pupils.... How she had
+waited in this room for her father to come back to dinner; the faintness
+of those hungry hours; worse still, that yearning for love. She must
+have died if she had not gone away. If it had to happen all over again
+she must act as she had acted. How well she remembered the moment when
+she felt that her life in Dulwich had become impossible. She was coming
+from the village where she had been paying some bills, and looking up
+she had suddenly seen the angle of a house and a bare tree, and she
+could still hear the voice which had spoken out of her very soul. &quot;Shall
+I never get away from this place?&quot; it had cried. &quot;Shall I go on doing
+these daily tasks for ever?&quot; The strange, vehement agony of the voice
+had frightened her.... At that moment her eyes were attracted by a sort
+of harpsichord. &quot;One of father's experiments,&quot; she said, running her
+fingers over the keys. &quot;A sort of cross between a harpsichord and a
+virginal; up here the intonation is that of a virginal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I forgot to ask you miss&quot;&mdash;Evelyn turned from the window, startled; it
+was Agnes who had come back&mdash;&quot;if you was going to stop for dinner, for
+there's very little in the house, only a bit of cold beef. I should be
+ashamed to put it on the table, miss; I'm sure you couldn't eat it.
+Master don't think what he eats; he's always thinking of his music. I
+hope you aren't like that, miss?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So he doesn't eat much. How is my father looking, Agnes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Middling, miss. He varies about a good bit; he's gone rather thin
+lately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is he lonely, do you think ... in the evenings?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, miss; I don't hear him say nothing about being lonely. For the last
+couple of years he never did more than come home to sleep and his meals,
+and he'd spend the evenings copying out the music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And off again early in the morning?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's it, miss, with his music tied up in a brown paper parcel.
+Sometimes Mr. Dean comes and helps him to write the music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah!... but I'm sorry he doesn't eat better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He eats better when Mr. Dean's here. They has a nice little dinner
+together. Now he's taken up with that 'ere instrument, the harpy chord,
+they's making. He's comin' home to-night to finish it; he says he can't
+get it finished nohow&mdash;that they's always something more to do to it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder if we could get a nice dinner for him this evening?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, miss, you see there's no shops to speak of about here. You know
+that as well as I do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder what your cooking is like?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, miss; p'r'aps it wouldn't suit you, but I've been always
+praised for my cooking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could send for some things; my coachman could fetch them from town.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then there's to-morrow to be thought about if you're stopping here. I
+tell you we don't keep much in the house.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is my father coming home to dinner?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can't say for certain, miss, only that he said 'e'd be 'ome early to
+finish the harpy chord. 'E might have 'is dinner out and come 'ome
+directly after, but I shouldn't think that was likely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can cook a chicken, Agnes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lor'! yes, miss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And a sole?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, miss; but in ordering, miss, you must think of to-morrow. You
+won't like to have a nice dinner to-night and a bit of hashed mutton
+to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll order sufficient. You've got no wine, I suppose?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, we've no wine, miss, only draught beer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll tell my coachman to go and fetch the things at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When she returned to the music-room, Agnes asked her if she was going to
+stop the night.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I should have to get your rooms ready, miss.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That I can't tell, Agnes.... I don't think so.... You won't tell my
+father I'm here when you let him in?... I want it to be a surprise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I won't say nothing, miss. I'll leave him to find it out.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn felt that the girl must have guessed her story, must have
+perceived in her the repentant daughter&mdash;the erring daughter returned
+home. Everything pointed to that fact. Well, it couldn't be helped if
+she had.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If my father will only forgive me; if that first dreadful scene were
+only over, we could have an enchanting evening together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was too nervous to seek out a volume of Bach and let her fingers run
+over the keys; she played anything that came into her head, sometimes
+she stopped to listen. At last there came a knock, and her heart told
+her it was his. In another moment he would be in the room. But seeing
+her he stopped, and, without a word, he went to a table and began
+untying a parcel of music.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, I've come to see you.... You don't answer. Father, are you not
+going to speak to me? I've been longing to see you, and now&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you had wanted to see me, you'd have come a month ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was not in London a month ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, three weeks ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I ought to have done so, but I had no courage. I could only see you
+looking at me as you are looking now. Forgive me, father.... I'm your
+only daughter; she's full of failings, but she has never ceased to love
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He sat at the table fumbling with the string that had tied the parcel he
+had brought in, and she stood looking at him, unable to speak. She
+seemed to have said all there was to say, and wished she could throw
+herself at his feet; but she could not, something held her back. She
+prayed for tears, but her eyes remained dry; her mouth was dry, and a
+flame seemed to burn behind her eyes. She could only think that this
+might be the last time she would see him. The silence seemed a great
+while. She repeated her words, &quot;I had not the courage to come before.&quot;
+At the sound of her voice she remembered that she must speak to him at
+once of his choir, and so take their thoughts from painful reminiscence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I went to St. Joseph's on Thursday, but you weren't there. You gave
+Vittoria's mass last Sunday. I started to go, but I had to turn back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She had not gone to hear her father's choir, because she could not
+resist Lady Ascott's invitation, and no more than the invitation could
+she resist the lie; she had striven against it, but in spite of herself
+it had forced itself through her lips, and now her father seemed to have
+some inkling of the truth, for he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you had cared to hear my choir you'd have gone. You needn't have
+seen me, whereas I was obliged&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn guessed that he had been to the opera. &quot;How good of him to have
+gone to hear me,&quot; she thought. She hated herself for having accepted
+Lady Ascott's invitation, and the desire to ask him what he thought of
+her voice seemed to her an intolerable selfishness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What were you going to say, father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing.... I'm glad you didn't come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wasn't it well sung?&quot; and she was seized with nervousness, and instead
+of speaking to him about his basses as she had intended, she asked him
+about the trebles.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are the worst part of the choir. That contrapuntal music can only
+be sung by those who can sing at sight. The piano has destroyed the
+modern ear. I daresay it has spoilt your ear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My ear is all right, I think.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope it is better than your heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn's face grew quite still, as if it were frozen, and seeing the
+pain he had caused her he was moved to take her in his arms and forgive
+her straight away. He might have done so, but she turned, and passing
+her hand across her eyes she went to the harpsichord. She played one of
+the little Elizabethan songs, &quot;John, come kiss me now.&quot; Then an old
+French song tempted her voice by its very appropriateness to the
+situation&mdash;&quot;<i>Que vous me co&ucirc;tez cher, mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs</i>.&quot;
+But there was a knot in her throat, she could not sing, she could hardly
+speak. She endeavoured to lead her father into conversation, hoping he
+might forget her conduct until it was too late for him to withdraw into
+resentment. She could see that the instrument she was playing on he had
+made himself. In some special intention it was filled with levers and
+stops, the use of which was not quite apparent to her; and she could see
+by the expression on his face that he was annoyed by her want of
+knowledge of the technicalities of the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>So she purposely exaggerated her ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>He fell into the trap and going to her he said, &quot;You are not making use
+of the levers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, am I not?&quot; she said innocently. &quot;What is this instrument&mdash;a
+virginal or a harpsichord?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is a harpsichord, but the intonation is that of a virginal. I made
+it this winter. The volume of sound from the old harpsichord is not
+sufficient in a large theatre, that is why the harpsichord music in 'Don
+Juan' has to be played on the fiddles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped speaking and she pressed him in vain to explain the
+instrument. She went on playing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The levers,&quot; he said at last, &quot;are above your knees. Raise your knees.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She pretended not to understand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me show you.&quot; He seated himself at the instrument. &quot;You see the
+volume of sound I obtain, and all the while I do not alter the treble.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes, and the sonority of the instrument is double that of the old
+harpsichord. It would be heard all over Covent Garden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She could see that the remark pleased him. &quot;I'll sing 'Zerline' if
+you'll play it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You couldn't sing 'Zerline,' it isn't in your voice.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't know what my voice is like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, I wonder how you can expect me to forgive you; I wonder how I
+can speak to you. Have you forgotten how you went away leaving me to
+bear the shame, the disgrace?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have come to beg forgiveness, not to excuse myself. But I wrote to
+you from Paris that I was going to live with Lady Duckle, and that you
+were to say that I had gone abroad to study singing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm astonished, Evelyn, that you can speak so lightly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not think lightly of my conduct, if you knew the miserable days it
+has cost me. Reproach me as you will about my neglect toward you, but as
+far as the world is concerned there has been no disgrace.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You would have gone all the same; you only thought of yourself.
+Brought up as you have been, a Catholic&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My sins, father, lie between God and myself. What I come for is to beg
+forgiveness for the wrong I did you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer, but he seemed to acquiesce, and it was a relief to
+her to feel that it was not the moral question that divided them;
+convention had forced him to lay some stress upon it, but clearly what
+rankled in his heart, and prevented him from taking her in his arms, was
+a jealous, purely human feud. This she felt she could throw herself
+against and overpower.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, you must forgive me, we are all in all to each other; nothing
+can change that. Ever since mother's death&mdash;you remember when the nurse
+told us all was over&mdash;ever since I've felt that we were in some strange
+way dependent on each other. Our love for each other is the one
+unalterable thing. My music you taught me; the first songs I sang were
+at your concerts, and now that we have both succeeded&mdash;you with
+Palestrina, and I with Wagner&mdash;we must needs be aliens. Father, can't
+you see that that can never be? if you don't you do not love me as I do
+you. You're still thinking that I left you. Of course, it was very
+wrong, but has that changed anything? Father, tell me, tell me, unless
+you want to kill me, that you do not believe that I love you less.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The wonder of the scene she was acting&mdash;she never admitted she acted;
+she lived through scenes, whether fictitious or real&mdash;quickened in her;
+it was the long-expected scene, the scene in the third act of the
+&quot;Valkyrie&quot; which she had always played while divining the true scene
+which she would be called upon to play one day. It seemed to her that
+she stood on the verge of all her future&mdash;the mystery of the abyss
+gathered behind her eyes; she threw herself at her father's feet, and
+the celebrated phrase, so plaintive, so full of intercession, broke from
+her lips, &quot;Was the rebel act so full of shame that her rebellion is so
+shamefully scourged? Was my offence so deep in disgrace that thou dost
+plan so deep a disgrace for me? Was this my crime so dark with dishonour
+that it henceforth robs me of all honour? Oh tell me, father; look in
+mine eyes.&quot; She heard the swelling harmony, every chord, the note that
+gave her the note she was to sing. She was carried down like a drowning
+one into a dim world of sub-conscious being; and in this half life all
+that was most true in her seemed to rise like a star and shine forth,
+while all that was circumstantial and ephemeral seemed to fall away. She
+was conscious of the purification of self; she seemed to see herself
+white and bowed and penitent. She experienced a great happiness in
+becoming humble and simple again.... But she did not know if the
+transformation which was taking place in her was an abiding or a passing
+thing. She knew she was expressing all that was most deep in her nature,
+and yet she had acted all that she now believed to be reality on the
+stage many times. It seemed as true then as it did now&mdash;more true; for
+she was less self-conscious in the fictitious than in the real scene.</p>
+
+<p>She knelt at her father's or at Wotan's feet&mdash;she could not distinguish;
+all limitations had been razed. She was <i>the</i> daughter at <i>the</i> father's
+feet. She knelt like the Magdalen. The position had always been natural
+to her, and habit had made it inveterate; there she bemoaned the
+difficulties of life, the passion which had cast her down and which
+seemed to forbid her an ideal. She caught her father's hand and pressed
+it against her cheek. She knew she was doing these things, yet she could
+not do otherwise; tears fell upon his hand, and the grief she expressed
+was so intense that he could not restrain his tears. But if she raised
+her face and saw his tears, his position as a stern father was
+compromised! She could only think of her own grief; the grief and regret
+of many years absorbed her; she was so lost in it that she expected him
+to answer her in Wotan's own music; she even smiled in her grief at her
+expectation, and continued the music of her intercession. And it was not
+until he asked her why she was singing Wagner that she raised her face.
+That he should not know, jarred and spoilt the harmony of the scene as
+she had conceived it, and it was not till he repeated his question that
+she told him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Because I've never sung it without thinking of you, father. That is why
+I sang it so well. I knew it all before. It tore at my heart strings. I
+knew that one day it would come to this.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So every time before was but a rehearsal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She rose to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why are you so cruel? It is you who are acting, not I. I mean what I
+say&mdash;you don't. Why make me miserable? You know that you must forgive
+me. You can't put me out of doors, so what is the use in arguing about
+my faults? I am like that ... you must take me as I am, and perhaps you
+would not have cared for me half as much if I had been different.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, how can you speak like that? You shock me very much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She regretted her indiscretion, and feared she had raised the moral
+question; but the taunt that it was he and not she that was acting had
+sunk into his heart, and the truth of it overcame him. It was he who had
+been acting. He had pretended an anger which he did not feel, and it was
+quite true that, whatever she did, he could not really feel anger
+against her. She was shrined in his heart, the dream of his whole life.
+He could feel anger against himself, but not against her. She was right.
+He must forgive her, for how could he live without her? Into what
+dissimulation he had been foolishly ensnared! In these convictions which
+broke like rockets in his heart and brain, spreading a strange
+illumination in much darkness, he saw her beauty and sex idealised, and
+in the vision were the eyes and pallor of the dead wife, and all the
+yearning and aspiration of his own life seemed reflected back in this
+fair, oval face, lit with luminous, eager eyes, and in the tangle of
+gold hair fallen about her ears, and thrown back hastily with long
+fingers; and the wonder of her sex in the world seemed to shed a light
+on distant horizons, and he understood the strangeness of the common
+event of father and daughter standing face to face, divided, or
+seemingly divided, by the mystery of the passion of which all things are
+made. His own sins were remembered. They fell like soft fire breaking in
+a dark sky, and his last sensation in the whirl of complex, diffused and
+passing sensations was the thrill of terror at the little while
+remaining to him wherein he might love her. A few years at most! His
+eyes told her what was happening in his heart, and with that beautiful
+movement of rapture so natural to her, she threw herself into his arms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew, father, dear, that you'd forgive me in the end. It was
+impossible to think of two like us living and dying in alienation. I
+should have killed myself, and you, dear, you would have died of grief.
+But I dreaded this first meeting. I had thought of it too much, and, as
+I told you, I had acted it so often.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have I been so severe with you, Evelyn, that you should dread me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, darling, but, of course, I've behaved&mdash;there's no use talking about
+it any more. But you could never have been really in doubt that a lover
+could ever change my love for you. Owen&mdash;I mustn't speak about him, only
+I wish you to understand that I've never ceased to think of you. I've
+never been really happy, and I'm sure you've been miserable about me
+often enough; but now we may be happy. 'Winter storms wane in the
+winsome May.' You know the <i>Lied</i> in the first act of the 'Valkyrie'?
+And now that we're friends, I suppose you'll come and hear me. Tell me
+about your choir.&quot; She paused a moment, and then said, &quot;My first thought
+was for you on landing in England. There was a train waiting at
+Victoria, but we'd had a bad crossing, and I felt so ill that I couldn't
+go. Next day I was nervous. I had not the courage, and he proposed that
+I should wait till I had sung Margaret. So much depended on the success
+of my first appearance. He was afraid that if I had had a scene with you
+I might break down.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Wotan, you say, forgives Brunnhilde, but doesn't he put her to sleep on
+a fire-surrounded rock?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He puts her to sleep on the rock, but it is she who asks for flames to
+protect her from the unworthy. Wotan grants her request, and Brunnhilde
+throws herself enraptured into his arms. 'Let the coward shun
+Brunnhilde's rock&mdash;for but one shall win&mdash;the bride who is freer than I,
+the god!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, that's it, is it? Then with what flames shall I surround you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, I've often wondered; the flame of a promise&mdash;a promise
+never to leave you again, father. I can promise no more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I want no other promise.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the portrait were fixed on them, and they wondered what
+would be the words of the dead woman if she could speak.</p>
+
+<p>Agnes announced that the coachman had returned.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, I've lots of things to see to. I'm going to stop to dinner if
+you'll let me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid, Evelyn&mdash;Agnes&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You need not trouble about the dinner&mdash;Agnes and I will see to that. We
+have made all necessary arrangements.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that your carriage?... You've got a fine pair of horses. Well, one
+can't be Evelyn Innes for nothing. But if you're stopping to dinner,
+you'd better stop the night. I'm giving the 'Missa Brevis' to-morrow.
+I'm giving it in honour of Monsignor Mostyn. It was he who helped me to
+overcome Father Gordon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You shall tell me all about Monsignor after dinner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He walked about the room, unwittingly singing the <i>Lied</i>, &quot;Winter storms
+wane in the winsome May,&quot; and he stopped before the harpsichord,
+thinking he saw her still there. And his thoughts sailed on, vagrant as
+clouds in a Spring breeze. She had come back, his most wonderful
+daughter had come back.</p>
+
+<p>He turned from his wife's portrait, fearing the thought that her joy on
+their daughter's return might be sparer than his. But unpleasant
+thoughts fell from him, and happiness sang in his brain like
+spring-awakened water-courses, and the scent in his nostrils was of
+young leaves and flowers, and his very flesh was happy as the warm,
+loosening earth in spring. &quot;'Winter storms,'&quot; he sang, &quot;'wane in the
+winsome May; with tender radiance sparkles the spring.' I must hear her
+sing that; I must hear her intercede at Wotan's feet!&quot; His eyes filled
+with happy tears, and he put questions aside. She was coming to-morrow
+to hear his choir. And what would she think of it? A shadow passed
+across his face. If he had known she was coming, he'd have taken more
+trouble with those altos; he'd have kept them another hour.... Then,
+taken with a sudden craving to see her, he went to the door and called
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are stopping to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but I can't stop to speak with you now&mdash;I'm busy with Agnes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was deep in discussion with Agnes regarding the sole. Agnes thought
+she knew how to prepare it with bread crumbs, but both were equally
+uncertain how the melted butter was to be made. There was no
+cookery-book in the house, and it seemed as if the fish would have to be
+eaten with plain butter until it occurred to Agnes that she might borrow
+a cookery-book next door. It seemed to Evelyn that she had never seen a
+finer sole, so fat and firm; it really would be a pity if they did not
+succeed in making the melted butter. When Agnes came back with the book,
+Evelyn read out the directions, and was surprised how hard it was to
+understand. In the end it was Agnes who explained it to her. The chicken
+presented some difficulties. It was of an odd size, and Agnes was not
+sure whether it would take half-an-hour or three-quarters to cook.
+Evelyn studied the white bird, felt the cold, clammy flesh, and inclined
+to forty minutes. Agnes thought that would be enough if she could get
+her oven hot enough. She began by raking out the flues, and Evelyn had
+to stand back to avoid the soot. She stood, her eyes fixed on the fire,
+interested in the draught and the dissolution of every piece of coal in
+the flame. It seemed to Evelyn that the fire was drawing beautifully,
+and she appealed to Agnes, who only seemed fairly satisfied. It was
+doing pretty well, but she had never liked that oven; one was never sure
+of it. Margaret used to put a piece of paper over the chicken to prevent
+it burning, but Agnes said there was no danger of it burning; the oven
+never could get hot enough for that. But the oven, as Agnes had said,
+was a tricky one, and when she took the chicken out to baste it, it
+seemed a little scorched. So Evelyn insisted on a piece of paper. Agnes
+said that it would delay the cooking of the chicken, and attributed the
+scorching to the quantity of coal which Miss Innes would keep adding. If
+she put any more on she would not be answerable that the chimney would
+not catch fire. Every seven or eight minutes the chicken was taken out
+to be basted. The bluey-whitey look of the flesh which Evelyn had
+disliked had disappeared; the chicken was acquiring a rich brown colour
+which she much admired, and if it had not been for Agnes, who told her
+the dinner would be delayed till eight o'clock, she would have had the
+chicken out every five minutes, so much did she enjoy pouring the rich,
+bubbling juice over the plump back.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father! Father, dinner is ready! I've got a sole and a chicken. The
+sole is a beauty; Agnes says she never saw a fresher one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And where did all these things come from?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sent my coachman for them. Now sit down and let me help you. I cooked
+the dinner myself.&quot; Feeling that Agnes's eye was upon her, she added,
+&quot;Agnes and I&mdash;I helped Agnes. We made the melted butter from the recipe
+in the cookery-book next door. I do hope it is a success.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see you've got champagne, too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I don't know how you're to get the bottle open, miss; we've no
+champagne nippers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After some conjecturing the wires were twisted off with a kitchen fork.
+Evelyn kept her eyes on her father's plate, and begged to be allowed to
+help him again, and she delighted in filling up his glass with wine; and
+though she longed to ask him if he had been to hear her sing, she did
+not allude to herself, but induced him to talk of his victories over
+Father Gordon. This story of clerical jealousy and ignorance was
+intensely interesting to the old man, and she humoured him to the top of
+his bent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it would all have come to nothing if it had not been for Monsignor
+Mostyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She fetched him his pipe and tobacco. &quot;And who is Monsignor Mostyn?&quot; she
+asked, dreading a long tale in which she could feel on interest at all.
+She watched him filling his pipe, working the tobacco down with his
+little finger nail. She thought she could see he was thinking of
+something different, and to her great joy he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, your Margaret is very good; better than I expected&mdash;I am speaking
+of the singing; of course, as acting it was superb.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, father! do tell me? So you went after all? I sent you a box and a
+stall, but you were in neither. In what part of the theatre were you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the upper boxes; I did not want to dress.&quot; She leaned across the
+table with brightening eyes. &quot;For a dramatic soprano you sing that light
+music with extraordinary ease and fluency.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did I sing it as well as mother?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, my dear, it was quite different. Your mother's art was in her
+phrasing and in the ideal appearance she presented.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And didn't I present an ideal appearance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's like this, Evelyn. The Margaret of Gounod and his librettist is
+not a real person, but a sort of keepsake beauty who sings keepsake
+music. I assume that you don't think much of the music; brought up as
+you have been on the Old Masters, you couldn't. Well, the question is
+whether parts designed in such an intention should be played in the like
+intention, or if they should be made living creations of flesh and
+blood, worked up by the power of the actress into something as near to
+the Wagner ideal as possible. I admire your Margaret; it was a wonderful
+performance, but&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But what, father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It made me wish to see you in Elizabeth and Brunnhilde. I was very
+sorry I couldn't get to London last night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You'd like my Elizabeth better. Margaret is the only part of the old
+lot that I now sing. I daresay you're right. I'll limit myself for the
+future to the Wagner repertoire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think you'd do well. Your genius is essentially in dramatic
+expression. 'Carmen,' for instance, is better as Galli Mari&eacute; used to
+play it than as you would play it. 'Carmen' is a conventional type&mdash;all
+art is convention of one kind or another, and each demands its own
+interpretation. But I hope you don't sing that horrid music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't like 'Carmen'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Innes shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Faust' is better than that. Gounod follows&mdash;at a distance, of
+course&mdash;but he follows the tradition of Haydn and Mozart. 'Carmen' is
+merely Gounod and Wagner. I hope you've not forgotten my teaching; as
+I've always said, music ended with Beethoven and began again with
+Wagner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you see Ulick Dean's article?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he wrote to me last night about your Elizabeth. He says there
+never was anything heard like it on the stage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did he say that? Show me the letter. What else did he say?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was only a note. I destroyed it. He just said what I told you. But
+he's a bit mad about that opera. He's been talking to me about it all
+the winter, saying that the character had never been acted; apparently
+it has been now. Though for my part I think Brunnhilde or Isolde would
+suit you better.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The mention of Isolde caused them to avoid looking at each other, and
+Evelyn asked her father to tell her about Ulick&mdash;how they became
+acquainted and how much they saw of each other. But to tell her when he
+made Ulick's acquaintance would be to allude to the time when Evelyn
+left home. So his account of their friendship was cursory and
+perfunctory, and he asked Evelyn suddenly if Ulick had shown her his
+opera.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Grania?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not 'Grania.' He has not finished 'Grania,' but 'Connla and the
+Fairy Maiden.' Written,&quot; he added, &quot;entirely on the old lines. Come into
+the music-room and you shall see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took up the lamp; Evelyn called Agnes to get another. The lamps were
+placed upon the harpsichord; she lighted some candles, and, just as in
+old times, they lost themselves in dreams and visions. This time it was
+in a faint Celtic haze; a vision of silver mist and distant mountain and
+mere. It was on the heights of Uisnech that Connla heard the fairy
+calling him to the Plain of Pleasure, Moy Mell, where Boadag is king.
+And King Cond, seeing his son about to be taken from him, summoned Coran
+the priest and bade him chant his spells toward the spot whence the
+fairy's voice was heard. The fairy could not resist the spell of the
+priest, but she threw Connla an apple and for a whole month he ate
+nothing but that. But as he ate, it grew again, and always kept whole.
+And all the while there grew within him a mighty yearning and longing
+after the maiden he had seen. And when the last day of the month of
+waiting came, Connla stood by the side of the king, his father, on the
+Plain of Aromin, and again he saw the maiden come towards him, and
+again she spoke to him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Tis no lofty seat on which Connla sits among short-lived mortals
+awaiting fearful death, but now the folk of life, the ever-living living
+ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they
+have learnt to know thee.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When Cond the king observed that since the maiden came Connla his son
+spake to none that spake to him, then Cond of the hundred fights said to
+him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'Tis hard on me; I love my folk above all things, but a great longing
+seizes me for the maiden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The waves of the ocean are not so strong as the waves of thy longing;
+come with me in my currah, the straight gliding, the crystal boat, and
+we shall soon reach the Plain of Pleasure, where Boadag is king.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>King Cond and all his court saw Connla spring into the boat, and he and
+the fairy maiden glided over the bright sea, towards the setting sun,
+away and away, and they were seen no more, nor did anyone know where
+they went to.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear father, manuscript, and at sight, words and music!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come&mdash;begin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Give me the chord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Won't you give me the keynote?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the key of E flat,&quot; he answered sternly.</p>
+
+<p>She began. &quot;Is that right?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, that's right. You see that you can still sing at sight. I don't
+suppose you find many prima donnas who can.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With her arm on his shoulder they sat together, playing and singing the
+music with which Ulick had interpreted the tale of &quot;Connla and the Fairy
+Maiden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You see,&quot; he said, &quot;he has invented a new system of orchestration; as a
+matter of fact, we worked it out together, but that's neither here nor
+there. In some respects it is not unlike Wagner; the vocal music is
+mostly recitative, but now and then there is nearly an air, and yet it
+isn't new, for it is how it would have been written about 1500. You
+see,&quot; he said, turning over the pages of the full score, &quot;each character
+is allotted a different set of instruments as accompaniment; in this way
+you get astonishing colour contrasts. For instance, the priest is
+accompanied by a chest of six viols; <i>i.e.</i>, two trebles, two tenors,
+two basses. King Cond is accompanied by a set of six cromornes, like the
+viols of various sizes. The Fairy Maiden has a set of six flutes or
+recorders, the smallest of which is eight inches long, the biggest quite
+six feet. Connla is accompanied by a group of oboes; and another
+character is allotted three lutes with an arch lute, another a pair of
+virginals, another a regal, another a set of six sackbuts and trumpets.
+See how all the instruments are used in the overture and in the dances,
+of which there are plenty, Pavans, Galliards, Allemaines. But look here,
+this is most important: even in the instrumental pieces the instruments
+are not to be mixed, as in modern orchestra, but used in groups, always
+distinct, like patches of colour in impressionist pictures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I like this,&quot; and she hummed through the fairy's luring of Connla to
+embark with her. &quot;But I could not give an opinion of the orchestration
+without hearing it, it is all so new.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We haven't succeeded yet in getting together sufficient old instruments
+to provide an orchestra.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, father, do you think such orchestration realisable in modern
+music? I see very little Wagner in it; it is more like Caccini or
+Monteverde. There can be very little real life in a parody.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but it isn't parody, that's just what it isn't, for it is natural
+to him to write in this style. What he writes in the modern style is as
+common as anyone else. This is his natural language.&quot; In support of the
+validity of his argument that a return to the original sources of an art
+is possible without loss of originality, he instanced the Pre-Raphaelite
+Brotherhood. The most beautiful pictures, and the most original pictures
+Millais had ever painted were those that he painted while he was
+attempting to revive the methods of Van Eyck, and the language of
+Shakespeare was much more archaic than that of any of his
+contemporaries. &quot;But explanations are useless. I tried to explain to
+Father Gordon that Palestrina was one of the greatest of musicians, but
+he never understood. Monsignor Mostyn and I understood each other at
+once. I said Palestrina, he said Vittoria&mdash;I don't know which suggested
+the immense advantage that a revival of the true music of the Catholic
+would be in making converts to Rome. You don't like Ulick's music;
+there's nothing more to be said.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I do like it, father. How impatient you are! And because I don't
+understand an entire &aelig;stheticism in five minutes, which you and Ulick
+Dean have been cooking for the last three years, I am a fool, quite as
+stupid as Father Gordon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Innes laughed, and when he put his arm round her and kissed her she
+was happy again. The hours went lightly by as if enchanted, and it was
+midnight when he closed the harpsichord and they went upstairs. Neither
+spoke; they were thinking of the old times which apparently had come
+back to them. On the landing she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We've had a nice evening after all. Good-night, father. I know my
+room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good-night,&quot; he said. &quot;You'll find all your things; nothing has been
+changed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Agnes had laid one of her old nightgowns on the bed, and there was her
+<i>prie-dieu</i>, and on the chest of drawers the score of Tristan which Owen
+had given her six years ago. She had come back to sing it. How
+extraordinary it all was! She seemed to have drifted like a piece of
+seaweed; she lived in the present though it sank beneath her like a
+wave. The past she saw dimly, the future not at all; and sitting by her
+window she was moved by vague impulses towards infinity. She grew aware
+of her own littleness and the vastness overhead&mdash;that great unending
+enigma represented to her understanding by a tint of blue washed over by
+a milky tint. Owen had told her that there were twenty million suns in
+the milky way, and that around every one numerous planets revolved. This
+earth was but a small planet, and its sun a third-rate sun. On this
+speck of earth a being had awakened to a consciousness of the glittering
+riddle above his head, but he would die in the same ignorance of its
+meaning as a rabbit. The secret of the celestial plan she would never
+know. One day she would slip out of consciousness of it; life would
+never beckon her again; but the vast plan which she now perceived would
+continue to revolve, progressing towards an end which no man, though the
+world were to continue for a hundred million years, would ever know.</p>
+
+<p>Her brain seemed to melt in the moonlight, and from the enigma of the
+skies her thoughts turned to the enigma of her own individuality. She
+was aware that she lived. She was aware that some things were right,
+that some things were wrong. She was aware of the strange fortune that
+had lured her, that had chosen her out of millions. What did it mean? It
+must mean something, just as those stars must mean something&mdash;but what?</p>
+
+<p>Opposite to her window there was an open space; it was full of mist and
+moonlight; the lights of a distant street looked across it. She too had
+said, &quot;'Tis hard upon me, I love my folk above all things, but a great
+longing seizes me.&quot; That story is the story of human life. What is human
+life but a longing for something beyond us, for something we shall not
+attain? Again she wondered what her end must be. She must end somehow,
+and was it not strange that she could no more answer that simple
+question than she could the sublime question which the moon and stars
+propounded.... That breathless, glittering peace, was it not wonderful?
+It seemed to beckon and allure, and her soul yearned for that peace as
+Connla's had for the maiden. Death only could give that peace. Did the
+Fairy Maiden mean death? Did the plains of the Ever Living, which the
+Fairy Maiden had promised Connla on the condition of his following her,
+lie behind those specks of light?</p>
+
+<p>But what end should she choose for herself if the choice were left to
+her&mdash;to come back to Dulwich and live with her father? She might do
+that&mdash;but when her father died? Then she hoped that she might die. But
+she might outlive him for thirty years&mdash;Evelyn Innes, an old woman,
+talking to the few friends who came to see her, of the days when Wagner
+was triumphant, of her reading of &quot;Isolde.&quot; Some such end as that would
+be hers. Or she might end as Lady Asher. She might, but she did not
+think she would. Owen seemed to think more of marriage now than he used
+to. He had always said they would be married when she retired from the
+stage. But why should she retire from the stage? If he had wanted to
+marry her he should have asked her at first. She did not know what she
+was going to do. No one knew what they were going to do. They simply
+went on living. That moonlight was melting her brain away. She drew down
+the blinds, and she fell asleep thinking of her father's choir and the
+beautiful &quot;Missa Brevis&quot; which she was going to hear to-morrow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_SEVENTEEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER SEVENTEEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>As they went to church, he told her about Monsignor Mostyn. Evelyn
+remembered that the very day she went away, he had had an appointment
+with the prelate, and while trying to recall the words he had used at
+the time&mdash;how Monsignor believed that a revival of Palestrina would
+advance the Catholic cause in England&mdash;she heard her father say that no
+one except Monsignor could have succeeded in so difficult an enterprise
+as the reformation of church music in England.</p>
+
+<p>The organ is a Protestant instrument, and in organ music the London
+churches do very well; the Protestant congregations are, musically, more
+enlightened; the flattest degradation is found among the English
+Catholics, and he instanced the Oratory as an extraordinary disgrace to
+a civilised country, relating how he had heard the great Mass of Pope
+Marcellus given there by an operatic choir of twenty singers. In the
+West-end are apathy and fashionable vulgarity, and it was at St.
+Joseph's, Southwark, that the Church had had restored to her all her own
+beautiful music. Monsignor had begun by coming forward with a
+subscription of one thousand pounds a year, and by such <i>largesse</i> he
+had confounded the intractable Jesuits and vanquished Father Gordon. The
+poor man who had predicted ruin now viewed the magnificent congregation
+with a sullen face. &quot;He has a nice voice, too, that's the strange part
+of it; I could have taught him, but he is too proud to admit he was
+wrong.&quot; However, <i>bon gr&eacute; mal gr&eacute;</i>, Father Gordon had had to submit to
+Monsignor. When Monsignor makes up his mind, things have to be done. If
+a thousand pounds had not been enough, he would have given two thousand
+pounds; Monsignor was rich, but he was also tactful, and did not rely
+entirely on his money. He had come to St. Joseph's with the Pope's
+written request in his hand that St. Joseph's should attempt a revival
+of the truly Catholic music, if sufficient money could be obtained for
+the choir. So there was no gainsaying, the Jesuits had had to submit,
+for if they had again objected to the expense, Monsignor would come
+forward with a subscription of two thousand a year. He could not have
+afforded to pay so much for more than a limited number of years, &quot;but he
+and I felt that it was only necessary to start the thing for it to
+succeed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Innes told his daughter of Monsignor's social influence; Monsignor
+had the command of any amount of money. There is always the money, the
+difficulty is to obtain the will that can direct the money. Monsignor
+was the will. He was all-powerful in Rome. He spent his winters and
+springs in Rome, and no one thought of going to Rome without calling on
+him. It was through him that the Pope kept in touch with the English
+Catholics. He had a confessional at St. Joseph's, and he was <i>au mieux</i>
+with the Jesuits. It was the influence of Monsignor that had given
+Palestrina his present vogue. But a revival of Palestrina was in the
+air; through him the inevitable reaction against Wagner was making
+itself felt. Monsignor had made all the rich Catholics understand that
+it was their duty to support the unique experiment which some poor
+Jesuits in Southwark were making, and the fact that he had come forward
+with a subscription of one thousand a year enabled him to ask his
+friends for their money. He had told Mr. Innes that a dinner party which
+did not produce a subscriber he looked upon as a dinner wasted.
+Monsignor knew how to carry a thing through; his influence was
+extraordinary; he could get people to do what he wanted.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn and her father had so much to say that it did not seem as if they
+ever would find time to say it in. There was the story to tell of the
+construction of the vast choir and the difficulties he had experienced
+in teaching his singers to read at sight, for, as she knew, contrapuntal
+music cannot be sung except by singers who can sing unaccompanied. The
+trebles and the altos were of course the great difficulty; the boys
+often burst into tears; they said they preferred to die rather than
+endure his discipline. He was often sorry for them, for he knew that the
+perfect singing of this contrapuntal music was almost impossible except
+by <i>castrati</i>. But he was able to communicate his enthusiasm; he told
+them stories of how the ancient choirs used to sing Palestrina's masses
+without a rehearsal, how the ancient choirs used to compete one against
+the other, singing music they had never seen against men in the opposite
+organ loft whom they did not even know. He was full of such stories;
+they served to fire the boys' enthusiasm, and to change dislike into an
+inspiration. He had hypnotised them into a love of Palestrina, and when
+they went home their parents had told him that the boys were always
+talking about the ancient music, and that they sat up at night reading
+motets. He had told them that they would abandon all foolish pastimes
+for Palestrina, and they had in a measure; instead of batting and
+bowling, their ambition became sight singing. Once a spirit of emulation
+is inspired, great things are accomplished. There had been some
+beautiful singing at St. Joseph's. Three months ago he believed that his
+choir would have compared with some of the sixteenth century choirs. Mr.
+Innes told an instructive story of how he had lost a most extraordinary
+treble, the best he had ever had. No, he had not lost his voice; a
+casual word had done the mischief. The boy had happened to tell his
+mother that Mr. Innes had said that he would give up cricket for
+Palestrina, and she, being a fool, had laughed at him. Her laughter had
+ruined the boy; he had refused to sing any more; he had become a
+dissipated young rascal, up to every mischief. Unfortunately, before he
+left he had influenced other boys; many had to be sent away as useless;
+and it was only now that his choir was beginning to recover from this
+egregious calamity. But though the difficulty of the trebles and the
+altos was always the difficulty of his choir, it no longer seemed
+insuperable. With the large amount of money at his disposal, he could
+afford to pay almost any amount of money for a good treble or alto, so
+every boy in London who showed signs of a voice was brought to him. But
+in three or four years a boy's voice breaks, and the task of finding
+another to take his place has to be undertaken. Very often this is
+impossible; there are times when there are no voices. The present time
+was such a one, and he fumed at the foolish woman whose casual word had
+broken up his choir three months ago, bemoaning that such a calamity
+should have happened just before Monsignor's return from Rome. It was
+for that reason he was giving the &quot;Missa Brevis,&quot; a small work easily
+done. He declared he would give fifty pounds to recall his choir of
+three months ago, just for Evelyn and Monsignor to hear it. Evelyn
+easily believed that he would, and as they parted inside the church she
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wish I could take the place of the naughty boy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A look of hope came into his eyes, but it died away in an instant, and
+she watched his despondent back as he went towards the choir loft.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of Monsignor had worked great changes at St. Joseph's&mdash;the
+very atmosphere of the church was different, the sensation was one of
+culture and refinement, instead of that acrid poverty. From the altar
+rail to the middle of the aisle the church was crowded&mdash;in the free as
+well as in the paying parts. From the altar rails to the middle of the
+aisle there were chairs for the ease of the subscribers, and for those
+who were willing to pay a fee of two shillings. In front of each chair
+was a comfortable kneeling place, and slender, gloved hands held
+prayer-books bound in morocco, and under fashionable hats, filled with
+bright beads and shadowy feathers, veiled faces were bent in dainty
+prayer. Among these Evelyn picked out a number of her friends. There
+were Lady Ascott, who missed no musical entertainment of whatever kind,
+even when it took place in church, and Lady Gremaldin, who thought she
+was listening to Wagner when she was thinking of the tenor whom she
+would take away to supper in her brougham after the performance....
+Evelyn caught sight of a painter or two and a man of letters who used
+to come to her father's concerts. Suddenly she saw Ulick standing close
+by her; he had not seen her, and was looking for a seat. Catching sight
+of her, he came and sat in the chair next to hers. Almost at the same
+moment the acolytes led the procession from the sacristy. They were
+followed by the sub-deacon, the deacon and the priest who was to sing
+the Mass. When the Mass began the choir broke forth, singing the
+Introit.</p>
+
+<p>The practice of singing in church proceeds from the idea that, in the
+exaltation of prayer, the soul, having reached the last limit obtainable
+by mere words, demands an extended expression, and finds it in song. The
+earliest form of music, the plain chant or Gregorian, is sung in unison,
+for it was intended to be sung by the whole congregation, but as only a
+few in every congregation are musicians, the idea of a choir could not
+fail to suggest itself; and, once the idea of a choir accepted, part
+writing followed, and the vocal masses of the sixteenth century were the
+result. Then the art of religious music had gone as far as it could, and
+the next step, the introduction of an accompanying instrument, was
+decadence.</p>
+
+<p>The &quot;Missa Brevis&quot; is one of the most exquisite of the master's minor
+works. It is written for four voices, and with the large choir at his
+command, Mr. Innes was able to put eight to ten voices on a part; and
+hearing voices darting, voices soaring, voices floating, weaving an
+audible embroidery, Evelyn felt the vanity of accompaniment instruments.
+Upon the ancient chant the new harmonies blossomed like roses on an old
+gnarled stem, and when on the ninth bar of the &quot;Kyrie&quot; the tenors softly
+separated from the sustained chord of the other parts, the effect was as
+of magic. Evelyn lifted her eyes and saw her dear father conducting with
+calm skill.</p>
+
+<p>She had heard the Mass in Rome, and remembered the beautiful phrase
+which opens the &quot;Kyrie&quot; and which is the essence of the first part of
+that movement. But the altos had not the true alto quality; they were
+trebles singing in the lower register of their voices. Leaning towards
+her, Ulick whispered, &quot;The altos are not quite in tune.&quot; She had heard
+nothing wrong, but, seeing that he was convinced, she resolved to submit
+the matter to her father's decision. She had every confidence in the
+accuracy of her ear; but last night her father had said that the modern
+musical ear was not nearly so fine as the ancient, trained to the exact
+intervals of the monochord, instead of the coarse approximation of the
+keyboard.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered that when she had heard the Mass in Rome there was a
+moment when she had longed for the sweet concord of a pure third. Now,
+when it came at the end of the first note of the basses, Ulick said, &quot;It
+is as sharp as that of an ordinary piano.&quot; It had not seemed so to her,
+and she wondered if her ear had deteriorated, if the corrupting
+influence of modern chromatic music had been too strong, if she had lost
+her ear in the Wagner drama. The coarse intonation was more obvious in
+the &quot;Christe Eleison,&quot; sung by four solo voices, than in the &quot;Kyrie,&quot;
+sung by the full choir; and she did catch a slight equivocation, and the
+discovery tended to make her doubt Ulick's assertion that the altos were
+wrong in the &quot;Kyrie,&quot; for, if she heard right in one place, why did she
+not hear right in another? The leading treble had a hard, unsympathetic
+voice, which did not suit the florid passages occurring three times on
+the second syllable of the word Eleison. He hammered them instead of
+singing them tenderly, with just the sense of a caress in the voice.</p>
+
+<p>But outside of such extreme criticism, in the audience of the ordinary
+musical ear, the beautiful &quot;Missa Brevis&quot; was as well given as it could
+be given in modern times, and Evelyn was, of course, anxious to see the
+great prelate to whose energetic influence the revival of this music was
+owing, the man who had helped to make her dear father's life a
+satisfaction to him. It was just slipping into disappointment when the
+prelate had come to save it. This was why Evelyn was so interested in
+him&mdash;why she was already attracted toward him. It was for this reason
+she was sitting in one of the front chairs, near to where Monsignor
+would have to pass on his way to the pulpit. He was to preach that
+Sunday at St. Joseph's.... He passed close to her, and she had a clear
+view of his thin, hard, handsome face, dark in colour and severe as a
+piece of medi&aelig;val wood carving; a head small and narrow across the
+temples, as if it had been squeezed. The eyes were bright brown, and
+fixed; the nose long and straight, with clear-cut nostrils. She noticed
+the thin, mobile mouth and the swift look in the keen eyes&mdash;in that look
+he seemed to gather an exact notion of the congregation he was about to
+address.</p>
+
+<p>Already Evelyn trembled inwardly. The silence was quick with
+possibility; anything might happen&mdash;he might even publicly reprove her
+from the pulpit, and to strengthen her nerves against this influence,
+she compared the present tension to that which gathered her audience
+together as one man when the moment approached for her to come on the
+stage. All were listening, as if she were going to sing; it remained to
+be seen if the effect of his preaching equalled that of her singing. She
+was curious to see.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
+that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need
+no repentance.&quot; In introducing this text he declared it to be one of the
+most beautiful and hopeful in Scripture. Was it the sweet, clear voice
+that lured the different minds and led them, as it were, in leash? Or
+was it that slow, deliberate, persuasive manner? Or was it the
+benedictive and essentially Christian creed which he preached that
+disengaged the weight from every soul, allowing each to breathe an
+easier and sweeter breath? To one and all it seemed as if they were
+listening to the voice of their own souls, rather than that of a living
+man whom they did not know, and who did not know them. The preacher's
+voice and words were as the voices they heard speaking from the bottom
+of their souls in moments of strange collectedness. And as if aware of
+the spiritual life he had awakened, the preacher leaned over the pulpit
+and paused, as if watching the effect of his will upon the congregation.
+The hush trembled into intensity when he said, &quot;Yes, and not only in
+heaven, but on earth as well, there shall be joy when a sinner repents.
+This can be verified, not in public places where men seek wealth, fame
+and pleasure&mdash;there, there shall be only scorn and sneers&mdash;but in the
+sanctuary of every heart; there is no one, I take it, who has not at
+some moment repented.&quot; Instantly Evelyn remembered Florence. Had her
+repentance there been a joy or a pain? She had not persevered. At that
+moment she heard the preacher ask if the most painful moments of our
+lives were the result of our having followed the doctrine of Jesus or
+the doctrine of the world? He instanced the gambler and the libertine,
+who willingly confess themselves unhappy, but who, he asked, ever heard
+of the good man saying he was unhappy? The tedium of life the good man
+never knows. Men have been known to regret the money they spent on
+themselves, but who has ever regretted the money he has spent in
+charity? But even success cannot save the gambler and libertine from the
+tedium of existence, and when the preacher said, &quot;These men dare not be
+alone,&quot; Evelyn thought of Owen, and of her constant efforts to keep him
+amused, distracted; and when the preacher said it was impossible for the
+sinner to abstract himself, to enter into his consciousness without
+hearing it reprove him, Evelyn thought of herself. The preacher made no
+distinctions; all men, he said, when they are sincere with themselves,
+are aware of the difference between good and evil living. When they
+listen the voice is always audible; even those who purposely close their
+ears often hear it. For this voice cannot be wholly silenced; it can be
+stifled for a while, but it can be no more abolished than the sound of
+the sea from the shell. &quot;As a shell, man is murmurous with morality.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Of the rest of the sermon Evelyn heard very little.... It was the phrase
+that if we look into our lives we shall find that our most painful
+moments are due to our having followed the doctrine of the world instead
+of the doctrine of Christ that touched Evelyn. It seemed to explain
+things in herself which she had never understood. It told her why she
+was not happy. ... Happy she had never been, and she had never
+understood why. Because she had been leading a life that was opposed to
+what she deemed to be essentially right. How very simple, and yet she
+had never quite apprehended it before; she had striven to close her
+ears, but she had never succeeded. Why? Because that whisper can be no
+more abolished than the murmur of the sea from the shell. How true! That
+murmur had never died out of her ears; she had been able to stifle it
+for a while&mdash;she had never been able to abolish it&mdash;and what convincing
+proof this was of the existence of God!</p>
+
+<p>Disprove it you couldn't, for it was part of one's senses&mdash;the very
+evidence on which the materialists rely to prove that beyond this world
+there is nothing. Yet what a flagrant contradiction her conduct was to
+the murmur of spiritual existence. And that was why she was not happy.
+That was why she would never be happy till she reformed.... But the
+preacher spoke as if it were easy for all who wished it to change their
+lives. How was she to change her life? Her life was settled and
+determined for her ever since the day she went away with Owen. If she
+sent Owen away again the same thing would happen; she would take him
+back. She could not remain on the stage without a lover; she would take
+another before a month was out. It was no use for her to deceive
+herself! That is what she would do. To sing Isolde and live a chaste
+life, she did not believe it to be possible&mdash;and she sat helpless,
+hearing vaguely the Credo, her attention so distracted that she was only
+half aware of its beauty. She noticed that the &quot;Et incarnatus est&quot; was
+inadequately rendered, but that she expected. It would require the
+strange, immortal voices she had heard in Rome. But the vigour with
+which the basses led the &quot;Et resurrexit&quot; was such that the other parts
+could not choose but follow. She felt thankful to them; they dissipated
+her painful personal reverie. Yes, the basses were the best part of the
+choir; among them she recognised two of her father's oldest pupils; she
+had known them as boys singing alto&mdash;beautiful voices they had been, and
+were not less beautiful now. But if she desired to reform her life, how
+was she to begin? She knew what the priest would tell her. He would say,
+send away your lover; but to send him away in the plenitude of her
+success would be odious. He was unhappy; he was ill; he needed her
+sorely. His mother's health was a great anxiety to him, and if, on the
+top of all, she were to announce that she intended leaving him, he would
+break down altogether. She owed everything to him. No, not even for the
+sake of her immortal soul would she do anything that would give him
+pain. But he had been anxious to marry her for some time. Would she make
+him a good wife? She was fond of him; she would do anything for him. She
+had travelled hundreds of miles to see him when he was ill, and the
+other night she could not sleep because she feared he was unhappy about
+his mother's health. She would marry him if he asked her. On that point
+she was certain. Refuse Owen? Not for anything that could be offered
+her; nothing would change her from that. Nothing! Her resolve was taken.
+No, it was not taken; it was there in her heart.</p>
+
+<p>And at the moment when the Elevation bell rang she decided not only to
+accept Owen if he asked her, but to use all her influence to induce him
+to ask her. This seemed to her equivalent to a resolution to reform her
+life, and, happier in mind, she bowed her head, and as a very unworthy
+Catholic, but still a Catholic, and feeling no longer as an alien and an
+outcast, she assisted at the mystery of the Mass. She even ventured to
+offer up a vague prayer, and when the dread interval was over, she
+remembered that her father had spoken to her of the second &quot;Agnus Dei&quot;
+as an especially beautiful number. It was for five voices; exquisitely
+prayerful it seemed to her. With devout insistence the theme is
+reiterated by the two soprani, then the voices are woven together, and
+the simile that rose up in her mind was the pious image of fingers
+interlaced in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>The first thrill, the first impression of the music over, she applied
+herself to the dissection of it, so that she might be able to discuss it
+with Ulick and her father afterwards. This beautiful melody, apparently
+so free, was so exquisitely contrived that it contained within itself
+descant and harmony. She knew it well; it is a strict canon in unison,
+and she had heard it sung by two grey-haired men in the Papal choir in
+Rome, soprano voices of a rarer and more radiant timbre than any woman's
+sexful voice, and subtle, and, in some complex way, hardly of the earth
+at all&mdash;voices in which no accent of sex transpired, abstract voices
+aloof from any stress of passion, undistressed by any longing, even for
+God. They were not human voices, and, hearing them, Evelyn had imagined
+angels bearing tall lilies in their hands, standing on wan heights of
+celestial landscape, singing their clear silver music.</p>
+
+<p>These men had sung this &quot;Agnus Dei&quot; as perhaps it never would be sung
+again, but she knew the boy treble to be incapable of singing this canon
+properly, so she could hardly resist the impulse to run up to the choir
+loft and tell her father breathlessly that she would take his place. She
+smiled at the consternation such an act would occasion. Even if she
+could get to the choir loft without being noticed, she could not sing
+this music, her voice was full of sex, and this music required the
+strange sexless timbre of the voices she had heard in Rome. But the boy
+sang better than she anticipated; his voice was wanting in strength and
+firmness; she listened, anxious to help him, perplexed that she could
+not.</p>
+
+<p>The last Gospel was then read, and she followed Ulick out of church.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_EIGHTEEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER EIGHTEEN</h2>
+
+<p>On getting outside the church, they were surprised to find that it had
+been raining. The shower had laid the dust, freshened the air, and upon
+the sky there was a beautiful flowerlike bloom; the white clouds hung in
+the blue air unlifting fugitive palace and tower, and when Evelyn and
+Ulick looked into this mysterious cloudland, their hearts overflowed
+with an intense joy.</p>
+
+<p>She opened her parasol, and told him that her father was lunching with
+the Jesuits. But he and she were going to dine together at Dowlands; and
+after dinner they were not to forget to practise the Bach sonata which
+was in the programme for the evening concert. She thought of the long
+day before them, and with mixed wonderment and pleasure of how much
+better they would know each other at the end of the day. She wanted to
+know how he thought and felt about things; and it seemed to her that he
+could tell her all that she yearned to know, though what this was she
+did not know herself.</p>
+
+<p>There were strange hills and valleys and fabulous prospects in the great
+white cloud which hung at the end of the suburban street, and it seemed
+to her that she would like to wander with him there among the white
+dells, and to stand with him upon the high pinnacles. She was happy in
+an infinite cloudland while he told her of her father's struggle to
+obtain mastery in St. Joseph's. But she experienced a passing pang of
+regret that she had not been present to witness the first struggles of
+the reformation.</p>
+
+<p>She was interested in the part that Ulick had played in it. He told her
+how almost every week he had written an article developing some new
+phase of the subject, and Evelyn told him how her father had told her of
+the extraordinary ingenuity and energy with which he had continued the
+propaganda from week to week. When her father was called away to
+negotiate some financial difficulty, Ulick had taken charge of the
+rehearsals. Mr. Innes had told Evelyn that Ulick had displayed an
+unselfish devotion, and she added that he had been to her father what
+Liszt had been to Wagner, and while paying this compliment she looked at
+him in admiration, thanking him with her eyes. Had it not been for him,
+her father might have died of want of appreciation, killed by Father
+Gordon's obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you came to him,&quot; she said, speaking unwillingly, &quot;when I
+selfishly left him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick would not concede that he was worthy of any distinction in the
+victory of the old music; it would have achieved its legitimate triumph
+without his aid. He had merely done his duty like any private soldier in
+the ranks. But from first to last all had depended upon Monsignor. Mr.
+Innes had shown more energy and practical intelligence than anyone, not
+excepting Evelyn herself, would have credited him with; he had
+interested many people by his enthusiasm, but nevertheless he had
+remained what he was&mdash;a man of ideas rather than of practice, and
+without Monsignor the reformation would have come to naught. Evelyn was
+strangely interested to know what Ulick thought of Monsignor, and she
+waited eager for him to speak. She would have liked to hear him
+enthusiastic, but he said that Monsignor was no more than an Oxford don
+with a taste for dogma and for a cardinal's hat. He was not a man of
+ideas, but a man that would do well in an election or a strike. He was
+what folk call &quot;a leader of men,&quot; and Ulick held that power over the
+passing moment was a sign of inferiority. Shakespeare and Shelley and
+Blake had never participated in any movement; they were the movement
+itself, they were the centres of things. Christ, too, had failed to lead
+men, he was far too much above them; but St. Paul, the man of inferior
+ideas, had succeeded where Christ had failed. Mostyn, he maintained, was
+much more interested in dogma than in religion; he abhorred mysticism,
+and believed in organisation. He considered his Church from the point of
+view of a trades union. An unspiritual man, one much more interested in
+theology than in God&mdash;an able shepherd with an instinct for lost sheep
+whose fixed and commonplace ideas gave him command over weak and exalted
+natures, natures which were frequently much more spiritual than his own.
+Evelyn listened, amused, though she could not think of Monsignor quite
+as Ulick did. Monsignor had said that if we ask ourselves to what our
+unhappiness is attributable, we find that it is attributable to having
+followed the way of the world instead of the way of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to her impossible that a man of inferior intelligence such as
+Ulick described could think so clearly. She reminded Ulick of these very
+sentences which had so greatly moved her, and it flattered her to hear
+him admit it, that the idea which had so greatly struck her was
+penetrating and far-reaching, but he denied that it was possible that it
+could be Monsignor's own. It was something he had got out of a book, and
+seeing the effect that could be made of it, he had introduced it into
+his sermon. In support of this opinion, he said that all the rest of the
+sermon was sententious commonplace about the soul, and obedience to the
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you will be able to judge for yourself. He is coming to the
+concert to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I must have a dress to wear, I suppose he would like me to wear
+sackcloth. But I am going to wear a pretty pink silk, which I hope you
+will like. Call that hansom, please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was amusing to watch her write the note, hear her explain to the
+cabman: if he brought back the right dress he was to get a sovereign. It
+was amusing to stroll on through the naked Sunday streets, talking of
+the music they had just heard and of Monsignor, to find suddenly that
+they had lost their way and could see no one to direct them. These
+little incidents served to enhance their happiness. They were nearly of
+the same age, and were conscious of it; a generation is but a large
+family, united by ties of impulse and idea. Evelyn had been brought up
+and had lived outside of the influence of her own generation. Now it was
+flashed upon her for the first time, and under the spell of its
+instincts she ran down the steps to the railway and jumped into the
+moving train. Owen would have forbidden her this little recklessness,
+but Ulick accepted it as natural, and they sat opposite each other,
+their thoughts lost in the rustle and confusion of their blood. She was
+conscious of a delicious inward throbbing, and she liked the smooth
+young face, the colour of old ivory, and the dark, fixed eyes into which
+she could not look without trembling; they changed, lighting up and
+clouding as his thought came and went. She found an attraction in his
+occasional absent-mindedness, and wondered of what he was thinking.
+Looking into his eyes, she was aware of a mystery half understood, and
+she could not but feel that this enigma, this mystery, was essential to
+her. Her life seemed to depend upon it; she seemed to have come upon the
+secret at last.</p>
+
+<p>It was amusing to walk home to dinner together this bright summer's day,
+and to tell this young man, to whose intervention it pleased her to
+think that she owed her reconciliation to her father, how it was by
+pretending not to understand the new harpsichord that she had inveigled
+her father into speaking to her.... But it was only one o'clock&mdash;an hour
+still remained before dinner would be ready at Dowlands, and they were
+glad to dream it under the delicious chestnut trees. She sat intent,
+moving the tiny bloom from side to side with her parasol, thinking of
+her father. Suddenly she told Ulick of the Wotan and Brunnhilde scene,
+which she had always played, while thinking of the real scene that one
+day awaited her at her father's feet, and this scene she had at last
+acted, if you could call reality acting. She was dimly aware of the old
+Dulwich street, and that she had once trundled her hoop there, and the
+humble motion of life beneath the chestnut trees, the loitering of stout
+housewives and husbands in Sunday clothes, the spare figures of
+spinsters who lived in the damp houses which lay at the back of the
+choked gardens was accepted as a suitable background for her happiness.
+Her joy seemed to dilate in the morning, in the fluttering sensation of
+the sunshine, of summer already begun in the distant fields. Inspired by
+the scene, Ulick began to hum the old English air, &quot;Summer is a-coming
+in,&quot; and without raising her eyes from the chestnut blooms that fell
+incessantly on the pavement, Evelyn said&mdash;&quot;That monk had a beautiful
+dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And for a while they thought of that monk at Reading composing for his
+innocent recreation that beautiful piece of music; they hummed it
+together, thinking of his quiet monastery, and it seemed to them that it
+would be a beautiful thing if life were over, if it might pass away, as
+that monk's life had passed, in peace, in aspiration whether of prayer
+or of art. Thinking of the music she had heard over night, that she had
+hummed through and that her father had played on the harpsichord, she
+said&mdash;&quot;And you, too, had a beautiful dream when you wrote 'Connla and
+the Fairy Maiden'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, your father showed it to you; you hadn't told me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, absorbed in his idea, never speaking for effect, stripping himself
+of every adventitious pleasure in the service of his idea, he told her
+of the change that had come upon his &aelig;stheticism in the last year. He
+had been organist for three years at St. Patrick's, and since then had
+been interested in the modes, the abandoned modes in which the plain
+chant is written. These modes were the beginning of music, the original
+source; in them were written, no doubt, the songs and dances of the folk
+who died two, three, four, five thousand years ago, but none of this
+music had been preserved, only the religious chants of this distant
+period of art have come down to us, and from this accident his sprung
+the belief that the early modes are only capable of expressing religious
+emotion. But the gayest rhythms can be written in these modes as easily
+as in the ordinary major and minor scales. It was thought, too, that the
+modes did not lend themselves to modulation, but by long study of them
+Ulick had discovered how they may be submitted to the science of
+modulation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I see,&quot; Evelyn replied pensively. &quot;The first line written in one of the
+ancient modes, and underneath the melody, chromatic harmonies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, that would be horrible,&quot; Ulick cried, like a dog whose tail has
+been trodden upon. &quot;That is the infamous modern practice. I seek the
+harmony in the sentiment of the melody I am writing, in the tonality of
+the mode I am writing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And then, little by little, they entered the perilous question of the
+ancient modes. There were several, and three were as distinctive and as
+rich sources of melody and harmony as the ordinary major scale, for
+modern music limited itself to the major scale, the minor scale being a
+dependency. The major and minor modes or scales had sufficed for two or
+three centuries of music, but the time of their exhaustion was
+approaching, and the musicians of the future would have to return to the
+older scales. He refused to admit that they did not lend themselves to
+modulation, and he answered, when Evelyn suggested that the introduction
+of a sharp or a flat was likely to alter the character of the ancient
+scales, that she must not judge the ancient scales by what had already
+been written in them; it was nowise his intention to imitate the
+character of the plain chant melodies; she must not confuse the
+sentiment of these melodies with the modes in which they were written.
+It might be that in adding a sharp or a flat the musician destroyed the
+character of the mode which he was leaving and that of the mode he was
+passing into, but that proved nothing except his want of skill. His
+opera was written not only in the three ancient modes, but also in the
+ordinary major and minor scales, and he believed that he had enlarged
+the limits of musical expression.</p>
+
+<p>He was not the first young man she had met with schemes for writing
+original music. So far as she was capable of judging, his practice was
+better than his theory. But his music was not the origin of her interest
+for him. What really interested her were his beliefs; her personal
+interest in him had really begun when he had said that he believed in a
+continuous revelation. Of this revelation he had argued that Christ was
+only a part. These ideas, which she heard for the first time, especially
+interested her. Owen's agnosticism had given her freedom and command of
+this world, but it had made a great loneliness in her life which Owen
+was no longer able to fill. Life seemed a desert without some form of
+belief, and notwithstanding her success, her life was often intolerably
+lonely. She had often thought of the world's flowers and fruits as mere
+semblance of things without true reality, and what seemed a bountiful
+garden, a mere hard, dry, brilliant desert. It was only at certain
+moments, of course, that she thought these things, but sometimes these
+thoughts quite unexpectedly came upon her, and she could no longer
+conceal from herself the fact that she was lonely in her soul, and that
+she was growing lonelier. She was wearying a little of all the visible
+world, beginning to hunger for the invisible, from which she had closed
+her eyes so long, but which, for all that, had never become wholly
+darkened to her.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing Ulick speak of foreseeing and divinations by the stars was, too,
+like sweet rain in a dying land; and as they returned to Dowlands, she
+spoke to him of Moy Mell where Boadag is king, of the Plain of the Ever
+Living, of Connla and the Fairy Maiden gliding in the crystal boat over
+the Western Sea, and during dinner she longed to ask him if he believed
+in a future life.</p>
+
+<p>It was difficult for her, who had never spoken on such subjects before,
+to disentangle his philosophy, and it was not until he said that we
+must not believe as religionists do, that one day the invisible shall
+become the visible, that she began to understand him. Such doctrine, he
+said, is paltry and materialistic, worthy of the theologian and the
+agnostic. We must rather, he said, seek to raise and purify our natures,
+so that we may see more of the spiritual element which resides in
+things, and which is visible to all in a greater or less degree as they
+put aside their grosser nature and attain step by step to a higher point
+of vision. She had always imagined there was nothing between the
+materialism of Owen and the theology of Monsignor. Ulick's ideas were
+quite new to her; they appealed to her imagination, and she thought she
+could listen for ever, and was disappointed when he reminded her that
+she must practise the Bach sonata for the evening's concert.</p>
+
+<p>It did not, however, detain them long, for she found to her great
+pleasure that she had not lost nearly as much of her playing as she
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>The evening lengthened out into long, clear hours and thoughts of the
+green lanes; and to escape from hauntings of Owen&mdash;the music-room it
+seemed still to hold echoes of his voice&mdash;she asked him to walk out with
+her. They wandered in the cloudless evening. They sauntered past the
+picture gallery, and the fact that she was walking with this strange and
+somewhat ambiguous young man provoked her to think of herself and him as
+a couple from that politely wanton assembly which had collected at
+eventide to watch a pavane danced beneath the beauty of a Renaissance
+colonnade, and to accentuate the resemblance Evelyn fluttered her
+parasol and said, pointing across the yellow meadows&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Look at those idle clouds, the afternoon is falling asleep.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She walked for some time touched with the sentiment that the evening
+landscape inspired, a little uncertain whether he would like to talk
+further about his spiritual nature, and whether she should rest
+contented with what she knew on that subject. &quot;It is only curiosity, but
+I wonder how he would make love&mdash;how he'd begin? I wonder if he cares
+for women?&quot; It was some time before she could get Ulick to talk of
+himself; he seemed to strive to change the conversation back to artistic
+questions. He seemed absorbed in himself; it seemed difficult to awaken
+him out of his absent-mindedness. At last he spoke suddenly, as was his
+habit, and she learned that the scene of his first love-making was a
+beautiful Normandy park. He was more explicit about the park than the
+lady, and he seemed to lay special stress on the fact that the great
+saloon in the castle was hung with a faded tapestry. The story seemed to
+Evelyn a little obscure, but she gathered that Ulick had been tragically
+separated from her, whether by the intervention of another woman or
+through his own fault did not seem clear. The story was vague as a
+legend, and Evelyn was not certain that Ulick had not invented the park
+and the tapestries as characteristic decorations of a love story as it
+should happen to him, if it did happen.</p>
+
+<p>Love as a theme did not seem to suit him; he seemed to fade from her; he
+was only real when he spoke of his ideas, and a fleeting comparison
+between him and herself passed across her mind. She remembered that she
+was no longer truly herself except when speaking of sexual emotion.
+Everything else had begun to seem to her trivial, trite and
+uninteresting. She could no longer take an interest in ordinary topics
+of conversation. If a man was not going to make love to her, she soon
+began to lose interest.... A long sequence of possibilities rose in her
+mind, and died away in the distance like flights of birds. Suddenly she
+began to sing, and they had a long and interesting talk about her
+rendering of Isolde in the first act. For a moment the love potion
+seemed as if it would carry the conversation back to their individual
+experiences of the essential passion; but they drifted instead into a
+discussion regarding the practice of sorcery in the middle ages. She was
+surprised to learn that she was not only a believer, but was apparently
+an adept in all the esoteric arts. But the subject being quite new to
+her, she followed with difficulty his account of a very successful
+evocation of the spirit of a medi&aelig;val alchemist, a Fleming of the
+fourteenth century, and wonder often interrupted her attention. She
+could not reconcile herself to the belief that he was serious in all he
+said, and he often spoke of the Kabbala, which apparently was the secret
+ritual of a sect of which he was a member, perhaps a priest. Between
+whiles she thought of the indignation with which Owen would hear such
+beliefs. Then tempted as by the edge of an abyss, she admired Ulick's
+strange appearance, which helped to make his story credible. She could
+no longer disbelieve, so simply did he tell his tales, his white teeth
+showing, and his dark eyes rapidly brightening and clouding as he
+mentioned different spells and their effects. But so illusive were his
+narratives that she never quite understood; he seemed always a little
+ahead of her; she often had to pause to consider his meaning, and when
+she had grasped it, he was speaking of something else, and she had
+missed the links. To understand him better she attempted to argue with
+him, and he told her of the incredible explanation that Charcot, the
+eminent hypnotist, had had to fall back upon in order to account
+materialistically for some of his hypnotic experiments, and she was
+forced to admit that the spiritualistic explanation was the easier to
+believe.</p>
+
+<p>She was most interested when he spoke of the College of Adepts and the
+Rosicrucians. Life as he spoke seemed to become intense and exalted, and
+the invisible seemed on the point of becoming visible when he told her
+how the brotherhood greeted each other with, &quot;Man is God, and son of
+God, and there is no God but man.&quot; He repeated all he could remember of
+their terrible oath. The College of Adepts, she learned, was the
+antithesis of the monastery. The monastery is passive spirituality, the
+College of Adepts is active spirituality; the monastery abases itself
+before God, the Adepts seek to become as gods. &quot;There is a spiritual
+stream,&quot; he said, &quot;that flows behind the circumstance of history, and
+they claim that all religions are but vulgarisations of their doctrine.
+The Adept, by conquering passion and ignorance, attains a mastery over
+change, and so prolongs his life beyond any human limit.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She begged Ulick not to forget to bring the book of magic which
+contained the oath of the Rosicrucians.</p>
+
+<p>It was now after eight, and they returned home, watching the white mists
+creeping up the blue fields. The sky was lucent as a crystal, and the
+purple would not die out of the west until nearly midnight. Evelyn would
+have liked to have stayed with him in the twilight, for as the landscape
+darkened, his strange figure grew symbolic, and his words, whether by
+beauty of verbal expression or the manner with which they were spoken,
+seemed to bring the unseen world nearer. The outside world seemed to
+slip back, to become subordinate as earth becomes subordinate to the sky
+when the stars come. Evelyn felt the life of the flesh in which Owen had
+placed her fall from her; it became dissipated; her life rose to the
+head, and looking into the mists she seemed to discover the life that
+haunts in the dark. It seemed to whisper and beckon her.</p>
+
+<p>Her father was in the music-room when they returned, and at sight of him
+she forgot Ulick and his enchantments.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, dear, I am so proud of you.&quot; Standing by him, her hand on his
+shoulder, she said, &quot;Your choir is wonderful, dear. Palestrina has been
+heard in London at last!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She told him that she had heard the Mass in Rome, but had been
+disappointed in the papal choir, and she explained why she preferred his
+reading to that of the Roman musician. But he would not be consoled, and
+when he mentioned that the altos were out of tune, Ulick looked at
+Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, dear, Ulick and I have had an argument about the altos. He says
+they were wrong in the Kyrie. Were they?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course they were, but the piano has spoilt your ear. What was I
+saying last night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He took down a violin to test his daughter's ear, and the results of the
+examination were humiliating to her.</p>
+
+<p>According to Mr. Innes, Bach was the last composer who had distinguished
+between A sharp and B flat. The very principle of Wagner's music is the
+identification of the two notes.</p>
+
+<p>She ran out of the room, saying that she must change her dress, and Mr.
+Innes looked at Ulick interrogatively. He seemed a little confused, and
+hoped he had not hurt her feelings, and Ulick assured him that
+to-morrow she would tell the incident in the theatre, that she would be
+the first to see the humour of it. The news that she was staying at
+Dowlands, and the presumption that she would sing at the concert, had
+brought many a priest from St. Joseph's, and all the painters, men of
+letters, and designers of stained glass, and all the old pupils, the
+viol players, and the madrigal singers, and when Evelyn came downstairs
+in her pink frock, she was surrounded by her old friends.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do come, girls; can you come on Thursday night? I'll send you seats. It
+would be such a pleasure to me to sing to you, but not to-night;
+to-night I want to be like old times. I am going to play the viola da
+gamba.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you used to sing Elizabethan songs in old times.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but father thinks I have lost my ear; I shall not sing to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick laughed outright; the others looked at Evelyn amazed and a little
+perplexed, and the consumptive man who wore brown clothes and who had
+asked her to marry him came forward to congratulate her. But while
+talking to him, her eyes were attracted by the tall, spare ecclesiastic
+who stood talking to her father. She thought vaguely of Ulick's
+depreciation. In spite of herself she felt herself gravitating towards
+him. Several times she nearly broke off the conversation with the
+consumptive man: her feet seemed to acquire a will of their own. But
+when her eyes and thought returned to the consumptive man, her heart
+filled with plaintive terror, for she could not help thinking of the
+little space he had to live, and how soon the earth would be over him.
+She met in his eyes a clear, plaintive look, in which she seemed to
+catch sight of his pathetic soul. She seemed to be aware of it, almost
+in contact with it, and through the eyes she divined the thought passing
+there, and it was painful to her to think that it was of her health and
+success he was thinking. She could see how cruelly she reminded him of
+his folly in asking her to marry him, and she was quite sure that he was
+thinking now how very lucky for her it was that she had refused him.
+Pictures were formulating, she could see, in his poor mind of how
+different her life would have been in the home he had to offer her, and
+all this seemed to her so infinitely pathetic that she forgot Ulick,
+Monsignor and everything else. Her father called her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn,&quot; he said, &quot;let me introduce you to Monsignor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The sight of a priest always shocked her; the austere face and the
+reserved manner, the hard yet kind eyes, that appearance of
+frequentation of the other world, at least of the hither side of this,
+impressed her, and she trembled before him as she had trembled six years
+ago when she met Owen in the same room. And when the concert was over,
+when she lay in bed, she wondered. She asked herself how it was that a
+little ordinary conversation  about church singing&mdash;Palestrina, plain
+chant, the papal choir, and the rest of it&mdash;should have impressed her so
+vividly, should have excited her so much that she could not get to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered the discontent when it began to be perceived that she did
+not intend to sing, and how Julia had said, when it came to her to sing,
+that she did not dare. Julia had fixed her eyes on her, and then
+everyone seemed to be looking at her. The consumptive man was emboldened
+to demand &quot;Elsa's Dream,&quot; but she had refused to sing for him. She was
+determined that nothing would induce her to sing that night, but
+suddenly Monsignor had said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope you will not refuse to sing, Miss Innes. Remember that I cannot
+go to the opera to hear you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you wish to hear me, Monsignor, I shall be pleased indeed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for her to refuse Monsignor; it was out of the
+question that she should refuse to sing for him. If he had wished it,
+she would have had to sing the whole evening. All that was quite true,
+but there seemed to be another reason which she could not define to
+herself. It had given her infinite pleasure to sing to Monsignor, a
+pleasure she had never experienced before, not at least for a very long
+while, and wondering what was about to happen, she fell asleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_NINETEEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER NINETEEN</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The music-room had seemed haunted with Owen's voice, and yesterday she
+had asked Ulick to walk with her in the lanes so that she might escape
+from it. But to-day half-pleased, half-perplexed by her own perversity,
+she could not resist taking him to the picture gallery&mdash;she wanted to
+show him &quot;The Colonnade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The picture was merged in shadow, and no longer the picture she
+remembered; but when the sun shone, all the rows quickened with amorous
+intrigue, and the little lady held out her striped skirt (she had lost
+none of her bland delight), and the gentleman who advanced to meet her
+bowed with the mock humility of yore, and the beautiful perspectives of
+the colonnade floated into the hush of the trees, and the fountain
+warbled.</p>
+
+<p>For a reason which eluded her, she was anxious to know how this picture
+would strike Ulick, and she tried to draw from him his ideas concerning
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Their thoughts,&quot; he said, &quot;are not in their evening parade; something
+quite different is happening in their hearts....&quot; And while waiting for
+her parasol and his stick, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can see that you always liked that picture; you've seen it often
+before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She had been longing to speak of Owen. He seemed always about them, and
+in phantasmal presence he seemed to sunder them, to stand jailor-like.
+It was only by speaking of Owen that his interdiction could be removed,
+and she said that she had often been to the gallery with him. Having
+said so much, it was easy to tell Ulick of the story of the three days
+of hesitation which had preceded her elopement.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Colonnade,&quot; and &quot;The Lady playing the Virginal,&quot; had seemed to her
+symbols of the different lives which that day had been pressed upon her
+choice. Ulick explained that Fate and free will are not as
+irreconcilable as they seem. For before birth it is given to us to
+decide whether we shall accept or reject the gift of life. So we are at
+once the creatures and the arbiters of destiny. These metaphysics
+excited and then eluded her perceptions, and she hastened to tell him
+how she had stood at the corner of Berkeley Square, seeing the season
+passing under the green foliage, thinking how her life was summarised in
+a single moment. She remembered even the lady who wore the bright
+irises in her bonnet; but she neglected to mention her lest Ulick should
+think that it was memory of this woman's horses that had decided her to
+the choice of her pair of chestnuts. She told him about the journey to
+France, the buying of the trousseau, and the day that Madame Savelli had
+said, &quot;If you'll stay with me a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you.&quot; She told him how Owen had sent her to the Bois by herself, and the
+madness that had risen to her brain: and how near she had been to
+standing up in the carriage and asking the people to listen to her. She
+told the tale of all this mental excitement fluently, volubly, carried
+away by the narrative. Suddenly she ceased speaking, and sat absorbed by
+the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>She sat looking into that corner of the garden where the gardener on a
+high ladder worked his shears without pausing. The light branches fell,
+and she thought of how she had grown up in this obscure suburb amid old
+instruments and old music. She remembered her yearning for fame and
+love; now she had both, love and fame. But within herself nothing was
+changed; the same little soul was now as it had been long ago, she could
+hear it talking, living its intense life within her unknown to everyone,
+an uncommunicable thing, unchanged among much change. She remembered how
+Owen, like Siegfried, had come to release her, and all the exhausting
+passion of that time. She had sat with him under this very tree. She was
+sitting there now with Ulick. Everything was changed, yet everything was
+the same.... She was going to fall in love with another man, that was
+all.</p>
+
+<p>She awoke with a start, frightened as by a dream; and before she had
+time to inquire of herself if the dream might come true, she remembered
+the girl with whom Ulick used to play Mozart in a drawing-room hung with
+faded tapestries. She feared that he would divulge nothing, and to her
+surprise he told her that it had happened two years ago at Dieppe, where
+he had gone for a month's holiday. At that time when he was writing
+&quot;Connla and the Fairy Maiden.&quot; He had composed a great deal of the music
+by the sea-shore and in sequestered woods; and to assist himself in the
+composition of the melodies, he used to take his violin with him. One
+day, while wandering along the dusty high road on the look out for a
+secluded, shady place, he had come upon what seemed to be a private
+park. It was guarded by a high wall, and looking through an iron gate
+that had been left ajar, he was tempted by the stillness of the glades.
+&quot;A music-haunted spot if ever there was one,&quot; he said to himself; and
+encouraged by the persuasion of a certain melody which he felt he could
+work out there, and nowhere but there, he pushed the gate open, and
+entered the park. A perfect place it seemed to him, no one but the birds
+to hear him, and the sun's rays did not pierce the thick foliage of the
+sycamore grove. Never did place correspond more intimately with the mood
+of the moment, and he played his melody over and over again, every now
+and then stopping to write. Her step was so light, and he was so deep to
+his music, that he did not hear it.... She had been listening doubtless
+for some time before he had seen her. He spoke very little French, and
+she very little English, but he easily understood that she wished him to
+go on playing. A little later her father and mother had come through the
+trees; she had held up her hand, bidding them be silent. Ulick could see
+by the way they listened that they were musicians. So he was invited to
+the villa which stood in the centre of the park, and till the end of his
+holiday he went there every day. The girl&mdash;Eliane was her beautiful
+name&mdash;was an exquisite musician. They had played Mozart in the room hung
+with faded tapestries, or, beguiled by the sunshine, they had walked in
+the park. When Evelyn asked him what they said, he answered simply, &quot;We
+said that we loved each other.&quot; But when he returned to Dieppe three
+months later, all was changed. When he spoke of their marriage she
+laughed the question away, and he perceived that his visits were not
+desired; on returning to England, all his letters were returned to
+him.... Soon after she married a Protestant clergyman, and last year she
+had had a baby.</p>
+
+<p>He sat absorbed in the memory of this passion, and Evelyn and the garden
+were perceived in glimpses between scenes of youthful exaltations and
+romantic indiscretions. He remembered how he had threatened to throw
+himself from her window for no other reason except the desire of
+romantic action; and while he sat absorbed in the past, Evelyn watched
+him, nervous and irritated, striving to read in his face how much of the
+burden had fallen from him, and how free his heart might be to accept
+another love story.</p>
+
+<p>As he sat in the garden under the calm cedar tree he dreamed of a
+reconciliation with Eliane. He even speculated on the effect that the
+score of his opera would have upon her if he were to send it&mdash;all that
+music composed in her honour. But which opera? Not &quot;Connla and the Fairy
+Maiden,&quot; for a great deal of it was crude, thin, absurd. No; he could
+not send it. But he might send &quot;Grania.&quot; Yes, he would send &quot;Grania&quot;
+when he had finished it. To arrive suddenly from England, to cast
+himself at her feet&mdash;that might move her. Then, with a sigh, &quot;These are
+things we dream of,&quot; he thought, &quot;but never do. Only in dreams do men
+set forth in quest of the ideal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked up, Evelyn's eyes were fixed on him, and he felt like Bran
+returning home after his voyage to the wondrous isles.</p>
+
+<p>They saw the footman coming across the green sward. He had come to tell
+her that Mr. Innes was waiting for her. She was taking him to St.
+Joseph's. But there was not room in the victoria for three, and Ulick
+would have to go back to London by train.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you will come and see me soon? You promised to go through the
+'Isolde' music with me. Will you come to-morrow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her clear, delightful eyes were fixed upon him; he felt for the first
+time the thrill of her personality; their light caused him to hesitate,
+and then to accept her invitation eagerly. He heard her remind her
+father that he had promised to come to-night to hear her sing Elizabeth.
+He would be there too. He would see her to-night as well, and he stood
+watching the beautiful horses bearing father and daughter swiftly away.
+The shady Dulwich street dozed under a bright sky, and the bloom of the
+flowering trees was shedding its fine dust. He thought of Palestrina and
+Wagner, and a delicious little breeze sent a shower of bloom about his
+feet, as if to remind him of the pathos of the passing illusion of which
+we are a part. He stood watching the carriage, and the happiness and the
+sorrow of things choked him when he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>She was happy with her father, and she felt that he loved her better
+than any lover. The unique experience of taking him to St. Joseph's in
+her carriage, and the event of singing to him that night at Covent
+Garden, absorbed her, and she dozed in her happiness like a beautiful
+rose. Never had she been so happy. She was happier than she merited. The
+thought passed like a little shadow, and a moment after all was
+brightness again. Her father was the real love of her life; the rest was
+mere excitement, and she wondered why she sought it; it only made her
+unhappy. Monsignor was right.... But she did not wish to think of him.</p>
+
+<p>On the steps of St. Joseph's, she bade her father good-bye, and remained
+looking back till she could see him no more. Then she settled herself
+comfortably under her parasol, intent on the enjoyment of their
+reconciliation. The two days she had spent with him looked back upon her
+like a dream from which she had only just awakened. As in a dream, there
+were blurred outlines and places where the line seemed to have so faded
+that she could no longer trace it. The most distinct picture was when
+she stood, her hand affectionately laid on his shoulder, singing Ulick's
+music. She had forgotten the music and Ulick himself, but her father,
+how near she was to him in all her sympathies and instincts! Another
+moment, equally distinct, was when she had looked up and seen him in the
+choir loft conducting with calm skill.</p>
+
+<p>He was coming to-night to hear her sing Elizabeth; that was the great
+event, for without his approval all the newspapers in the world were as
+nothing, at least to her. She hummed a little to herself to see if she
+were in voice. To convince him that she sang as well as mother was out
+of the question, but she might be able to convince him that she could do
+something that mother could not have done. It was strange that she
+always thought of mother in connection with her voice; the other singers
+did not seem to matter; they might sing better or worse, but the sense
+of rivalry was not so intimate. The carriage crossed Westminster Bridge,
+and as she looked down the swirling muddy current, her mother's face
+seemed to appear to her. In some strange way her mother had always
+seemed more real than her father. Her father lived on the surface of
+things, in this life, whereas her mother seemed independent of time and
+circumstance, a sort of principle, an eternal essence, a spirit which
+she could often hear speaking to her far down in her heart. Since she
+had seen her mother's portrait, this sensation had come closer; and
+Evelyn drew back as if she felt the breath of the dead on her face, as
+if a dead hand had been laid upon hers. The face she saw was grey,
+shadowy, unreal, like a ghost; the eyes were especially distinct, her
+mother seemed aware of her; but though Evelyn sought for it, she could
+not detect any sign of disapproval in her face. She looked always like a
+grey shadow; she moved like a shadow. Evelyn was often tempted to ask
+her mother to speak. Her prayer had always been a doubting, hesitating
+prayer, perhaps that was why it had not been granted. But now, sitting
+in her carriage in a busy thoroughfare, she seemed to see over the brink
+of life, she seemed to see her mother in a grey land lit with stars. She
+recalled Ulick's tales of evocation, and wondered if it were possible to
+communicate with her mother. But even if she could speak with her, she
+thought that she would shrink from doing so. She thought of what Ulick
+had said regarding the gain and loss of soul, how we can allow our soul
+to dwindle, and how we can increase it until communion with the
+invisible world is possible. She felt that it were a presumption to
+limit life to what we see, and Owen's argument that ignorance was the
+cause of belief in ghosts and spirits seemed to her poor indeed. Man
+would not have entertained such beliefs for thousands of years if they
+had been wholly false.</p>
+
+<p>Ulick was coming to-morrow. But he was going to read through Isolde's
+music with her, and she could hardly fail to learn something, to pick up
+a hint which she might turn to account.... Her conduct had been
+indiscreet; she had encouraged him to make love to her. But in this case
+it did not matter; he was a man who did not care about women, and she
+recalled all he had said to convince herself on this point. However this
+might be, the idea of her falling in love with him was out of the
+question. A second lover stripped a woman of every atom of self-esteem,
+and she glanced into her soul, convinced that she was sincere with
+herself, sure or almost sure that what she had said expressed her
+feelings truthfully. But in spite of her efforts to be sincere, there
+was a corner of her soul into which she dared not look, and her thoughts
+drew back as if they feared a lurking beast.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after, she remembered that she had vowed in church that she
+would ask Owen to marry her. Owen would say yes at once, he would want
+to marry her at the end of the week; and once she was married, she would
+have to leave the stage. She would not be able to play Isolde.... But
+she knew the part! it would seem silly to give up the stage on the eve
+of her appearance in the part. It would be such a disappointment to so
+many people. All London was looking forward to seeing her sing Isolde.
+Mr. Hermann Goetze, what would he say? He would be entitled to
+compensation. A nice sum Owen would have to pay for the pleasure of
+marrying her. If she were to pay the indemnity&mdash;could she? It would
+absorb all her savings. More than all. She did not think she could have
+saved more than six or seven thousand pounds. The manager might claim
+twenty. Her thoughts merged into vague calculations regarding the value
+of her jewellery.... Even Owen would not care to pay twenty thousand
+pounds so that he might marry her this season instead of next. Next year
+she was going to sing Kundry! Her face tightened in expression, and a
+painful languor seemed to weaken and ruin all her tissues. He might ask
+her why she had so suddenly determined to accept what she had often
+avoided, put aside, postponed. She would have to give some reason. If
+she didn't, he would suspect&mdash;what would he suspect? That she was in
+love with Ulick?</p>
+
+<p>She might tell Owen that she wished to be married on account of scruples
+of conscience. But she had better not speak of Monsignor. Any mention of
+a priest was annoying to him. In that respect he was even more
+arbitrary, more violent than ever. But a sudden desire to see him arose
+in her, and she told the coachman to drive to Berkeley Square.</p>
+
+<p>The trees wore their first verdure, and there was a melody among the
+boughs, and she took pleasure in the graceful female figure pouring
+water from the long-necked ewer. She lay back in her carriage, imitating
+the lady she had seen six years ago, regretting that she would not know
+her if she were to meet her; she might be one of her present friends.</p>
+
+<p>Owen's house had been freshly painted that spring, its balcony was full
+of flowers chosen by herself, and arranged according to her taste ...
+and a pleasant look of recognition lit up in the eyes of the footmen in
+the hall, and the butler, whom Evelyn remembered since the first day she
+came to Berkeley Square, was sorry indeed that Sir Owen was out. But he
+was sure that Sir Owen would not be long. Would she wait in Sir Owen's
+room, or would she like lunch to be served at once? She said she would
+wait in Sir Owen's room, and she walked across the hall, smiling at the
+human nature of the servants' admiration. If their master had a
+mistress, they were glad that he had one they could boast about. And
+picking up two songs by Schubert, and hoping she was in good voice, she
+sat down at the piano and sang them. Then, half aware that she was
+singing unusually well, she sang another. The third song she sang so
+beautifully that Owen stood on the threshold loth to interrupt her, and
+when she got up from the piano he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why on earth don't you sing like that on the stage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, if one only could,&quot; she said, laughing, and taking him by the hand,
+she led him to the sofa and sat beside him as if for a long talk.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; she said, &quot;I've seen him. It's all right.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm so glad. I hope you said something in my favour. I don't want him
+to think me a brute, a villainous seducer, the man who ruined his
+daughter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, there was nothing of that kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She began at first very gravely, but her natural humour overcame her,
+and she made him laugh, with her account of her wooing of her father,
+and the part the new harpsichord had played in their reconciliation
+delighted him. He was full of pleasant comments, gay and sympathetic; he
+was interested in her account of Ulick, and said he would like to know
+him. This pleased her, and looking into Owen's eyes, she wondered if she
+should ask him to marry her. They talked of their friends, of the
+performance that night at the opera, and Evelyn thought that perhaps
+Owen ought not to go there lest he should meet her father, and she
+remembered that she had only to ask him to marry her in order to make it
+quite easy for him to meet her father. Every moment she thought she was
+going to ask him; she determined to introduce the subject in the first
+pause in the conversation, but when the pause came she didn't or
+couldn't; her tongue did not seem to obey her. She talked instead things
+that did not interest either her or him&mdash;the general principles of
+Wagner's music, or some technicality, whether she should insist on the
+shepherd's song being played on the English horn. At last she felt that
+she could not continue, so fictitious and strained did the conversation
+seem to her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you going already? I've not seen you for four days. We are dining
+to-morrow at Lady Merrington's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen hoped that she would sing there the three songs which she had just
+sung so well, but she answered instantly that she did not think she
+would, that she wanted to sing Ulick's songs. She knew that this second
+mention of Ulick's name would rouse suspicion; she tried to keep it
+back, but it escaped her lips. She was sorry, for she did not think that
+she wished to annoy. She would not stop to lunch, though she could not
+urge any better reason than that Lady Duckle was waiting for her, and
+when he wished to kiss her, she turned her head aside; a moody look
+collected in her eyes, an ugly black resentment gathered in her heart;
+she was ashamed of herself, for there was nothing to warrant her being
+so disagreeable, and to pass the matter off, she described herself as
+being aggressively virtuous that morning.</p>
+
+<p>On her singing nights she dined at half-past five, and the interval
+after dinner she spent in looking through her part, humming bits of it
+to herself, but to-day Lady Duckle was quick to remark the score of
+&quot;Tannh&auml;user&quot; in her hand. She sat with it on her knees, looking at it
+only occasionally, for she was thinking how the music would appeal to
+her father, and how her mother would have sung it. But she had to
+abandon these vain speculations. She must play the part as she felt it,
+to tamper with her conception would be to court failure. To please
+herself was her only chance of pleasing her father; if he did not like
+her reading of the part, if her singing did not please him, it was very
+unfortunate, but could not be helped. And when the carriage came to take
+her to the theatre, she was not sure that she would not be glad to
+receive a telegram saying that he was prevented from coming. She was
+very nervous while dressing, and on coming downstairs she stood watching
+the stage-box where he was sitting. She could distinguish his handsome,
+grave face through the shadows, and the orchestra was playing that
+rather rhetorical address to the halls which neither she nor Ulick cared
+much about. She waited, forgetful of her entrance, and she had to hurry
+round to the back of the stage.</p>
+
+<p>But the moment the curtain went up, she became the medi&aelig;val German
+princess; her other life fell behind her, and her father was but a
+little shadow on her brain. Yet he was the inspiration of her acting,
+and that night the whole theatre consisted for Evelyn of one stage-box.
+Her eyes never wandered there, but she knew that there sat her ultimate
+judge, one whom no excess or trick could deceive. He would not judge her
+by the mere superficial appearance she presented on the stage, by the
+superficial qualities of her voice or her acting; he would see to the
+origin of the idea, whence it had sprung, and how it had been developed.
+He did not know this particular opera, but he knew all music, and would
+judge it and her not according to the capricious taste of the moment,
+but in its relation and her relation to the immutable canons of art,
+from the plain chant to Palestrina, from Palestrina to Bach and
+Beethoven. Her singing of every phrase would be passed as it were
+through the long tradition of the centuries; it would not be accepted as
+an isolated fact, it would be judged good, indifferent or bad, by
+learned technical comparison. That she was his daughter would weigh not
+a hair's weight in the scale, and the knowledge of this terrible justice
+raised her out of herself, detached her more completely from the
+superficial and the vulgar. She sang and acted as in a dream,
+hypnotised by her audience, her exaltation steeped in somnambulism and
+steeped in ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>The curtain was raised several times, but that night the only applause
+or censure she was minded to hear awaited her in her dressing-room. She
+sent her maid out of the room, and waited for some sound of footsteps in
+the corridor, and at the first sound she rushed to the door and flung it
+open. It was her father, Merat was bringing him along the corridor, and
+they stood looking at each other; her clear, nervous eyes were trembling
+with emotion. His face seemed to tell her that he was pleased; she read
+upon it the calm exaltation of art, yet she could not however summon
+sufficient courage to ask him, and they sat down side by side. At last
+she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why don't you speak? Aren't you satisfied? Was I so bad?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are a great artist, Evelyn. I wish your mother were here to hear
+you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that really true? Say it again, father. You are satisfied with me.
+Then I have succeeded.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He told her why she had sung well, and he knew so well. It was like
+walking with a man with a lantern; when he raised the light, she could
+see a little farther into the darkness. But she had still the prayer to
+sing to him. She wanted to know what he would think of her singing of
+the prayer. The voice of the call-boy interrupted them. She sang the
+prayer more purely than ever, and the flutes and clarionettes led her up
+a shining road, and when she walked up the stage she seemed to disappear
+amid the palpitation of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>Her father was waiting for her, and on their way to the station she
+could see that he was absorbed in her art of singing. His remarks were
+occasional and disparate, but she guessed his train of thought,
+supplying easily the missing links. His praise was all inferential, and
+this made it more delicate and delicious. On bidding him good-night he
+asked her to come to choir practice. She would have liked to, but her
+accompanist was coming at half-past ten.</p>
+
+<p>There were few days when she was not singing at night that she dispensed
+with her morning's work. She considered herself like a gymnast, bound to
+go through her feats in private, so as to assure herself of her power of
+being able to go through them in public. Even when she knew a part, she
+did not like to sing it many times without studying it afresh. She
+believed that once a week was as often as it was possible to give a
+Wagner opera, and even then an occasional rehearsal was indispensable if
+the first high level of excellence was to be maintained.</p>
+
+<p>With her morning's work she allowed no one to interfere. Owen was often
+sent away, or retained for such a time as his criticism might be of use.
+But to-day she was expecting Ulick; he had promised to go through the
+music with her; so when Merat came to tell her that the pianist had
+arrived, she hesitated, uncertain whether she should send him away. But
+after a moment's reflection she decided not to forego her serious study
+of the part. She only wished to talk to Ulick about the music, to sing
+bits of it here and there, to question him regarding certain readings,
+to get at his ideas concerning it. All that was very interesting and
+very valuable in a way, but it was not hard work, and she felt,
+moreover, that hard work was just what she wanted before the rehearsals
+of &quot;Tristan&quot; began; there were certain passages where she was not sure
+of herself. She thought of the cry Isolde utters in the third act when
+Tristan falls dead. The orchestra comes in then in a way very perplexing
+for the singer, and she had not yet succeeded in satisfying herself with
+those few bars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell the young man that I shall be with him in half an hour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And when she had had her bath and her hair was dressed, she tied a few
+petticoats round her waist and slipped on a morning wrapper; that was
+enough, she paid no heed to her accompanist, treating him as if he were
+her hairdresser. She sang sitting close to his elbow, her arm familiarly
+laid upon the back of his chair, a little grey woollen shawl round her
+shoulders. In the passages requiring the whole of her voice, she got up
+and sang them right through, as if she were on the stage, listened to by
+five thousand people. Owen, accustomed as he was to her voice, sometimes
+couldn't help wondering at the power of it; the volume of sound issuing
+from her throat drowned the piano, threatening to break its strings. Her
+ear was so fine that it detected any slightest tampering with the text.
+&quot;You have given me a false chord,&quot; she would say; and sure enough, the
+pianist's fingers had accidentally softened some harshness. Sometimes he
+ventured a slight criticism. &quot;You should hold the note a little longer.&quot;
+Then she would sing the passage again.</p>
+
+<p>After singing for about two hours she had lunch. That day she was
+lunching with Lady Ascott, and did not get away until after three
+o'clock. Owen came to fetch her, and they went away to see pictures. But
+more present than the pictures were Ulick's dark eyes, and Owen noticed
+the shadow passing constantly behind her eyes. Twice she asked him what
+the time was, and she told him she would have to go soon.</p>
+
+<p>At last she said, &quot;Now I must say good-bye.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She could see he was troubled, and that she grieved him, and at one
+moment it was uncertain whether she would not renounce her visit and
+send Ulick a telegram. But she remembered that he had probably seen her
+father, and would be able to tell her more of what her father thought of
+her Elizabeth. It was that feeble excuse that sufficed to decide her
+conduct, and she bade him good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>Standing on the threshold of her drawing-room, Evelyn admired its
+symmetry and beauty. The wall paper, a delicate harmony in pale brown
+and pink roses, soothed the eye; the design was a lattice, through which
+the flowers grew. An oval mirror hung lengthwise above the white marble
+chimney piece, and the Louis XV. clock was a charming composition of two
+figures. A Muse in a simple attitude leaned a little to the left in
+order to strike the lyre placed above the dial; on the other side, a
+Cupid listened attentive for the sound of the hour, presumably his hour.
+There was a little lyrical inevitableness in the lines of this clock,
+and Owen could not come into the room without admiring it. On the
+chimney piece there were two bowls filled with violets, and the flowers
+partly hid the beautiful Worcester blue and the golden pheasants. And on
+either side of the clock were two Chelsea groups, factitious bowers made
+out of dark green shell-like leaves, in which were seated a lady in a
+flowered silk and a beribboned shepherd playing a flute.</p>
+
+<p>They had spent long mornings seeking a real Sheraton sofa, with six or
+eight chairs to match. For a long time they were unfortunate, but they
+had happened upon two sofas, certainly of the period, probably made by
+Sheraton himself. A hundred and twenty years had given a beautiful
+lustre to the satinwood and to the painted garlands of flowers, and the
+woven cane had attained a rich brown and gold; and the chairs that went
+with the sofa were works of art, so happy were the proportions of their
+thin legs and backs, and in the middle of the backs the circle of
+harmonious cane was in exquisite proportion.</p>
+
+<p>For a long while the question for immediate decision had become what
+carpet should be there. Evelyn had happened upon an old Aubusson carpet,
+a little threadbare, but the dealer had assured her that it could be
+made as good as new, and she had telegraphed to Owen to go to see its
+pale roses and purple architecture. He had written to her that its
+harmony was as florid, and yet as classical as an aria by Mozart. He was
+still more pleased when he saw it down, and he had spent hours thinking
+of what pictures would suit it, would carry on its colour and design.
+The Boucher drawing which he had bought at Christie's had seemed to him
+the very thing. He had brought it home in a cab.</p>
+
+<p>She was proud of her room, but she was doubtful if it would please
+Ulick, and was curious to hear what he would think of it. She remembered
+that Owen had said that such exquisite exteriorities were only possible
+in a pagan century, when man is content to look no farther than this
+strip of existence for the reason of his existence and his birthright.
+And while waiting for Ulick she wondered what his rooms were like, and
+if she would ever go there. She expected him about five, and she sat
+waiting for him by her tea-table amid the eighteenth century furniture,
+a little to the right of the Boucher.</p>
+
+<p>She watched him as he came towards her, expecting and hoping to see him
+cast a quick glance at the picture. He shook hands with her vaguely, and
+sat down on a Sheraton chair and fixed his eyes on the Aubusson carpet.
+She thought for some time that he was examining it, but at last the
+truth dawned; he did not see it at all, he was maybe a thousand years
+away, lost in some legendary past. Had she not seen him before pass from
+such remote mood and become suddenly animated and gay, she would have
+despaired of any pleasure in his visit. Above everything else she was
+minded to ask him if he had seen her father, and if her father had
+spoken to him about her Elizabeth. But shyness prevented her, and she
+spoke to him about ordinary things, and he answered her questions
+perfunctorily, and without any apparent reason he got up and walked
+about the room; but not looking at any object, he walked about, with
+hanging head, absorbed in thought. &quot;If he won't look at me he might look
+at my room, I'm sure that is pretty enough,&quot; and she sat watching him
+with smiling eyes. When she asked him what he thought of the Boucher, he
+said that no doubt it was very graceful, but that the only art he took
+interest in, except Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci and some German
+Primitives, was Blake. Then he seemed to forget all about her, and she
+had begun to think his manner more than usually unconventional, and,
+having made all the ordinary remarks she could think of, she asked him
+suddenly if he had seen her father, and if he had said anything to him
+about her Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I went to Dulwich on purpose to hear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She blushed, and was very happy. It was delicious to hear that he was
+sufficiently interested in her to go to Dulwich on purpose to inquire
+her father's opinion of her Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder if he will like my Isolde as well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer, and his silence filled her with inquietude.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been thinking over what you said regarding your conception of
+the part.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She waited for him to tell her what conclusion he had come to, but he
+said nothing. At last he got up, and she followed him to the piano. When
+she came to the passage where Isolde tells Brang&auml;ne that she intended to
+kill Tristan, he stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But she is violent; hear these chords, how aggressive they are. The
+music is against you. Listen to these chords.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know those chords well enough. You don't suppose I am listening to
+them for the first time. I admit that there are a few places where she
+is distinctly violent. The curse must be given violently, but I think it
+is possible to make it felt that her violence is a sexual violence, a
+sort of wish to go mad. I can't explain. Can't you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I think I do; you want to sing the first part of the act
+languidly. There is more in the music which supports your reading than I
+thought. In the passage where Isolde says to Brang&auml;ne, but really to
+herself, 'To die without having been loved by that man!' the love motive
+appears here for the first time, but more drawn out, broader than
+elsewhere.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She declared that Wagner had emphasised his meaning in this passage as
+if he had anticipated all the misreadings of this first act, and was
+striving to guard himself against them. She grew excited in the
+discussion. She had merely followed her instinct, but she was glad that
+Ulick had challenged her reading, for as they examined the music clause
+by clause, they found still further warrant for her conception.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, the old man knew what he was doing,&quot; she said; &quot;he had marked this
+passage to be sung gloomily, and by gloomily he meant infinite
+lassitude.&quot; But this intention had not been grasped, and the singers had
+either sung it without any particular expression, or with a stupid stage
+expression which meant if possible something less than nothing. &quot;Then,
+you see, if I sing the first half of the first act as wearily as the
+music allows me, I shall get a contrast&mdash;an Isolde who has not drunk the
+love potion. The love potion is of course only a symbol of her surrender
+to her desire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick would have liked to have gone through the whole of the music of
+the act with her. It was only in this way that he could get an idea of
+how her reading would work out. But in that moment each read in the
+other's eyes an avowal of which they were immediately ashamed, and which
+they tried to dissimulate.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am tired. We won't have any more music this evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His thoughts seemed to pass suddenly from her, and then, without her
+being aware how it began, she found herself listening intently to him.
+He was talking in that strange, rhythmical chant of his about the primal
+melancholy of man, and his remote past always insurgent in him. Although
+she did not quite understand, perhaps because she did not quite
+understand, she was carried away far out of all reason, and it seemed to
+her that she could listen for ever. Nor could she clearly see out of her
+eyes, and she felt all power of resistance dissolve within her. He might
+have taken her in his arms and kissed her then; but though sitting by
+her, he seemed a thousand miles away; his remoteness chastened her, and
+she asked him of what he was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When your father used to speak of you, I used to see you; sometimes I
+used to fancy I heard you. I did hear you once sing in a dream.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What was I singing? Wagner?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; something quite different. I forgot it all as I awoke except the
+last notes. I seemed to have returned from the future&mdash;you seemed in the
+end to lose your voice.... I cannot tell you&mdash;I forget.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very sad; how sad such feelings are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I never doubted that I should meet you, that our destinies were
+knit together&mdash;for a time at least.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She wanted to ask him by what signs do we recognise the moment that we
+are destined to meet the one that is more important to us than all the
+world. But she could find no way of asking this question that would not
+betray her. She could not put it so that Ulick would fail to read some
+application of the question to herself, and to himself. So it seemed
+strange indeed that he should, as if in answer to her unexpressed
+thought, say that the instinct of man is to consult the stars. She
+remembered the evenings when she used to go into the patch of black
+garden and gaze at the stars till her brain reeled. She used even to
+gather the daffodils and place them on the wall in homage to the star
+which she felt to be hers. She could not refrain from this idolatrous
+act; but in her bed at night, thinking of the flowers and the star, she
+had believed herself mad or very wicked; for nothing in the world would
+she have had anyone know her folly, and she remembered the agony it had
+been to her to confess it. But now she heard that she had been acting
+according to the sense of the wisdom of generations. As he had said,
+&quot;according to the immortal atavism of man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With her ordinary work-a-day intelligence, she felt that the stars could
+not possibly be concerned in our miserable existence. But deep down in
+her being someone who was not herself, but who seemed inseparable from
+her, and over whom she had no slightest control, seemed to breathe
+throughout her entire being an affirmation of her celestial dependency.
+She could catch no words, merely a vague, immaterial destiny like
+distant music; and her ears filled with a wailing certitude of an
+inseverable affinity with the stars, and she longed to put off this
+shameful garb of flesh and rise to her spiritual destiny of which the
+stars are our watchful guardians. It was like deep music; words could
+not contain it, it was a deep and indistinct yearning for the stars&mdash;for
+spiritual existence. She was conscious of the narrowness of the
+prison-house into which Owen had shut her, and looking at Ulick, she
+felt the thrill of liberation; it was like a ray of light dividing the
+dark. Looking at Ulick, she was startled by the conviction of his
+indispensability in her life, and the knowledge that she must repel him
+was an acute affliction, a desolate despair. It seemed cruel and
+disastrous that she might not love him, for it was only through love
+that she could get to understand him, and life without knowledge of him
+seemed failure.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm very fond of you, Ulick, but I mustn't let you kiss me. Can't we
+be friends?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He sat leaning a little forward, his head bent and his eyes on the
+carpet. He represented to her an abysmal sorrow&mdash;an extraordinary
+despair. She longed to share this sorrow, to throw her arms about him
+and make him glad. Their love seemed so good and natural, she was
+surprised that she might not.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ulick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Evelyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked round the room, saw it was getting late, and that it was time
+for him to go.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it is getting late. I suppose you must go. But you'll come to see
+me again. We shall be friends, promise me that ... that whatever happens
+we shall be friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think that we shall always be friends, I feel that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His answer seemed to her insufficient, and they stood looking at each
+other. When the door closed after him, Evelyn turned away, thinking that
+if he had stayed another moment she must have thrown herself into his
+arms.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY</h2>
+
+<p>Dreams was the first of the five, but the music that haunted belonged to
+the third song. She could not quite remember a single phrase, nor any
+words except &quot;pining flowers.&quot; She had thought of sending for it, but
+such vague memory suited her mood better than an exact text. If she had
+the song she would go to the piano, and she did not wish to move from
+the Sheraton sofa, made comfortable with pale blue cushions. But again
+the music stirred her memory like wind the tall grasses, and out of the
+slowly-moving harmonies there arose an invocation of the strange pathos
+of existence; no plaint for an accidental sorrow, something that
+happened to you or me, or might have happened, if our circumstances had
+been different; only the mood of desolate self-consciousness in which
+the soul slowly contemplates the disaster of existence. The melancholy
+that the music exhales is no querulous feminine plaint, but an
+immemorial melancholy, an exalted resignation. The music goes out like a
+fume, dying in remote chords, and Evelyn sat absorbed, viewing the world
+from afar, like the Lady of Shallott, seeing in the mirror of memory the
+chestnut trees of the Dulwich street, and a little girl running after
+her hoop; and then her mother's singing classes, and the expectation she
+had lived in of learning to sing, and being brought upon the stage by
+her mother. If her mother had lived, she would have been singing &quot;Romeo
+and Juliet&quot; and &quot;Lucia.&quot; ... Her father would have deemed her voice
+wasted; but mother always had had her way with father. Then she saw
+herself pining for Owen, sick of love, longing, hungry, weak, weary,
+disappointed, hopeless. Her thoughts turned from that past, and her
+mother's face looked out of her reverie, grey and grave and watchful,
+only half seen in the shadows. She seemed aware of her mother as she
+might be of some idea, strangely personal to herself, something near and
+remote, beyond this span of life, stretching into infinity. She seemed
+to feel herself lifted a little above the verge of life, so that she
+might inquire the truth from her mother; but something seemed to hold
+her back, and she did not dare to hear the supernatural truth. She was
+still too thrall to this life of lies, but she could not but see her
+mother's face, and what surprised her was that this grey shadow was more
+real to her than the rest of the world. The face did not stir, it
+always wore the same expression. Evelyn could not even tell if the
+expression of the dim eyes was one of disapproval. But it needs must
+be&mdash;she could have no doubt on that point. What was certain and sure was
+that she seemed in a nearer and more intimate, in a more essential
+communication with her mother, than with her father who was alive.
+Nothing seemed to divide her from her mother; she had only to let her
+soul go, and it could mingle with her mother's spirit, and then all
+misunderstandings would be at an end.</p>
+
+<p>She was tempted to free herself from this fettering life, where all is
+limitation and division. Its individualism appeared to her particularly
+clear when she thought of Owen. They had clasped and kissed in the hope
+to become part of the other's substance. They had sought to mingle, to
+become one; now it was in the hope of a union of soul that Owen sought
+her, his kisses were for this end. She had read his desire in his eyes.
+But the barrier of the flesh, which at first could barely sunder them,
+now seemed to have acquired a personal life, a separate entity; it
+seemed like some invisible force thrusting them apart. The flesh which
+had brought them together now seemed to have had enough of them; the
+flesh, once gentle and persuasive, seemed to have become stern,
+relentless as the commander in &quot;Don Juan.&quot; She thought of it as the
+forest in &quot;Macbeth&quot;; of something that had come out of the inanimate,
+angry and determined&mdash;a terrible thing this angry, frustrated flesh.
+Like the commander, it seemed to grasp and hurry her away from Owen, and
+she seemed to hear it mutter, &quot;This vain noise must cease.&quot; The idea of
+the flesh was not their pleasure, but the next generation; the
+frustrated flesh was now putting them apart. She hummed the music, and
+the life she had lived continued to loom up and fall back into darkness
+like shapes seen in a faded picture. She had loved Owen, and sung a few
+operas, that was all. She remembered that everything was passing; the
+notes she sang existed only while she sang them, each was a little past.
+A moment approaches; it is ours, and no sooner is it ours than it has
+slipped behind us, even in the space of the indrawing of a breath. No
+wonder, then, that men had come to seek reality beyond this life; it was
+natural to believe that this life must be the shadow of another life
+lying beyond it, and she leaned forward, pale and nervous, in the pale
+grace of the Sheraton sofa.</p>
+
+<p>Her depression that morning was itself a mystery. What did it mean?
+Whence did it proceed? She had not lost her voice. Owen did not love her
+less. Ulick was coming to see her; but within her was an unendurable
+anxiety. It proceeded from nothing without; it was her own mind that
+frightened her. But just now she had been exalted and happy in the
+memory of that deeply emotional music. She tried to remember the exact
+moment when this strange, penetrating sorrow had fallen upon her.
+Whence had it come, and what did it mean? A few minutes ago it was not
+with her. She knew that it would not always be with her, yet it did not
+seem as if it would ever leave her. She could not think of herself as
+ever being happy again. But Ulick would distract this misery from her
+brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the
+music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above
+sorrow, would bear her out of and above the circle of personal
+despondency. Ulick might help her; she could not help herself. She was
+incapable of going to the piano, though she was fully conscious that her
+mood would pass away in music. She walked across the room, her eyes
+contracted with suffering, and she stretched herself like one who would
+rid herself of a burden.</p>
+
+<p>She felt as if she could resign with a little smile the part that she
+had to play in life. Not the past, that was no longer hers either to
+preserve or to blot out; she could not wish herself different from what
+she had been; but the future&mdash;was that to be the same as the past? Then,
+with an apparent contradiction to what she had been thinking a few
+moments before regarding the worthlessness of life, she began to think
+that her unhappiness was possibly the result of her eccentric life. She
+had lived in defiance of rules, governed by individual caprice.
+Apparently it had succeeded, but only apparently. Underneath the surface
+of her life she had always been unhappy. All her talent, all her
+intelligence had not been able to save her. And Owen? All that pride of
+intelligence had resulted in unhappiness in his case as in hers. Both
+had disobeyed the law which we feel to be right when we look into the
+very recesses of our soul, and that these laws seem foolish and
+illogical when criticised by the light of reason does not prove their
+untruth. There is something beyond reason, and to become concentric, to
+enter into the conventions, seemed to her in a vague and distant manner
+to be indispensable. She was weary of living in the inhospitable regions
+outside of prejudice and authority.... She felt that it was prejudice
+and authority that gave a meaning, or a sufficient semblance of a
+meaning, to life as it was; she was a helpless atom tossed hither and
+thither by every gust of passion as a leaf in a whirlwind, and she
+longed to understand herself and her mission in life.</p>
+
+<p>In her present attitude towards life, nothing mattered except the
+present reality, the satisfaction of the moment; her present conception
+of life only counselled sacrifice of personal desires for the sake of
+larger desires. But these larger satisfactions did not differ in kind
+from the lesser, and all went the same way, the pleasure we take in a
+bunch of violets, or that which a love story brings, and both pass, but
+one leaves neither remorse nor bitterness behind. A thought told her
+that she was, while in the midst of these moral reflections, preparing
+herself to be Ulick's mistress. She denied the thought and put it
+behind her angrily, attributing its intrusion to her nerves, and to
+separate herself from it she allowed thoughts on the mutability of
+things to again exclusively occupy her. If she were to get up from the
+sofa she would create another division in her life, and to-morrow she
+would not remember her mood of to-day; it would have vanished as if it
+had never been. She asked, What do we live for? and rose nervously from
+the sofa, and then stood still. That half-hour was now behind her; again
+her place in life had been shifted. Yesterday, too, was gone, and with
+it the pleasure of her walk with Ulick. She had walked with him
+yesterday in the Green Park, in the still crystal evening. She could
+almost see the two figures, she could see them at one spot, but if she
+looked too long they disappeared from her eyes. She remembered nothing
+of what they had said, only that the colour of the evening was pale
+blue, with a little east wind in it, and that was yesterday! They had
+talked and walked, and been tremulously interested in each other; but
+she remembered nothing that had been said until they turned to go home.
+Then arose an exact vision of herself and Ulick walking under the
+graceful trees which overhung the Piccadilly railings. There the park
+had been shaped into little dells, and it had reminded her of the
+picture in the Dulwich Gallery. There his pleading was more passionate.
+He had begged her to go away with him, and she had had to answer that
+she could not give Owen up. She had felt that it was better to speak
+frankly, though she was sorry to have to say things that would give him
+pain. She had told him the truth, and was glad she had done so, but she
+liked him very much, and had said it was a pity they had not met
+earlier. &quot;I missed you by about a year,&quot; he answered. His words came
+back to her, and she wondered if there was a cause for the accident, and
+if it could have been predicted. They had walked slowly up the pathways,
+and seeing the young summer in the sky and trees, they had walked as
+upon air, borne up by the sadness of finding themselves divided. They
+had thought of what forms and colours their lives would have taken if
+she had waited a few months, if she had not gone away with Owen; or,
+better still, if she had never met Owen. She was conscious that such
+thoughts amounted to an infidelity, and she knew that she did love Ulick
+as she loved Owen. But the temptation was cruelly intense, and she could
+not wrench herself out of its grip. Their voices had fallen, they
+suffocated in the silence. Ulick had mentioned Blake's name, and she had
+accepted an artistic discussion as an escapement, but their hearts were
+overloaded, and it was in answer to his own thoughts that Ulick had
+spoken of the eighteenth-century mystic. For the question had arisen in
+him whether the passions of the flesh are not destructive of spiritual
+exaltation, and he told her that exaltation was the gospel according to
+Blake. We must seek to exalt ourselves, to live in the idea; sexual
+passion was a merely inferior state, but mean content was the true
+degradation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then passion is the highest plane to which the materialist can rise?&quot;
+asked Evelyn, thinking of Owen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; I don't think I'm wrong in admitting that, in the main, that is
+Blake's contention.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But at this point he had broken off his discourse, and told an anecdote
+in his half-witty, half-wistful way about an article which he had
+written on Blake and which had somehow strayed into the hands of a man
+and his wife living in Normandy. This couple were at the time engaged in
+continuing the tradition of Bastien Lepage. They laboriously copied what
+they saw in the fields&mdash;grey days, hobnailed boots and the rest of it.
+His article had, however, awakened them to the vanity of realism; and
+they had taken their pictures to a neighbouring tower, and at the top of
+it made a holocaust of all their abominable endeavour. And a few days
+after, two faded human beings had presented themselves at Ulick's
+lodgings in Bloomsbury, seemingly at once unhappy and excited, and
+professing their complete willingness to accept the gospel of life
+according to Blake. It was the man who did the talking, the woman, who
+was dressed in olive-green garments, acquiesced in what he said. They
+were tired of materialism; they had trudged that bleak road till they
+were weary, and now they desired Blake, submission to Blake, and were
+therefore disappointed when Ulick explained that Blake's doctrine was
+not subordination to Blake, but the very opposite, the development of
+self, the cultivation of personal will.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was clear to me,&quot; Ulick said, &quot;that the woman had abased herself
+before the man, that she ate what he ate, drank what he drank, thought
+what he thought, so I decided that we should begin with first
+principles; that the woman should decide for herself, without referring
+to her husband, what she should eat for dinner. But after some efforts
+to attain sufficient personal will, she confessed her incapacity, and I
+therefore proposed to the husband that she should be kept in her room
+until she had regained her will. They went away hopeful, but he called a
+few days after to tell me that the experiment had failed. For after
+striving for many hours to decide between soles and plaice, she had
+burst into tears, and I felt I could not advise him further.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It had seemed a pity to ask Ulick how much of this story was true, how
+much invention; and it was a remembrance of the will-less lady in the
+olive-green gown that caused Evelyn's face to light up into smiles as
+she stood at the window watching for his coming.</p>
+
+<p>Her excuse for not marrying Owen was that she would have to retire from
+the stage. But she was not convinced that that was the real reason.
+There seemed to be another reason at the back of her mind which her
+reason could not drag out. She tried again and again, but it eluded
+her, and it was frightening to find that she had so little knowledge of
+the motives that had determined her life. Feeling that she must change
+her thoughts, she asked herself what a man like Ulick, of spiritual
+temperament, but uninfected with religious dogma, would think of her
+relations with Owen. &quot;Ah, that was the front door bell!&quot; She waited in a
+delicious tremble of expectation, and the servant announcing Sir Owen
+awoke her, and with a shock as painful as if she had been struck on the
+nape of the neck.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_ONE'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE</h2>
+
+<p>On account of the numerous rehearsals demanded by Evelyn for the
+production of &quot;Tristan and Isolde,&quot; Mr. Hermann Goetze's opera season
+was limited to four nights a week. But the hours she spent in the
+theatre were only a small part of the time she devoted to her idea. Her
+entire life was lived in or about the new incarnation, her whole life
+seemed to converge and rush into an ultimate channel, and Lady Ascott
+sought her in vain. She avoided social distractions, and the friends she
+saw were those who could talk to her about her idea. But while listening
+she forgot them, and absorbed in her dream strayed round the piano. She
+meditated journeys to Cornwall and Brittany; and one day when Owen
+called he heard that she had gone to Ireland, and was expected back
+to-morrow evening. She read Isolde into the morning paper, receiving
+hints from the cases that came up before the magistrates. She found
+Isolde in every book, all that happened seemed extraordinarily
+fortuitous, the light of her idea revealing significance in the most
+ordinary things. Her life was ransacked like an old work-box, all kinds
+of stages of mentality, opinions, beliefs, prejudices, trite and
+conventional enough, came up and were thrown aside. But now and then the
+memory of an emotion, of a feeling, would prove to be just what she
+wanted to add a moment's life to her Isolde; the memory of a gesture, of
+a look was sufficient, and she sank back in her chair, her eyes dilated
+and moody, thinking how she could work this truth to herself into the
+harmony of the picture she was elaborating.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn had seen Rosa Sucher play the part, and had admired her rendering
+as far as we can admire that which is not only antagonistic, but even
+discordant to our own natures. She admitted it to be very sweeping,
+triumphant and loud, a fine braying of trumpets from the rise to the
+fall of the curtain. Rosa Sucher had no doubt attained an extraordinary
+oneness of idea, but at what price? Her Isolde was a hurricane, a sort
+of avalanche; and the woman was lost in the storm. She had missed the
+magic of the woman who, personal to our flesh and dream, breaks upon our
+life like the Spring; and this was just what Evelyn wanted to out on the
+stage. There was plenty of breadth, but it was breadth at the price of
+accent. There was a great frame and a sort of design within the frame,
+but in Evelyn's sense the picture was wanting. There was an
+extraordinary and incomprehensible neglect of that personal accent
+without which there is no life. And the difference between the Isolde
+who has not drunk, and the Isolde who has drunk the love potion which
+she, Evelyn, was so intent upon indicating, had never occurred to Rosa
+Sucher, or if it had, it had been swept aside as a negligible detail.
+After all, Isolde has to be a woman a man could be in love with, and
+that is not the impact and the shriek of a gale from the south-west. No
+doubt Rosa Sucher's idea of the part was Wagner's idea at one moment of
+his life. Wagner was a man with hundreds of ideas; he tried them all,
+retaining some and discarding others. Some half-dozen have fixed
+themselves immutably in certain minds, and an undue importance is given
+to them, an importance that Wagner would never have allowed. The absurd
+idea, propounded in the heat of controversy, that all the arts were to
+wax to one art in the music drama, that even sculpture was to be
+represented by attitudes of the actors and actresses! Wagner had written
+this thing in order to confound his enemies and bring the weak-kneed to
+his side, or maybe, it was merely written to make himself clear to
+himself. For it was impossible that a man of genius should be so
+seriously wanting in appreciation of sculpture as to think with the
+centre of his brain, that an actor standing, his hand on his hip, could
+fill the place hitherto occupied in the mind by, let us say, the Hermes
+of Praxiteles. Yet this idea still obtained at Bayreuth, and Rosa Sucher
+walked about, her arms raised and posed above her head, in the
+conventional, statuesque attitude designed for the decoration of beer
+gardens.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It really is very sad,&quot; Evelyn said, her eyes twinkling with the humour
+of the idea, &quot;that anyone should think that such figuration could
+replace sculpture.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you will not deny that the actor and the actress can supply part of
+the picturesqueness of a dramatic action.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, indeed; but not by attitudinising, but by gestures that tell the
+emotion that is in the mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>By some obscure route of which they were not aware, these artistic
+discussions wound around the idea which dominated their minds, and they
+were led back to it continually. The story of &quot;Tristan and Isolde&quot;
+seemed to be their own story, and when their eyes met, each divined what
+was passing in the other's mind. The music was afloat on the currents of
+their blood. It gathered in the brain, paralysing it, and the nervous
+exhaustion was unbearable about six, when the servant had taken away the
+tea things; and as the afternoon drooped and the beauty of the summer
+evening began in the park, speech seemed vain, and they could not bring
+themselves to argue any longer.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite true that she had begun to feel the blankness of the
+positivist creed, if it were possible to call it a creed. There seemed
+nothing left of it, it seemed to have shrivelled up like a little
+withered leaf; true or false, it meant nothing to her, it crushed up
+like a dried leaf, and the dust escaped through her fingers. Then
+without any particular reason she remembered a phrase she had heard in
+the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As I always says, if one man isn't enough for a woman, twenty aren't
+too many.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The homeliness of this speech seemed to accentuate the moral truth, and
+making application of it to herself, she felt that if she were to take
+another lover she would not stop at twenty. Her face contracted in an
+expression of disgust at this glimpse of her inner nature which had been
+flashed upon her; and looking into herself she could discover nothing
+but a talent for singing and acting. If she had not had her voice, God
+only knows what she would have been, and she turned her eyes from a
+vision of gradual decadence. If she were not to sink to the lowest, she
+must hold to her love of Owen, and not yield to her love of Ulick. This
+low nature which she could distinguish in herself she must conquer, or
+it would conquer her. &quot;If one man isn't enough for a woman, twenty are
+not too many.&quot; The humble working woman who had uttered these words was
+right.... If she were to give way she would have twenty and would end by
+throwing herself over one of the bridges.</p>
+
+<p>She felt that she must marry Owen, and under this conclusion she stopped
+like one who has come face to face with a blank wall. But did she love
+him well enough to marry him? She loved him, but was her present love as
+intense as the love that had obsessed her whole nature in Paris six
+years ago? She tried to think that it was, and found casual consolation
+in the thought that if she were not so mad about him now as she was
+then, her love was deeper; it had become a part of herself, and was
+founded on such knowledge of his character that nothing could change or
+alter it. She knew now that in spite of all his faults she could trust
+him, and that was something; she knew that his love for her was
+enduring, that it was not a mere passing passion, as it easily might
+have been. He had given her fame, wealth, position&mdash;everything a woman
+could desire. Some might blame him for having taken her away from her
+home, but she did not blame him, for she knew that she could not have
+remained with her father at that time. If she had not gone away with
+Owen she might have killed herself; something had given way within her,
+she had to do what she had done.</p>
+
+<p>But did she love Owen, or was she getting tired of him? It was so easy
+to ask and so difficult to answer these questions. However closely we
+look into our souls, some part of the truth escapes us. One always
+slurred something or exaggerated something.... She remembered that Owen
+had been very tiresome lately; his egoism was ceaseless; it got upon her
+nerves, and she felt that, no matter what happened to her, she could
+not endure it. There were his songs! How tired she was of talking about
+his songs, the long considerations whether this chord or the other
+chord, this modulation or another, were the better. He could not compose
+a dozen bars without having them engraved and sending copies to his
+friends. He wished the whole world to be occupied about him and his
+affairs. He was so childish about his music. Other people said, &quot;Oh,
+yes, very pretty,&quot; but she had to sing it. If she refused, it meant
+unpleasantness, and though he did not often say so, a charge of
+ingratitude, for, of course, without him she wouldn't have been able to
+sing at all. The worst of it was that he did not see the ridiculous
+side.</p>
+
+<p>When singing some of his songs, she had caught a look in people's eyes,
+a pitying look, and she could not help wondering if they thought that
+she liked such commonplace, or worse still, if they thought that she was
+obliged to sing it. But when she had remembered all he had done for her,
+it seemed quite a disgrace that she should hate to sing his songs. It
+was the one thing she could do to please him, and she reflected on her
+selfishness. She seemed to have no moral qualities; the idea she had
+expressed to Ulick regarding the necessity of chastity in women
+returned, and she felt sure that in women at least every other virtue is
+dependent on that virtue. But when Owen was ill she had travelled
+hundreds of miles to nurse him; she had not hesitated a moment, and she
+might have caught the fever. She wouldn't have done that if she did not
+love him.... She was always thinking how she could help him, she would
+do anything for him. But he was such a strange man. There were times
+when there was no one kinder, gentler, more affectionate, but at other
+times he turned round and snapped like a mad dog. The desire to be rude
+took him at times like a disease; this was his most obvious fault. But
+his worst fault, at least in her eyes, was his love of parade; his
+determination to appear to the world in the aspect which he thought was
+his by birth and position. Notwithstanding a seeming absence of
+affection and candour, he was always acting a part. True that he played
+the part very well; and his snobbery was never vulgar.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking of him profoundly, looking into his nature with the clear sight
+of six years of life with him, she decided that the essential fault was
+an inability to forego the temptation of the moment. For him the
+temptation of the moment was the greatest of all. He was the essential
+child, and had carried all the child's passionate egoism into his middle
+age. One gave way because everything seemed to mean so much more to him
+that it could to oneself. He could not be deprived of his toy; his toy
+came before everything. But why did he make himself offensive to many
+people by speaking against Christianity? It was so illogical to love
+art as he did and to hate religion.... He had listened much more
+indulgently to Ulick than she had expected, and seemed to perceive the
+picturesqueness of the gods, Angus and Lir. It was Christianity that
+irritated and changed him to the cynic he was not, and forced him into
+arguments which she hated: &quot;that when you went to the root of things, no
+one ever acted except from a selfish motive&quot; and his aphorism, &quot;I don't
+believe in temptations that one doesn't yield to.&quot; Her thoughts went
+back over years, to the very day he had said the words to her for the
+first time.... It was true in a way, but it was not the whole truth. But
+to him it was the whole truth, that was the unfortunate part of it, and
+his life was a complete exemplification of this theory, and the result
+was one of the unhappiest men on the face of the earth. He would tell
+you he had the finest place in the world, and the finest pictures in the
+world, yet these things did not save him from unhappiness. He could not
+understand that happiness is attained through renunciation. He had never
+renounced anything, and so his life was a mere triviality. The clearness
+of her vision surprised her; she paused a moment and then continued. He
+must always be amused, he could not bear to be alone. Distraction,
+distraction, distraction was his one cry. She had to combat the spectre
+of boredom and save the man from himself. Hitherto she had done this, it
+had been her pleasure, but if she married him it would become her
+mission, her duty, her life. Could she undertake it? Her heart sank. He
+had worn her out, she could do no more. She grew frightened, life seemed
+too much for her; and then she bit her lips, and vowed that whatever it
+cost her she would marry him if he wished her to.... If she did not mean
+to take the consequences, she ought not to have gone away with him. To
+be Owen's wife was perchance her mission.</p>
+
+<p>It had always been arranged that they were to be married when she left
+the stage. But he wished her to remain on the stage till she had played
+Kundry; but if she were going to leave the stage she did not care to
+delay, nor did she care for the part of Kundry. The meaning of the part
+escaped her.... So the time had come for her to offer herself to Owen.
+Whatever his desires might be, his honour would force him to say Yes. So
+there was no escape. Fate had decreed it so, she was to be his wife; but
+one thing she need not endure, and that was unnecessary suspense. She
+had decided to go to Lady Ascott's ball.... But she wouldn't see him
+there. He was kept indoors by the gout. He had written asking her to
+come and pass the evening with him.... She might call to see him on her
+way to the ball; yes, that is what she would do, and she sat down at
+once and wrote a note.</p>
+
+<p>And she laughed and talked during dinner, and was surprised when Lady
+Duckle remarked how pale and ill she was looking, for she thought she
+was making a fine outward show of high spirits. She and Lady Duckle
+were dining alone, and she tried to devise a plan for going to Berkeley
+Square without taking Lady Duckle into her confidence. The horrible
+scene with Owen flitted before her eyes while talking of other things.
+And so the evening dragged itself out in the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Olive, I want to make a call before going to Lady Ascott's; I will send
+the carriage back for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But we need not get there until a quarter to one. There will be plenty
+of time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well,&quot; Evelyn answered, as unconcernedly as she could. &quot;I'll be
+here a little after twelve.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In the carriage she remembered that she was going to the same house to
+tell him that she would be his wife as she had gone to tell him she
+would be his mistress.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sir Owen has been very bad to-day, miss,&quot; the butler said in a
+confidential undertone. &quot;It has taken him again in his right toe;&quot; and
+he leaned forward to open the door of Owen's private sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>She passed in, the door closed softly behind her, and she saw her lover
+lying in a large, chintz-covered arm-chair, full of cushions, deep like
+a feather bed. He held his book high, so that all the light of the
+electric lamp fell upon it, and the small, wrinkled face seemed to have
+suddenly grown older behind the spectacles, and the appearance at that
+moment was of a man just slipping over the years that divides middle
+from old age.</p>
+
+<p>In the single second that elapsed before they spoke, Evelyn felt and
+understood a great deal. Never had Owen seemed so like himself; the old
+age which so visibly had laid its wrinkles and infirmities upon him was
+clearly his old age, and the old age of his fathers before him. He was
+in his own old room, planned and ordered by himself. Even his arm-chair
+seemed characteristic of him. With whatever hardships he might put up in
+the hunting field or the deer forest, he believed in the deepest
+arm-chair that upholstery could stuff when he came home. In this room
+were his personal pictures, those he had bought himself. They, of
+course, included a beautiful woman by Gainsborough, and a pellucid
+evening sky, with a group of pensive trees, by Corot. There were
+beautiful painted tables and chairs, and marble and ormolu clocks, the
+refined and gracious designs of the best periods; and the sight of Owen
+sitting amid all these attempts to capture happiness, revealed to her
+the moral idea of which this man was but a symbol; and the thought that
+life without a moral purpose is but a passing spectre, and that our
+immortality lies in our religious life, occurred to her again. His first
+remark, too, about his gout, that it wasn't much, but just enough to
+make life a curse&mdash;could she tell him what end was served by torturing
+us in this way?&mdash;laid, as it were, an accent upon the thoughts of him
+that were passing in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>It was that crouching attitude in the arm-chair that had made him seem
+so old. Now that he had taken off his spectacles, and was standing up,
+he did not look older than his age. He wore a silk shirt and a black
+velvet smoking suit, and had kept his figure&mdash;it still went in at the
+waist. She admired him for a moment and then pitied him, for he limped
+painfully and pulled over one of his own chairs for her. But she
+declined it, choosing a less comfortable one, feeling that she must sit
+straight up if she were to moralise. She had imagined that the subject
+would introduce itself in the course of conversation, and that it would
+develop imperceptibly. She had imagined that they would speak of the
+first performance of &quot;Tristan and Isolde,&quot; now distant but a couple of
+days, or of Lady Ascott's ball, at which she had promised to appear. But
+Owen had spoken of a song which he had re-written that afternoon, not
+having anything else to do. He believed he had immensely improved it,
+and wished that she would try it over. To sing one of his songs, to
+decipher manuscript, was the last thing she felt she could do, and the
+proposal irritated her. Her whole life was at stake; it had cost her a
+great deal to come to the decision that she must either marry him or
+send him away. Partly on purpose, and partly because she could not help
+it, her face assumed a calm and fixed expression which he knew well.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, you're going to say something disagreeable. Don't, I've had
+enough to worry me lately; there's my mother's health, and this,
+miserable attack of gout.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope you won't think what I've come to say disagreeable, but one
+never knows.&quot; He waited anxiously, and after some pause she said, though
+it seemed to her that she had come to the point much too abruptly,
+&quot;Owen, was it not arranged that we should marry when I left the stage?&quot;
+She had not been able to lend herself to the diplomatic subtleties which
+she had been considering all the evening, and had stumbled in the first
+step. But the mistake had been made, they were face to face with the
+question&mdash;it was for her not to give way. She had noticed the look that
+had passed between his eyes, and she was not surprised at the slight
+evasion of his answer, &quot;But you are going to sing Kundry next year?&quot; for
+she knew him to be naturally as averse to marriage as she was herself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think I should succeed as Kundry. I don't know what the part
+means.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But she's a penitent. You like penitents; your Elisabeth&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Elizabeth is different. Elizabeth is an inward penitent, Kundry is an
+external, and you know I can do nothing with externalities.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He did not understand, and it was impossible to explain without entering
+into a complete exposition of Ulick's idea regarding &quot;Parsifal.&quot; The
+subject of &quot;Parsifal&quot; had always been disagreeable to him, but he had
+not been able to find any argument against the art of it. So the
+criticism &quot;revolting hypocrisy,&quot; &quot;externality,&quot; and the statement that
+the prelude to &quot;Lohengrin&quot; was an inspiration, whereas the prelude to
+&quot;Parsifal&quot; was but a marvellous piece of handicraft, delighted him. He
+had always known these things, but had not been able to give them
+expression. He wondered how Evelyn had attained to so clear an
+understanding, and then, unconsciously detecting another mind in the
+argument, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder what Ulick Dean thinks of 'Parsifal?' Something original, I'm
+sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She could not explain that she had not intended to deceive; she could
+not tell him that she was so pressed and obsessed by the question of her
+marriage that she hardly knew what she was saying, and had repeated
+Ulick's ideas mechanically. She already seemed to stand convicted of
+insincerity. He evidently suspected her, and all the while he spoke of
+Ulick and &quot;Parsifal,&quot; she suffered a sort of trembling sickness, and
+that he should have perceived whence her enlightenment had come
+embittered her against him. Suddenly he came to the end of what he had
+to say; their eyes met, and he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, Evelyn, we'll be married next week; is that soon enough?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The abruptness of his choice fell upon her so suddenly, that she
+answered stupidly that next week would do very well. She felt that she
+ought to get up and kiss him, and she was painfully conscious that her
+expression was the reverse of pleased.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't want to limp to the altar; were it not for the gout I'd say
+to-morrow.... But something has happened, something has forced you to
+this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He did not dare to suggest scruples of conscience. But his thoughts were
+already back in Florence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only that you often have said you'd like to marry me. One never knows
+if such things are true. It may have been mere gallantry on your part;
+on the other hand, I am vain enough to believe that perhaps you meant
+it.&quot; Then it seemed to her that she must be sincere. &quot;As I am determined
+that our present relations shall cease, there was no help for it but to
+come and tell you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were cast down; the expression of her face was calm resolution,
+whereas his face betrayed anxiety, and the twitching and pallor of the
+eyes a secret indecision with which he was struggling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I suppose it is scruples of conscience.... You've been to Mass at
+St. Joseph's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We won't enter into that question. We've talked it for the last six
+years; you cannot change me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The desire to please was inveterate in her, and she felt that she had
+never been so displeasing, and she was aware that he was showing to
+better advantage in this scene than she was. She wished that he had
+hesitated; if he had only given her some excuse for&mdash;She did not finish
+the sentence in her mind, but thought instead that she liked him better
+when he wasn't so good; goodness did not seem to suit him.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a beautiful attractive gown, a mauve silk embroidered with
+silver irises, and he regretted his gout which kept him from the ball.
+He caught sight of her as she passed down the glittering floor, saving
+with a pretty movement of her shoulders the dress that was slipping from
+them, he saw himself dancing with her.... They passed in front of a
+mirror, and looking straight over her shoulder his eyes followed the
+tremulous sparkle of the diamond wings which she wore in her hair. Then,
+yielding to an impulse of which he was not ashamed, for it was as much
+affection as it was sensual, he drew over a chair&mdash;he would have knelt
+at her feet had it not been for his gout&mdash;and passing his arm about her
+waist, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest, I'm very fond of you, you know that. It is not my fault if I
+prefer to be your lover rather than your husband.&quot; He kissed her on her
+shoulders, laying his cheek on her bosom. &quot;Don't you believe that I am
+fond of you, Evelyn?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Owen, I think you are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not a very enthusiastic reply. It used to be you who delighted to throw
+your arms about my neck. But all that is over and done with.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One is not always in such humours, Owen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Watching each other's eyes they were conscious of their souls; every
+moment it seemed as if their souls must float up and be discovered; and,
+while fearing discovery, there came a yearning to stand out of all
+shadow in the full light. But they could not tell their souls; words
+fell back abortive; and they recognised the mortal lot of alienation;
+and rebelling against it, he held her face, he sought her lips, but she
+turned her face aside, leaving him her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you turn your lips away? It is a long time since I've kissed you
+... you're cold and indifferent lately, Evelyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A memory of Ulick shot through her mind, and he would have divined her
+thought if his perception had not been blinded by the passion which
+swayed him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Owen, no. We're an engaged couple; we're no longer lovers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you think that we should begin by respecting the marriage
+ceremony?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to lose sight of him, she perceived only the general idea,
+that outline of her life which he represented, and which she could in a
+way trace in the furniture of the room. It was in this room she had said
+she would be his mistress. It was from this room she had started for
+Paris. Her eyes lighted on the harpsichord. He had bought it in some
+vague intention of presenting it to her father, some day when they were
+reconciled; the viola da gamba he had bought for her sake; it was the
+poor little excuse he had devised for coming to see her at Dulwich.</p>
+
+<p>She saw the Gainsborough: how strange and remote it seemed! She looked
+at the Corot, its sentimentality was an irritation. In the Chippendale
+bookcases there were many books she had given him; and the white chimney
+piece was covered with her photographs. There he was, a tall, thin man,
+elegant and attractive notwithstanding the forty-five years, dressed in
+a silk shirt and a black smoking suit. Their eyes met again, she could
+see that he was thinking it over; but it was all settled now, neither
+could draw back, and the moments were tense and silent; and as if
+confronted by some imminent peril, she wondered.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You arranged that I should leave the stage when I married, and you say
+that we are to be married next week. You don't want me to throw up my
+engagement at Covent Garden? I should like to play Isolde.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course you must play Isolde; I must hear you sing Isolde.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She felt that she must get up and thank him, she felt that she must be
+nice to him; and laying her hand on his shoulder, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope I don't seem ungrateful; you have always been very good to me,
+Owen. I hope I shall make a good wife.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think I am less changed than you; I don't think you care for me as
+you used to.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I do, Owen, but I am not always the same. I can't help myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He watched her face; she had forgotten him, she was again thinking of
+herself. She had tried to be sincere, but again had been mastered by her
+mood. No, she did not dislike him, but she wished for an interval, a
+temporary separation. It seemed to her that she didn't want to see him
+for some weeks, some months, perhaps. If he would consent to such an
+alienation, she felt that she would come back fonder of him than ever.
+All this did not seem very sane, but she could not think otherwise, and
+the desire of departure was violent in her as a nostalgia.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We have been very fond of each other. I wonder if we shall be as happy
+in married life? Do you think we shall?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope so, Owen, but somehow I don't see myself as Lady Asher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know everyone&mdash;Lady Ascott, Lady. Somersdean, they are all your
+friends, it will be just the same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it'll be just the same.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He did not catch the significance of the repetition. He was thinking of
+the credit she would do him as Lady Asher. He heard his friends
+discussing his marriage at the clubs. She was going to Lady Ascott's
+ball, and would announce her engagement there. To-morrow everyone would
+be talking about it. He would like his engagement known, but not while
+she was on the stage. But when he mentioned this, she said she did not
+see why their engagement should be kept a secret. It did not matter
+much; he was quite ready to give way, but he could not understand why
+the remark should have angered her. And her obstinacy frightened him not
+a little. If he were to find a different woman in his wife from the
+woman he had loved in the opera singer!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, you have lived with me in spite of your scruples for the last
+six years; why should we not go on for one more year? When you have sung
+Kundry, we can be married.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, do you think you want to marry me? Is not your offer mere
+chivalry? <i>Noblesse oblige</i>?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>That he was still master of the situation caused a delicious pride to
+mount to his head. For a moment he could not answer, then he asked if
+she were sure that she had not come to care for someone else, and
+feeling this to be ineffective, he added&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've always noticed that when women change their affections, they
+become a prey to scruples of conscience.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I cared for anyone else, should I come to you to-night and offer to
+marry you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're a strange woman; it would not surprise me if the reason why you
+wish to be married is because you're afraid of a second lover. That
+would be very like you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His words startled her in the very bottom of her soul; she had not
+thought of such a thing, but now he mentioned it, she was not sure that
+he had not guessed rightly.</p>
+
+<p>How well he understood one side of her nature; how he failed to
+understand the other! It was this want in him that made marriage between
+them impossible. She smiled mysteriously, for she was thinking how far
+and how near he had always been.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Tell me, Evelyn, tell me truly, is it on account of religious scruples,
+or is it because you are afraid of falling in love with Ulick Dean, that
+you came here to-night and asked me to marry you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, we can live in contradiction to our theories, but not in
+contradiction to our feelings, and you know that my life has always
+seemed to me fundamentally wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he seemed to understand, but his egotism intervened, and a
+moment after he understood nothing, except that for some stupid morality
+she was about to break her artistic career sharp off.</p>
+
+<p>He strove to think what was passing behind that forehead. He tried to
+read her soul in the rounded temples, the bright, nervous eyes. His and
+her understanding of life and the mystery of life were as wide apart as
+the earth and the moon, and he could but stare wondering. No inkling of
+the truth reached him. As he strove to understand her mind he grew
+irritated, and turned against that shadow religion which had always
+separated them. Without knowing why&mdash;almost in spite of himself&mdash;he
+began to argue with her. He reminded her of her inconsistencies. She had
+always said that a lover was much more exciting than a husband. If it
+had not been for her religion, he did not believe they would have
+thought of marriage, they would have gone on to the end as they had
+begun. The sound of his voice entered her ears, but the meaning of the
+words did not reach her brain, and when she had said that she had come
+to him not on account of Ulick, but on account of her conscience, she
+sat perplexed, trying to discover if she had told the truth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're not listening, Evelyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I am, Owen. You said that I had always said that a lover was much
+more exciting than a husband.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If so, why then&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They stared blankly at each other. Everything had been said. They were
+engaged to be married. What was the use of further argument? She
+mentioned that it was getting late, and that Lady Duckle was waiting for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She will tell her first,&quot; he thought, &quot;and she'll tell Lady Ascott.
+They'll all be talking of it at supper. 'So Owen has gone off at last,'
+they'll say. I'll hear of it at the club to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wonder what Lady Ascott will think?&quot; he said, as he put her into the
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know.... I shall not go to the ball. Tell him to take me home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She lay back in the blue shadows of the brougham, striving to come to
+terms with herself, to arrive at some plain conclusion. It seemed to her
+that she had been animated by an honest and noble purpose. She had gone
+to Owen in the intention of marrying him if he wished to marry her,
+because it had seemed to her that it was her duty to marry him. But
+everything had turned out the very opposite of what she had intended,
+and looking back upon the hour she had spent with him, it seemed to her
+that she had certainly deceived him. She certainly had deceived herself.</p>
+
+<p>She could not believe that she was going to marry Owen. She felt that it
+was not to be, and before the presentiment her her soul paused. She
+asked herself why she felt that it was not to be. There was no reason;
+but she felt quite clear on the point, and could not combat the clear
+conviction. She began thinking the obvious drama&mdash;Owen discovering her
+with Ulick, declining ever to see her again, her suicide or his, etc.
+But she could not believe that Owen would decline ever to see her again
+even if&mdash;but she was not going to go wrong with Ulick, there was no use
+supposing such things, And again her thoughts paused, and like things
+frightened by the dark, withdrew silently, not daring to look further.</p>
+
+<p>She met Ulick every night at the theatre, and she had him to sit with
+her in her dressing-room during the entr'actes.... She remembered the
+pleasure she had taken in these conversations, and the strange, whirling
+impulse which drew them all the while closer, until they dreaded the
+touching of their knees. She had taken him back in the carriage and he
+had kissed her; she had allowed him to kiss her the other night, and she
+knew that if she were alone with him again that she would not be able to
+resist the temptation. Her thoughts turned a little, and she considered
+what her life would be if she were to yield to Ulick. Her life would
+become a series of subterfuges, and in a flash of thought she saw how,
+after spending the afternoon with Ulick, she would come home to find
+Owen waiting for her: he would take her in his arms, she would have to
+free herself, and, feeling his breath upon her cheek, save herself
+somehow from his kiss. He would suspect and question her. He would say,
+&quot;Give me your word of honour that Ulick Dean is not your lover;&quot; and she
+heard herself pledge her word in a lie, and the lie would have to be
+repeated again and again.</p>
+
+<p>Until she had met Ulick, she had not seen a man for years whose thoughts
+ranged above the gross pleasure of the moment, the pleasure of eating,
+of drinking, of love-making ... and she was growing like those people.
+The other night at dinner at the Savoy she had looked round the table at
+the men's faces, some seven or eight, varying in age from twenty-four to
+forty-eight, and she had said to herself, &quot;Not one of these men has done
+anything worth doing, not one has even tried.&quot; Looking at the men of
+twenty-four, she had said to herself, &quot;He will do all the man of
+forty-eight has done,&mdash;the same dinners, the same women, the same
+racecourses, the same shooting, the same tireless search after
+amusement, the same life unlit by any ideal.&quot; She was no better, Owen
+was no better. There was no hope for either of them? He had surrounded
+her with his friends, and she thought of the invitations ahead of her.
+Her profession of an opera singer chained her to this life.... She felt
+that a miracle would have to happen to extricate her from the social
+mire into which she was sinking, sinking.</p>
+
+<p>To give up Ulick would only make matters worse. He was the plank she
+clung to in the shipwreck of all her convictions. She could not tell how
+or why, but the conviction was overpowering that she could not give him
+up. Happen what might happen, she must see him. If Owen were to go for a
+sea voyage.... In three or four months she would have acquired that
+something which he could give her and which was necessary to complete
+her soul. She seemed to be quite certain on this point, and she lay back
+in the brougham lost in vague wonderment.  Her thoughts sank still
+deeper, and thoughts came to her that had never come before, that she
+had never dared to think before. Even if she were not done with Ulick
+when Owen returned, it seemed to her that she could make them and
+herself very happy; they both seemed necessary to her happiness, to her
+fulfilment; and in her dream, for she was not responsible for her
+thoughts, the enjoyment of this double love seemed to her natural and
+beautiful....</p>
+
+<p>But she awoke from her dream frightened, and feeling like one who has
+lost the clue which was to lead her out of the labyrinth.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of sending the footman to tell Lady Duckle that the carriage was
+waiting, Evelyn got out and went up to the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Olive, but I can't go with you.
+Tell Lady Ascott I am very sorry. Good-night, I'm going to my room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, my dear Evelyn, not going ... and now that you're dressed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn allowed herself to be persuaded. If she went to bed now she would
+not sleep. She went to the ball with Lady Duckle, and as she went round
+in the lancers, giving her hand first to one and then to the other, she
+heard a voice crying within her, &quot;Why are you doing these things? They
+don't interest you at all.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_TWO'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO</h2>
+
+<p>&quot;Eternal night, oh, lovely night, oh, holy night of love.&quot; Rapture
+succeeded rapture, and the souls of the lovers rose, nearer to the
+surface of life. In a shudder of silver chords he saw them float away
+like little clouds towards the low rim of the universe.</p>
+
+<p>But at that moment of escape reality broke in upon the dream. Melot had
+betrayed them, and Ulick heard King Mark's noble and grave reproaches
+like a prophecy, &quot;Thou wert my friend and didst deceive me,&quot; he sang,
+and his melancholy motive seemed to echo like a cry along the shore of
+Ulick's own life. Amid calm and mysteriously exalted melodies,
+expressive of the terror and pathos of fate fulfilled, Tristan's resolve
+took shape, and as he fell mortally wounded, the melancholy Mark motive
+was heard again, and again Ulick asked what meaning it might have for
+him. He heard the applause, loud in the stalls, growing faint as it rose
+tier above tier. Baskets of flowers, wreaths and bouquets were thrown
+from the boxes or handed up from the orchestra, the curtain was rung up
+again, and her name was called from different parts of the theatre. And
+when the curtain was down for the last time, he saw her in the middle of
+the stage talking to Tristan and Brang&auml;ne. The garden scene was being
+carried away, and to escape from it Evelyn took Tristan's hand and ran
+to the spot where Ulick was standing. She loosed the hand of her stage
+lover, and dropping a bouquet, held out two small hands to Ulick covered
+with violet powder. The hallucination of the great love scene was still
+in her eyes; it still, he could see, surged in her blood. She had nearly
+thrown herself into his arms, seemed regardless of those around; she
+seemed to have only eyes for him; he heard her say under her breath,&quot;
+That music maddens me,&quot; then with sudden composure, but looking at him
+intently, she asked him to come upstairs with her.</p>
+
+<p>For the last few days he had been engaged in prediction, and last night
+he had been visited by dreams, the significance of which he could not
+doubt. But his reading of her horoscope had been incomplete, or else he
+had failed to understand the answers. That he was a momentous event in
+her life seemed clear, yet all the signs were set against their
+marriage; but what was happening had been revealed&mdash;that he should stand
+with her in a room where the carpet was blue, and they were there; that
+the furniture should be of last century, and he examined the cabinets in
+the corners, which were satinwood inlaid with delicate traceries, and on
+the walls were many mirrors and gold and mahogany frames.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Merat!&quot; The maid came from the dressing-room. &quot;You have some friends in
+front. You can go and sit with them. I sha'n't want you till the end.&quot;
+When the door closed, their eyes met, and they trembled and were in
+dread. &quot;Come and sit by me.&quot; She indicated his place by her side on the
+sofa. &quot;We are all alone. Talk to me. How did I sing to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never did the music ever mean so much as it did to-night,&quot; he said,
+sitting down.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did it mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Everything. All the beauty and the woe of existence were in the music
+to-night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Their thoughts wandered from the music, and an effort was required to
+return to it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you remember,&quot; she said, with a little gasp in her voice, &quot;how the
+music sinks into the slumber motive, 'Hark, beloved;' then he answers,
+'Let me die'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and with the last note the undulating tune of the harps begins in
+the orchestra. Brang&auml;ne is heard warning them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They sat looking at each other. In sheer desperation she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And that last phrase of all, when the souls of the lovers seemed to
+float away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Over the low rim of the universe&mdash;like little clouds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And then?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He tried to speak of his ideas, but he could not collect his thoughts,
+and after a few sentences he said, &quot;I cannot talk of these things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The room seemed to sway and cloud, and her arms to reach out
+instinctively to him, and she would have fallen into his arms if he had
+not suddenly asked her what had been decided at Sir Owen Asher's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me kiss you, Evelyn,&quot; he said, &quot;or I shall go mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Ulick, this is not nice of you. I shall not be able to ask you to
+my room again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He let go her hand, and she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm not going to marry Sir Owen, but I must not let you kiss me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you must, Evelyn, you must.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why must I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you not feel that it is to be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is to be?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not know what, but I have been drawn towards you so long a
+while&mdash;long before I saw you, ever since I heard your name, the moment I
+saw that old photograph in the music-room, I knew.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What did you know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I heard your name it called up an image in my mind, and that image
+has never wholly left me&mdash;it comes back often like a ghost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you were thinking of something different?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am your destiny, or one of your destinies.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were fixed eagerly upon him; his darkness and the mysteries he
+represented attracted her, and she even felt she could follow. At the
+same moment his eyes seemed the most beautiful in the world, and she
+desired him to make love to her. While enticing, she resisted him, now
+more feebly, and when he let go her hands she sat looking at him,
+wondering how she was to get through the evening without kissing him....
+She spoke to him about his opera. He asked her if she were going to sing
+it, and she looked at him with vague, uncertain eyes. He said he knew
+she never would. She asked him why he thought so, and again a great
+longing bent him towards her. She withdrew her hands and face from his
+lips, and they had begun to talk of other things when he perceived her
+face close to his. Unable to resist he kissed her cheek, fearing that
+she would order him from the room. But at the instant of the touching of
+his lips, she threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down as a
+mermaiden draws her mortal lover into the depths, and in a wondering
+world of miraculous happiness he surrendered himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest, dearest,&quot; he said, raising himself to look at her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ulick, Ulick,&quot; she said, &quot;let me kiss you, I've longed such a while.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He thought he had never seen so radiant a face. What disguise had
+fallen? And looking at her, he strove to discover the woman who had
+denied him so often. This new woman seemed made all of light and love
+and transport, the woman of all his divinations, the being the old
+photograph in the old music-room had warned him of, the being that the
+voice of his destiny had told him he was to meet. And as they stood by
+the fireplace looking into each other's eyes, he gradually became aware
+of his happiness. It broke in his heart with a thrill and shiver like an
+exquisite dawn, opal and rose; the brilliancy of her eyes, the rapture
+of her face, the magnetic stirring of the little gold curls along her
+forehead were so wonderful that he feared her as an enchanter fears the
+spirit he has raised. Like one who has suddenly chanced on the hilltop,
+he gazed on the prospect, believing it all to be his. They stood gazing
+into each other's eyes too eager to speak, and when she called his name
+he remembered the legended forest, and replied with the song of the bird
+that leads Siegfried to Brunnhilde. She laughed, and sang the next two
+bars, and then seemed to forget everything.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest, of what are you thinking?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only if I ever shall kiss you again, Ulick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You will always kiss me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer, and, frightened by her irresponsive eyes, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Evelyn, you must love me, me&mdash;only me; you will never see him
+again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer, and when he spoke, his voice trembled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it is impossible you can ever marry him now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am not going to marry Owen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You told him so the other night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I told him, or very nearly, that I could not marry him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You cannot marry him, you love me.... But why don't you answer. What
+are you thinking of?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only of you, dear.... Let me kiss you again,&quot; and in the embrace he
+forgot for the moment the inquietude her answer had caused him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is my call,&quot; she said. &quot;How am I to sing the Liebestod after all
+this? How does it begin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick sang the opening phrase, and she continued the music for some
+bars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope I shall get through it all right. Then,&quot; she said, &quot;we shall go
+home together in the brougham.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a knock was heard, and Merat entered. &quot;Mademoiselle, you
+have no time to lose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The call boy's voice was heard on the stairs, and Evelyn hastened away.
+Ulick followed, and the first thing he heard when he got on the stage
+was Tristan's death motive. He listened, not so much to the music itself
+as to its occult significance regarding Evelyn and himself. And as
+Isolde's grief changed from wild lament for sensual delight to a
+resigned and noble prayer, the figure of ecstasy broke with a sound as
+of wings shaking, and Ulick seemed to witness a soul's transfiguration.
+He watched it rising in several ascensions, like a lark's flight. For an
+instant it seemed to float in some divine consummation, then, like the
+bird, to suddenly quench in the radiance of the sky. The harps wept
+farewell over the bodies of the lovers, then all was done, and he stood
+at the wings listening to the applause. She came to him at once, as soon
+as the curtain was down.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How did I sing it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As well as ever.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you seem sad; what is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It seemed to mean something&mdash;something, I cannot tell what, something
+to do with us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; she said, looking at him. &quot;I was only thinking of the music. Wait
+for me, dear, I shall not keep you long.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He walked up and down the stage, and in his hand was a wreath that some
+admirer had kept for the last. For excitement he could hardly bid the
+singers good-night as they passed him. Now it was Tristan, now Brang&auml;ne,
+now one of the chorus. The question raged within him. Was it fated that
+she should marry him? So far as he understood the omens she would not;
+but the readings were obscure, and his will threw itself out in
+opposition to the influence of Sir Owen. But he was not certain that
+that was the direction whence the danger was coming. He could only
+exert, however, his will in that direction. At last he saw her coming
+down the steep stairs, wrapped in a white opera cloak. They walked in
+silence&mdash;she all rapture, but his happiness already clouded. The
+brougham was so full of flowers that they, could hardly find place for
+themselves. She drew him closer, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What is the matter, dear? Am I not nice to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Evelyn, you're an enchantment. Only&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only what, dear?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I fear our future. I fear I shall lose you. All has come true so far,
+the end must happen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She drew his arm about her waist, and laid his face on her bare
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let there be no foreboding. Live in the present.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The future is too near us. Say you'll marry me, or else I shall lose
+you altogether. It is the one influence on our side.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was born, he said, under two great influences, but each could be
+modified; one might be widened, the other lessened, and both
+modifications might finally resolve into her destiny. So far as he could
+read her future, it centred in him or another. That other, he was sure,
+was not Sir Owen, nor was it himself, he thought; for when she and he
+had met in the theatre, she had experienced no dread, but he had dreaded
+her, recognising her as his destiny. He had even recognised her as
+Evelyn Innes before she had been pointed out to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you had seen my photograph?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it was not by your photograph that I knew you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And you knew that I should care for you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew that something had to happen. But you did not feel that I was
+your destiny. You said you experienced no dread, but when you met Sir
+Owen did you experience none?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose I did. I was afraid of him. At first I think I hated him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, Evelyn, we shall not marry&mdash;it is not our fate. You see that you
+cannot say you will marry me. Another fate is beckoning you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is it who beckons me? Have I already met him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He fell to dreaming again, and Evelyn asked him vainly to describe this
+other man.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why are you singing that melancholy Mark motive?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not know I was singing it.&quot; He returned to his dream again, but
+starting from it, he seized her hands.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn,&quot; he said, &quot;we must marry; a reason obliges us. Have you not
+thought of it?&quot; And then, as if he had not noticed that she had not
+answered his question, he said, &quot;On your father's account, if he should
+ever know. Think what my position is. I have betrayed my friend. That is
+why the Marie motive has been singing in my head. Evelyn, you must say
+you will marry me. We must marry at once, for your father's sake. I have
+betrayed him, my best friend.... I have acted worse than that other
+man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ulick, dear, open the window; the scent of these flowers is
+overpowering.... That is better. Throw some of those bouquets into the
+street. We might give them to those poor men, they might be able to sell
+them.... Tell the coachman to stop.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The chime of destiny sounded clearer than ever in their ears; it seemed
+as if they could almost catch the tune, and with a convulsive movement
+Evelyn drew her lover towards her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every hour threatens us,&quot; he said. &quot;Can you not hear? Do not go to Park
+Lane&mdash;Park Lane threatens; your friend Lady Duckle threatens. I see
+nothing but threats and menaces; all are leagued against us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dearest, we cannot spend the night driving about London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He sighed on his mistress's shoulder. She threw his black hair from his
+forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is no hope. We shall be separated, scattered to different winds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Why do you think that? How do you know these things, Ulick?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, in losing you I lose the principle of my life, but you will
+lose nothing in losing me. So it is written. But you are not listening;
+I am wearying you; you're clinging to the present, knowing that you will
+soon lose it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She threw herself upon him, and kissed him as if she would annihilate
+destiny on his lips, and until they reached Park Lane there was no
+future, only a delirious present for both of them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I won't ask you in; I am tired. Good-bye, dearest, good-bye. I'll
+write.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Remember that my time is short,&quot; and there was a strange accent in his
+voice which she did not hear till long after. She had locked herself
+into the sensual present, and, lulled in happy sensations of gratified
+sense, she allowed Merat to undress her. She thought of the soft luxury
+of her bed, and lay down, her brain full of floating impressions of
+flowers, music and of love.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_THREE'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE</h2>
+
+<p>And when Merat called her in the morning, she was dreaming of love. She
+turned over, and, closing her eyes, strove to continue her dream, but it
+fled like moonshine from her memory, and was soon so far distant that
+she could not even perceive the subject of it. And she awoke in spite of
+herself, and sat up in bed sipping her chocolate; and then lay back upon
+the pillow with Ulick for the inner circle of her thought. It seemed
+that she could think of him for hours; the romance of his personality
+carried her on and on. At one moment she dwelt on the gold glow in his
+dark eyes, the paint-like blackness of his hair, and his long thin
+hands. At another her fancy liked to evoke his superstitions. For him
+the past, present and future were not twain, but one thing. And every
+time she saw him, she was more and more interested. Every time she
+discovered something new in him&mdash;he did not exist on the surface of
+things, but deep in himself; and she wondered if she would ever know
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Her thoughts paused a moment, and then she remembered something he had
+said. It had struck her at the time, but now it appeared to her more
+than ever interesting. Catholicism, he had said, had not fallen from
+him&mdash;he had merely learnt that it was only part of the truth; he had
+gone further, he had raised himself to a higher spirituality. It was not
+that he wanted less, but more than Catholicism could give him. In
+religion, as in art, there were higher and lower states. We began by
+admiring &quot;Faust,&quot; and went on to Wagner, hence to Beethoven and
+Palestrina. Catholicism was the spiritual fare of the multitude; there
+was a closer communion with the divine essence. She had forgotten what
+came next.... He held that we are always warned of our destiny and it
+had been proved that in the hypnotic sleep, when the pulse of life was
+weakest, almost at pause, there was a heightening of the powers of
+vision and hearing. A patient whose eyes had been covered with layers of
+cotton wool had been able to read the newspaper. Another patient had
+been able to tell what was passing in another mind, and at a distance of
+a mile. The only explanation that Charcot could give of this second
+experiment was that the knowledge had been conveyed through the rustling
+of the blood in the veins, which the hypnotic sleep had enabled the
+patient to hear. And Ulick submitted that this scientific explanation
+was more incredible than any spiritual one. There was much else. There
+was all Ulick's wonderful talk about the creation of things by thought,
+and his references to the mysterious Kabbala had strangely interested
+her. But suddenly she remembered that perchance his spiritualism was
+allied to the black art of the necromancers; and her Catholic conscience
+was mysteriously affrighted, and she experienced the attraction of
+terror. Was it possible that he believed that all the accidents, or what
+we suppose are accidents, have been earned in a preceding life? Did he
+really believe that lovers may tempt each other life after life, that a
+group of people may come together again?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mademoiselle, it is half-past ten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, Merat, I will get up. I will ring for you when I have had my
+bath.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lady Duckle has gone out, and will not be home for lunch.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was not even a letter, and the day stretched out before her. Ulick
+might call, but she did not think he would. She thought of a visit to
+her father, but something held her back, and Dulwich was a long way.
+After breakfast she went to the piano and sang some of Ulick's music;
+stopping suddenly in the middle of a bar, she thought she would send him
+a note asking him to come to lunch. But what should she do till two
+o'clock? it was now only eleven. Suddenly it struck her that she might
+take a hansom and go and see him. She had never seen his rooms, and to
+visit him there would be more amusing than for him to come to Park Lane;
+and she imagined his surprise and delight at seeing her. Her thoughts
+went to the frock she would wear&mdash;a new one had come home
+yesterday&mdash;this would be an excellent opportunity to wear it. She would
+take him to lunch with her at some restaurant! She was in excellent
+humour. Her thoughts amused her, and she reflected that she had done
+well to choose the pale shot silk with green shades in it. It was
+trimmed with black lace, and she selected a large black hat with black
+ostrich feathers to wear with it.</p>
+
+<p>And seeing the people in the streets as she drove past, she wondered if
+they were as happy as she was. She speculated on their errands, and
+wondered if many of the women were going, like her, to their lovers. She
+wondered what their lovers were like, and she laughed at her thoughts.
+Seeing that she was passing through a very mean street, she hoped that
+Ulick's rooms were not too Bohemian, and felt relieved when she found
+that the street she dreaded led into a square. A square, she reflected,
+always means a certain measure of respectability. And the faded,
+old-fashioned neighbourhood pleased her. Some of the houses seemed as if
+they had known more fashionable days; and the square exhaled a tender
+melancholy; it suggested a vision of dreamy lives&mdash;lives lived in
+ideas, lives of students who lived in books unaware of the externality
+of things.</p>
+
+<p>But the cabman could not find the number, and Evelyn impatiently
+inquired it from the vagrant children. There were groups of them on the
+wide doorstep, and Evelyn imagined the interior of the house, wide
+passages, gently-sloping staircase, its heavy banisters. It surprised
+and amused her to find that she had imagined it quite correctly; and
+when she reached the landing to which she had been directed, she
+stopped, hearing his voice. He was only talking to himself; she pushed
+the door and called to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, it is you?&quot; he said; &quot;you have come sooner than I expected.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you expected me, Ulick?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I expected you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Expected me ...to-day! But, Ulick, what were you saying when I came
+in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only some Kabbalistic formula,&quot; he replied, quite naturally.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you don't really believe in such superstitions, and it surely is
+very wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her incredulously, as he might at some beautiful apparition
+likely at any moment to vanish from his sight, then reverentially drew
+her towards him and kissed her. Her hand was laid on his shoulder, and
+in a delicious apprehension she stood looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where shall we sit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He threw some books and papers from a long cane chair, and she lay down
+in it. He sat on the arm, and then tried to talk.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me take your hat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She unpinned it, and he placed it on the piano.</p>
+
+<p>His room was lighted by two square windows looking on the open space in
+front of the square, where the vagrant children gathered in noisy groups
+round a dripping iron fountain. The floor was covered with grey-green
+drugget, and near the fireplace, drawn in front of the window, was a
+large oak table covered with papers of various kinds. Against the end
+wall there was a bookcase, and there were shelves filled with books.
+There were two arm-chairs, a piano, and some prints of Blake's
+illustrations to Dante on the wall. The writing table, covered with
+manuscript music, roused Evelyn's curiosity. She glanced down a page of
+orchestration, and then picked up the first pages of an article, and
+having read them she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How severe you are in your articles. You are gentler in your music,
+more like yourself; but I see your servant does not waste her time
+dusting your books ...and that is your bedroom, may I see it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her abashed. &quot;I am afraid my room will seem to you very
+unluxurious. I have read of prima donnas' bed-rooms.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But the bare simplicity of the room did not displease her; it seemed to
+her more natural to sleep in a low, narrow bed like his, than in fine
+linen and eiderdown quilts, and she liked the scant, bleak furniture,
+the two chairs, the iron wash-hand stand, and the window curtained with
+a bit of Indian muslin. They stood talking, hardly knowing what they
+were saying. Her eyes embarrassed him, and she stopped in the middle of
+a sentence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, Ulick,&quot; she said, turning towards the door, &quot;I want you to take me
+to lunch. We'll go to the Savoy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He had to admit he had not sufficient money. Three shillings and
+sixpence were what remained until he received the cheque from one of his
+newspapers.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I am not going to have you pay for my lunch, Ulick. I am asking
+you. Be nice, don't refuse; what does it matter? What does money matter
+to me? It comes in so fast that I don't know what to do with it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was at the end of the season, and there were not many people in the
+low-ceilinged dining-room. All the waiters knew Evelyn, and she was
+conducted ceremoniously to a table. And as she passed up the room, she
+wondered what was being thought of Ulick. He was so different from the
+exquisite, foppish elegance of the man she was usually seen with. He was
+strange-looking, but Ulick was as distinguished as Owen, only the
+distinction was of another kind.</p>
+
+<p>He always remembered how at the end of lunch she took out her gold
+knitted purse, and emptied its contents on the tablecloth. And he was
+astonished at the casualness with which she spent money in every shop
+that caught her fancy. The afternoon included a visit to the saddler's,
+where she had to make inquiries about bits and bridles. She called at
+two jewellers, where she had left things to be mended. She ordered a
+dozen pair of boots, and purchased a large quantity of stationery after
+a long discussion about dies, stamps and monograms. And when all this
+was finished, she proposed they should have tea in Kensington Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Ulick knew very little of London. He knew Victoria Station, for he took
+the train there to Dulwich; the Strand, for he went there to see
+editors; and Bloomsbury, because he lived there. But he had never been
+to the park, and seemed puzzled when Evelyn spoke of the Serpentine and
+the round pond. It was surprising, he said, to find forest groves in the
+heart of London. They had tea at a little table set beneath huge
+branches, and after tea they sat on a sloping lawn facing the long
+water. She wondered if he were aware of the beauty of things, the wonder
+of life, the blue of the sky, the romance of the clouds. But she was
+bent on hearing of the invisible world apparently always so visible to
+him, and she tried to win his thoughts away from the park, and to lead
+him to speak of his visions. She did not know if she believed in them,
+but she pined for exaltation, for, an unloosening of the materialistic
+terror in which Owen had tied her, and in this mood Ulick's dreams
+floated up in her life, like clouds in a cloudless sky. He sat talking,
+lost in his dreams, and she sat listening like one enchanted. Now their
+talk had strayed from the descriptions of visions beheld by folk who
+lived in back parlours in Bloomsbury squares to the philosophy of his
+own belief; and she smiled for delight at seeing the Druid in him. The
+ancient faiths had survived in him, and it seemed natural and even right
+that he should believe that after death men pass to the great plain of
+the land over the sea, the land of the children of Dana. Men lived
+there, he said, for a while, enjoying all their desires, and at the end
+of this period they are born again. Man lives between two desires&mdash;his
+desire of spiritual peace and happiness, and his desire of earthly
+experience.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, how true that is!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Man's desire of earthly experience,&quot; Ulick continued, &quot;draws him to
+re-birth, and he is born into a form that fits his nature as a glove
+fits a hand; the soul of a warrior passes into the robust form of a
+warrior; the soul of a poet into the most sensitive body of a poet; so
+you see how modern science has only robbed the myths of their beauty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He spoke of the old Irish legend of Mongan and the Bard, and Evelyn
+begged of him to tell it her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mongan,&quot; he said, &quot;had been Fin MacCool two hundred years before. When
+he was Fin he had been present at the death of a certain king. The bard
+was singing before Mongan, and mis-stated the place of the king's death.
+Mongan corrected him, and the Bard was so incensed at the correction
+that he threatened to satirise the kingdom so that it should become
+barren. And he would only agree to withhold his terrible satire if
+Mongan would give him his wife.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mrs. Mongan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, just so,&quot; Ulick replied, laughing. &quot;Mongan asked for three days'
+delay to consider the dreadful dilemma in which the Bard's threat had
+placed him. And during that time Mongan sat with his wife consoling her,
+saying, &quot;A man will come to us, his feet are already upon the western
+sea.&quot; And at the time when the Bard stood up to claim the wife, a
+strange warrior came into the encampment, holding a barbless spear. He
+said that he was Caolte, one of Fin's famous warriors, that the king
+whose place of death was in dispute was killed where Mongan had said,
+that if they dug down into the earth they would find the spear-head,
+that it would fit the shaft he held in his hand, that it was the
+spear-head that had killed the king.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Go on, and tell me some more stories. I love to listen to you&mdash;you are
+better than any play.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she wondered if he were indeed an ancient Druid come to life again,
+and that the instinct of the ancient rites lingered in him. However this
+might be, he could answer all her questions, and she was much interested
+when at the end of another tale he told her of Blake's visions and
+prophetic books. She knew little about Blake, and listened to Ulick's
+account of his visions and prophecies. Evelyn thought of Owen, and to
+escape from the thought she spoke of a legend which Ulick had once
+mentioned to her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You did not tell it to me, only the end; the very last phrase is all I
+know of it, 'and the further adventures of Bran are unknown.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bran, the son of Feval, is the story of a man who went to the great
+plain, the land over the sea, the land of the children of Dana. He was
+sitting in his court when a beautiful woman appeared, and she told him
+to man his ship and sail to the land of the Gods, the land where no one
+dies, where blossoms fall for ever.... I have forgotten the song, what a
+wonderful song it is. Ah, I remember, 'Where music is not born, but
+continually is there, where' ... no, I can't remember it. Bran sails
+away, and after sailing for some days he meets a man driving a chariot
+over the waves. This man says, 'To my eyes you are sailing over the tops
+of a forest,' and in many other ways makes clear to him that all things
+are but appearances, and change with the eye that sees them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How true that is. At Lady Ascott's ball I was enjoying myself,
+delighted with the brilliancy of the dresses, the jewellery and the
+flowers, and in a moment they all passed away; I only saw a little
+triviality and heard a voice crying within me, 'Why are you here, why
+are you doing these things? This ball means nothing to you.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That was the voice of your destiny; your life is no longer with Owen.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With whom is it, Ulick? Tell me, you can see into the future.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know no more than I told you last night. I am your destiny for
+to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other in fear and sadness&mdash;and though both knew the
+truth, neither could speak it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what happens to Bran, the son of Feval?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Bran visits many islands of many delights, but wishing to see his
+native land once more, he sails away, but the people of those islands
+have told him that he must not set foot on any earthly shore, or he will
+perish. So he sails close to his native land, but does not leave the
+ship. The inhabitants ask him who he is; he tells them, and they reply,
+'The voyage of Bran, son of Feval, is among our most ancient stories.'
+One man swims ashore, and the moment his foot touches earth he becomes a
+heap of dust. Bran sails away, and the story ends with a phrase which
+you already know&mdash;'The further adventures of Bran are unknown.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How true! how true! the stories of our lives are known up to a certain
+point, and our further adventures are unknown.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were glad of a little silence, and Evelyn sat striving to read her
+own destiny in the legend. Bran visited many islands of many delights,
+but when he wished to return to his native land he was told that he must
+do no more than to sail along its coast, that if he set foot on any
+earthly shore he would perish. But what did this story mean, what
+meaning had it for her? She had visited many islands of many delights,
+and had come home again! What meaning had this story for her? why had
+she remembered the last phrase? why had she been impelled to ask Ulick
+to tell her this story? She looked at him&mdash;he sat with his eyes on the
+ground absorbed in thought, but she did not think he was thinking of the
+legend, but of how soon he would lose her, and she shuddered in the warm
+summer evening as from a sudden chill. It was now nearly seven
+o'clock&mdash;she would soon have to go home to dress for dinner. They were
+dining out, she and Lady Duckle, and she would meet once more Lady
+Ascott, Lady Summersdean, those people whose lives she had begun to feel
+had no further concern for her.</p>
+
+<p>The hour was inexpressibly calm and alluring; the blue pallor of the sky
+and the fading of the sunset behind the tall Bayswater houses raised the
+soul with a tingling sense of exalted happiness and delicious
+melancholy? She did not ask herself if she loved Ulick better than Owen;
+she only knew that she must act as she was acting&mdash;that the moment had
+not come when she would escape from herself. They walked by the water's
+edge, their souls still like the water, and like it, full of calm
+reflections. They were aware of the evening's sad serenity, and the
+little struggling passions of their lives. Very often Nature seemed on
+the very point of whispering her secret, but it escaped her ears like an
+echo in the far distance, like a phantom that disappears in the mist.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will you come and see me to-morrow?&quot; he asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had better not see each other every day,&quot; she said; &quot;still, I don't
+see there would be any harm if you came to see me in the afternoon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her conscience drowsed like this heavy, somnolent evening, and a red
+moon rose behind the tall trees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The time will come,&quot; he said, &quot;when you will hate me, Evelyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think I shall be as unjust as that. Good-bye, dear, the
+afternoon has passed very pleasantly.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_FOUR'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>Owen had telegraphed to her and she had come at once. But how callous
+and unsympathetic she was. If people knew what she was, no one would
+speak to her. If Owen knew that she had desired his mother's death ...
+But had she? She had only thought that, if Lady Asher were not to
+recover, it were better that she died before she, Evelyn, arrived at
+Riversdale. As the carriage drove through the woods she noticed that
+they were empty and silent, save for the screech of one incessant bird,
+and she thought of the dead woman's face, and contrasted it with the
+summer time.</p>
+
+<p>The house stood on the side of some rising ground in the midst of the
+green park. Cattle were grazing dreamily in the grass, which grew rich
+and long about a string of ponds, and she could see Owen walking under
+the colonnade. As the carriage came round the gravel space, his eyes
+sought her in the brougham, and she knew the wild and perplexed look on
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, don't let's go into the house unless you're tired,&quot; he said, and
+they walked down the drive under the branches, making, they knew not
+why, for the open park. &quot;This is terrible, isn't it? And this beautiful
+summer's day too, not a cloud in the sky, not a wind in all the air. How
+peaceful the cattle are in the meadow, and the swans in the pond. But we
+are unhappy. Why is this? You say that it is the will of God. That is no
+answer. But you think it is?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Fearing to irritate him, she did not speak, but he would not be put off,
+and she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not let us argue, Owen, dear. Tell me about it. It was quite
+unexpected?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She had been in ill-health, as you know, for some time. Let us go this
+way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He led her through the shrubbery and through the wicket into the meadows
+which lay under the terrace, and, thinking of the dead woman, she
+wondered at the strange, somnolent life of the cattle in the meadows and
+the swans on the pond. The willows, as if exhausted by the heat, seemed
+to bend under the stream, and their eyes followed the lines of the woods
+and looked into the burning blue of the sky, striving to read the secret
+there. A rim of moist earth under their feet, and above their heads the
+infinite blue! The stillness of the summer was in every blade of grass,
+in every leaf, and the pond reflected the sky and willows in hard,
+immovable reflections. An occasional ripple of the water-fowl in the
+reeds impressed upon them the mystery of Nature's indifference to human
+suffering.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In that house behind that colonnade she lies dead. Good God! isn't it
+awful! We shall never see her. But you think we shall?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, dear, let as avoid all discussion. She was a good woman. She was
+very good to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I haven't told you that it was by her wish that I sent for you. She
+wanted to ask you to promise to marry me.... I told her that I had asked
+you, and that in a way we were engaged. I could not say more. You seemed
+unsettled, you seemed to wish to get out of your promise&mdash;is not that
+so?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn thought of the scene by Lady Asher's bedside that an accident had
+saved her from. Marriage was more than ever impossible. What should she
+have said if Lady Asher had not died before she arrived? The dying
+woman's eyes, the dying woman's voice! Good heavens! what would she have
+said? But she had considered nothing. After glancing at the telegram,
+she had told Merat to pack a few clothes, and had rushed away. She
+pondered the various excuses she might have sent. She might have said
+she was not in when the telegram came, she had only just caught the
+train as it was; if she had not got the telegram before eleven o'clock
+she would have been safe. But all that was past now, Lady Asher had died
+before she arrived. It were better that she had died&mdash;anything were
+better rather than that scene should have taken place; for she could not
+have promised to marry Owen. What would she have done? Refused while
+looking into her dying eyes, or run out of the room?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't answer me, Evelyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, don't press me. Enough has been said on that subject. This is no
+time to discuss such questions.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it is Evelyn&mdash;it was her dearest wish.... Is it then impossible?
+Have you entirely ceased to care?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Owen, I'm very fond of you. But you don't really want to marry me,
+it is because your mother wished it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His face changed expression, and she knew that he was not certain on the
+point himself.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Evelyn, I do, indeed I do;&quot; and convinced for the moment that what
+he said was true, he took her hands, and looking at her he added, &quot;It
+was her wish, and if what you believe be true, she is listening now from
+behind that blue sky.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Both were trembling, and while the swans floated by, they considered the
+depth of blue contained in the sky. He was taken with a little dread,
+and was surprised to find in himself a vague, haunting belief in the
+possibility of an after life. Suddenly his self-consciousness fell from
+him, was merged in his instinct of the woman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, if I don't marry you I shall lose you. I cannot lose you, that
+would be to lose everything. I don't ask any questions, whether you like
+Ulick Dean, nor even what your relations are. I only want to know if you
+will marry me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He read in her eyes that the tale of their love was ended, and heard his
+future life ring hollow. It seemed strange that at such a moment the
+serene swans should float about them, that the water-fowl should move in
+and out of the reeds, and that the green park and the cloudless sky were
+like painted paper.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then everything is over, everything I had to live for, all is a blank.
+But when you sent me away before, you had to take me back; you're not a
+woman who can live without a lover.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is difficult, I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What has come between us, tell me? This fellow Ulick Dean or religious
+scruples?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no right to talk about religious scruples.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then it is this man. You love him, you've ceased to care for me, and
+you ask me to barter my right to kiss you, to take you in my arms, so
+that I may remain your friend.&quot; &quot;Why, Evelyn, have you got tired of me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I have not got tired of you, Owen. I am very fond of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, but you don't care any more for me to make love to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course it is not the same as it was in the beginning, but there is
+affection.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When passion is dead, all is dead, the rest is nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed so shameful that he should suffer like this, and she strove to
+rouse herself out of her stony determination. She was like one upon a
+rampart; she could see the surrounding country, but could not escape to
+it; this rampart was the instinct, in which Nature had shut her soul.
+But she could not bear to see him cry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Evelyn, this cannot be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, feeling that the reality was too brutal, she yielded to the
+temptation to disguise the truth.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know what I shall do, Owen; there would be no use making
+promises.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you do love me a little, Evelyn?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Owen, you must never doubt that. I shall always be fond of you;
+remember that, whatever happens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I know, as a friend. Look round! the earth and the sky are quiet,
+and one day we shall be quiet too, only that is sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As they walked towards the house, their self-consciousness rose to so
+high a pitch that the park and house seemed to them like a thin
+illusion, a sort of painted paper reality, which might fall to pieces
+at any moment. He thought how little were the hours between the present
+moment and the moment when she would be taken from him. Whereas she was
+thinking that these hours would never pass. She realised the long hours
+before the sunlight waned. She thought of their lonely dinner and their
+evening after it. All that while she would witness his grief for the
+love that had gone from her, a love which she could no more give than
+she could once withhold. The great green park lay before their eyes,
+they strayed through the woods talking of her Isolde. He had not seen
+the performance. He had been called away the day she played it, but his
+pockets were full of the articles that had been written about her. The
+leaves of the beech trees shimmered in the steady sunlight, and they
+could see the green park through the drooping branches. She often
+detected a sob in his voice, and once, while sitting under a cedar tree
+at the edge of the terrace, he had to turn aside to hide his tears, and
+the sadness of everything made her sick and ill.</p>
+
+<p>They had tea in the west hall. Owen had ceased to complain, and she had
+begun to think that she could not give him up entirely.</p>
+
+<p>The day had passed somehow; dinner was over. Around the green park the
+last light of the sunset grew narrower, and the cattle faded
+mysteriously into the gathering gloom. Owen held converse with himself,
+but with recognition of the fact that he was listened to by the second
+subject of his discourse, and that they themselves were his ideas, the
+figuration of his teaching, endowed his philosophy with a dramatic
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How you used to hang round my neck and listen with eager nervous eyes.
+You always had the genius of exaltation. You were wonderful; I watched
+you, I understood you, I appreciated you; you were a marvellous jewel I
+had found, and of which I was excessively proud. I hardly lived at all
+for myself. You were my life; my life lived in you. Every time I went to
+see you, every appointment was a thrill, a wonder, a mystery. But it was
+not until you took me back after that separation at Florence that I sank
+into the depths of love. Then I became like a diver in the deep sea.
+What I had known before were but the shallows of passion. What I felt
+after Florence was the translucid calm of the ocean's depth. I lived in
+the light of an inner consciousness, seeing you always, your face always
+before me, and my whole being held in a rapt devotion, a
+self-sufficiency, an exaltation beyond the reach of words. Oh, Evelyn, I
+have been extraordinarily in love. But all this is nothing to you; it
+even bores you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Owen, no, but you don't understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The desire to tell him the truth came up in her throat, but the moment
+she sought to express it in words it became untruth, and it was to save
+herself from falsehood that she remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I knew my mistake, but the temptation was irresistible. I wanted so to
+tell you that I loved you. I could not deny myself, effusion, tears,
+aspiration. I gained two very wonderful years, and so I lost you. I
+wonder if any lover would have the courage to forswear these joys so
+that he might retain his mistress? Would any mistress be worthy of the
+sacrifice? 'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, dear, you're very cruel. Why do you speak like that? I shall
+never cease to love you. Owen, dear, you don't hate me?&quot; she said,
+turning towards him.</p>
+
+<p>The silence was intense. It seemed to enter her ears and eyes like water
+or fire, and with dim sight and a dissolution of personal control of her
+body, she was moved towards him, and without any sort of thrill of
+desire she was drawn, almost thrown at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>She accepted his kisses wearily. There was a strange look in her eyes
+which he could not interpret, and she could not confide her secret, and
+there was an inexpressible sadness in these last kisses, and Owen's
+heart seemed to stand still when he said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Her last wish was our marriage; she would be glad if she could see us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn hid her face on his shoulders several times. He thought she was
+weeping, but her eyes remained dry. He came to her room that evening,
+and now that they were lovers again, it seemed to him impossible that
+she could refuse to marry him. But she stood looking at him, absorbed,
+in the presence of her future life, her eyes full of a strange farewell.
+He could extort no words from her, and her eyes retained their strange
+melancholy till her departure; his last memory of her visit was their
+melancholy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_FIVE'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE</h2>
+
+<p>The forces within her were at truce. She was conscious of a suspension
+of hostilities. The moment was one in which she saw, as in a mirror, her
+poor, vague little soul in its hopeless wandering through life. She drew
+back, not daring to see herself, and then was drawn forward by a febrile
+curiosity. She felt towards them so differently that she could not think
+of herself as the same person when she was with Owen as she was when she
+was with Ulick. She remembered what she had heard the &quot;dresser&quot; say, and
+she remembered the sin. But apart from the deception she practised upon
+both men, there was the wrong-doing. Her conscience did not assail her
+now; but she knew that she would suffer to-morrow or next day. That
+sense of sin which she could not obliterate from her nature would rise
+to her lips like a salt wave, and poison her life with its bitterness,
+and she asked herself vain questions: Why had she left her father? Why
+had she two lovers? Why did she rise to seek things that made her
+unhappy? She thought of yesterday's journey to see a dying woman, and of
+to-night's performance of &quot;Tristan and Isolde.&quot; What an unhappy,
+maddening jingle. The bitter wave of conscience, which rose to her lips
+and poisoned her taste, forced from her an avowal that she would mend
+her life. She foresaw nothing but deception, and easily imagined that
+not a day would pass without lies. All her life would be a lie, and when
+her nature rose in vehement revolt, she looked round for means to free
+herself from the fetters and chains in which she had locked herself.
+Thinking of Owen, she vowed that it must not happen again. But what
+excuse would she give? Should she tell him that Ulick was her lover?
+That was the only way, only it seemed so brutal. Even so she would have
+a lover; and strictly speaking, she ought to send them both away. Very
+probably that is what she would do in the end.... In the meantime, she
+would keep them both on! Her face contracted in an expression of terror
+and disgust. Had her moralising, then, ended in such miserable
+selfishness as this?</p>
+
+<p>To escape from her thoughts she looked out at the landscape, hoping it
+would distract her. But she could take no interest in it. Yesterday it
+had seemed so beautiful, but to-day it was all reversed, and the light
+was different. She preferred to remember it. She thought that they must
+be nearing the river, and she remembered how in one place it ran round a
+field, making a silver horse shoe in the green land, they had crossed it
+twice in the space of a quarter of a mile; then it followed the railway,
+placid, docile, reflecting the trees and sky. Then like a child it was
+soon taken with a new idea; it ran far away out of sight, and Evelyn
+thought it would never return. But it came back again, turbulent and
+shallow; and with woods on the steep hillside, and spanned by a
+beautiful stone bridge. A little later its wanderings grew still more
+perplexing, and she was not sure that it had not been joined in some
+strange way by another river. But flowing round a low-lying field,
+coming suddenly from behind a bend in the land, it had seemed in that
+place like a pond. One bank was lined with bushes, the other lay open to
+a view of a treeless plain divided by ditches. Three ladies had held
+their light boat in the deep current, and she had wondered who they
+were, and what was their manner of living and their desires, and though
+she would never know these things, the image of these ladies in their
+boat had fixed itself in her mind for ever.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the train began to slacken speed, and nervously she awaited
+her destiny.</p>
+
+<p>For she was uncertain whether she would send Ulick a telegram, telling
+him to come to Park Lane, or whether she would drive straight to his
+lodgings. At the bottom of her heart she knew that when she arrived at
+St. Pancras she would tell the cabman, &quot;Queen's Square, Bloomsbury.&quot; And
+an hour later, nervous with expectation, she sat in the cab, seeing the
+streets pass behind her. She was beginning to know the characteristics
+of the neighbourhood, and in the afternoon light they awoke her out of a
+trembling lethargy. She recognised the old iron gateway, the open space,
+the thirsty fountain and the troop of neglected children. She liked the
+forlorn and rusty square. She experienced a sort of sinking anguish
+while waiting on the doorstep, lest he might not be at home. But when
+the servant girl said Mr. Dean was upstairs, she liked her dirty,
+good-natured smile, and she loved the stairs and banisters&mdash;it was all
+wonderful, and she could hardly believe that in a few moments more she
+would catch the first sight of his face. She would have to tell some
+part of the truth; and since Lady Asher was dead, he could not fail to
+believe. He would never think of asking her&mdash;she put the ugly thought
+aside, and ran up the second flight.</p>
+
+<p>In the pauses of their love-making, they often wandered round the walls
+participating in the mystery of the Wanderers, and the sempiternal
+loveliness of figures who stood with raised arms, by the streams of
+Paradise. It seemed a profanation to turn from these aspirations to the
+enjoyment of material love, and Evelyn looked at Ulick questioningly.
+But he said that life only became wrong when it ceased to aspire. In an
+Indian temple, it had once been asked who was the most holy man of all.
+A young saint who had not eaten for ten days had been pointed out, but
+he said that the holiest man who ever lived stood yonder. It was then
+noticed that the man pointed to was drunk ... Ulick explained that the
+drunkenness did not matter; it was an unimportant detail in the man's
+life, for none aspired as he did; and laughing at the story, they stood
+by the dusty, windy pane, her hand resting on his shoulder, and they
+always remembered that that day they had seen the foliage in the square.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Duckle had gone to Homburg; Owen had been obliged to go to Bath on
+account of his gout; and Evelyn was free to abandon herself to her love
+of Ulick and to her love of her father, and she begged him not to spoil
+her happiness, but to come to Dulwich with her. His scruples were easily
+argued away. She urged that he had not taken her away, he had brought
+her back to her father. This last argument was convincing, and the
+happiest time in their lives was the week they spent in Dulwich. They
+sat down together to dinner under the lamp at the round table in the
+little back room, and their evenings were passed at the harpsichord and
+the clavichord; and amid the dreams and aspirations of great men they
+attained their sublime nature. The music that had been given and that
+was to be given at St. Joseph's furnished a never-failing subject of
+discussion, and Mr. Innes told them stories of Italy in the sixteenth
+century. How almost every Sunday there was a festival in some church
+where the most beautiful music was heard. Along the nave were eight
+choirs, four on one side and four on the other, raised on stages eight
+to ten feet high, and facing one another at equal distances. Each choir
+had a portable organ, and the <i>ma&icirc;tre composateur</i> beat the time for the
+principal choir. And Mr. Innes's eyes lighted up when he spoke of the
+admirable <i>style recitatif</i> in the oratory of St. Marcellus when there
+was a congregation of the Brothers of the Holy Crucifix. This order was
+composed of the chief noblemen of Rome, who had therefore the power of
+bringing together the rarest musicians Italy could produce. The voices
+began with a psalm in motet form, and then the instruments played a
+symphony, after which the voices sang a story from the Old Testament.
+Each chorister represented a personage in the story, etc. He spoke of
+the great organist at St. Peter's, and the wonderful inventions he is
+said to have displayed in his improvisations. No one since had played
+the harp like the renowned Horatio, but there was no one who could play
+the lyre like the renowned Ferrabosco in England. Evelyn leaned across
+the table, transported three centuries back, hearing all this music,
+which she had known from her earliest years, performed by virtue of her
+father's description in Italy, in St. Peter's, in the oratory of St.
+Marcellus and in the church of Minerva. Sometimes her father and Ulick
+began an argument, her sympathies alternated between them; she spoke
+very little, preferring to listen, not liking to side with either,
+agreeing with them, sometimes angering her father by her neutrality. But
+one evening he was a little too insistent, and Evelyn burst into tears,
+and ran upstairs to her room. The two men looked at each other, and Mr.
+Innes begged Ulick to tell him if he had been unkind, and then besought
+him to go upstairs and try to induce Evelyn to come down. Her face
+brightened into merry laughter at her own folly, and it called from her
+many entertaining remarks, so Ulick was tempted to set them one against
+the other, and to do so he had only to ask if Evelyn could sing such
+light soprano parts as Zerlina or Rosetta as well as her mother.</p>
+
+<p>In the mornings Evelyn and Ulick lingered in the shade of the chestnut
+trees or loitered in the lanes. At one moment they were telling each
+other of the fatality of their passion; in the next, by some transition
+of which they were not aware, they found themselves discussing some
+musical question. They went for long drives; and Richmond Park, not more
+than eight or ten miles distant, was at this season a beautiful,
+plaintive languor. There was a strange stillness in the air and a tender
+bloom upon the blue sky which spoke to the heart as no words, as only
+music could. The shadows moved listlessly among the bracken, and every
+vista was an enticement. Soft rain had allayed the dust of the road, and
+the distant hillsides seemed in the morning mists extraordinarily blue
+and romantic. There were wide prospects suggesting some great domain,
+and about the large oaks which stood in these open spaces herds of deer
+browsed, themselves the colour of the approaching month. About a sudden
+hillside, brilliantly blue, the evanescent mist hung over the heavy
+fronds, going out in the sunlight that was breaking through a grey sky.
+Ulick exclaimed, &quot;How beautiful,&quot; and at the same moment Evelyn said,
+&quot;Look at the deer, they are going to jump the railings.&quot; But the deer
+ran underneath, and galloped down the sloping park between a line of
+massive oaks; and the white and the tan hinds and fawns expressed in
+their life and beauty something which thrilled in the heart, and
+perforce Evelyn and Ulick remained silent. The park was wreathed that
+morning in sunlight and mist, it seemed to invite confidences, and the
+lovers dreamed of a perfect union of soul. The carriage was told to wait
+for them, and they took a path leading under a long line of trees toward
+high ground. Carts had passed there, and the ruts were full of water,
+but the earth about them was a little crisp, as if there had been frost
+during the night. They had brought with them a score of &quot;Parsifal,&quot; for
+it was not yet certain that Evelyn would not play the part of Kundry.
+Notwithstanding Ulick's criticism, she thought she would like to act in
+the third act. But they were too interested in each other to open the
+score, and they were excited by the wonder of Nature in the still
+morning. The sky was all silver, and a very little distance bathed the
+hillsides in beautiful blue tones. The leaves of the oak trees hung
+languidly, as if considering the lowly earth to which they must soon
+return. Yet the blood was hot and the nerves were highly strung, and
+life seemed capable of great things in this moody, contemplative
+morning. There was a wonder in the little wren that picked her way among
+the fronds, and a thrill in the scurry of the watchful rabbit; and when
+they reached the crest of the upland and saw an open expanse of park,
+with the deer moving away through the mist, their souls dilated, and in
+happy ecstasy they looked upon Nature with the same innocent wonderment
+as the first man and woman.</p>
+
+<p>The morning seemed to inspire adventure, and the little tale that Evelyn
+was telling was just what was required to enhance its suggestion. By
+some accident in the conversation she had been led to speak of how she
+had been nearly captured by pirates in the Mediterranean. They were
+becalmed off the African coast, and a boat had rowed out with fruits and
+vegetables. The suspicious countenances of this boat's crew did not
+strike them at the time. But they were a reconnoitring party, and next
+day about four in the afternoon they noticed a vessel propelled by sails
+and oars steering straight for them, as if in the intention of running
+them down. It paid no attention to the cries of the captain, but came
+straight at them, and would have succeeded in its design if the yacht
+had not been going through the water faster than the pirates supposed,
+so they fell astern, and no one thought any more of them till they
+tacked, and they had almost overtaken the yacht, they were hardly
+distant more than fifty yards, when their intention was suspected. The
+captain put the <i>Medusa's</i> head up to the wind, and she soon began to
+leave her pursuer behind.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We had no arms on board, they were fifty to twenty; the men would have
+been massacred, and I should have finished my days in a harem.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ulick had brought his violin with him, and they walked under the
+drooping boughs, she singing and he playing old-world melodies by Lulli
+and Rameau. Sometimes a passer-by stopped, and peering through,
+discovered them in a hollow sitting under an oak. A snake crawled out of
+its hole, and Ulick was about to rush forward to kill it, but Evelyn
+laid her hand upon his, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let it listen, poor thing. No living thing should meet its death for
+its love of music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're no longer the Evelyn Innes that loved Owen Asher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think I have changed a great deal. I was very young when I knew him
+first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She spoke of the influence he had exercised over her, but now his ideas
+meant as little as he did himself&mdash;it was all far away. Only a little
+trick of speech and a turn of phrase remained to recall his passage
+through her life. When they returned home she found a letter from him on
+the table, and her face clouded as she read his letter, for it announced
+an intention to call when he came to town, and to avoid his visit she
+thought she would stop in Dulwich. But if she stayed over Saturday, she
+would have to go to Mass on Sunday. Last Sunday she escaped by pleading
+indisposition. She wondered which she would prefer, to face Owen or to
+brave the effect that she knew Mass would produce upon her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_SIX'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>She was in the music-room, looking through the first act of &quot;Grania,&quot;
+and thinking that perhaps after all she might remain on the stage and
+create the part. Her father had gone to St. Joseph's for choir practice,
+Ulick had gone to London for strings for her viola da gamba; and all the
+morning she had been uneasy and expectant. The feeling never quite left
+her that something was about to happen, that she was to meet
+someone&mdash;someone for whom she had been waiting a long while. So she
+started on hearing the front door bell ring. She could think of no one
+whom it might be unless Owen. If it were, what would she say? And she
+waited, eager for the servant to announce the visitor. It was Monsignor
+Mostyn.</p>
+
+<p>She was dressed in a muslin tea-gown over shot green silk, and was
+conscious of her triviality as she stood before the tall, spare
+ecclesiastic. She admired the calm, refined beauty of his face, the
+bright, dark eyes and the thin features, steadfast and aloof as some
+saints she had seen in pictures.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I called to see your father, Miss Innes, but he is not in, and hearing
+that you were, I asked to see you. For my business is really with you,
+that is, if you can spare the time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Won't you sit down, Monsignor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have come, Miss Innes, to remind you of a promise that you once made
+me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The colour returned to her cheeks, and a smile to her lips. But she did
+not remember, and was slightly embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did I make you a promise?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you forgotten my speaking to you about some poor sisters who might
+be driven from their convent if they failed to pay the interest on a
+mortgage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes, on the night of the concert.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They have paid the interest and kept a roof over their heads, but in
+doing so they have exhausted their resources; and not to put too fine a
+point upon it, I am afraid they often have not enough to eat. Something
+must be done for them. I thought that a concert would be the quickest
+way of getting them some money.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You want me to sing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It really would be a charitable action.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall be delighted to sing for them. Where is this convent?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At Wimbledon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My old convent! The Passionist Sisters!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your old convent?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; Evelyn replied, the colour rising slightly to her cheeks. &quot;I made
+a retreat there, long ago, before I went on the stage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was grieved to hear that the Reverend Mother she had known was dead;
+she had died two years ago, and Mother Margaret was dead too. Monsignor
+could tell her nothing about Sister Bonaventure. Mother Philippa was the
+sub-prioress; and in the midst of her questions he explained how the
+financial difficulties had arisen. They were, he said, the result of the
+imprudences of the late Reverend Mother, one of the best and holiest of
+women, but unfortunately not endowed with sufficient business foresight.
+He was quite prepared to admit that the little wooden chapel which had
+preceded the present chapel was inadequate, and that she was justified
+in building another, but not in expending nearly one thousand pounds in
+stained glass. The new chapel had cost ten thousand pounds, and the
+interest of this money had to be paid. There were other debts&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But there is no reason why I should weary you with an exact statement.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you do not weary me, Monsignor; I am, on the contrary, deeply
+interested.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The convent owes a great deal to the late Reverend Mother, and the last
+thing I wish to express is disapproval. We do not know the
+circumstances, and must not judge her; we know that she acted for the
+best. No doubt she is now praying to God to secure the safety of her
+convent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn sat watching him, fascinated by the clear, peremptory,
+ecclesiastical dignity which he represented. If he had a singing voice,
+she said to herself, it would be a tenor. He had allowed the
+conversation to wander from the convent to the concert; and they were
+soon talking of their musical preferences. There was an impersonal
+tenderness, a spiritual solicitude in his voice which enchained her; no
+single idea held her, but wave after wave of sensation passed,
+transforming and dissolving, changeable as a cloud. Human life demands
+hope, and the priest is a symbol of hope; there is always a moment when
+the religionist doubts, and there is also a moment when the atheist
+says, &quot;Who knows, perhaps.&quot; And this man had done what she had not been
+able to do: he had put aside the paltry pleasures of the world, he
+placed his faith in things beyond the world, pleasures which perchance
+were not paltry. An entirely sensual life was a terrible oppression;
+hers often weighed upon her like a nightmare; to be happy one must have
+an ideal and strive to live up to it. Her mind flickered and sank,
+changing rapidly as an evening sky, never coming to anything distinct
+enough to be called a thought. She desired to hear him speak, she felt
+that she must speak to him about religion; she wanted to know if he were
+sure, and how he had arrived at his certitudes.... She wanted to talk to
+him about life, death and immortality. She had tried to lead the
+conversation into a religious discussion, but he seemed to avoid it, and
+just as she was about to put a definite question, Ulick came into the
+room. He stood crushing his grey felt hat between his hands, a somewhat
+curious figure, and she watched him talking to Monsignor, thinking of
+the difference of vision. As Ulick said, everything was in that. Men
+were divided by the difference of their visions. She was curious to know
+how the dogmatic and ritualistic vision of Monsignor affected Ulick, and
+when the prelate left she asked him.</p>
+
+<p>He was as ingenuous and unexpected on this subject as he was on all
+subjects. If the antique priest, he said, clothed himself in purple, it
+was to produce an exaltation in himself which would bring him closer to
+the idea, which would render him, as it were, accessible to it. But the
+vestments of the modern priest had lost their original meaning, they
+were mere parade. This explanation was very like Ulick; she smiled, and
+was interested, but her interest was passing and superficial. The advent
+of the priest had moved her in the depths of her being, and her mind was
+thick with lees of ancient sentiment, and wrecks of belief had floated
+up and hung in mid memory. She knew that the beauty of the ritual, the
+eternal psalms, the divine sacrifice, the very ring of the bell, the
+antiquity of the language, lifted her out of herself, and into a higher,
+a more intense ecstasy than the low medium of this world's desires. And
+if she did not believe that the bread and wine were the true body and
+blood of God, she still believed in the real Presence. She was aware of
+it as she might be of the presence of someone in the room, though he
+might be hidden from her eyes. Though the bread and wine might not be
+the body and blood of Christ, still the act of consecration did seem to
+her to call down the spirit of God, and it had seemed to her to inhabit
+the church at the moment of consecration. It might not be true to Owen,
+nor yet to Ulick, but it was true to her&mdash;it was a difference of
+vision.... She sat buried in herself. Then she walked to the window
+confused and absorbed, with something of the dread of a woman who finds
+herself suddenly with child. When Ulick came to her she did not notice
+him, and when he asked her to do some music with him she refused, and
+when he put his arms about her she drew away sullenly, almost
+resentfully.</p>
+
+<p>A few days after she was in Park Lane. She had gone there to pay some
+bills, and she was going through them when she was startled by the front
+door bell. It was a visitor without doubt. Her thoughts leaped to
+Monsignor, and her face lighted up. But he did not know she was at Park
+Lane; he would not go there.... It was Owen come up from Bath. What
+should she say to him? Good heavens! It was too late to say she was not
+at home. He was already on the stairs. And when he entered he divined
+that he was not welcome. They sat opposite each other, trying to talk.
+Suddenly he besought her not to throw him over.... She had to refuse to
+kiss him, and that was convincing, he said. Once a woman was not greedy
+for kisses, the end was near. And his questions were to the point, and
+irritatingly categorical. Had she ever been unfaithful to him? Did she
+love Ulick Dean? Not content with a simple denial, he took her by both
+hands, and looking her straight in the face, asked her to give him her
+word of honour that Ulick Dean was not her lover, that she had never
+kissed him, that she had never even desired to kiss him, that no idea of
+love making had ever arisen between them. She pledged her word on every
+point, and this was the second time that her <i>liaison</i> with Ulick had
+obliged her to lie, deliberately in so many words. Nor did the lying
+even end there. He wanted her to stay, to dine with him; she had to
+invent excuses&mdash;more lies.</p>
+
+<p>She was returning to Dulwich in her carriage, and until she arrived home
+her thoughts hankered and gnawed, pestered and terrified her. Never had
+she felt so ashamed, so disgusted with herself, and the after taste of
+the falsehoods she had told came back into her mouth, and her face grew
+dark in the beautiful summer evening. Her brows were knit, and she
+resolved that if the occasion happened again, she would tell Owen the
+truth. This was no mock determination; on this point she was quite sure
+of herself. Looking round she saw the mean streets of Camberwell. She
+saw them for a moment, and then she sank back into her reverie.</p>
+
+<p>She was deceiving Owen, she was deceiving her father, she was deceiving
+Ulick, she was deceiving Monsignor&mdash;he would not have thought of asking
+her to sing at the concert if he knew what a life was hers. Nor would
+those good women at the convent accept her aid if they knew what kind of
+woman she was. And the strange thing was that she did not believe
+herself to be a bad woman; at the bottom of her heart she loved truth
+and sincerity. She wished to have an ideal and to live up to it, yet she
+was doing the very opposite. That was what was so strange, that was what
+she did not understand, that was what made her incomprehensible to
+herself. She sighed, and at the bottom of her heart there lay an immense
+weariness, a weariness of life, of the life she was leading, and she
+longed for a life that would coincide with her principles, and she felt
+that if she did not change her life, she would do something desperate.
+She might kill herself.</p>
+
+<p>It is true that man is a moral animal, but it is not true that there is
+but one morality; there are a thousand, the morality of each race is
+different, the morality of every individual differs. The origin of each
+sect is the desire to affirm certain moral ideas which particularly
+appeal to it; every change of faith is determined by the moral
+temperament of the individual; we prefer this religion to that religion
+because our moral ideas are more implicit in these affirmations than in
+those.</p>
+
+<p>The restriction of sexual intercourse is the moral ideal of Western
+Europe; it is the one point on which all Christians are agreed; it is
+the one point on which they all feel alike. So inherent is the idea of
+sexual continence in the Western hemisphere that even those whose
+practice does not coincide with their theory rarely impugn the wisdom of
+the law which they break; they prefer to plead the weakness of the flesh
+as their excuse, and it is with reluctance that they admit that without
+an appeal to conscience it would be impossible to prove that it is wrong
+for two unmarried people to live together. It is not perceived that the
+fact that no material proof can be produced strengthens rather than
+weakens the position of the moralist. To do unto others as you would be
+done unto, to love your neighbour as yourself, are practical moralities
+which may be derived from social necessities, but the abstract
+moralities, that sexual intercourse is wrong except between married
+people, and that it is wrong to tell a lie, even if the lie be a
+perfectly harmless one, exist of themselves. That we cannot bring
+abstract moralities into the focus of our understanding is no argument.
+As well deny the stars because we cannot understand them. That abstract
+moralities impose on us should be a sufficient argument that they cannot
+be the futilities that Owen would argue them to be&mdash;not them, he only
+protested against one.... (She had not thought of that before&mdash;Owen was
+no more rational than she.) That the idea of chastity should persist in
+spite of reason is proof of its truth. For what more valid argument in
+favour of a chaste life than that the instinct of chastity abides in us?
+After all, what we feel to be true is for us the greatest truth, if not
+the only real truth. Ulick was nearer the truth than Owen. He had said,
+&quot;A sense which eludes all the other senses and which is not
+apprehensible to reason governs the world, all the rest is
+circumstantial, ephemeral. Were man stripped one by one of all his
+attributes, his intelligence, his knowledge, his industry, as each of
+these shunks was broken up and thrown aside, the kernel about which they
+had gathered would be a moral sense.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn remembered that when she had sent Owen away before, he had said,
+&quot;Sexual continence at best is not the whole of morality; from your use
+of the word one would think that it was.&quot; But for her the sexual
+conscience was the entire conscience&mdash;she had no temptation to steal.
+There was lying, but she was never tempted to tell lies except for one
+reason; she could not think of herself telling a lie for any other. To
+her the sexual sin included all the others. She turned her head aside,
+for the bitterness of her conscience was unendurable, and she vowed
+that, whatever happened, she would speak the truth if Owen questioned
+her again. She could never bring herself to tell such horrible
+falsehoods again.</p>
+
+<p>These revulsions of feeling alternated with remembrances of Owen's
+tenderness; fugitive sensations of him tingled in her veins, and
+ill-disposed her to Ulick. She spoke little, and sat with averted eyes.
+When he asked her if he should come to her room, she answered him
+peremptorily; and he heard her lock her door with a determined hand.</p>
+
+<p>As she lay in bed, conscious of the inextricable tangle of her life, it
+was knotting so closely and rapidly that her present double life could
+not endure much longer, the odious taste of the lies she had told that
+afternoon rose again to her lips, and, as if to quench the bitterness,
+she vowed that she would tell Owen the truth ... if he asked her. If he
+did not ask her she would have to bear the burden of her lies. She tried
+not to wish that he might ask her. Then questions sallied from every
+side. She could not marry Owen without telling him about Ulick. She
+could not marry Ulick without telling him that she had been unfaithful
+to him with Owen. Should she send away Owen and marry Ulick, or would it
+be better to send away Ulick and marry Owen&mdash;if he would marry her after
+he had heard her confession? It was unendurable to have to tell lies all
+day long&mdash;yes, all day long&mdash;of one sort or another. She ought to send
+them both away.... But could she remain on the stage without a lover?
+Could she go to Bayreuth by herself? Could she give up the stage? And
+then?</p>
+
+<p>She awoke in a different mood&mdash;at least, it seemed to her that her mood
+was different. She was not thinking of Owen, of the lies she had told
+him; and she could talk gaily with Ulick about the concert she had
+promised to sing at. She seemed inclined to take the whole
+responsibility of this concert upon her own shoulders. As Ulick said, it
+was impossible for her to take a small part in any concert.</p>
+
+<p>They were driving in Richmond Park, not far from the convent. The
+autumn-tinted landscape, the vicissitudes of the woods, and the
+plaintive air brought a tender yearning into her mood, and she
+contrasted the lives of those poor, holy women with her own life. Ulick
+did not intrude himself; he sat silent by her, and she thought of
+Monsignor. Sometimes he was no more than a little shadow in the
+background of her mind; but he was never wholly absent, and that day all
+matters were unconsciously referred to him. She was curious to know what
+his opinions were of the stage; and as they returned home in the short,
+luminous autumn evening, she seemed to discover suddenly the fact that
+she was no longer as much interested in the stage as she used to be. She
+even thought that she would not greatly care if she never sang on the
+stage again. Last night she had put the thought aside as if it were
+madness, to-day it seemed almost natural. Thinking of the poor sisters
+who lived in prayer and poverty on the edge of the common, she
+remembered that her life was given up to the portrayal of sensual
+emotion on the stage. She remembered the fierce egotism of the stage&mdash;an
+egotism which pursued her into every corner of her life. Compared with
+the lives of the poor sisters who had renounced all that was base in
+them, her life was very base indeed. In her stage life she was an agent
+of the sensual passion, not only with her voice, but with her arms, her
+neck and hair, and every expression of her face, and it was the craving
+of the music that had thrown her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated
+her, how much more would it subjugate and hold within its sensual
+persuasion the ignorant listener&mdash;the listener who would perceive in the
+music nothing but its sensuality. Why had the Church not placed stage
+life under the ban of mortal sin? It would have done so if it knew what
+stage life was, and must always be. She then wondered what Monsignor
+thought of the stage, and from the moment her curiosity was engaged on
+this point it did not cease to trouble her till it brought her to the
+door of the presbytery. The ostensible object of her visit was to make
+certain proposals to Monsignor regarding the music she was to sing at
+the concert.</p>
+
+<p>She was shown into a small room; its one window was so high up on the
+wall that the light was dim in the room, though outside there was
+brilliant sunshine. The sadness of the little room struck cold upon her,
+and she noticed the little space of floor covered with cocoa-nut
+matting, and how it grated under the feet. The furniture was a polished
+oak table, with six chairs to match. A pious print hung on each wall.
+One was St. Monica and St. Augustine, and the rapt expression of their
+faces reminded her that she might be bartering a divine inheritance for
+a coarse pleasure that left but regret in the heart. And it was in such
+heartsick humour that Monsignor found her. He seemed to assume that she
+needed his help, and the tender solicitude with which he wished to come
+to her aid was in itself a consolation. She was already an incipient
+penitent as she told him of her project to bring an orchestra at her own
+expense to Wimbledon, and give the forest murmurs with the Bird Song
+from &quot;Siegfried.&quot; Monsignor left everything to her; he placed himself
+unreservedly in her hands. After a long silence she pushed a cheque for
+fifty pounds across the table, begging him not to mention the name of
+the giver. She was singing for them, that was sufficient obligation. He
+approved of her delicacy of feeling, thanked her for her generosity,
+and the business of the interview seemed ended.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm so much obliged to you, Monsignor Mostyn, for having come to me,
+for having given me an opportunity of doing some good with my money.
+Hitherto, I'm ashamed to say, I've spent it all on myself. It has often
+seemed to me intolerably selfish, and I often felt that I must do
+something, only I did not know what to do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then, feeling that she must take him into her confidence, she asked him
+what proportion of our income we should devote to charity. He said it
+was impossible to fix a precise sum, but he knew many deserving cases,
+and offered to advise her in the distribution of whatever money she
+might decide to spend in charity. Suddenly his manner changed; he even
+seemed to wish her to stay, and the conversation turned back to music.
+The conversation was mundane as possible, and it was only now and then,
+by some slight allusion to the Church, that he reminded Evelyn, and
+perchance himself, that the essential must be distinguished from the
+circumstantial.</p>
+
+<p>Again and again the temptation rose up, it seemed to look out from her
+very eyes, and she was so conscious of this irresistible desire to speak
+to him of herself that she no longer heard him, and hardly saw the blank
+wall with the pious print upon it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have not told you, Monsignor,&quot; she said at last, &quot;that I am leaving
+the stage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She knew that he must ask her what had induced her to think of taking so
+important a step, and then she would have an opportunity of asking his
+opinion of the stage. Of course neither Ulick's nor Owen's name would be
+mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;As at present constituted, the stage is a dangerous influence. Some
+women no doubt are capable of resisting evil even when surrounded by
+evil. Even so they set a bad example, for the very knowledge of their
+virtue tempts others less sure of themselves to engage in the same life,
+and these weak ones fall. The virtuous actress is like a false light,
+which instead of warning vessels from the rocks entices them to their
+ruin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He did not indite the Oberammergau Passion Play, but he could not accept
+&quot;Parsifal.&quot; He had heard Catholics aver, while approving of the
+performance of &quot;Parsifal,&quot; that they would not wish to see the piece
+performed out of Bayreuth. But he failed to understand this point of
+view altogether. It seemed to assume that a parody of the Mass was
+unobjectionable at Bayreuth, though not elsewhere. If there was no
+parody of the Mass, why should they say that they would not like to see
+the piece performed elsewhere? He had read the book and knew the music,
+and could not understand how a great work of art could contain scenes
+from real life. Whether these be religious ceremonies or social
+functions, the artistic sin is the same. He asked Evelyn why she was
+smiling, and she told him that it was because the only two whom she had
+heard disapprove of &quot;Parsifal&quot; were Monsignor Mostyn and Ulick Dean. It
+seemed strange that two such extremes should agree regarding the
+profligacy of &quot;Parsifal.&quot; Monsignor was interested for a moment in Ulick
+Dean's views, and then he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But was it with the intention of consulting me, Miss Innes, that you
+introduced the subject? I hear that you are going to play the principal
+part next year&mdash;Kundry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Nothing is settled. As I told you just now, Monsignor, I am thinking of
+leaving the stage, and your opinions concerning it do not encourage me
+to remain an actress.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear child, you have had the good fortune to be brought up in holy
+Church. You have, I hope, constant recourse to the sacraments. You have
+confided the difficulties of your stage life to your confessor. How does
+he advise you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Raising her eyes, Evelyn said in a sinking voice&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Even if one has doubts about the whole doctrine of the Church, it is
+still possible to wish to lead a good life. Don't you think so,
+Monsignor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are many Protestants who lead excellent lives. But I have always
+noticed that when a Catholic begins to question the doctrine of the
+Church, his or her doubts were preceded by a desire to lead an irregular
+life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And in the silence Evelyn became aware of the afternoon sun shining
+through the window above their heads, enlivening the dark parlour. It
+seemed strange to sit discussing such subjects in the sunshine. The ray
+that fell through the window lighted up the priest's thin face till it
+seemed like one of the wood carvings she had seen in Germany. When he
+resumed the conversation it was to lead her to speak of herself and the
+reasons which had suggested an abandonment of her stage career. The
+tender, impersonal kindness of the priest drew her out of herself, and
+she told him how she had begun to perceive that the stage had ceased to
+interest her as it had once done; she spoke of vulgarity and parade, yet
+that was not quite what she meant; it had come to seem to her like so
+much waste, as if she were wasting her time in doing things that did not
+matter, like grown people would feel if they were asked to pass the
+afternoon playing with dolls. Shrugging her shoulders hysterically, she
+said she could not explain.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But have you an idea of what life you wish to lead?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I don't think I have; I only know that I am not happy in my present
+life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I believe you see a good deal of Sir Owen Asher. He helped you, did he
+not, in your musical education?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; she answered under her breath. &quot;He is an intimate friend.&quot; In a
+moment of unexpected courage, she said, &quot;Do you know him, Monsignor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have heard a good deal about him, and nothing, I regret to say, to
+his credit. He is, I believe, an avowed atheist, and does not hesitate
+to declare his unbelief in every society, and to make open boast of an
+immoral life. He has read and tried to understand a little more than the
+people with whom he associates. I suppose the doubts you entertain
+regarding the doctrine of the Church are the result of his teaching?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>With a little pathetic air, Evelyn admitted that Owen had used every
+possible argument to destroy her faith. She had read Huxley, Darwin, and
+a little Herbert Spencer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Herbert Spencer! Miserable collections of trivial facts, bearing upon
+nothing. Of what value, I ask, can it be to suffering humanity to know
+that such and such a fact has been observed and described? Then the
+general law! rubbish, ridiculous rubbish!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The scientists fail to see that what we feel matters much more than
+what we know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;True, quite true,&quot; he said, turning sharply and looking at her with
+admiration. Then, recollecting himself, he said, &quot;But God does not exist
+because we feel He exists. He exists not through us, but through
+Himself, from all time and through all eternity. To feel is better than
+to observe, to pray is better than to inquire, but indiscriminate
+abandonment to our feelings would lead us to give credence to every
+superstition. You have, I perceive, escaped from the rank materialism of
+Sir Owen's teaching, but whither are you drifting, my dear child? You
+must return to the Church; without the Church, we are as vessels without
+a rudder or compass.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He walked up and down the room as though debating with himself. Evelyn
+held her breath, wondering what new turn the conversation would take.
+Suddenly she lost her courage, and overcome with fear got up to go, and
+Monsignor, considering that enough had been said, did not attempt to
+detain her. But as he bade her good-bye at the door, his keen eye fixed
+upon her, he added, &quot;Remember, I do not admit your difficulties to be
+intellectual ones. When you come to realise that for yourself, I shall
+be glad to do all in my power to help you. God bless you, my child!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>If only she could put the whole thing aside&mdash;refuse to bother her head
+any more, or else believe blindly what she was told. She hated wobbling,
+yet she did nothing else. Suddenly she felt that if she were to believe
+at all, it must be like Monsignor. The magnetism of his faith thrilled
+her, and, in a moment, it had all became real to her. But it was too
+late. She could never do all her religion asked. Her whole life would
+have to come to pieces; nothing of it would remain, and she entirely
+lost heart when she considered in detail the sacrifices she would have
+to make. She saw herself at Dulwich with her father, giving singing
+lessons, attending the services, and living about St. Joseph's. She saw
+herself singing operas in every capital, and always a new lover at her
+heels. Both lives were equally impossible to her. As she lay back in her
+carriage driving through the lazy summer streets, she almost wished she
+had no conscience at all. What was the use of it? She had just enough to
+spoil her happiness in wrong-doing, yet not enough to prevent her doing
+what deep down in her heart she knew to be wrong.</p>
+
+<p>That evening she wrote a number of letters, and begged a subscription of
+every friend&mdash;Owen was out of the question and she hesitated whether she
+should make use of Ulick. She would have liked to have left him out of
+this concert altogether, and it was only because she had no one else
+whom she could depend upon that she consented to let him go off in
+search of the necessary tenor. But to take him to the concert did not
+seem right.</p>
+
+<p>She dipped her pen in the ink, and then laid it down, overcome by a
+sudden and intolerable melancholy. She could have cried, so great was
+her weariness with the world, so worthless did her life seem. She had
+begged her father's forgiveness; he had forgiven her, but she had not
+sent away her lover.... She had told Monsignor that, in consequence of
+certain scruples of conscience, she intended to give up the stage, but
+she had not told him that she had taken another lover and brought him to
+live with her under her father's roof. Whether there was a God and a
+hereafter, or merely oblivion, such conduct as hers was surely wrong.
+She walked to and fro, and came to a resolution regarding her relations
+with Ulick, at all events in her father's house.</p>
+
+<p>Then life seemed perfectly hopeless, and she wished Monsignor had not
+come to see her. What could she do to shake off this clammy and
+unhealthy depression which hung about her? She might go for a walk, but
+where? The perspective of the street recalled the days when she used to
+stand at the window wondering if nothing would ever happen to her. She
+remembered the moment with singular distinctness when she heard the
+voice crying within her? &quot;Will nothing ever happen? Will this go on for
+ever?&quot; She remembered the very tree and the very angle of the house!
+Dulwich was too familiar; it was like living in a room where there was
+nothing but mirrors. Dulwich was one vast mirror of her past life. In
+Dulwich she was never living in the present. She could not see Dulwich,
+she could only remember it. One walk more in that ornamental park! She
+knew it too well! And the picture gallery meant Owen&mdash;she would only see
+him and hear his remarks. Her thoughts reverted to his proposal of
+marriage and her acceptance. Not for the whole world! Why, she did not
+know. He had been very good to her. Her ingratitude shocked her. She
+shrugged her shoulders hysterically; she could not help it&mdash;that was how
+she felt.</p>
+
+<p>But Ulick? Should she marry him and accept the Gods? That would settle
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>But a sense of humour solves nothing, and at that moment the servant
+brought her a small brown paper parcel. It looked like a book. It was a
+book. She opened it. Monsignor had sent her a book. As she turned the
+leaves she remembered the parcels of books from Owen which she used to
+open in the same room, sitting in the same chair. <i>Sin and its
+Consequences</i>! She began reading it. On one point she was sure, that sin
+did exist.... If we felt certain things to be wrong, they were wrong; at
+least they were wrong for those who thought them wrong, and she had
+never been able to feel that it was right to live with a man to whom she
+was not married. Everyone had a moral code. Owen would not cheat at
+cards, and he thought it mean to tell lies&mdash;a very poor code it was, but
+still he acted up to it. She did not know how Ulick felt on such
+matters; his beliefs, though numerous and picturesque, supplied no moral
+code, and she could not live on symbols, though perhaps they were better
+than Owen's theories. Her mistake from the beginning was in trying to
+acquire a code of morals which did not coincide with her feelings. But
+the teaching in this book did coincide with her feelings. Could she
+follow it? That was the point. Could she live without a lover? Owen
+thought not. She laughed and then walked about the room, unable to shake
+off a dead weight of melancholy. Though the Church was all wrong, and
+there was no God, she was still leading a life which she felt to be
+wrong; and if the Church were right, and there was a resurrection, her
+soul was lost. She took up the book and read till her fears became so
+intense that she could read no more, and she walked up and down the
+room, her nerves partially unstrung. In the evening she talked a great
+deal and rapidly, apparently not quite aware of what she was saying, or
+else her face wore a brooding look; sometimes it awakened a little, and
+then her eyes were fixed on Ulick.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was Friday, and as the train service seemed complex and
+inconvenient, and as she had not at Dulwich a suitable dress to wear at
+the concert, she decided to sleep at Park Lane and drive to Wimbledon in
+the afternoon. She left her father, promising to return to him soon, and
+she had told Ulick that she thought it better he should return by train.
+She saw that he had noticed the book in her hand, and she knew that he
+understood her plea that she did not wish to be seen driving with him to
+mean that she was going to call on Monsignor on her way home. She had
+thought of calling at St. Joseph's, but, unable to think of a
+sufficient excuse for the visit, had abandoned the idea. She knew the
+time was not opportune. Monsignor would be hearing confessions. But as
+the carriage turned out of Camberwell, she remembered that it would be
+polite to thank him for the book, and leaning forward she told the
+coachman to drive to St. Joseph's.... So after all she was going
+there.... Ulick was right.</p>
+
+<p>The attendant told her that Monsignor was hearing confessions, and would
+not be free for another half-hour. She drew a breath of relief, for this
+second visit had frightened her. The attendant asked her if she would
+wait. She thought she would like to wait in church. She desired its
+collectedness, its peace. But the thought of Monsignor's confessional
+frightened her, and she thanked the attendant hurriedly, and went slowly
+to her carriage.</p>
+
+<p>When Ulick came in that evening she was seated on the corner of the sofa
+near the window. The moon was shining on the breathless park, and a moth
+whirled between the still flames of the candles which burned on the
+piano. He noticed that her mood was subdued and reflective. She liked
+him to sit by her, to take her hand and tell her he loved her. She liked
+to listen to him, but not to music; nor would she sing that evening, and
+his questions as to the cause remained unanswered. Her voice was calm
+and even, and seemed to come from far away. There was a tremor in his,
+and between whiles they watched and wondered at the flight of the moth.
+It seemed attracted equally by darkness and light. It emerged from the
+darkness, fluttered round the perilous lights and returned again to its
+natural gloom. But the temptation could not be resisted, and it fell
+singed on the piano.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We ought to have quenched those candles,&quot; Evelyn said.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would have found others,&quot; Ulick answered, and he took the maimed
+moth on to the balcony and trod it out of its misery. They sat there
+under the little green verandah, and in the colour of the clear night
+their talk turned on the stars and the Zodiacal signs. Ulick was born
+under the sign of Aquarius, and all the important events of his life
+began when Aquarius was rising. Pointing to a certain group of stars, he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The story of Grania is no more than our story, your story, my story,
+and the story of Sir Owen Asher, and I had written my poem before I saw
+you.&quot; Then, as a comment on this fact, he added, &quot;We should be careful
+what we write, for what we write will happen. Grania is the beautiful
+fortune which we will strive for, which chooses one man to-day and
+another to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The idea interested her for a moment, but she was thinking of her
+project to find out if, like Owen, he thought that the virtue of
+chastity was non-essential in women, or if the other virtues were
+dependent upon it. But how to lead the conversation back to this
+question she did not for the moment know. At last she said&mdash;&quot;You ask me
+to love you&mdash;but to be my lover you would have to surrender all your
+spiritual life, that which is most to you, that which makes your genius.
+Do you think it worth it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, then answered her with some vague reference to destiny,
+but she guessed the truth. As free as Owen himself from ethical
+scruples, he still felt that we should overcome our sexual nature. She
+asked herself why: and she wondered just as Owen wondered when
+confronted by her religious conscience. They looked at each other long
+and gravely, and he told her of the great seer who had collected in her
+own person all the cryptic revelation, all the esoteric lore of the
+East. He admitted that she had allowed carnal intercourse to some of her
+disciples while forbidding it to others.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evidently judging chastity to be in some cases essential to the other
+virtues.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She heard him say that a sect of mystics to which he belonged, or
+perhaps it was whose society he frequented, advised the married state
+but with this important reservation, that instead of corporal possession
+they should endeavour to aid each other to rise to a higher spiritual
+plane, anticipating in this life a little the perfect communion of
+spirit which awaited them in the next. But such theories did not appeal
+to Evelyn. She could only understand the renunciation of the married
+state for the sake of closer intimacy with the spiritual life; and she
+was more interested when he told her of the cruelties, the macerations
+and the abstinences which the Indian seers resorted to, so that the
+opacity of the fleshly envelope might be diminished and let the soul
+through. In modern, as in the most ancient ages, with the scientist as
+with the seer, marvels and prodigies are reached through the subjugation
+of the flesh; as life dwindles like a flame that a breath will quench,
+the spirit attains its maximum, and the abiding and unchanging life that
+lies beyond death waxes till it becomes the real life.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is this life, then, not real?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If reality means what we understand, could anything be more unreal?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you do believe in a future state?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I certainly believe in a future state.... So much so that it seems
+impossible to believe that life ends utterly with death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But to Evelyn's surprise, he seemed to doubt the immortality of this
+future state, and fell back on the Irish doctrine which holds that after
+death you pass to the great plain or land under the sea, or the land
+over the sea, or the land of the children of the goddess Dana.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Even now my destiny is accomplishing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The true Celt is still a pagan&mdash;Christianity has been superimposed. It
+is little more than veneer, and in the crises of life the Celt turns to
+the ancient belief of his race. But did Ulick really believe in Angus
+and Lir and the Great Mother Dana? Perhaps he merely believed that as a
+man of genius it was his business to enroll himself in the original
+instincts and traditions of his race.</p>
+
+<p>They were as unquiet as cattle before an approaching storm, and when
+they returned to the drawing-room it seemed to him like a scene in a
+theatre about to be withdrawn to make way for another part of the story.
+Even while looking at it, it seemed to have receded a little.</p>
+
+<p>At last it was time for Ulick to go. As they said good-night he asked
+her if he should come to lunch. She looked at him, uncertain if she
+ought to take him to the concert at all.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_SEVEN'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN</h2>
+
+<p>Monsignor, who was waiting for her at the steps of the hall which had
+been hired for the concert, introduced her to Father Daly, the convent
+chaplain. She shook hands with him, and caught sight of him as she did
+so. It was but a passing glance of a small, blonde man with white
+eyelashes, seemingly too shy to raise his eyes; and she was too
+stringently occupied with other thoughts to notice him further.</p>
+
+<p>Owing to her exertions and Monsignor Mostyn's, a large audience had been
+collected, and though the month was September, there were many
+fashionable, influential and musical people present.</p>
+
+<p>The idea of the band, which Evelyn had thought of bringing down in the
+intention of giving the Forest Murmurs and the Bird Music, had been
+abandoned, but the finest exponent of Wagner on the piano had come to
+play the usual things: the closing scene of the &quot;Walk&uuml;re,&quot; the overture
+of the &quot;Meistersinger&quot; and the Prelude of &quot;Tristan.&quot; And, mingled with
+the students and apostles from London, were a goodly number of young men
+and women from the various villas. Every degree of Wagner culture was
+present, from the ten-antlered stag who had seen &quot;Parsifal&quot; given under
+the eye of the master to the skipping fawns eagerly browsing upon the
+motives. &quot;That is the motive of the Ride; that, dear, is the motive of
+the Fire; that is the motive of Slumber in the Fire, and that is the
+motive of Siegfried, the pure hero who will be born to save Valhalla.&quot;
+The class above had some knowledge of the orchestration. &quot;You see,&quot; said
+a young man, pointing to the score, &quot;here he is writing for the entire
+orchestra.&quot; &quot;Three bars farther on he is writing for three violins and a
+flute. He withdraws his instruments in a couple of bars; it would take
+anyone else five-and-twenty.&quot; At a little distance the old stag who had
+never missed a festival at Bayreuth was telling the young lady at his
+side that the &quot;Walk&uuml;re&quot; is written in the same style as the &quot;Rheingold&quot;
+and the first two acts of &quot;Siegfried.&quot; Another distinct change of style
+came with the third act of &quot;Siegfried&quot; and the &quot;Dusk of the Gods,&quot; which
+were not composed till some years later. &quot;Ah, that wonderful later
+style! That scale of half-notes! Flats and sharps introduced into every
+bar; C, C sharp; D, D sharp; E, F, F sharp; G, G sharp; A, B flat, B,
+C. In that scale, or what would seem to be that scale, he balances
+himself like an acrobat, springing on to the desired key without
+preparation,&quot; and so on until the old stag was interrupted by a friend,
+a lady who had just recognised him. As she squeezed past, she stopped to
+tell him that Wagner had spoiled her for all other music. She had been
+to hear Beethoven's &quot;Eroica&quot; Symphony once more, but it had seemed to
+her like a pious book.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn sang &quot;Elsa's Dream,&quot; &quot;Elizabeth's Prayer&quot; and the &quot;Liebestod,&quot;
+and when she was recalled at the end of the concert, she sang Senta's
+ballad as a <i>bonne bouche</i>, something that the audience had not
+expected, and would send her friends away more than ever pleased with
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Her father had not been able to come&mdash;that was a disappointment&mdash;but
+Ulick had accompanied her beautifully, following her voice, making the
+most of it at every moment. When she left the platform, she took both
+his hands and thanked him. She loved him in that instant as a musician
+and as a mistress. But the joy of the moment, the ecstasy of admiration,
+was interrupted by Monsignor Mostyn and Father Daly. They too wished to
+thank her. In his courtly manner, Monsignor told her of the pleasure her
+singing had given him. But when Father Daly mentioned that the nuns
+expected her to tea, her courage seemed to slip away. The idea of a
+convent frightened her, and she tried to excuse herself, arguing that
+she had to go back to London.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you're engaged for dinner, I'm afraid there will not be time,&quot;
+Monsignor said. She looked up, and, meeting his eyes, did not dare to
+lie to him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; I'm not dining out, but I promised to take Mr. Dean back in my
+carriage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Dean will, I'm sure, not mind waiting.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Evelyn that Monsignor suspected her relations with Ulick,
+and to refuse to go to the convent, she thought, would only confirm him
+in his suspicions. So she accepted the invitation abruptly, and when
+they turned to go, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My carriage is here; I'll drive you,&quot; and, at the same moment, she
+remembered that Ulick was waiting. But she felt that she could not drive
+back to London with him after leaving the convent, and she hoped that
+Monsignor would not correctly interpret the disappointment which was
+plain upon his face. No; he must go back by train&mdash;no, there would be no
+use his calling that evening at Park Lane.</p>
+
+<p>She wore a black and white striped silk dress, with a sort of muslin
+bodice covered with lace, and there was a large bunch of violets in her
+waistband. The horses were beautiful in the sunshine, and their red
+hides glistened in the long, slanting rays. She put up her parasol and
+tried to understand, but she could only see the angles of houses, and
+the eccentricity of every passer-by. She saw very clearly the thin,
+facial line, and her eyes rested on the touch of purple at the throat to
+mark his Roman dignity. Father Daly sat opposite, rubbing his thumbs
+like one in the presence of a superior. He was not ill-looking, but so
+shy that his features passed unperceived, and it was some time before
+she saw his eyes; they were always cast down, and his thin, well-cut
+nose disappeared in his freckled cheeks. The cloth he wore was coarser
+than Monsignor's; his heavy shoes contrasted with the finely-stitched
+and buckled shoes of the Papal prelate.</p>
+
+<p>This visit to the convent frightened Evelyn more than the largest
+audience that had ever assembled to hear her, and, until they got clear
+of the town, she was not certain she would not plead some excuse and
+tell the coachman to turn back. But now it was too late. The carriage
+ascended the steep street, and, at the top of it, the town ended
+abruptly at the edge of the common. On one side was a high brick wall,
+hiding the grounds and gardens of the villas; on the other was the
+common, seen through the leaves of a line of thin trees. In her nervous
+agitation, she saw very distinctly&mdash;the foreground teeming with the
+animation of cricket, the more remote parts solitary, the windmill
+hovering in a corner out of the way of the sunset, and two horsemen and
+a horsewoman cantering along the edge of the long valley into which the
+plain dropped precipitously. The sun sank in a white sky, and Evelyn
+caught the point of one of the ribs of her parasol, so that she could
+hold it in a better position to shade her eyes, and she saw how the
+houses stretched into a point, the last being an inn, no doubt the noisy
+resort of the cricketers and the landscape painters. There was a painter
+making his way towards the valley, his paint-box on his back. But at
+that moment the carriage turned into a lane where a paling enclosed the
+small gardens. She then noticed the decaying pear or apple tree, to
+which was attached a clothes-line. Enormous sunflowers weltered in the
+dusty corners. The brick was crumbling and broken, beautiful in colour,
+&quot;And in every one of these cottages someone is living; someone is
+laughing; someone will soon be dead. Good heavens, how strange!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We are nearly there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn started; it was Father Daly speaking to her. &quot;The cottages have
+spoilt the appearance on this side, but the view is splendid from the
+other.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The lane ascended and Evelyn remembered how the house stood inside a
+wall behind some trees, looking westward, the last southern end of the
+common land as the windmill was the last northern end. There had been
+iron gates when a great City merchant lived in the Georgian house, which
+had been gradually transformed to suit the requirements of the sisters.
+The melancholy little peal of the bell hanging on a loose wire sounded
+far away, and in the interval Evelyn noticed the large double door,
+from which the old green paint was peeling. A step was heard within, and
+the little shutter which closed the grated peephole in the panel of the
+door was drawn back; the eyes and forehead band of a nun appeared for an
+instant in the opening; and then with a rattle of keys the door was
+hastily opened and the little porteress, with ruddy cheeks and a shy
+smile, stood aside to let Evelyn pass in. She kissed the hand of
+Monsignor as he turned to her with a kindly word of salutation. &quot;The
+Reverend Mother is expecting you,&quot; she said, her agitation being due to
+the importance of the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No doubt they have been praying that I might sing well, poor dears,&quot;
+Evelyn thought, as she followed the nun up the paved, covered way.
+Through the iron frame-work, woven through and through with creepers and
+monthly roses, she caught glimpses of the partly-obliterated carriage
+drive, and of the neatly-kept flower beds filled with geraniums and
+tall, white asters.</p>
+
+<p>In the hall an Adam's ceiling radiated in graceful lines from a central
+medallion, and before a statue of the Sacred Heart a light was burning.
+Evelyn remembered how the poor lay sisters laboured to keep the stone
+floor spotless, and it was into the parlour on the left, which Evelyn
+remembered to be the best parlour, that Sister Angela ushered them.</p>
+
+<p>In the old days, before a sudden crisis on the Stock Exchange had
+obliged the owner to sell the house for much less than its true value to
+the little community of sisters of the Passion who were then seeking a
+permanent house, this room, round which Evelyn and the two priests were
+looking for seats, had been used as a morning-room. Three long French
+windows looked out on the garden, and the flowers and air made it a
+bright, cheerful room, in spite of the severe pictures on the walls. She
+recognised at once the engraving of Leonardo's &quot;Last Supper&quot; which hung
+over the solid marble chimney piece a little above the statue of Our
+Lady of Lourdes and the two blue vases, and also the pale, distempered
+walls, and the coloured, smiling portrait of the Pope, and a full-length
+photograph of Cardinal Manning, signed in his own clear, neat
+handwriting.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn and the priests, still undecided where they should sit, looked at
+the little horsehair sofa. Monsignor brought forward for her one of the
+six high, straight-backed chairs, and they sat at the circular table
+laid out with severe books; a volume of the <i>Lives of the Saints</i> lay
+under her hand, and she glanced at a little box for contributions. She
+looked at the priests and then round the room, striving to penetrate the
+meaning which it vaguely conveyed to her&mdash;an indescribable air of
+scrupulous neatness and cleanliness, a sense of virginal dulness. But
+suddenly a startling sense of the incongruity came upon her, that she,
+the opera-singer, Owen Asher's mistress, should be admitted into a
+convent, should be received, the honoured guest of holy women. And she
+got up, leaving the two priests to discuss the financial results of the
+concert, and stood gazing out at the window. There was the rosery with
+the lilac bushes shutting out the view of the green fields beyond; and
+this was the portion of the garden given up to visitors and boarders.
+She used to walk there during the retreat. Away to the right was the
+big, sunny garden where the nuns went for their daily recreation. By
+special permission she had once been allowed there; she remembered the
+sloping lawns, the fringe of stately elms, and over them the view
+westward of Richmond Park. She thought of the nuns walking under their
+trees, half ghost-like, half sybil-like they used to seem in their grey
+habits with their long grey veils falling picturesquely, their thoughts
+fixed on an infinite life, and this life never seeming more to them than
+a little passing shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn returned slowly to the table. The priests were talking of the
+convent choir; Monsignor turned to address a question to her, but before
+he spoke, the door opened and two nuns entered, hardly of this world did
+they seem in their long grey habits.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mother, a small, thin woman, with eager eyes and a nervous,
+intimate manner, hastened forward. Evelyn felt that the Reverend Mother
+could not be less than sixty, yet she did not think of her as an old
+woman. Between her rapid utterances an expression of sadness came upon
+her face, instilled through the bright eyes, and Evelyn contrasted her
+with Mother Philippa, the sub-prioress. Even the touch of these women's
+hands was different. There was a nervous emotion in the Reverend
+Mother's hand. Mother Philippa's hand when it touched Evelyn's expressed
+somehow a simpler humanity.</p>
+
+<p>She was a short, rather stout, homely-faced Englishwoman, about
+thirty-eight or forty, such a woman as is met daily on the croquet lawns
+in our suburbs, probably one of three plain sisters, and never could
+have doubted her vocation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot tell you how grateful we are, Miss Innes, for what you have
+done for us. Monsignor will have told you of the straits we are in....
+But you are an old friend, I understand of our convent. Mother Philippa,
+our sub-prioress, tells me you made a retreat here seven or eight years
+ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think it was more than six years,&quot; Mother Philippa said,
+correcting the Reverend Mother. &quot;I remember you very well, Miss Innes.
+You left us one Easter morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn liked her plain, matter-of-fact face, a short face
+undistinguished by any special characteristic, yet once seen it could
+not be forgotten, so implicit was it of her practical mind and a desire
+to serve someone.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That silly Sister Agnes has forgotten the strawberry jam,&quot; she said,
+when the porteress brought in the tea. &quot;I will run and fetch it; I
+shan't be a moment.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Mother Philippa, pray don't trouble; I prefer some of that cake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, no, I've been thinking all the afternoon of this jam; we make it
+ourselves; you must have some.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mother apologised for having put sugar in Evelyn's tea, for
+she remembered now that Evelyn had said that she did not like sugar; and
+Monsignor took advantage of the occasion to reassure the Reverend Mother
+that the success of the concert had been much greater than he had
+anticipated.... Thanks to Miss Innes, he hoped to be able to hand her a
+cheque for more than two hundred pounds. This was more than double the
+sum she had hoped to receive.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall always pray for you,&quot; she said, taking Evelyn's hand. &quot;I
+cannot tell you what a load you have taken off my shoulders, for, of
+course, the main responsibility rests upon me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn regretted that the nuns could not have tea with her, and wondered
+whether they were ever allowed to partake of their own excellent
+home-made cake. She was beginning to enjoy her visit, and to acquire an
+interest in the welfare of the convent. She had hitherto only devoted
+her money to selfish ends; but now she resolved that, if she could help
+it, these poor sisters should not be driven from their convent. Mother
+Phillippa asked her suddenly why she had not been to see them before.
+Evelyn answered that she had been abroad. But living abroad meant to the
+nun the pleasure of living in Catholic countries, and she was eager to
+know if Evelyn had had the privilege of going to Rome. She smiled at the
+nun's innocent curiosity, which she was glad to gratify, and told her
+about the old Romanesque churches on the Rhine, and the hundred marble
+spires of the Cathedral of Milan. But in the midst of such pleasant
+conversation came an unfortunate question. Mother Philippa asked if
+Evelyn had travelled with her father. Any simple answer would have
+sufficed, but she lost her presence of mind, and the &quot;No,&quot; which came at
+last was so weak and equivocal that the Reverend Mother divined in that
+moment some part of the truth. Evelyn sat as if tongue-tied, and it was
+Monsignor who came to her rescue by explaining that she had sung in St.
+Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, and all the capitals of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must excuse us,&quot; the Reverend Mother said, &quot;for not knowing, but
+these things do not penetrate convent walls.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The conversation dropped, and the Reverend Mother took advantage of the
+occasion to suggest that they should visit the chapel.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Philippa walked on with the priests in front, leaving Evelyn with
+the Reverend Mother.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am forced to walk very slowly on account of my heart. I hope you
+don't mind, Miss Innes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your heart, Reverend Mother? You suffer from your heart? I'm so sorry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mother said the new chapel had been built by the celebrated
+Catholic architect, and mentioned how the last three years of the
+Reverend Mother's life had been given over to this work Evelyn knew that
+the mouldings and carving and the stained glass had caused the pecuniary
+embarrassments of the convent, and did not speak of them She was told
+that the architect had insisted that every detail should be in keeping,
+and understood that the thirteenth century had proved the ruin of the
+convent; every minor decoration was faithful to it&mdash;the very patterns
+stitched in wool on the cushions of the <i>prie-dieu</i> were strictly Gothic
+in character.</p>
+
+<p>Only the lower end of the nave was open to the public; the greater part
+was enclosed within a high grille of gilded ironwork of an elaborate
+design, through which Evelyn could vaguely discern the plain oak stalls
+of the nuns on either side, stretching towards the ornate altar, carved
+in white stone. And falling through the pointed windows, the long rays
+slanted across the empty chapel; in the golden air there was a faint
+sense of incense; it recalled the Benediction and the figures of the
+departed watchers who had knelt motionless all day before the elevated
+Host. The faintly-burning lamp remained to inspire the mind with
+instinctive awe and a desire of worship. And as always, in the presence
+of the Blessed Sacrament, Evelyn's doubts vanished, and she knelt in
+momentary prayer beside the two nuns.</p>
+
+<p>Then at her request they went into the garden. It was the part of the
+convent she remembered best. She recognised at once the broad terrace
+walk extending the full length of the house, from the new wing to the
+rose garden whence some steps led to the lower grounds. They were
+several acres in extent and sloped gently to the south-west. The
+Reverend Mother and the priests had turned to the left; they had
+business matters to discuss and were going round the garden by the outer
+walk. Evelyn and Mother Philippa chose the middle path. The sunset was
+before them, and the wistfulness of a distant park sinking into blue
+mist. Evelyn thought that in all her travels she had never seen anything
+so lovely as the convent garden in that evening light. It filled her
+soul with an ecstatic sense of peace and joy, and a sudden passionate
+desire to share this life of calm and happy seclusion brought tears to
+her eyes. She could not speak, but Mother Philippa, with a single, quick
+glance, seemed instinctively to understand, and it was in silence that
+they walked down a grassy path, that led between the narrow beds filled
+with a gay tangle of old-fashioned flowers, to a little summer-house.
+Behind the summer-house, at the bottom of the garden, was a broad walk
+pleasantly shaded by the overhanging branches of the elms.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We call this St. Peter's path,&quot; Mother Philippa said placidly, &quot;and for
+his feast the novices put up his statue in the summer-house and decorate
+it with flowers. They always come here for their mid-day recreation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your garden is quite lovely, Mother Philippa; I remember it all so
+well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They wandered on, past the apple and plum trees laden with fruit&mdash;they
+made a pretty orchard in one corner; and while the nun passed here and
+there gathering flowers, Evelyn stood gazing, recalling all her girlish
+impressions. Almost every turn in the walks recalled some innocent
+aspiration, some girlish feeling of love and reverence. In every nook
+there was a statue of the Virgin, or a cross whereby the thoughts of the
+passer-by might be recalled to the essential object of her life. She
+remembered how she had stopped one morning before the crucifix which
+stood on the top of some rocks at the end of the garden. She had stopped
+as in a dream, and for a long while had stood looking at the face of the
+dying Redeemer, praying to his Father for pardon for them that
+persecuted him. She had felt as if crazed with love, and had walked up
+the pathway feeling that the one thing of worth in the world was to live
+for him who had died for her. But she had betrayed him. She had chosen
+Owen!</p>
+
+<p>Mother Philippa added another flower to the bouquet. She looked at it
+and, regarding it as finished, she presented it to Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope I did not say anything that caused you pain in the parlour. If I
+did you must know that I did not mean it. I I hope your father is quite
+well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, he's quite well. You did not offend me, Mother Philippa,&quot; she
+said, raising her eyes, and in that moment the two women felt they
+understood each other in some mute and far-off way.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The day you left us was Easter Sunday. It was a beautiful morning, and
+you walked round the rose garden with an old lady; she asked you to
+sing, and you sung her two little songs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I remember; her hair was quite white, and she walked with a
+stick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad you remember; I feared that you had forgotten, as you were so
+long coming back. I often prayed for you that you might come and see us.
+I always felt that you would come back, and when one feels like that, it
+generally happens.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn raised her eyes, drawing delight from the nun's happy and
+contented face. She experienced an exquisite idea, a holy intimacy of
+feeling; there was a breathless exaltation in the heavens and on the
+earth, and the wild cry of a startled bird darting through the
+shrubberies sounded like a challenge or defiance. The sunset grew
+narrower in the slate-coloured sky, and the long plain of the common
+showed under two bars of belated purple. The priests and the Reverend
+Mother went up the steps and were about to enter the convent. Evelyn and
+Mother Philippa lingered by a distant corner of the garden marked by
+nine tall crosses.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I was here there were but six. I remember Sister Bonaventure, thin
+and white, and so weak that she could not move. She was dying far from
+all she knew, yet she was quite happy. It was we who were unhappy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She was happy, for her thoughts were set upon God. How could she be
+otherwise than happy when she knew she was going to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes after, Evelyn was bidding the nuns good-night. The
+Reverend Mother hoped that when she made another retreat she would be
+their guest. Mother Philippa was disappointed that they had not heard
+her sing. Perhaps one day she might sing to them. They would see how it
+could be arranged: perhaps at Benediction when she came to make another
+retreat. Evelyn smiled, and the carriage passed into the night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_EIGHT'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The dawn crept through her closed eyelids, and burying her face in the
+pillows, she sought to retain the receding dream.</p>
+
+<p>But out of the gloom which she divined and through which a face looked,
+a face which she could not understand, but which she must follow, there
+came a sound as of someone moving. The dream dissolved in the sound, she
+opened her eyes, and upon her lips there was terror, and she could not
+move.... Nor did she dare to look, and when her eyes turned towards the
+doorway she could not see beyond it; she could not remember if she had
+left the door ajar. Shadows gathered, and again came the awful sound of
+someone; she slipped under the bedclothes, and lay there stark, frozen
+with terror. When she summoned sufficient courage, she looked towards
+the shadowy doorway, but the passage beyond it was filled with nameless
+foreboding shapes from an under-world; and the thought that the sound
+she had heard had been caused by her clothes slipping from a chair
+failed to reassure her. She was as cold as a corpse in a grave. She felt
+that it was her duty to explore the dark, but to get out of bed to stand
+in that grey room and look into the passage was more than she dared; she
+could only lie still and endure the sensation of hands at her throat and
+breath above her face.</p>
+
+<p>A little later she was able to distinguish the pattern of the
+wall-paper, and as she followed its design human life seemed black and
+intolerably loathsome. She strove against the thought, but she saw the
+creature leer so plainly that there was no way of escaping from the
+conviction that what she had accepted as life was but a mask worn by a
+leper. The vision persisted for what seemed a long while, and when it
+faded it was pictures of her own life that she read upon the wall; her
+soul cried out against the miserable record of her sins, and turning on
+her pillow she saw the dawn&mdash;the inexorable light that was taking her
+back to life, to sin, and all the miserable routine of vanity and
+selfishness which she would have to begin again. She had left her
+father, though she knew he would be lonely and unhappy without her. She
+had lived with Owen when she knew it was wrong, and she had acquiesced
+in his blasphemies, and by reading evil books she had striven to
+undermine her faith in God. It seemed to her incredible that anyone
+should be capable of such wickedness, yet she was that very one; she
+had committed all sins, and in her great misery she wished herself dead,
+so that she might think no more.</p>
+
+<p>With eyes wide open to the dawn and to her soul she lay hour after hour.
+She heard the French clock strike six sharp strokes, and unable to
+endure her hot bed any longer, she got up, slipped her arms into a
+dressing-gown, and went down to the drawing-room. It was filled with a
+grey twilight, and the street was grey-blue and silent save for the
+sparrows. Sitting on the edge of the sofa she remembered the convent.
+The nuns had thought her a good Catholic, and she had had to pretend she
+was. Monsignor, it is true, had turned the conversation and saved her
+from exposure. But what then? She knew, and he knew, everyone knew; Lady
+Ascott, Lady Mersey, Lady Duckle very probably didn't care, but
+appearances had to be preserved, and she had to tell lies to them all.
+Her life had become a network of lies. There was no corner of her life
+into which she could look without finding a lie. She had been faithful
+to no one, not even to Owen. She had another lover, and she had sent
+Owen away on account of scruples of conscience! She could not understand
+herself; she had taken Ulick to Dowlands and had lived with him
+there&mdash;in her father's house. So awful did her life seem to her that her
+thoughts stopped, and she became possessed of the desire of escape which
+takes a trapped animal and forces it to gnaw off one of its legs. She
+must escape from this life of lies whatever it cost her; she must free
+herself. But how? If she went to Monsignor he would tell her she must
+leave the stage, and she had promised to create the part of Grania. She
+had promised, and she hated not keeping her promise. He would say it was
+impossible for her to remain on the stage and live a virtuous life; he
+would tell her that she must refuse to see Owen. She was still very fond
+of him, and would like to see him sometimes. What reason could she give
+to her friends for refusing to see him? what reason could she give for
+leaving the stage?&mdash;to do so would set everyone talking. Everyone would
+want to know why; Lady Ascott, Lady Mersey, all her friends. How was she
+to separate herself from her surroundings? Wherever she went she would
+be known. Her friends would follow her, lovers would follow her,
+temptations would begin again, would she have strength to resist? &quot;Not
+always,&quot; was the answer her heart gave back. A great despair fell upon
+her, and she walked up the room. Stopping at the window she looked out,
+and all reform of her life seemed to her impossible. She was hemmed in
+on every side. If she could only think of it no more! She had adopted an
+evil life and must pursue it to the end. She must be wretched in this
+life, and be punished eternally in the next.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing a footstep on the stairs, she drew herself behind the door, and
+when the sound passed downstairs she tried to reason with herself. After
+all, the housemaid would have been merely surprised to find her in the
+drawing-room at that hour. She could not have guessed why she was there.
+She ran up the stairs, and when she had closed the door of her room she
+stood looking at the clock. It was not yet seven, and Herat did not come
+to her room till half-past nine. She must try to get to sleep between
+this and then. She lay with her eyes closed, and did not perceive that a
+thin, shallow sleep had come upon her, for she continued to think the
+same thoughts; fear of God and hatred of sin assumed even more
+terrifying proportions, and she started like a hunted animal when Merat
+came in with her bath. &quot;I hope Mademoiselle is not ill?&quot; &quot;No, I am not
+ill, only I have not slept at all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In order to distract her thoughts, she went for a walk after breakfast
+in the park, but any casual sight sufficed to recall them to the one
+important question. She could not see the children sailing their toy
+boats without thinking her ambitions were as futile, and a chance
+glimpse of a church spire frightened her so that she turned her back and
+walked the other way. In the afternoon she tried to interest herself in
+some music, but her hands dropped from the keys, so useless did it
+appear to her. At four she was dreaming of Owen in an armchair. The
+servant suddenly announced him, and he came in, seemingly recovered from
+his gout and his old age. His figure was the perfect elegance of a man
+of forty-three, and in such beautiful balance that an old admiration
+awakened in her. His &quot;waistcoats and his valet,&quot; she thought, catching
+sight of the embroideries and the pale, subdued, terrified air of the
+personal servant. The valet carried a parcel which Evelyn guessed to be
+a present for her. It was a tea-service of old Crown Derby that Owen had
+happened upon in Bath, and they spent some time examining its pale roses
+and gilt pattern. She expected him to refer to their last interview, but
+he avoided doing so, preferring to take it for granted that he still was
+her lover, and he did so without giving her sufficient occasion to
+correct him on this point. He was affectionate and intimate; he sat
+beside her on the sofa, and talked pleasantly of the benefit he had
+derived from the waters, of the boredom of hotel life, and of a concert
+given in aid of a charity.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But that reminds me,&quot; he said; &quot;I heard about the Wimbledon concert,
+and was sorry you did not write to me for a subscription. Lady
+Merrington told me about the nuns; they spent all their money building a
+chapel, and had not enough to eat.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I didn't think you would care to subscribe to a convent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now, why did you think that? Poor devils of nuns, shut up in a convent
+without enough to eat. Of course I'll subscribe; I'll send them a cheque
+for ten pounds to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This afternoon, whether by accident or design, he said no word that
+might jar on her religious scruples; he even appeared to sympathise with
+religious life, and admitted that the world was not much, and to
+renounce the world was sublime. The conversation paused, and he said, &quot;I
+think the tea-service suits the room. You haven't thanked me for it yet,
+Evelyn.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know that I ought to accept any more presents from you. I have
+accepted too much as it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was conscious of her feebleness. It would have been better to have
+said, &quot;I am another man's mistress,&quot; but she could not speak the words,
+and he asked if they might have tea in the new service. She did not
+answer, so he rang, and when the servant left the room he took her hands
+and drew her closer to him. &quot;I am another man's mistress, you must not
+touch me,&quot; rang in her brain, but he did not kiss her, and the truth was
+not spoken.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Lady Duckle is still at Homburg, is she not?&quot; he asked, but he was
+thinking of the inexplicable event each had been in the other's life.
+They had wandered thus far, now their paths divided, for nothing
+endures. That is the sadness, the incurable sadness! He was getting too
+old for her; in a few more years he would be fifty. But he had hoped
+that this friendship would continue to the end of the chapter. And while
+he was thinking these things, Evelyn was telling him that Lady Duckle
+had met Lady Mersey at Homburg, and had gone on with her to Lucerne,
+where they hoped to meet Lady Ascott.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are going to shoot with Lord Ascott next month?&quot; she said, and
+looking at him she wondered if their relations were after all no more
+than a chance meeting and parting. While he spoke of Lord Ascott's
+pheasant shooting, she felt that whatever happened neither could divorce
+the other from his or her faults.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How beautiful the park is now, I like the view from your windows. I
+like this hour; a sense of resignation is in the air.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; she said, &quot;the sky is beautifully calm,&quot; and she experienced a
+return of old tendernesses, and she had no scruple, for he did not make
+love to her, and did not kiss her until he rose to leave. Then he kissed
+her on the forehead and on the cheek, and refrained from asking if they
+were reconciled.</p>
+
+<p>Never had he been nicer than he had been that afternoon, and she dared
+not look into her heart, for she did not wish to think that she would
+send him away. Why should she send him away? why not the other? She
+could not answer this question; she only knew that the choice had fallen
+upon Owen. She must send him away, but what reasons should she give? She
+felt that her conduct that afternoon had rendered a complete rupture in
+their relations more difficult than ever. It was as she lay sleepless in
+bed long after midnight that the solution of the difficulty suddenly
+sounded in her brain. She must write to him saying that he might come to
+see her once more, but that it must be for the last time. This was the
+way out of her difficulty, and she turned over in her bed, feeling she
+might now get to sleep. But instead of sleep there began the very words
+of this last interview, and her brain teemed with different plans for
+escape from her lover. She saw herself on ocean steamers, in desert
+isles, and riding wild horses through mountain passes. Barred doors,
+changes of name, all means were passed and reviewed; each was in turn
+dismissed, and the darkness about her bed was like a flame. There was no
+doubt that she was doomed to another night of insomnia. The bell of the
+French clock struck three, and, quite exhausted, she got up and walked
+about the room. &quot;In another hour I shall hear the screech of the sparrow
+on the window-sill, and may lie awake till Merat comes to call me.&quot; She
+lay down, folded her arms, closed her eyes and began to count the sheep
+as they came through the gate. But thoughts of Owen began to loom up,
+and in spite of her efforts to repress them, they grew more and more
+distinct. The clock struck four, and soon after it seemed to her that
+the darkness was lightening. For a long while she did not dare to open
+her eyes. At last she had to open them, and the grey-blue light was
+indescribably mournful. Again her life seemed small, black and evil. She
+jumped out of bed, passed her arms into a tea-gown, and paced the room.
+She must see Owen. She must tell him the truth. Once he knew the truth
+he would not care for her, and that would make the parting easier for
+both. She did not believe that this was so, but she had to believe
+something, and she went down to the drawing-room and wrote&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;DEAR OWEN&mdash;You may come and see me to-morrow if you care to. I am
+afraid that your visit will not be a pleasant one. I don't think I could
+be an agreeable companion to anyone at present, but I cannot send you
+away without explaining why. However painful that explanation may be to
+you, there is at all events this to be said, that it will be doubly
+painful to me. I am not, dear Owen, ungrateful; that you should think me
+so is the hardest punishment of all, and I am sorry I have not made you
+happier. I know other women don't feel as I do, but I can't change
+myself. I feel dreadfully hypocritical writing in this strain. I, less
+than anyone have a right to do so, especially now. But you will try to
+understand. You know that I am not a hypocrite at heart. I am determined
+to tell you all, and you will then see that no course is open to me but
+to send you away. Even if you were to promise that we should be friends
+we must not see each other, but I don't think that you would care to see
+me on those terms. I should have stopped you yesterday when you took my
+hand, when you kissed me, but I was weak and cowardly. Somehow I could
+not bring myself to tell you the truth. I shall expect you in the
+afternoon, and will tell you all. I am punishing myself as well as you.
+So please don't try to make things more difficult than they are.&mdash;Yours
+very sincerely, EVELYN INNES.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Leaving this letter with directions that it should be posted at once,
+weary, and with her brain as clear as crystal, she threw herself upon
+her bed. Folding her arms, she closed her eyes, and strove to banish
+thoughts of Owen and the confession she was to make that afternoon. But
+when sleep gathered about her eyes, the memory of past sins, at first
+dense, then with greater clearness, shone through, and the traitor sleep
+moved away. Or she would suddenly find herself in the middle of the
+interview, the entire dialogue standing clear cut in her brain, she
+could almost see the punctuation of every sentence. Once more she
+counted the sheep coming through the gate; she counted and counted,
+until her imagination failed her, and in spite of herself, her eyes
+opened upon the dreaded room. She heard the clock strike nine. Merat
+would knock at her door in another half-hour, and she lay waiting,
+fearing her arrival. But at last her face grew quieter, she seemed to
+see Monsignor vaguely, she could not tell where nor how he had come to
+her, but she heard him saying distinctly that she must never sing Isolde
+again. He seemed to bar her way to the stage, and the music that was to
+bring her on sounded in her ears, yet she could see the shape of her
+room and its furniture. A knock came at the door, and she was surprised
+to find that she had been asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Her brain was a ferment; it seemed as if it were about to fall out of
+her head; she feared the day, its meal times and the long hours of
+morning and evening sunshine. The idea of the coming interview with Owen
+was intolerable. Her brain was splitting, she could not think of what
+she would say. But her letter had gone! After breakfast she felt a
+little rested, and went into the park and remained there till lunch
+time, dimly aware of the open air, the waving of branches, the sound of
+human voices. Beyond these, and much more distinct, was a vision of her
+evil life, and the cold, stern face of the priest watching her. She
+wandered about, and then hastened back to Park Lane. Owen had been. He
+had left word that he would call again about three o'clock. He would
+have stayed, but had an engagement to lunch with friends. She lunched
+alone, and was sitting on the corner of the sofa, heavy-eyed and weary,
+but determined to be true to her resolutions, when the servant announced
+him. He came in hurriedly, his hat in his hand, and his eyes went at
+once to where she was sitting. He saw she was looking ill, but there
+were more important matters to speak of.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I came at once, the moment I got your letter. I should have waited, but
+I was lunching with Lady Merrington. Such terribly boring people were
+there. It was all I could do to prevent myself from rushing out of the
+room. But, Evelyn, what are you determined to tell me? I thought we
+parted good friends yesterday. You have been thinking it over.... You're
+going to send me away.&quot; He sat beside her, he held his hat in both
+hands, and looked perplexed and worried. &quot;But, Evelyn&quot;&mdash;she sat like a
+figure of stone, there was no colour in her cheeks nor any expression in
+her eyes or mouth&mdash;&quot;Evelyn, I am afraid you are ill, you are pale as a
+ghost.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I did not sleep last night, nor the night before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Two nights of insomnia are enough to break anyone up. I am very sorry,
+Evelyn, dear&mdash;you ought to go away.&quot; Her silence perplexed him, and he
+said, &quot;Evelyn, I have come to ask you to be my wife. Don't keep me in
+suspense. Will you give up the stage and be my wife? Why don't you
+answer? Oh, Evelyn, is it&mdash;are you married?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I am not married, Owen. I don't suppose I ever shall be. If you had
+wished to marry me&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I know all that, that if I wanted to marry you I ought to have done so
+long ago. But you said you were determined to tell me something&mdash;what is
+it?&quot; The expression of her face did not change; her lips moved a little,
+she cast down her eyes, and said, &quot;I've got another lover.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He felt that he ought to get very angry, and that to do so was in a way
+expected of him. He thought he had better say something energetic, lest
+she should think that he did not care for her. But he was so overcome by
+the thought of his escape&mdash;it was now no longer possible for her to send
+him away&mdash;that he could think of nothing. It even seemed to him that
+everything was happening for the best, for he did not doubt that she
+would soon tire, if she were not tired already, of this musician, and
+then he would easily regain his old influence over her. Even if she did
+marry this musician, she'd get tired of him, and then who knows
+&mdash;anything was better than that she should go over to that infernal
+priest. While rejoicing in the defeat of his hated rival, he was anxious
+that Evelyn should not perceive what was passing in his mind, and,
+afraid to betray himself, he said nothing, leaving her to conjecture
+what she pleased from his silence.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't intend to defend my conduct; it is indefensible.... But, Owen,
+I want you to believe that I did not lie to you. Ulick was not my lover
+when I went to see you that evening in Berkeley Square.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was necessary to say something, and, feeling that any unguarded word
+would jeopardise his chances, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think I told you that night that you liked Ulick Dean. I can quite
+understand it; he is a nice fellow enough. Are you going to marry him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I am not in love with him&mdash;I never was. I liked him merely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I can understand; all those hours you spent with him studying Isolde.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it was that music, it gets on one's nerves.... But, Owen, there is
+no excuse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We'll think no more about it, Evelyn. I am glad you do not love him.
+My greatest fear was to lose you altogether.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was touched by his kindness, as he expected she would be, and he sat
+looking at her, keeping as well as he could all expression from his
+face. He thought that he had got over the greatest difficulty, and he
+congratulated himself on his cleverness. The question now was, what was
+the next move?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You are not looking very well, Evelyn. You don't sleep&mdash;you want a
+change. The <i>Medusa</i> is at Cowes; what do you say for a sail?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, dear, I cannot go with you. If I did, you know how it would end,
+I being what I am, and you being what you are. There would be no sense
+in my going yachting unless I went as your mistress, and I cannot do
+that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You love that fellow Ulick Dean too much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't love him at all.... Owen, you will never understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Understand!&quot; he cried, starting to his feet, &quot;this is madness, Evelyn.
+I see! I suppose you think it wrong to have two lovers at the same time.
+Grace has come to you through sin. You are going to get rid of both of
+us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn sat quite still as if hypnotised. She was very sorry for him, but
+for no single moment did she think she would yield.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he asked her why he should be the one to be sent away, and he
+pleaded the rights of old friendship, going even so far as to suggest
+that even if she liked Ulick better she should not refuse to see him
+sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have no right to seem shocked at anything you may say. I told you
+Ulick was my lover, but I did not say he was going to remain my lover.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then what are you going to do? Will that priest get hold of you? I know
+him&mdash;I was at Eton with him. He always was&mdash;&quot; and Owen muttered
+something under his breath. &quot;Surely, Evelyn, you are not thinking of
+going to confession. After all my teaching has it come to this? My God!&quot;
+he said, as he walked up the room, &quot;I'd sooner Ulick got you than that
+damned hypocritical fool. You are much too good for God,&quot; he said,
+turning suddenly and looking at her, remarking at that moment the pretty
+oval of her face, the arched eyebrows, the clear, nervous eyes. &quot;You'll
+be wasted on religion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;From your point of view, I suppose I shall be.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They talked on and on, saying what they had said many times before.
+Sometimes Evelyn seemed to follow his arguments, and thinking that he
+was convincing her, he would break off suddenly. &quot;Well, will you come
+for a cruise with me in the <i>Medusa</i>? I'll ask all your friends&mdash;we'll
+have such a pleasant time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, Owen, no, it's impossible, you don't understand. I don't blame
+you&mdash;you never will understand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And they looked at each other like wanderers standing on the straits
+dividing two worlds. The hands of the clock pointed to five o'clock. The
+servants had taken the tea-service away. Owen had urged Evelyn not to
+abandon the stage; he had urged the cause of Art; he had urged that her
+voice was her natural vocation; he had spoken of their love, and of the
+happiness they had found in each other&mdash;the conversation had drifted
+from an argument concerning the authenticity of the Gospels to a lake
+where they had spent a season five years ago. She saw again the reedy
+reaches and the steep mountain shores. They had been there in the month
+of September, and the leaves of the vine were drooping, and the grapes
+ready for gathering. They had been sweethearts only a little while, and
+the drives about the lake was one of his happiest memories.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, you cannot mean that you will never see me again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His eyes filled with tears, and she turned her head aside so that she
+might not see them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Life is very difficult, Owen; try not to make it more difficult.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, I had hoped that our friendship would have continued to the
+end. I never cared for any other woman, and when you are my age and look
+back, you will find that there is one, I don't say I shall be the one,
+who&mdash;&quot; His voice trembled, and he passed his hand across his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's very sad, Owen, and life is very difficult.... There is this
+consolation for you, that I am not sending you away on account of anyone
+else. Ulick must go too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That does not make it any better for me. By God, I'd sooner that he got
+you than that infernal religion. Evelyn, Evelyn, it is impossible that
+an idea, a mere idea, should take you from me. It is inhuman, unnatural,
+I can't realise it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, you must go now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, I don't understand. It is just as if you told me you were
+tallow, and would melt if there was a fire lighted. But never mind, I'll
+accept your ideas&mdash;I'll accept anything. Let us be married to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was frightened in the depths of her feelings, and seemed to lose all
+control of her will.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Owen, I cannot marry you. Why do you ask me? You know it is now more
+than ever impossible.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>His face changed expression, but he was urged forward by an irresistible
+force that seemed to rise up from the bottom of his being and blind his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't love him, it was only a caprice; we'll think no more about
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She sought the truth in her soul, but it seemed to elude her. She was
+like a blind person in a vague, unknown space, and not being able to
+discover the reason why she refused him, she insisted that Ulick was the
+reason.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Are you going to marry him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I don't think so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Don't you wish to? He is your father's friend.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Destiny, I suppose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The question was too profound for discussion, and they sat silent for a
+long while. A chance remark turned their talk upon Balzac, and Owen
+spoke about <i>Le Lys dans la Vall&egrave;e</i>, and she asked him if he remembered
+the day he had first spoken to her about Balzac.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It was the day you took me to the races, our first week in Paris.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And a few days afterwards I took you to Madame Savelli's. She told you
+that you had the most beautiful voice she had ever heard. You could not
+speak; you were so excited that I was obliged to send you off for a
+drive in the Bois. Do you remember?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I remember.... You were always very good to me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They talked on and on, conscious of the hands of the clock moving on
+towards their divided lives. When it struck seven, she said he must go,
+but he begged to be allowed to stay till a quarter past, and in this
+last period he urged that their separation should not be final. He
+pleaded that a time should be set on his alienation, and ended by
+extracting from her a sort of half promise that she would allow him to
+come and see her in three months. But he and she knew that they would
+never meet again, and the sad thought floated up into their eyes as they
+said good-bye. She went to the window, wondering if he would stay a
+moment to look back. He stood on the edge of the pavement, and she
+watched him unmoved. She was thinking of Monsignor, and of how he would
+approve of her conduct. He would tell her that what she liked and
+disliked was no longer the question. Owen still stood on the kerb, but
+she did not even see him. Her eyes looked into the sunset, and she was
+thrilled with a mysterious joy, a joy that came from the heart, not from
+passions, and it was exquisitely subtle as the light that faded in the
+remote west.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_TWENTY_NINE'></a><h2>CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>He walked up Park Lane, staring now and then at the quaint balconies
+from a mere habit of admiration. But all were indifferent to him, even
+the one supported by the four Empire figures. It did not seem that
+anything in the world could interest him again, and he wondered how he
+would get through the years that remained to him to live. He was tired
+of hunting and shooting; he had seen everything there was to be seen; he
+had been round the world twice; it did not seem to him that he would
+ever care for another woman, and he reflected with pride that he had
+been faithful to Evelyn for six years. &quot;But I shall never see her
+again,&quot; his heart wailed; &quot;in three months she'll be a different woman;
+she won't want to see me, she'll find some excuse. That infernal priest
+will refuse his absolution if&mdash;&quot; Owen stopped suddenly. Far away a
+little pink cloud dissolved mysteriously. &quot;In another second,&quot; he
+thought, &quot;it will be no more.&quot; In the Green Park the trees rocked in the
+soft autumn air, and he noticed that now and then a leaf broke from its
+twig, fluttered across the path, and fell by the iron railings.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Asher, how is it that you are in town at this time of year?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was a club acquaintance, one of the ordinary conventional men that
+Owen met by the dozen in every one of his clubs, a man whose next
+question would surely be, &quot;How are your two-year-olds?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like to hear that they had all broken their legs,&quot; Owen
+answered through his teeth, and the colour mounted in his cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Asher always was mad ... now he seems madder than ever. What did he
+mean by saying he wished his two-year-olds had all broken their legs?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen lingered on the kerb, inveighing against the stupidity of his set.
+He had thought of dining at the Turf Club, but after this irritating
+incident he felt that he dared not risk it; if anyone were to speak to
+him again of his two-year-olds, he felt he would not be able to control
+himself. Suddenly he thought of a friend. He must speak to someone....
+He need mention no names. He put up his stick and stopped a hansom. A
+few minutes took him to Harding's rooms.</p>
+
+<p>The unexpectedness of the visit, and the manner in which Owen strode
+about the room, trying to talk of the things that he generally talked
+about, while clearly thinking of something quite different, struck
+Harding as unusual, and a suspicion of the truth had just begun to dawn
+upon him, when, breaking off suddenly, Owen said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Swear you'll never speak of what I am going to say&mdash;and don't ask for
+names.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'll tell no one,&quot; said Harding, &quot;and the name does not interest me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It's this: a woman whom I have known many years&mdash;a friendship that I
+thought would go on to the end of the chapter&mdash;told me to-day that it
+was all finished, that she never wanted to see me again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A friendship! Were you her lover?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What does it matter? Suffice it to say that she was my dearest friend,
+and now I have lost her. She has been taken from me,&quot; he said, throwing
+his arms into the air. It was a superb gesture of despair, and Harding
+could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So Evelyn has left him. I wonder for whom?&quot; Then, with as much sympathy
+as he could call into his voice, he asked if the lady had given any
+reason for this sudden dismissal.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only that she thinks it wrong; we've been discussing it all the
+afternoon. It has made me quite ill;&quot; and he dropped into a chair.</p>
+
+<p>Harding knew perfectly well of whom they were speaking, and Owen knew
+that he knew, but it seemed more decorous to refrain from mentioning
+names, and Evelyn's soul was discussed as if it were an abstract
+quantity, and all indication of the individual incarnation was avoided.
+Owen admitted that, notwithstanding many seeming contradictory
+appearances, Evelyn had always thought it wrong to live with him, and
+yet, notwithstanding her being very fond of him, she had never shown any
+eagerness to be married. &quot;Of course it is very wrong,&quot; she would say in
+her own enchanting way, &quot;but a lover is very exciting, and a husband
+always seems dull. I don't think you'd be half as nice as a husband as
+you are as a lover.&quot; The recital of the Florence episode interested
+Harding, but it was the opposition of the priest and the musician that
+made the story from his point of view one of the most fascinating he had
+ever heard in his life.</p>
+
+<p>They dined together in an old-fashioned club, in a room lighted by wax
+candles in silver candlesticks. Tall mirrors in gold frames reflected
+the black mahogany furniture. In answer to Owen, who lamented that
+Evelyn was sacrificing everything for an idea, Harding spoke, and with
+his usual conscious exaltation, of the Christian martyrs, the Spanish
+Inquisition, and then Robespierre seemed to him the most striking
+example of what men will do for an idea. He mentioned a portrait by
+Greuze in which Robespierre appears as a beautiful young man. &quot;Such a
+face,&quot; he said, &quot;as we might imagine for a lover or a poet, a sort of
+Lucien de Rubempr&eacute;, but in his brain there was a cell containing the
+pedantic idea, and for this idea he cut off a thousand heads, and would
+have cut off a million. The world must conform to his idea, or it was a
+lost world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Towards the end of dinner, the head waiter interrupted their
+conversation. He lingered about the table, anxious to hear something of
+Lord Ascott's two-year-olds; but, in the smoking-room over their coffee,
+they returned to the more vital question&mdash;the sentimental affections.
+They were agreed that the pleasure of love is in loving, not in being
+loved, and their reasons were incontrovertible.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is the letters,&quot; said Harding, &quot;that we write at three in the
+morning to tell her how enchanting she was; it is the flowers we send,
+the words of love that we speak in her ear, that are our undoing. So
+long as we are indifferent, they love us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Quite true. At first I did not care for her as much as she did for me,
+and I noticed that as soon as I began to fall in love&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To aspire, to suffer. Maybe there is no deep pleasure in contentment.
+In casting you out she has given you a more intense life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Owen did not seem to understand. His eye wandered, then returning to
+Harding, he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We cannot worship and be worshipped; is that what you mean? If so, I
+agree with you. But I'd sooner lose her as I have done than not have
+told her that I loved her.... There never was anyone like her. Sympathy,
+understanding, appreciation and enthusiasm! it was like living in a
+dream. Good God! to think that that priest should have got her; that,
+after all my teaching, she should think it wrong to have a lover! I
+don't know if you know of whom we are speaking. If you suspect, I can't
+help it, but don't ask me. I shouldn't speak of her at all; it is wrong
+to speak of her, even though I don't mention her name, but it is
+impossible to help it. If you are proud of a woman you must speak of
+her&mdash;and I was so proud of her. It is very easy to be discreet when you
+are ashamed of them,&quot; he added, with a laugh. &quot;When I had nothing to do,
+I used to sit down and think of her, and I used to say to myself that if
+I were the king of the whole world I could not get anything better. But
+it is all over now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, you've had six years, the very prime of her life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That's true; you're very sympathetic, Harding. Have another cigarette.
+I was faithful to her for six years&mdash;you can't understand that, but it
+is quite true, and I had plenty of chances, but, when I came to think
+of it, it always seemed that I liked her the best.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Evelyn stood on her balcony, watching the evening.
+The park was breathless, and the sky rose high and pale, and calm as
+marble. But the houses seemed to speak unutterable things, and she
+closed the window and stood looking across the room. Then walking
+towards the sofa as if she were going to sit down, she flung herself
+upon it and buried her face among the cushions. She lay there weeping,
+and when she raised her face she dashed the tears from her streaming
+cheeks, but this pause was only the prelude to another passionate
+outbreak, and she wept again, finding in tears fatigue, and in fatigue
+relief. She sobbed until she could sob no more, and so tired was she
+that she no longer cared what happened; very tired, and her head heavy,
+she went upstairs, eager for sleep. And closing her eyes she felt a
+delicious numbing of sense, a dissolution of her being into darkness....</p>
+
+<p>But in her waking there was a consciousness, a foreboding of a nameless
+dread, of a heavy weight upon her, and when the foreboding in her ears
+grew louder, she seemed to know that an irreparable calamity had
+happened, and trying to fathom it, she saw the wall-paper, and it told
+her she was in her own room. She seemed to be trying to read something
+on it, but what she was trying to read and understand seemed to move
+away, and her brain laboured in anxious pursuit. Her eyes opened, and
+she remembered her interview with Owen. She had sent him away, she
+understood it all now, she had sent Owen away! She had told him that
+Ulick was her lover, so even if he were to come back it never could be
+the same as it was. Why had she told him about Ulick? It was bad enough
+to send him away, but she had degraded his memory of her, and the
+thought that she had not deceived him, but had told him what he
+otherwise might never have known, did not console her just then. She lay
+quite still, face to face with, seeing as it were into the eyes of the
+Irreparable. Never again would a man hold her in his arms, saying,
+&quot;Darling, I am very fond of you!&quot; Take love out of her life, and what
+barrenness, what weariness! After all, she was only seven-and-twenty,
+and the thought came upon her that she might have waited until she was a
+little older. The word &quot;never&quot; rang in her ears, and she realised as she
+had not done before all that a lover meant to her&mdash;romance, adventure,
+the brilliancy and sparkle of life. What was life without the delightful
+excitement of the chase, the delicious doubts regarding the hidden
+significance of every look and word, then the rapture of the final
+abandonment? She tried to think that the life she proposed to relinquish
+had not brought her happiness, but she could not put back memory of the
+enchanting days she had spent with her lovers. Oh, the intense hours of
+anticipation! and the wonderful recollections! rich and red as the
+heart of a flower! Such rapture seemed to her to be worth the remorse
+that came after, and the peace of mind that a chaste life would secure,
+a poor recompense for dreary days and months. She realised the length
+and the colour of the time&mdash;grey week after grey week, blank month after
+blank month, void year after void year! And she always getting a little
+older, getting older in a drab, lifeless time, in a lifeless life, a
+weary life filled with intolerable craving! She had endured it once, a
+feeling as if she wanted to go mad.... She picked up her letters.</p>
+
+<p>Among the letters she received that morning was one from Ulick. He was
+still in Paris, and would not be back for another week or ten days. He
+had been lonely, he had missed her, and looked forward to their meeting.
+He told her about the opera, the people he had met, and what they had
+said about his music. But the tender affection of his letter was not to
+her mind. Why did he not say that he longed to take her in his arms and
+kiss her on the lips? Knitting her brows, she tried to think that if he
+had written more passionately she would have taken the train and gone to
+him. She had sent Owen away on account of scruples of conscience, and a
+life of chastity extended indefinitely before her. But who was this
+woman to whom Ulick had shown his music, and who had said that if
+anything happened to prevent Evelyn Innes from singing the part, she
+hoped that Ulick would give it to her? Why should she have thought that
+something would happen to prevent Evelyn Innes from creating Grania? Had
+Ulick suggested it to her? But how could Ulick know? She tried to think
+if she had ever told him she was tired of the stage. Perhaps he had
+consulted the stars and had divined her future. This woman seemed to
+know that something might happen, and something was happening, there
+could be no doubt about that.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt that she was tired of the stage, but perhaps that was
+on account of hard work, perhaps she required a rest; in two or three
+months she might return eagerly to the study of Grania; for the sake of
+Ulick, she might remain on the stage till she had established the
+success of his opera. This might be if she and Ulick were not lovers.
+She had promised Owen that she would not keep him for her lover, but
+that did not mean that she would not sing his opera. If she didn't,
+another woman would, some wretched singer who did not understand the
+music, and it would be a failure. Ulick would hate her; he would believe
+that her refusal to sing his opera was a vile plan to do him an injury.
+He did not know what conscience meant&mdash;he only understood the legends
+and the Gods! She laughed, and a moment afterwards was submerged in
+difficulties. Her conduct would seem more incomprehensible to him than
+it did to Owen; she did not wish him to hate her, but he would hate her,
+and to avoid seeing her he would not go to Dowlands, and so she would
+rob her father of his friend&mdash;the friend who had kept him company when
+she deserted him. There was another alternative. If she liked him well
+enough to be his mistress, she should like him well enough to be his
+wife. But knowing that she would not marry him, she took up her other
+letters and began reading them.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Duckle liked Homburg; everyone was there, and she hoped Evelyn
+would not be detained in London much longer. The Duke of Berwick had
+proposed to Miss Beale, and Lady Mersey was always about with young Mr.
+So-and-So. Evelyn didn't read it all. She lay back thinking, for this
+letter, about things that interested her no longer, had led her thoughts
+back to self, and she inquired why in the midst of all her enjoyments
+she had felt that her real life was elsewhere, why she had always known
+that sooner or later the hour would come when she would leave the things
+which she enjoyed so intensely. The idea of departure had never quite
+died down in her, and she had always known that she would be one day
+quite a different woman. She had often had glimpses of her future self
+and of her future life, but the moment she tried to distinguish what was
+there, the vision faded. Even now she knew that she would not marry
+Ulick, and this not because she would refuse her father anything, but
+merely because it was not to be. Her eyes went to the piano, but on the
+way there she stopped to ask herself a question. Why was she in London
+at this time of year? She knew why she did not care to go to
+Homburg&mdash;because she was tired of society. But why did she not go to
+some quiet seaside place where she could enjoy the summer weather? She
+would like to sit on the beach and hear the sea. Her soul threatened to
+give back a direct answer, and she dismissed the question.</p>
+
+<p>She paced the empty alley facing the Bayswater Road. No one was there
+except a nursemaid and a small child, and she and they shared the
+solitude. She could see the omnibuses passing, and hear the clank of the
+heavy harness, and seated on one of the seats she drew diagrams on the
+gravel with her parasol. Owen said there was no meaning in life, that it
+was no more than an unfortunate accident between two eternal sleeps. But
+she had never been able to believe that this was so; and if she had
+sought to disbelieve in God, it was as Monsignor had said, because she
+wished to lead a sinful life. And if she could not believe in
+annihilation, there could be no annihilation for her, that was Ulick's
+theory. The name of her lover brought up the faded Bloomsbury Square,
+the litter of manuscript and the books on magic! She had tried to
+believe in readings of the stars. But such vague beliefs had not helped
+her. In spite of all her efforts, the world was slipping behind her;
+Owen and Ulick and her stage career seemed very little compared with the
+certainty within her that she was leading a sinful life, and she was
+only really certain of that. The omnibuses in the road outside, the
+railways beyond the town, the ships upon the sea, what were these things
+to her&mdash;or yet the singing of operas? The only thing that really
+mattered was her conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Then, almost without thinking at all, in a sort of stupor, she walked
+over the hill and descended the slope, and leaning over the balustrade
+she looked at the fountains. But the splashing water explained nothing,
+and she turned to resume her walk; and she reflected that to send away
+her lovers would avail her nothing, unless she subsequently confessed
+her sins and obtained the priest's absolution. Monsignor would tell her
+that to send away her lovers was not sufficient, and he would refuse his
+absolution unless she promised him not to see them any more. That
+promise she could not give, for she had promised Ulick that she would
+sing Grania, and she had promised Owen to see him in three months. It
+seemed to her both weak and shameful to break either of these promises.
+The spire of Kensington Church showed sharp as a needle on a calm sky,
+and it was in a sudden anguish of mind that she determined that her
+repentance must be postponed. She had considered the question from every
+point of view, and could not at once reverse her life; the change must
+come gradually. She had sent Owen away; that was enough for the present.</p>
+
+<p>The numerous pea-fowls had gathered in a bare roosting tree on an
+opposite hillside, and the immense tails of the cock-birds swept the
+evening sky. Owen would have certainly compared it to a picture by
+Honderhoker. The ducks clambered out of the water, keeping their cunning
+black eyes fixed on the loitering children whom the nursemaid was urging
+to return home. In Kensington Gardens, the glades were green and gold,
+and for some little while Evelyn watched the delicate spectacle of the
+fading light, and insensibly she began to feel that a life of spiritual
+endeavour was the only life possible to her, and that, however much it
+might cost her, she must make the effort to attain it. Even to feel that
+she was capable of desiring this ideal life was a delicious happiness,
+and her thoughts flowed on for a long while, unmindful of practical
+difficulties. Suddenly it came upon her like a sudden illumination, that
+sooner or later she would have to make all the sacrifices that this
+ideal demanded, that she would not have any peace of mind until she had
+made them. But even at the same moment the insuperable difficulties of
+the task before her appeared, and she despaired. The last obstacle was
+money. As she crossed the road dividing Kensington Gardens from Hyde
+Park, she understood that the simple fact of owing a few thousand pounds
+rendered her immediate retirement from the stage impossible. She had
+insisted that the money she required to live in Paris and study with
+Madame Savelli should be considered as a debt, which she would repay out
+of her first earnings. But Owen had laughed at her. He had refused to
+accept it, and he would never tell her the rent of the house in the Rue
+Balzac; he had urged that as he had made use of the house he could not
+allow her to pay for it. In the rough, she supposed that a thousand
+pounds would settle her debt for the year they had spent in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>Since then she had, however, insisted on keeping herself, but now that
+she came to think it out, it did not seem that she had done much more
+than pay her dressmaker's bills. She grew alarmed at the amount of her
+debt, which seemed in her excited imagination so large that all her
+savings, amounting to about six or seven thousand pounds, would not
+suffice to pay it off. Most of her jewellery had been given to her by
+Owen; there was the furniture, the pictures and the china in Park Lane!
+She would have to return all these, and the horses, too, if she wished
+to pay everything, and the net result would be that she would mortally
+offend the man who had done everything for her. She knew he would not
+forgive her if she sent back the presents he had made her, nor could she
+blame him, and she decided that such complete restitution was
+impossible. But, for all she knew, Monsignor might insist upon it. If he
+did? She felt that she would go mad if she did not put aside these
+scruples, which she knew to be in a measure fictitious, but which she
+was nevertheless unable to shake off. And she could not help thinking,
+though she knew that such thoughts were both foolish and unjust, that
+Owen had purposely contrived this thraldom. Then there was only one
+thing for her to do, to go to Paris after Ulick.... A moment after there
+came a sinking feeling. She knew that she could not. But what was she to
+do? All this uncertainty was loosening her brain.... She might go to
+Monsignor and lay the whole matter before him and take his advice. But
+she knew if she went to him she must confess. Better that, she thought,
+than that the intolerable present should endure.</p>
+
+<p>Mental depression and sleepless nights had produced nervous pains in her
+neck and arms. She could hardly drag herself along for very weariness.
+The very substance of her being seemed to waste away; that amount of
+unconsciousness without which life is an agony had been abstracted,
+leaving nothing but a fierce mentality.</p>
+
+<p>She slept a little after dinner, and awakening about eleven, she foresaw
+another night of insomnia. The chatter of her conscience continued,
+tireless as a cricket, and she had lost hope of being able to silence
+it. The hysterical tears of last night had brought her four hours of
+sleep, but there was no chance of any repetition of them. It would be
+useless to go upstairs. She sang through the greater part of
+&quot;Lohengrin,&quot; and then took up the &quot;Meistersinger,&quot; and read it till it
+fell from her hands. ... It was three o'clock; and feeling very tired,
+she thought that she might be able to sleep. But all night long she saw
+her life from end to end. Her miserable passage through this life, the
+weakness of her character and the vileness of her sins were shown to her
+in a hideous magnification. She was exhibited to herself like an insect
+in a crystal, and she perceived the remotest antennae of her being.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THIRTY'></a><h2>CHAPTER THIRTY</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>One night it occurred to her that she might ring for Merat and send her
+to the chemist's for a sleeping draught. But it was four o'clock in the
+morning, and she did not like to impose such a task on her maid.
+Moreover, she might get to sleep a little later on, so she wrote on a
+piece of paper that Merat was not to come to her room until she rang for
+her, and she lay down and folded her arms, and once more began to count
+the sheep through the gate. But that night sleep seemed further than
+ever from her eyes, and at eight she was obliged to ring. &quot;Merat, I have
+not closed my eyes all night.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mademoiselle ought to have a sleeping draught.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I'll take one to-night Get me some tea. Another night like this
+will drive me mad.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon she slept for an hour in an armchair, and, a
+little rested, went to walk in the park. She was not feeling so dazed;
+her brain was not so light, and the sense of whiteness was gone; the
+pains in the neck and arms too had died down; they were now like a dim
+suggestion, a memory. But the greatest relief of all was that she was
+not thinking, conscience was quiescent and in the calm of the evening
+and the gentleness of the light, life seemed easier to bear. If she
+could only get a night's sleep! Now she did not know which was the
+worst&mdash;the reality, the memory, or the anticipation of a sleepless
+night. She had wandered round the park by the Marble Arch, and had
+continued her walk through Kensington Gardens, and sitting on the
+hillside by the Long Water, with the bridge on her left hand and the
+fountains under her eyes, she looked towards Kensington. There an
+iridescent sky floated like a bubble among the autumn-tinted trees. She
+was then thinking of her music and her friends; she hardly knew of what
+she was thinking, when a thought so clear that it sounded like a bell
+spoke within her, and it said that the things of which she was thinking
+were as nothing, and that Life was but a little moment compared with
+Eternity, and she seemed to see into the final time which lay beyond the
+grave. &quot;There and not here are the true realities,&quot; said the voice, and
+she got up and walked hurriedly down the hillside, fearing lest the
+fierce conflict of conscience should begin again in her. She walked as
+fast as she was able, hoping to extinguish in action the conscience
+that she dreaded, but she was weak and almost helpless, and had to pause
+to rest. She stood, one hand on the balustrade, not daring to turn her
+head lest she should see the spire of the Kensington Church.</p>
+
+<p>She walked across the gardens, through the great groves, and sat down.
+The grass was worn away about the roots of the trees and through the
+gnarled trunks she could see the keeper's cottage covered with reddened
+creeper. Perhaps it was the calm and seclusion that called her thoughts
+to the convent garden, and she reflected that if she had not accepted
+the nuns' invitation to tea, her life might have continued without
+deviation. She was impressed with the slightness of the thread on which
+our destiny hangs, and then by the inevitableness of our lives. We
+perceive the governing rule only when we look back. The present always
+seems chaos, but when we look back, we distinguish the reason of every
+action, and we recognise the perfect fulfilment of what must be. Her
+visit to the convent&mdash;how little it was when looked at from one side,
+when looked at from another how extraordinary! If she had known that
+Monsignor was going to ask her to go there, she would have invented a
+plausible excuse, but she had had no time to think; his kind eyes were
+fixed upon her, and he seemed so ready to believe all she said, that her
+courage sank within her, and she could not lie to him. Perhaps all this
+was by intention, by the very grace of God! The Virgin might have
+interceded on her behalf, for is it not said that whoever wears the
+scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel cannot lose his soul? But for the
+last two years, for more than two years, she has not worn her scapular.
+The strings had broken, and they had not been mended. She had intended
+to buy another, but had not been able to bring herself to do so, so
+hypocritical did it seem.</p>
+
+<p>It might be that these dreadful nights of insomnia had been sent so that
+she might have an opportunity of realising the wickedness of her life,
+and the risk she incurred of losing her immortal soul. She dare not have
+recourse to the sleeping draught, and must endure perhaps another
+sleepless night. If they had been sent, as she thought they were, for a
+purpose, she must not dare to hush, by artificial means, the sense God
+had awakened in her; to do so would be like flying in the face of
+Providence. She had never suffered from sleeplessness before, and could
+not think that this insomnia was accidental. No, she dare not have
+recourse to sleeping draughts, at least not till she had been to
+confession. If afterwards she did not get to sleep, it would be
+different. The fear arose in her of taking too much, of dying in her
+sleep. If she were to awake in hell! And that evening, when Merat
+reminded her of the draught, she said it was to be left on the table,
+and that she would take it if she required it.</p>
+
+<p>The darkness could not hide the slim bottle corked with a slim blond
+cork, and so clear was the vision that she could read the label through
+the darkness. It was only partially gummed on the bottom, and she could
+read the pale writing. &quot;To be taken before bedtime.&quot; The temptation
+struck through the darkness, sweet and dreamily seductive it entered her
+brain. She was tempted as by a dark, dreamless river; hushed in an
+unconscious darkness she would be upon that river, floating through a
+long, winding night towards a dim, very distant day. If she were to
+drink, darkness would sink upon her, and all this visible world, the
+continual sight of which she felt must end in lunacy, would pass from
+her. So great was the temptation that she did not dare to get out of bed
+and put the bottle away&mdash;if she did she must drink it, so she lay quite
+still, her face turned against the wall, trying to find courage in the
+thought that God had imposed the torture of these sleepless nights upon
+her in order that she might be saved from the eternal sleeplessness of
+hell.</p>
+
+<p>Mistakes are made in the preparation of medicines, but if no mistake had
+been made, a change in her health might unfit her for so large a dose,
+and if through either of these chances she were to die in her sleep,
+there was no question that she must awake in hell. She did not dare to
+go to the draught, but lay quite still, her head close against the wall,
+praying for darkness, crying for relief from this too fierce mentality;
+it seemed to be eating up the very substance of her brain.</p>
+
+<p>On the following evening she sat in her armchair watching the clock. It
+had struck eleven&mdash;that was the time for her going to bed, but the hour
+had become a redoubtable one. Bedtime filled her with fear, and the
+thought of another sleepless night deprived her of all courage. She did
+not dare to go upstairs. She sat in her armchair as if in terror of a
+mortal enemy. She had hidden the bottle, but her maid had ordered
+another. There were now two, sufficient to procure death, said her
+conscience, and since dinner the temptation to commit suicide had been
+growing in her brain; like a vulture perched upon a jag of mountain
+rock, she could see the temptation watching her. She tried not to see,
+but the thought grew blacker and larger&mdash;its beak was in her brain, and
+she was drawn, as if by talons, tremblingly from her chair. She was so
+weak that she could hardly cross the room; but the thought of death
+seemed to give her courage, and without it she thought she never would
+have had the strength to get upstairs. The attraction was extraordinary,
+and her powerlessness to resist it was part of the fascination, and she
+looked round the room like a victim looking for the knife. She could not
+see the bottle on her dressing-table, and accepting this as a favourable
+omen, she undressed and lay down.</p>
+
+<p>After all, she might sleep without having recourse to death; but, lying
+on the pillow, she could think of nothing but the slim bottle and the
+slim blond cork, and a thick white liquid, and the dark river into
+which she would sink, the winding darkness on which she would float, and
+she had not strength to think whither it led. Her only thought was not
+to see this world any more; her only desire not to think of Ulick or
+Owen, and to be tortured no longer by doubt of what was right and what
+was wrong. She was aware that she was losing possession of her
+self-control, and would be soon drawn into the dreaded but much-desired
+abyss; and in this delirium, produced by long insomnia, she began to
+conceive her suicide as an act of defiance against God, and she rejoiced
+in her hatred of God, who had afflicted her so cruelly&mdash;for it was
+hatred that had come to her aid, and would enable her to secure a long,
+long sleep. &quot;Out of the sight of this world&quot;&mdash;she muttered the words as
+she sought the chloral&mdash;&quot;I'll sleep, I'll sleep, I must sleep. Sleep or
+death, one or the other, so long as I am out of the sight of this
+world.&quot; But in her frenzy of desire for sleep she overlooked the slim
+bottle with the slim blond cork. Yet it stood on the toilet-table amid
+other bottles, right under her eyes, but over and over again she passed
+it by, until, frightened at not finding it, she opened drawer after
+drawer, and rushed to her wardrobe thinking it might be there. She
+sought for it, throwing her things about, and, not finding it anywhere,
+a cold sweat broke over her forehead. Another sleepless night and she
+must go mad. If she did not find it, she must find another way out of
+this agony, and the thought of cutting her throat, or throwing herself
+out of the window, flashed across her mind. &quot;Sleep I must have&mdash;sleep,
+sleep, sleep!&quot; she muttered, as with fearing fingers she emptied out the
+contents of her little workbox, where odds and ends collected. It was
+her scapular that came up under her hand, and at the sight of it, all
+her mad revolt was hushed, and a calm settled upon her. &quot;A miracle, a
+miracle,&quot; she murmured, &quot;the Virgin has done this; she interceded for
+me;&quot; and at the same moment, catching sight of the chloral right under
+her very eyes, she could no longer doubt the miraculous interposition of
+the Virgin. For how otherwise could that bottle have escaped her notice?
+She had looked at the very place where it stood many times, and had not
+seen it; she had moved the other bottles and she had not seen it. The
+Virgin had taken it away&mdash;she was sure it was not there five minutes
+ago&mdash;or else the Virgin had blinded her eyes to it. A miracle had
+happened; and in a quivering peace of mind and an intense joy of the
+heart, she mended the strings of her broken scapular. Then she hung it
+round her neck, and kneeling by the bedside, she said the prayers that
+it enjoined; and when she got into bed she saw a light shining in one
+corner of the room, and, sure that it was the Virgin who had come in
+person to visit her, she continued her prayers till she fell asleep.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THIRTY_ONE'></a><h2>CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE</h2>
+
+<p>A knock came at her door, and Merat was glad to hear that Mademoiselle
+had slept. She noticed that the sleeping-draught had not been taken, and
+picking up the various things that Evelyn had scattered in her search,
+she wondered at the disorder of the room, making Evelyn feel
+uncomfortable by her remarks. Evelyn knew it would be impossible for
+Merat to guess the cause of it all. But when she hesitated about what
+dress she would wear, declaring against this one and that one, her
+choice all the time being fixed on a black crepon, Merat glanced
+suspiciously at her mistress; and when Evelyn put aside her rings,
+selecting in preference two which she did not usually wear, the maid was
+convinced that some disaster had happened, and was ready to conclude
+that Ulick Dean was the cause of these sleepless nights.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn had chosen this dress because she was going to St. Joseph's or
+because she supposed she was going there. It did not seem to her that
+she could confess to anyone but Monsignor. But why he? one priest would
+do as well as another. She was too tired to think.</p>
+
+<p>Her brain was like one of those autumn days when clouds hang low, and a
+dimness broods between sky and earth. True that there were the events of
+last night&mdash;her search for the chloral, the finding of her scapular, her
+belief in a special interposition of Providence, and then her resolution
+to go to confession. It was all there; she knew it all, but did not want
+to think about it. She had been thinking for a week, and this was the
+first respite she had had from thought, and she wished this stupor of
+brain to continue till four o'clock. That was the time she would have to
+be at St. Joseph's. He was generally there at that time.</p>
+
+<p>She had lain down on the sofa after breakfast, hoping to sleep a little;
+if she didn't, the time would be very long; but as she dozed, she began
+to see the thin, worn face and the piercing eyes, and the intonation of
+his voice began to ring in her ears. As she thought or as she dreamed,
+the striking of the clock reminded her of the number of hours that
+separated them. Only four hours and she would be kneeling at his feet!
+Then she felt that she had advanced a stage, and was appreciably nearer
+the inevitable end, and lay staring at the sequence of events. She saw
+the hours stretching out reaching to him, and she, all the while, was
+moving through the hours automatically. All kind of similes presented
+themselves to her mind. She asked herself how it was that Monsignor had
+come into her life. She had not sought him; she had not wanted him in
+her life, but he had come! She remembered the first time she saw
+him&mdash;that Sunday morning when she went to St. Joseph's to meet her
+father's choir&mdash;and could recall the exact appearance of the church as
+he walked across the aisle to the pulpit. It was illuminated by a sudden
+ray of sunlight falling through one of the eastern windows, and she
+remembered how it had lighted up the thin, narrow face, bringing a glow
+of colour to the dark skin till it seemed like one of the carved saints
+she had seen in Romanesque churches on the Rhine. She remembered the
+shape of the small head, carried well back, and how she had been
+impressed by the slow stride with which he crossed the sanctuary. Then
+her thoughts passed to the moment when, standing in the pulpit, he had
+looked out on the congregation, seeming to divine the presence of some
+great sinner there. She had felt that he was aware of her existence, for
+in that moment the thin grey eyes seemed to see her, even to think her,
+and they had frightened her, they were so clear, so set on some
+purpose&mdash;God's or the Church's. She had met him that evening at a
+concert, and how well she remembered her father introducing him! He had
+spoken to her several minutes; everyone in the room was looking at them,
+and she recalled the scene&mdash;all the girls, their dresses, and the
+expression of their eyes. But she could not recall what Monsignor had
+said, only her impressions; the same strange fascination and fear which
+she had experienced when Owen came to the concerts long ago&mdash;that loud
+winter's night, harsh and hard as iron. Owen had stood talking to her
+too, and she had been fascinated.... He had admired her singing, and
+Monsignor had admired her singing; but she was determined not to sing
+until Monsignor had asked her to sing, and when he has asked her to go
+to the convent she had gone. It was very strange; she could not account
+for it. It was all beyond herself, outside of her, far away like the
+stars, and she felt now as she did whenever she looked at the stars. Was
+her character essentially weak, and was she liable to all these
+influences, these facile assimilations? Was there nothing within her, no
+abiding principle, nothing that she could call her own? She walked up
+the room, and tried to understand herself&mdash;what was she, bad or good,
+weak or strong? If she only knew what she was, then she would know how
+to act.</p>
+
+<p>There were her sins against faith. She had striven to undermine her
+belief in God. She had read Darwin and Huxley for this purpose, and not
+in the least to obtain knowledge. As Monsignor has said, &quot;When a
+Catholic loses his faith, it is because he desires to lead a loose
+life,&quot; and she hardly dared to look into her soul, knowing that she
+would find confirmation of this opinion. She had not been to Mass,
+because at the Elevation she believed in spite of herself; so she had
+been as insincere in her unfaith as in her faith. Then there were the
+sins of the flesh, and their number and their blackness terrified her.
+There were sins that she strove to put out of her mind at once, sins she
+was even ashamed to think of; and the thought of confessing them struck
+her down, and once more it seemed that she could never raise herself out
+of the slough into which she had fallen. She had all along taken it for
+granted that a general admission that she had lived with Owen as his
+wife would be sufficient. But now it seemed to her that she would have
+to tell Monsignor how gross her life had been.</p>
+
+<p>In a corner of the room her sins crowded, and covering her face with her
+hands, she was convinced that she could not go to confession.</p>
+
+<p>Before she went away with Owen she had had no sins to confess, or only
+venial sins; that she had been late for Mass through her own fault; that
+she had omitted her evening prayers. Her worst sin was the reading of a
+novel which she thought she ought not to have read, but now her life was
+all sin. If the priest questioned her she could not answer, she must
+refuse to answer. So there seemed no hope for her. She could not confess
+everything, and the conviction suddenly possessed her that God had
+deserted her, and she could not hope for redemption from her present
+life. For she could not confess all her sins; her heart would fail her,
+she would be tempted to conceal something, and then to her other sins
+she would add the sin of a bad confession.</p>
+
+<p>Nervous pains began again in her arms and neck, and she experienced the
+same wasting away of the very substance of her being, of the protecting
+envelope of the unconscious. She was again a mere mentality, and she
+looked round the room with a frightened, distracted air. On the table
+was the book Monsignor had given her, <i>Sin and Its Consequences</i>. But
+she turned from it with a smile. She did not need anyone to tell her
+what were the consequences of sin&mdash;and the familiar proverb of bringing
+coals to Newcastle rose up in her mind. At the same moment she caught
+sight of the clock; it was half-past twelve, and she remembered that in
+about three hours and a half it would be time to go to St. Joseph's.
+Then like a flash the question came, was it Monsignor's influence that
+had induced this desire of a pure life in her? She could not deny to
+herself that she was attracted by his personality. So the question was,
+how far his personality accounted for the change that had come over her
+life? Was it the mere personal influence of the prelate, or an inherent
+sense of right and wrong that compelled her to send her lovers away and
+change her life? If it were the mere personal influence of Monsignor,
+her desire of a pure life would not last, and to attain something that
+was not natural to her she would have ruined her life to no purpose.
+Owen's influence had died in her; how did she know that Monsignor's
+would continue even so long? She had lived an evil life for six years;
+would she lead a good one for the same time? If she knew this she would
+know how to act. But not only for six years would she have to lead a
+good life, but till the very end of her life. If she did not persevere
+till the very end, all this present struggle and the years of
+self-denial which she was was about to enter on would be useless. She
+might just as well have had a good time all along. A good time! That was
+just it. She could not have a good time. She dare not face the agony,
+the agony which she was at present enduring, so she must go to
+confession, she must have inward peace.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So my life is over and done,&quot; she said, &quot;and at seven-and-twenty!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She twisted in her fingers a letter which she had received that morning
+from Mademoiselle Helbrun. She was staying at the Savoy Hotel, and had
+just returned from Munich. Evelyn felt she would like to hear about her
+success as Frika, and how So-and-So had sung Brunnhilde, and the rest of
+the little gossip about the profession. She would like to lunch with
+Louise in the restaurant, at a table by the window. She would like to
+see the Thames, and hear things that she might never hear again. But was
+it possible that she was never going to join again in the tumult of the
+Valkyrie? She remembered her war gear, the white tunic with gold
+breastplates. Was it possible that she would never cry their cry from
+the top of the rocks; and her favourite horse, the horse that Owen had
+given her for the part, what would become of him? What would become of
+her jewellery, of her house, of her fame, of everything? She attempted a
+last stand against her conscience. Her scruples were imaginary. Owen had
+said it could not matter to God whether she kissed him or not. But she
+did not pursue this train of reasoning. She felt it to be wrong. But she
+could not confess&mdash;she could not explain everything, and again she was
+struck with a sort of mental paralysis. Why Monsignor&mdash;why not another
+priest? No, not another. She could not say why, but not another; he was
+the one. But perhaps she only wanted to tell someone, a woman&mdash;Louise,
+for instance. If she were to tell Louise&mdash;she put the idea out of mind,
+feeling it to be vain, and trying to think that there was no need why
+she should leave the stage, and uncertain whether she should stay on the
+stage if Monsignor forbade her, or if she wanted to even if he allowed
+her, she put on her hat and went to lunch with Louise. It would help her
+to pass the time; it would save her from thinking. She must speak to
+someone. But the Savoy was on her way to St. Joseph's. It was half-way
+there. A little overcome by the coincidence, she told her servant to
+call a hansom, and as she drove to the hotel she wondered why she had
+thought of going to see Louise.</p>
+
+<p>She met her in the courtyard, and the vivacious little woman cried, &quot;My
+dear, how glad I am to see you!&quot; and she stretched out both hands.
+Evelyn was more pleased to see her friend than she expected to be, and
+while listening to her she envied her for being so happy, and she
+wondered why she was so happy; and while asking herself these questions
+she noticed her dress. Mademoiselle Helbrun's plump figure was set off
+to full advantage in a black and white check silk dress, and she wore a
+wonderful arched hat with flowing plumes of the bird of paradise. She
+was a prima-donna every inch of her, standing on the steps of her hotel,
+whereas the operatic stage could hardly be distinguished at all in
+Evelyn's dress. With the black crepon skirt she wore a heliotrope
+blouse, and she stood, one foot showing beyond the skirt, in a
+statue-like attitude, her pale parasol held negligently over one
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear,&quot; she said, &quot;I have come to ask you to let me lunch with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I shall be enchanted, my dear. I wrote on the chance, never
+thinking that you would be in town this season.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, it is strange. I don't know why I am here. There's no one in
+town.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Where would you like to lunch? In my room or in the restaurant?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be gayer in the restaurant. I haven't seen a soul for nearly a
+week.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Louise gave her a sharp look, in which the passing thought that Evelyn
+might be in want of money was dismissed as ridiculous. Louise thought of
+some unhappy love affair, and when they sat down to lunch she noticed
+that Evelyn avoided answering a question regarding herself, and turned
+the conversation on to the Munich performance. The evident desire of
+Evelyn not to talk about herself clouded Louise's pleasure in talking of
+herself, and she paused in her account of the Wotan, the Brunnhilde, the
+conductor and the Rhine Maidens to tell Evelyn of the inquiries that had
+been made about her&mdash;all were looking forward to her Kundry next year.
+Madame Wagner had said that there never had been such a Brunnhilde.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I daresay she said so, but at the bottom of her heart she did not like
+my Brunnhilde. It was against her ideas. She always thought I was too
+much woman. She said that I forgot that I was a Goddess. And she was
+right. I never could remember the Goddess. I never remember anything on
+the stage. 'Tisn't my way. I simply live it all out. I was enthusiastic
+when Siegfried came to release me, because I should have been
+enthusiastic about him.&quot; Evelyn's thoughts went back to Owen, and she
+remembered how he had released her from the bondage of music lessons
+with a kiss.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But when I came to tell you about the ruined Valhala and the poor
+fallen Gods you were sorry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I was sorry for father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The All-Father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, my own father. That's my way. I think of what has happened to me
+and I act that. But tell me about the Munich performances.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While Mademoiselle Helbrun told of the different points in which they
+excelled, Evelyn thought and thought of the strange charm of the woman
+who had so ably continued the Master's work. She recalled the tall,
+bending figure, she saw the alley of clipped limes, she remembered the
+spacious rooms, and then his study, the walls lined with bookcases,
+books of legends and philosophical works, the room in which he had
+written &quot;The Dusk of the Gods&quot; and &quot;Parsifal.&quot; Thinking of the studious
+months she had spent in that house, a vivid memory of one night shot
+across her brain. It was a heavy, breathless night, without star or
+moon. She had wandered into the dark garden; she had found her way to
+the grave, and standing by the Master's side she had listened to the
+music and seen the guests passing across the lighted windows. The warble
+of the fountain had seemed to her like the pulse of Eternity. All that
+was three years ago. &quot;It is very wonderful, very wonderful,&quot; she
+thought, and she awoke with a start, and Mademoiselle Helbrun saw she
+had not been listening. She answered Louise's subsequent remarks, and
+was glad that what had been had been. She was giving it all up, it was
+true, but it was not as if she had not known life.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was shining on the great brown river, and out of the
+smoke-dimmed sky white creamy clouds were faintly rising. Evelyn's eyes
+had wandered out there, and she seemed to see a thin face and hard, cold
+eyes, and she asked Louise abruptly what the time was, for she had
+forgotten her watch. It was only just three o'clock. She returned to the
+Munich performances, but Louise could see that Evelyn was all the time
+struggling against an overmastering fate. The only thing she could think
+of was that Evelyn was being forced into a marriage or an elopement
+against her will. Once or twice she thought that Evelyn was going to
+confide in her. She waited, afraid to say a word lest she should check
+the confidences that her friend seemed tempted to entrust her with.
+Evelyn's eyes were dull and lifeless. Louise could see that they did not
+see her, and it was with an effort that Evelyn said, &quot;I am sorry I did
+not see your Frika;&quot; and once started she rattled on for some time,
+hardly knowing what she was saying, arguing about the music and
+expressing opinions about everything and everybody. Stopping abruptly,
+she again asked her friend what time it was. Louise said that she must
+not go, and then tried to induce her to come for a drive with her; but
+Evelyn shook her head&mdash;she was engaged. There was no trace of colour in
+her face, and when Louise asked when they should meet again, she said
+she did not know, but she hoped very soon. She might be obliged to go to
+Paris to-morrow, and she had to pay some visits to Scotland at the end
+of the month. Louise did not like to question her, for she was sure that
+some momentous event was about to happen. As she drove away Louise said,
+&quot;I should not be surprised if she did not play Kundry next year.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While wondering at the grotesque movement of the trotting horse, Evelyn
+tried once more to save herself from this visit to St. Joseph's. She
+thought of what it would cost her&mdash;her present life! Her lovers were
+gone already, and Monsignor would tell her that she must give up the
+stage. But these considerations did not alter the fact that she was
+going to St. Joseph's. She was rolling thither, like a stone down a
+hill. She saw the streets and people as she passed them, as a stone
+might if it had eyes. All power of will had been taken from her; it was
+the same as when she went to meet Owen at Berkeley Square, and in a
+strange lucidity of mind, she asked herself if it were not true that we
+are never more than mere machines set in motion by a master hand,
+predestined to certain courses, purblind creatures who do not perceive
+their own helplessness, except in rare moments of heightened
+consciousness. As if to convince herself on this point, she strove to
+raise her hand to open the trap in the roof of the hansom, and her fear
+increased on finding that she could not. To acquire the necessary
+strength, she reminded herself that she was wrecking her whole life for
+an idea, for, perhaps, nothing more than a desire to confess her sins.
+Again she tried to raise her hand, and she looked round, feeling that
+nothing short of some extraordinary accident could save her, nothing
+except an accident to the horse or carriage could save her artistic
+life. Some material accident, nothing else.... Monsignor might not be at
+St. Joseph's. Perhaps he had left town. Nobody stayed in town in
+September, and for a moment it seemed hardly worth while to continue her
+drive. Her thoughts came to a standstill, and, as in a nervous vision,
+Evelyn saw that the whole of her future life depended on her seeing
+Monsignor that day. She foresaw that if she were turned away from the
+door of St. Joseph's, she would never come back; never would she be able
+to bring herself to the point again. She would find Owen waiting for
+her; wherever she went, she would meet him; sooner or later the
+temptation to return to him would overcome her. Then, indeed, she would
+be lost; then, indeed, her tragedy would begin.... Ah! if she could only
+cease to think for a little while; only for a little while. She had
+tried to escape from him once before, and had not succeeded because
+there was no one to help her. Now there was Monsignor. The reflection
+cheered her, and a few minutes were left to discover how much of her
+conversion was owing to her original nature, and how much to Monsignor's
+influence. It seemed to her that if she were certain of this point, she
+would know whether she should go forward or back. But her heart gave
+back no answer, and she grew more helpless, and terrified, like a bird
+fallen into the fascination of a serpent. She was uncertain if she could
+lead a good life. She no longer desired anything. She was conscious of
+no sensation, except that she was rolling independent of her own will,
+like a stone. A moment after, the gable of the church appeared against
+the sky, and she recognised the poor, ridiculous creature in the
+tattered black bonnet, whose stiff, crooked appearance she had known
+since childhood. She had changed little in the last twenty years. She
+walked with the same sidling gait her hands crossed in front of her like
+a doll. Her life had been lived about St. Joseph's; the church had
+always been the theatre and centre of her thoughts. Doubtless she was on
+her way to Benediction, and the temptation to follow her arose, but was
+easily resisted. Evelyn paid the cabman his fare, and in an increasing
+tremor of nervous agitation, she crossed the gravelled space in front of
+the presbytery. The attendant showed her into the same bare room, where
+there was nothing to distract her thoughts from herself except the four
+prints on the walls. She had recourse to them in the hope of stimulating
+her religious fervour, but as she gazed at St. Monica and St. Augustine
+she remembered the poor woman she had just seen. There had been scorn of
+her ridiculous appearance in her heart, and pride that she, Evelyn, had
+been given a more beautiful body, more perfect health, and a clearer
+intelligence. So she was overcome with shame. How dare she have scorned
+this holy woman. If she had been more richly gifted by Nature, to what
+shameful usage had she put her body and her talents? And Evelyn thought
+how much more lovely in God's eyes was this poor deformed woman. To sin
+is the common lot of humanity; but she had done more than commit sins,
+she had committed <i>the</i> sin, she had striven to tear out of her heart
+that sense of right and wrong which God had planted there. She had
+denied the ideal as the Jews had denied Christ. Owen had not done that;
+he lived up to his principles, such as they were. But she had not
+thought she was acting right, she had always known that she was doing
+wrong, and she had gone on doing wrong, stifling her conscience, hoping
+always that it would be the last time.</p>
+
+<p>That poor woman whose appearance had raised a contemptuous thought in
+her heart had never sinned against her faith. She had not sought to
+raise doubts in her heart concerning God and morals; she had lived in
+ardent belief and love, never doubting that God watched her from his
+heaven, whither he would call her in good time. Almighty God! She was
+struck with fear lest she did not believe all that this poor woman
+believed. Did she believe that she, Evelyn Innes, would appear at the
+final judgment and be assigned a place for ever and ever in either
+eternal bliss or torment? She did not know if she believed this. Last
+night she was sure she believed, but to-day she did not know.... She did
+not know that heaven was as this poor woman imagined it. She asked
+herself if she believed in a future life of any sort? She was not sure,
+she did not know; she was only sure that whether there be a future life
+or none, our obligation to live according to the dictates of our
+conscience remains the same. But Monsignor might not deem this
+sufficient, and might refuse her absolution. She strove to convince
+herself, hurriedly, aware that the moments were fleeting, that she had a
+soul. That sense of right and wrong which, like a whip, had driven her
+here could be nothing else but the voice of her soul; therefore there
+was a soul, and if there was a soul it could not die, and if it did not
+die it must go somewhere; therefore there was a heaven and a hell. But
+in spite of her desire to convince herself, remembrance of Owen's
+arguments whistled like a wind through her pious exhortations, and all
+that she had read in Huxley and Darwin and Spencer; the very words came
+back thick and distinct, and like one who finds progress impossible in
+the face of the gale, she stopped thinking. &quot;We know nothing ... we know
+nothing,&quot; were the words she heard in the shriek of the wind, and
+revealed religion appeared in tattered, miserable plight, a forlorn
+spectre borne away on the wind. So distinct was the vision, so explicit
+her hearing, that she could not pretend to herself that she was a
+Christian in any but a moral sense, and this would not satisfy
+Monsignor. Then question after question pealed in her ears. What should
+she say when he came? Was it not better for her to leave at once? But
+then? She took one step towards the door. However thin and shallow her
+belief might be, she must confess her sins. She felt that she must
+confess her sins even if she did not believe in confession. Her thoughts
+paused, and she was terrified by the mystery which her own existence
+presented to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and the priest stood looking at her. She could see that
+he divined the truth. In the first glance he read that Evelyn had come
+to confession, and it was for him a moment of extraordinary spiritual
+elation.</p>
+
+<p>Monsignor Mostyn and Sir Owen had been at school together, and though
+they had not met since, they frequently heard of each other. Owen's
+ideas of marriage and religion were well known to the priest. He had
+heard soon after she had gone away that she had gone with Asher, his old
+schoolfellow. He knew the pride that Asher would take in destroying her
+faith, and this diabolic project he had determined to frustrate; and
+every year when he returned from Rome, he asked if Evelyn was expected
+to sing in London that season. As year after year went by, his chance of
+saving her soul seemed to grow more remote; but at the bottom of his
+heart he believed that he was the chosen instrument of God's grace. That
+night at the concert in her father's house, the first words&mdash;something
+in her manner, the expression in her eyes, had led him to think that the
+conversion would be an easy one. But it had come about quicker than he
+had expected. And as he stood looking at her, he was aware of an alloy
+of personal vanity and strove to stifle it; he thought of himself as the
+humble instrument selected to win her from this infamous, this renegade
+Catholic, and the trouble so visible in her was confirmation of his
+belief that there can be no peace for a Catholic outside the pale of the
+Church.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have wanted to see you so much,&quot; she began hurriedly. &quot;There is a
+great deal I want to tell you. But perhaps you have no time now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear child, I have ample time, I am only too pleased to be of
+service to you. I am afraid you are in trouble, you look quite ill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The kindness of the voice filled her eyes with tears, and she understood
+in a moment the relief it would be to tell her troubles to this kind
+friend; to feel his kind advice allaying them one by one, and to know
+that the sleepless solitude in which she had tried to grapple with them
+was over at last. To give her time to recover herself, Monsignor spoke
+of a letter he had received that morning from the Superior of the
+Passionist Convent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I will not trouble you with her repeated thanks for what you have done
+for her. She begs me to tell you that she and the sisters unite in
+inviting you to spend a few days with them. They suggest that you should
+choose your own time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Monsignor, how can I go and stay with them! I thought I should have
+died of shame when I went there after the concert with you. Mother
+Philippa asked me if I had travelled with my father when I went abroad.
+You must remember, for you came to my assistance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I turned the conversation, seeing that it embarrassed you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you must have guessed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On account of your father's position at St. Joseph's, I had heard of
+you.... I had heard of your intimacy with Sir Owen Asher, and the life
+of an opera singer is not one to which a good Catholic can easily
+reconcile herself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As they sat on either side of the table, Evelyn was attracted, and then
+absorbed, by the distinctive appearance of the priest. His mind was in
+his face. The long, high forehead, with black hair growing sparely upon
+it; the small, brilliant eyes, and the long, firm line of the jaw, now
+distinct, for the head was turned almost in profile. The face was a
+perfect symbol of the mind behind it; and the intimate concurrence of
+the appearance and the thought was the reason of its attractiveness. It
+was the beauty of unity; here was a man whose ideas are so deeply rooted
+that they express themselves in his flesh. In him there was nothing
+floating or undecided; and in the line of the thin, small mouth and the
+square nostrils, Evelyn divined a perfect certainty on all points. In
+this way she was attracted to his spiritual guidance, and desired the
+support of his knowledge, as she had desired Ulick's knowledge when she
+was studying Isolde. Ulick's technical knowledge had been useful to her;
+upon it she had raised herself, through it she had attained her idea.
+And in the same way Monsignor's knowledge on all points of doctrine
+would free her from doubt. Then she would be able to rise above the
+degradation of earthly passion to that purer and higher passion, the
+love of God. Doctrine she did not love for its own sake as Monsignor
+loved it. She regarded it as the musician regards crotchets and quavers,
+as a means of expression; and she now felt that without doctrine she
+could not acquire the love which she desired; without doctrine she could
+not free herself from the bondage of the flesh, and every moment the
+temptation to give her soul into his keeping grew more irresistible.
+Rising from her chair, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Will you hear my confession now, Monsignor?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The priest looked at her, his narrow, hard face concentrated in an
+ardent scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Certainly, my child, if you think you are sufficiently prepared.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must confess now; I could not put it off again;&quot; and glancing round
+the room, she slipped suddenly upon her knees.</p>
+
+<p>The priest put on his stole and murmured a Latin prayer, making the sign
+of the Cross over the head of his penitent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I fear I shall never remember all my sins. I have been living in mortal
+sin so many years.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I remember that you spoke to me of intellectual
+difficulties&mdash;concerning faith. You see now, my dear child, that you
+were deceiving yourself. Your real difficulties were quite different.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I think that my doubts were sincere,&quot; Evelyn replied tremblingly, for
+she felt that Monsignor expected her to agree with him.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If your doubts were sincere, what has removed them? What has convinced
+you of the existence of a future life? That, I believe, was one of your
+chief difficulties. Have you examined the evidence?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn murmured that that sense of right and wrong which she had never
+been able to drive out of her heart implied the existence of God.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But savages, to whom the Scriptures are unknown, have a sense of right
+and wrong. Those who lived before the birth of Christ&mdash;the Greeks and
+Romans&mdash;had a sense of right and wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that the priest's absolution depended upon her acceptance of the
+doctrine of a future life, she strove to believe as a little child. But
+it was her sins of the flesh that she wanted to confess, and this
+argument about the Incarnation had begun to seem out of place. Suddenly
+it seemed to hear inexpressibly ludicrous that she should be kneeling
+beside the priest. She could not help wondering what Owen would think of
+her. She remembered his pointing out that it is stated in the Gospel
+that the Messiah should be descended from David. Now, Mary was not of
+royal blood, so it was through Joseph, who was not his father, that
+Christ was descended from David. But these discrepancies did not matter.
+She felt the Church to be necessary to her, and that its teaching
+coincided with her deepest feeling seemed to her enough. But Monsignor
+was insistent, and he pressed dogma after dogma upon her. All the while
+the cocoa-nut matting ate into her knees, and she was perplexed by
+remembrances of sexual abandonments. How to speak of them she did not
+know, and she was haunted and terrified by the idea of concealing
+anything which would invalidate her confession. So she hastily availed
+herself of the first pause to tell him that she had lived with Owen
+Asher for the last six years. The priest did not trouble to inquire
+further, and she felt that she could not leave him under the impression
+that she had lived with Owen the moderate, sexual life which she
+believed was maintained between husband and wife.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My life during the last six years,&quot; she said, interrupting him, &quot;has
+been so abandoned. There are few&mdash;there are no excesses of which I have
+not been guilty.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have said enough on that point,&quot; he answered, to her great relief.
+But at that moment she remembered Ulick, and she felt that she must
+mention him. To do so she had again to interrupt the priest.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I must tell you&mdash;Sir Owen was not the only one&quot;&mdash;she bowed her
+head&mdash;&quot;there was another.&quot; Then, yielding to the temptation to explain
+herself, she told Monsignor how it was this second sin that had awakened
+her conscience. She had tried to look upon Sir Owen as her husband. &quot;But
+one night at the theatre, during a performance of 'Tristan and Isolde,'
+I sinned with this second man.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And this showed you, my dear child, the impossibility of a moral life
+for one who was born a Catholic except when protected by the doctrine
+and the sacraments of our Holy Church. And that brings us back to the
+point from which we started&mdash;the necessity of an unquestioning
+acceptance of the entire doctrine, and, I may add, a general
+acquiescence in Catholic belief. It seems strange to you that I am more
+anxious about your sins against faith than your sins of the flesh. It
+is because I know that without faith you will fall again. It is because
+I know the danger, the seduction of the theory that even if there be
+neither hell nor heaven, yet the obligation to lead a moral life exists.
+Such theory is in essence Protestantism and a delicious flattery of the
+vanity of human nature. It has been the cause of the loss of millions of
+souls. You yourself are a living testimony of the untrustworthiness of
+this shelter, and it is entirely contrary to the spirit of the teaching
+of the Church, which is that we must lead a moral life in order to gain
+heaven and avoid the pain of hell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She leaned heavily on the table to relieve her knees from as much weight
+as possible, and she thought of the possibility of getting her
+handkerchief out of her pocket and placing it under her. But when her
+confession turned from her sins against faith to her sins of the flesh,
+she forgot the pain of her knees.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is one more question I must ask you. You have lived with this man
+as his mistress for six years, you have spoken of the excesses to which
+you abandoned yourself, but more important than these is whether you
+deliberately avoided the probable consequences of your sin&mdash;I mean in
+regard to children?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If we sin we must needs avoid the consequences of our sin. I know that
+it is forbidden&mdash;but my profession&mdash;I had to think of others&mdash;my
+father&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Your answer, my dear child, does not surprise me. It shows me into what
+depths you have fallen. That you should think like this is part of the
+teaching of the man whose object was to undermine your faith; it is part
+of the teaching of Darwin and Huxley and Spencer. You were persuaded
+that to live with a man to whom you were not married differed in no wise
+from living with your husband. The result has proved how false is such
+teaching. The sacrament of marriage was instituted to save the weak from
+the danger of temptation, and human nature is essentially weak, and
+without the protection of the Church it falls. The doctrine of the
+Church is our only safeguard. But that you should have proved unfaithful
+to this man&mdash;this second sin which shocked you so much, and which I am
+thankful awakened in you a sense of sin, is not more important than to
+thwart the design of Nature. It is important that you should understand
+this, for an understanding on this point will show you how false, how
+contradictory, is the teaching of the naturalistic philosophy in which
+you placed your trust. These men put aside revealed religion and refer
+everything to Nature, but they do not hesitate to oppose the designs of
+Nature when it suits their purpose. The doctrine of the Church has
+always been one wife, one husband. Polygamy and polyandry are relatively
+sterile. It is the acknowledged wife and the acknowledged husband that
+are fruitful; it is the husband and wife who furnish the world with men
+and heaven with souls, whereas the lover and the mistress fulfil no
+purpose, they merely encumber the world with their vice, they are
+useless to Nature, and are hateful in God's sight; the nations that do
+not cast them out soon become decrepid. If we go to the root of things,
+we find that the law of the Church coincides very closely with the law
+of Nature, and that the so-called natural sciences are but a nineteenth
+century figment. I hope all this is quite clear to you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn acquiesced. Her natural instinct forbade her the original
+sin&mdash;what happened after did not appeal to her; she could feel no
+interest in the question he had raised. But she was determined to avoid
+all falsehood&mdash;on that question her instinct was again explicit&mdash;and
+when he returned again in his irritation at her insubordination to his
+ideas, and questioned her regarding her belief as to a future life, her
+answer was so doubtful that after a moment's hesitation he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you are not convinced on so cardinal a point of dogma, it is
+impossible for me to give you absolution.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do not deny me your absolution. I cannot face my life without some sign
+of forgiveness. I believe&mdash;I think I believe. You probe too deeply.
+Sometimes it seems to me that there must be a future life, sometimes it
+seems to me&mdash;that it would be too terrible if we were to live again.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It would be too terrible indeed, my dear child, if we were to live
+again unassoiled, unpurified, in all our miserable imperfections. But
+these have been removed by the priest's absolution, by the sinner's
+repentance in this world and by purgatory in the next. Those who have
+the happiness to live in the sight of God are without stain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I only know that I must lead a moral life, and that religion will help
+me to do so. I try to speak the truth, but the truth shifts and veers,
+and in trying to tell the whole truth perhaps I leave an impression that
+I believe less than I do. You must make allowance for my ignorance and
+incapacity. I cannot find words as you do to express myself. Do not
+refuse me absolution, for without it I shall not have strength to
+persevere.... I fear what may become of me. If you knew the effort it
+has cost me to come to you. I have not slept for many nights for
+thinking of my sins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There is one promise you must make me before I give you absolution; you
+must not seek either of these men again who have been to you a cause of
+sin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The pain from her knees was expressed in her voice, and it was almost
+with a cry that she answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But I have promised to sing his opera.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought, my dear child, that you told me you intended to give up the
+stage. I feel bound to tell you that I do not see how you are to remain
+on the stage if you wish to lead a new life&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been kneeling a long while,&quot; and a cry escaped her, so acute was
+the pain. She struggled to her feet and stood leaning against the table,
+waiting for the pain to die out of her limbs. &quot;The other man is father's
+friend. If I tell him or if I write to him that he may not come to the
+house, father will suspect. Then I have promised to sing his opera. Oh,
+Monsignor&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These difficulties,&quot; said Monsignor, as he rose from his chair, &quot;appear
+to you very serious. You are overcome by their importance because you
+have not adequately realised the awfulness of your state in the sight of
+God. If you were to die now, your soul would be lost. Once you have
+grasped this central fact in its full significance, the rest will seem
+easy. I will lend you a book which I think will help you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Monsignor, are you going to refuse me your absolution?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;My dear child, you are in doubt regarding the essential doctrine of the
+resurrection, and you are unable to promise me not to see one of the men
+who have been to you a cause of sin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her clear, nervous vision met the dry, narrow vision that was the
+priest, and there was a pause in the conflict of their wills. He saw
+that his penitent was moved to the depth of her being, and had lost
+control of herself. He feared to send her away without absolution, yet
+he felt that she must be forced into submission&mdash;she must accept the
+entire doctrine of the Church. He could not understand, and therefore
+could not sympathise with her hesitation on points of doctrine. If the
+penitent accepted the Church as the true Church, conscience was laid
+aside for doctrine. The value of the Church was that it relieved the
+individual of the responsibility of life. So it was by an effort of will
+that he retained his patience. He was determined to reduce her to his
+mind, but he was instinctively aware of the danger of refusing her
+absolution; to do so might fling her back upon agnosticism. He was
+contending with vast passions. An unexpected wave might carry her beyond
+his reach. The stakes were high; he was playing for her soul with Owen
+Asher. He had decided to yield a point if necessary, but his voice was
+so kind, so irresistibly kind, that she heard nothing but it. However
+she might think when she had left him, she could not withstand the
+kindness of that voice; it seemed to enter into her life like some
+extraordinary music or perfume. He could see the effect he was producing
+on her; he watched her eyes growing bright until a slight dread crossed
+his mind. She seemed like one fascinated, trembling in bonds that were
+loosening, and that in the next moment would break, leaving her
+free&mdash;perhaps to throw herself into his arms; he did not dare to
+withdraw his eyes. An awful moment passed, and she turned slowly as if
+to leave the room. But at the moment of so doing a light seemed to break
+upon her brain; where there was darkness there was light. He saw her
+walk suddenly forward. She threw herself upon her knees at the table,
+and like one to whom speech had suddenly come back, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I believe in our holy Church and all that she teaches. Father, I
+beseech you to absolve me from my sins.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So striking was the change that the priest himself was cowed by it, and
+his personal pride in his conquest of her soul was drowned in a great
+awe. He had first to thank God for having chosen him as the instrument
+of his will, and then he spoke to Evelyn of the wonder and magnitude of
+God's mercies. That at the very height of her artistic career he should
+have roused her to a sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle
+of his grace.</p>
+
+<p>His presence by her at that moment was a balm. She heard him say that
+life would not be an easy one, but that she must not be discouraged,
+that she must remember that she had made her peace with God, and would
+derive strength from his sacraments. An extraordinary sweetness came
+over her, she seemed borne away upon a delicious sweetness; she was
+conscious of an extraordinary inward presence. She did not dare to look
+up, or even to think, but buried herself in prayer, experiencing all the
+while the most wonderful and continuous sensation of delight. She had
+been racked and torn, and had fallen at his feet a helpless mass of
+suffering humanity. He had healed her, and she felt hope and life
+returning to her again, and sufficient strength to get up and continue
+her way. Never again would she be alone; he would be always near to
+guide her. She heard him tell her that she must recite daily for penance
+the hymn <i>veni sanctus spiritus</i>, and the thought of this obedience to
+him refreshed her as the first draught of spring water refreshes the
+wanderer who for weeks has hesitated between the tortures of thirst and
+the foul water of brackish desert pools. She was conscious that he was
+making the sign of the cross over her bowed head, the murmured Latin
+formula sounded strangely familiar and delicious in her ears, with the
+more clearly enunciated &quot;<i>Ego te absolvo</i>&quot; towards the close. In that
+supreme moment for which she had longed, the last traces of Owen's
+agnostic teaching seemed to fall from her, and she was carried back to
+the days of her girlhood, to the days of her old prayer-book, a &quot;Garden
+of the Soul&quot; bound in ivory; and she rose from her knees, weak, but
+happy as a convalescent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope you will sleep well to-night,&quot; said Monsignor, kindly, noticing
+the signs of physical exhaustion in Evelyn as she stood mechanically
+drawing down her veil and putting on her gloves. &quot;A good conscience is
+the best of all narcotics.&quot; Evelyn smiled through her tears, but could
+not trust herself to speak. &quot;But I don't really like you living alone in
+Park Lane. It is too great a strain on your nerves. Could you not go to
+your father's for a time?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, perhaps, I don't know. Dear father would like to have me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He told her that the Mass he was to say to-morrow he would offer up for
+her; and as she drove home her joy grew more intense, and in a sort of
+spiritual intoxication she identified herself with the faith of her
+childhood. Life again presented possibilities of infinite perfection,
+and she was astonished that the difficulties which she had thought
+insuperable had been so easily overcome.</p>
+
+<p>All that evening she thought of God and his sacraments, and remembering
+the moment when his grace had descended upon her and all had become
+clear, she perforce believed in a miracle&mdash;a miracle of grace had
+certainly happened.</p>
+
+<p>She looked forward to the moment when her maid would leave the room, and
+she would throw herself on her knees and lose herself in prayer, as she
+had lost herself when she knelt beside Monsignor, and he absolved her
+from sin. But when the door closed she was incapable of prayer, she only
+desired sleep. Her whole mind seemed to have veered. She had exaggerated
+everything, conducted herself strangely, hysterically, and her prayers
+were repeated without ardour, almost indifferently.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THIRTY_TWO'></a><h2>CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>But the next day she could not account to herself for the extraordinary
+relief she had derived from her confession. For years she had battled
+with life alone, with no light to guide her, blown hither and thither by
+the gusts of her own emotions. But now she was at peace, she was
+reconciled to the Church; she would never be alone again. The struggle
+of her life still lay before her, and yet in a sense it was a thing of
+the past. She felt like a ship that has passed from the roar of the surf
+into the shelter of the embaying land, and in the distance stretched the
+long peacefulness of the winding harbour.</p>
+
+<p>The solution of her monetary obligations to Sir Owen still perplexed
+her. She regretted not having laid the matter before Monsignor, and
+looked forward to doing so. She could hear his clear, explicit voice
+telling her what she must do, and guidance was such a sweet thing. He
+would say that to try to calculate hotel bills and railway fares was out
+of the question; but if she had said that the money Sir Owen had
+advanced her to pay Madame Savelli was to be considered as a debt, she
+must offer to return it. She knew that Owen would not accept it. It
+would be horrid of him if he did, but it would be still more horrid of
+her if she did not offer to return it.</p>
+
+<p>She had not really begun to make money till the last few years, and as
+there had been no need for her to make money, she had sacrificed money
+to her pleasure and to Owen's. She had refused profitable engagements
+because Owen wanted her to go yachting, or because he wanted to go to
+Riversdale to hunt, or because she did not like the conductor. So it
+happened that she had very little money&mdash;about five thousand pounds, and
+her jewellery would fetch about half what was paid for it.</p>
+
+<p>If she were to remain on the stage another year she could perhaps treble
+the amount, and to leave the stage she would have to provide herself
+with an adequate income. There was the tiara which the subscribers to
+the opera in New York had presented her with&mdash;that would fetch a good
+deal. It didn't become her, but it recalled a time of her life that was
+very dear to her, and she would be sorry to part with it. But from the
+point of view of ornament, she liked better the band of diamonds which
+a young Russian prince had sent to her anonymously. A few nights after,
+she had been introduced to him at a ball. His eyes went at once to the
+diamonds, a look of rapture had come into his face, and she had at once
+suspected he was the sender. They had danced many times, and retired for
+long, eager talks into distant corners. And the following evening she
+had found him waiting for her at the stage door. He had begged her to
+meet him in a park outside the city. He was attractive, young, and she
+was alone. Owen was away. She had thought that she liked him, and it was
+exciting to meet him in this distant park, their carriages waiting for
+them below the hill. She could still see the grey, lowering sky and the
+trees hanging in green masses; she had thought all the time it was going
+to rain. She remembered his pale, interesting face and his eager,
+insinuating voice. But he had had to leave St. Petersburg the next day.
+It was one of those things that might have, but had not, happened. How
+strange! She might have liked him. How strange; she never would see him.
+And she sat dreaming a long while.</p>
+
+<p>Owen had given her a clasp, composed of two large emerald bosses set
+with curious antique gems, when she played Brunnhilde. The necklace of
+gem intaglios, in gold Etruscan filigree settings, he had given her for
+her Elsa&mdash;more than her Elsa was worth. For Elizabeth he had given her
+ropes of equal-sized pearls, and the lustre of the surfaces was
+considered extraordinary. For Isolde he had given her strings of black
+pearls which the jewellers of Europe had been collecting for more than a
+year. Every pearl had the same depth of colour, and hanging from it was
+a large black brilliant set in a mass of white brilliants. He had hung
+it round her neck as she went on the stage, and she had had only time to
+clasp his hands and say &quot;dearest.&quot; These presents alone, she thought,
+could not be worth less than ten thousand pounds.</p>
+
+<p>She kept her jewels in a small iron safe; it stood in her dressing-room
+under her washhand stand, and Merat surprised her two hours later
+sitting on her bed, with everything, down to the rings which she wore
+daily, spread over the counterpane. The maid gave her mistress a sharp
+look, remarking that she hoped Mademoiselle did not miss anything. In
+her hand there was a brooch consisting of three large emeralds set with
+diamonds; she often wore it at the front of her dress, it went
+particularly well with a flowered silk which Owen always admired. She
+calculated the price it would fetch, and at the same time was convinced
+that Monsignor's permission to sing on the concert platform, and
+possibly to go to Bayreuth to sing Kundry, would not affect her
+decision. She wanted to leave the stage. Half-measures did not appeal to
+her in the least. If she was to give up the stage, she must give it up
+wholly. It must be a thing over and done with, or she must remain on
+the stage and sing for the good of Art and her lovers. Since that was no
+longer possible, she preferred never to sing a note again in public. The
+worst wrench of all was her promise to Monsignor not to sing Grania, and
+since she had made that sacrifice, she could not dally with lesser
+things. Then, resuming her search among her jewellery, she selected the
+few things she would like to keep. She examined a cameo brooch set in
+filigree gold, ornamented with old rose diamonds, and she picked up a
+strange ring which a man whom Owen knew had taken from the finger of a
+mummy. It was a large emerald set in plain gold. A man who had been
+present at the unswathing of this princess, dead at least three thousand
+years, had managed to secure it, and Owen had paid him a large sum for
+it. She put it on her finger, and decided to keep a dozen other rings,
+the earrings she wore, and a few bracelets. The rest of her jewellery
+she would sell, if Owen refused to have them back. Of course there would
+be her teaching; she could not live in Dulwich doing nothing, and would
+take up her mother's singing classes....</p>
+
+<p>Her mother had lost her voice in the middle of her career, and her
+daughter had abandoned the stage at the moment of her greatest triumph!
+Looking at her jewels scattered all over the bed, Evelyn wondered what
+was going to happen to her. Was she really going to leave the stage?
+She&mdash;Evelyn Innes? When she thought of it, it seemed impossible. If
+religion were only a craze. If she were to go back to Owen, or to other
+lovers? How strange it was; it seemed strange to be herself, and yet it
+was quite true. Remembering that on Sunday she would partake of the Body
+and Blood which her Saviour had given for the salvation of sinners, her
+soul suddenly hushed, and catching sight of the jewels which symbolised
+the sacrifice she was making, it seemed to her that she could afford
+much greater sacrifices for what she was going to receive....</p>
+
+<p>She saw lights dying down in the distance, and the world which had once
+seemed so desirable seemed to her strangely trivial and easily denied.
+Already she could look back at the poor struggling ones, struggling for
+what to-morrow will be abandoned, forgotten, passing illusions; and she
+wondered how it was that she had not always thought as she thought
+to-day. Her thoughts passed into reveries, and she awoke, remembering
+that Monsignor had told her that he did not like her living alone in
+Park Lane. But in Dulwich she would be with her father, whom she had
+long neglected, and she would be near St. Joseph's and her confessor. At
+the same moment she remembered that she could not write to her lovers
+from Park Lane. She put her jewels back in the safe, and told Merat to
+pack sufficient things for a month, and to follow her with them to
+Dulwich. Merat asked for more precise instruction, but Evelyn said she
+must use her good sense; she was going away at once, and Merat must
+follow by a later train.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then Mademoiselle does not want the carriage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I shall go by train.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>She found her father in the workroom, and the sight of him in his cap
+and apron mending an old musical instrument caused many home scenes to
+flash across her mind, and she did not know whether it was from
+curiosity or a desire to please him that she asked the name of the
+strange little instrument he was repairing. It looked like an overgrown
+concertina, and he explained that it was a tiny virginal, and pointed
+out the date; it was made in 1631, in Roman notation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father,&quot; she said, &quot;I have come back to you; we shall never be
+separated any more&mdash;if you'll have me back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you back, dear! What has happened now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He stood with a chisel in his hand, and she noticed that he dug the
+point nervously into the soft deal plank. She sat down on a small wooden
+stool, and kicking the shavings with her feet, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, a great deal has happened. I have sent Owen away ... I shall
+never see him again; I'm sorry to have to speak about him to you; you
+mustn't be angry; he was very good to me, and he asked me to marry him;
+he did everything&mdash;I'm afraid I've broken his heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're very strange, Evelyn, and I don't know what answer to make to
+you.... Why did you send him away, and why did you refuse to marry him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I sent him away because I thought it wrong to live with him, and I
+refused to marry him&mdash;well, I don't know, father, I don't know why I
+refused to marry him. It seemed to me that if he had wished to marry me
+he ought to have done so long ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is that the only reason you can give?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is the only reason I know. You seem sorry for him, father, are you?
+I hope you are. He has been very good to me. I've often wished to tell
+you; it has often been in my heart to tell you that you should not hate
+him. He was very good to me, no one could have been kinder; he was very
+fond of me, you must not bear him any ill will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I never said that I bore him ill will. He made you a great singer, and
+you say he was very kind to you and wanted to marry you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, and he was most anxious to see you, and he went with me to St.
+Joseph's the Sunday you gave the great Mass of Pope Marcellus. He was
+distressed that he could not see you to tell you about the choir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They sang better that Sunday than the Sunday you heard the 'Missa
+Brevis.' I have got two new trebles. One has an exquisite voice. I wish
+I could get a few good altos. It was the altos that were wrong when you
+heard the 'Missa Brevis.' But you didn't hear they were out of tune.
+That piano has falsified your ear, but it will come back to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear father, how funny you are! If nothing were more wrong than my ear
+...&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They glanced at each other hastily, and to change the subject he
+mentioned that he had had a letter that morning from Ulick. He had
+finished scoring the second act of Grania, and thinking that he was on
+safe ground, Mr. Innes told her that Ulick hoped to finish his score in
+the autumn. The third act would not take him long; he had a very
+complete sketch of the music, etc. &quot;I shall enjoy going through his
+opera with him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father, I don't know how to tell you. Will you ever forgive me or him.
+Ulick must not come back here&mdash;at least not while I am here. Perhaps I
+had better go.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The chisel dropped from his hand, and he stood looking at his daughter.
+His look was pitiful, and she could not bear to see him shake his head
+slowly from side to side.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Poor father is wondering why I am like this;&quot; and to interrupt his
+reflections she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know why I am like this; that's what you're thinking, father,
+but henceforth I'll be like mother and my aunts. They were all good
+women ... I have often wondered why I am like this.&quot; Their eyes met, and
+seized with a sudden dread lest he should think (if such were really the
+case) that he was the original cause&mdash;she seemed to read something like
+that in his eyes&mdash;she said, &quot;You must forgive me, whatever I am; you
+know that we've always loved each other, and we always shall. Nothing
+can come between us; you must be sorry for me, and kiss me, and love me
+more than ever, for I've been very unhappy. I haven't told you all I
+have given up so that I might be a good woman; it is not easy to make
+the sacrifices I have made, but I am happier now that I have made them.
+Ulick&mdash;Ulick must not come here while I'm here, but you'll want to see
+him&mdash;I had better go. Father, dear, it is hard to say all these things.
+I've done nothing but bring you trouble. Now I've robbed you of your
+friend. For I've promised not to see Ulick again. If I stay here,
+father, he must not come&mdash;I'm ashamed to ask you this, but what am I to
+do? I bring trouble. Later on, perhaps, but for a long while he and I
+must not meet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Innes stood looking at his daughter, and a peculiar puzzled
+expression had begun in his eyes, and had spread over his face. He
+suddenly shrugged his shoulders; the movement was like Evelyn's shrug,
+it expressed the same nervous hopelessness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I promised Monsignor that I would not see either.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You went to confession&mdash;to him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But how about Grania?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm not going to sing Grania. I've left the stage for good.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Left the stage?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, father, I've left the stage, and I could not go back even if
+Monsignor were to permit me. But you must not argue with me; I argued
+with myself until I nearly went mad. Night after night went by
+sleepless; I was mad one night, and should have poisoned myself if I had
+not found my scapular. But you mustn't question me. Some day when it is
+all far away I'll tell you the whole story. I cannot speak of it at
+present, it is all too near. Suffice it to say that I have repented, and
+have come to ask you if you'll have me back to live with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're my daughter, and you must do as you like. You were always
+different from anyone else, I cannot cope with you. So you have left the
+stage, left the stage! What will people think?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I could not be a good woman and remain on the stage, that's what it
+comes to.&quot; In spite of the gravity of the scene, a smile trickled round
+Evelyn's lips, for she could not help seeing her father like a hen that
+has hatched out a duckling. He stood looking at her sadly. She had come
+back&mdash;but what new pond would she plunge into? &quot;I am a very
+unsatisfactory person, I know that. I can't make people happy; but there
+it is, it can't be otherwise. If I don't sing on the stage, I can sing
+at your concerts. Come downstairs and let's have some music. We've
+talked enough.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What shall we play&mdash;a Bach sonata? Ah, I remember this,&quot; she said,
+catching sight of the harpsichord part of a suite by J.P. Rameau, for
+the harpsichord and viola da gamba. &quot;Where is the viola da gamba part?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the bottom of that bookcase, I think; don't you remember it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, it is some time since I've played it,&quot; she said, smiling, &quot;but
+I'll try.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to her that she remembered it all wonderfully well, and she
+was surprised how every phrase came up correctly under her bow. But she
+stopped suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't remember what comes next.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Innes played the phrase, she played it after him, but she broke down
+a little further on, and it took some time to find the music. &quot;No, not
+in that shelf,&quot; cried Mr. Innes, &quot;the next one; not that volume, the
+next.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, yes, I remember the volume, about the middle?&quot; When she found the
+place she said, &quot;Oh, yes, of course,&quot; and he answered&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, it seems simple enough now,&quot; and they went on together to the end.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've not lost much of my playing, have I?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A little stiffness, perhaps, and you've lost your sense of the old
+forms. Now let's play this rondeau of Marais.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>When they had finished, it was dinner-time, and after dinner they had
+more music. Before going upstairs, Evelyn asked Agnes if there was any
+ink in her room. She had to ask her father for some writing paper, she
+would have avoided doing so if she could have helped it. She feared he
+would guess that she was writing to her lovers. She smiled&mdash;so odd did
+her scruples seem to her&mdash;she was writing to send them away. Her
+father's house was surely the right place. If it were to make
+appointments, that would be different. It was long past midnight when
+she read over her letter to Owen.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear Owen,&mdash;A great deal has happened since we last met, and I am
+convinced that it would be unwise for me to see you in three months as I
+promised. My confessor is of the same opinion; he thinks three months
+too soon, and I must obey him. I have taken the step which I hope you
+will take some day, for you too are a Catholic. In going to confession
+and resolving not to see you again, I had a long struggle with my
+feelings; but God gave me grace to overcome them. You know me well
+enough by this time, and can have no doubt that I could not live with
+you again as your mistress, and as I do not feel that I could marry you,
+no course is open to me but to beg of you not to write to me, or to try
+to see me. Owen, I feel that all this is horrid, that I am horrid looked
+at from your side. I cannot seem anything else. I hate it all, but it
+has to be done. Perhaps one of these days you will see things as I do.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I owe you&mdash;I do not know how much, but I owe you a great deal of money.
+I remember saying that Savelli's lessons were to be considered as a
+debt, also the expenses of the house in the Rue Balzac. You never would
+tell me what the rent of that house was, but as well as I can calculate,
+I owe you a thousand pounds for that year in Paris.&quot; (Evelyn paused. &quot;It
+must be,&quot; she thought, &quot;much more, but it would be difficult for me to
+pay more.&quot;)</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You have,&quot; she continued, &quot;paid for a hundred other things besides
+Savelli's lessons and the house in the Rue Balzac, but it would be
+impossible to make out a correct account, I feel, too, that you gave me
+the greatest part of my jewellery thinking that one day I would be your
+wife; you would not have given me so much if you had not thought so.
+Therefore I feel it is only just to offer you the whole of it back. I
+will only ask you to allow me to keep a few trifles&mdash;the earrings you
+bought for me the day we arrived in Paris, the mummy's ring, etc., not
+more than half-a-dozen things in all. I should like to keep these in
+memory of a time which I ought to forget, but which I am afraid I shall
+never have the courage even to try to forget. Dear Owen, I cannot tell
+you why I cannot marry you, I only know that I cannot. I am obeying an
+instinct far stronger than I, and I cannot struggle against it any
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One day perhaps we may meet&mdash;but it may not be for years, until we are
+both quite different.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;EVELYN INNES.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The moment she had written the address, she threw the pen aside, and she
+sat striving against an uncontrollable sense of misery. At last her
+pent-up tears ran over her eyelids. She flung herself on her bed, and
+lay weeping, shaken by short, choking sobs. All her courage of the
+morning had forsaken her; she could not face her new life, she could not
+send away Owen. Her inmost life rose in revolt. Why was this new
+sacrifice demanded of her? Why was her life to be made so hard, so
+impossible for her to endure? She felt she could not live in the life
+which she foresaw awaited her. Then she felt that she was being tried
+beyond the endurance of any woman. But the storm did not last, her sobs
+died away. She sat up, mopping her eyes with a soaking pocket
+handkerchief, and utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, she
+began to undress. She felt the impossibility of saying her prayers, her
+one longing was for sleep, oblivion; she wished herself dead, and was
+too worn out to put the thought from her, though she knew it was wrong.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning the first thing she saw was the letter to Owen. There it
+was! And every word and letter sank into her brain. &quot;Sir Owen Asher,
+Bart., Riversdale, Northamptonshire.&quot; She would have to post it, and
+never again would she see him. She questioned the right of the priest in
+obtaining from her a promise not to see him, so long as she did not sin.
+But Owen was an approximate cause of mortal sin....</p>
+
+<p>Ashamed of her instability, and feeling herself unworthy and no longer
+pure as absolution had made her, she went that afternoon to St.
+Joseph's, and in confession laid the matter before Monsignor Mostyn.
+Regarding the money question, he approved of what she had written to Sir
+Owen, and he was far more indulgent regarding her breakdown than she had
+dared to hope. He had expected some such mental crisis. It was
+extraordinary the strength it gave her even to see his stern, grave
+face; she was thrilled by his certainty on all points, and it no longer
+seemed difficult to send the letter she had written, or to write a
+similar letter to Ulick, which he advised her to send by the same post.
+She began it the moment she got home, and she wrote in perfect
+confidence and courage, the words coming easily to her, so easily that
+there were times when she seemed to hear Monsignor speaking over her
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dear Ulick,&mdash;A very great event has happened in my life since I saw
+you. The greatest event that can happen in any life&mdash;Grace has been
+vouchsafed to me. Now I understand how sinful my life has been, as much
+from a human as a religious point of view. I deserted my dear father, I
+left him alone to live as best he could. I was not even faithful to my
+lover. From a worldly point of view I owed him everything, yet for the
+sake of my passion for you I encouraged myself for a while to dwell on
+his faults, to see nothing in him but the small and the mean. I strove
+to degrade him in my eyes so that I might find some excuse for loving
+you. You were nice, Ulick, you were kind, you were good to me, and I was
+enthusiastic about your genius. One of my greatest troubles now is that
+I shall not be able to sing your opera. For a long while this very thing
+prevented my repentance. I said to myself, 'It is impossible, I cannot,
+I have promised, I must do what I said I would do. He will think me
+hateful if I do not create the part.' But these hesitations between what
+is certainly right and what is certainly wrong existed in me because I
+did not then perceive how very little the things of this world are,
+compared with eternal things, and that nothing matters compared with the
+necessity of saving our souls. All this is now quite clear to me, and it
+would therefore be madness for me to remain on the stage, recognising as
+I do that it is a source of grave temptation to me. You will try to
+understand, dear Ulick, you will try to look at things from my point of
+view. You will see that it is impossible for me to act otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am living now with my father, and must not see you when you return to
+London. I have promised my confessor not to see you. One of these days,
+in years to come, when you and I are different beings, we may meet, but
+we must not see each other at present. I must beg of you not to write or
+to try to see me. My resolve is unalterable, and any attempt on your
+part to induce me to return to my old life will be useless. It as
+already far away and inconceivable to me. I know that by asking you not
+to come to Dulwich I am robbing my father of his friend. I have never
+brought happiness to anyone, not to father, not to Sir Owen, not to you,
+not to myself. If other proof were wanting, would not this fact be
+enough to convince me that my life has been all wrong? What it will be
+in the future I don't know, I have confidence in the goodness of God and
+in the wisdom of my spiritual adviser.&mdash;Sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;EVELYN INNES.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;<i>P.S.</i>&mdash;In course of conversation with my father, I mentioned
+inadvertently that you were my lover; I begged him not to be angry with
+you, but I know that I should not have mentioned your name. I must ask
+you to forgive me this too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The next day and the day following were lived within herself, sometimes
+viewing God far away, as if at one end of a great plain, and herself
+kneeling penitent at the other. She was filled with thoughts of his
+infinite goodness and mercy, and of the miraculous intercession of the
+Virgin at the moment when she was about to commit a crime that would
+have lost her her soul for ever. She went to Mass daily, and took
+peculiar delight in reciting the hymn which Monsignor had given her for
+a penance. She regretted it was not more. It seemed to her such a
+trivial penance, and she reflected on the blackness of her sins, and the
+penances which the saints had imposed upon themselves. But her chief
+desire was to keep herself pure in thought, and she read pious books
+when she was alone, and encouraged her mind to dwell on the profound
+mystery in which she was going to participate, and to believe in the
+marvellous change it would produce in her.</p>
+
+<p>It was on Friday morning that Agnes handed her Ulick's letter. She did
+not read it at once, it lay on the table while she was dressing, and she
+was uncertain whether it would not be better to put off reading it until
+she came back from St. Joseph's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas, from our first meeting, and before it, we were aware of the fate
+which has overtaken us. We heard it in our hearts, that numb
+restlessness, that vague disquietude, that prophetic echo which never
+dies out of ears attuned to the music of destiny ... Love you less, you
+who are the source of all joy to me? Evelyn, my heart aches and my brain
+is light with grief, but the terrible certitude persists that we are
+being drawn asunder. I see you like a ship that has cleared the harbour
+bar, and is already amid the tumult of the ocean.... We are ships, and
+the destiny of ships is the ocean, the ocean draws us both: we have
+rested as long as may be, we have delayed our departure, but the tide
+has lifted us from our moorings. With an agonised heart I watched the
+sails of your ship go up, and now I see that mine, too, are going aloft,
+hoisted by invisible hands. I look back upon the bright days and quiet
+nights we have rested in this tranquil harbour. Like ships that have
+rested a while in a casual harbour, blown hither by storms, we part,
+drawn apart by the eternal magnetism of the sea. I would go to you,
+Evelyn, if I could, and pray you not to leave me. But you would not
+hear: destiny hears no prayers. In the depths of our consciousness,
+below the misery of the moment, there lies a certain sense that our ways
+are different ways, and that we must fare forth alone, whither we know
+not, over the ocean's rim; and in this sense of destiny we must find
+comfort. Will resignation, which is the highest comfort, come to us in
+time? My eyes fall upon my music paper, and at the same time your eyes
+turn to the crucifix. Ours is the same adventure, though a different
+breeze fills the sails, though the prows are set to a different horizon.
+God is our quest&mdash;you seek him in dogma, I in art.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Evelyn, my heart is aching so. How awful the word never, and the
+years are filled with its echoes. And the wide ocean which lies outside
+the harbour is so lonely, and I have no heart for any other joy. 'May we
+not meet again?' my heart cries from time to time; 'may not some
+propitious storm blow us to the same anchorage again, into the same
+port?' Ah, the suns and the seas we shall have sailed through would
+render us unrecognisable, we should not know each other. Last night I
+wandered by the quays, and, watching the constellations, I asked if we
+were divided for ever, if, when the earth has become part and parcel of
+the stars, our love will not reappear in some starry affinity, in some
+stellar friendship.&mdash;Yours,</p>
+
+<p>&quot;ULICK DEAN.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The symbol of the ships seemed to Evelyn to express the union and the
+division and the destiny that had overtaken them. She sat and pondered,
+and in her vision ships hailed each other as they crossed in mid-ocean.
+Ships drew together as they entered a harbour. Ships separated as they
+fared forth, their prows set towards different horizons. She sat
+absorbed in the mystery of destiny. Like two ships, they had rested side
+by side in a casual harbour. They had loved each other as well as their
+different destinies had allowed them. None can do more. She loved him
+better&mdash;in a way&mdash;but he was less to her than Owen. She felt that, and
+he had felt that.... As he said, if they were to meet again they would
+not recognise each other, so different were the suns that would shine
+upon them and the oceans they would travel through. She understood what
+he meant, and a prevision of her future life seemed to nicker up in her
+brain, like the sea seen through a mist; and through vistas in the haze
+she saw the lonely ocean, and her bark was already putting off from the
+shore. All she had known she was leaving behind. The destiny of ships is
+the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>Owen's letter she received in the evening about six o'clock. She changed
+colour at the sight of it, and her hand trembled, and she tore the
+envelope across as she opened it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You ask me to make no attempt to save you. You ask me to stand on the
+bank while you struggle and are dragged down by the current. Evelyn, I
+have never disobeyed your slightest wish before, but I declare my right
+to use all means to save you from a terrible fate. I return to London to
+do so. God only knows if I shall succeed.... In any case I hope you will
+never allude again to any money questions. What I gave, I gave, and
+unless you want to kill me outright, never speak again of returning my
+presents.&mdash;As ever,</p>
+
+<p>OWEN ASHER.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes ran through the lines, and her heart said, &quot;How he loves me.&quot;
+But the temptation to see him quenched instantly in remembrance of her
+Communion, and she tore the letter hastily into two pieces, as if by
+destroying it she destroyed the difficulty it had created for her. She
+must not see him. But how was she to avoid meeting him? To-morrow be
+would be waiting in the street for her, and she walked about the room
+too agitated to think clearly. He seemed like the devil trying to come
+between her and God. She must not see him, of that she was quite sure.
+She would lock herself in her room. But then she would miss Holy
+Communion, and her heart was set on the Sacrament; the Sacrament alone
+could give her strength to persevere. To see him and to hear him would
+ruin her peace of mind, and peace of mind was essential to the reverent
+reception of the Sacrament. It was lost already, or very nearly. She
+stopped in her walk, she looked into her soul, she asked herself if any
+thought had crossed her mind which would render her unfit for Communion
+... and on the spot she resolved to go straight to Monsignor and consult
+him. He would advise her, he would find some way out of the difficulty.
+But it was now six; she could not get to St. Joseph's before seven. It
+was late, but she did not think he would refuse to see her; he would
+know that it was only a matter of the greatest moment that would bring
+her to inquire for him at that hour.</p>
+
+<p>It was as she expected. Monsignor did not receive anyone so late in the
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I know, but I think Monsignor Mostyn will see me. Tell him&mdash;tell
+him that my business does not admit delay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was shown into the same waiting-room. This seemed to her a
+favourable presage, and she offered up a prayer that Monsignor would not
+refuse to see her; everything depended on that. She listened for his
+step; twice she was mistaken; at last the door opened. It was he, and he
+guessed, before she had time to speak, what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of those men,&quot; he said, &quot;has come again into your life?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, and, still unable to speak, she searched in her pocket for
+their letters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I received these letters to-day&mdash;one this morning, the other, Sir
+Owen's, just now. That was why I came. I felt that I had to see you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pray sit down, my child, you are agitated.&quot; He handed her a chair.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You remember you said I might go to Communion on Sunday, and if I were
+to meet him to-morrow it would&mdash;there is no temptation, I don't mean
+that&mdash;but I do not wish to be reminded of things which you told me I was
+to try to forget.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The priest stood reading the letters, and Evelyn sat looking into space,
+absorbed in the desire to escape from Owen. All her faith was in
+Monsignor, and she believed he would be able to save her from Owen's
+intrusion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't think you need fear anything from Mr. Dean.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, not from him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Monsignor continued to read Ulick's letter. Evelyn wished he would read
+Owen's; Ulick's interested her not in the least.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mr. Dean seems a very extraordinary person. Does he believed in
+astrology, the casting of horoscopes, or is it mere affectation?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know; he always talks like that. He believes, or says he
+believes, in Lir and the great Mother Dana, in the old Irish Gods. But,
+Monsignor, please read Sir Owen's letter. I want to know what I am to
+do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He walked once across the room, and when he returned to the table he
+said half to himself, as if his thoughts had long out-stripped his
+words&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad I advised you to leave Park Lane, for of course he will go
+there first.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He will easily find out I'm at Dulwich, he need not even ask&mdash;he will
+guess it at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, to be sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I am not to meet him I must go away&mdash;but where? All my friends and
+acquaintances are his friends. You would approve of none of them
+Monsignor,&quot; she said, smiling a little.</p>
+
+<p>He did not seem to hear her. Suddenly he said, &quot;I think you had better
+go and spend a few days at the Passionist Convent. The Reverend Mother
+sent you an invitation through me, you remember, so we need have no
+hesitation in proposing it. Indeed, I feel confident that they will
+receive you with the greatest pleasure. It will do you a great deal of
+good. You will have peace and quiet, my child; you will find yourself in
+an atmosphere of faith and purity which cannot but be helpful to you in
+your present unsettled state.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Evelyn that that was what she had wanted all the time, only
+she had not been able to say so. Yes; to spend a week with those dear
+nuns, to sit in the convent garden, to kneel before the Blessed
+Sacrament in the convent church, it would be a real spiritual luxury.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I should love to go,&quot; she said. &quot;I feel it is just what I need. I
+have so much to think out, so much to learn, and at home there are a
+hundred things to distract me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very well, then, that is settled. I will send the Reverend Mother word
+to-morrow; but there is no necessity, you can write yourself, and say
+you are coming in the afternoon; she will only have to get your room
+ready.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But, Monsignor, my Communion? I had forgotten it was from you I was to
+receive Holy Communion. Of course I know it doesn't really make any
+difference, but still, you heard my confession, and I would far rather
+receive Communion this first time from you than from anyone else. I
+don't think it could be quite the same thing&mdash;if it weren't from you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And I should be sorry too, my child, as by God's grace I have been the
+means of bringing you thus far, not to complete your reconciliation to
+him. But I think we can manage that too without much difficulty. I say
+Mass to-morrow at nine o'clock, and will give you Communion then, and
+you can go to the convent for your retreat early in the afternoon. Will
+that suit you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And Evelyn could not find words to express her gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>That evening she sat with her father. He was busy stringing a lute, and
+they had not spoken for some time; they often spent quite long whiles
+without speaking, and only occasionally they raised their eyes to see
+each other. The sensation of the other's presence was sufficient for
+their happiness.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THIRTY_THREE'></a><h2>CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>It being Saturday, there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, and when
+Evelyn returned her father had left, and she breakfasted alone. After
+breakfast she sat absorbed in the mysteries of the Sacrament she had
+received. But in the middle of her exaltation doubt intervened, and
+Owen's arguments flashed through her mind. She strove to banish them; it
+was terrible that she should think such things over again, and on the
+morning of her Communion. Her spiritual joy was blighted; she could only
+hope that these dreadful thoughts were temptations of the devil, and
+that she was in no wise responsible. She stood in the middle of the
+room, asking herself if she had not in some slight measure yielded to
+them. No direct answer came to her question, but the words, &quot;When I'm a
+bad woman I believe, when I'm a good woman I doubt,&quot; sounded clear and
+distinct in her brain, and she remained thinking a long while.</p>
+
+<p>Her father came in after lunch. And while she spoke about his trebles
+and his altos, she was thinking how she should tell him that she was
+going away that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You're very silent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was at Holy Communion this morning.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This morning? I thought you were going to Communion on Sunday?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, so I was, but I received a letter from Owen Asher saying he
+intended to see me. I took it to Monsignor; he said it was necessary
+that I should not see Owen, and he advised me to go and stay with the
+Sisters at Wimbledon. That is why I went to Communion this morning; I
+wanted Monsignor to give me Communion. Father, I cannot remain here, I
+should be sure to meet him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He will not come here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, but he'll be waiting in the street.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When are you going?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;This afternoon,&quot; she answered, and handed him Owen's letter. He glanced
+at it, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He seems very fond of you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The answer shocked her, and nothing more was said on the subject. A
+little later she asked him about the trains. She did not know how she
+was to get from Dulwich to Wimbledon. Neither were very apt in looking
+out the trains, and eventually it was Agnes who discovered the changes
+that would have to be made. She would have to go first to Victoria, and
+then she would have to drive from Victoria to Waterloo, and this seemed
+so complicated and roundabout that she decided to drive all the way in a
+hansom. Dulwich and Wimbledon could not be more than ten miles apart.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must go upstairs now, father, and pack my things.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her father followed her and stood by, while she hesitated what she
+should take. Smiling, she rejected a tea-gown as unsuitable for convent
+wear, and put in a black lace scarf which she thought would be useful
+for wearing in church; it would look better in the convent chapel than a
+hat. Instead of a flowered silk she chose a grey alpaca. Then she
+remembered that she must take some books with her. It would be useless
+to bring pious books with her, she would find plenty of those in the
+convent.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have you any books, father? I must have something to read.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are a few books downstairs; you know them all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You don't read much, father?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Not much, except music. But Ulick brings books here, you may find
+something among them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She returned with Berlioz's <i>Memoirs</i>, Pater's <i>Imaginary Portraits</i>,
+and Blake's <i>Songs of Innocence and Experience</i>.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I suppose these books belong to Ulick. I don't know if I ought to take
+them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I cannot advise you; you must do as you like. I suppose you'll bring
+them back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, of course I shall bring them back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Evelyn, dear, is it quite essential that you should go?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, father, yes, it is quite; but I don't know how I am to get away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How you're to get away! What do you mean?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; she answered, laughing, &quot;you see in his letter he says he's
+coming to watch me. Father, I can see that you pity him; you're sorry
+for him, aren't you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, Evelyn, he offered to marry you, he made you a great singer, and
+you say he'd do anything for you. I suppose I am sorry for him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They stood looking out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You know I'd like to stop with you; it can't be helped; but I shall
+come back.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Do you think you'll come back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course I shall come back. Where should I go if I did not come back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Agnes drove up in a hansom; she ran up the little garden,
+and carried out Evelyn's bag and placed it in the hansom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I must go now, father; good-bye, darling. I shan't be away more than
+seven or eight days.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A moment after her dear father was behind her, and she was alone in the
+hansom, driving towards the convent. About her were villas engarlanded
+with reddening creeper. On one lawn a family had assembled under the
+shade of a dwarf cedar, and miles of this kind of landscape lay before
+her. It seemed to her like painted paper, an illusion that might pass
+away at any moment. Her truth was no longer in the external world, but
+in her own soul. Her soul was making for a goal which she could not
+discern. She was leaving a life of wealth and fame and love for a life
+of poverty, chastity and obscurity. All the joy and emulation of the
+stage she was relinquishing for a dull, narrow, bare life at Dulwich,
+giving singing lessons and saying prayers at St. Joseph's. Yet there was
+no question which she would choose, and she marvelled at the strangeness
+of her choice.</p>
+
+<p>The road lay through fields and past farmhouses, but the suburban street
+was never quite lost sight of. Its blue roofs and cheap porticos
+appeared unexpectedly at the end of an otherwise romantic prospect, and
+so on and so on, until the driver let his horse walk up Wimbledon hill.
+When they reached the top she craned her neck, and was in time to catch
+a glimpse of the windmill far away to the right. The inn was in front of
+her, the end of a long point of houses stretching into the common, and
+the hansom rolled easily on the wide, curving roads. She anticipated the
+choked gardens, the decaying pear trees, the gold crowns of sunflowers;
+and a moment after the hansom passed these things and she saw the old
+green door, and heard the jangling peal. The eyes of the lay sister
+looked through the barred loop-hole.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;How do you do, sister? I suppose you expected me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The cabman put the trunk inside the long passage, and Evelyn said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But my luggage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If you'll come into the parlour I'll get one of the sisters to help me
+to carry it upstairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn was sitting at the table turning over the leaves of the
+Confessions of St. Augustine, when the Reverend Mother entered. She
+seemed to Evelyn even smaller than she had done on the first occasion
+they had met; she seemed lost in the voluminous grey habit, and the
+long, light veil floated in the wind of her quick step.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm glad you were able to come so soon. All the sisters are anxious to
+meet you, you who have done so much for us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've done very little, Reverend Mother. Could I have done less for my
+old convent? I hope that your difficulties are at an end.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;At an end, no, but you helped us over a critical moment in the fortunes
+of our convent.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her hands were leaned against the edge of the table, her white fingers,
+white with age, played with the hem of her veil, her blue, anxious eyes
+were fixed on Evelyn at once tenderly, expectantly, and compassionately.
+Her voice was the clear, refined voice which signifies society, and
+Evelyn would not have been surprised to learn that she belonged to an
+old aristocratic family, Evelyn imagined her to be a woman in whom the
+genius of government dominated, and who, not having found an outlet into
+the world, had turned to the cloister. Was that her story? Evelyn
+wondered, and suddenly seemed to forsee a day when she would hear the
+story which shone behind those clear blue eyes, and obliterated age from
+the white face.</p>
+
+<p>They went up the circular staircase, at the top of which was a large
+landing; there were two rooms at the head of the stairs, and the
+Reverend Mother said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;These are our guest chambers.&quot; Standing on a second landing, one step
+higher than the first, a solid wooden partition had been erected, and
+pointing to a door the nun said with a laugh, &quot;That door leads to the
+sisters' cells. You must not make a mistake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn was pleased to see that her room had two windows overlooking the
+garden. There was a table covered by a cloth at which she could write,
+and she bent over the bowl of roses and wondered which kind nun had
+gathered them. The Reverend Mother left her, saying that she would be
+told when supper was ready, and on looking round the room she perceived
+her portmanteau, which the lay sister had not unstrapped. She would have
+to unstrap it herself. She remembered that she had brought very few
+things with her, and yet she was surprised at the smallness of her
+luggage. For she usually took half-a-dozen dresses with her, now she had
+only brought one change, a grey alpaca. She thought she might have left
+her dressing-case behind, a plain brush and comb would have been all she
+needed. But at the last moment, she had felt that she could not do
+without these bottles of scent and brushes and nicknacks; they had
+seemed indispensable. The dressing-case was Owen's influence still
+pursuing her. She had not known why she was compelled to bring the
+dressing-case, now she knew&mdash;Owen! Never would she be able to wholly
+separate herself from him. He had become part of her.</p>
+
+<p>As she stood in the convent room noticing the beeswaxed floor and the
+two rugs, one by the small iron bed, she remembered a hunting morning
+three years ago at Riversdale. She had gone to Owen's room to see if he
+were ready. A multitude of orders were being given there, the valet was
+searching anxiously in the large wardrobe, piled high with many various
+coats and trousers; Owen stood before the looking-glass tying a white
+scarf, and two footmen watched each movement, dreading a mistake. She
+remembered that she had been amused at the time, and she never recalled
+the scene without smiling. But she had liked Owen better for the
+innumerable superfluities, all of which were necessary to his happiness,
+the breakdown of any one of which made him the most miserable man alive.
+She remembered how she had secretly imitated him, and how she had
+gathered about her a mass of superfluous necessities. But they had never
+become necessities to her, they had always galled her. It was in a
+spirit of perversity she had imitated him. She had always felt it to be
+wrong to eat peaches at five francs a piece, and had always been aware
+of an inward resentment against the extravagance of a reserved carriage
+on the railway and private saloon on board the boat. She had always
+desired a simple life; the life of these nuns was a simple life, simpler
+perhaps than she cared for. There was no hot water in her room, she
+wondered how she would wash her hands, and smiling at her philosophical
+reflections, she thought how Owen would laugh if he could see her in her
+present situation&mdash;in a convent, crying out for a constant supply of hot
+water and her maid. A religious life with home comforts, that was what
+she wanted.</p>
+
+<p>She was always a subject of amusement to herself, and she was still
+smiling when a knock awoke her from her whimsical reveries. She answered
+&quot;Come in,&quot; and an elderly nun told her that supper was ready in the
+parlour. In this room, furnished with a table and six chairs and four
+pious prints, Evelyn ate her convent meal, a sort of mixed meal, which
+included soup, cold meat, coffee, jam and some unripe pears. The
+porteress took the plates away, and somehow Evelyn could not help
+feeling that she was giving a good deal of trouble. She could see that
+the nuns did everything for themselves, and she abandoned hope of ever
+finding a can of hot water in her room. She remembered that when she
+made her retreat some years ago, she had not noticed these things. She
+owed all her wants to Owen. Mother Philippa came in, delighted to see
+her, and anxious to know if she had everything she wanted.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I thought you would be sure to be going abroad, and that next Easter,
+the time you were here before, would be the time to ask you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But the Reverend Mother thought that now would be a better time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, she said that Easter was a long way off, and that a rest would do
+you good after singing all the season in London.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn wondered what idea the phrase &quot;the season in London&quot; awoke in the
+mind of the nun. A little puzzled look did pass in her eyes, and then
+she resumed her friendly chatter. Evelyn listened, more interested in
+Mother Philippa's kind, amicable nature than in what she said. She
+imagined in different circumstances what a good wife she would have
+been, and what a good mother! &quot;But she is happier as she is.&quot; Evelyn
+could not imagine any soul-rending uncertainties in Mother Philippa. At
+a certain age, at seventeen or eighteen, she had felt that she would
+like to be a nun; very probably she was not any more pious than her
+sisters; she had merely felt that the life would suit her. That was her
+story. Evelyn smiled, and looked into Mother Philippa's mild eyes, in
+which there was nothing but simple kindness, and with a yes and a no she
+kept the conversation going till the bell rang for Office.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not know if you would care to come to church. Perhaps you are
+tired after your journey?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Journey! I have only driven a few miles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn ran upstairs for her hat, and she followed the nun down the
+cloister which led to the church.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is your door, it will take you into the outer church.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The nuns' choir was still empty, but the two candles on the high altar
+were already lit, ready for Matins and Lauds. Evelyn had only just taken
+her place, when at that moment a door opened on the other side of the
+grille, and the grey figures, their heads a little bent, came in couples
+and took their place in the stalls. They were wonderfully beautiful and
+impressive, and the idea they represented seemed to Evelyn
+extraordinary, simple and true. For, once we are convinced that there is
+a God, and that we are here to save our souls, it were surely folly to
+think of anything else. Our loves and our ambitions, what are they when
+we consider him? and Evelyn remembered how he waits for us in an
+eternity of bliss and love, only asking for our love. These were the
+wise ones, they thought of the essential and let the ephemeral and
+circumstantial go by them. Even from a worldly point of view, their life
+was the wiser, since it produced the greater happiness. Owen was a proof
+of this. She remembered how he used to say he had the finest place, the
+most beautiful pictures, and the most desirable mistress in Europe. Yet
+he was always the unhappiest man she knew. His life had been an
+unceasing effort to capture happiness, and he had failed because he had
+sought happiness from without instead of seeking it from within. He
+lived in externals, he was dependent on a multitude of things, the
+breakdown of any one of which was sufficient to cause him the acutest
+misery. The howl of a dog, the smell of a cigar, any trifle was
+sufficient to wreck his happiness. He had taught her to live in external
+things, to place her faith in the world instead of in her own
+conscience. How unhappy she had been; she had been driven to the brink
+of suicide. Ah, if it had not been for Monsignor. She bent her face on
+her hands, and did not dare to think further.</p>
+
+<p>When her prayer was finished, she listened to the high monotonous chant
+of the nuns reciting Matins. It sank into her soul, soothing it, and at
+the same time inspiring an ardent melancholy. The long, unbroken rhythm
+flowed on and on, each side of the choir chanting an alternate verse. In
+the dimness of her sensation, Evelyn lost count of time, nor did she
+know of what she was thinking. She was suddenly awakened by a sound of
+shuffling. The nuns had risen to their feet, and in the middle of the
+floor a sister began the lessons in a shrill voice, keeping always on
+the same note, never letting her voice fall at the close of the
+sentences. Evelyn grew more interested; the rite was full of a
+penetrating mystery. She viewed the lines of grey nuns and heard the
+Latin syllables. These poor nuns whom she was just now pitying for their
+ignorance of life could at all events read the Office in Latin.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THIRTY_FOUR'></a><h2>CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR</h2>
+
+<p>When she opened her eyes and saw the convent room, she remembered how
+she had come there. Her still dreaming face lighted up with a smile, and
+she began to wonder what was going to happen next. Soon after, someone
+knocked. It was the little porteress telling her that it was seven
+o'clock. Evelyn expected her to come in, pull up the blinds and pour out
+her bath. But she did not even open the door, and Evelyn lay looking
+through the strange room, unable to face the discomfort of a small basin
+of cold water. She would have to do her hair herself, and there was no
+toilette table. The convent seemed suddenly a place to flee from; she
+hadn't realised that it would be like this.... But it would never do for
+her to miss Mass, and she sat on the edge of the bed, unable to think of
+any solution of her difficulties. The only glass in the room was about a
+foot square; it had been placed on the chest of drawers, and nothing
+seemed to Evelyn more inefficient than this wretched glass. Its very
+position on the top of the chest of drawers was vexatious. She could not
+even get it into the proper angle, and when she removed the piece of
+paper that held it in position, it swung round and its back confronted
+her. That morning it seemed as if she could not dress herself. Her hair
+had curled itself into many a knot; she nearly broke the comb, and her
+hand dropped by her side, and then she laughed outright, having caught
+sight of some part of her dejection. As she hooked on her skirt she
+reflected on the necessity of not leaving bottles of scent nor too many
+sponges for the observation of the nuns; and the nightgown she had
+brought was certainly not a conventual garment.</p>
+
+<p>She hurried downstairs, and was just in time to see the nuns coming into
+church. They came in by a side door, walking two by two, and Evelyn was
+again struck by the beauty and mystery of this grey procession. She had
+seen on the stage the outward show of men who had renounced the
+world&mdash;the pilgrims in &quot;Tannh&auml;user,&quot; the knights in &quot;Parsifal,&quot; but this
+was no outward show. The women she was now witnessing had renounced the
+world; the life she was witnessing was the life they lived from hour to
+hour, from day to day, from year to year. She had included lovers amid
+their renunciations; such inclusion was ridiculous, for of such sins as
+hers they had not even dreamed. To pass through life without knowing
+life! To have renounced, to have refused love, friends, art, everything,
+dinner-parties, conversations, all the distractions which we believe
+make life endurable, to have refused these things from the
+beginning&mdash;not even to have been tempted to taste, not even to have
+desired to put life to the test of a fugitive personal experience, but
+to have divined from the first, by instinct, by the grace of God, the
+worthlessness of life&mdash;that was what was so wonderful. Mother Philippa,
+that simple nun, had done this, instinct had led her&mdash;there was no other
+explanation. She had arrived at the same conclusion as the wisest of the
+philosophers and without any soul-searching, by instinct&mdash;each of the
+humble lay sisters, the little porteress had done this. And Evelyn was
+filled with shame when she thought of the effort it had cost her to free
+herself from a life of sin.</p>
+
+<p>In extraordinary beauty of grey habit and veil and solemn procession,
+the nuns passed to their seats. Now they were kneeling altarwise, and
+Evelyn was still occupied by the thought that this was not outward show
+as she had often seen it on the stage, but the thing itself. This was
+not acting, this was truth, the truth of all their lifetimes.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly began the plaint of the organ, and some half-dozen voices sang
+a hymn; and these pale, etiolated voices interested her. It was not the
+clear, sexless voice of boys, these were women's voices, out of which
+sex had faded like colour out of flowers; and these pale, deciduous
+voices wailing a poor, pathetic music, so weak and feeble that it was
+almost interesting through its very feebleness, interested Evelyn. Tears
+trembled in her eyes, and she listened to the poor voices rising and
+falling, breaking forth spasmodically in the lamentable hymn. &quot;Desolate&quot;
+and &quot;forgotten&quot; were the words that came up in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>They were still kneeling altarwise; their profiles turned from her.
+Outside of the choir stalls, on either side of the church, were two
+special stalls, and the Reverend Mother and the sub-prioress knelt
+apart. Their backs were turned to Evelyn, and she noticed the fine
+delicate shoulders of the Reverend Mother, and the heavy figure of
+Mother Philippa. &quot;Even in their backs they are like themselves,&quot; she
+thought. She smiled at her descriptive style, &quot;like themselves,&quot; and
+then, seeing that Mass had begun, she resolutely repressed all levity,
+and began her prayers. She had not felt especially pious till that
+moment, and to rouse herself she remembered Monsignor's words, &quot;That at
+the height of her artistic career she should have been awakened to a
+sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle of his grace,&quot; and
+she felt that the devotion of her whole life to his service would not be
+a sufficient return for what he had done for her. But in spite of her
+efforts she followed the sacrifice of the Mass in her normal
+consciousness until the bell rang for the Elevation. When the priest
+raised the Host she was conscious of the Real Presence. She raised her
+eyes a little, and the bent figures of the nuns, their veils hanging
+loose about them, contributed to her exaltation, and with a last effort,
+holding as it were her life in her hands, she asked pardon of God for
+her sins.</p>
+
+<p>Then the pale, etiolated voices of the nuns, the wailing of these weak
+voices&mdash;there were three altos, three sopranos&mdash;began again. They were
+singing an Agnus Dei, a simple little music nowise ugly, merely feeble,
+touchingly commonplace; they were singing in unison thirds and fifths,
+and the indifferent wailing of the voices contrasted with the firmness
+of the organist's touch; and Evelyn knew that they had one musician
+among them. She listened, touched by the plaintive voices, so feeble in
+the ears of man, but beautiful in God's ears. God heard beyond the mere
+notes; the music of the intention was what reached God's ears. The music
+of these poor voices was more favourable in his ears than her voice.
+Months she had spent seeking the exact rhythm of a phrase intended to
+depict and to rouse a sinful desire. Though the hymns were ugly&mdash;and
+they were very ugly&mdash;she would have done better to sing them; and she
+sought to press herself into the admission that art which does not tend
+to the glory of God is vain and harmful. Far better these hideous hymns,
+if singing them conducts to everlasting life. But every time she pressed
+her mind towards an inevitable conclusion, it turned off into an obscure
+bypath. She brought it back like an intractable ass, but the stubborn
+beast again dodged her, and she had to abandon the attempt to convince
+herself that art which did not tend to the honour and glory of God
+should be suppressed&mdash;should be at least avoided. Once we were convinced
+that there was a God and a resurrection, this world must become as
+nothing in our eyes, only it didn't become as nothing in our eyes; every
+sacrifice should become easy, but every sacrifice didn't become easy.
+That was the point; to these nuns, perhaps, not to her. At least not
+yet.</p>
+
+<p>She had fussed a great deal this morning because she had no hot water to
+wash with. Seven o'clock had seemed to her somewhat early to get up. But
+they had been up long before. She had heard of nuns who got up at four
+in the morning to say the Office. She did not know what time these nuns
+got up, but she felt that she was not capable of much greater sacrifice
+than six or seven o'clock. These nuns lived on a little coarse food, and
+spent the day in prayer. She thought of their aching knees in the long
+vigils of their adorations. She understood that the inward happiness
+their life gives them compensates them for all their privations. She
+understood that they are the only ones who are happy, yet the knowledge
+did not help her; she felt that she would never be happy in their
+happiness, and a great sorrow came over her. Mass was over, and again
+the beautiful procession, with bowed heads and meekly folded veils,
+glided out of the church. Only the watchers remained.</p>
+
+<p>Last night she had sat watching the stars shining on the convent garden.
+There were, as Owen said, twenty millions of suns in the Milky Way;
+beyond the Milky Way there were other constellations of which we know
+nothing, nebul&aelig; which time has not yet resolved into stars, or stars so
+distant that time has not yet brought their light hither. But why seek
+mystery beyond this poor planet? It furnishes enough, surely. That we
+should see the stars, that we should know the stars, that we should
+place God above the stars&mdash;are not these common facts as wonderful as
+the stars themselves? That those twenty or five-and-twenty women should
+give up all the seduction of life for the sake of an idea, accepting
+Owen's theory that it is but an idea, even so the wonder of it is not
+less; even from Owen's point of view is not this convent as wonderful as
+the stars?</p>
+
+<p>On coming out of church, she was told that in half-an-hour her breakfast
+would be ready in the parlour, and to loosen the mental tension&mdash;she had
+thought and felt a great deal in the last hour&mdash;she asked the lay sister
+who were the nuns who sang in the choir. The lay sister answered her
+perfunctorily. Evelyn could see that she was not open at that moment to
+conversation. She guessed that the sister had work to attend to, and was
+not surprised that she did not come back to take the things away.
+Although only just begun, the day had already begun to seem long. She
+proposed to herself some pious reading; and wondered how she was going
+to get through the day. She would have liked to go into the garden; but
+she did not know the rules of the convent, and feared to transgress
+them. However, she was free to go to her room. The books she had brought
+with her would help her to get through the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Berlioz's <i>Memoirs I</i> The faded voices she had heard that morning
+singing dreary hymns were more wonderful than his orchestral dreams. Nor
+did she find the spiritual stimulus she needed in Pater's <i>Imaginary
+Portraits</i>. Some moody souls reflecting with no undue haste, without
+undue desire to arrive at any definite opinion concerning certain
+artistic problems, did not appeal to her. She put the book aside,
+fearing that she was in no humour for reading that morning; and with
+little hope of being interested, she took up another book. The size of
+the volume and the disproportion of the type seemed to drag her to it,
+and the title was a sort of prophetic echo of the interest she was to
+find in the book. Her thoughts clouded in a sense of delight as she
+read; she followed as a child follows a butterfly, until the fluttering
+colour disappears in the sky. And before she was aware of any idea, the
+harmony of the gentle prose captivated her, and she sat down, holding in
+her heart the certitude that she was going to be enchanted. The book
+procured for her the delicious sensualism of reading things at once new
+and old. It seemed to her that she was reading things that she had known
+always, but which she had somehow neglected to think out for herself.
+The book seemed like her inner self suddenly made clear. All that the
+author said on the value of Silence was so true. She raised her eyes
+from the page to think. She seemed to understand something, but she
+could not tell what it was. The object of every soul is to unite itself
+to another soul, to be absorbed in another, to find life and happiness
+in another; the desire of unison is the deepest instinct in man. But how
+little, the author asked, do words help us to understand? We talk and
+talk, and nothing is really said; the conversation falls, we walk side
+by side, our eyes fixed on the quiet skies, and lo! our souls come
+together and are united in their immortal destiny. She again raised her
+eyes from the page&mdash;now she understood, and she thought a long while.
+The chapter entitled &quot;The Profound Life&quot; interested her equally. The
+nuns realised it, but those who live in the world live on the surface of
+things. To live a life of silence and devotion, illumined not from
+without but from within, the eternal light that never fails or withers,
+and to live unconscious of the great stream of things, our back turned
+to that great stream flowing mysteriously, solemnly, like a river! The
+chapter entitled &quot;Warnings&quot; had for her a strangely personal meaning.
+How true it is that we know everything, only we have not acquired the
+art of saying it. Had she not always known that her destiny was not with
+Owen, that he was but a passing, not the abiding event of her life? She
+looked through the convent room, and the abiding event of her life now
+seemed to murmur in her ear, seemed to pass like a shadow before her
+eyes. At the moment when she thought she was about to hear and see, a
+knock came at her door, and the revelation of her destiny passed, with a
+little ironical smile, out of her eyes and ears.</p>
+
+<p>Her visitor was a strange little nun whom she had not seen before. Over
+her slim figure the white serge habit fell in such graceful, medi&aelig;val
+lines as Evelyn had seen in German cathedrals; and her face was delicate
+and childlike beneath the white forehead band. She came forward with a
+diffident little smile.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Reverend Mother sent me to you; she is watching now, or she would have
+come herself, but she thought you might like me to take you round the
+garden. She will join us there when she comes out of church. But
+Reverend Mother said you must do just as you liked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The little nun corresponded to her mood even as the book had done; she
+seemed an apparition, a ghost risen from its pages. Her face was a thin
+oval, and the purity of the outline was accentuated by the white
+kerchief which surrounded it. The nose was slightly aquiline, the chin
+a little pointed, the lips well cut, but thin and colourless&mdash;lips that
+Evelyn thought had never been kissed, and that never would be kissed.
+The thought seemed disgraceful, and Evelyn noticed hastily the dark
+almond eyes that saved the face from insipidity; the black eyebrows were
+firmly and delicately drawn, her complexion, without being pale, was
+extraordinarily transparent, and the thin hands and long, narrow
+fingers, half hidden beneath the long sleeves, were in the same idea of
+medi&aelig;val delicacy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was longing to go out, but I had not the courage. I feared it might
+be against the rule for me to go into the garden alone. But tell me
+first who you are.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, I'm Sister Veronica. I'm only a novice as yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn noticed that, unlike the other nuns she had seen, Sister Veronica
+wore neither the silver heart on her breast, suspended by a red cord,
+nor the long straight scapular which gave such dignity to the religious
+habit. Her habit was held in at the waist by a leather girdle; it looked
+as though it might slip any moment over the slight, boyish hips, and by
+her side hung a rosary of large black beads.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Veronica warned Evelyn that she must be careful how she went down
+the staircase, as it was very slippery. Evelyn said she would be
+careful; she added that the sisters kept the stairs in beautiful order,
+and wondered what her next remark would be. She was nervous in the
+presence of these convent women, lest by some unfortunate remark she
+should betray herself. And when they reached the garden it was Sister
+Veronica who was the most self-possessed&mdash;she was already confessing to
+Evelyn that they had all felt very nervous knowing that a &quot;real&quot; singer
+was listening to them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, do you sing?&quot; Evelyn asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I have to try,&quot; Sister Veronica answered, with a little laugh.
+&quot;Mother Prioress thought perhaps I might learn, so she put me in the
+choir, but Sister Mary John says I shall never be the least use.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Is Sister Mary John the sister who teaches you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes; it is she who played the organ at Mass. She loves music. She is
+simply longing to hear you sing, Miss Innes. Do you think you will sing
+at Benediction this afternoon for us? It would be lovely.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know, really. You see I haven't been asked yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, Reverend Mother is sure to ask you&mdash;at least I hope she will. We
+all want to hear you so much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting in the shadow of a great elm; all around was a
+wonderful silence, and to turn the conversation from herself, Evelyn
+asked Sister Veronica if she didn't care for their beautiful garden.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, indeed I do. I'm glad you like it.... When I was a child my
+greatest treat was to be allowed to play in the nuns' garden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then you knew the convent long before you came to be a nun yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, I've known it all my life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So it was not strange when you came here first?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, it was like coming home.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn repeated the nun's words to herself, &quot;Like coming home.&quot; And she
+seemed to see far into their meaning. Here was an illustration of what
+she had read in the book&mdash;she and Veronica seemed to understand each
+other in the silence. But it became necessary to speak, and in answer to
+a question, Sister Veronica told Evelyn that there were four novices and
+two postulants in the novitiate, and that the name of the novice
+mistress was Mother Mary Hilda. The novitiate was in the upper storey of
+the new wing, above the convent refectory.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And here is Reverend Mother,&quot; and Sister Veronica suddenly got up.
+Evelyn got up too, and they waited till the elderly nun slowly crossed
+the lawn. Evelyn noticed, even when the Reverend Mother was seated, that
+Veronica remained standing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You can go now, Veronica.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Veronica smiled a little good-bye to Evelyn, and left them immediately.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Veronica told you, Miss Innes, I was taking my watch?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Reverend Mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope she has not been wearying you with the details of our life?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the contrary, I have been very much interested.... Your life here is
+so beautiful that I long to know more about it. At present my knowledge
+is confined to the fact that the second storey in the new wing is the
+novitiate, and that there are four novices and two postulants.&quot; The
+Reverend Mother smiled, and after a pause Evelyn added&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But Sister Veronica is very young.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She is older than she looks, she is nearly twenty. Ever since she was
+quite a child she wished to be a nun. Even then her mind was quite made
+up.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She told me that when she was a child her great pleasure was to be
+allowed to walk in the convent garden.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes. You don't know, perhaps, that she is my niece. My poor brother's
+child. She was left an orphan at a very early age. Her's is a sad story.
+But God has been good: she never doubted her vocation, she passed from
+an innocent childhood to a life dedicated to God. So she has been spared
+the trouble that is the lot of those who live in the world.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>An accent of past but unforgotten sorrow had crept into her voice; and
+once more Evelyn was convinced that she had not, like Veronica, passed
+from innocent childhood into the blameless dream of convent life. She
+had known the world and had renounced it. In the silence that had fallen
+Evelyn wondered what her story might be, and whether she would ever hear
+it. But she knew that in the convent no allusion is made to the past,
+that there the past is really the past.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope that you will sing for us at Benediction. All the sisters are
+longing to hear you. It will be such a pleasure to them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I shall be very glad ... only I have brought nothing with me. But I
+daresay I shall find something among the music you have here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sister Mary John will find you something; she is our organist.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;And an excellent musician. I noticed her playing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;She has always been anxious to improve the choir, but unfortunately
+none of the sisters except her has any voice to speak of.... You might
+sing Gounod's 'Ave Maria' at Benediction; you know it, of course, what a
+beautiful piece of music it is. But I see that you don't admire it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; Evelyn said, smiling, &quot;it is contrary to all the principles I've
+been brought up in.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We might walk a little; we are at the end of the summer, and the air is
+a little cold. You do not mind walking very slowly? I'm forbidden to
+walk fast on account of my heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>They crossed the sloping lawn, and walking slowly up St. Peter's walk,
+amid sad flutterings of leaves from the branches of the elms, Evelyn
+told the Reverend Mother the story of the musical reformation which her
+father had achieved. She asked Evelyn if it would be possible to give
+Palestrina at the convent and they reached the end of the walk. It was
+flushed with September, and in the glittering stillness the name of
+Palestrina was exquisite to speak. They passed the tall cross standing
+at the top of the rocks, and the Reverend Mother said, speaking out of
+long reflection&mdash;&quot;Have I never heard any of the music you sing? Wagner I
+have never heard, but the Italian operas, 'Lucia' and 'Trovatore,' or
+Mozart? Have you never sung Mozart?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Very little. I am what is called a dramatic soprano. The only Italian
+opera I've sung is 'Norma.' Do you know it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I've sung Leonore&mdash;not in 'Trovatore,' in 'Fidelio.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But surely you admire 'Trovatore'&mdash;the 'Miserere,' for instance. Is not
+that beautiful?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is no doubt very effective, but it is considered very common now.&quot;
+Evelyn hummed snatches of the opera; then the waltz from &quot;Traviata.&quot;
+&quot;I've sung Margaret.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And as she hummed the Jewel Song she watched the Reverend Mother's
+face, and was certain that the nun had heard the music on the stage. But
+at that moment the angelus bell rang. Evelyn had forgotten the
+responses, and as she walked towards the convent she asked the Reverend
+Mother to repeat them once again, so that she might have them by heart.
+She excused herself, saying how difficult was the observance of
+religious forms for those who live in the world.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner she wrote two letters. One was to her father, the other was
+to Monsignor, and having directed the letters she imagined the postal
+arrangement to be somewhat irregular. After Benediction she would ask
+Veronica what time the letters left the convent. And looking across the
+abyss which separated them, she saw her passionate self-centred past and
+Veronica's little transit from the schoolroom to the convent. It seemed
+strange to her that she never had what might be called a girl friend.
+But she had arrived at a time when a woman friend was a necessity, and
+it now suddenly occurred to her that there would be something
+wonderfully sweet and satisfying in the uncritical love of a woman
+younger than herself. She felt that the love of this innocent creature
+who knew nothing, who never would know anything, and who therefore would
+suspect nothing, would help her to forget her past as Monsignor wished.
+She felt a sympathy awaken in her for her own sex which she had never
+known before, and this yearning was confounded in a desire to be among
+those who knew nothing of her past. Now she was glad that she had
+refrained from taking the Reverend Mother into her confidence, and she
+wondered how much Monsignor had told her the day they had walked in the
+garden; it relieved her to remember that he knew very little except what
+she had told him in confession.</p>
+
+<p>Someone knocked. She answered, &quot;Come in.&quot; It was Mother Philippa and
+another nun.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hope we're not interrupting.... But you're reading, I see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I was thinking;&quot; and glad of the interruption, she let the book
+fall on her knees. &quot;Pray come in, Mother Philippa,&quot; and Evelyn rose to
+detain her.</p>
+
+<p>The nuns entered very shyly. Evelyn handed them chairs, and as she did
+so she remarked the tall, angular nun who followed Mother Philippa, and
+whose face expressed so much energy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good afternoon, Miss Innes. I hope you slept well last night, and did
+not find your bed too uncomfortable?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, Mother Philippa. I liked my bed. I slept very well.&quot; Evelyn
+drew two chairs forward, and Mother Philippa introduced Evelyn to Sister
+Mary John. And while she explained that she had heard from the Reverend
+Mother that Miss Innes had promised to sing at Benediction, Sister Mary
+John sat watching Evelyn, her large brown eyes wide open. Her eagerness
+was even a little comical, and Evelyn smiled through her growing liking
+for this nun. She was unlike any other nun she had seen. Nuns were
+usually formal and placid, but Sister Mary John was so irreparably
+herself that while the others presented feeble imitations of the
+Reverend Mother's manner, her walk and speech, Sister Mary John
+continued to slouch along, to cross her legs, to swing her arms, to lean
+forward and interrupt when she was interested in the conversation; when
+she was not, she did not attempt to hide her indifference. Evelyn
+thought that she must be about eight-and-twenty or thirty. The eyes were
+brown and exultant, and the eyebrows seemed very straight and black in
+the sallow complexion. All the features were large, but a little of the
+radiant smile that had lit up all her features when she came forward to
+greet Evelyn still lingered on her face. Now and then she seemed to grow
+impatient, and then she forgot her impatience and the smile floated back
+again. At last her opportunity came, and she seized it eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm quite ashamed, Miss Innes, we sang so badly this morning; our
+little choir can do better than that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was interested; the organ was very well played.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Did you think so? I have not sufficient time for practice, but I love
+music, and am longing to hear you sing. But the Reverend Mother says
+that you have brought no music with you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I hear,&quot; said Mother Philippa, &quot;that you do not care for Gounod's 'Ave
+Maria.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If the Reverend Mother wishes me to sing it, I shall be delighted to do
+so, if Sister Mary John has the music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sister Mary John shook her head authoritatively, and said that she quite
+understood that Miss Innes did not approve of the liberty of writing any
+melody over Bach's beautiful prelude. Besides, it required a violin. The
+conversation then turned on the music at St. Joseph's. Sister Mary John
+listened, breaking suddenly in with some question regarding Palestrina.
+She had never heard any of his music; would Miss Innes lend her some?
+Was there nothing of his that they could sing in the convent?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I do not know anything of his written for two voices. You might play
+the other parts on the organ, but I'm afraid it would sound not a little
+ridiculous.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But have you heard the Benedictine nuns sing the plain chant; they
+pause in the middle of the verse&mdash;that is the tradition, is it not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Mother Philippa sat forgotten. Evelyn noticed her isolation
+before Sister Mary John, and addressed an observation to her. But Mother
+Philippa said she knew nothing about music, and that they were to go on
+talking as if she weren't there. But a mere listener is a dead weight in
+a conversation; and whenever Evelyn's eyes went that way, she could see
+that Mother Philippa was thinking of something else; and when she
+looked towards Sister Mary John she could see that she was longing to be
+alone with her. A delightful hour of conversation awaited them if they
+could only find some excuse to get away together, and Evelyn looked at
+Sister Mary John, saying with her eyes that the suggestion must come
+from her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;If I were to take Miss Innes to the organ loft and show her what music
+we have&mdash;don't you think so, Mother Philippa?'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I think that would be the best thing to do.... I'm sure the
+Reverend Mother would see no objection to your taking Miss Innes to the
+organ loft.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Mother Philippa did not see the look of relief and delight that passed
+in Sister Mary John's eyes, and it was Evelyn who had a scruple about
+getting rid of Mother Philippa.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was so disappointed not to have seen you the day you came here; and
+what made it so hard was that it was first arranged that it was the
+Reverend Mother and I who were to meet you. I had looked forward to
+seeing you. I love music, and it is seven years since I've spoken to
+anyone who could tell the difference between a third and a fourth.
+There's no one here who cares about music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Evelyn that the problem of life must have presented itself
+to Sister Mary John very much as it presents itself to a woman who is
+suddenly called to join her husband in India. The woman hates leaving
+London, her friends, and all the habits of life in which she has grown
+up; but she does not hesitate to give up these things to follow the man
+she loves out to India.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I don't know why it was settled that Mother Philippa was to meet you
+instead of me; it seemed so useless, meeting you meant so little to her
+and so much to me; I'm always inclined to argue, but that day the
+Reverend Mother's heart was very bad; she had had a fainting fit in the
+early morning; we all got up to pray for her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yet she was quite cheerful; I never should have guessed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mother Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda tried to dissuade her. But she
+would see you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then it is with her heart disease that the Reverend Mother rules the
+convent,&quot; Evelyn thought, as she followed Sister Mary John up the spiral
+staircase to the organ loft. She looked over the curtained railing into
+the church. The watcher knelt there, her head bowed, her habit still as
+sculpture, and Evelyn heard Sister Mary John pulling out her music. She
+could not find what she wanted, and she sat with her legs apart,
+throwing from side to side piles of old torn music.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Never can one find a piece of music when one wants it: I don't know if
+you have noticed that nothing is so difficult to find as a piece of
+music. Day after day it is under your hands, it would seem as if there
+was not another piece in the organ loft, but the moment you want it, it
+has disappeared. I don't know how it is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I was thinking that you might like&quot;&mdash;Sister Mary John looked up
+at Evelyn&mdash;&quot;I suppose you can sing B flat, or even C?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I can sing C;&quot; and Evelyn thought of the last page of the &quot;Dusk of
+the Gods.&quot; &quot;But what are you looking for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sister Mary John did not answer. She threw the music from side to side,
+every minute growing more impatient. &quot;It is most strange,&quot; she said at
+last, looking up at Evelyn. Evelyn smiled. With all her brusque,
+self-willed ways, Sister Mary John was clearly a lady born and an
+intelligent woman.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid I shall not be able to find you anything that you'd care to
+sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, I shall,&quot; Evelyn replied encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is all such poor stuff. We've no singers here. Do you know, I've
+never heard a great singer, and I've often wished to. The only thing I
+regret is not having heard a little music before I came here. But I've
+heard of Wagner; you sing Wagner, don't you, Miss Innes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I sing little else. 'Fidelio'&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, I know some of the music. Do you sing&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sister Mary John hummed a few bars.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I sing that.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, I shall hear you sing to-day. I've been wishing to go to St.
+Joseph's to hear Palestrina. You were brought up on music. You can sing
+at sight&mdash;in the key that it is written in?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, I think so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But all prima-donnas can do that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No; on the contrary, I think I'm the only one. Singers on the operatic
+stage learn their parts at the piano.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She could see that to Sister Mary John music was the temptation of her
+life, and she imagined that her confession must be a little musical
+record. She had lost her temper with Sister So-and-So because she could
+not, etc. But time was getting on. If she was to sing that afternoon,
+she must find something, and seeing that Sister Mary John lingered over
+some sheets of music, as if she thought that it presented some
+possibility, Evelyn asked her what it was. It was a Mass by Mozart for
+four voices, which Sister Mary John had arranged for a single voice.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The choir and I sing the melody in unison, and I play the entire Mass
+on the organ.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn smiled, and seeing that the smile distressed the nun, she was
+sorry.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To you, of course, it would sound absurd, it does to me too, but it was
+a little change, it was the only thing I could think of. We have some
+pieces written for two voices, but I can hardly get them sung. I have
+to teach the sisters the parts separately. Till they know them by heart,
+I can't trust them. It is impossible sometimes not to lose one's temper.
+If we had a few good voices, people would come to hear them, the convent
+would be spoken about, and some charitable people would come forward and
+pay off our mortgages. I've lain awake at night thinking of it; the
+Reverend Mother agrees with me. But in the way of voices we've been as
+unlucky as we could well be. I've been here eight years&mdash;there was one,
+but she died six years ago of consumption. It is heartbreaking. I play
+the organ, I beat the time, and, as I said to them the other day, 'There
+are five of you, and I'm the only one that sings.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Sister Mary John asked Evelyn if she composed. Evelyn told her that she
+did not compose, and remembering Owen's compositions, she hoped that
+Sister Mary John had not an &quot;O Salutaris&quot; in manuscript.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Let me look through the music; we are talking of other things instead
+of looking.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So we are.... Let us look.&quot; At the bottom of a heap, Sister Mary John
+found Cherubini's &quot;Ave Maria.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Could you sing this? It is a beautiful piece of music.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn read it over.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; she said, &quot;I can sing it, but it wants careful playing; the end
+is a sort of little duet between the voice and the organ. If you don't
+follow me exactly, the effect will be like this,&quot; and she showed what it
+would be on the mute keyboard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You haven't confidence in my playing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every confidence, Sister Mary John, but remember I don't know the
+piece, and it is not easy. I think we had better try it over together.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I should like to very much, but you will not sing with all your voice?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, we'll just run through it....&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The nun followed in a sort of ecstasy, and when they came to what Evelyn
+had called the duet, she played the beautiful antiphonal music looking
+up at the singer. The second time Evelyn was surer of herself, and she
+let her voice flow out a little in suave vocalisation, so that she might
+judge of the effect.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I told you that I had never heard anyone sing before. If you were one
+of us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn laughed, and then, catching sight of the nun's eyes fixed very
+intently upon her, she spoke of the beauty of the &quot;Ave Maria,&quot; and was
+surprised that she did not know anything of Cherubini's.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Gracious, how the time has gone! That is the first bell for vespers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She hurried away, forgetting all about Evelyn, leaving her to find her
+way back to her room as best she could. But Evelyn found Sister Mary
+John waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. She had come back for
+her, she had just remembered her, and Sister Mary John apologised for
+her absence of mind, and seemed distressed at her apparent rudeness.
+They walked a little way together, and the nun explained that it was not
+her fault; her absence of mind was an inheritance from her father.
+Everything she had she had inherited from him&mdash;&quot;my love of music and my
+absence of mind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She was intensely herself, quaint, eccentric, but she was, Evelyn
+reflected, perhaps more distinctly from the English upper classes than
+any of the nuns she had seen yet. She had not the sweetness of manner of
+the Reverend Mother, her manners were the oddest; but withal she had
+that refinement which Evelyn had first noticed in Owen, and afterwards
+in his friends, that style which is inheritance, which tradition alone
+can give. She had spoken of her father, and Evelyn could easily imagine
+Sister Mary John's father&mdash;a lord of old lineage dwelling in an
+eighteenth century house in the middle of a flat park in the Midlands.
+She could see a piece of artificial lake obtained by the damming of a
+small stream; one end full of thick reeds, in which the chatter of wild
+ducks was unceasing. But her family, her past, her name&mdash;all was lost in
+the convent, in the veil. The question was, had she renounced the world,
+or had she refused the world? Evelyn could not even conjecture. Sister
+Mary John was outside not only of her experience, but also of her
+present perception of things. Evelyn wondered why one of such marked
+individuality, of such intense personal will, had chosen a life the very
+<i>raison d'&ecirc;tre</i> of which was the merging of the individual will in the
+will of the community? Why should one, the essential delight of whose
+life was music, choose a life in which music hardly appeared? Was her
+piety so great that it absorbed every other inclination? Sister Mary
+John did not strike her as being especially religious. What instinct
+behind those brown eyes had led her to this sacrifice? Apparently at
+pains to conceal nothing, Sister Mary John concealed the essential.
+Evelyn could even imagine her as being attractive to men&mdash;that radiant
+smile, the beautiful teeth, and the tall, supple figure, united to that
+distinct personality, would not have failed to attract. God did not get
+her because men did not want her, of that Evelyn was quite sure.</p>
+
+<p>There were on that afternoon assembled in the little white chapel of the
+Passionist Sisters about a dozen elderly ladies, about nine or ten stout
+ladies dressed in black, who might be widows, and perhaps three or four
+spare women who wore a little more colour in their hats; these might be
+spinsters, of ages varying between forty and fifty-five. Amid these
+Evelyn was surprised and glad to perceive three or four young men; they
+did not look, she thought, particularly pious, and perceiving that they
+wore knickerbockers, she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up
+from Richmond Park. They had come in probably to rest, having left
+their machines at the inn. Even though she was converted, she did not
+wish to sing only to women, and it amused her to perceive that something
+of the original Eve still existed in her. But if any one of these young
+men should happen to have any knowledge of music, he could hardly fail
+to notice that it was not a nun who was singing. He would ride away
+astonished, mystified; he would seek the explanation of the mystery, and
+would bring his friend to hear the wonderful voice at the Passionist
+Convent. By the time he came again she would be gone, and his friend
+would say that he had had too much to drink that afternoon at the inn.
+They would not be long in finding an explanation; but should there
+happen to be a journalist there, he would put a paragraph in the papers,
+and all sorts of people would come to the convent and go away
+disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>She looked round the church, calculating its resonance, and thought with
+how much of her voice she should sing so as to produce an effect
+without, however, startling the little congregation. The sermon seemed
+to her very long; she was unable to fix her attention, and though all
+Father Daly said was very edifying, her thoughts wandered, and wonderful
+legends and tales about a voice heard for one week at the Wimbledon
+Convent thronged her brain, and she invented quite a comic little
+episode, in which some dozen or so of London managers met at
+Benediction. She thought that their excuses one to the other would be
+very comic.</p>
+
+<p>She was wearing the black lace scarf instead of a hat; it went well with
+the grey alpaca, and under it was her fair hair; and when she got up to
+go to the organ loft after the sermon, she felt that the old ladies and
+the bicyclists were already wondering who she was. Her involuntary
+levity annoyed her, and she forced a certain seriousness upon herself as
+she climbed the steep spiral staircase.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So you have found your way ... this is our choir,&quot; and she introduced
+Evelyn to the five sisters, hurrying through their names in a low
+whisper. &quot;We don't sing the 'O Salutaris,' as there has been exposition.
+We'll sing this hymn instead, and immediately after you'll sing the 'Ave
+Maria'; it will take the place of the Litany.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Then the six pale voices began to wail out the hymn, wobbling and
+fluctuating, the only steady voice being Sister Mary John's. Though
+mortally afraid of the Latin syllables, Evelyn seconded Sister Mary
+John's efforts, and the others, taking courage, sang better than usual.
+Sister Mary John turned delighted from the organ, and, her eyes bright
+with anticipation, said, &quot;Now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>She played the introduction, Evelyn opened her music. The moment was one
+of intense excitement among the five nuns. They had gathered together in
+a group. The great singer who had saved their convent (had it not been
+for her they would have been thrown back upon the world) was going to
+sing. Evelyn knew what was passing in their minds, and was a little
+nervous. She wished they would not look at her so, and she turned away
+from them. Sister Mary John played the chord, and the voice began.</p>
+
+<p>Owen often said that if Evelyn had two more notes in her voice she would
+have ranked with the finest. She sang from the low A, and she could take
+the high C. From B to B every note was clear and full, one as the other;
+he delighted especially in the middle of her voice; for one whole
+octave, and more than an octave, her voice was pure and sonorous and as
+romantic as the finest 'cello. And the romance of her voice transpired
+in the beautiful Beethoven-like phrase of Cherubini's &quot;Ave Maria.&quot; It
+was as if he had had her voice singing in his ear while he was writing,
+when he placed the little grace notes on the last syllable of Maria. The
+phrase rose, still remaining well within the medium of her voice, and
+the same interval happened again as the voice swelled up on the word
+&quot;plena.&quot; In the beautiful classical melody her voice was like a 'cello
+heard in the twilight. In the music itself there is neither belief nor
+prayer, but a severe dignity of line, the romance of columns and
+peristyle in the exaltation of a calm evening. Very gradually she poured
+her voice into the song, and her lips seemed to achieve sculpture. The
+lines of a Greek vase seemed to rise before the eye, and the voice
+swelled on from note to note with the noble movement of the bas-relief
+decoration of the vase. The harmonious interludes which Sister Mary John
+played aided the excitement, and the nuns, who knelt in two grey lines,
+were afraid to look up. In a remote consciousness they feared it was not
+right to feel so keenly; the harmonious depth of the voice entered their
+very blood, summoning visions of angel faces. But it was an old man with
+a white beard that Veronica saw, a hermit in the wilderness; she was
+bringing him vestments, and when the vision vanished Evelyn was singing
+the opening phrase, now a little altered on the words Santa Maria.</p>
+
+<p>There came the little duet between the voice and the organ, in which any
+want of precision on the part of Sister Mary John would spoil the effect
+of the song; but the nun's right hand answered Evelyn in perfect
+concord. And then began the runs introduced in the Amen in order to
+exhibit the skill of the singer. The voice was no longer a 'cello, deep
+and resonant, but a lonely flute or silver bugle announcing some joyous
+reverie in a landscape at the close of day. The song closed on the
+keynote, and Sister Mary John turned from the instrument and looked at
+the singer. She could not speak, she seemed overpowered by the music,
+and like one more dreaming than waking, and sitting half turned round on
+her seat, she looked at Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You sing beautifully,&quot; she said. &quot;I never heard singing before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And she sat like one stupefied, still hearing Evelyn's singing in her
+brain, until one of the sisters advanced close and said, &quot;Sister, we
+must sing the 'Tantum ergo.'&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Of course we must. I believe if you hadn't reminded me I should have
+forgotten it. Gracious! I don't know what it will sound like after
+singing like that. But you'll lead them?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn hummed the plain chant under her breath, afraid lest she should
+extinguish the pale voices, and surprised how expressive the antique
+chant was when sung by these etiolated, sexless voices. She had never
+known how much of her life of passion and desire had entered into her
+voice, and she was shocked at its impurity. Her singing sounded like
+silken raiment among sackcloth, and she lowered her voice, feeling it to
+be indecorous and out of place in the antique hymn. Her voice, she felt,
+must have revealed her past life to the nuns, her voice must have
+shocked them a little; her voice must have brought the world before them
+too vividly. For all her life was in her voice, she would never be able
+to sing this hymn with the same sexless grace as they did. Her voice
+would be always Evelyn Innes&mdash;Owen Asher's mistress.</p>
+
+<p>The priest turned the Host toward them, and she saw the two long rows of
+grey-habited nuns leaning their veiled heads, and knew that this was the
+moment they lived for, the essential moment when the body which the
+Redeemer gave in expiation of the sins of the world is revealed.
+Evelyn's soul hushed in awe, and all that she had renounced seemed very
+little in this moment of mystery and exaltation.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What am I to say, Miss Innes? I shall think of this day when I am an
+old woman. But you'll sing again before you leave?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, sister, whenever you like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When I like? That would be all day. But I did follow you in the duet, I
+was so anxious. I hope I did not spoil it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I was never better accompanied. You made no mistake.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As they passed by her the other nuns thanked her under their breath. She
+could see that they looked upon her as a providence sent by God to save
+them from being cast back upon the world they dreaded, the world from
+which they had fled. But all this extraordinary drama, this intensity of
+feeling, remained inarticulate. They could only say, &quot;Thank you, Miss
+Innes; it was very good of you to come to sing for us.&quot; It was their
+very dumbness that made them seem so wonderful. It was the dumbness of
+these women&mdash;they could only speak in prayer&mdash;it was that that overcame
+her. But the Reverend Mother was different. Evelyn listened to her,
+thinking of nothing but her, and when the Reverend Mother left her,
+Evelyn moved away, still under the spell of the authoritative sweetness
+which her presence and manner exhaled. But the Reverend Mother was only
+a part of a scheme of life founded on principles the very opposite to
+those on which she had attempted to construct her life. Even in singing
+the &quot;Ave Maria,&quot; she had not been able to subdue her vanity. Her
+pleasure in singing it had in a measure sprung out of the somewhat mean
+desire to proclaim her superiority over those who had attained the
+highest plane by renouncing all personal pride. They had proclaimed
+their superiority in their obeisance. It was in giving, not in
+receiving, praise that we rise above ourselves. This was the lesson that
+every moment of her convent life impressed upon her. Her thoughts went
+back to the Reverend Mother, and Evelyn thought of her as of some woman
+who had come to some terrible crisis in her worldly life&mdash;some crisis
+violent as the crisis that had come in her own life. The Reverend Mother
+must have perceived, just as she had done, as all must do sooner or
+later, that life out of the shelter of religion becomes a sort of
+nightmare, an intolerable torture. Then she wondered if the Reverend
+Mother were a widow&mdash;that appeared to her likely. One who had suffered
+some great disaster&mdash;that too seemed to her likely. She had been an
+ambitious woman. Was she not so still? Is a passion ever obliterated? Is
+it not rather transformed? If she had been personally ambitious, she was
+now ambitious only for her convent: her passion had taken another
+direction. And applying the same reasoning to herself, she seemed to see
+a future for herself in which her love passions would become transformed
+and find their complete expressions in the love of God.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mother again addressed her, and Evelyn considered what age
+she might be. Between sixty and seventy in point of years, but she
+seemed so full of intelligence, wisdom and sweetness that she did not
+suggest age; one did not think of her as an old woman. Her slight figure
+still retained its grace, and though a small woman, she suggested a tall
+one; and the moment she spoke there was the voice which drew you like
+silk and entangled you as in a soft winding web. Evelyn smiled a little
+as she listened, for she was thinking how the Reverend Mother as a young
+woman must have swayed men. Presumably at one time it had pleased her to
+sway men's passion, or at least it pleased Evelyn's imagination to think
+it had. Not that she thought the Reverend Mother had ever been anything
+but a good woman, but she had been a woman of the world, and Evelyn
+attributed no sin to that. Even the world is not wholly bad; the
+Reverend Mother and Monsignor owed their personal magnetism to the
+world. Without the world they would have been like Father Daly and
+Mother Philippa&mdash;holy simplicities. She looked at the quiet nun, and her
+simple good nature touched her. Evelyn went toward her. Sister Mary John
+broke into the conversation so often that the Reverend Mother had once
+to check her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Sister Mary John, we hope that Miss Innes will sing to-morrow and every
+day while she is with us. But she must do as she likes, and these
+musical questions are not what we are talking about now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Sister Mary John was hardly at all abashed at this reproof. She was
+clearly the only one who stood in no awe of the Reverend Mother.</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting on the terrace, and a mauve sunset faded in the grey
+sky. There was a strange wistfulness in the autumn air and in the dim
+garden where the gentle nuns were taking their recreation. There was a
+subtle harmony in the grey habits and floating veils; they blended and
+mingled with the blue mist that was rising among the trees. And a pale
+light fell across the faded lawns, and Evelyn looked into the light, and
+felt the pang that the passing of things brings into the heart. This
+spectacle of life seemed to her strangely pathetic, and it seemed to
+mean something which eluded her, and which she would have given a great
+deal to have been able to express. Music alone could express the
+yearning that haunted her heart, the plaint of the Rhine Maidens was the
+nearest to what she felt, and she began to sing their song. Sister Mary
+John asked her eagerly what she was singing. She would have told her,
+but the Reverend Mother grew impatient with Sister Mary John.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You must be introduced to Mother Mary Hilda, our novice mistress, then
+you will know all the mothers except our dear Mother Christina, who is
+quite an invalid now, and rarely leaves her cell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On St. Peter's path a little group of nuns were walking up and down,
+pressing round a central figure. They were faint grey shadows, and their
+meaning would not be distinguished in the violet dusk. It was like a
+half-effaced picture in which the figures are nearly lost in the
+background; their voices, however, sounded clear, and their laughter was
+mysterious and far distant, yet distinct in the heart. Evelyn again
+began to hum the plaint of the Rhine Maidens. But the voices of the
+novices were more joyous, for they, Evelyn thought, have renounced both
+love and gold. The Reverend Mother clapped her hands to attract
+attention, and one of the novices, it was Sister Veronica, ran to them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ask Mother Mary Hilda to come and speak to me, Veronica.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, Reverend Mother;&quot; and Veronica ran with the message without once
+looking at Evelyn. Mother Mary Hilda crossed the lawn toward them, and
+Evelyn noticed her gliding, youthful walk. She was younger than the
+prioress or even the sub-prioress. And she had that attractive
+youthfulness of manner which often survives in the cloister after middle
+age.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Here is Miss Innes,&quot; said the prioress; &quot;I know you wished to make her
+acquaintance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, indeed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn noticed the bright eyes and the small, clearly cut nose and the
+pointed chin, but her liveliest sensation was of Mother Hilda's hand; so
+small was it and soft that it seemed like a little crushed bird in
+Evelyn's hand, and Evelyn did not think that hers was a large hand.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am sure, Miss Innes, you feel that you have been thanked sufficiently
+for all you have done for us, but you'll forgive us if we feel that we
+cannot thank you often enough. Your singing at Benediction to-day was a
+great pleasure to us all. Whose 'Ave Maria' was it, Miss Innes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn told them, and thinking it would interest the nuns, she admitted
+that her father would not allow it to be sacred music. This led the
+conversation on to the question of Palestrina, and how the old music had
+rescued the Jesuits from their pecuniary embarrassments. A casual
+mention of Wagner showed her that the Reverend Mother was interested,
+and she said that she might sing them Elizabeth's prayer. Evelyn spoke
+of the Chorale in the first act of the &quot;Meistersinger,&quot; and this led her
+into quite a little account of the music she sang on the stage. It
+pleased her to notice the different effect of her account of her art on
+the four nuns. The conversation, she could see, carried the prioress
+back into the past, but she put aside these memories of long ago and
+affected a polite interest in the stage. Mother Philippa listened as she
+might to a story, too far removed from her for her to be more than
+vaguely interested; Sister Mary John listened in the hopes that Evelyn
+would illustrate her experience with some few bars of the music&mdash;with
+her it was the music and nothing else; Mother Mary Hilda listened very
+prettily, and Evelyn noticed that it was she who asked the most
+questions. Mother Mary Hilda was the most fearless, and showed the least
+dread in the conversation. Yet for no single moment did Evelyn think
+that she was the worldliest of the four nuns. Evelyn thought that
+probably she was the least. Her trivial utterances were the necessity of
+the unimportant moment, and she seemed to bring to them the
+enlightenment of her own vivid faith. The holiness that shone out of her
+eyes inspired the calm, tender smile, and was in her whole manner. &quot;She
+speaks,&quot; Evelyn thought, &quot;of worldly things without affectation, but how
+clear it is that they lie outside, far outside, of her real life.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn was saying that it was a long while since she had sung any sacred
+music, and, referring to the difference of the rule in France and in
+England, she mentioned that in Paris the opera singers frequently sang
+in the churches.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It must be hard on Catholics with beautiful voices like yours that they
+may not be allowed to sing in church choirs, for there can be nothing
+so delightful as to bring a great gift to God's service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It was the prioress who broke off the conversation, to Evelyn's regret.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mother Hilda, I am afraid we are forgetting your young charges.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, indeed, I must run back to my children. Good-bye, Miss Innes, I am
+so glad that you have come to us;&quot; and the warm, soft clasp of the
+little hand was to Evelyn a further assurance of friendly welcome.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_THIRTY_FIVE'></a><h2>CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>She was ashamed not to be able to follow the Office in chapel, so at the
+Reverend Mother's suggestion she consented to employ part of her long
+convent leisure in taking lessons in Latin. Mother Mary Hilda was to be
+her instructress.</p>
+
+<p>The library was a long, rather narrow room, once the drawing-room of the
+Georgian mansion. Only a carved Adams' chimney-piece, now painted over
+in imitation of oak remained of its former adornment; the tall windows
+were eighteenth century, and with that air they looked upon the terrace.
+The walls had been lined by the nuns with plain wooden shelves, and upon
+them were what seemed to be a thousand books, every one in a grey linen
+wrapper, with the title neatly written on a white label pasted on the
+back. Evelyn's first thought was of the time it must have taken to cover
+them, but she remembered that in a convent time is of no consequence. If
+a thing can be done better in three hours than in one, there is no
+reason why three hours should not be spent upon it. She had noticed,
+too, that the sisters regarded the library with a little air of demure
+pride. Mother Mary Hilda had told her that the large tin boxes were
+filled with the convent archives. There were piles of unbound
+magazines&mdash;the <i>Month</i> and the <i>Dublin Review</i>. There was a ponderous
+writing-table, with many pigeon-holes; Evelyn concluded it to be the
+gift of a wealthy convert, and she turned the immense globe which showed
+the stars and planets, and wondered how the nuns had become possessed of
+such a thing, and how they could have imagined that it could ever be of
+any use to them. She grew fond of this room, and divided her time
+between it and the garden. It had none of the primness of the convent
+parlour, which gave her a little shiver every time she entered it. In
+the further window there stood a deep-seated, venerable arm-chair,
+covered in worn green leather, the one comfortable chair, Evelyn often
+thought, in the convent. And in this chair she spent many hours, either
+learning to construe the Office with Mother Mary Hilda, or reading by
+herself. The investigation of the shelves was an occupation, and the
+time went quickly, taking down book after book, and she seemed to
+penetrate further into the spirit of the convent through the medium of
+the convent books.</p>
+
+<p>The light literature of the convent were improving little tales of
+conversion, and edifying stories of Catholic girls who decline to enter
+into mixed marriages, and she thought of the novices reading this
+artless literature on Sunday afternoons. There were endless volumes of
+meditations, mostly translations from the French, full of Gallicisms and
+parenthetical phrases, and Evelyn often began a paragraph a second time;
+but in spite of her efforts to control her thoughts they wandered, and
+her eyes, lost in reverie, were fixed on the sunny garden.</p>
+
+<p>She returned the volumes to the shelves, and remembering Mother Mary
+Hilda's recommendation, she took down a volume of Faber's works. She
+found his effusive, sentimental style unendurable; and had turned to go
+to her room for one of the books she had brought with her when her eyes
+lighted upon Father Dalgairn's <i>Frequent Communion</i>. The father's
+account of the various customs of the Church regarding the
+administration of the Sacrament&mdash;the early rigorism of the African
+fathers, and the later rigorism of the Jansenists at once interested
+her, and, lifting her eyes from the book, she remembered that the
+Sacrament had always been the central light around which the spiritual
+belief of the church had revolved. Her instinctive religion had always
+been the Sacrament. When Huxley and Darwin and Spencer had undermined
+the foundations of her faith, and the entire fabric of revelation was
+showering about her, her belief in the Divine Presence had remained,
+burning like a lamp, inviolate among the d&eacute;bris of a temple. She had
+never been able to resist the Sacrament. She had put her belief in the
+mystery of transubstantiation to the test, and when the sanctus bell
+rang, her head had solemnly bowed; softer than rose leaves or
+snowflakes, belief had rained down upon her choked heart. She had never
+been able to reason about the Divine Presence&mdash;she felt it. She had
+believed whether she willed it or not. Owen's arguments had made no
+difference. Her desire of the Sacrament had more than once altered the
+course of her life, and that she should have unconsciously wandered back
+to the Passionist Convent, a convent vowed to Perpetual Adoration,
+seemed to her to be full of significance.</p>
+
+<p>Father Dalgairn's book had made clear to her that wherever she went and
+whatever she did she would always believe in the Divine Presence. His
+book had discovered to her the instinctive nature of her belief in the
+Sacrament, but it had not widened her spiritual perceptions, still less
+her artistic: the delicious terror and irresistible curiosity which she
+experienced on opening St. Teresa's <i>Book of Her Life</i> she had never
+experienced before. It was like re-birth, being born to a new
+experience, to a purer sensation of life. It was like throwing open the
+door of a small, confined garden, and looking upon the wide land of the
+world. It was like breathing the wide air of eternity after that of a
+close-scented room. She knew that she was not capable of such pure
+ecstasy, yet it seemed to her very human to think and feel like this;
+and the saint's holy rapture seemed as natural&mdash;she thought for a
+moment&mdash;even more natural, even more truly human than the rapture which
+she had found in sinful love.</p>
+
+<p>Before she had read a dozen pages, she seemed to know her like her own
+soul, though yet unaware whether the saint lived in this century or a
+dozen centuries ago. For all she said about the material facts of her
+life St. Teresa might be alive to-day and in England. She lived in
+aspiration, out of time and place; and like one who, standing upon a
+hill top, sees a bird soaring, a wild bird with the light of the heavens
+upon its wings, Evelyn seemed to see this soul waving its wings in its
+flight towards God. The soul sang love, love, love, and heaven was
+overflowed with cries for its Divine Master, for its adorable Master,
+for its Bridegroom-elect.</p>
+
+<p>The extraordinary vehemence and passion, the daring realism of St.
+Teresa reminded Evelyn of Vittoria. She found the same unrestrained
+passionate realism in both; she thought of Belasquez's early pictures,
+and then of Ribera. Then of Ulick, who had told her that the great
+artist dared everything. St. Teresa had dared everything. She had dared
+even to discriminate between the love of God the Father and God the Son.
+It was God the Father that inspired in her the highest ecstasy, the most
+complete abandonment of self. In these supreme moments the human form of
+Jesus Christ was a hindrance, as in a lower level of spiritual
+exaltation it was a help.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The moment my prayer began to pass from the natural to the
+supernatural, I strove to obliterate from my soul every physical
+obstacle. To lift my soul up, to contemplate, I dared not; aware of my
+imperfection it seemed over bold. Nevertheless I knew the presence of
+God to be about me, and I tried to gather myself in him. And nothing
+could then induce me to return to the sacred humanity of the Saviour.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But how touching is the saint's repentance for this infidelity to the
+Divine Bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;O Lord of my soul, of all my goods, Jesus crucified, I shall never
+remember without pain that I once thought this thing. I shall think of
+it as a great treason, and I stand convicted before the Good Master; and
+though it proceeded from my ignorance, I shall never expiate it with
+tears.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Just as every variation of habit, of fashion is noticeable to those who
+live outside themselves, so the changes and complexities in the life of
+the soul are perceived by them who live within themselves. The saint
+relates how for many months she refrained from prayer, and as we know
+that prayer was the source of all her joy, a joy touching ecstasy, often
+above the earth and resplendent with vision, we can imagine the anguish
+that these abstinences must have caused her.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To destroy confidence in God the Demon spread a snare, his most
+insidious snare. He persuaded me that owing to my imperfections I could
+not, without being wanting in humility, present myself in prayer to God.
+This caused me such anguish that for a year and a half I refrained. For
+at least a year, for the six months following I am not sure of my
+memory. Unfortunate one, what did I do! By my own act I plunged myself
+in hell without demons being about to drag me there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This scruple is followed by others. The saint suspects the entire
+holiness of her joy in prayer, and she asks if these transports, these
+ravishments, these moments in which she lies exhausted in the arms of
+the Beloved Bridegroom, were contrived by the Demon or if they were
+granted to her by God. Her anxiety is great, and men learned in holy
+doctrine are consulted. They incline to the belief that her visions
+proceed from God, and encourage her to persevere. Then she cries to her
+Divine Master, to the Lord of her soul, to her adorable Master, to the
+adorable Bridegroom.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Cannot we say of a soul to whom God extends this solicitude and these
+delicacies of love that the soul has made for our Lord a bed of roses
+and lilies, and that it is impossible that this adorable Master will not
+come, though he may delay, and take his delight with her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This saint, in whom religion was genius, was one of Ulick's most
+unqualified admirations. He never spoke of her that his voice did not
+acquire an accent of conviction, or without alluding to the line of an
+old English poet, who had addressed her:</p>
+
+<span style='margin-left: 1em;'>'Oh, thou undaunted daughter of desires.'</span><br />
+
+<p>She recalled with a smile his contempt of the Austins and the Eliots,
+those most materialistic writers, he would say, whose interest in
+humanity and whose knowledge of it is limited to social habits and
+customs. But St. Teresa he placed among the highest writers, among the
+great visionaries. &quot;Her desire sings,&quot; he said, &quot;like the sea and the
+winds, and it breaks like fire about God's feet.&quot; He had said that the
+soul that flashed from her pages was more intense than any soul in
+Shakespeare or Balzac. &quot;They had created many, she but one incomparable
+soul&mdash;her own, and in surging drift of vehement aspiration, and in
+recession of temporal things we hear the singing of the stars, the
+beating of the eternal pulse.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On Friday she had finished the autobiography, and before going into the
+garden she took down another of the saint's works, <i>The Way of
+Perfection</i>, intending to look through it in some sunny corner.</p>
+
+<p>She had slipped easily into the early hours of the convent. After
+breakfast she had the morning to herself, and she divided it between the
+library and the garden. The leaves were beginning to fall, and in the
+thinning branches there seemed to be an appearance of spring. From St.
+Peter's walk she strolled into the orchard, and then into the piece of
+uncultivated ground at the end of it. Some of the original furze bushes
+remained, and among these a streamlet trickled through the long grasses,
+and following it she found that it led her to the fish pond in the
+shrubbery, at the back of St. Peter's walk. There was there a pleasant,
+shady place, where she could sit and read. She stood for a moment
+watching the fish. They were so tame that they would take the bread from
+the novices' hands. She had brought some bread, but she had to throw it
+to them. She divided it amongst them, not forgetting to favour the
+little ones, and she thought it strange that they could distinguish her
+from the novices. That much they knew of the upper air. The fish watched
+her out of their beady eyes, stirring in their dim atmosphere with a
+strange, finny motion.</p>
+
+<p>At that hour of the day the sun was warm enough to sit out; the little
+shiver in the air was not unpleasant; and sitting on the garden bench,
+she opened her book in a little tremor of excitement. Her thoughts
+fluttered, and she strove to imagine what book the saint could have
+written to justify so beautiful a title. Her expectations were realised.
+The character of the book is clearly defined in the first pages: she
+perceived it to be a complete manual of convent life, a perfect
+compendium of a nun's soul. On its pages lay that shadowy, evanescent
+and hardly apprehensible thing&mdash;the soul of a nun, only the soul, not a
+word regarding her daily life: any mother-abbess could have written such
+a materialistic book: St. Teresa, with the instinct of her genius,
+addressed herself to the task which none but she could fulfil&mdash;the
+evolution of a nun's soul. And as Evelyn read she marked the passages
+that specially caught her attention.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;Do not imagine, my daughters, that it is useless to pray, as you
+     are constantly praying, for the defenders of the Church: Have a
+     care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it
+     seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves.
+     Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of
+     which I am speaking. Perhaps you fear that it will not go to
+     diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory: I answer
+     that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless.
+     Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer&mdash;well,
+     let it be so.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, to be good like that,&quot; she thought. And her soul raised its eyes
+in a little shy emulation.... A few pages further on she read&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;That all may take heed. For neglect of this counsel a nun may find
+     herself in an entanglement from which she may not find strength to
+     free herself. And then, great God! What feebleness, what puerile
+     complaisances this particular friendship may not be the source. It
+     is impossible to say what number, none but an eye-witness may
+     believe. They are but trifles, and I see no reason for specifying
+     them here. I merely add: in whosoever it is found it is an evil, in
+     a superior it is a plague spot....</p>
+
+<p>     &quot;An excellent remedy is to be together only at those times enjoined
+     by the rule, on other occasions to refrain from speech, as is now
+     our custom, and to live separately each in her cell as the rule
+     ordains. And, although it be a praiseworthy custom to unite for
+     work in a community room, I desire that the nuns of the convent of
+     St. Joseph shall be freed from this custom, for it is much easier
+     to keep silence if each works in her cell. Moreover, it is of the
+     first importance to accustom oneself to solitude, in order to
+     advance oneself in prayer; and as prayer should be the mortar of
+     this monastery, we should cherish all that which increases the
+     spirit in us.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Glancing down the pages, her eyes were arrested by a passage of even
+more subtle, more penetrating wisdom.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;Would you know a certain sign, my daughters, by which you may
+     judge of your progress in virtue? Let each one look within herself
+     and discover if she believes herself to be the unworthiest of you
+     all, and if for the benefit of the others she makes it visible by
+     her actions that she really thinks that this is so, that is the
+     certain sign of spiritual advancement, and not delight in prayer,
+     nor ravishment, nor visions, and such like favours which God grants
+     to souls when he is so pleased. We shall only know the value of
+     such favours in the next world. It is not so with
+     humility&mdash;humility is a money which is always current, it is safely
+     invested capital, a perpetual income; but extraordinary favours are
+     money which is lent for a time and may at any moment be called in.
+     I repeat, our true treasure is profound humility, great
+     mortification, and an obedience which, seeing God in the superior,
+     submits to his every order.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>The saint's delicate yet virile perception, and her power of expressing
+the shadowy and evanescent, filled Evelyn with admiration; and the saint
+appeared to her in the light of a great novelist; she wondered if Balzac
+had ever read these pages.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;The best remedy, in my opinion, that a nun can employ to conquer
+     the imperfect affection which she still bears her parents, is to
+     abstain from seeing them until by patient prayer she has obtained
+     from God the freedom of her soul; when she is so disposed that
+     their visit is a cross, let her see them by all means. For then she
+     will bring good to their souls, and do no harm to her own.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>This seemed not a little grim. But how touching is the personal
+confession which appears on the following page.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;My parents loved me extremely, according to what they said, and I
+     loved them in a way that did not allow them to forget me.
+     Nevertheless I have seen from what has happened to me, and what has
+     happened to other nuns, how little we may count upon their
+     affection for us.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>The unselfishness of such conduct seemed open to doubt. But
+unselfishness is a word that none may speak without calling into
+question the entire conduct of his or her life. Evelyn remembered that
+she had left her father for the sake of her voice, and that she had
+refused to marry Owen because marriage, especially marriage with Owen,
+did not seem compatible with her soul's safety. Looked at from a certain
+side, her life did seem self-centred, but allowance, she thought, must
+be made for the difficulties&mdash;the entanglements in which the first false
+step had involved her. But in any case she must not question the
+efficacy of prayer, that was a dogma of the Church. The mission of the
+contemplative orders is to pray for those who do not pray for
+themselves, and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer, we need not
+scruple to leave our parents to live in a monastery where, by our
+prayers, we held them to eternal salvation. We leave them for a little
+while, but only that we may live with them for ever.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;Believe me, my dear sisters, if you serve him well you will not
+     find better parents than those the Divine Master sends you. I know
+     that it is even so.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>&quot;What beauty there is in her sternness,&quot; Evelyn thought.</p>
+
+
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;I repeat that those whose trend is toward worldly things and who
+     do not make progress in virtue, shall leave this monastery; should
+     she persist in remaining a nun let her enter another convent; for
+     if she doesn't she will see what will happen to her. Nor must she
+     complain about me; nor accuse me of not having make known to her
+     the practical life of the monastery I founded. If there is an
+     earthly paradise it is in this house, but only for souls who desire
+     nothing but to please God, who have no thought for themselves; for
+     these the life here is infinitely agreeable.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>This passage is one of the very few in which appears the wise, practical
+woman, the founder of an order and of many monasteries, who lived side by
+side in the same body, the constant associate of the lyrical saint.
+Evelyn tried to picture her to herself, and two pictures alternated in
+her thoughts. She saw deep, eager, passionate eyes, and a frail,
+exhausted body borne along easily by the soul, and doing the work of the
+unconquerable soul. In the second picture, there were the same consuming
+eyes, the same wasted body, but the expression was quite different. The
+saint's manner was the liveliest, happiest manner, and Evelyn thought of
+the privilege of such companionship, and she envied those who had walked
+with her, hearing her speak.</p>
+
+<p>The little pond at her feet was full of fair reflections of the sky and
+trees, and the idea of convent life lay on the pages of the book even as
+fair. In itself it was disparate and vague, but on the pages of the book
+it floated clear and distinct. She asked if any of the Wimbledon nuns
+lived a life of that intense inward rapture which St. Teresa deemed
+essential if a sister were to be allowed to remain in the convent of St.
+Joseph at Avila, and the coincidence of the names gave her pause. This
+convent's patron saint was St. Joseph, and she sought for some
+resemblance between the Reverend Mother and St. Teresa. She wondered if
+she, Evelyn, were a nun, towards which of the nuns would her personal
+sympathies incline: would she love better Sister Veronica or Sister Mary
+John? It might be Mother Mary Hilda. It would be one of the three. There
+was not one among the others likely to interest her in the least. She
+tried to imagine this friendship: it assumed a vague shape and then
+dissolved in the distance. But would the Reverend Mother tolerate this
+friendship, or would it be promptly cut down to the root according to
+the advice of St. Teresa?</p>
+
+<p>Her thoughts pursued their way, now and then splashing as they leaped
+out of the soul's dimness. Only the splashing of the fish broke the
+stillness of the garden, and startled at a sudden gurgling sound, she
+rose, in time to see a shadowy shape sinking with a motion of fins amid
+the weeds. That she should be living in a convent, that she should have
+repented of her sins, that the fish should leap and fall back with
+strange, gurgling sound, filled her with wonderment. The vague autumn
+blue expressed some vague yearning, some indistinct aspiration; the air
+was like crystal, the leaves were falling.... We have perceptions of the
+outer forms of things, but that is all we know of them. The only thing
+we are sure of is what is in ourselves. We know the difference between
+right and wrong. She stood for a long time at the edge of the fish pond,
+gazing into the vague depths. Then she walked, exalted, overcome by the
+mystery of things. She seemed to walk upon air, the world was a-thrill
+with spiritual significances, all was symbol and exaltation. Her past
+life shrank to a tiny speck, and she knew that she had been happy only
+since she had been in the convent. Ah, that little chapel, haunted by
+prayers! it breathed prayer, in that chapel contemplation was never far
+off. She had prayed there as she had never prayed before, and she
+wondered if she should attribute the difference in her prayers to the
+chapel or to herself. She had always felt, in a dumb, instinctive way,
+that to her at least everything depended on her chastity.... She had
+been chaste now a long while. The explanation seemed to have come to
+her. Yes, it is by denial of the sexual instinct that we become
+religious.</p>
+
+<p>As she passed through the orchard she caught sight of the strange little
+person whom she had seen in chapel with a pile of prayer books beside
+her, and who always wore something startlingly blue, whether skirt,
+handkerchief or cloak. She had met her in the garden before, but she had
+hurried away, her eyes fixed on the ground. Mother Philippa had spoken
+of a Miss Dingle, a simple-minded person who had been sent by her family
+to the convent to be looked after by the nuns, and Evelyn concluded that
+it must be she. But at that moment other thoughts engaged her attention;
+and she lingered in the orchard, returning slowly by St. Peter's walk.
+As she passed the Georgian temple or summer-house, she was taken by a
+desire to examine it, and there she found Miss Dingle. She was seated on
+the floor, engaged, so Evelyn thought, in a surreptitious game of
+Patience. That was only how she could account for Miss Dingle's
+consternation and fear at seeing her. But what she had taken for cards
+were pious pictures. Evelyn stood in the doorway, and for the first time
+had an opportunity of seeing what Miss Dingle was really like. It was
+difficult to say whether her face was ugly or pretty; the features were
+not amiss&mdash;it was the expression, vague and dim like that of an animal,
+that puzzled Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Please let me help you to pick up your pictures.&quot; Miss Dingle did not
+answer, and Evelyn feared for a moment that she had offended her. &quot;Won't
+you let me help you to pick up your pictures?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; she said, &quot;you may help me to pick them up, but you must be very
+quick.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But why must I be quick? Are you in such a very great hurry?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dingle seemed uncertain of her own thoughts, and to reassure her,
+Evelyn asked her if she would not like to walk with her in the orchard.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh,&quot; she said, looking at Evelyn shyly&mdash;it was a sort of child-like
+curiosity, &quot;I dare not go into the orchard to-day.... I brought these
+pictures to keep him from me. I know that he is about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who is about?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I'm afraid he might hurt me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But who would hurt you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well,&quot; she said cautiously, &quot;perhaps he'd be afraid to come near me
+to-day,&quot; and she glanced at her frock. &quot;But I'm sure he's about. Did
+you see any one as you came through the furze bushes?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No,&quot; Evelyn answered; and trying to conceal her astonishment, she said,
+&quot;I'm sure there's no one there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ah, he knows it would be useless.&quot; She glanced again at her frock. &quot;You
+see my blue skirt, that has perhaps frightened him away.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But who has gone away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, the devil is always about.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But you don't think he would hurt you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dingle looked suspiciously at Evelyn, and some dim thought whether
+Evelyn was the devil in disguise must have crossed her mind. But
+whatever the thought was, it was but a flitting thought; it passed in a
+moment, and Miss Dingle said&mdash;&quot;But the devil is always trying to hurt
+us. That is what he comes for.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;So that is why you surrounded yourself with pious pictures&mdash;to keep him
+away?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Dingle nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What a nice dress you have on. I suppose you like blue. I always notice
+you wear it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I wear blue, as much blue as I can, for blue is the colour of the
+Virgin Mary, and he dare not attack me while I have it on. But I wear
+sometimes only a handkerchief, sometimes only a skirt, but now that he
+is about so frequently, I have to dress entirely in blue.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn asked her if she had lived in the convent long, and Miss Dingle
+told her she had lived there for the last three or four years, but she
+would give no precise answer when Evelyn asked if she hoped to become a
+nun, or whether she liked her home or the convent the better.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Now,&quot; she said, &quot;I must really go and say some prayers in the church.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn offered to accompany her, but she said she was well armed, and
+showed Evelyn several rosaries, which in case of need she would wave in
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>Sister Mary John was digging in the kitchen garden, and Evelyn told her
+how she had come upon Miss Dingle in the summer-house surrounded by
+pious pictures. Leaning on her spade, Sister Mary John looked across the
+beds thinking, and Evelyn wondered of what. She said at last that Miss
+Dingle thought too much of the devil.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We should not waste thoughts on him, all our thoughts should be for
+God; there is much more pleasure and profit in such thoughts.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But it does seem a little absurd to imagine that the devil is hiding
+behind gooseberry bushes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The devil is everywhere, temptation is always near.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn saw that the nun did not care for discussion on the subject of
+the devil's objectivity, and in the pause in the conversation she
+noticed Sister Mary John's enormous boots. They looked like a man's
+boots, and she had a full view of them, for Sister Mary John wore her
+skirt very short, so that she might be able to dig with greater ease.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;One of the disadvantages of convent life are the few facilities it
+affords for exercise and for music,&quot; she added, with her beautiful
+smile. &quot;I must have exercise, I can't live without it.... It is
+extraordinary how differently people are constituted. There is Mother
+Mary Hilda, she had never been for what I should call a good sharp walk
+in her life, and she does not know what an ache or a pain is.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The nun pointed with admiration to the bed which she had dug up that
+morning, and complained of the laziness of the gardener: he had not done
+this nor that, but he was such a good man&mdash;since he became a Catholic.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He and I used to talk about things while we were at work: he said that
+he had never had it properly explained to him that there should only be
+one true religion.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Since he became a Catholic, has he not done as much work as he used to
+do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No, I'm afraid he has not,&quot; Sister Mary John answered. &quot;Indeed, we have
+been thinking of sending him away, but it would be difficult for him to
+get another Catholic situation, and his faith would be endangered if he
+lived among Protestants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>At this moment they were interrupted by a loud caw, and looking round,
+Evelyn saw the convent jackdaw. The bird had hopped within a few yards,
+cawing all the while, evidently desirous of attracting their attention.
+With grey head a-slanted, the bird watched them out of sly eyes. &quot;Pay no
+attention to him; you'll see what he'll do,&quot; said Sister Mary John, and
+while Evelyn waited, a little afraid of the bird who seemingly had
+selected her for some purpose of his own, she listened to the story of
+his domestication. He had been hatched out in the hen-house, and had
+tamed himself; he had declined to go wild, preferring a sage convent
+life to the irregularity of the world. The bird hopped about, feigning
+an interest in the worms, but getting gradually nearer the two women. At
+last, with a triumphant caw caw, he flew on to Sister Mary John's
+shoulder, eyeing Evelyn all the while, clearly bent on making her
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He'll come on your shoulder presently,&quot; said Sister Mary John, and
+after some plausive coquetting the bird fluttered on to Evelyn's
+shoulder, and Sister Mary John said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;You wait; you'll see what he will do.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn remained quite still, feeling the bird's bill caressing her neck.
+When she looked round she noticed a wicked expression gathering in his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Pretend,&quot; said Sister Mary John, &quot;not to see him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn did as she was bidden, and, satisfied that he was no longer
+observed, the bird plunged his beak into Evelyn's hair, pulled at it as
+hard as he could, and then flew away, cawing with delight.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That is one of his favourite tricks. We are so fond of him, and so
+afraid that one day a cat will take him. But there is Mother Mary Hilda
+coming to fetch you for your lesson.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn bade Sister Mary John good-bye, and went forward to meet her
+instructress.</p>
+
+<p>The morning seemed full of adventure. There were Miss Dingle, her pious
+pictures, and the devil behind the gooseberry bushes. There was the
+picturesque figure of Sister Mary John, digging, making ready for the
+winter cabbages. There was the jackdaw, his story and his humours, and
+there was her discovery of the genius of St. Teresa. All these things
+had happened that morning, and Evelyn walked a little elated, her heart
+full of spiritual enthusiasm. The project was already astir in her for
+the acquisition of an edition in the original Spanish, and she looked
+forward to a study of that language as a pleasant and suitable
+occupation when she returned to London. She questioned Mother Mary Hilda
+regarding the merits of the English translation; the French, she said,
+she could read no longer. She described the worthy father's prose as
+asthmatic; she laughed at his long, wheezy sentences, but Sister Mary
+Hilda seemed inclined to set store on the Jesuit's pious intentions. The
+spirit was more essential than the form, and it was with this argument
+on their lips they sat down to the Latin lesson. The nun had opened the
+book, and Evelyn was about to read the first sentence, when, raising her
+eyes and voice, she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh! Mother Mary Hilda, you've forgotten ... this is my last lesson, I
+am going away to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Even so it need not be the last lesson; you will come and see us during
+the winter, if you are in London. I don't remember that you said that
+you are going abroad to sing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Mother Mary Hilda, I'm thinking of leaving the stage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The nun turned the leaves of the breviary, and it seemed to Evelyn that
+she dreaded the intrusion on her thoughts of a side of life the very
+existence of which she had almost succeeded in forgetting; and, feeling
+a little humbled, Evelyn applied herself to the lesson. And it was just
+as Mary Hilda's hand closed the books that the door opened and the
+Reverend Mother entered, bringing, it seemed, a new idea and a new
+conception of life into the room. Mother Mary Hilda gathered up her
+books, and having answered the Reverend Mother's questions in her own
+blithe voice, each word illuminated by the happy smile which Evelyn
+thought so beautiful, withdrew like an apparition.</p>
+
+<p>The Reverend Mother took the place that Mother Mary Hilda had left, and
+by her very manner of sitting down, showed that she had come on some
+special intention.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Miss Innes, I have come to ask you not to leave to-morrow. If you are
+not already tired of our life, it would give us great pleasure if you
+would stay with us till Monday.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It is very good of you to ask me to stay, I have been very happy;
+indeed, I dread returning; it is difficult to return to the life of the
+world after having seen what your life is here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We should only be too happy if you will prolong your stay. You are free
+to remain as long as you please.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Thank you, Reverend Mother, it is very good of you, but I cannot live
+here in idleness, walking about the garden. What should I do if it were
+to rain?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It looks like rain to-day. We have had a long term of fine weather.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The nun's old white hand lay on the table, a little crippled, but still
+a nervous, determined hand, and the pale, sparkling eyes looked so deep
+into the enigma of Evelyn's soul that she lost her presence of mind; her
+breath came more quickly, and she hastily remembered that this retreat
+now drawing to a close had solved nothing, that the real solution of her
+life was as far off as ever.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Then I may take it that you will stay with us till Monday. I will not
+weary you with our repeated thanks for what you have done for us. You
+know that we are very grateful, and shall never forget you in our
+prayers, but you will not mind my thanking you again for the pleasure
+your singing has given us. You have sung every day. You really have been
+very kind.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I beg of you not to mention it, Reverend Mother; to sing for you and
+all the dear sisters was a great pleasure to me. I never enjoyed singing
+in a theatre so much.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I am glad you have enjoyed your stay, Miss Innes. Your room will always
+be ready. I hope you will often come to see us.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;It will be a great advantage for me to come and stay with you from time
+to time.&quot; Neither spoke for a time, then Evelyn said, &quot;Reverend Mother,
+is it not strange that I should have come back to this convent, my old
+convent? I never forgot it. I often wondered if I should come here
+again. When I was here before, it was just as now; it was in a great
+crisis of my life. It was just before I left home, just before I went to
+Paris to learn singing. I don't know if Monsignor has told you that I
+have decided to leave the stage.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Monsignor has entrusted you to me, and I should like to count you as
+one of my children. All the nuns tell me their little troubles. Though I
+have guessed there must be some great trouble in your life, I should
+like you to feel that you can tell me everything, if to do so can be the
+least help to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn's eyes brightened, and, trembling with emotion, she leaned across
+the table; the Reverend Mother took her hand, and the touch of that old
+benign hand was a delight, and she felt that she must confide her story.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have been several times on the point of speaking to you on the
+subject of my past, for if I am to come here again I feel that you
+should know something about me. But how to tell it. I had thought of
+asking Father Daly to tell you. To-day is your day for confession, but
+last week I confessed to Monsignor, and do not like to submit myself to
+another director. Do you understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Father Daly is an excellent, worthy man, the convent is under the
+greatest obligations to him, but I could not recommend him as a very
+enlightened director of souls. That is why the nuns tell me all their
+troubles. I should like you to feel that you can tell me everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Reverend Mother, if you did not pass from the schoolroom to the convent
+like Veronica, you will have heard, you must know, that the life of an
+opera singer is generally a sinful life. I was very young at the time,
+only one-and-twenty. I knew that I had a beautiful voice, and that my
+father could not teach me to sing. But it was not for self-interest that
+I left him; I was genuinely in love with Sir Owen Asher. He was very
+good to me; he wanted to marry me; from the world's point of view I was
+very successful, but I was never happy. I felt that I was living a
+sinful life, and we cannot go on doing what we feel to be wrong and
+still be happy. Night after night I could not sleep. My conscience kept
+me awake. I strove against the inevitable, for it is very difficult to
+change one's life from end to end, but there was no help for it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Her story, as she told it, seemed to her very wonderful, more wonderful
+than she had thought it was, and she would have liked to have told the
+Reverend Mother all the torment and anguish of mind she had gone
+through. But she felt that she was on very thin ice, and trembled
+inwardly lest she was shocking the nun.</p>
+
+<p>It was exciting to tell that it was her visit to the convent that had
+brought about her repentance; how that very night her eyes had opened at
+dawn, and she had seen clearly the wickedness of her life, and she could
+not refrain from saying that it was Owen Asher's last letter, in which
+he said that at all hazards he would save her from losing herself in
+religion, that had sent her to Monsignor for advice. She noticed her
+omission of all mention of Ulick, and it seemed to her strange that she
+could still be interested in her sins, and at the same time genuinely
+determined to reform her life. The nun sat looking at her, thinking what
+answer she should make, and Evelyn wondered what that answer would be.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We shall pray for you.... You will not fall into sin again; it is our
+prayers that enable men to overcome their passions. Were it not for our
+prayers, God would have long ago destroyed the world. Think of the times
+of persecution and sacrilege, when prayer only survived in the
+monasteries.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn could not but acquiesce: a world without prayer would be an
+intolerable world, as unendurable to man as to God. But if the Reverend
+Mother's explanation were a true one! If these poor forsakers of the
+world were in truth the saviours of the world, without whose aid the
+world would have perished long since!</p>
+
+<p>When she had gone, Evelyn sat thinking, her head leaned on her hand, her
+eyes fixed on the distant garden, seeing life from afar, strange and
+distant, like reflections in still waters. She could see distant figures
+in St. Peter's walk, tending the crosses and the statues of the Virgin
+placed in nooks, or hanging on the branches. Some four or five nuns were
+playing at ball on the terrace, and in the plaintive autumn afternoon,
+there was something extraordinarily touching in their simple amusement;
+and she had, perforce, to feel how much wiser was their childishness
+than the vanity of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Ulick had said that their adventure was the same, only their ways were
+different. He had said that he sought God in art, while she sought him
+in dogma. But if she accepted dogma, it was only as a cripple accepts a
+crutch, Catholicism was essential to her, without it she could not walk;
+but while conforming to dogma, it seemed possible to transcend its
+narrowness, and to attach to every petty belief a spiritual
+significance. It is right that we should acquiesce in these beliefs, for
+they are the symbols by which the faith was kept alive and handed down.
+God leads us by different ways, and though we may prefer to worship God
+in the open air, we should not despise him who builds a house for
+worship. The Real Being is all that we are sure of, for He is in our
+hearts, the rest is as little shadows. Ulick had quoted an Eastern
+mystic&mdash;'He that sees himself sees God, and in him there is neither I
+nor thou.'</p>
+
+<p>And, reflecting on the significance of these words, she turned with
+pensive fingers the leaves of <i>The Way of Perfection</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But she was going back to London on Monday! In London she would meet
+Owen and all her former life. She knew in a way how she was going to
+escape him. But her former life was everywhere. She got up and walked
+about the room, then she stood at the window, her hands held behind her
+back. She was sorely tried, and felt so weak in spirit that she was
+tempted, or fancied that she was tempted, to go away with Owen in the
+<i>Medusa</i>. Or she might tell him that she would marry him, and so end the
+whole matter. But she knew that she would do neither of these things.
+She knew that she would sacrifice Owen and her career as an opera singer
+so that she might lead a chaste life. Yet a life of prayer and chastity
+was not natural to her; her natural preferences were for lovers and
+worldly pleasures, but she was sacrificing all that she liked for all
+that she disliked. She wondered, quite unable to account for her choice
+to herself. Her life seemed very mad, but, mad or sane, she was going to
+sacrifice Owen and her career. She might sing at concerts, but she did
+not think such singing would mean much to her and she thought of the
+splendid successful life that lay before her if she remained on the
+stage. Again she wondered at her choice, seeking in herself the reason
+that impelled her to do what she was doing. She could not say that she
+liked living with her father in Dulwich, nor did she look forward to
+giving singing lessons, and yet that was what she was going to do. She
+strove to distinguish her soul; it seemed flying before her like a bird,
+making straight for some goal which she could not distinguish. She could
+distinguish its wings in the blue air, and then she lost sight of them;
+then she caught sight of them again, and they were then no more than a
+tremulous sparkle in the air. Suddenly the vision vanished, and she
+found herself face to face with herself&mdash;her prosaic self which she had
+known always, and would know until she ceased to know everything. She
+was here in the Wimbledon Convent, and Owen was in London waiting for
+her. She knew she never would live with him again. But how would she
+finally separate herself from him? How would it all come about? She
+could imagine herself yielding, but if she did, it would not last a
+week. Her life would be unendurable, and she would have to send him
+away. For it is not true that Tannh&auml;user goes back to Venus. He who
+repents, he who had once felt the ache and remorse of sin, may fall into
+sin again, but he quickly extricates himself; his sinning is of no long
+duration! It was the casual sin that she dreaded; at the bottom of her
+heart she knew that she would never live a life of sin again. But she
+trembled at the thought of losing the perfect peace and happiness which
+now reigned in her heart, even for a few hours. Her face contracted in
+an expression of terror at the thought of finding herself again involved
+in the anguish, revolt and despair which she had endured in Park Lane.
+She recalled the moments when she saw herself vile and loathsome, when
+she had turned from the image of her soul which had been shown to her.
+Then, to rid herself of the remembrance, she thought of the joy she had
+experienced that morning at hearing in the creed that God's kingdom
+shall never pass away. Her soul had kindled like a flame, and she had
+praised God, crying to herself, &quot;Thy kingdom shall last for ever and
+ever.&quot; It had seemed to her that her soul had acquired kingship over all
+her faculties, over all her senses, for the time being it had ruled her
+utterly; and so delicious was its subjection that she had not dared to
+move lest she should lose this sweet peace. Her lips had murmured an Our
+Father, but so slowly that the Sanctus bell had rung before she had
+finished it. Nothing troubled her, nothing seemed capable of troubling
+her, and the torrent of delight which had flowed into and gently
+overflowed her soul had intoxicated and absorbed her until it had seemed
+to her that there was nothing further for her to desire.</p>
+
+<p>She remembered that when Mass was over she had risen from her knees
+elated, feeling that she had prayed even as the nuns prayed, and she had
+retired to her room, striving to restrain her looks and thoughts so that
+she might prolong this union with God.</p>
+
+<p>To remember this experience gave her courage. For she could not doubt
+that the intention of so special a favour was to convince her that she
+would not be lacking in courage when the time came to deny herself to
+Owen Asher. At the same time she was troubled, and she feared that she
+was not quite sincere with herself. She would easily resist him now; but
+in six months' time, in a year? Besides, she would meet other men; her
+thoughts even now went out towards one. Ah! wretched weakness,
+abominable sin! She was filled with contempt for herself, and yet at the
+bottom of her heart, like hope at the bottom of Pandora's box, there was
+tolerance. Her sins interested her; she would not be herself without
+them, and this being so, how could she hope to conquer herself?</p>
+
+<p>Saturday and Sunday were monotonous and anxious days. She had begun to
+wonder what was in the newspapers, and she had written to say that her
+carriage was to come to fetch her on Monday at three o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>There had not been a gleam of light since early morning, only a gentle
+diffused twilight, and the foliage in the garden was almost human in its
+listlessness; a flat grey sky hung about the trees like a shroud. Mother
+Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda were walking with her about the
+grass-grown drive. They were waiting for the Reverend Mother, who had
+gone to fetch a medal for Evelyn. She heard her chestnuts champing their
+bits ready to take her back to London, and she could not listen to
+Mother Philippa's conversation, for she had been suddenly taken with a
+desire to say one last prayer in the chapel. She must say one more
+prayer in the presence of the Sacrament. So, excusing herself, she ran
+back, and, kneeling down, she buried her face in her hands. At once all
+her thoughts hushed within her; it was like bees entering a hive to make
+honey. Prayer came to her without difficulty, without even asking, and
+she enjoyed almost five minutes' breathless adoration.</p>
+
+<p>The three nuns kissed her, and as the Reverend Mother hung the medal
+round her neck, she told her that prayers would be constantly offered up
+for her preservation. The chestnuts plunged at starting.... If she were
+killed now it would not matter. But the horses soon settled down into
+their long swinging trot of ten miles an hour, and all the way to London
+she reflected. The Reverend Mother had said that the prayers of nuns and
+monks were the wall and bastion tower which saved a sinful world from
+the wrath of God, and she thought of the fume of prayer ascending night
+and day from this convent as from a censer. Men had always prayed, since
+the beginning of things men had prayed, and as Ulick had said, wisdom
+was not invented yesterday. He agreed with the naturalistic philosophers
+that force is indestructible, only objecting that the naturalistic
+philosophers did not go far enough, the theory of the indestructibility
+of force being equally applicable to the spiritual world. The world
+exists not in itself, but in man's thought.... Often an intense
+evocation has brought the absent one before the seer's eyes, and that
+there are sympathies which transcend and overrule the laws of time and
+space hardly admits of doubt. Life is but a continual hypnotism; and the
+thoughts of others reach us from every side, determining in some measure
+our actions. It was therefore certain that she would be influenced by
+the prayers that would be offered up for her by the convent. She
+imagined these prayers intervening between her and sin, coming to her
+aid in some moment of perilous temptation, and perhaps in the end
+determining the course of her life.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='THE_END'></a><h2>THE END</h2>
+
+<i>Printed and Made in Great Britain by<br />
+The Crypt House Press Limited<br />
+Gloucester and London</i><br />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Evelyn Innes, by George Moore
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diff --git a/old/13201.txt b/old/13201.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Evelyn Innes, by George Moore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Evelyn Innes
+
+Author: George Moore
+
+Release Date: August 17, 2004 [EBook #13201]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EVELYN INNES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Josephine Paolucci and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BENN'S ESSEX LIBRARY
+
+_Edited by Edward G. Hawke, M.A._
+
+
+
+
+
+EVELYN INNES
+
+
+
+GEORGE MOORE
+
+
+
+_First published_ 1898
+
+_Reprinted (Essex Library_) 1929
+
+
+  _To
+  Arthur Symons and W.B. Yeats
+  Two contemporary writers
+  with whom
+  I am in sympathy_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+
+The thin winter day had died early, and at four o'clock it was dark
+night in the long room in which Mr. Innes gave his concerts of early
+music. An Elizabethan virginal had come to him to be repaired, and he
+had worked all the afternoon, and when overtaken by the dusk, he had
+impatiently sought a candle end, lit it, and placed it so that its light
+fell upon the jacks.... Only one more remained to be adjusted. He picked
+it up, touched the quill and dropped it into its place, rapidly tuned
+the instrument, and ran his fingers over the keys.
+
+Iron-grey hair hung in thick locks over his forehead, and, shining
+through their shadows, his eyes drew attention from the rest of his
+face, so that none noticed at first the small and firmly cut nose, nor
+the scanty growth of beard twisted to a point by a movement habitual to
+the weak, white hand. His face was in his eyes: they reflected the flame
+of faith and of mission; they were the eyes of one whom fate had thrown
+on an obscure wayside of dreams, the face of a dreamer and propagandist
+of old-time music and its instruments. He sat at the virginal, like one
+who loved its old design and sweet tone, in such strict keeping with the
+music he was playing--a piece by W. Byrd, "John, come kiss me now"--and
+when it was finished, his fingers strayed into another, "Nancie," by
+Thomas Morley. His hands moved over the keyboard softly, as if they
+loved it, and his thoughts, though deep in the gentle music, entertained
+casual admiration of the sixteenth century organ, which had lately come
+into his possession, and which he could see at the end of the room on a
+slightly raised platform. Its beautiful shape, and the shape of the old
+instruments, vaguely perceived, lent an enchantment to the darkness. In
+the corner was a viola da gamba, and against the walls a harpsichord and
+a clavichord.
+
+Above the virginal on which Mr. Innes was playing there hung a portrait
+of a woman, and, happening to look up, a sudden memory came upon him,
+and he began to play an aria out of _Don Giovanni_. But he stopped
+before many bars, and holding the candle end high, so that he could see
+the face, continued the melody with his right hand. To see her lips and
+to strike the notes was almost like hearing her sing it again. Her voice
+came to him through many years, from the first evening he had heard her
+sing at La Scala. Then he was a young man spending a holiday in Italy,
+and she had made his fortune for the time by singing one of his songs.
+They were married in Italy, and at the end of some months they had gone
+to Paris and to Brussels, where Mrs. Innes had engagements to fulfil. It
+was in Brussels that she had lost her voice. For a long while it was
+believed that she might recover it, but these hopes proved illusory,
+and, in trying to regain what she had lost irrevocably, the money she
+had earned dwindled to a last few hundred pounds. The Innes had returned
+to London, and, with a baby-daughter, settled in Dulwich. Mr. Innes
+accepted the post of organist at St. Joseph's, the parish church in
+Southwark, and Mrs. Innes had begun her singing classes.
+
+Her reputation as a singer favoured her, and an aptitude for teaching
+enabled her to maintain, for many years, a distinguished position in the
+musical world. Mr. Innes's abilities contributed to their success, and
+he might have become a famous London organist if he had devoted himself
+to the instrument. But one day seeing in a book the words "viola
+d'amore," he fancied he would like to possess an instrument with such a
+name. The instrument demanded the music that had been written for it.
+Byrd's beautiful vocal Mass had led him to Palestrina and Vittoria, and
+these wakened in him dreams of a sufficient choir at St. Joseph's for a
+revival of their works.
+
+So when Evelyn clambered on her father's knee, it was to learn the
+chants that he hummed from old manuscripts and missals, and it was the
+contrapuntal fancies of the Elizabethan composers that he gave her to
+play on the virginal, or the preludes of Bach on the clavichord. Her
+infantile graces at these instruments were the delight and amazement of
+her parents. She warbled this old-time music as other children do the
+vulgar songs of the hour; she seemed less anxious to learn the operatic
+music which she heard in her mother's class-rooms, and there was a shade
+of uneasiness in Mrs. Innes's admiration of the beauty of Evelyn's
+taste; but Mr. Innes said that it was better that her first love should
+be for the best, and he could not help hoping that it would not be with
+the airs of _Lucia_ and _Traviata_ that she would become famous. As if
+in answer, the child began to hum the celebrated waltz, a moment after a
+beautiful Ave Maria, composed by a Fleming at the end of the fifteenth
+century, a quick, sobbing rhythm, expressive of naive petulance at delay
+in the Virgin's intercession. Mr. Innes called it natural music--music
+which the modern Church abhorred and shamefully ostracised; and the
+conversation turned on the incurably bad taste and the musical misdeeds
+of a certain priest, Father Gordon, whom Mr. Innes judged to be
+responsible for all the bad music to be heard at St. Joseph's.
+
+For Mr. Innes's ambition was to restore the liturgical chants of the
+early centuries, from John Ockeghem, the Flemish silver-smith of Louis
+XI., whose recreation it was to compose motets, to Thomas da Vittoria;
+and, after having made known the works of Palestrina and of those who
+gravitated around the great Roman composer, he hoped to disinter the
+masses of Orlando di Lasso, of Goudimel and Josquin des Pres, the motets
+of Nannini, of Felice Anerio, of Clemens non Papa.... He would go still
+further back. For before this music was the plain chant or Gregorian,
+bequeathed to us by the early Church, coming down to her, perhaps, from
+Egyptian civilisation, the mother of all art and all religion, an
+incomparable treasure which unworthy inheritors have mutilated for
+centuries. It was Mr. Innes's belief that the supple, free melody of the
+Gregorian was lost in the shouting of operatic tenors and organ
+accompaniments. The tradition of its true interpretation had been lost,
+and the text itself, but by long study of ancient missals, Mr. Innes had
+penetrated the secret of the ancient notation, vague as the eyeballs of
+the blind, and in the absence of a choir that could read this strange
+alphabet of sound, he cherished a plan for an edition of these old
+chants, re-written by him into the ordinary notation of our day. But
+impassable obstacles intervened: the apathy and indifference of the
+Jesuits, and their fear lest such radical innovations should prove
+unpopular and divert the congregation of St. Joseph's elsewhere. He had
+abandoned hope of converting them from their error, but he was confident
+that reaction was preparing against the jovialities of Rossini, whose
+_Stabat Mater_, he said, still desecrated Good Friday, and against the
+erotics of M. Gounod and his suite. And this inevitable reaction Mr.
+Innes strove to advance by his pupils. Many became disciples and helped
+to preach the new musical gospel. He induced them to learn the old
+instruments, and among them found material for his concerts. Though a
+weak man in practical conduct, he was steadfast in his ideas. His
+concerts had begun to attract a little attention; he was receiving
+support from some rich amateurs, and was able to continue his propaganda
+under the noses of the worthy fathers in whose church he was now
+serving, but where he knew that one day he would be master.
+
+But, unfortunately, Mr. Innes could only give a small part of his time
+to these concerts. Notwithstanding his persuasiveness, there remained on
+his hands some intractable pupils who would not hear of viol or
+harpsichord, who insisted upon being taught to play modern masses on the
+organ, and these he could not afford to refuse. For of late years his
+wife's failing health had forced her to relinquish teaching, and the
+burden of earning their living had fallen entirely upon him. She hoped
+that a long rest might improve her in health, and that in some
+months--six, she imagined as a sufficient interval--she would be able to
+undertake in full earnestness her daughter's education. To do this had
+become her dearest wish; for there could now be little doubt that Evelyn
+had inherited her voice, the same beautiful quality and fluency in
+vocalisation; and thinking of it, Mrs. Innes held out her hands and
+looked at them, striving to read in them the progress of her illness.
+Evelyn wondered why, just at that moment, her father had turned from the
+bedside overcome by sudden tears. But whoever dies, life goes on the
+same, our interests and necessities brook little interference.
+Meal-times are always fixed times, and when father and daughter met in
+the parlour--it was just below the room in which Mrs. Innes was
+dying--Evelyn asked why her mother had looked at her hands so
+significantly.
+
+He said that it was thus her mother foreshadowed Violetta's death, when
+Armand's visit is announced to her.
+
+In the silence which followed this explanation their souls seemed to say
+what their lips could not. Sympathies and perceptions hitherto dormant
+were awakened; he recognised in her, and she, in herself, an unsuspected
+inheritance. Her voice she had received from her mother, but all else
+came from her father. She felt his life and character stirring in her,
+and moved as by a new instinct, she sat by his side, holding his hand.
+They sat waiting for the announcement of the death which could not be
+delayed much longer, and each thought of the difference the passing
+would make in their lives! It was her death that had brought them
+together, that had given them a new and mutual life. And in those hours
+their eyes had seemed to seal a compact of love and fealty.
+
+This was three years ago; but since Mrs. Innes's death very little had
+been done with Evelyn's voice. The Jesuits had spent money in increasing
+their choir and orchestra, and Mr. Innes was constantly rehearsing the
+latest novelties in religious music. All his spare time was occupied
+with private teaching; and discovering in his daughter a real aptitude
+for the lute, he had taught her that instrument, likewise the viola da
+gamba, for which she soon displayed even more original talent. She
+played both instruments at his concerts, and as several pupils offered
+themselves, he encouraged her to give lessons--he had made of her an
+excellent musician, able to write fugue and counterpoint; only the
+production of the voice he had neglected. Now and again, in a fit of
+repentance, he had insisted on her singing some scales, but his heart
+was not in the lesson, and it fell through.
+
+He was suspicious that she knew she could not learn singing from him;
+but an avowal of his inability to teach her would necessitate some
+departure from his own ideas, and, like all men with a mission, Mr.
+Innes was deficient in moral courage, and in spite of himself he evaded
+all that did not coincide with the purpose of his life. He loved his
+daughter above everything, except his music, and the thought that he was
+sacrificing her to his ambition afflicted him with cruel assaults of
+conscience. Often he asked himself if he were capable of redeeming his
+promise to his dead wife, or if he shirked the uncongenial labour it
+entailed? And it was this tormenting question that had impelled him to
+light the candle, and raise it so that he could better see his wife's
+face.
+
+Though an indifferent painting, the picture was elaborately like the
+sitter. The pointed oval of the face had been faithfully drawn, and its
+straight nose and small brown eyes were set characteristically in the
+head. Remembering a photograph of his daughter, Mr. Innes fetched it
+from the other end of the room, and stood with it under the portrait, so
+that he could compare both faces, feature by feature. Evelyn's face was
+rounder, her eyes were not deep-set like her mother's; they lay nearly
+on the surface, pools of light illuminating a very white and flower-like
+complexion. The nose was short and high; the line of the chin deflected,
+giving an expression of wistfulness to the face in certain aspects. Her
+father was still bent in examination of the photograph when she entered.
+It was very like her, and at first sight Nature revealed only two more
+significant facts: her height--she was a tall girl--and a beautiful
+undulation in her walk, occasioned by the slight droop in her shoulders.
+She was dressed in dark green woollen, with a large hat to match.
+
+"Well, darling! and how have you been getting on?"
+
+The vague pathos of his grey face was met by the bright effusion of
+hers, and throwing her arms about him, she kissed him on the cheek.
+
+"Pretty well, dear; pretty well."
+
+"Only pretty well," she answered reproachfully. "No one has been here to
+interrupt you; you have had all the afternoon for finishing that
+virginal, and you've only been getting on 'pretty well.' But I see your
+necktie has come undone."
+
+Then overlooking him from head to foot--
+
+"Well, you have been making a day of it."
+
+"Oh, these are my old clothes--that is glue; don't look at me--I had an
+accident with the glue-pot; and that's paint. Yes; I must get some new
+shirts, these won't hold a button any longer."
+
+The conversation paused a few seconds, then running her finger down the
+keys, she said--
+
+"But it goes admirably."
+
+"Yes; I've finished it now; it is an exquisite instrument. I could not
+leave it till it was finished."
+
+"Then what are you complaining of, darling? Has Father Gordon been here?
+Has he discovered any new Belgian composer, and does he want all his
+music to be given at St. Joseph's?"
+
+"No; Father Gordon hasn't been here, and as for the Belgian composers,
+there are none left; he has discovered them all."
+
+"Then you've been thinking about me, about my voice.
+That's it," she said, catching sight of her own photograph. "You've
+been frowning over that photograph, thinking"--her eyes went up to her
+mother's portrait--"all sorts of nonsense, making yourself miserable,
+reproaching yourself that you do not teach me to vocalise, a thing which
+you know nothing about, or lamenting that you are not rich enough to
+send me abroad, where I could be taught it." Then, with a pensive note
+in her voice which did not escape him, she said--
+
+"As if there was any need to worry. I'm not twenty yet."
+
+"No, you're not twenty yet, but you will be very soon. Time is going
+by."
+
+"Well, let time go by, I don't care. I'm happy here with you, father. I
+wouldn't go away, even if you had the money to send me. I intend to help
+you make the concerts a success. Then, perhaps, I shall go abroad."
+
+His heart went out to his daughter. He was proud of her, and her fine
+nature was a compensation for many disappointments. He took her in his
+arms and thankfully kissed her. She was touched by his emotion, and
+conscious that her eyes were threatening tears, she said--
+
+"I can't stand this gloom. I must have some light. I'll go and get a
+lamp. Besides, it must be getting late. I wonder what kind of a dinner
+Margaret has got for us. I left it to her. A good one, I hope. I'm
+ravenous."
+
+A few minutes after she appeared in the doorway, holding a lamp high,
+the light showing over her white skin and pale gold hair. "Margaret has
+excelled herself--boiled haddock, melted butter, a neck of mutton and a
+rice pudding. And I have brought back a bag of oranges. Now come,
+darling. You've done enough to that virginal. Run upstairs and wash your
+hands, and remember that the fish is getting cold."
+
+She was waiting for him in the little back room--the lamp was on the
+table--and when they sat down to dinner she began the tale of her day's
+doings. But she hadn't got farther than the fact that they had asked her
+to stay to tea at Queen's Gate, when her tongue, which always went quite
+as fast as her thoughts, betrayed her, and before she was aware, she had
+said that her pupil's sister was in delicate health and that the family
+was going abroad for the winter. This was equivalent to saying she had
+lost a pupil. So she rattled on, hoping that her father would not
+perceive the inference.
+
+"There doesn't seem to be much luck about at present," he said. "That's
+the third pupil you've lost this month."
+
+"It is unfortunate ... and just as I was beginning to save a little
+money." A moment after her voice had recovered its habitual note of
+cheerfulness. "Then what do you think I did? An idea struck me; I took
+the omnibus and went straight to St. James's Hall."
+
+"To St. James's Hall!"
+
+"Yes, you old darling; don't you know that M. Desjardin, the French
+composer, has come over to give a series of concerts. I thought I should
+like him to try my voice."
+
+"You didn't see him?"
+
+"Yes I did. When I asked for him, the clerk said, pointing to a
+gentleman coming downstairs, that is Monsieur Desjardin. I went straight
+up to him, and told him who I was, and asked him if he had ever heard of
+mother. Just fancy, he never had; but he seemed interested when I told
+him that everyone said my voice was as good as mother's. We went into
+the hall, and I sang to him."
+
+"What did you sing to him?"
+
+"'Have you seen but a white lily grow?' and 'Que vous me coutez cher,
+mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs.'"
+
+"Ah! that music must have surprised him. What did he say?"
+
+"I don't think I sang very well, but he seemed pleased, and asked me if
+I knew any modern music. I said 'Very little.' He was surprised at that.
+But he said I had a very fine voice, and sang the old music beautifully,
+but that it would be impossible for me to sing modern music without
+ruining my voice, until I had been taught. I asked him if it would not
+be well to try to earn a little money by concert singing, so that I
+might go abroad later on. He said, 'I am glad that all my arrangements
+are made, otherwise I might be tempted to offer you an engagement. One
+engagement leads to another, and if you sing before your voice is
+properly placed'--'posee' was the word he used--'you will ruin it.'"
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, that's all." Then, noticing the pained look that had come into her
+father's face, she added, "It was nice to hear that he thought well of
+my voice."
+
+But she could tell what he was thinking of, and regretting her tongue's
+indiscretion, she tried to divert his thoughts from herself. His
+brooding look continued, and to remove it she had to fetch his pipe and
+tobacco. When he had filled it for the third time he said--
+
+"There is the Bach and the Handel sonata waiting for us; we ought to be
+getting to work."
+
+"I'm quite ready, father. I suppose I must not eat any more oranges,"
+and she surveyed her plate full of skins.
+
+Mr. Innes took up the lamp, Evelyn called to the servant to get another,
+and followed him into the music-room. The lamps were placed on the
+harpsichord. She lighted some candles, and in the moods and aspirations
+of great men they found a fairyland, and the lights disappeared from the
+windows opposite, leaving them still there.
+
+The wings of the hours were light--weariness could not reach them--and
+at half-past eleven Mr. Innes was speaking of a beautiful motet, "O
+Magnum Mysterium," by Vittoria. His fingers lingered in the wailing
+chords, and he said--
+
+"That is where Wagner went for his chorus of youths in the cupola. The
+critics haven't discovered it yet; they are still talking of
+Palestrina."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+
+Jesuits from St. Joseph's were not infrequently seen at Mr. Innes's
+concerts. The worthy fathers, although they did not see their way to
+guaranteeing a yearly grant of money sufficient to ensure adequate
+performances of Palestrina's finest works, were glad to support, with
+occasional guineas, their organist's concerts. Painters and men of
+letters were attracted by them; musicians seldom. Nor did Mr. Innes
+encourage their presence. Musicians were of no use to him. They were, he
+said, divided into two classes--those who came to scoff, and those who
+came to steal. He did not want either sort.
+
+The rare music interested but a handful, and the audience that had come
+from London shivered in remembrance of the east wind which had
+accompanied their journey. But this little martyrdom did not seem to be
+entirely without its satisfactions, and conscious of superiority, they
+settled themselves to listen to the few words of explanation with which
+Mr. Innes was accustomed to introduce the music that was going to be
+played. He was speaking, when he was interrupted by the servant-maid,
+who whispered and gave him a card: "Sir Owen Asher, Bart., 27 Berkeley
+Square." He left the room hurriedly, and his audience surmised from his
+manner that something important had happened.
+
+Sir Owen, seemingly a tall man, certainly above the medium height, was
+waiting for him in the passage. His thin figure was wrapped tightly in
+an overcoat, most of his face was concealed in the collar, and the pale
+gold-coloured moustache showed in contrast to the dark brown fur. The
+face, wide across the forehead, acquired an accent in the pointed chin
+and strongly marked jaw. The straight nose was thin and well shaped in
+the nostrils. "An attractive man of forty" would be the criticism of a
+woman. Sir Owen's attractiveness concentrated in his sparkling eyes and
+his manner, which was at once courteous and manly. He told Mr. Innes
+that he had heard of his concerts that morning at the office of the
+_Wagnerian Review_, and Mr. Innes indulged in his habitual dream of a
+wealthy patron who would help him to realise his musical ambitions. Sir
+Owen had just bought the periodical, he intended to make it an organ of
+advanced musical culture, and would like to include a criticism of these
+concerts. Mr. Innes begged Sir Owen to come into the concert-room. But
+while taking off his coat, Sir Owen mentioned what he had heard
+regarding Mr. Innes's desire to revive the vocal masses of the sixteenth
+century at St. Joseph's, and the interest of this conversation delayed
+them a little in the passage.
+
+The baronet's evening clothes were too well cut for those of a poet, a
+designer of wall paper, or a journalist, and his hands were too white
+and well cared for at the nails. His hair was pale brown, curling a
+little at the ends, and carefully brushed and looking as if it had been
+freshened by some faintest application of perfumed essence. Three pearl
+studs fastened his shirt front, and his necktie was tied in a butterfly
+bow. He displayed some of the nonchalant ease which wealth and position
+create, smiled a little on catching sight of the jersey worn by a lady
+who had neglected to fasten the back of her bodice, and strove to
+decipher the impression the faces conveyed to him. He grew aware of that
+flitting anxiety which is inseparable from the task of finding a daily
+living, and that pathos which tells of fidelity to idea and abstinence
+from gross pleasure. A young man, who stood apart, in a carefully
+studied attitude, a dark lock of hair falling over his forehead, amused
+him, and the young man in the chair next Sir Owen wore a threadbare coat
+and clumsy boots, and sat bolt upright. Sir Owen pitied him and imagined
+him working all day in some obscure employment, finding his life's
+pleasure once a week in a score by Bach. Catching sight of a priest's
+profile, a look of contempt appeared on his face.
+
+He was of his class, he had lived its life and lived it still, in a
+measure, but from the beginning his ideas and tastes had been superior
+to those of a merely fashionable man. At five-and-twenty he had
+purchased a Gainsborough, and at thirty he had spent a large sum of
+money in exhuming some sonatas of Bach from the dust in which they were
+lying. At three-and-thirty he had wrecked the career of a fashionable
+soprano by inspiring her with the belief that she might become a great
+singer, a great artist; at five-and-thirty Bayreuth and its world of
+musical culture and ideas had interested him in spite of his
+unconquerable aversion to long hair and dirty hands. After some
+association with geniuses he withdrew from the art-world, confessing
+himself unable to bear the society of those who did not dress for
+dinner; but while repudiating, he continued to spy the art-world from a
+distance. An audience is, however, necessary to a 'cello player, and the
+Turf Club and the Royal Yacht Club contained not a dozen members, he
+said, who would recognise the Heroica Symphony if they happened to hear
+it, which was not likely. Lately he had declared openly that he was
+afraid of entering any of his clubs, lest he should be asked once more
+what he thought of the Spring Handicaps, and if he intended sailing the
+_Medusa_ in the Solent this season. Nevertheless, his journey to
+Bayreuth could not but produce an effect. He had purchased the
+_Wagnerian Review_; it had led him to Mr. Innes's concerts, and he was
+already interested in the prospect of reviving the early music and its
+instruments. That this new movement should be begun in Dulwich, a suburb
+he would never have heard of if it had not been for its picture gallery,
+stimulated his curiosity.
+
+It is the variation, not the ordinary specimen, that is most typical,
+for the variation contains the rule in essence, and the deviation
+elucidates the rule. So in his revolt against the habitual pleasures and
+ideas of his class, Sir Owen became more explanatory of that class than
+if he had acquiesced in the usual ignorance of L20,000 a year. To the
+ordinary eye he was merely the conventional standard of the English
+upper classes, but more intimate observation revealed the slight glaze
+of Bohemianism which natural inclination and many adventures in that
+land had left upon him. He listened without parade, his grey eyes
+following the music--they, not the head, seeming to nod to it; and when
+Mr. Innes approached to ask him his opinion, he sprang to his feet to
+tell him.
+
+One of the pieces they had heard was a pavane for five viols and a
+harpsichord, composed by Ferrabosco, son of the Italian musician who had
+settled in Greenwich at the end of the sixteenth century. Sir Owen was
+extraordinarily pleased and interested, and declared the pavane to be as
+complete as a sonata by Bach or Beethoven; but his appreciation was
+suddenly interrupted by someone looking at him.
+
+At a little distance, Evelyn stood looking at him. The moment she had
+seen him she had stopped, and her eyes were delighted as by a vision.
+Though he represented to her the completely unknown, she seemed to have
+known him always in her heart; she seemed to have been waiting for
+knowledge of this unknown, and the rumour of the future grew loud in her
+ears.
+
+He raised his eyes and saw a tall, fair girl dressed in pale green. Mr.
+Innes introduced them.
+
+"My daughter--Sir Owen Asher."
+
+In the little while which he took to decide whether he would take tea or
+coffee, he thought that something could be said for her figure, and he
+liked her hair, but, on the whole, he did not think he cared for her.
+She seemed to him an unimportant variety of what he had met before. He
+said he would take tea, and then he changed his mind and said he would
+have coffee, but Evelyn came back with a cup of tea, and perceiving her
+mistake, she laughed abstractedly.
+
+"You are going to sing two songs, Miss Innes. I'm glad; I hear your
+voice is wonderful."
+
+The sound of his voice conveyed a penetrating sense of his presence. It
+was the same happiness which the very sight of him had awakened in her,
+and she felt herself yielding to it as to a current. She was borne far
+away into mists of dream, where she seemed to live a long while. Time
+seemed to have ceased and the outside world to have fallen behind her.
+The sensation was the most delicious she had ever experienced. She
+hardly heard the answers that she made to his questions, and when her
+father called her, it was like returning after a long absence.
+
+She sang much more beautifully than he had expected, and during the
+preludes and fugues and the sonatas by Bach, which finished the
+programme, he thought of her voice, occasionally questioning himself
+regarding his taste for her. Even in this short while he had come to
+like her better. She had beautiful teeth and hair, and he liked her
+figure, notwithstanding the fact that her shoulders sloped a
+little--perhaps because they did slope a little. He noticed, whether her
+eyes wandered or remained fixed, that they returned to him, and that
+their glance was one of interrogation, as if all depended upon him. When
+the concert was over he was anxious to speak to her, so that he grew
+impatient with the people who stopped his way. The back room was filled
+with musical instruments--there were two harpsichords, a clavichord and
+an organ, and Mr. Innes insisted on explaining these instruments to him.
+He seemed to Owen to pay too slight a heed to his daughter's voice. That
+she played the viola da gamba very well was true enough, but what sense
+was there in a girl like that playing an instrument? Her voice was her
+instrument.
+
+When he was able to get a few words with her, he told her about Madame
+Savelli. There was no one else, he said, who could teach singing. She
+must go to France at once, and he seemed to take it for granted that she
+might start at the end of the week, if she only made up her mind. She
+did not know what answer to make, and was painfully conscious how silly
+she must look standing before him unable to say a word. It was no longer
+the same; some of the dream had been swept aside, and reality had begun
+to look through it. Her intense consciousness of this tall, aristocratic
+man frightened her. She saw the embroidered waistcoat, the slight hips,
+the gold moustache, and the sparkling grey eyes asked her questions to
+which her whole nature violently responded, and, though her feelings
+were inexplicable to herself, she was overcome with physical shame.
+Father Railston was looking at her, and the thought crossed her mind
+that he would not approve of Sir Owen Asher. Feeling very uncomfortable,
+she seized an opportunity of saying good-bye to a friend, and escaped
+from Sir Owen, leaving him, as she knew, under the impression that she
+was a little fool not worth taking further trouble about. But his ideas
+were different from all that she had been taught, and it would be better
+if she never saw him again. She did not doubt, however, that she would
+see him again, and when, two days after, the servant announced him and
+he walked into the music room, she was less surprised than her father.
+
+The review, he said, could not go to press without an article on the
+concert, but to do this article he must consult Mr. Innes, for in the
+first piece, "La my," the viols had seemed to him out of tune. Of course
+this was not so--perhaps one of the players had played a wrong note;
+that might be the explanation. But on referring to the music, Mr. Innes
+discovered a better one. "From the twelfth to the fifteenth century,
+writers," he said, "did not consider their music as moderns do. Now we
+watch the effect of a chord, a combination of notes heard at the same
+moment, the top note of which is the tune, but the older writers used
+their skill in divining musical phrases which could be followed
+simultaneously, each one going logically its own way, irrespective of
+some temporary clashing. They considered their music horizontally, as
+the parts went on; we consider it vertically, each chord producing its
+impression in turn. To them all the parts were of equal importance.
+Their music was a purely decorative interweaving of melodies. Now we
+have a tune with accompanying parts."
+
+"What a wonderful knowledge of music your father has, Miss Innes!"
+
+"Yes, father reads old MSS. that no one else can decipher."
+
+"These discords happened," Mr. Innes said, as he went to the
+harpsichord, "when a composition was based upon some old plain song
+melody, the notes of which could not be altered. Then the musician did
+not scruple to write in one of the other parts the same note altered by
+a sharp or flat to suit the passing requirement of the musical phrase
+allotted to that part. You could thus have together, say an F natural in
+one part and an F sharp in another. This to modern ears, not trained to
+understanding the meaning of the two parts, is intolerable."
+
+While he spoke of the relative fineness of the ancient and modern ear,
+maintaining that the reason ancient singers could sing without an
+accompaniment was that they were trained to sing from the monochord,
+Owen considered the figure of this tall, fair girl, and wondered if she
+would elect to remain with her father, playing the viola da gamba in
+Dulwich, or bolt with a manager--that was what generally happened. Her
+father was a most interesting old man, a genius in his way, but just
+such an one as might prove his daughter's ruin. He would keep her
+singing the old music, perhaps marry her to a clerk, and she would be a
+fat, prosaic mother of three in five years.
+
+However this might be, he, Owen, was interested in her voice, and, if he
+had never met Georgina, he might have liked this girl. It would be
+better that he should take her away than that she should go away with a
+manager who would rob and beat her. But, if he were to take her away, he
+would be tied to her; it would be like marrying her. Far better stick to
+married women, and he remembered his epigram of last night. It was at
+Lady. Ascott's dinner-party, the conversation had turned on marriage,
+and its necessity had been questioned. "But, of course, marriage is
+necessary," he had answered. "You can't have husbands without marriage,
+and if there were no husbands, who would look after our mistresses?" A
+lot of hypocrites had chosen to look shocked; Georgina had said it was a
+horrid remark and had hardly spoken to him all the evening; and this
+afternoon she had said she should not come and see him any more--she was
+afraid her husband suspected, her children were growing up, etc. When
+women cease to care for one, how importunate their consciences are! A
+little terror took him, and he wondered if he were about to lose
+Georgina, or if she were only trying to make him jealous. Perhaps he
+could not do better than make her jealous. For that purpose this young
+girl was just the thing.
+
+Moreover, he was interested in the revival of Palestrina at St.
+Joseph's, and he liked Ferrabosco's pavane. He would like to have a
+harpsichord; even if he did not play on it much, it would be a
+beautiful, characteristic piece of furniture.... And it would be a good
+idea to ask Mr. Innes to bring all his queer instruments to Berkeley
+Square, and give a concert to-morrow night after his dinner-party. His
+friends had bored him with Hungarian bands, and the improvisations the
+bands had been improvising for the last ten years, and he saw no reason
+why he should not bore them, just for a change, with Mr. Innes.
+
+At this moment his reflections were interrupted by Mr. Innes, who wanted
+to know if he did not agree with him regarding the necessity for the
+re-introduction of the monochord, if the sixteenth century masses were
+ever to be sung again properly. All this was old story to Evelyn. In a
+sort of dream, through a sort of mist, she saw the embroidered waistcoat
+and the gold moustache, and when the small, grey, smiling eyes were
+raised from her father's face and looked at her, a delicious sensation
+penetrated through the very tissues of her flesh, and she experienced
+the tremor of a decisive moment; and then there came again a gentle
+sense of delicious bewilderment and illusion.
+
+She did not know how it would all happen, but her life seemed for the
+first time to have come to a definite issue. The very moment he had
+spoken of Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, it was as if a
+light had begun in her brain, and she saw a faint horizon line; she
+seemed to see Paris from afar; she knew she would go there to study, and
+that night she had fallen asleep listening to the applause of three
+thousand hands.
+
+But she did not like to stand before him, offering him first the cup of
+tea, then the milk and sugar, then the cake, and bread and butter. Her
+repugnance had nothing to do with him; it was an obscure feeling, quite
+incomprehensible to herself. When he looked up she answered him with a
+smile which she felt to be mysterious, and he perceived its mystery, for
+he compared it to the hesitating smile of the Monna Lisa, a print of
+which hung on the wall. But the remark increased her foreboding and
+premonition. And she was sorry for her father, who was saying that he
+hoped to send her abroad in the spring; that he would have done so
+before, but she was studying harmony with him. And she could see that
+Owen was bored. He was only staying on in the hope of speaking to her,
+but she knew that her father was not going out, so there was no chance
+of their having a few words together. His invitation to Mr. Innes to
+bring the instruments to London, and give a concert to-morrow night at
+Berkeley Square, he had reserved till the moment he had got up to go.
+Mr. Innes was taken aback. He doubted if there would be time to get the
+instruments to London. But Owen said that all that was necessary was a
+Pickford van, and that if he would say "Yes," the van and a competent
+staff of packers would be at Dulwich in the morning, and would take all
+further trouble off his hands. The question was debated. Mr. Innes
+thought the instruments had better go by train, and Owen could not help
+smiling when he said that he would arrive with the big harpsichord and
+Evelyn about nine or half-past.
+
+She had two evening gowns--a pale green silk and a white. The pale green
+looked very nice; it had cost her three pounds. The white had nearly
+ruined her, but it had seemed to suit her so well that she had not been
+able to resist, and had paid five pounds ten, a great deal for her to
+spend on a dress. Its great fault was that it soiled at the least touch.
+She had worn it three times, and could not wear it again till it had
+been cleaned. It was a pity, but there was no help for it. She would
+have to wear the green, and to console herself she thought of the
+compliments she had had for it at different parties. But these seemed
+insignificant when she thought of the party she was going to to-night.
+
+She had never been to Berkeley Square, and expected to be surprised. But
+it lay in a hollow, a dignified, secluded square, exactly as she had
+imagined it. Nor did the great doorway, and the carpet that stretched
+across the pavement for her to walk upon, surprise her, nor the lines of
+footmen, nor the natural grace of the wide staircase. She seemed to have
+seen it all before, only she could not remember where. It came back to
+her like a dream. She seemed to recognise the pictures of the goddesses,
+the Holy Families and the gold mirrors; and lifting her eyes, she saw
+Owen at the head of the stairs, and he smiled so familiarly, that it
+seemed strange to think that this was only the third time she had seen
+him.
+
+He introduced her father to a fashionable musician, whose pavanes and
+sonatas were composed with that lack of matter and excess of erudition
+which delight the amateur and irritate the artist, and he walked down
+the rooms looking for seats where they could talk undisturbed for a few
+minutes. He was nervous lest Georgina should find him sitting with this
+girl in an intimate corner, but he did not expect her for another
+half-hour, and could not resist the temptation. He was curious to know
+how far Evelyn acquiesced in the obscure lot which her father imposed
+upon her, to play the viola da gamba, and sing old music, instead of
+singing for her own fame upon the stage. But had she a great voice? If
+she had, he would like to help her. The discovery of a new prima donna
+would be a fine feather in his cap. Above all, he was also curious to
+find out if she were the innocent maiden she appeared to be, or if she
+had had flirtations with the clerks in the neighbourhood, and he found
+his opportunity to speak to her on this subject in the first line of a
+French song she was going to sing:--
+
+"Que vous me coutez cher, mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs."
+
+His appreciation of her changed every moment. Truly her eyes lit up with
+a beautiful light, and her remarks about the length of our payment for
+our pleasures revealed an apprehension which he had not credited her
+with. But he was alarmed at the quickness with which they had strayed to
+the very verge of things: From the other room they would seem very
+intimate, sitting on a sofa together, and he was expecting Georgina
+every minute. If she were to see them, it would lead to further
+discussion, and supply her with an excuse. But his curiosity was
+kindled, and while he considered how he could lead Evelyn into
+confidences, he saw her arm trembling through the gauze sleeve, for it
+seemed to her that all that was happening now had happened before. The
+walls covered with red pleated silk, the bracket-clocks, the
+brocade-covered chairs: where had she seen them? And Owen's grey eyes
+fixed upon her: where had she seen them? In a dream perhaps. She asked
+him if he had ever experienced the sensation of having already lived
+through a scene that was happening at the very moment. He did not seem
+to hear; he seemed expecting someone; and then the vision returned to
+her again, and she could not but think that she had known Sir Owen long
+ago, but how and where she could not tell. At that moment she noticed
+his absent-mindedness, and it was suddenly flashed upon her that he was
+in love with some woman and was waiting for her, and almost at the same
+moment she saw a tall, red-haired woman cross the further room. The
+woman paused in the doorway, as if looking for someone. She nodded to
+Owen and engaged in conversation with a group of men standing by the
+fireplace. Something told Evelyn that that smooth, cream-coloured neck
+was the woman Owen was in love with, and the sudden formality of his
+manner convinced her that she was right, that that was the woman he was
+in love with. He said that he must go and see after his other guests,
+and, as she expected, he went straight to the woman with the red hair.
+But she did not leave her friends. After shaking hands with Owen, she
+continued talking to them, and he was left out of the conversation.
+
+The concert began with a sonata for the harpsichord and the viola da
+gamba, and then Evelyn sang her two songs. She sang for Owen, and it
+seemed to her that she was telling him that she was sorry that it had
+all happened as it had happened, and that he must go away and be happy
+with the woman he loved. She did not think that she sang particularly
+well, but Owen came and told her that she had sung charmingly, and in
+their eyes were strange questions and excuses, and an avowal of regret
+that things were not different. Slim women in delicious gowns glided up
+and praised her, but she did not think that they had been as much
+impressed by her singing as they said; distinguished men were introduced
+to her, and she felt she had nothing to say to them; and looking round
+the circle of men and women she saw Owen in the doorway, and noticed
+that his eyes were restless and constantly wandered in the direction of
+the tall woman with the red hair, who sat calmly talking to her friends,
+never noticing him. He seemed waiting for a look that never came; his
+glances were furtive and quickly withdrawn, as if he feared he was being
+watched. When she got up to leave, Owen came forward and spoke to her,
+but she barely replied, and left the room alone. Evelyn saw all this,
+and she was surprised when Owen came rapidly through the room and sat
+down by her. He was painfully absent-minded, and so nervous that he did
+not seem to know what he was saying: indeed, that was the only excuse
+she could make for his remarks. She hardly recognised this man as the
+man she had hitherto known. She hated all his sentiments and his ideas;
+she thought them horrid, and was glad when her father came to tell her
+it was time for her to go.
+
+"You didn't sing well," he said, as they went home. "What was the matter
+with you?"
+
+Owen and the red-haired lady seemed to fall behind this last misfortune.
+If she had lost her voice she was no longer herself, and as she went to
+her teaching she saw herself a music mistress to the end of her days.
+
+But on Sunday morning she came down stairs singing, and Mr. Innes heard
+a future prima donna in her voice. Her face lit up, and she said, "Do
+you think so, dear. It was unlucky I sang so badly the other night. I
+seemed to have no voice at all."
+
+He told her that there were times when her mother suddenly lost her
+voice.
+
+"But, father, you are not fit to go out, and can't go out in that
+state."
+
+"What is the matter?" and his hand went to his shirt collar.
+
+"No, your necktie is all right. Ah! there you've untied it; I'll tie it
+for you. It's your coat that wants brushing."
+
+The black frock coat which he wore on Sundays was too small for him. If
+he buttoned it, it wrinkled round the waist and across the chest; if he
+left it open, its meagre width and the shortness of the skirts (they
+were the fashion of more than ten years ago) made it seem ridiculous.
+At the elbows the cloth was shiny with long wear, and the cuffs were
+frayed. His hat was as antiquated as his coat. It was a mere pulp,
+greasy inside and brown outside; the brim was too small, it was too low
+in the crown, and after the severest brushing it remained rough like a
+blanket. Evelyn handed it back to him in despair. He thanked his
+daughter, put it on his head, and forgot its appearance. But in spite of
+shabby coat and shabbier hat, Mr. Innes remained free from suspicion of
+vulgarity--the sad dignity of his grey face and the dreams that haunted
+his eyes saved him from that.
+
+"And whose mass are you going to play to-day?" she asked him.
+
+"A mass by Hummel, in B; on Thursday, a mass by Dr. Gladstone; and next
+Sunday, Mozart's Twelfth, beloved of Father Gordon and village choirs. I
+wonder if he will allow the Reproaches to be sung in Holy Week? He will
+insist on the expense of the double choir."
+
+"But, father, do you think that the congregation of St. Joseph's is one
+that would care for the refinement of Palestrina? Would you not require
+a cultivated West-end audience--the Oratory or Farm Street?"
+
+"That is Sir Owen's opinion."
+
+"I never heard him say so."
+
+How had she come to repeat anything she had heard him say? Moreover, why
+had she said that she had not heard him say so? And Evelyn argued with
+herself until the train reached their station--it was one of those
+absurd little mental complications, the infinitesimal life that
+flourishes deep in the soul.
+
+A little way down a side street, a few yards from the main thoroughfare,
+where the roads branched, the great gaunt facade of St. Joseph's pointed
+against a yellow sky. Its foundations had been laid and its walls built
+by a priest, who had collected large sums of money in America, and whose
+desire had been to have the largest church that could be built for the
+least money, in the shortest possible time. The result was the great,
+sprawling, grey stone building with a desolate spire, now fading into
+the darkness of the snow-storm. Money had run short. The church had not
+been completed when its founder died; then another energetic priest had
+raised another subscription. Doors and stained glass had been added,
+and, for a while, St. Joseph's had become a flourishing parish church,
+supported by various suburbs, and projects for the completion of its
+interior decoration had begun to be entertained; but while these
+projects were under consideration, the suburbs had acquired churches of
+their own, and the congregation of St. Joseph's had dwindled until it
+had lost all means of support, except the meagre assistance it received
+from the poor Irish and Italians of the neighbourhood. There had been
+talk of closing the church, and it would have had to be closed if the
+Jesuits had not accepted the mission. Another subscription had been
+started, but the greater part of this third subscription the Jesuits had
+spent upon their schools, so the fate of St. Joseph's seemed to be to
+remain, as someone had said, an unfinished ruin. Their resources were
+exhausted, and they surveyed the barren aisles, dreaming of the painting
+and mosaics they would put up when the promises of Father Gordon were
+realised. For it was understood that their fortunes should be retrieved
+by his musical abilities, and his competence to select the most
+attractive masses. Father Gordon was a type often found among amateur
+musicians--a man with a slight technical knowledge, a good ear, a nice
+voice, and absolutely no taste whatever. His natural ear was for obvious
+rhythm, his taste coincided with the popular taste, and as the necessity
+of attracting a congregation was paramount, it is easy to imagine how
+easily he conceded to his natural inclinations. And the arguments with
+which he rebutted those of his opponents were unanswerable, that
+whatever moved the heart to the love of God was right; that if the plain
+chant failed to help the soul to aspiration, we were justified in
+substituting Rossini's _Stabat Mater_, or whatever other musical idiom
+the neighbourhood craved for.
+
+Religious rite, according to Father Gordon, should conform to the
+artistic taste of the congregation, and he urged, with some force, that
+the artistic taste of Southwark stood on quite as high a level as that
+of Mayfair. To get a Mayfair audience they had only to follow the taste
+of Southwark. And so, under his guidance, the Jesuits had increased
+their orchestra and employed the best tenors that could be hired.
+Nevertheless, their progress was slow. Father Gordon pleaded patience.
+The neighbourhood was unfashionable; it was difficult to persuade their
+friends to come so far. Mr. Innes answered that if they gave him a choir
+of forty-five voices--he could do nothing with less--the West-end would
+come at once to hear Palestrina. The distance, and the fact of the
+church being in a slum, he maintained, would not be in itself a
+drawback. Half the success of Bayreuth, he urged, is owing to its being
+so far off. And this plan, too, seemed to possess some elements of
+success, and so the Jesuits hesitated between very divergent methods by
+which the same result might be attained.
+
+A few flakes of snow were falling, and Evelyn and her father put up
+their umbrellas as they crossed the road to the church. Three steps led
+to the pointed door above which was the figure of the patron saint.
+
+The nakedness of the unfinished and undecorated church was hidden in the
+twilight of the approaching storm, and Evelyn trembled as she walked up
+the aisle, so menacing seemed the darkness that descended from the sky.
+The stained glass, blackened by the smoke of the factory chimneys, let
+in but little light, the aisles were plunged in darkness, and kneeling
+in her favourite place the ineffectual gaslight seemed to her like
+painted flames on a dark background. The side chapels which opened on to
+the aisles were shut off by no ornamental screens, indeed, the only
+piece of decoration seemed to be the fine modern ironwork which veiled
+the sanctuary.
+
+She opened her prayer book, but in the shadow of the pillar where she
+was kneeling there was not sufficient light for her to read, so she bent
+her face upon her hands, intent upon losing herself in prayer. She
+abased herself before her Father in Heaven; attaining once more the
+wonderful human moment when the creature who crouches on this rim of
+earth implores pardon for her trespass from the beneficent Creator of
+things. But to-day her devotional mood was interrupted by sudden thought
+and sensation of Owen's presence; she was forced to look up, and
+convinced that he was very near her, she sought him amid the crowd of
+people who sat and knelt in front of her, blackening the dusk, a vague
+darkness in which she could at first distinguish nothing but an
+occasional white plume and a bald head. But her eyes grew accustomed to
+the darkness, and above the uninteresting backs of middle-aged men she
+recognised his thin sharp shoulders. She had been compelled to look up
+from her prayers, and she wondered if he had been thinking of her. If
+so, it was very wrong of him to interrupt her at her prayers. But a
+sensation of pleasure arose spontaneously in her. At that moment he had
+to remove his hat from the chair on which he had placed it, and she
+noticed the gold stud links in his large shirt cuffs, the rough material
+of which the coat was made, and how well it lay along the thin arm. She
+imagined the look of vexation on the grave interesting face, and laughed
+a little to herself. What was the poor woman to do? She had a right to
+her chair. But she did look so frightened, and was visibly perturbed by
+the presence of so fine a gentleman. Evelyn knew the woman by sight--a
+curious thin and crooked creature, who wore a strange bonnet and a
+little black mantle, and walked up the church, her hands crossed like a
+doll....
+
+No doubt he had driven all the way from Berkeley Square. She could see
+him leaning back in his brougham, humming various music, or plaintively
+thinking about the lady with the red hair, who did not care for him. Her
+breath caught her in the throat. That was the reason why he had come to
+St. Joseph's. It was all over with the red-haired lady, and it was for
+her that he had come to St. Joseph's! But that could not be.... She saw
+him moving in rich and elegant society, where everyone had a title, and
+the narrowness of her life compared with his dismayed her. It was
+impossible that he could care for her. She was remaining in Dulwich,
+with nothing but a few music lessons to look forward to.... But when she
+reached the operatic stage her life would be like his, and the vision
+of her future passed before her eyes--diamonds in stars, baskets of
+wonderful flowers, applause, and the perfume of a love story, swinging
+like a censer over it all.
+
+At that moment the priests entered; mass began. She opened her prayer
+book, but, however firmly she fixed her thoughts in prayer, they sprang
+back, without her knowing it, to Owen and the red-haired woman, with the
+smooth, cream-coloured shoulders. Without being aware of it, she was
+looking at him, and it was such a delight to think of him that she could
+not refrain. His chair was the last on the third line from the altar
+rail, and she noticed that he wore patent leather shoes; the hitching of
+the dark grey trousers displayed a silk sock; but he suddenly uncrossed
+his legs, and assumed a less negligent attitude. In a sudden little
+melancholy she remembered how he had watched the woman with the red
+hair, and the determined indifference of this woman's face as she left
+the room. Immediately after she was amused at the way in which his face
+expressed his opinion of the music, and she had to admit to herself that
+he listened as if he understood it.
+
+It was not until her father began to play the offertory, one of
+Schubert's beautiful inspirations, that she noticed the look of real
+delight that held the florid profile till the last note, and for some
+seconds after. "He certainly does love music," she thought; and when the
+bell rang for the Elevation, she bowed her head and became aware of the
+Real Presence. When it rang a second time she felt life stifle in her.
+When it rang a third time she again became conscious of time and place.
+But the sensation of awe which the accomplishment of the mystery had
+inspired was dissipated in the tumult of a very hideous Agnus Dei, in
+the voice of a certain concert singer, who seemed determined to shout
+down the organ. Evelyn had some difficulty in keeping her countenance,
+so plain was the expression of amazement upon the profile in front of
+her.
+
+Then the book was carried from the right to the left side of the altar,
+and when the priest had read the Gospel, she began once more to ask
+herself the reason that had brought Sir Owen to St. Joseph's. The manner
+in which he genuflected before the altar told her that he was a
+Catholic; perhaps he had come to St. Joseph's merely to hear mass.
+
+"I have come to see your father."
+
+"You will find him in the organ loft.... But he'll be down presently."
+
+And at the end of the church, in a corner out of the way of the crowd,
+they waited for Mr. Innes, and she learnt almost at once, from his face
+and the remarks that he addressed to her, that it was not for her that
+he had come to St. Joseph's. His carriage was waiting, he told the
+coachman to follow; all three tramped through the snow together to the
+station. In this miserable walk she learnt that he had decided to go for
+a trip round the world in his yacht, and expected to be away for nearly
+a year. As he bade them good-bye he looked at her, and his eyes seemed
+to say he was sorry that it was so, that he wished it were otherwise.
+She felt that if she had been able to ask him to stay he would have
+stayed; but, of course, that was impossible, and the last she saw of him
+was as he turned, just before getting into his brougham, to tell her
+father that the best critic of the _Review_ should attend the concerts,
+and that he hoped that what he would write would bring some people of
+taste to hear them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+
+The name was no indication. None remembered that Dowlands was the name
+of Henry the Eight's favourite lute player, and there was nothing in the
+snug masonry to suggest an aestheticism of any kind. The dulcimers, lutes
+and virginals surprised the visitor coming in from the street, and he
+stayed his steps as he might on the threshold of a fairy land.
+
+The villas, of which Dowlands was one, were a builder's experiment. They
+had been built in the hopes of attracting wealthy business West-end
+shopkeepers; but Dulwich had failed to become a fashionable suburb. Many
+had remained empty, and when Mr. Innes had entered into negotiations
+with the house agents, they declared themselves willing to entertain all
+his proposals, and finally he had acquired a lease at a greatly reduced
+rental.
+
+In accordance with his and Mrs. Innes's wishes, the house had been
+considerably altered. Partition walls had been taken away, and
+practically the whole ground floor converted into class-rooms, leaving
+free only one little room at the back where they had their meals. During
+his wife's lifetime the house suited their requirements. The train
+service from Victoria was frequent, and on the back of their notepaper
+was printed a little map, whereby pupils coming and going from the
+station could find their way. On the second floor was Mr. Innes's
+workshop, where he restored the old instruments or made new ones after
+the old models. There was Evelyn's bedroom--her mother had re-furnished
+it before she died--and she often sat there; it was, in truth, the most
+habitable room in the house. There was Evelyn's old nursery, now an
+unoccupied room; and there were two other empty rooms. She had tried to
+convert one into a little oratory. She had placed there a statue of the
+Virgin, and hung a crucifix on the wall, and bought a _prie-Dieu_ and
+put it there. But the room was too lonely, and she found she could say
+her prayers more fervently by her bedside. Their one servant slept
+downstairs in a room behind the kitchen. So the house often had the
+appearance of a deserted house; and Evelyn, when she returned from
+London, where she went almost daily to give music lessons, often paused
+on the threshold, afraid to enter till her ear detected some slight
+sound of her servant at work. Then she cried, "Is that you, Margaret?"
+and she advanced cautiously, till Margaret answered, "Yes, miss."
+
+The last summer and autumn had been the pleasantest in her life since
+her mother's death. Her pupils interested her--she had some six or
+seven. Her flow of bright talk, her eager manner, her beautiful playing
+of the viola da gamba, her singing of certain old songs, her mother's
+fame, and the hopes she entertained of one day achieving success on the
+stage made her a heroine among her little circle of friends. Her father
+was a remarkable man, but he seemed to her the most wonderful of men. It
+was exciting to go to London with him, to bid him good-bye at
+Victoria--she to her lessons, he to his--to meet him in the evenings,
+and in conjunction to arrange the programme of their next concert. These
+interests and ambitions had sufficed to fill her life, and to keep the
+greater ambition out of sight; and since her mother's death she had
+lived happily with her father, helping him in his work. But lately
+things had changed. Some of her pupils had gone abroad, others had
+married, and interest in the concerts declined. For a little while the
+old music had seemed as if it were going to attract sufficient
+attention, but already their friends had heard enough, and Mr. Innes had
+been compelled to postpone the next, which had been announced for the
+beginning of February. There would be no concert now till March, perhaps
+not even then; so there was nothing for her to look forward to, and the
+wet windy weather which swept the suburb contributed to her
+disheartenment. The only event of the day seemed to be her father's
+departure in the morning. Immediately after breakfast he tied up his
+music in a brown paper parcel and put his violin into its case; he spoke
+of missing his train, and, from the windows of the music-room, she saw
+him hastening down the road. She had asked him if there were any MSS. he
+wished copied in the British Museum; absent-mindedly he had answered
+"No;" and, drumming on the glass with her fingers, she wondered how the
+day would pass. There was nothing to do; there was nothing even to think
+about. She was tired of thinking that a pupil might come back--that a
+new pupil might at any moment knock at the door. She was tired of
+wondering if her father's concerts would ever pay--if the firm of music
+publishers with whom he was now in treaty would come to terms and enable
+him to give a concert in their hall, or if they would break off
+negotiations, as many had done before. And, more than of everything
+else, she was tired of thinking if her father would ever have money to
+send her abroad, or if she would remain in Dulwich always.
+
+One morning, as she was returning from Dulwich, where she had gone to
+pay the weekly bills, she discovered that she was no longer happy. She
+stopped, and, with an empty heart, saw the low-lying fields with poultry
+pens, and the hobbled horse grazing by the broken hedge. The old
+village was her prison, and she longed as a bird longs. She had trundled
+her hoop there; she ought to love it, but she didn't, and, looking on
+its too familiar aspect, her aching heart asked if it would never pass
+from her. It seemed to her that she had not strength nor will to return
+home. A little further on she met the vicar. He bowed, and she wondered
+how he could have thought that she could care for him. Oh, to live in
+that Rectory with him! She pitied the young man who wore brown clothes,
+and whose employment in a bank prevented him from going abroad for his
+health. These people were well enough, but they were not for her. She
+seemed to see beyond London, beyond the seas, whither she could not say,
+and she could not quell the yearning which rose to her lips like a wave,
+and over them.
+
+Formerly, when there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, she used to go
+there and meet her father, but lately, for some reason which she could
+not explain to herself, she had refrained. The thought of this church
+had become distasteful to her, and she returned home indifferent to
+everything, to music and religion alike. Her eyes turned from the pile
+of volumes--part of Bach's interminable works--and all the old
+furniture, and she stood at the window and watched the rain dripping
+into the patch of black garden in front of the house, surrounded by a
+low stone wall. The villas opposite suggested a desolation which found a
+parallel in her heart; the sloppy road and the pale brown sky frightened
+her, so menacing seemed their monotony. She knew all this suburb; it was
+all graven on her mind, and all that ornamental park where she must go,
+if it cleared a little, for her afternoon walk. She must tramp round
+that park once more. She strove to keep out of her mind its symmetrical
+walls, its stone basins, where the swans floated like white china
+ornaments, almost as lifeless. But worse even than these afternoons were
+the hours between six and eight. For very often her father was detained,
+and if he missed the half-past six train he had to come by the half-past
+seven, and in those hours of waiting the dusk grew oppressive and
+fearful in the music-room. Startled by a strange shadow, she crouched in
+her armchair, and when the feeling of dread passed she was weak from
+want of food. Why did her father keep her waiting? Hungry, faint and
+weary of life, she opened a volume of Bach; but there was no pleasure
+for her in the music, and if she opened a volume of songs she had
+neither strength nor will to persevere even through the first, and,
+rising from the instrument, she walked across the room, stretching her
+arms in a feverish despair. She had not eaten for many hours, and out of
+the vacuity of the stomach a dimness rose into her eyes. Pressing her
+eyes with her hand, she leaned against the door.
+
+One evening she walked into the garden. The silence and damp of the
+earth revived her, and the sensation of the cold stone, against which
+she was leaning, was agreeable. Little stars speckled a mauve and misty
+sky, and out of the mysterious spring twilight there came a strange and
+ultimate yearning, a craving which nothing she had ever known could
+assuage. But those stars--could they tell her nothing? One, large almost
+as the moon itself, flamed up in the sky, and a voice within her
+whispered that that was her star, that it held the secret of her
+destiny. She gazed till her father called to her from the gate; and all
+that evening she could think of nothing else. The conviction flowed
+within her that the secret of her destiny was there; and as she lay in
+bed the star seemed to take a visible shape.
+
+A face rose out of the gulf beneath her. She could not distinguish
+whether it was the face of man or woman; it was an idea rather than a
+face. The ears were turned to her for her to take the earrings, the
+throat was deeply curved, the lips were large and rose-red, the eyes
+were nearly closed, and the hair was curled close over a straight, low
+forehead. The face rose up to hers. She looked into the subtle eyes, and
+the thrill of the lips, just touching hers, awakened a sense of sin, and
+her eyes when they opened were frightened and weary. And as she sat up
+in her bed, trembling, striving vainly to separate the real from the
+unreal, she saw the star still shining. She hid her face in the pillow,
+and was only calmed by the thought that it was watching her.
+
+She went into the garden every evening to see it rise, and a desire of
+worship grew up in her heart; and thinking of the daffodils, it occurred
+to her to lay these flowers on the wall as an offering. Even wilder
+thoughts passed through her brain; she could not keep them back, and
+more than once asked herself if she were giving way to an idolatrous
+intention. If so, she would have to tell the foolish story to her
+confessor. But she could hardly bring herself to tell him such
+nonsense.... If she didn't, the omission might make her confession a
+false one; and she was so much perplexed that it seemed to her as if the
+devil took the opportunity to insinuate that she might put off going to
+confession. This decided her. She resolved to combat the Evil One.
+To-day was Thursday. She would confess on Saturday, and go to Communion
+on Sunday.
+
+Till quite lately her confessor had been Father Knight--a tall, spare,
+thin-lipped, aristocratic ecclesiastic, in whom Evelyn had expected to
+find a romantic personality. She had looked forward to thrilling
+confessions, but had been disappointed. The romance his appearance
+suggested was not borne out; he seemed unable to take that special
+interest in her which she desired; her confessions were barren of
+spiritual adventure, and after some hesitations her choice dropped upon
+Father Railston. In this selection the law of contrast played an
+important part. The men were very opposites. One walked erect and tall,
+with measured gait; the other walked according to the impulse of the
+moment, wearing his biretta either on one side of the head or the
+other. One was reserved; the other voluble in speech. One was of
+handsome and regular features; the other's face was plain but
+expressive. Evelyn had grown interested in Father Railston's dark,
+melancholy eyes; and his voice was a human voice vibrant with the terror
+and suffering of life. In listening to her sins he seemed to remember
+his own. She had accused herself of impatience at the circumstances
+which kept her at home, of even nourishing, she would not say projects,
+but thoughts, of escape.
+
+"Then, my child, are you so anxious to change your present life for that
+of the stage?"
+
+"Yes, Father."
+
+"You weary of the simplicity of your present life, and sigh for the
+brilliancy of the stage?"
+
+"I'm afraid I do." It was thrilling to admit so much, especially as the
+life of an actress was not in itself sinful. "I feel that I should die
+very soon if I were to hear I should never leave Dulwich."
+
+The priest did not speak for a long while, and raising her eyes she
+watched his expression. It seemed to her that her confession of her
+desire of the world had recalled memories, and she wondered what were
+they.
+
+"I am more than forty--I'm nearly fifty--and my life has passed like a
+dream."
+
+He seemed about to tell her the secret of life, and had stopped. But the
+phrase lingered through her whole life, and eventually became part of
+it. "My life has passed like a dream." She did not remember what he had
+said after, and she had gone away wondering if life seemed to everyone
+like a dream when they were forty, and if his life would have seemed
+more real to him if he had given it to the world instead of to God? Her
+subsequent confessions seemed trite and commonplace. Not that Father
+Railston failed to listen with kind interest to her; not that he failed
+to divine that she was passing through a physical and spiritual crisis.
+His admonitions were comforting in her weariness of mind and body; but
+notwithstanding her affection for him, she felt that beyond that one
+phrase he had no influence over her. She almost felt that he was too
+gentle and indulgent, and the thought she would have liked a confessor
+who was severe, who would have inflicted heavier penances, compelled her
+to fast and pray, who would have listened in deeper sternness to the
+sins of thought which she with averted face shamefully owned to having
+entertained. She was disappointed that he did not warn her with the loss
+of her soul, that he did not invent specious expedients for her use,
+whereby the Evil One might be successfully checked.
+
+One Sunday morning the servant told Mr. Innes that Miss Evelyn has left
+a little earlier, as she was going to Communion. She remained in church
+for High Mass, and when chided for such long abstinence, she smiled
+sadly and said that she did not think that it would do her much harm.
+During the following week he noticed that she hardly touched breakfast,
+and the only reason she gave was that she thought she would like to
+fast. No, she had not obtained leave from her confessor; she had not
+even consulted him. She, of course, knew that she was not obliged to
+fast, not being of age; but she was not doing any work; she had no
+pupils; the concert had been postponed; she thought she would like to
+fast. Father and daughter looked at each other; they felt that they did
+not understand, that there was nothing to be done, and Mr. Innes put his
+fiddle into its case and went to London, deeply concerned about his
+daughter, and utterly unable to arrive at any conclusion.
+
+She fasted, and she broke through her fast, and as Lent drew to a close
+she asked her father if she might make a week's retreat in a convent at
+Wimbledon where she had some friends. There was no need for her at home;
+it would be at least change of air and she pressed him to allow her to
+go. He feared the influence the convent might have upon her, and
+admitted that his selfishness was largely accountable for this religious
+reaction. No doubt she wanted change, she was looking very poorly. He
+spoke of the sea, but who was to take her to Brighton or Margate? The
+convent seemed the only solution of the difficulty, and he had to
+consent to her departure.
+
+The retreat was to last four days, but Evelyn begged that she might stay
+on till Easter Tuesday. This would give her a clear week away from home,
+and the improvement that this little change wrought in her was
+surprising. The convent had made her cheeks fair as roses, and given her
+back all her sunny happiness and abundant conversation. She delighted in
+telling her father of her week's experience. For four days she had not
+spoken (perhaps that was the reason she was talking so much now), and
+during these four days they were nearly always in chapel; but somehow it
+hadn't seemed long, the services were so beautiful. The nuns wore grey
+serge robes and head-dresses, the novices white head-dresses; what had
+struck her most was the expression of happy content on their faces.
+
+"I wish, father, you had seen them come into church--their long robes
+and beautiful white faces. I don't think there is anything as beautiful
+as a nun."
+
+The mother prioress was a small woman, with an eager manner. She looked
+so unimportant that Evelyn had wondered why she had been chosen, but the
+moment she spoke you came under the spell of her keen, grey eyes and
+clear voice.... Mother Philippa, the mistress of the novices, was quite
+different--stout and middle-aged, and she wore spectacles. She was
+beautiful notwithstanding; her goodness was like a soft light upon her
+face. ...Evelyn paused. She could not find words to describe her; at
+last she said--
+
+"When she comes into the room, I always feel happy."
+
+She could not say which she liked the better, but branched off into a
+description of the Carmelite who had given the retreat--strong,
+eagle-faced man, with thin hair drawn back from his forehead, and
+intense eyes. He wore sandals, and his white frock was tied with a
+leather belt, and every word he spoke had entered into her heart. He
+gave the meditations, which were held in the darkened library. They
+could not see each other's faces; they could only see the white figure
+at the end of the room.
+
+She had had her meals in the parlour with two other ladies who had come
+to the convent for the retreat. They were both elderly women, and Evelyn
+fancied that they belonged to the grandest society. She could tell that
+by their voices. The one she liked best had quite white hair, and her
+expression was almost that of a nun. She was tall, very stout, and
+walked with a stick. On Easter Sunday this old lady had asked her if she
+would care to come into the garden with her. It was such a beautiful
+morning, she said, that it would do both of them good. The old lady
+walked very slowly with her stick. But though Evelyn thought that she
+must be at least a countess, she did not think she was very rich--she
+had probably lost her money. The black dress she wore was thin and
+almost threadbare, and it was a little too long for her; she held it up
+in her left hand as she walked--a most beautiful hand for an old woman.
+Both these ladies had been very kind to her; she had often walked with
+them in the garden--a fine old garden. There were tall, shady trees;
+these were sprinkled with the first tiny leaves; and the currant and
+raspberry bushes were all out. And there was a fishpond swarming with
+gold fish, and they were so tame that they took bread from the novices'
+hands.
+
+The conversation had begun about the convent, and after speaking of its
+good sisters, the old lady, whose hair was quite white, had asked Evelyn
+about herself. Had she ever thought of being a nun? Evelyn had answered
+that she had not. She had never considered the question whether she had
+a vocation.... She had been brought up to believe that she was going on
+the stage to sing grand opera.
+
+"It is hardly for me to advise you. But I know how dangerous the life of
+an opera singer is. I shall pray God that He may watch over you. Promise
+me always to remember our holy religion. It is the only thing we have
+that is worth having; all the rest passes."
+
+"Father, we were close by the edge of the fishpond, and all the greedy
+fish swarmed to the surface, thinking we had come to feed them. She
+said, 'I cannot walk further without resting; come, my dear, let me sit
+down on that bench, and do you sing me a little song, very low, so that
+no one shall hear you but I.' I sang her "John, come kiss me now," and
+she said, "My dear, you have a beautiful voice, I pray that you make
+good use of it."
+
+But not in one day could all Evelyn's convent experiences be related,
+and it was not until the end of the week that Evelyn told how Mother
+Philippa, at the end of a long talk in which she had spoken to Evelyn
+about the impulses which had led her to embrace a religious life (she
+had been twenty years in this convent), had taken her upstairs to the
+infirmary to see Sister Bonaventure, an American girl, only twenty-one,
+who was dying of consumption. She lay on a couch in grey robes, her
+hands and face waxen white, and a smile of happy resignation on her lips
+and in her eyes.
+
+"But," exclaimed Evelyn, "they told me she would die within the
+fortnight, so she may be dead now; if not to-day, to-morrow or after. I
+hadn't thought of that.... I shall never forget her, every few minutes
+she coughed--that horrible cough! I thought she was going to die before
+my eyes, but in the intervals she chattered and even laughed, and no
+word of complaint escaped her. She was only twenty-one ... had known
+nothing of life; all was unknown to her, except God, and she was going
+to Heaven. She seemed quite happy, yet to me it seemed the saddest sight
+in the world.... She'll be buried in a few days in the sunniest corner
+of the garden, away from the house--that is their graveyard. The mother
+Prioress, the founder of the convent, is buried there; a little
+dedicatory chapel has been built, and on the green turf, tall wooden
+crosses mark the graves of six nuns; next week there'll be one more
+cross."
+
+The conversation paused, and Evelyn sat looking into the corner of the
+room, her large clear eyes wide open and fixed. Presently she said--
+
+"Father," I've often thought I should like to be a nun."
+
+"You a nun! And with that voice!"
+
+She looked at him, smiling a little.
+
+"What matter?"
+
+"What matter! Have you not thought--but I understand; you mean that your
+voice is wasted here, that we shall never have the means to go
+abroad.... But we shall."
+
+"Father, dear, I wasn't thinking of that. I do believe that means will
+be found to send me abroad to study. But what then? Shall I be happy?"
+
+"Fame, fortune, art!"
+
+"Those nuns have none of those things, and they are happy. As that old
+lady said their happiness comes from within."
+
+"And you'll be happy with those things, as happy as they are without
+them. You're in a melancholy mood; come, we'll think of the work before
+us. I've decided that we give our concert the week after next. That will
+give us ten clear days."
+
+He entered into the reasons which had induced him to give this concert.
+But Evelyn had heard all about the firm of musical publishers, who
+possibly might ask him to bring up the old instruments to London, and
+give a concert in a fashionable West-end hall. Seeing that she was not
+listening, he broke off his narrative with the remark that he had
+received a letter that morning from Sir Owen.
+
+"Is he coming home? I thought he was going round the world and would not
+be back for a year."
+
+"He has changed his mind. This letter was posted at Malta--a most
+interesting letter it is;" and while Mr. Innes read Sir Owen's account
+of the discovery of the musical text of an ancient hymn which had been
+unearthed in his presence, Evelyn wondered if he had come home for her
+or--the thought entered her heart with a pang--if he had come home for
+the red-haired woman. Mr. Innes stopped suddenly in his reading, and
+asked her of what she was thinking.
+
+"Nothing, father."
+
+"You don't seem to take any interest. The text is incomplete, and some
+notes have been conjecturally added by a French musician." But much more
+interesting to Evelyn was his account of the storm that had overtaken
+his yacht on the coast of Asia Minor. He had had to take his turn at the
+helm, all the sailors being engaged at the sails, and, with the waves
+breaking over him, he had kept her head to the wind for more than two
+hours.
+
+"I can hardly fancy him braving the elements, can you, Evelyn?"
+
+"I don't know, father," she said, startled by the question, for at that
+moment she had seen him in imagination as clearly as if he were present.
+She had seen him leaning against the door-post, a half-cynical,
+half-kindly smile floating through his gold moustache. "Do you think he
+will like the music you are going to give at the next concert? He is
+coming, I suppose?"
+
+"It is just possible he may arrive in time; but I should hardly think
+so. I've written to invite him; he'll like the music; it is the most
+interesting programme we've had--an unpublished sonata by Bach--one of
+the most interesting, too. If that is not good enough for him--by the
+way, have you looked through that sonata?"
+
+"No, father, but I will do so this afternoon."
+
+And while practising the sonata, Evelyn felt as if life had begun again.
+The third movement of the sonata was an exquisite piece of musical
+colour, and, if she played it properly, he could not fail to come and
+congratulate her.... But he would not be here in time for the concert
+... not unless he came straight through, and he would not do that after
+having nearly escaped shipwreck. She was sure he would not arrive in
+time, but the possibility that he might gave her additional interest in
+the sonata, and every day, all through the week, she discovered more and
+more surprising beauties in it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+
+She was alone in the music-room reading a piece of music, and her back
+was to the door when he entered. She hardly recognised him, tired and
+tossed as he was by long journeying, and his grey travelling suit was
+like a disguise.
+
+"Is that you, Sir Owen?... You've come back?"
+
+"Come back, yes, I have come back. I travelled straight through from
+Marseilles, a pretty stiff journey.... We were nearly shipwrecked off
+Marseilles."
+
+"I thought it was off the coast of Asia Minor?"
+
+"That was another storm. We have had rough weather lately."
+
+The music dropped from her hand, and she stood looking at him, for he
+stood before her like an ancient seafarer. His grey tweed suit buttoned
+tightly about him set off every line of his spare figure. His light
+brown hair was tossed all over his head, and she could not reconcile
+this rough traveller with the elegant fribble whom she had hitherto
+known as Sir Owen. But she liked him in this grey suit, dusty after long
+travel. He was picturesque and remote as a legend. A smile was on his
+lips; it showed through the frizzled moustache, and his eyes sparkled
+with pleasure at sight of her.
+
+"But why did you travel straight through? You might have slept at
+Marseilles or Paris."
+
+"One of these days I will tell you about the gale. I wonder I am not at
+the bottom of that treacherous sea; it did blow my poor old yacht
+about--I thought it was her last cruise; and when we got to the hotel I
+was handed your father's letter. As I did not want to miss the concert,
+I came straight through."
+
+"You must be very fond of music."
+
+"Yes, I am.... Music can be heard anywhere, but your voice can only be
+heard at Dulwich."
+
+"Was it to hear me sing that you came back?"
+
+She had spoken unawares, and felt that the question was a foolish one,
+and was trembling lest he should be inwardly laughing at her. But the
+earnest expression into which his little grey eyes concentrated
+reassured her. She seemed to lose herself a little, to drift into a sort
+of dream in which even he seemed to recede, and so intense and personal
+was her sensation that she could not follow his tale of adventure. It
+was an effort to listen to it at that moment, and she said--
+
+"But you must be tired, you've not had a proper night's sleep ... for a
+week."
+
+"I'm not very tired, I slept in the train, but I'm hungry. I've not had
+anything since ten o'clock this morning. There was no time to get
+anything at Victoria. I was told that the next train for Dulwich started
+in five minutes. I left my valet to take my trunks home; he will bring
+my evening clothes on here for the concert. Can you let me have a room
+to dress in?"
+
+"Of course; but you must have something to eat."
+
+"I thought of going round to the inn and having a chop."
+
+"We had a beefsteak pudding for dinner; I wonder if you could eat
+beefsteak pudding?"
+
+"There's nothing better."
+
+"Warmed up?"
+
+"Yes, warmed up."
+
+"Then I may run and tell Margaret?"
+
+"I shall be much obliged if you will."
+
+She liked to wait upon him, and her pleasure quickened when she handed
+him bread or poured out ale, making it foam in the glass, for
+refreshment after his long journey; and when she sat opposite, her eyes
+fixed on him, and he told her his tale of adventure, her happy flushed
+face reminded him of that exquisite promise, the pink almond blossom
+showing through the wintry wood.
+
+"So you didn't believe me when I said that it was to hear you sing that
+I came back?"
+
+"That you renounced your trip round the world?"
+
+"Yes, I renounced my trip round the world to hear you sing."
+
+She did not answer, and he put the question again.
+
+"I can understand that there might be sufficient reason for your giving
+up your trip round the world. I thought that perhaps--no, I cannot
+say--"
+
+They had been thinking of each other, and had taken up their interest in
+each other at their last thoughts rather than at their last words. She
+was more conscious of the reason of their sudden intimacy than he was,
+but he too felt that they had advanced a long way in their knowledge of
+each other, and their intuition was so much in advance of facts that
+they sat looking at each other embarrassed, their words unable to keep
+pace with their perceptions.
+
+Evelyn suddenly felt as if she were being borne forward, but at that
+moment her father entered.
+
+"Father, Sir Owen was famishing when he arrived. He wanted to go to the
+inn and eat a chop, but I persuaded him to stop and have some beefsteak
+pudding."
+
+"I am so glad ... you've arrived just in time, Sir Owen. The concert is
+to-night."
+
+"He came straight through without stopping; he has not been home. So,
+father, you will never be able to say again that your concerts are not
+appreciated."
+
+"Well, I don't think that you will be disappointed, Sir Owen. This is
+one of the most interesting programmes we have had. You remember
+Ferrabosco's pavane which you liked so much--"
+
+Margaret announced the arrival of Sir Owen's valet, and while Mr. Innes
+begged of Sir Owen not to put himself to the trouble of dressing, Owen
+wondered at his own folly in yielding to a sudden caprice to see the
+girl. However, he did not regret; she was a prettier girl than he had
+thought, and her welcome was the pleasantest thing that had happened to
+him for many a day.
+
+"My poor valet, I am afraid, is quite _hors de combat_. He was
+dreadfully ill while we were beating up against that gale, and the long
+train journey has about finished him. At Victoria he looked more dead
+than alive."
+
+Evelyn went out to see this pale victim of sea sickness and expedition.
+She offered him dinner and then tea, but he said he had had all he could
+eat at the refreshment bars, and struggled upstairs with the portmanteau
+of his too exigent master.
+
+A few of her guests had already arrived, and Evelyn was talking to
+Father Railston when Sir Owen came into the room.
+
+"I shall not want you again to-night," he said, turning towards the door
+to speak to his valet. "Don't sit up for me, and don't call me to-morrow
+before ten."
+
+She had not yet had time to speak to Owen of a dream which she had
+dreamed a few nights before, and in which she was much interested. She
+had seen him borne on the top of a huge wave, clinging to a piece of
+wreckage, alone in the solitary circle of the sea. But Owen, when he
+came downstairs dressed for the concert, looked no longer like a
+seafarer. He wore an embroidered waistcoat, his necktie was tied in a
+butterfly bow, and the three pearl studs, which she remembered, fastened
+the perfectly-fitting shirt. She was a little disappointed, and thought
+that she liked him better in the rough grey suit, with his hair tossed,
+just come out of his travelling cap. Now it was brushed about his ears,
+and it glistened as if from some application of brilliantine or other
+toilet essence. Now he was more prosaic, but he had been extraordinarily
+romantic when he ran in to see her, his grey travelling cap just
+snatched from his head. It was then she should have told him her dream.
+All this was a very faint impression, half humorous, half regretful, it
+passed, almost without her being aware of it, in the background of her
+mind. But she was keenly disappointed that he was not impressed by her
+dream, and was inclined to consider it in the light of a mere
+coincidence. In the first place, he hadn't been shipwrecked, and that
+she should dream of shipwreck was most natural since she knew that he
+had gone a-seafaring, and any gust of wind in the street was enough to
+excite the idea of a castaway in the unclosed cellular tissues of her
+brain. She did not answer, and he stood trying to force an answer from
+her, but she could not, nor did she wish to think that her dream was no
+more than a merely physiological phenomenon. But just at that moment Mr.
+Innes was waiting to speak to Sir Owen.
+
+He had a great deal to say on the subject of the disgraceful neglect of
+the present Royal Family in not publishing the works of their single
+artistic ancestor, Henry VIII. Up to the present time none of his
+numerous writings, except one anthem played in the Chapel at Windsor,
+was known; the pieces that were going to be played that evening lay in
+MS. in the British Museum, and had probably not been heard for two,
+maybe three hundred years. Encouraged by Sir Owen's sympathy, he
+referred again, in his speech to his audience, to the indifference of
+the present Royal Family to art, and he added that it was strange that
+he should be doing at Dowlands what the Queen or the Prince of Wales
+should have done long ago, namely, the publication of their ancestor's
+work with all the prestige that their editorship or their patronage
+could give it.
+
+"I must go," she said; "they are waiting for me."
+
+She took her place among the viol players and began playing; but she had
+forgotten to tune her instrument, and her father stopped the
+performance. She looked at him, a little frightened, and laughed at her
+mistake. The piece they were playing was by Henry VIII., a masterpiece,
+Mr. Innes had declared it to be, so, to stop the performance on account
+of Evelyn's viola da gamba, and then to hear her play worse than he had
+ever heard her play before, was very disappointing.
+
+"What is the matter? Aren't you well? I never heard you play so badly."
+
+He hoped that she would play better in the next piece, and he besought
+her with a look before he signed to the players to begin. She resolved
+not to think of Owen, and she played so well that the next piece was
+applauded. Except for her father's sake she cared very little how she
+played; she tried to play well to please him, but she was anxious to
+sing well--she was singing for herself and for Owen, which was the same
+thing--and she sang beautifully in the King's madrigal and the two songs
+accompanied by the lute--"I loathe what I did love," and "My lytell
+pretty one," both anonymous, composed in 1520, and discovered by Mr.
+Innes in the British Museum. The musical interest of these two songs was
+slight, and Owen reflected that all Mr. Innes's discoveries at the
+British Museum were not of equal importance. But she had sung divinely,
+and he thought how he should praise her at the end of the concert.
+
+Evelyn hoped he would tell her that she had sung better than she had
+sung on the fatal night of the party in Berkeley Square. This was what
+she wished him to say, and she wished it partly because she knew that
+that was what he would say. That party had not yet been spoken of, but
+she felt sure it would be, for it seemed a decisive point in their
+lives.
+
+She was not playing in the next two pieces--fantasies for treble and
+tenor viols--and she sat in the background, catching glimpses of Owen
+between the hands and the heads of the viol players, and over the rims
+of their, instruments. She sat apart, not hearing a note of the music,
+absorbed in herself, a little exaltation afloat in her brain, her flesh
+glowing as in the warmth of an inward fire, her whole instinct telling
+her that Owen had not come back for the red-haired woman; he had gone
+away for her, perhaps, but he had not come back for her--of that she was
+sure In spite of herself, the conviction was forced upon her that the
+future was for her. The red-haired lady was a past which he would tell
+her some day, and that day she knew to be not very far distant.
+
+The programme was divided into two parts, and after the first, there was
+a little interval during which tea and cake were handed round. Evelyn
+helped to hand them round, and when she held the cake tray to Owen, she
+raised her eyes and they looked at each other, and in that interval it
+almost seemed as if they kissed each other.
+
+They met again at the end of the concert, and she waited anxiously for
+him to speak. He told her, as she expected he would, that she had sung
+to-night much better than she had sung at his party. But they were
+surrounded by people seeking their coats and umbrellas; it was
+impossible to speak without being overheard; he had told her that she
+had sung to his satisfaction; that was sufficient, and they felt that
+all had been said, and that they understood each other perfectly.
+
+As she lay in bed, the thought came that he might write to her a letter
+asking her to meet him, to keep an appointment. But she would have to
+refuse, it would be wrong; but it was not wrong to think about it. He
+would be there before her; the moment he saw her coming his eyes would
+light up in a smile, and they would walk on together some little way
+without speaking. Then he would say, "Dearest, there will be a carriage
+waiting at the corner of the road"--and then? She could see his face and
+his tall, thin figure, she could picture it all so distinctly that it
+was almost the same as if it were happening. All he said, as well as all
+she said, kept pouring in upon her brain without a missing word, and she
+hugged herself in the delight of these imaginings, and the hours went by
+without weariness for her. She lay, her arms folded, thinking,
+thinking, seeing him through the darkness.
+
+He came to see them the following day. Her father was there all the
+time, but to hear and see him was almost enough for her. She seemed to
+lose sight of everything and to be engulfed in her own joy. When he had
+gone away she remembered the smile which had lit up some pretty thought
+of her; her ears were full of his voice, and she heard the lilt that
+charmed her whenever she pleased. Then she asked herself the meaning of
+some casual remark, and her mind repeated all he had said like a
+phonograph. She already knew his habitual turns of speech; they had
+begun to appear in her own conversation, and all that was not connected
+with him lost interest for her. Once or twice during the week she went
+to bed early so that she might not fancy her father was looking at her
+while she thought of Owen.
+
+Owen called at the end of the week--the _Wagnerian Review_ always
+supplied him with sufficient excuse for a visit--but he had to spend his
+visit in discussing the text of a Greek hymn which he had seen
+disinterred in Greece. She was sorry for him, sorrier than she was for
+herself, for she could always find him in her thoughts.... She wondered
+if he could find her as vividly in his thoughts as she settled herself
+(the next day was Sunday) in the corner of her pew, resolved from the
+beginning not to hear a word of the sermon, but to think of Owen the
+whole time. She wanted to hear why he had left England so suddenly, and
+why he had returned so suddenly. She was sure that she and the
+red-haired lady were the cause of one or the other, and that neither was
+the cause of both. These two facts served for a warp upon which she
+could weave endless mental embroideries, tales as real as the tales of
+old tapestry, tales of love and jealousy, and unexpected meetings, in
+which she and Owen and the red-haired lady met and re-met. Whilst Father
+Railston was preaching, these tales flowed on and on, subtle as silk,
+illusive as evening tinted clouds; and it was not until she had
+exhausted her fancy, and Owen had made one more fruitless visit to
+Dulwich, that she began to scheme how she might see him alone. There was
+so much that they could only talk about if they were alone; and then she
+wanted so much to hear the story of the red-haired lady. If she did not
+contrive an opportunity for being with him alone, she might never hear
+why he had left England for a trip round the world, and had returned
+suddenly from the Mediterranean. She felt that, however difficult and
+however wrong it might be, she must find this opportunity. She thought
+of asking him the hour of the train by which he generally came to
+Dulwich, so that she might meet him in the station. Other schemes came
+into her mind, but she could think of nothing that was just right.
+
+But one day, as she was running to post a letter, she saw Owen, more
+beautifully dressed than ever, coming toward her. Her feet and her
+heart stood still, for she wore her old morning gown and a pair of old
+house slippers. But he had already seen her and was lifting his hat, and
+with easy effrontery he told her that he had come to Dulwich to consult
+her father about the Greek hymn.
+
+"But father is at St. Joseph's," she said, and then she stopped; and
+then, before she saw his smile, she knew why he had come to Dulwich so
+early.
+
+The shadows of the leaves on the pavement drew pretty pattern for their
+feet, and they strolled meditatively through the subdued sunlight.
+
+"Why did you stop and look so startled when you saw me?"
+
+"Because I am so badly dressed; my old house slippers and this--"
+
+"You look very well--dress matters nothing."
+
+"No one would gather your opinions from your appearance."
+
+Owen laughed, and admired the girl's wit.
+
+"Do you want to see father very much about the Greek hymn?"
+
+"Well," he said, and he looked at her questioningly, and not liking to
+tell her in so many words that he had come to Dulwich to see her, he
+entered into the question of the text of the hymn, which was imperfect.
+Many notes were missing, and had been conjecturely added by a French
+musician, and he had wished to consult Mr. Innes about them. So a good
+deal of time was wasted in conversation in which neither was interested.
+Before they were aware, they were at Dowlands, and with an accent of
+regret in her voice, which Owen noticed with pleasure, she held out her
+hand and said good-bye.
+
+"Are you very busy, then, are you expecting a pupil?"
+
+"No, I have nothing to do."
+
+"Then why should we say good-bye? It is hardly worth while getting up so
+early in the morning to discuss the text of an ancient Greek hymn."
+
+His frankness was unexpected, and it pleased her.
+
+"No, I don't suppose it is; Greek music at eleven o'clock in the morning
+would be a little trying."
+
+A delicious sense of humour lit up in her eyes, and he felt his interest
+in her advance a further stage.
+
+"If you have nothing to do we might go to the picture gallery. There is
+a wonderful Watteau--"
+
+"Watteau at eleven, Greek hymn at one."
+
+But she felt, all the same, that she would give everything to go to the
+picture gallery with him.
+
+"But I am not dressed, this is an old thing I wear in the morning; not
+that there would be many people there, only the curator and a girl
+copying at eleven in the morning."
+
+"But is your father coming back at one?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because you said Greek hymn at one. The time will pass quickly between
+eleven and one. You need not change your dress."
+
+Then, with an expressive little glance which went straight to his heart,
+she noted his fastidious dress, the mauve necktie, the perfectly fitting
+morning coat buttoned across the chest, the yellow-brown trousers, and
+the long laced boots, half of patent and half of tan coloured leather.
+
+"I could not walk about with you in this dress and hat, but I sha'n't
+keep you long."
+
+While he waited he congratulated himself on the moment when he had
+determined to abandon his tour round the world, and come back to seek
+Evelyn Innes at Dulwich.
+
+"She is much nicer, a hundred times more exciting than I thought.
+Poetry, sympathy, it is like living in a dream." He asked himself if he
+liked her better than Georgina, and answered himself that he did; but
+deep down in his heart he knew that the other woman had given him deeper
+and more poignant emotions, and he knit his brows, for he hated
+Georgina.
+
+Owen was the first temptation in Evelyn's life, and it carried her
+forward with the force of a swirling river. She tried to think, but
+thoughts failed her, and she hooked her black cloth skirt and thrust her
+arms into her black cloth jacket with puffed sleeves. She opened her
+wardrobe, and wondered which hat he would like, chose one, and hastened
+downstairs.
+
+"You've not been long ... you look very nice. Yes, that is an
+improvement."
+
+His notice of her occasioned in her a little flutter of joy, a little
+exaltation of the senses, and she walked on without speaking, deep in
+her pleasure, and as the sensation died she became aware that she was
+very happy. The quiet silence of the Spring morning corresponded to her
+mood, and the rustle of last year's leaves communicated a delicious
+emotion which seemed to sing in the currents of her blood, and a little
+madness danced in her brain at the ordinary sight of nature. "This way,"
+she said, and they turned into a lane which almost looked like country.
+There were hedges and fields; and the sunlight dozed amid the cows, and
+over the branches of the high elm the Spring was already shaking a soft
+green dust. There were nests in the bare boughs--whether last year's or
+this year's was not certain. Further on there was a stile, and she
+thought that she would like to lean upon it and look straight through
+the dim fields, gathering the meaning which they seemed to express. She
+wondered if Owen felt as she did, if he shared her admiration of the
+sunlight which fell about the stile through the woven branches, making
+round white spots on the roadway.
+
+"So you were surprised to hear that I had given up my trip round the
+world?"
+
+"I was surprised to hear you had given it up so that you might hear me
+sing."
+
+"You think a man incapable of giving up anything for a woman?"
+
+He was trembling, and his voice was confused; experience did not alter
+him; on the verge of an avowal he was nervous as a schoolboy. He watched
+to see if she were moved, but she did not seem to be; he waited for her
+to contest the point he had raised, but her reply, which was quite
+different, took him aback.
+
+"You say you came back to hear me sing. Was it not for another woman
+that you went away?"
+
+"Yes, but how did you know?"
+
+"The woman with the red hair who was at your party?"
+
+The tale of a past love affair often served Owen as a plank of
+transition to another. He told her the tale. It seemed to him
+extraordinary because it had happened to him, and it seemed to Evelyn
+very extraordinary because it was her first experience of the ways of
+love.
+
+"Then it was she who got tired of you? Why did she get tired of you?"
+
+"Why anything? Why did she fall in love with me?"
+
+"Is it, then, the same thing?"
+
+He judged it necessary to dissemble, and he advanced the theory which he
+always made use of on these occasions--that women were more capricious
+than men, that so far as his experience counted for anything, he had
+invariably been thrown over. The object of this theory was two-fold. It
+impressed his listener with an idea of his fidelity, which was essential
+if she were a woman. It also suggested that he had inspired a large
+number of caprices, thereby he gratified his vanity and inspired hope in
+the lady that as a lover he would prove equal to her desire. It also
+helped to establish the moral atmosphere in which an intrigue might
+develop.
+
+"Did you love her very much?"
+
+"Yes, I was crazy about her. If I hadn't been, should I have rushed off
+in my old yacht for a tour round the world?"
+
+He felt the light of romance fall upon him, and this, he thought, was
+how he ought to appear to her.
+
+Yet he was sincere. He admired Evelyn, he thought he might like to be
+her lover, and he regarded their present talk as a necessary subterfuge,
+the habitual comedy in which we live. So, when Evelyn asked him if he
+still loved Georgina, he answered that he hated her, which was only
+partly true; and when she asked him if he would go back to her if she
+were to invite him, he said that nothing in the world would induce him
+to do so, which was wholly untrue, though he would not admit it to
+himself. He knew that if Georgina were to hold up her little finger he
+would leave Evelyn without a second thought, however foolish he might
+know such conduct to be.
+
+"Why did you not marry her when she was in love with you?"
+
+"You can love a woman very well indeed without wanting to marry her;
+besides, she is married. But are you sure we're going right?...Is this
+the way to the picture gallery?"
+
+"Oh, the picture gallery, I had forgotten. We have passed it a long
+while."
+
+They turned and went back, and, in the silence, Owen considered if he
+had not been too abrupt. His dealings with women had always been
+conducted with the same honour that characterised his dealings on the
+turf, but he need not have informed her so early in their
+acquaintanceship of his vow of celibacy. While he thought how he might
+retrieve his slight indiscretion, she struggled in a little crisis of
+soul. Owen's words, tone of voice, manner were explicit; she could not
+doubt that he hoped to induce her to leave her father, and she felt that
+she ought not to see him any more. She must see him, she must go out to
+walk with him, and her will fluttered like a feather in space. She
+remembered with a gasp that he was the only thing between herself and
+Dulwich, and at the same moment he decided that he could not do better
+than to suggest to her that her father was sacrificing her to his
+ambitions.
+
+"I wonder," he said, assuming a meditative air, "what will become of
+you? Eventually, I mean."
+
+"What do you think?" Her eagerness told him that he had struck the right
+note.
+
+"You have grown up in an atmosphere of great music, far removed from the
+tendencies of our day. You have received from your father an
+extraordinary musical education. He has prepared you on all points but
+one for your career, he has not developed your voice; his ambition
+intervened--"
+
+"You must not say that. Father does not allow his ambition to interfere
+with his duties regarding me. You only think that because you do not
+know him; you don't know all the difficulties he has to contend with."
+
+Owen smiled inwardly, pleased at the perception he had shown in divining
+her feelings, and he congratulated himself on having sown some slight
+seed of discontent; and then, as if he were withdrawing, or at least
+attenuating, the suggestion he had thrown out, he said--
+
+"Anyone can see that you and your father are very attached to each
+other."
+
+"Can they?"
+
+"You always like to be near him, and your favourite attitude is with
+your hand on his shoulder."
+
+"So many people have noticed that. Yes, I am very fond of father. We
+were always very fond of each other, but now we are more like pals than
+father and daughter."
+
+He encouraged her to talk of herself, to tell him the story of her
+childhood, and how she and her father formed this great friendship.
+Evelyn's story of her mother's death would have interested him if he had
+been able to bestow sufficient attention upon it, but the intricacy of
+the intrigue he was entering upon engrossed his thoughts. There were her
+love of her father, her duty towards him, and her piety to be overcome.
+Against these three considerable influences there were her personal
+ambition and her love of him. A very evenly matched game, he thought,
+and for nothing in the world would he have missed this love adventure.
+
+At that moment the words, "A few days later she died," caught on his
+ear. So he called all the sorrow and reverence he could into his eyes,
+sighed, and raised his eyebrows expressing such philosophic resignation
+in our mortal lot as might suffice to excuse a change in the
+conversation.
+
+"That is the picture gallery," Evelyn said, pointing to a low brick
+building, almost hidden at the back of a well-kept garden. The
+unobtrusive doorway was covered with a massive creeper, just beginning
+to emerge from it's winter's rust. "Do you care to go in?" she said
+negligently.
+
+"You know the pictures so well, I am afraid they will bore you."
+
+"No, I should like to see them with you."
+
+He could see that her aesthetic taste had been absorbed by music, and
+that pictures meant nothing to her, but they meant a great deal to him,
+and, unable to resist the temptation, he said--"Let us go in for a
+little while, though it does seem a pity to waste this beautiful Spring
+day."
+
+There was an official who took her parasol and his cane, and they were
+impressed by the fact of having to write their names side by side in the
+book--Sir Owen Asher, Evelyn Innes.
+
+On pushing through the swing-door, they found themselves in a small room
+hung with the Dutch school. There were other rooms, some four or five,
+opening one into the other, and lighted so that the light fell sideways
+on to the pictures. Owen praised the architecture. It was, he said, the
+most perfectly-constructed little gallery he had ever seen, and he ought
+to know, for he had seen every gallery in Europe. But he had not been
+here for many years and had quite forgotten it. "A veritable radiation
+of masterpieces," he said, stepping aside to see one. But the girl was
+the greater attraction, and only half satisfied he returned to her, and
+when the attraction of the pictures grew irresistible he tried to engage
+her attention in their beauties, so that he might be allowed to enjoy
+them. To his surprise and pleasure the remarks he had hazarded provoked
+an extraordinary interest in her, and she begged of him to tell her more
+about the paintings. He was not without suspicion that the pictures were
+a secondary interest; but as it was clear that to hear him talk excited
+her admiration, he favoured her with all he knew regarding the Dutch
+school. She followed attentive as a peahen, he spreading a gorgeous tail
+of accumulated information. He asked if the dark background in Cuyp's
+picture, "The White Horse and the Riding School," was not admirable? And
+that old woman peeling onions in her little kitchen, painted by a modern
+would be realistic and vulgar; but the Dutchman knew that by light and
+shade the meanest subject could be made as romantic as a fairy tale. As
+dreamers and thinkers they did not compare with the Italians, but as
+painters they were equal to any. They were the first to introduce the
+trivialities of daily life into Art--the toil of the field, the gross
+pleasures of the tavern. "Look at these boors drinking; they are by
+Ostade. Are they not admirably drawn and painted? "Brick-making in a
+Landscape, by Teniers the younger." Won't you look at this? How
+beautiful! How interesting is its grey sky! Here are a set of pictures
+by Wouvermans--pictures of hawking. Here is a Brouwer, a very rare Dutch
+master, a very fine example too. And here is a Gerard Dow. Miss Innes,
+will you look at this composition? Is it not admirable? That rich
+curtain hung across the room, how beautifully painted, how sonorous in
+colour."
+
+"Ah! she's playing a virginal!" said Evelyn, suddenly. "She is like me,
+playing and thinking of other things. You can see she is not thinking of
+the music. She is thinking ... she is thinking of the world outside."
+
+This pleased him, and he said, "Yes, I suppose it is like your life; it
+is full of the same romance and mystery."
+
+"What romance, what mystery? Tell me."
+
+They sat down on the bench in the third room, opposite the colonnade by
+Watteau, to which his thoughts frequently went, while telling her how,
+when cruising among the Greek Islands, he had often seen her, sometimes
+sitting in the music-room playing the virginal, sometimes walking in the
+ornamental park under a wet, grey sky, a somewhat desolate figure
+hurrying through shadows of storm.
+
+"How strange you should think all that. It is quite true. I often walked
+in that hateful park."
+
+"You will never be able to stand another winter in Dulwich."
+
+She raised her eyes, and he noticed with an inward glee their little
+frightened look.
+
+"I thought of you in that ornamental park watching London from the crest
+of the hill; and I thought of London--great, unconscious London--waiting
+to be awakened with the chime of your voice."
+
+She turned her head aside, overcome by his praise, and he exulted,
+seeing the soft rose tint mount into the whiteness of her face.
+
+"You must not say such things to me. How you do know how to praise!"
+
+"You don't realise how wonderful you are."
+
+"You should not say such things, for if they are not true, I shall be so
+miserable."
+
+"Of course they are true," he said, hushing his voice; and in his
+exultation there was a savour of cruelty. "You don't realise how
+wonderful your story is. As I sailed through the Greek Isles, I thought
+less and less of that horrid, red-haired woman; your face, dim at first,
+grew clearer and clearer.... All my thoughts, all things converged to
+you and were absorbed in you, until, one day on the deck, I felt that
+you were unhappy; the knowledge came, how and whence I know not; I only
+know that the impulse to return was irresistible. I called to the
+skipper, and told him to put her head about."
+
+"Then you did think of me whilst you were away?"
+
+Evelyn looked at him with her soft, female eyes, and meeting his keen,
+bright, male eyes, she drew away from him with a little dread.
+Immediately after, this sensation of dread gave way to a delicious joy;
+an irresponsible joy deep down in her heart, a joy so intimate that she
+was thankful to know that none could know it but herself.
+
+Her woman's instinct told her that many women had loved him. She
+suspected that the little lilt in his voice, and the glance that
+accompanied it, were the relics of an old love affair. She hoped it was
+not a survival of Georgina.
+
+"It must be nearly one o'clock. It is time for you to come to talk to
+father about the Greek hymn."
+
+"Let's look at this picture first--'The Fete beneath the Colonnade'--it
+is one of the most beautiful things in the world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+
+Sipping her coffee, her feet on the fender, she abandoned herself to
+memories of the afternoon. She had been to the Carmelite Church in
+Kensington, to hear the music of a new and very realistic Belgian
+composer; and, walking down the High Street after Mass, she and Owen had
+argued his artistic intentions. At the end of the High Street, he had
+proposed that they should walk in the Gardens. The broad walk was full
+of the colour of Spring and its perfume, the thick grass was like a
+carpet beneath their feet; they had lingered by a pond, and she had
+watched the little yachts, carrying each a portent of her own success or
+failure. The Albert Hall curved over the tops of the trees, and sheep
+strayed through the deep May grass in Arcadian peacefulness; but the
+most vivid impression was when they had come upon a lawn stretching
+gently to the water's edge. Owen had feared the day was too cold for
+sitting out, but at that moment the sun contradicted him with a broad,
+warm gleam. He had fetched two chairs from a pile stacked under a tree,
+and sitting on that lawn, swept by the shadow of softly moving trees,
+they had talked an hour or more. The scene came back to her as she sat
+looking into the fire. She saw the Spring, easily victorious amid the
+low bushes, capturing the rough branches of the elms one by one, and the
+distant slopes of the park, grey like a piece of faded tapestry. And as
+in a tapestry, the ducks came through the mist in long, pulsing flight,
+and when the day cleared the pea fowl were seen across the water,
+sunning themselves on the high branches. While watching the spectacle of
+the Spring, Owen had talked to Evelyn about herself, and now their
+entire conversation floated back, transposed into a higher key.
+
+"I want your life to be a great success."
+
+"Do you think anyone's life can be that?"
+
+"That is a long discussion; if we seek the bottom of things, none is
+less futile than another. But what passes for success, wealth and
+renown, are easily within your reach.... If it be too much trouble to
+raise your hand, let me shake the branches, and they'll fall into your
+lap."
+
+"I wonder if they would seem as precious to me when I had got them as
+they do now. Once I did not know what it was to despond, but I lost my
+pupils last winter, and everything seemed hopeless. I am not vain or
+egotistic; I do not pine for applause and wealth, but I should like to
+sing.... I've heard so much about my voice that I'm curious to know what
+people will think of it."
+
+"Once I was afraid that you were without ambition, and were content to
+live unknown, a little suburban legend, a suburban might-have-been."
+
+"That was long ago.... I've been thinking about myself a great deal
+lately. Something seems always crying within me, 'You're wasting your
+life; you must become a great singer and shine like a star in the
+world.'"
+
+"That is the voice of vocation speaking within you, a voice that may not
+be disobeyed. It is what the swallows feel when the time for departure
+has come."
+
+"Ah, yes, what the swallows feel."
+
+"A yearning for that which one has never known, for distant places, for
+the sunshine which instinct tells us we must breathe."
+
+"Oh, yes, that is it. I used to feel all that in the afternoons in that
+ornamental park. I used to stop in my walk, for I seemed to see far
+away, to perceive dimly as in a dream, another country."
+
+"And since I came back have you wished to go away?"
+
+"No ... for you come to see me, and when I go out with you I'm amused."
+
+"I'm afraid I do little to amuse you."
+
+"You do a great deal--you lend me books. I never cared to read, now I'm
+very fond of reading--and I think more."
+
+"Of what do you think?"
+
+"You see, I never met anyone like you before. You've travelled; you've
+seen everything; you know everything and everyone. When you come I seem
+to see in you all the grand world of fashion."
+
+"Which you used to see far away as in a dream?"
+
+"No, the world of fashion I did not think of till I saw you. Since you
+came back I have thought of it a little. You seem to express it somehow
+in your look and dress; and the men who nodded to you in Piccadilly, and
+the women who bowed to you, all wore the same look, and when they spoke
+they seemed to know all about you--where you were last summer, and where
+you are going to spend this autumn. Their friends are your friends;
+you're all like one family."
+
+"You're very observant. I never noticed the things you speak of, but no
+doubt it is so. But society is ready to receive you; society, believe
+me, is most anxious for you."
+
+After some pause she heard him say--
+
+"But you must not delay to go abroad and study."
+
+"Tell me, do you think the concerts will ever pay?"
+
+"No, not in the sense of your requirements. Evelyn, since you ask me, I
+must speak the truth. Those concerts may come to pay their expenses,
+with a little over, but it is the veriest delusion to imagine that they
+will bring enough money to take you and your father abroad. Moreover,
+your father would have to resign his position at St. Joseph's, where he
+is required; there his mission is. It is painful for me to tell you
+these things, but I cannot see you waste your life."
+
+"What you say is quite true.... I've known it all along."
+
+"Only you have shut your eyes to it."
+
+"Yes, that's it."
+
+"Don't look so frightened, Evelyn. It was better that you should be
+brought face to face with the truth. You'll have to go abroad and
+study."
+
+"And my father! Don't advise me to leave him. I couldn't do that."
+
+"Why make my task more difficult than it is? I wish to be honest. I
+should speak just the same, believe me, if your father were present. Is
+not our first duty towards ourselves? The rest is vague and uncertain,
+the development of our own faculties is, after all, that which is most
+sure.... I'm uttering no paradox when I say that we serve others best by
+considering our own interests. Let us suppose that you sacrifice
+yourself, that you dedicate your life to your father, that you do all
+that conventional morality says you should do. You look after his house,
+you sing at his concerts, you give music lessons. Ten, fifteen years
+pass, and then, remembering what might have been, but what is no longer
+possible, you forgive him, and he, overcome with remorse for the wrong
+he did you, sinks into the grave broken-hearted."
+
+"I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I had done my
+duty."
+
+"Words, Evelyn, words. Take your life into your keeping, go abroad and
+study, come back a great success."
+
+"He would never forgive me."
+
+"You do not think so.... Evelyn, you do not believe that."
+
+"But even if I wished to leave home, I could not. Where should I get the
+money? You have not thought what it would cost."
+
+"Have you forgotten the knight that came to release the sleeping beauty
+of the woods from her bondage? Fifteen hundred or two thousand pounds
+would be ample. I can easily afford it."
+
+"But I cannot afford to accept it. Father would not allow me."
+
+"You can pay it all back."
+
+"Yes, I could do that. But why don't you offer to help father instead?"
+
+"Why are you what you are? Why am I interested in you?"
+
+"If I went abroad to study, I should not see you again for a long
+while--two years."
+
+"I could go to Paris."
+
+She did not remember what answer she had made, if she had made any
+answer, but as she leaned forward and stirred the fire, she saw his
+hands, their strength and comeliness, the kindliness of his eyes. She
+was not sure that he was fond of, but she thought that she could make
+him like her. At that moment he seemed to take her in his arms and kiss
+her, and the illusion was so vivid that she was taken in an instant's
+swoon, and shuddered through her entire flesh. When her thoughts
+returned she found herself thinking of a volume of verses which had come
+to be mentioned as they walked through the Gardens. He had told her of
+the author, a Persian poet who had lived in a rose-garden a thousand
+years ago. He had compared life to a rose, an exquisite flower to be
+caught in the hand and enjoyed for a passionate moment, and had recited
+many of the verses, and she had listened, enchanted by the rapid
+interchange of sorrow, and gladness, and lofty resignation before the
+inevitable. Often it seemed as if her own soul were speaking in the
+verses. "So do not refuse to accept the flowers and fruit that hang in
+reach of your hands, for to-morrow you may be where there are none....
+The caravan will have reached the nothing it set out from.... Surely the
+potter will not toss to hell the pots he marred in the making." She
+started from her reverie, and suddenly grew aware of his very words,
+"However we may strive to catch a glimpse of to-morrow, we must fall
+back on to-day as the only solid ground we have to stand on, though it
+be slipping momentarily from under our feet." She recalled the
+intonation of his sigh as he spoke of the inscrutable nature of things,
+and she wondered if he, too, with all his friends and possessions, was
+unhappy. She seemed to have exhausted her thoughts about him, and in the
+silence of her mind, her self came up for consideration.... Owen
+intended to ask her to go away with him; but he did not intend to marry
+her. It was shocking to think that he could be so wicked, and then with
+a thrill of pleasure that it would be much more exciting to run away
+with him than to be married to him by Father Railston. But how very
+wicked of her to think such things, and she was frightened to find that
+she could not think differently; and with sensations of an elopement
+clattering in her brain, she sat still striving to restrain her
+thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+
+On leaving her at Victoria, he had walked down the Buckingham Palace
+Road, not quite knowing where he was going. Suddenly an idea struck him.
+He put up his stick, stopped a hansom, and drove to Georgina; for he was
+curious to see what impression she would make upon him. He spent an hour
+with her, and returned to Berkeley Square to dine alone. He was sure
+that he cared no more for Georgina, that she was less than nothing to
+him. He dismissed her from his thoughts, and fixed them on Evelyn. He
+had said he would send her a book. It stood next to his hand, on the
+shelf by the round table where he wrote his articles. After dinner, he
+would walk from the dining-room into the library, take down the volume
+and pack it up, leaving orders that it should be sent off by the first
+post.
+
+When man ceased to capture women, he reflected, man invented art whereby
+he might win them. The first melody blown through a reed pipe was surely
+intended for woman's ears. The first verses were composed in a like
+intention. Afterwards man began to take an interest in art for its own
+sake.... Women, having no necessity for art, have not been artists. The
+idea amused him, and he remembered that while Evelyn's romantic eyes and
+gold hair were sufficient to win his regard, he had availed himself of a
+dozen devices to tempt her. Suddenly his face grew grave, and he asked
+himself how this flirtation was to end. As a sufficient excuse for
+seeing her he was taking music lessons; he wrote to her every other day
+and often sent her books and music. They had met in London.... He had
+been observed walking with her, and at Lady Ascott's lunch the
+conversation had suddenly turned on a tall girl with gold hair and an
+undulating walk. Pointed observations had been made.... Lady Lovedale
+had looked none too well pleased. He didn't wish to be cynical, but he
+did want to know whether he was going to fall in love?... They had now
+arrived at that point when love-making or an interruption in their
+intimacy was imperative. He did not regret having offered her the money
+to go abroad to study, it was well he should have done so, but he should
+not have said, "But _I'll_ go to see you in Paris." She was a clever
+girl, and knew as well as he how such adventures must end.... She was a
+religious girl, a devout Catholic, and as he had himself been brought
+up in that religion, he knew how it restrained the sexual passion or
+fashioned it in the mould of its dogma. But we are animals first, we are
+religious animals afterwards. Religious defences must yield before the
+pressure of the more original instinct, unless, indeed, hers was a
+merely sexual conscience. The lowest forms of Anglicanism are reduced to
+perceiving conscience nowhere except in sex. The Catholic was more
+concerned with matters of faith. Not in France, Italy or Spain did
+Catholicism enter so largely into the private life of the individual as
+it did in England. The foreign, or to be more exact, the native Catholic
+had worn the yoke till it fitted loose on his shoulders. His was a more
+eclectic Christianity; he took what suited him and left the rest. But in
+England Romanism had never shaken itself free from the Anglican
+conscience. The convert never acquired the humanities of Rome, and in
+addition the lover had to contend against the confessional. But in
+Evelyn's case he could set against the confessional the delirium of
+success, the joy of art, the passion of emulation, jealousy and
+ambition, and last, but far from least, the ache of her own passionate
+body. Remembering the fear and humility with which he had been used to
+approach the priest, and the terror of eternal fire in which he had
+waited for him to pronounce absolution, Owen paused to think how far
+such belief was from him now. Yet he had once believed--in a way. He
+wondered at the survival of such a belief in the nineteenth century, and
+asked himself if confession were not inveterate in man. The artist in
+his studio, the writer in his study, strive to tell their soul's secret;
+the peasant throws himself at the feet of the priest, for, like them, he
+would unburden himself of that terrible weight of inwardness which is
+man. Is not the most mendacious mistress often taken with the desire of
+confession ... the wish to reveal herself? Upon this bed rock of human
+nature the confessional has been built. And Owen admired the humanity of
+Rome. Rome was terribly human. No Church, he reflected, was so human.
+Her doctrine may seem at times quaint, medieval, even gross, but when
+tested by the only test that can be applied, power to reach to human
+needs, and administer consolation to the greatest number, the most
+obtuse-minded cannot fail to see that Rome easily distances her rivals.
+Her dogma and ceremonial are alike conceived in extraordinary sympathy
+with man's common nature....
+
+Our lives are enveloped in mystery, the scientist concedes that, and the
+woof of which the stuff of life is woven is shot through with many a
+thread of unknown origin, untraceable to any earthly shuttle. There is a
+mystery, and in the elucidation of that mystery man never tires; the
+Sovereign Pontiff and the humblest crystal gazer are engaged in the same
+adventure. The mystery is so intense, and lives so intimately in all,
+that Rome dared to come forward with a complete explanation. And her
+necessarily perfunctory explanation she drapes in a ritual so
+magnificent, that even the philosopher ceases to question, and pauses
+abashed by the grandeur of the symbolism. High Mass in its own home,
+under the arches of a Gothic cathedral, appealed alike to the loftiest
+and humblest intelligence. Owen paused to think if there was not
+something vulgar in the parade of the Mass. A simple prayer breathed by
+a burdened heart in secret awaked a more immediate and intimate response
+in him. That was Anglicanism. Perhaps he preferred Anglicanism. The
+truth was, he was deficient in the religious instinct.
+
+Awaking from his reverie, he raised himself from the mantelpiece against
+which he was leaning. Never had he thought so brilliantly, and he
+regretted that no magical stenographer should be there to register his
+thoughts as they passed. But they were gone.... Resuming his position
+against the mantelpiece, he continued his interrupted train of thoughts.
+
+There would be the priest's interdiction ... unless, indeed, he could
+win Evelyn to agnosticism. In his own case he could imagine a sort of
+religious agnosticism. But is a woman capable of such a serene
+contemplation and comprehension of the mystery, which perforce we must
+admit envelops us, and which often seems charged with murmurs,
+recollections and warnings of the under world? Does not woman need the
+grosser aid of dogma to raise her sensual nature out of complete
+abjection? But all this was very metaphysical. The probability was that
+Evelyn would lead the life of the ordinary prima donna until she was
+fifty, that she would then retire to a suburb in receipt of a handsome
+income, and having nothing to do, she would begin to think again of the
+state of her soul. The line of her chin deflected; some would call it a
+weak chin, but he had observed the same in men of genius--her father,
+for instance. None could be more resolute than he in the pursuance of
+his ideas. The mother's thin, stubborn mouth must find expression
+somewhere in her daughter. But where? Evelyn's mouth was thin and it
+drooped at the ends.... But she was only twenty; at five-and-twenty, at
+thirty, she might be possessed by new ideas, new passions.... The moment
+we look into life and examine the weft a little, what a mystery it
+becomes, how occult the design, and out of what impenetrable darkness
+the shuttle passes, weaving a strange pattern, harmonious in a way, and
+yet deducible to none of our laws! This little adventure, the little
+fact of his becoming Evelyn's lover, was sown with every eventuality....
+If, instead of his winning her to agnosticism, she should win him to
+Rome! They then would have to separate or marry, otherwise they would
+burn in hell for ever.
+
+But he would never be fool enough as to accept such a story as that
+again. That God should concern himself at all in our affairs was
+strange enough, that he should do so seemed little creditable to him,
+but that he should manage us to the extent of the mere registration of a
+cohabitation in the parish books was--. Owen flung out his arms in an
+admirable gesture of despair, and crossed the room. After a while he
+returned to the fireplace calmer, and he considered the question anew.
+By no means did he deny the existence of conscience; his own was
+particularly exact on certain points. In money matters he believed
+himself to be absolutely straight. He had never even sold a friend a
+horse knowing it to be unsound; and he had always avoided--no, not
+making love to his friends' wives (to whose wives are you to make love
+if not to your friends'?)--he had avoided making women unhappy. But much
+more than in morals his conscience found expression in art. That Evelyn
+should use her voice except for the interpretation of masterpieces would
+shock him quite as much as an elopement would shock the worthy Fathers
+of St. Joseph's. He smiled at his thoughts, and remembered that it was
+through fear of not making a woman happy that he had not married. He
+hated unhappiness. His wish had always been to see people happy. Was not
+that why he wished to go away with Evelyn? A particularly foolish woman
+had once told him that she liked going out hunting because she liked to
+see people amused.... He did not pretend to such altruism as hers, and
+he remembered how he used to watch for her at the window as she came
+across the square with her dog. But Evelyn was quite different. He could
+not have her to luncheon or tea, and send her back to her father.
+Somehow, it would not seem fair to her. No; he must break with her, or
+they must go away together. Which was it to be? Mrs. Hartrick had
+written three times that week! And there was Lady Lovedale. She had
+promised to come to tea on Friday. Was he going to renounce the list, or
+was he going to put all his eggs in one basket? The list promised much
+agreeable intercourse, but it was wholly lacking in unexpectedness. He
+had been through it all before, and knew how each story would end. In
+mutual indifference or in a tiff because he wearied of accompanying her
+to all racecourses and all theatres. Another would pretend that her
+husband was jealous, and that she daren't come to see him any more. But
+Evelyn would be quite different. In her case, he could not see further
+than driving to Charing Cross and getting into the mail train for Paris.
+She was worth the list, not a doubt of it. If he were only sure that he
+loved her, he would not hesitate. He was interested in her, he admired
+her, but did he love her? A genuine passion alone would make an
+elopement excusable.
+
+One of his moralities was that a man who did not love his mistress was a
+beast, and that a man who loved a woman who wasn't, was a fool. Another
+was that although every man of the world knew a _liaison_ would not
+last for ever, he should not begin one unless it seemed as if it were
+going to. In other words, you should not be able to see the end before
+you began. But he had never even kissed Evelyn, and it was impossible
+even to guess, even approximately, if you were going to like a girl
+before you had kissed her. There could be no harm in kissing her. Then,
+if he was sure he loved her, they might go away together. Of course,
+there were hypocrites who would say that he had seduced her, that he had
+ruined her, robbed Mr. Innes of his only daughter. But he was not
+concerned with conventional, but with real morality. If he did not go
+away with her, what would happen? He had told her the truth in the park
+that morning, and he believed every word he had said.... If she did not
+leave her father she would learn to hate him. It was terrible to think
+of, but it was so, and nothing could change it. He tried to recall his
+exact words, and easily imagined her father stricken with remorse, and
+Evelyn looking across the table, hating him in spite of herself. But if
+he could persuade her to leave him for two years he would engage to
+bring her back a great singer. And what an interest it would be to watch
+the development of that voice, surely the most beautiful soprano he had
+ever heard! She might begin with "Margaret" and "Norma," if she liked,
+for in singing these popular operas she would acquire the whole of her
+voice, and also the great reputation which should precede and herald the
+final stage of her career. "Isolde," "Brunnhilde," "Kundry," Wagner's
+finest works, had remained unsung--they en merely howled. Evelyn should
+be the first to sing them. His eyes glowed with subdued passion as he
+thought of an afternoon, some three years hence, in the great theatre
+planned by the master himself, when he should see her rush in as the
+Witch Kundry. The marvellous evocation of Arabia flashed upon him....
+Would he ever hear her sing it?... Yes, if she would consent to go away
+with him he would hear her sing it. But would she go away with him? Her
+love of her father, and her religion, might prevent her.... She might
+not even care for him.... She might be thinking of marrying him. Was it
+possible that she was such a fool! What good would it do her to marry
+him? She could not go on the stage as Lady Asher. Lady Asher as Kundry!
+Could anything be more grotesque? How beset life was with difficulties!
+Without her vocation she was no longer the Evelyn Innes he was in love
+with.... Someone else, a pretty, interesting girl, the daughter of a
+suburban organist. To marry her now would be to ruin her. But he might
+marry her five or six years hence, for there was no reason why she
+should continue singing "Isolde" and "Brunnhilde" till she had no shred
+of voice left. When she had established a standard she would have
+achieved her mission, then it would be for others to maintain the
+standard. In the full blaze of her glory she might become Lady Asher. He
+would have to end his life somehow, that way as well as another. Five
+years are a long while--anything might happen. She might leave him for
+someone else ... anything--anything--anything might happen. It was
+impossible to divine the turn human lives would take. The simple fact of
+his elopement contained a dozen different stories in germ. Each would
+find opportunities of development; they would struggle for mastery;
+which would succeed?... Keep women you couldn't; he had long ago found
+out that. Marry them, and they came to hate the way you walked across
+the room; remain their lover, and they jilted you at the end of six
+months. He had hardly ever heard of a _liaison_ lasting more than a year
+or eighteen months, and Evelyn would meet all the nicest men in Europe.
+All Europe would be his rival--really it would be better to give her
+up.... She was the kind of woman who, if she once let herself go, would
+play the devil. Turning from the fire he looked into the glass.... He
+admitted to eight-and-thirty, he was forty--a very well-preserved forty.
+There were times when he did not look more than five-and-thirty. His
+hair was paler than it used to be; it was growing a little thin on the
+forehead, otherwise he was the same as when he was five-and-twenty. But
+he was forty, and a man of forty cannot marry a prima donna of twenty.
+Five pleasant years they might have together, five delicious years; it
+were vain to expect more. But he would not get her to go away with him
+under a promise of marriage; all such deception he held to be as
+dishonourable as cheating at cards. So in their next interview it would
+have to be suggested that there could be no question of marriage, at
+least for the present. At the same time he would have her understand
+that he intended to shirk no responsibility. But if he were to tire of
+her! That was another possibility, and a hateful one; he would prefer
+that she should jilt him. Perhaps it would be better to give her up, and
+throw his fate in with the list. But he was tired of country houses,
+with or without a _liaison_, and felt that he could not go through
+another season's hunting; he had no horses that suited him, and didn't
+seem to be able to find any. To go abroad with Evelyn, watch over the
+cultivation of her voice, see her fame rising, that was his mission! The
+only question to decide was whether he was in love with her. He would
+not hesitate a moment if he were only sure of that. He thought of the
+women he knew. Georgina was the first to come up in his mind. He had
+been to see her, and had come away at a loss to understand what he had
+ever seen in her. She had struck him as vulgar and middle-class, sly,
+with a taste for intrigue. He remembered that was how she had struck him
+when he first saw her. But if anyone had described her as vulgar and
+middle-class six months ago. Good heavens!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+
+The day grew too fine, as he said, for false notes, so the music lesson
+was abandoned, and they went to sit in the garden behind the picture
+gallery, a green sward with high walls covered with creeper, and at one
+end a great cedar with a seat built about the trunk; a quiet place rife
+with songs of birds, and unfrequented save by them. They had taken with
+them Omar's verses, and Evelyn hoped that he would talk to her about
+them, for the garden of the Persian poet she felt to be separated only
+by a wicket from theirs. But Owen did not respond to her humour. He was
+prepense to argue about the difficulties of her life, and of the urgent
+necessity of vanquishing these.
+
+He had noticed, he said, as they sat in the park, that she had a weak
+face. Her thoughts were far away; he had caught her face, as it were,
+napping, and had seen through it to the root of her being. The
+conclusion at which he had arrived was that she was not capable of
+leading an independent life.
+
+"Am I not right? Isn't it so?"
+
+"You think that because I don't leave father and go abroad."
+
+"You might go abroad and lead a dependent life; you might stay at home
+and lead an independent life."
+
+He asked her what offers of marriage she had had.
+
+One was from the Vicar, a widower, a man of fifty, the other from a
+young man in a solicitor's office. She did not care for either, and had
+not entertained their proposals for a second.
+
+"If you marry anyone, it must be a duke. Life is a battle; society will
+get the better of us unless we get the better of society. Everyone must
+realise that--every young man, every young woman. We must conquer or be
+conquered."
+
+Society, he argued, did not require a chaperon from her; society would,
+indeed, resent a chaperon if she were to appear with one. Society not
+only granted her freedom, but demanded that she should exercise it. As a
+freelance she would be taken notice of, as a respectable, marriageable
+girl she would be passed over. The cradle and the masterpiece were
+irreconcilable ideals. He drew an amusing picture of the prima donna's
+husband, the fellow who waits with a scarf ready to wind it round the
+throat of his musical instrument; the fellow who is always on the watch
+lest someone should walk off with his means of subsistence. Evelyn
+listened because she liked to hear him talk; she knew that he was trying
+to influence her with argument, but it was he himself who was
+influencing her, she dreaded his presence, not his argument.
+
+She got up and walked across the sward; and as they returned through the
+flowery village street, the faint May breeze shed the white chestnut
+bloom about their feet. It seemed to him better to say nothing; there
+are times when silence is more potent than speech. They were walking
+under the trees of the old Dulwich street, and so charming were the
+hedge-hidden gardens, and the eighteenth-century houses with white
+porticoes, that Owen could not but think Dulwich at that moment seemed
+the natural nativity of the young girl's career. A few moments after
+they were at Dowlands. She was trembling, and had no strength of will to
+refuse to ask him in. She would have had the strength if she had not
+been obliged to give him her hand. She had tried to bid him good-bye
+without giving her hand, and had not succeeded, and while he held her
+hand her lips said the words without her knowing it. She spoke
+unconsciously, and did not know what she had said till she had said it.
+
+And while they waited for tea, Evelyn lay back in a wicker chair
+thinking. He had said that life without love was a desert, and many
+times the conversation trembled on the edge of a personal avowal, and
+now he was playing love music out of "Tristan" on the harpsichord. The
+gnawing, creeping sensuality of the phrase brought little shudders into
+her flesh; all life seemed dissolved into a dim tremor and rustling of
+blood; vague colour floated into her eyes, and there were moments when
+she could hardly restrain herself from jumping to her feet and begging
+of him to stop.... The servant brought in the tea, and she thought she
+would feel better when the music ceased. But neither did the silence nor
+the tea help her. He sat opposite her, his eyes fixed upon her, that
+half-kindly, half-cynical face of his showing through the gold of his
+moustache. He seemed to know that she could not follow the conversation,
+and seemed determined to drive the malady that was devouring her to a
+head. He continued to speak of the motive of the love call, how it is
+interwoven with the hunting fanfare; when the fanfare dies in the
+twilight, how it is then heard in the dark loneliness of the garden. She
+heard him speak of the handkerchief motive, of thirty violins playing
+three notes in ever precipitated rhythm, until we feel that the world
+reels behind the woman, that only one thing exists for her--Tristan. A
+giddiness gathered in Evelyn's brain, and she fell back in her chair,
+slightly to the left side, and letting her hand slip towards him, said,
+with a beseeching look--
+
+"I cannot go on talking, I am too tired."
+
+It seemed as if she were going to faint, and this made it easy and
+natural for him to take her hand, to put his arm about her, and then to
+whisper--
+
+"Evelyn, dear, what is the matter?"
+
+She opened her eyes; their look was sufficient answer.
+
+"Dearest Evelyn," he said; and bending over, he kissed her on the cheek.
+
+"This is very foolish of me," she said, and throwing her arm about his
+neck, she kissed him on the mouth. "But you are fond of me?" she said
+impulsively, laying her hand on his shoulder. It was a movement full of
+affectionate intimacy.
+
+"Yes," he said, moving her face again towards him. "I love you, I've
+always loved you."
+
+"No," she said, "you didn't, not always; I know when you began to care
+for me."
+
+"When?"
+
+"When you returned from Greece, at the moment when you said you wanted
+me to like you. Is it not true?"
+
+Owen dared not tell her that it was at the moment of kissing her that he
+had really begun to love her. In that moment he had entered into her
+atmosphere; it was fragrant as a flower, and it had decided him to use
+every effort to become her lover.
+
+"No," she said, "you must not kiss me again."
+
+She got up from the low wicker chair; he followed her, and they sat
+close together on two low seats. He put his arm round her and said--
+
+"I love to kiss you.... Why do you turn away your head?"
+
+"Because it is wrong; I shall be miserable to-night."
+
+"You don't think it wrong to kiss me?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+Then turning her face to his, she kissed him.
+
+"Who taught you to kiss like that?"
+
+"No one, I never kissed anyone before--father, of course. You know what
+I mean."
+
+"She'll be an adorable mistress," he thought, "and in four years the
+greatest singer in England. I shall get very fond of her. I like her
+very much as it is, and when she gets over her religious scruples--when
+I've reformed her--she'll be enchanting. It is lucky she met me; without
+me she'd have come to nothing."
+
+She asked him what he was thinking about, and he answered of the
+happiness he had begun to feel was in store for them.
+
+"What happiness?" she asked; and he answered--
+
+"The happiness of seeing each other constantly--the happiness of lovers.
+Now we must see each other more often."
+
+"How often? Every day?"
+
+He wondered what was the exact colour of her eyes, and he pressed her to
+answer. At last she said--
+
+"You cannot come here oftener than you do at present. I'm deceiving
+father about these lessons. What will you do if he asks you to play to
+him? What excuse will you give? You daren't attempt the simplest
+exercise, you haven't got over the difference of the bowing; you'd play
+false notes all the time."
+
+"Yes," he said; "I've not made much progress, have I?"
+
+"No, you haven't; but that isn't my fault."
+
+"But the days I don't see you seem so long!"
+
+"Do you think they do not seem long to me? I've nothing to think about
+but you."
+
+"Then, on your weariest days, come and see me. We can always see each
+other in Berkeley Square. Send me a wire saying you are coming."
+
+"I could not come to see you," she said, still looking at him fixedly;
+"you know that I could not.... Then why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because I want you."
+
+"You know that I'd like to come."
+
+"Then, if you do, you'll come. I don't believe in temptations that we
+don't yield to."
+
+"I suppose that the temptation that we yield to is the temptation?"
+
+"Of course. But, Evelyn, you are not going to waste your life in
+Dulwich. Come and see me to-morrow and, if you like, we'll decide."
+
+"On what?"
+
+"You know what I mean, dearest."
+
+"Yes, I think I do," she said, smiling at once sadly and ardently; "but
+I'm afraid it wouldn't succeed. I'm not the kind of woman to play the
+part to advantage."
+
+"I'm very fond of you, and I think you're very fond of me."
+
+"You don't think about it--you know I am."
+
+"Then why did you say you would not come and see me?"
+
+"I did not say so. But something tells me that if I did go away with you
+it would not succeed."
+
+"Why do you think that?"
+
+"I don't know. Something whispers that it wouldn't succeed. All my
+people were good people--my mother, my grandmother, my aunts. I never
+had a relative against whom anything could be said, so I don't know why
+I am what I am. For I'm only half good. It is you who make me bad, Owen;
+it isn't nice of you." She flung her arms about him, and then recoiled
+from him in a sudden revulsion of feeling.
+
+"When you go away I shall be miserable; I shall repent of all this ...
+I'm horrid." She covered her face in her hands. "I didn't know I was
+like this."
+
+A moment after she reached out her hand to him saying--
+
+"You're not angry with me? I can't help it if I'm like this. I should
+like to go and see you; it would be so much to me. But I must not. But
+why mustn't I?"
+
+"I know no reason, except that you don't care for me."
+
+"But you know that isn't so."
+
+"Come, dearest, be reasonable. You're not going to stop here all your
+life playing the viola da gamba. The hour of departure has come," he
+said, perceiving her very thought; "be reasonable, come and see me
+to-morrow. Come to lunch, and I'll arrange. You know that you--"
+
+"Yes, I believe that," she said, in response to a change which had come
+into her appreciation. "But can I trust myself? Suppose I did go away,
+and repented and left you. Where should I go? I could not come back
+here. Father would forgive me, I daresay, but I could not come back
+here."
+
+"'Repented,' Those are fairy tales," he said lifting her gold hair from
+her ear and kissing it. "A woman does not leave the man who adores her."
+
+"You told me they often did."
+
+"How funny you are.... They do sometimes, but not because they repent."
+
+Her head was on his shoulder, and she stood looking at him a long while
+without speaking.
+
+"Then you do love me, dearest? Tell me so again."
+
+Kissing her gently on the mouth and eyes, he answered--
+
+"You know very well that I do. Come and see me to-morrow. Say you will,
+for I must go now."
+
+"Go now!"
+
+"Do you know what time it is? It is past seven."
+
+She followed him to the gate of the little garden. The lamps were
+lighted far away in the suburbs. Again he asked her to come and see him.
+
+"I cannot to-morrow; to-morrow will be Sunday."
+
+His footsteps echoed through the chill twilight, and seeing a thin moon
+afloat like a feather in the sky, she thought of Omar's moon, that used
+to seek the lovers in their garden, and that one evening sought one of
+them in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+
+There was no other place except the picture gallery where they could see
+each other alone. But the dignity of Velasquez and the opulence of
+Rubens distracted their thoughts, and they were ill at ease on a
+backless seat in front of a masterpiece. Owen regretted the Hobbema; it
+was less aggressive than the colonnade. A sun-lit clearing in a wood and
+a water mill raised no moral question. He turned his eyes from the
+dancers, but however he resisted them, their frivolous life found its
+way into the conversation. They were the wise ones, he said. They lived
+for art and love, and what else was there in life? A few sonatas, a few
+operas, a few pictures, a few books, and a love story; we had always to
+come back to that in the end. He spoke with conviction, his only
+insincerity being the alteration of a plural into a singular. But no, he
+did not think he had lied; he had spoken what seemed to him the truth at
+the present moment. Had he used the singular instead of the plural a
+fortnight ago, he would have lied, but within the last week his feelings
+for Evelyn had changed. If she had broken with him a week ago, he would
+have found easy consolation in the list, but now it was not women, but a
+woman that he desired. A mere sexual curiosity, and the artistic desire
+to save a beautiful voice from being wasted, had given way to a more
+personal emotion in which affection was beginning. Looking at him,
+thinking over what he had just said, unable to stifle the hope that
+those women in the picture were the wise ones, she heard life calling
+her. The art call and the love call, subtly interwoven, were modulated
+now on the violins now on the flutes of an invisible orchestra. At the
+same moment his immeshed senses, like greedy fish, swam hither and
+thither, perplexed and terrified, finding no way of escape, and he
+dreaded lest he had lost his balance and fallen into the net he had cast
+so often. He had begun to see that she was afraid of the sin, and not at
+all of him. She had never asked him if he would always love her--that
+she seemed to take for granted--and he had, or fancied he had, begun to
+feel that he would never cease to love her. He looked into the future
+far enough to see that it would be she who would tire of him, and that
+another would appear two or three years hence who would appeal to her
+sensual imagination just as he did to-day. She would strive to resist
+it, she would argue with herself, but the enticing illusion would draw
+her as in a silken net. He was now engaged in the destruction of her
+moral scruples--in other words, making the way easy for his successor.
+
+They were in the gallery alone, and, taking her hand, he considered in
+detail the trouble this _liaison_ would bring in its train. He no longer
+doubted that she would go abroad with him sooner or later. He hoped it
+would be sooner, for he had begun to perceive the absurdity of his
+visits to Dulwich. The question was whether she was worth an exile in a
+foreign country. He would have to devote himself to her and to her
+interests. She would have a chaperon. There would be no use in their
+openly living together--that he could not stand. But at that moment the
+exquisite happiness of seeing her every day, coming into the room where
+she was reading or singing, and kissing her as he leaned over her chair
+affectionately, as a matter of course, deriving his enjoyment from the
+prescriptive right to do so, and then talking to her about ordinary
+affairs of life, came upon him suddenly like a vision; and this imagined
+life was so intense that for one moment it was equivalent to the
+reality. He saw himself taking her home from the theatre at night in the
+brougham. In the next instant they were in the train going to Bayreuth.
+In the next he saw her as Kundry rush on to the stage. He felt that,
+whatever it cost him, that was the life he must obtain. He felt that he
+could not live if he did not acquire it, and so intense was the vision
+that, unable to endure its torment, he got up and proposed they should
+go into the garden and sit under the cedar.
+
+They were alone in the garden as they were in the gallery, but lovers
+are averse to open spaces, and Owen felt that their appearance coincided
+too closely with that of lovers in many popular engravings. He hoped he
+was not observed, and regretted he had often spoken of the picture
+gallery to his friends. An unlucky chance might bring one of them down.
+
+It was in this garden, amid the scent and colour of May, that the most
+beautiful part of their love story was woven. It was in this garden that
+they talked about love and happiness, and the mystery of the attraction
+of one person to another, and whilst listening to him, a poignant memory
+of the afternoon when he had first kissed her often crossed her mind.
+Little faintnesses took her in the eyes and heart. Their voices broke,
+and it seemed that they could not continue to talk any longer of life
+and art. It was in this garden that they forgot each other. Their
+thoughts wandered far away, and then, when one called the other's
+attention, he or she relinquished scenes and sensations and came back
+appearing suddenly like someone out of a mist. Each asked the other what
+he or she had been dreaming. Once he told her his dream. It was of a
+villa in the middle of a large garden surrounded by chestnut trees and
+planted with rhododendrons. In this villa there dwelt a great singer
+whose name was a glory in the world, and to this villa there came very
+often a tall, thin, ugly man, and, seeing the beautiful singer walking
+with him, the folk wondered how she could love him.
+
+It was a sort of delicious death, a swooning ecstasy, an absorption of
+her individuality in his. Just as the spring gradually displaced the
+winter by a new branch of blossom, and in that corner of the garden by
+the winsome mauve of a lilac bush, without her knowing it his ideas
+caught root in her. New thoughts and perceptions were in growth within
+her, and every day she discovered the new where she had been accustomed
+to meet the familiar idea. She seemed to be slipping out of herself as
+out of a soft, white garment, unconsciously, without any effort on her
+part.
+
+Very often they discussed whether sacrifice of self is not the first of
+the sins against life. "That is the sin," he said, "that cries loudest
+to Nature for vengeance. To discover our best gift from Nature, and to
+cultivate that gift, is the first law of life." If she could not accept
+this theory of life as valid and justifiable, she had at least begun to
+consider it. Another of Owen's ideas that interested her was his theory
+of beauty. He said that he could not accept the ordinary statement that
+a woman was beautiful and stupid. Beauty and stupidity could not exist
+in the same face, stupidity being the ugliest thing on earth; and he
+contended that two-thirds of human beauty were the illumination of
+matter by the intelligence, and but one-third proportion and delicacy of
+line. After some hesitation, he admitted that at first he had been
+disappointed in her, but now everything about her was an enchantment,
+and when she was not present, he lived in memories of her. He spoke
+without emphasis, almost as if he were speaking to himself, and she
+could not answer for delight.
+
+Her father was vaguely conscious of some change in his daughter, and
+when one day he heard her singing "Faust," he was perplexed; and when
+she argued that it was a beautiful and human aspiration, he looked at
+her as if he had never seen her before. He asked her how she had come to
+think such a thing, and was perplexed by her embarrassments. She was
+sorry for her liking for Gounod's melodies. It seemed to alienate them;
+they seemed to have drifted apart. She saw a silently widening distance,
+as if two ships were moving away. One day he asked her if she were going
+to communion next Sunday. She answered that she did not think so, and
+sat thinking a long while, for she had become suddenly aware that she
+was not as pious as she used to be. She did not think that Owen's
+arguments had touched her faith, but she no longer felt the same
+interest in religion; and in thinking over this change, which seemed so
+independent of her own will, she grew pensive and perplexed. Her
+melancholy was a sort of voluptuous meditation. She was conscious all
+the while of Owen's presence. It was as if he were standing by her, and
+she felt that he must be thinking of her.
+
+He had often spoken of going away with her; she had smiled plaintively,
+never regarding an elopement as possible. But one evening her father had
+gone to dine with a certain Roman prelate who believed in the advantage
+to the Catholic Church of a musical reformation. And she had gone to
+meet Owen, who had driven from London. They had walked two hours in the
+lanes, and when she got home she ran to her room and undressed
+hurriedly, thinking how delightful it would be to lie awake in the dark
+and remember it all. And feeling the cool sheets about her she folded
+her arms and abandoned herself to every recollection. Her imagination,
+heightened as by a drug, enabled her to see the white, dusty road and
+the sickly, yellow moon rising through the branches. Again she was
+standing by him, her arms were on his neck; again they stood looking
+into the vague distance, seeing the broken paling in the moonlight.
+There were his eyes and hands and lips to think about, and when she had
+exhausted these memories, others sprang upon her. It was in the very
+centre of her being that she was thinking of the moment when she had
+spied his horse's head over the hill top. She had recognised his
+silhouette against the sky. He had whipped up the horse, he had thrown
+the reins to the groom, he had sprung from the step. The evening was
+then lighted by the sunset, and as the sky darkened, their love had
+seemed to grow brighter. In comparison with this last meeting, all past
+meetings seemed shadowy and unreal. She had never loved him before, and
+if her smile had dwindled when he asked her to come away with him, she
+had liked to hear him say the dogcart was waiting at the inn. But when
+they stood by the stile where cattle were breathing softly, and the moon
+shone over the sheepfold like a shepherd's lantern, her love had grown
+wilful, and she had liked to say that she would go away with him. She
+knew not whether she could fulfil her promise, but it had been a joy to
+give it. They had walked slowly towards Dulwich, the groom had brought
+round the dog-cart; Owen had asked her once more to get in. Oh, to drive
+away with him through the night! "Owen, it is impossible," she said; "I
+cannot, at least not now. But I will one day very soon, sooner perhaps
+than you think."
+
+He had driven away, and, standing on the moon-whitened road, she had
+watched the white dust whirl about the wheels.
+
+One of the difficulties in the indulgence of these voluptuous
+meditations was that they necessitated the omission of her evening
+prayers. She could not kneel by her bedside and pray to God to deliver
+her from evil, all the while nourishing in her heart the intention of
+abandoning herself to the thought of Owen the moment she got into bed.
+Nor did the omission of her evening prayers quite solve the difficulty,
+for when she could think no more of Owen, the fear of God returned. She
+dared not go to sleep, and lay terrified, dreading the devil in every
+corner of the room. Lest she might die in her sleep and be summoned
+before the judgment seat, she lay awake as long as she could.
+
+When she fell asleep she dreamed of the stage when the world was won,
+and when it seemed she had only to stretch her hands to the sky to take
+the stars. But in the midst of her triumph she perceived that she could
+no longer sing the music the world required; a new music was drumming in
+her ears, drowning the old music, a music written in a melancholy mode,
+and played on invisible harps. Owen told her it was madness to listen,
+and she strove to close her ears against it. In great trouble of mind
+she awoke; it was only a dream, and she had not lost her voice. She lay
+back upon the pillow and tried to recall the music which she had heard
+on the invisible harps, but already it was forgotten; it faded from her
+brain like mist from the surface of a mere. But the humour that the
+dream had created endured after the dream was dead. She felt no longer
+as she had felt over night, and lay in a sort of obtuse sensibility of
+conscience. She got up and dressed, her mind still clouded and sullen,
+and her prayers were said in a sort of middle state between fervour and
+indifference. Her father attributed her mood to the old cause; several
+times he was on the point of speaking, and she held him for the moment
+by the lappet of his coat and looked affectionately into his face. But
+something told her that if she were to confide her trouble to anyone,
+she would lose the power she had acquired over herself. Something told
+her that all the strength on her side was reposed in the secrecy of the
+combat. If it were known, she could imagine herself saying--
+
+"Well, nothing matters now; let us go away, Owen."
+
+He was coming to see her between eleven and twelve--at the very time he
+knew her father would be away from home, and this very fact stimulated
+her ethical perception. Her manner was in accordance with her mood, and
+the moment he entered he saw that something had happened, that she was
+no longer the same Evelyn from whom he had parted a couple of nights
+before.
+
+"Well, I can see you have changed your mind; so we are not going away
+together. Evelyn, dear, is it not so? Tell me."
+
+He was a little ashamed of his hypocrisy, for, as he had driven home in
+the dogcart, the adventure he was engaged in had appeared to him under
+every disagreeable aspect. He could not but think that the truth of the
+story would leak out, and he could hear all the women he knew speaking
+of Evelyn as a girl he had picked up in the suburbs--an organist's
+daughter. He had thought again of the responsibility that going away
+with this girl imposed upon him, and he had come to the conclusion that
+it would be wiser to drop the whole thing and get out of it while there
+was time. That night, as he lay in bed, he saw himself telling people
+how many operas she knew; and the tales of her successes in Vienna and
+Naples.... But he need not always be with her, she would have a
+chaperon; and he had fallen asleep thinking which among his friends
+would undertake the task for him. In the morning he had awakened in the
+same nervous indecision, and had gone to Dulwich disheartened, provoked
+at his own folly. It therefore happened that her refusal to go away with
+him coincided exactly with his humour. So all that was necessary was a
+mere polite attempt to persuade her that she was sacrificing her career,
+but without too much insistence on the point; a promise to call again
+soon; then a letter saying he was unwell, or was going to Paris or to
+Riversdale. A month after they could meet at a concert, but he must be
+careful not to be alone with her, and very soon the incident--after all,
+he had only kissed her--would be forgotten. But as he sat face to face
+with her, all his carefully considered plans seemed to drop behind him
+in ruins, and he doubted if he would be able to deny himself the
+pleasure of taking her away. That is to say, if he could induce her to
+go, which no longer seemed very sure. She might be one of those women in
+whom the sense of sin was so obdurate that they could not but remain
+virtuous.
+
+But of what was she thinking? he asked himself; and he scanned the
+yielding face, reading the struggle in a sudden suppressed look or
+nervous twitching of the lips.
+
+"Dearest Evelyn, I love you. Life would be nothing without you."
+
+"Owen, I am very fond of you, but there would be no use in my going away
+with you. I should be miserable. I know I am not the kind of woman who
+would play the part."
+
+Her words roused new doubts. It would be useless to go away with her if
+she were to be miserable all the while. He did not want to make anyone
+miserable; he wanted to make people happy. He indulged in a moment of
+complacent self-admiration, and then reflected that this adventure would
+cost a great deal of time and money, and if he were really to get
+nothing out of it but tears and repentance, he had better take her at
+her word, bid her good-bye, and write to-morrow saying he was called
+away to Riversdale on business.
+
+"But you are not cross with me? You will come to see me all the same?"
+
+He wondered if she were tortured with as many different and opposing
+desires as he was. Perhaps not, and he watched her tender, truthful
+eyes. In her truthful nature, filled full of passion and conscience,
+there was no place for any slightest calculation. But he was
+mistrustful, and asked himself if all this resistance was a blind to
+induce him to marry her. If he thought that, he would drop her at once.
+This suspicion was lost sight of in a sudden lighting of her hair,
+caused by a slight turning of her head. Beyond doubt she was a fresh and
+delicious thing, and if he did not take her, someone else would, and
+then he would curse his indecision; and if she had a great voice, he
+would for ever regret he had not taken her when he could get her. If he
+did not take her now, the chance was gone for ever. She was the
+adventure he had dreamed all his life. At last it had come to him,
+perhaps through the sheer force of his desire, and now, should he
+refrain from the dream, or should he dream it? He saw the exquisite
+sensual life that awaited him and her in Paris. He saw her, pale and
+pathetic, and thought of her eager eyes and lips.
+
+Evelyn sat crestfallen and repentant, but her melancholy was a pretty,
+smiling melancholy, and her voice had not quite lost the sparkle and
+savour of wit. She regretted her sin, admitted her culpability, and he
+was forced to admit that sorrow and virtue sat becomingly upon her. Her
+mood was in a measure contagious, and he talked gently and gaily about
+herself, and the day when the world would listen to her with delight and
+approbation. But while he talked, he was like a man on the rack. He was
+dragged from different sides, and the questioner was at his ear.
+
+Hitherto he had never compromised himself in his relations with women.
+As he had often said of himself, he had inspired no great passion, but a
+multitude of caprices. But now he had begun to feel that it is one love
+and not twenty that makes a life memorable, he wished to redeem his life
+from intrigues, and here was the very chance he was waiting for. But
+habit had rendered him cowardly, and this seduction frightened him
+almost as much as marriage had done. To go away with her, he felt, was
+equivalent to marrying her. His life would never be the same again. The
+list would be lost to him for ever, no more lists for him; he would be
+known as the man who lived with--lived with whom? A girl picked up in
+the suburbs, and sang rather prettily. If she were a great singer he
+would not mind, but he could not stand a mediocre singer about whom he
+would have to talk continual nonsense: conspiracies that were in
+continual progress against her at Covent Garden, etc. He had heard all
+that sort of thing before.... What should he do? He must make up his
+mind. It might be as well if he were to ask her to come to his house;
+then in some three or four months he would be able to see if she were
+worth the great sacrifice he was going to make for her.
+
+Her hand lay on her knees. He knew that he should not take it, but it
+lay on her knees so plaintively, that in spite of all his resistance he
+took it and examined it. It did not strike him as a particularly
+beautiful hand. It was long and white, and exceedingly flexible. It was
+large, and the finger-tips were pointed. The palms curved voluptuously,
+but the slender fingers closed and opened with a virile movement which
+suggested active and spontaneous impulses. In taking her hand and
+caressing it, he knew he was prejudicing his chances of escape, and
+fearing the hand he held in his might never let him go again, he said--
+
+"If your destiny should be to play the viola da gamba in Dulwich, and
+mine to set forth again on my trip round the world."
+
+In an instant, in a rapid succession of scenes, the horrible winter she
+had spent in Dulwich passed before her eyes. She saw herself stopping at
+the corner of a street, and looking at a certain tree and the slope of a
+certain house, and asking herself if her life would go on for ever, if
+there would be no change. She saw herself star-gazing, with daffodils
+for offerings in her hands; and the memory of the hungry hours when she
+waited for her father to come home to dinner was so vivid, that she
+thought she felt the same wearying pain and the exhausting yearning
+behind her eyes, and that feeling as if she wanted to go mad. No; she
+could not endure it again, and she cried plaintively, falling slightly
+forward--
+
+"Owen, don't make things more difficult than they are. Why is it wrong
+for me to go away with you? I don't do any harm to anyone. God is
+merciful after all."
+
+"If I were to marry you, you could not go on the stage; you would have
+to live at Riversdale and look after your children."
+
+"But I don't want children. I want to sing."
+
+"And I want you to sing. No one but husbands have children, exception
+the stage and in novels."
+
+"It would be much more exciting to run away together, than to be married
+by the Vicar. It is very wicked to say these things. It is you who make
+me wicked."
+
+A mist blinded her eyes, and a sickness seemed instilled in her very
+blood, and in a dubious faintness she was conscious of his lips. He
+hardly heard the words he uttered, so loud was the clatter of his
+thoughts, and he seemed to see the trail of his destiny unwinding itself
+from the distaff in the hands of Fate. He was frightened, and an impulse
+strove to force him to his feet, and hence, with a rapid good-bye, to
+the door. But instead, he leaned forth his hands, he sought her, but she
+shrank away, and turning her face from him, she said--
+
+"Owen, you must not kiss me."
+
+Again he might choose between sailing the _Medusa_ in search of
+adventure, or crossing the Channel in the mail packet in search of art.
+
+"Will you come away with me?" he said. His heart sank, and he thought
+of the Rubicon.
+
+"You don't mean this very instant? I could not go away without seeing
+father."
+
+"Why not? You don't intend to tell him you are going away with me?"
+
+"No; it is not the sort of thing one generally tells one's father,
+but--I cannot go away with you now--"
+
+"When will you come?"
+
+"Owen, don't press me for an answer. I don't know."
+
+"The way of escape is still open to me," he thought; but he could not
+resist the temptation that this girl's face and voice presented to his
+imagination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+
+She sat in the music-room thinking, asking herself what use it would be
+to meet him in Berkeley Square unless to go away with him to Paris. She
+sat engrossed in her emotion; it was like looking into water where weeds
+are carried by a current out of the dim depths into the light of day. In
+a pensive atmosphere, a quiet daylight, his motives were revealed to
+her. She was in the humour to look at things sympathetically, and she
+understood that for him to run away with her entailed as much sacrifice
+on his part as on hers. It meant a giving up of his friends, pursuits
+and habits of life. There were sacrifices to be made by him as well as
+by her, and she smiled a little sadly as she thought of the differences
+of their several renunciations. She was asked to surrender her peace of
+mind, he his worldly pleasure. Often the sensation was almost physical;
+it rose up like a hand and seemed to sweep her heart clear, and at the
+same moment a voice said--It is not right. Owen had argued with her, but
+she could not quench the feeling that it was not right, and yet, when he
+asked her to explain, she could give no other reason except that it was
+forbidden by the Church.
+
+Each thought that very little was asked from the other. To him her
+conscience seemed a slight forfeit, and worldly pleasure seemed very
+little to her. She thought that she would readily forfeit this world for
+him.... But eternity was her forfeit; even that she might sacrifice if
+she were sure her conscience would not trouble her in this world. She
+followed her conscience like a river; it fluttered along full of
+unexpected eddies and picturesque shallows, and there were pools so deep
+that she could not see to the bottom.
+
+Suddenly the vision changed. She was no longer in Dulwich with her
+father. She saw railway trains and steamboats, and then the faint
+outline of the coast of France. Her foreboding was so clear and distinct
+that she could not doubt that Owen was the future that awaited her. The
+presentiment filled her with delight and fear, and both sensations were
+mingled at the same moment in her heart as she rose from her chair. She
+stood rigid as a visionary; then, hoping she would not be disturbed, she
+sank back into her chair and allowed her thoughts their will. She
+followed the course of the journey to France, and at every moment the
+sensation grew more exquisite. She heard him say what she wished him to
+say, and she saw the white villa in its garden planted with
+rhododendrons and chestnut trees in flower. The mild spring air, faint
+with perfume, dilated her nostrils, and her eyes drank in the soft
+colour of the light shadows passing over the delicate grass and the
+light shadows moving among the trees. She lay back in her chair, her
+eyes fixed on a distant corner of the room, and her life went by, clear
+and surprising as pictures seen in a crystal. When she grew weary of the
+villa, she saw herself on the stage, and heard her own voice singing as
+she wished to sing. Nor did she forsee any break in the lulling
+enchantment of her life of music and love. She knew that Owen did not
+love her at present, but she never doubted that she could get him to
+love her, and once he loved her it seemed to her that he must always
+love her. What she had heard and read in books concerning the treachery
+of men, she remembered, but she was not influenced, for it did not seem
+to her that any such things were to happen to her. She closed her eyes
+so that she might drink more deeply of the vision, so that she might
+bring it more clearly before her. Like aspects seen on a misty river, it
+was as beautiful shadows of things rather than the things themselves.
+The meditation grew voluptuous, and as she saw him come into her room
+and take her in his arms, her conscience warned her that she should
+cease to indulge in these thoughts; but it was impossible to check them,
+and she dreamed on and on in kisses and tendernesses of speech.
+
+That afternoon she was going to have tea with some friends, and as she
+paused to pin her hat before the glass, she remembered that if Owen were
+right, and that there was no future life, the only life that she was
+sure of would be wasted. Then she would endure the burden of life for
+naught; she would not have attained its recompense; the calamity would
+be irreparable; it would be just as if she had not lived at all. Thought
+succeeded thought in instantaneous succession, contradicting and
+refuting each other. No, her life would not be wasted, it would be an
+example to others, it was in renunciation that we rose above the animal
+and attained spiritual existence. At that moment it seemed to her that
+she could renounce everything but love. Could she renounce her art? But
+her art was not a merely personal sacrifice. In the renunciation of her
+art she was denying a great gift that had been given to her by Nature,
+that had come she knew not whence nor how, but clearly for exercise and
+for the admiration of the world. It therefore could not have been given
+to her to hide or to waste; she would be held responsible for it. Her
+voice was one of her responsibilities; not to cultivate her voice would
+be a sort of suicide. This seemed quite clear to her, and she reflected,
+and with some personal satisfaction, that she had incurred duties toward
+herself. Right and wrong, as Owen said, was a question of time and
+place. What was right here was wrong there, but oneself was the one
+certain thing, and to remain with her father meant the abandonment of
+herself.... She wanted herself! Ah, she wanted to live, and how well she
+knew that she was not living, and could never live, in Dulwich. The
+nuns! Strange were their renunciations! For they yielded the present
+moment, which Owen and a Persian poet called our one possession. She
+seemed to see them fading in a pathetic decadence, falling like
+etiolated flowers, and their holy simplicities seemed merely pathetic.
+
+And in the exaltation of her resolution to live, her soul melted again
+into Owen's kisses, and she drew herself together, and the spasm was so
+intense and penetrating that to overcome it she walked across the room
+stretching her arms. It seemed to her more than impossible that she
+could endure Dulwich any longer. The life of love and art tore at her
+heart; always she saw Owen offering her love, fame, wealth; his hands
+were full of gifts; he seemed to drop them at her feet, and taking her
+in his arms, his lips closed upon hers, and her life seemed to run down
+like the last struggling sand in a glass.
+
+Besides this personal desire there was in her brain a strange
+alienation. Paris rose up before her, and Italy, and they were so vague
+that she hardly knew whether they were remembrances or dreams, and she
+was compelled by a force so exterior to herself that she looked round
+frightened, as if she believed she would find someone at her elbow. She
+did not seem to be alone, there seemed to be others in the room,
+presences from which she could not escape; she could not see them, but
+she felt them about her, and as she sought them with fearing eyes,
+voices seemed speaking inside her, and it was with extreme terror that
+she heard the proposal that she was to be one of God's virgins. The hell
+which opened on the other side of Owen ceased to frighten her. The
+devils waiting there for her soul grew less substantial, and thoughts
+and things seemed to converge more and more, to draw together and become
+one. She was aware of the hallucination in her brain, but could not
+repress it, nor all sorts of rapid questions and arguments. Suddenly a
+voice reminded her that if she were going to abandon the life of the
+soul for the life of the flesh, that she should accept the flesh wholly,
+and not subvert its intentions. She should become the mother of
+children. Life was concerned more intimately with children than with her
+art. But somehow it did not seem the same renunciation, and she stood
+perplexed before the enigma of her conscience.
+
+She looked round the room, dreading and half believing in some diabolic
+influence at her elbow, but perceiving nothing, an ungovernable impulse
+took her, and her steps strayed to the door, in the desire and almost in
+the intention of going to London. But if she went there, how would she
+explain her visit?... Owen would understand; but if he were not in, she
+could not wait until he came in. She paused to consider the look of
+pleasure that would come upon his face when he came in and found her
+there. There would be just one look, and they would throw themselves
+into each other's arms. She was about to rush away, having forgotten all
+else but him, when she remembered her father. If she were to go now she
+must leave a letter for him explaining--telling him the story. And who
+would play the viola da gamba at his concerts? and there would be no one
+to see that he had his meals.
+
+Was she or was she not going away with Owen to Paris on Thursday night?
+The agonising question continued at every moment to present itself.
+Whatever she was doing or saying, she was always conscious of it, and as
+the time drew near, with every hour, it seemed to approach and menace
+her. She seemed to feel it beating like a neuralgic pain behind her
+eyes; and though she laughed and talked a great deal, her father noticed
+that her animation was strained and nervous, and he noticed, too, that
+in no part of their conversation was she ever entirely with him, and he
+wondered what were the sights and scenes he faintly discerned in her
+changing eyes.
+
+On getting up on Wednesday morning, she remembered that the best train
+from Dulwich was at three o'clock, and she asked herself why she had
+thought of this train, and that she should have thought of it seemed to
+her like an omen. Her father sat opposite, looking at her across the
+table. It was all so clear in her mind that she was ashamed to sit
+thinking these things, for thinking as clearly as she was thinking
+seemed equivalent to accomplishment; and the difference between what she
+thought and what she said was so repulsive to her that she was on the
+point of flinging herself at his feet several times.
+
+There were times when the temptation seemed to have left her, when she
+smiled at her own weakness and folly; and having reproved herself
+sufficiently, she thought of other things. It seemed to her
+extraordinary why she should argue and trouble about a thing which she
+really had no intention of doing. But at that moment her heart told her
+that this was not so, that she would go to meet Owen in Berkeley Square,
+and she was again taken with an extraordinary inward trembling.
+
+Our actions obey an unknown law, implicit in ourselves, but which does
+not conform to our logic. So we very often succeed in proving to
+ourselves that a certain course is the proper one for us to follow, in
+preference to another course, but, when it comes for us to act, we do
+not act as we intended, and we ascribe the discrepancy between what we
+think and what we do to a deficiency of will power. Man dares not admit
+that he acts according to his instincts, that his instincts are his
+destiny.
+
+We make up our mind to change our conduct in certain matters, but we go
+on acting just the same; and in spite of every reason, Evelyn was still
+undecided whether she should go to meet Sir Owen. It was quite clear
+that it was wrong for her to go, and it seemed all settled in her mind;
+but at the bottom of her heart something over which she had no kind of
+control told her that in the end nothing could prevent her from going to
+meet him. She stopped, amazed and terrified, asking herself why she was
+going to do a thing which she seemed no longer even to desire.
+
+In the afternoon some girl friends came to see her. She played and sang
+and talked to them, but they, too, noticed that she was never really
+with them, and her friends could see that she saw and heard things
+invisible and inaudible to them. In the middle of some trifling
+chatter--whether one colour or another was likely to be fashionable in
+the coming season--she had to put her hand in her pocket for her
+handkerchief, and happened to meet the key of the square, and it brought
+back to her in a moment the entire drama of her destiny. Was she going
+to take the three o'clock train to London, or to remain in Dulwich with
+her father? She thought that she would not mind whatever happened, if
+she only knew what would happen. Either lot seemed better to her than
+the uncertainty. She rattled on, talking with fictitious gaiety about
+the colour of bonnets and a party at which Julia had sung, not even
+hearing what she was saying. Wednesday evening passed with an inward
+vision so intense that all the outer world had receded from her, she was
+like one alone in a desert, and she ate without tasting, saw without
+seeing what she looked at, spoke without knowing what she was saying,
+heard without hearing what was said to her, and moved without knowing
+where she was going.
+
+On Thursday morning the obsession of her destiny took all colour from
+her cheek, and her eyes were nervous.
+
+"What is it, my girl?" Her father said, taking her hand, and the music
+he was tying up dropped on the floor. "Tell me, Evelyn; something, I can
+see, is the matter."
+
+It was like the breaking of a spring. Something seemed to give way
+within her, and slipping on her knees, she threw her arms about him.
+
+"I am very unhappy. I wish I were dead."
+
+He strove to raise her from her knees, but the attitude expressed her
+feelings, and she remained, leaning her face against him. Nor could he
+coax any information from her. At last she said, raising her tearful
+eyes--
+
+"If I were to leave you, father, you would never forgive me? But I am
+your only daughter, and you would forgive me; whatever happened, we
+should always love one another?"
+
+"But why should you leave me?"
+
+"But if I loved someone? I don't mean as I love you. I could never love
+anyone so tenderly; I mean quite differently. Don't make me say more. I
+am so ashamed of myself."
+
+"You are in love with him?"
+
+"Yes, and he has asked me to go away with him." And as she answered, she
+wondered at the quickness with which her father had guessed that it was
+Owen. He was such a clever man; the moment his thoughts were diverted
+from his music, he understood things as well as the most worldly, and
+she felt that he would understand her, that she must open her heart to
+him.
+
+"If I don't go away with him I shall die, or kill myself, or go mad. It
+is terrible to have to tell you these things, father, I know, but I
+must. I was ill when he went away to Greece, you remember. It was
+nothing but love of him."
+
+"Did he not ask you to marry him?"
+
+"No, he will never marry anyone."
+
+"And that made no difference to you?"
+
+"Oh, father, don't be angry, don't think me horrid. You are looking at
+me as if you never saw me before. I know I ought to have been angry when
+he asked me to go away with him, but somehow I wasn't. I don't know that
+I even wanted him to marry me. I want to go away and be a great singer,
+and he is not more to blame than I am. I can't tell lies. What is the
+use of telling lies? If I were to tell you anything else, it would be
+untrue."
+
+"But are you going away with him?"
+
+"I don't know. Not if I can help it;" and at that moment her eyes went
+to the portrait of her mother.
+
+"You lost your mother very early, and I have neglected you. She ought to
+be here to protect you."
+
+"No, no, father; she would not understand me as well as you do."
+
+"So you are glad that she is not here?"
+
+Evelyn nodded, and then she said--
+
+"If he were to go away and I were left here again, I don't know what
+would become of me. It isn't my fault, father; I can't help it."
+
+"I did not know that you were like this. Your mother--"
+
+"Ah I mother and I are quite different. I am more like you, father. You
+can't blame me; you have been in love with women--with mother, at
+least--and ought to understand."
+
+"Evelyn ... these are subjects that cannot be discussed between us."
+
+The eyes of the mother watched them, and there was something in her
+cold, distant glance which went to their hearts, but they could not
+interpret its meaning.
+
+"I either had to go away, father, telling you nothing, or I had to tell
+you everything."
+
+"I will go to Sir Owen."
+
+"No, father, you mustn't. Promise me you won't. I have trusted you, and
+you mustn't make me regret my trust. This is my secret." He was
+frightened by the strange light that appeared in her eyes, and he felt
+that an appeal to Owen would be like throwing oil on a flame. "You
+mustn't go to Sir Owen; you have promised you won't. I don't know what
+would happen if you did."
+
+His daughter's confession had frightened him, and he knew not what
+answer to make to her. When the depths find voice we stand aghast,
+knowing neither ourselves nor those whom we have lived with always. He
+was caught in the very den of his being, and seemed at every moment to
+be turning over a leaf of his past life.
+
+"If you had only patience, Evelyn--ah! you have heard what I am going to
+say so often, but I don't blame your incredulity. That was why I did not
+tell you before."
+
+"What has happened?" she asked eagerly; for she, too, wished for a lull
+in this stress of emotion.
+
+"Well," he said, "Monsignor Mostyn, the great Roman prelate, who has
+just arrived from Rome, and is staying with the Jesuits, shares all my
+views regarding the necessity of a musical reformation. He believes that
+a revival of Palestrina and Vittoria would be of great use to the
+Catholic cause in England. He says that he can secure the special
+intervention of the Pope, and, what is much more important, he will
+subscribe largely, and has no doubt that sufficient money can be
+collected."
+
+Evelyn listened, smiling through her sorrow, like a bird when the rain
+has ceased for a moment, and she asked questions, anxious to delay the
+inevitable return to her own unhappy condition. She was interested in
+the luck that had come to her father, and was sorry that her conduct had
+clouded or spoilt it. At last a feeling of shame came upon them that at
+such a time they should be engaged in speaking of such singularly
+irrelevant topics. She could see that the same thought had come upon
+him, and she noticed his trim, square figure, and the old blue jacket
+which she had known so many years, as he walked up and down the room. He
+was getting very grey lately, and when she returned he might be quite
+white.
+
+"Oh, father, father," she exclaimed, covering her face with her hands,
+"how unhappy I am."
+
+"I shall send a telegram to Monsignor saying I can't see him this
+morning."
+
+"Ah! you have to see him this morning;" and she did not know whether she
+was glad or sorry. Perhaps she was more frightened than either, for the
+appointment left her quite free to go to London by the three o'clock
+train.
+
+"I can't leave you alone."
+
+"Darling, if I had wanted to deceive you, I should have told you
+nothing; and, however you were to watch me, I could always get away if I
+chose."
+
+She was right, he could not keep her by force, he could do nothing;
+shame prevented him from appealing to her affection for him, for it was
+in his interest she should stay. After all, Sir Owen will make a great
+singer of her. The thought had come and gone before he was aware, and to
+atone for this involuntary thought he spoke to her about her religion.
+
+"I used to be religious," she said, "but I am religious no longer. I can
+hardly say my prayers now. I said them last night, but this morning I
+couldn't."
+
+He passed his hand across his eyes, and said--
+
+"It seems all like a bad dream."
+
+He felt that he ought to stay with her, and at the same time he felt
+that she was right; that his intervention would be unavailing, for the
+struggle resided in herself. But if she should learn from Sir Owen to
+forget him; if he were to lose her altogether; if she should never
+return? The thought of such a calamity was the rudest blow of all, and
+the possibility of her going away for a time, shocking as it was, seemed
+almost light beside it. He struggled against these thoughts, for he
+hated and was ashamed of them. They came into his mind unasked, and he
+hoped that they represented nothing of his real feeling. Suddenly his
+face changed, he remembered his passion for her mother. He had suffered
+what Evelyn was suffering now. She had divined it by some instinct;
+true, they were very much like each other. Nothing would have kept him
+from Gertrude. But all that was so long ago. Good God! It was not the
+same thing, and at the very same moment he regretted that it was not a
+music lesson he was going to, for an appointment with Monsignor
+introduced a personal interest, and if he were not to stay by her, it
+would seem that he was indifferent to what became of her.
+
+"No, Evelyn, I shan't go; I will stay here, I will stay by you."
+
+"But I don't know that I am going away with Sir Owen."
+
+"You said just now that you were."
+
+"Did I say so? Father, you must keep your appointment with Monsignor,
+and you must say nothing to Owen if you should meet him; you promise me
+that? It rests with me, father, it is all in the heart."
+
+He stood looking at her, twisting his beard into a point, and while she
+wondered whether he would go or stay, she admired the delicacy of his
+hand.
+
+"Think of the disgrace you will bring upon me, and just at the time,
+too, when Monsignor is beginning to see that a really great choir in
+London--
+
+"Then, father, you do think that my going away will prejudice him
+against you?"
+
+"I don't say that. I mean that this time seems less--Of course you
+cannot go. It is very shocking that we should be discussing the subject
+together."
+
+A sudden fortitude came upon her, and a sudden desire to sacrifice
+herself to her father.
+
+"Then, father, I shall stay. I will do nothing that will interfere with
+your work."
+
+"My dearest child, it is not for me--it is yourself--"
+
+She threw herself into his arms, begging him to forgive her. She wanted
+to stay with him. She loved him better than her voice, better than
+anything in the world. He did not answer, and when she raised her eyes
+she caught a slight look of doubt upon his face, and wondered what it
+could mean. At the very moment she had determined to stay with him, and
+forfeit her love and her art for his sake, a keen sense of his
+responsibility towards her was borne in upon him, and the feeling within
+him crushed like a stone that he could never do anything for her, nor
+anything else except, perchance, achieve that reformation of Church
+music upon which his heart was set. He understood in that instant that
+she was sacrificing all her life to his, and he feared the sacrifice she
+was making, and anticipated in some measure the remorse he would suffer.
+But he dared not think that she had better go and achieve her destiny in
+the only way that was open to her. He urged himself to believe that she
+was acting rightly, it was impossible for him to hold any other opinion.
+The thoughts that came upon him he strove to think were merely nervous
+accidents, and he forced himself to accept the irresponsibility of the
+sacrifice. He wished not to be selfish, but, however he acted, he always
+seemed to be acting in his own interest. Since she had promised him not
+to go away with Sir Owen, he was quite free to keep his appointment with
+Monsignor, and he gathered up his music, and then he let it fall again,
+fearing that she would interpret his action to mean that he was glad to
+get away.
+
+She besought him to go; she said she was tired and wanted to lie down,
+and all the while he spoke she was tortured with an uncertainty as to
+whether she was speaking the truth or not; and he had not been gone many
+minutes when she remembered that she had not told him that Owen had
+asked her to meet him that very afternoon in Berkeley Square, and that
+the key of the square lay in her pocket. Like one with outstretched
+hands, striving to feel her way in the dark, she sought to discover in
+her soul whether she had deliberately suppressed or accidentally omitted
+the fact of her appointment with Owen. It might be that the conversation
+had taken a sudden turn, at the moment she was about to tell him, for
+the thought had crossed her mind that she ought to tell him. Then she
+seemed to lose count of everything, and was unable to distinguish truth
+from falsehood.
+
+To increase her difficulties, she remembered that she had betrayed
+Owen's confidence. She could not quite admit to herself that she had a
+right to tell her father that it was he. But he had guessed it.... It
+seemed impossible to do right. Perhaps there was no right and no wrong,
+as Owen said; and a wish rose from the bottom of her heart that it might
+be so, and then she feared she had been guilty of blasphemy. Perhaps she
+should warn Owen of her indiscretion, and she thought of herself going
+to London for this purpose, and smiled as she detected the deception
+which she was trying to practise on herself.
+
+There was nothing for her to do in the house, and when she had walked an
+hour in the ornamental park, she strayed into the picture gallery, and
+stood a long time looking at the Dutch lady who was playing the
+virginal, and whose life passed peacefully apparently without any
+emotion, in a silent house amid rich furniture. But she was soon drawn
+to the Watteau, where a rich evening hushes about a beautiful carven
+colonnade, under which the court is seated; where gallants wear deep
+crimson and azure cloaks, and the ladies striped gowns of dainty
+refinement; where all the rows are full of amorous intrigue, and vows
+are being pleaded, and mandolines are playing; where a fountain sings in
+the garden and dancers perform their pavane or minuet, the lady holding
+out her striped skirt, and the gentleman bowing to her with a deference
+that seems a little mocking. An hour of pensive attitudes and whispered
+confidences, and over every fan a face wonders if there is truth in
+love.
+
+"It is strange," Evelyn thought, "how one woman lives in obscurity, and
+another in admiration and success. That woman playing the virginal is
+not ugly; if she were dressed like these seated under the colonnade, she
+would be quite as pretty; but she is not as clever, Owen would say, or
+she wouldn't be playing the virginal in a village. It is strange how I
+remember everything he says."
+
+She thought of herself as the lady in the centre, the one that looked
+like the queen, and to whom a tall young man in a lovely cloak was being
+introduced, and then imagined herself one of the less important ladies
+who, for the sake of her beautiful voice, would be surrounded and
+admired by all men; she would create bitter jealousies and annoy a
+number of women, which, however, she would endeavour to overcome by
+giving back to them the several lovers whom she did not want for
+herself.
+
+The life in this picture would be hers if she took the three o'clock
+train and went to Berkeley Square. The life in the other picture would
+be hers if she remained in Dulwich.
+
+Only one more hour remained between her and the moment when she would be
+getting into the train, and on going out of the gallery her senses all
+seemed awake at the same moment; she saw and felt and heard with equal
+distinctness, and she seemed to be walking automatically, to be moving
+forward as if on wheels. She met a friend on her way home, but it was
+like talking to one across a river or gulf; she wondered what she had
+said, and hardly heard, on account of the tumult within her, what was
+being said to her. When she got home, she noticed that she did not take
+off her hat; and she ate her lunch without tasting it. Her thoughts were
+loud as the clock which ticked out the last minutes she was to remain at
+home, and trying not to hear them, she turned to the Monna Lisa,
+wondering what Owen meant when he had said that the hesitating smile in
+the picture was like her smile. Her thoughts ran on ticking in her brain
+like the clock in the corner of a room, and though she would have given
+anything to stop thinking, she could not.
+
+Every moment the agony of anxiety and nervousness increased, and it was
+almost a relief when the clock pointed to the time when she would have
+to go to the station. She looked round the room, a great despair mounted
+into her eyes, and she walked quickly out of the house. As she went down
+the street she tried to think that she was going to Owen to tell him she
+had told her father that she was resolved to give him up. It seemed no
+longer difficult to do this, for, on looking into her mind, she could
+discover neither desire nor love, nor any wish to see him. She was only
+conscious of a nervous agitation which she could not control, and
+through this waking nightmare she walked steadily, thinking with
+extraordinary clearness.
+
+In the railway carriage the passengers noticed her pallor, and they
+wondered what her trouble was, and at Victoria the omnibus conductor
+just saved her from being run over. The omnibus jogged on, stopping now
+and then for people to get in and out, and Evelyn wondered at the
+extraordinary mechanism of life, and she took note of everyone's
+peculiarities, wondering what were their business and desires, and
+wondering also at the conductor's voice crying out the different parts
+of the town the omnibus would pass through.
+
+"This is Berkeley Street, miss, if you are getting out here."
+
+She waited a few minutes at the corner, and then wandered down the
+street, asking herself if it was yet too late to turn back.
+
+The sun glanced through the foliage, and glittered on the cockades of
+the coachmen and on the shining hides of the horses. It was the height
+of the season, and the young beauties of the year, and the fashionable
+beauties of the last decade, lay back, sunning themselves under the
+shade of their parasols. The carriages came round the square close to
+the curb, under the waving branches, and, waiting for an opportunity to
+cross, Evelyn's eyes followed an unusually beautiful carriage, drawn by
+a pair of chestnut horses. She did not see the lady's face, but she wore
+a yellow dress, and the irises in her bonnet nodded over the hood of the
+carriage. This lady, graceful and idle, seemed to mean something, but
+what? Evelyn thought of the picture of the colonnade in the gallery.
+
+The men to whom the stately servants opened the doors wore long frock
+coats pinched at the waist, and they swung their canes and carried their
+thick, yellow gloves in their hands. They were all like Owen. They all
+lived as he lived, for pleasure; they were all here for the season, for
+balls and dinner parties, for love-making and the opera.
+
+"They are the people," Evelyn thought, "who will pay thousands to hear
+me sing. They are the people who will invite me to their houses. If my
+voice is cultivated, if I ever go abroad."
+
+She ran across the street and walked under the branches until she came
+to a gate. But why not go straight to the house? She did not know....
+She was at the gate, and the square looked green and cool. The gate
+swung to and closed with a snap; but she had the key and could leave
+when she liked, and worn out with various fears she walked aimlessly
+about the grass plots. There was no one in the square, so if he were
+watching for her he could not fail to see her. Once more a puerile hope
+crossed her mind fitfully, that perhaps it would be as well if he failed
+to see her. But no, since she had gone so far she was determined to go
+on to the end, and before this determination, her spirits revived, and
+she waited for him to come to her. But for shyness she did not dare to
+look round, and the minutes she walked under the shady trees were very
+delightful, for she was penetrated with an intimate conviction that she
+would not be disappointed. And one of the moments of her life that fixed
+itself most vividly on her mind was when she saw Owen coming towards her
+through the trees. He was so tall and thin, and walked so gracefully;
+there was something in his walk that delighted her; it seemed to her
+that it was like the long, soft stride of a cat.
+
+"I am glad you have come," he said.
+
+But she could not answer. A moment afterwards he said, and she noticed
+that his voice trembled, "You are coming in to tea?"
+
+Again she did not answer, and thinking it safer to take things for
+granted, he walked towards the gate. He was at the point of saying,
+"That is my house," but he checked himself, thinking that silence was
+safer than speech. He could not get the gate open, and while he wrenched
+at the lock, he dreaded that delay might give her time to change her
+mind. But Evelyn was now quite determined. Her brain seemed to
+effervesce and her blood to bubble with joy, a triumphant happiness
+filled her, for no doubt remained that she was going to Paris to-night.
+
+"Let us have tea as soon as possible, and tell Stanley to bring the
+brougham round at once."
+
+"Why did you order the brougham?"
+
+"Are you not--? I thought--"
+
+The brilliancy of her eyes answered him, and he took her hands.
+
+"Then you are coming with me to Paris?"
+
+"Yes, if you like, Owen, anywhere.... But let me kiss you."
+
+And she stood in a beautiful, amorous attitude, her arm thrown about his
+neck, her eyes aflame.
+
+"The brougham will be round in half an hour. There is a train at six to
+Dover. It gets there at nine. So we shall have time to dine at the Lord
+Warden, and get on board the boat before the mail arrives."
+
+"But I have no clothes."
+
+"The night is fine; we shall have a lovely crossing; you will only want
+a shawl and a rug.... But what are you thinking of? You don't regret?"
+
+His eyes were tenderer than hers. She perceived in their grey lights a
+tenderness, as affection which seemed in contradiction to his nature as
+she had hitherto understood it. Even the thought flashed dimly in the
+background of her mind that his love was truer than hers; his cynicism,
+which had often frightened her, seemed to have vanished; indeed, there
+was something different in him from the man she had hitherto known--a
+difference which was rendered evident by the accent with which he said--
+
+"Dearest Evelyn, this is the happiest moment of my life. I have spent
+two terrible days wondering if you would come."
+
+"Did you, dear? Did you think of me? Are you fond of me?"
+
+He pressed her hand, and with one look answered her question, and she
+saw the streets flash past her--for they were in the brougham driving to
+Charing Cross. There was still the danger of meeting Mr. Innes at the
+station; but the danger was slight. She knew of no business that would
+take him to Charing Cross, and they were thankful the train did not
+start from Victoria.
+
+Owen called to his coachman to hasten. They had wasted, he said, too
+much time over the tea-table, and might miss the train. But they did not
+miss it, and through the heat of the long, summer afternoon the slow
+train jogged peacefully through the beautiful undulations of the
+southern counties. The sky was quiet gold and torquoise blue, and far
+away were ruby tinted clouds. A peaceful light floated over the
+hillsides and dozed in the hollows, and the happiness of the world
+seemed eternal. Deep, cool shadows filled the copses, and the green corn
+was a foot high in the fields, and every gate and hedgerow wore a
+picturesque aspect. Evelyn and Owen sat opposite each other, talking in
+whispers, for they were not alone; they had not been in time to secure a
+private carriage. The delight that filled their hearts was tender as the
+light in the valleys and the hill sides. But Evelyn's feelings were the
+more boisterous, for she was entering into life, whereas Owen thought he
+was at last within reach of the ideal he had sought from the beginning
+of his life.
+
+This feeling, which was very present in his mind, appeared somehow
+through his eyes and in his manner, and even through the tumult of her
+emotions she was vaguely aware that he was even nicer than she had
+thought. She had never loved him so much as now; and again the thought
+passed that she had not known him before, and far down in her happiness
+she wondered which was the true man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+
+From Dover they telegraphed to Mr. Innes--"Your daughter is safe. She
+has gone abroad to study singing;" and at midnight they were on board
+the boat. The night was strangely calm and blue; a little mist was
+about, and they stood watching the circle of light which the vessel shed
+upon the water, moving ever onwards, with darkness before and after.
+
+"Dearest, what are you thinking of?"
+
+"Of father. He has received our message by now. Poor dad, he won't sleep
+to-night. To-morrow they will all have the news, and on Sunday in church
+they will 'be talking about it.'"
+
+"But your voice would have been wasted. Your father would have
+reproached himself; he would think he had sacrificed you to his music."
+
+"Which wouldn't be true."
+
+"True or false, he'd think it. Besides, it would be true in a measure."
+
+Evelyn told Owen of her interview with her father that morning, and he
+said--
+
+"You acted nobly."
+
+"Nobly? Owen!"
+
+"There was nobility in your conduct."
+
+"He'll be so lonely, so lonely. And," she exclaimed, clasping her hands,
+"who will play the viola da gamba?"
+
+"When I bring you back a great singer ... there'll be substantial
+consolation in that."
+
+"But he won't close his eyes to-night, and he'll miss me at breakfast
+and at dinner--his poor dinner all by himself."
+
+"But you don't want to go back to him? You love me as much as your
+father?"
+
+They pressed each other's hands, and, striving to see through the blue
+hollow of the night, they thought of the adventure of the voyage they
+had undertaken. Spectral ships loomed up and vanished in the spectral
+stillness; and only within the little circle of light could they
+perceive the waves over which they floated. The moon drifted, and a few
+stars showed through the white wrack. Whither were their lives striving?
+She had thought that her life in Dulwich must endure for ever, but it
+had passed from her like a dream; it had snapped suddenly, and she
+floated on another voyage, and still the same mystery encircled her as
+before. She knew that Owen loved her. This was the little circle of life
+in which she lived, and beyond it she might imagine any story she
+pleased.
+
+Her thoughts reverted to the Eastern dreamer, and she realised that she
+was living through the tragedy which he had written about a thousand
+years ago in his rose garden. She might imagine what she pleased--that
+she was going to become a great singer, that artistic success was the
+harbour whither she steered, but in truth she did not know. She could
+not believe such an end to be her destiny. Then what was her destiny?
+All she had ever known was behind her, had floated into the darkness as
+easily as those spectral ships; her religion, her father, her home, all
+had vanished, and all she knew was that she was sailing through the
+darkness without them. Seen for a moment in the light of the high moon,
+and then in shrouded blue light, a great ship came and went, and Evelyn
+clung to the arm of her lover. He folded the rough shawl he had bought
+at Charing Cross about her shoulders. The lights of Calais harbour grew
+larger, the foghorn snorted, the vessel veered, and there was
+preparation on board; the crowd thickened, and as the night grew fainter
+they saw between the dawn and the silvery moon the long low sandhills of
+the French coast. The vessel veered and entered the harbour, and as she
+churned alongside the windy piers, the mystery with which a moonlit sea
+had filled their hearts passed, and they were taken in an access of
+happiness; and they cried to each other for sheer joy as they struggled
+up the gangway.
+
+They were in France! their life of love was before them! He could hardly
+take his eyes off the delicious girl; and soon two or three waiters
+attended at her first meal, her first acquaintance with French food and
+wine! Owen was known on the line, and the obsequiousness shown to him
+flattered her, and it was thrilling to read his name on the window of
+their carriage. Her foot was on the footboard, and seeing the empty
+carriage the thought struck her, "We shall be alone; he'll be able to
+kiss me." And, her heart beating with fear and delight, she got in and
+sat speechless in a corner.
+
+As the train moved out of the station he took her hand, and said that he
+hoped they would be very happy together. She looked at him, and in her
+eyes there was a little questioning, almost cynical look, which
+perplexed him. The part he had to play was a difficult one, and on board
+the boat, in the pauses of their conversation, he had felt that his
+future influence over Evelyn depended upon his conduct during the
+forthcoming week. This foresight had its origin in his temperament. It
+was his temperament to suggest and to lead, and as he talked to her of
+Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, and Lady Duckle, a lady whom
+he hoped to induce to come to Paris to chaperon her, he saw the hotel
+sitting-room at the moment when the waiter, having brought in the
+coffee, and delayed his departure as long as he possibly could, would
+finally close the door. Nervousness dilated her eyes, and his thoughts
+were often far from his words. He often had to catch his breath, and he
+quailed before the dread interrogation which often looked out of her
+eyes. They had passed Boulogne, and through the dawn, vague as an opal,
+appeared a low range of hills, and as these receded, the landscape
+flattened out into a bleak, morose plain.
+
+What lives were lived yonder in that low grange, crouching under the
+five melancholy poplars? An hour later father and son would go forth in
+that treacherous quaking boat, lying amid the sedge, and cast their net
+into one of those black pools. But these pictures of primeval
+simplicities which the landscape evoked were not in accord with a
+journey toward love and pleasure. Evelyn and Owen did not dare to
+contrast their lives with those of the Picardy peasants, and that they
+should see not roses and sunshine, but a broken and abandoned boat amid
+the sedge, and mournful hills faintly outlined against the heavy,
+lowering sky seemed to them significant. They watched the filmy,
+diffused, opal light of the dawn, and they were filled with nervous
+expectation. The man who appeared at the end of the plain in his
+primitive guise of a shepherd driving his flock towards the hard thin
+grass of the uplands seemed menacing and hostile. His tall felt hat
+seemed like a helmet in the dusk, his crook like a lance, and Owen
+understood that the dawn was the end of the truce, that the battle with
+Nature was about to begin again. At that moment she was thinking that if
+she had done wrong in leaving home, the sin was worth all the scruples
+she might endure, and she rejoiced that she endured none. He folded her
+in his rug. The train seemed to stop, and the names of the stations
+sounded dim in her ears. Her perceptions rose and sank, and, as they
+sank, the villa engarlanded, of which Owen had spoken, seemed there. Its
+gates, though unbarred, were impassable. She thought she was shaking
+them, but when she opened her eyes it was Owen telling her that they had
+passed the fortifications, that they were in Paris.
+
+He had brought with him only his dressing-bag, so they were not detained
+at the Customs. His valet was following with the rest of his luggage,
+and as soon as she had had a few hours' sleep, he would take her to
+different shops. She clung on to his arm. Paris seemed very cold and
+cheerless, and she did not like the tall, haggard houses, nor the
+slattern waiter arranging chairs in front of an early cafe, nor the
+humble servant clattering down the pavement in wooden shoes. She saw
+these things with tired eyes, and she was dimly aware of a decrepit
+carriage drawn by two decrepit horses, and then of a great hotel built
+about a courtyard. She heard Owen arguing about rooms, but it seemed to
+her that a room where there was a bed was all that she desired.
+
+But the blank hotel bedroom, so formal and cheerless, frightened her,
+and it seemed to her that she could not undress and climb into that high
+bed, and she had no clothes--not even a nightgown. The chambermaid
+brought her a cup of chocolate, and when she had drunk it she fell
+asleep, seeing the wood fire burning, and thinking how tired she was.
+
+It was the chambermaid knocking. It was time for her to get up, and Owen
+had sent her a brush and comb. She could only wash her face with the
+corner of a damp towel. Her stockings were full of dust; her chemise was
+like a rag--all, she reflected, the discomforts of an elopement. As she
+brushed out her hair with Owen's brush, she wondered what he could see
+to like in her. She admired his discretion in not coming to her room.
+But really, this hotel seemed as unlikely a place for love-making as the
+gloomy plain of Picardy.
+
+She was pinning on her hat when he knocked. He told her that he had been
+promised some nice rooms on the second floor later in the day, and they
+went to breakfast at Voisin's. The rest of the day was spent getting in
+and out of cabs.
+
+They took the shops as they came. The first was a boot and shoe maker,
+and in a few moments between four and five hundred francs had been
+spent. This seemed to Evelyn an unheard-of extravagance. Tea-gowns at
+five hundred and six hundred francs apiece were a joy to behold and a
+delicacy to touch. The discovery that every petticoat cost fifty francs
+seriously alarmed her. They visited the bonnet shop later in the
+afternoon. By that time she had grown hardened, and it seemed almost
+natural to pay two hundred francs for a hat. Two of her dresses were
+bought ready made. A saleswoman held out the skirt of a flowered silk,
+which she was to wear that night at the opera; another stood by, waiting
+for her and Owen to approve of the stockings she held in her hands. Some
+were open-work and embroidered, and the cheapest were fifteen francs a
+pair. It had to be decided whether these should be upheld by suspenders
+or by garters. Owen's taste was for garters, and the choice of a pair
+filled them with a pleasurable embarrassment. In the next shop--it was a
+glove shop--as she was about to consult him regarding the number of
+buttons, she remembered, in a sudden moment of painful realisation, the
+end for which they had met. She turned pale, and the words caught in her
+throat. Fortunately, his eyes were turned from her, and he perceived
+nothing of the nervous agitation which consumed her; but on leaving the
+shop, a little way down the street, when she had recovered herself
+sufficiently to observe him, she perceived that he was suffering from
+the same agitation. He seemed unable to fix his attention upon the
+present moment. He seemed to have wandered far afield, and when with an
+effort he returned from the ever nearing future, he seemed like a man
+coming out of another atmosphere--out of a mist!
+
+At six they were back at their hotel, surveying the sitting-rooms,
+already littered with cardboard boxes. But he hurried her off to the Rue
+de la Paix, saying that she must have some jewels. Trays of diamonds,
+rubies, emeralds and pearls were presented to her for choice.
+
+"You're not looking," he said, feigning surprise. "You take no interest
+in jewels; aren't you well?"
+
+"Yes, dearest; but I'm bewildered."
+
+When they returned to the hotel, the gown she was to wear that night at
+the opera had arrived.
+
+"It must have cost twenty pounds, and I usen't to spend much more than
+that in a whole year on my clothes."
+
+Neither cared to go to the opera; but half-past ten seemed to him quite
+a proper time for them to return home, and for this makeshift propriety
+he was so bored with "Lohengrin" that he never saw it afterwards with
+the old pleasure; and Evelyn's glances told of the wasted hours. While
+Elsa sang her dream, he realised the depth of his folly. If something
+were to happen? If they were to find Mr. Innes waiting at the door of
+the hotel? If he were robbed of her, it would serve him right. The aria
+in the second act was beautifully sung, and it helped them to forget;
+but with the rather rough chorus of men in the second half of the second
+act, their nervous boredom began again, and Evelyn's face was explicit.
+
+"You're tired, Evelyn; you're too tired to listen."
+
+"Yes, I'm tired, let's go; give me my cloak."
+
+"I don't care much for the nuptial music," he remarked accidentally; and
+then, feeling obliged to take advantage of the slip of the tongue, he
+said, "Lohengrin and Elsa are in the bridal chamber in the next act."
+
+He felt her hand tremble on his arm.
+
+"In two years hence you'll be singing here.... But you don't answer."
+
+"Owen, dear, I'm thinking of you now."
+
+Her answer was a delicious flattery, and he hurried her to the carriage.
+The moment his arm was about her she leaned over him, and when their
+lips parted he uttered a little cry. But in the middle of the
+sitting-room she stopped and faced him, barring the way. He took her
+cloak from her shoulders.
+
+"Owen, dear, if anything should happen."
+
+But it was not till the third night that they entered into the full
+possession of their delight. Every night after seemed more exquisite
+than the last, like sunset skies, as beautiful and as unrememberable.
+She could recall only the moment when from the threshold he looked back,
+nodded a good-night, and then told her he would call her when it was
+time to get up. Then in a happy weariness she closed her eyes; and when
+they opened she closed them quickly, and curled herself into dreams and
+thoughts of Owen.
+
+They were going to the races, and he would come and tell her when it was
+time to get up. She hoped this would not be till she had dreamed to the
+end of her dream. But her eyes opened, and she saw him in his dressing
+gown with blue facings standing in the middle of the room watching her.
+His little smile was in his eyes; they seemed to say, So there you are;
+I haven't lost you.
+
+"You're the loveliest thing," he said, "in God's earth."
+
+"Dearest Owen, I'm very fond of you;" and there was a plaintive and
+amorous cry in her voice which found echo in the movement with which she
+threw herself into her lover's arms, and laid her head upon his
+shoulder.
+
+"I've never seen such a hand, it is like a spray of fern; and those
+eyes--look at me, Eve."
+
+"Why do you call me Eve? No one ever called me Eve before."
+
+"Sometimes they are as green as sea water, at other times they are grey
+or nearly grey, most often they are hazel green. And your feet are like
+hands, and your ankle--see, I can span it between forefinger and
+thumb.... Your hair is faint, like flowers. Your throat is too thick,
+you have the real singer's throat; thousands of pounds lie hidden in
+that whiteness, which is mine--the whiteness, not the gold."
+
+"How you know how to praise, Owen!"
+
+"I love that sweet indecision of chin."
+
+"A retreating chin means want of character."
+
+"You have not what I call a retreating chin, the line merely deflects.
+Nothing more unlovable than a firm chin. It means a hard, unimaginative
+nature. Eve, you're adorable. Where should I find a sweetheart equal to
+you?"
+
+"That isn't the way I want you to love me."
+
+"Isn't it? Are you sure of that?"
+
+"I don't know--perhaps not. But why do you make me say these things?"
+
+She held his face between her hands, and moved aside his moustache with
+her lips.... Suddenly freeing herself from his embraces, she said, "I
+don't want to kiss you any more. Let's talk."
+
+"Dearest, do you know what time is it? You must get up and dress
+yourself. It is past nine o'clock. We are going to the races. I'll send
+you the chambermaid. You promise me to get up?"
+
+It was these little authoritative airs that enchanted her remembrance of
+him; and while the chambermaid poured out her bath she thought of the
+gown she was going to wear. She knew that she had some pink silk
+stockings to match it, but it took her a long while to find them. She
+opened all the wrong boxes. "It's extraordinary," she thought, "how long
+it takes one to dress sometimes; all one's things get wrong." And when
+hooking the skirt she suddenly remembered she had no parasol suitable to
+the gown. It was Sunday; it would be impossible to buy one. There was
+nothing for it but to send for Owen. If there was anything wrong with
+her gown he would give her no peace. He wished her to wear a
+flower-embroidered dress, but her fancy was set on a pale yellow muslin,
+and it amused her to get cross with him and to send him out of the room;
+but when the door closed she was moved to run after him. The grave
+question as to what she would wear dispelled other thoughts. She must be
+serious; and to please him she decided she would wear the gown he liked,
+and as she fixed the hat that went with it she admired the contrast of
+its purple with her rich hair. Owen was always right. She had never
+thought that she could look so well, and it was a happy moment when he
+took her by both hands and said--
+
+"Dearest, you are delicious--quite delicious. You'll be the prettiest
+woman at Longchamps to-day."
+
+She asked for tea, but he said they were in France, and must conform to
+French taste. When Marie Antoinette was informed that the people wanted
+bread, etc., Evelyn thought Marie Antoinette must have been a cruel
+woman. But she liked chocolate and the brioche, and henceforth they were
+brought to her bedside, and in a Sevres service, a present from Owen.
+
+"When they had finished the little meal he rang for writing material,
+and said--
+
+"Now, my dear Evelyn, you must write to your father."
+
+"_Must_ I? What shall I say? Oh, Owen, I cannot write. If I did, father
+would come over here, and then--"
+
+"I'll tell you what to say. I'll dictate the letter you ought to write.
+You need not give him any address, but you must let him know you're
+well, and why you intend to remain abroad. It is by relieving his mind
+on these subjects that you'll save yourself from the vexation of his
+hunting you up here.... Come, now," he said, noticing the agonised and
+bewildered look on Evelyn's face, "this is the only disagreeable hour in
+the day--you must put up with it. Here is the pen. Now write--
+
+"'My DEAR FATHER,--I should be happy in Paris, very happy, if it were
+not for the knowledge of the grief that my flight must have occasioned
+you. Of course I have acted very wrongly, very wickedly--'"
+
+"But," said Evelyn, "you told me I was acting rightly, that to do
+otherwise would be madness."
+
+"Yes, and I only told you the truth. But in writing to your father you
+must adopt the conventional tone. There's no use in trying to persuade
+your father you did right.... I don't know, though. Scratch out 'I have
+acted wrongly and very wickedly,' and write--
+
+"'I will not ask you to think that I have acted otherwise than wrongly,
+for, of course, as a father you can hold no other opinion, but being
+also a clever man, an artist, you will perhaps be inclined to admit that
+my wrong-doing is not so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been
+in other and easily imagined circumstances.'" Full stop.
+
+"You've got that--'so irreparable a wrong-doing as it might have been in
+other and easily imagined circumstances'?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"'Father dear, you know that if I had remained in Dulwich my voice would
+have been wasted, not through my fault or yours, but through the fault
+of circumstances.'
+
+"You have got circumstances a few lines higher up, so put 'through the
+fault of fate.'"
+
+"Father will never believe that I wrote this letter."
+
+"That doesn't matter--the truth is the truth from whoever it comes."
+
+"'We should have gone on deceiving ourselves, or trying to deceive
+ourselves, hoping as soon as the concerts paid that I should go abroad
+with a proper chaperon. You know, father dear, how we used to talk, both
+knowing well that no such thing could be. The years would have slipped
+by, and at five-and-thirty, when it would have been too late, I should
+have found myself exactly where I was when mother died. You would have
+reproached yourself, you would have suffered remorse, we should have
+both been miserable; whereas now I hope that we shall both be happy. You
+will bring about a revival of Palestrina, and I shall sing opera. Be
+reasonable, father, and remember that it had to be. Write to me if you
+can; to hear from you will make me very happy. But do not try to seek me
+out and endeavour to induce me to return home. Any meeting between us
+now would merely mean intolerable suffering to both of us, and it would
+serve no purpose whatever. A little later, when I have succeeded, when I
+am a great singer, I will come and see you, that is to say if you will
+see me. Meanwhile; for a year or two we had better not meet, but I'll
+write constantly, and shall look forward to your letters. Again, my dear
+father, I beseech you to be reasonable; everything will come right in
+the end. I will not conceal from you the fact that Sir Owen Asher
+advised me to this step. He is very fond of me, and is determined to
+help me in every way. When he brings me back to England a great singer,
+he hopes you will try to look on his fault with as much leniency as may
+be. He asks me to warn you against speaking of him in connection with
+me, for any accusation brought against him will injure me. He intends to
+provide me with a proper chaperon. I need not mention her name; suffice
+it to say that she is a very grand lady, so appearances will be
+preserved. No one need know anything for certain if you do not tell
+them. If you will promise to do this, I will send the name of the lady
+with whom I am going to live. You can say that I am living with her; her
+name will be a sufficient cloak--everyone will be satisfied.
+Interference can be productive of no good, remember that; let things
+take their natural course, and they will come right in the end. If you
+decide to do as I ask you, write at once to me, and address your letter
+to 31 Rue Faubourg St Honore, care of Monsieur Blanco.--Always, dear
+father, Your affectionate daughter,--EVELYN INNES.'"
+
+"How clever you are," she said, looking up. "You have written just the
+kind of letter that will influence father. I have lived with father all
+my life, and yet I couldn't have known how to write that letter. How did
+you think of it?"
+
+"I've put the case truthfully, haven't I? Now, do you copy out that
+letter and address it; meanwhile I'll go round to Voisin's and order
+breakfast. Try to have it finished by the time I get back. We'll post it
+on our way."
+
+She promised that she would do so, but instead sat a long while with the
+letter in her hands. It was so unlike herself that she could not bring
+herself to send it. It would not satisfy her father, he would sooner
+receive something from her own familiar heart, and, obeying a sudden
+impulse, she wrote--
+
+"My DARLING,--What must you think of me, I wonder! that I am an
+ungrateful girl? I hope not. I don't think you would be so unjust as to
+think such things of me. I have been very wicked, but I have always
+loved you, father, and never more than now; and had anything in the
+world been able to stop me, it would have been my love of you. But,
+father dear, it was just as I told you; I was determined to resist the
+temptation if I could, but when the time came I could not. I did my
+best, indeed I did. I went through agony after agony after you left, and
+in the end I had to go whether I desired it or not. I could not have
+stopped in Dulwich any longer; if I had I should have died, and then you
+would have lost me altogether. You would not have liked to see me pine
+away, grow white, and lie coughing on the sofa like poor mother. No, you
+would not. It would have killed you. You remember how ill I was last
+Easter when he was away in the Mediterranean, darling. We've always been
+pals, we've always told each other everything, we never had any secrets,
+and never shall. I should have died if I hadn't gone away. Now I've told
+you everything--isn't that so?--and when I come back a great success,
+you'll come and hear me sing. My success would mean very little if you
+were not there. I would sooner see your dear, darling face in a box than
+any crowned head in Europe. If I were only sure that you would forgive
+me. Everything else will turn out right. Owen will be good to me, I
+shall get on; I have little fear on that score. If I could only know
+that you were not too lonely, that you were not grieving too much. I
+shall write to Margaret and beg her to look after you. But she is very
+careless, and the grocer often puts down things in his book that we
+never had. A couple of years, and then we shall see each other again. Do
+you think, darling, you can live all that time without me? I must try to
+live that time without you. It will be hard to do so, I shall miss you
+dreadfully, so if you could manage to write to me, not too cross a
+letter, it would make a great deal of difference. Of course, you are
+thinking of the disgrace I have brought on you. There need be none. Owen
+is going to provide me with a chaperon--a lady, he says, in the best
+society. I will send you her name next week, as soon as Owen hears from
+her. He may hear to-morrow, and if you say that I'm living with her, no
+one will know anything. It is deceitful, I know; I told Owen so, but he
+says that we are not obliged to take the whole world into our
+confidence. I don't like it, but I suppose if one does the things one
+must put up with the consequences. Now, I must say good-bye. I've
+expressed myself badly, but you'll know what I mean--that I love you
+very dearly, that I hope you'll forgive me, and be glad to see me when I
+come back, that I shall always be,--Your affectionate daughter,--EVELYN."
+
+She put the letter into an envelope, and was addressing it when Owen
+came into the room.
+
+"Have you copied the letter, dear?"
+
+She looked at him inquiringly, and he wondered at her embarrassment.
+
+"No," she said, "I have written quite a different letter. Yours was very
+clever, of course, but it was not like me. I've written a stupid little
+letter, but one which will please father better."
+
+"I daresay you're right. If your father suspected the letter was
+dictated by me he would resent it."
+
+"That's just what I thought."
+
+"Let me see the letter you have written."
+
+"No; don't look at it. I'd rather you didn't."
+
+"Why, dearest? Because there's something about me in it?"
+
+"No, indeed. I would not write anything about you that I wouldn't show
+you. No; what I don't want you to see is about myself."
+
+"About yourself! Well, as you like, don't show me anything you don't
+want to."
+
+"But I don't like to have secrets from you, Owen; I hate secrets."
+
+"One of these days you'll tell me what you've written. I'm quite
+satisfied." He raised her face and kissed her tenderly, and she felt
+that she loved him better for his well-assumed indifference. Then they
+went downstairs, and she admired her dress in the long glasses on the
+landings. She listened to his French as he asked for a stamp. The
+courtyard was full of sunlight and carriages. The pages pushed open the
+glass doors for them to pass, and, tingling with health and all the
+happiness and enchantment of love, she walked by his side under the
+arcade--glad when, in walking, they came against each other--swinging
+her parasol pensively, wondering what happy word to say, a little
+perplexed that she should have a secret from him, and all the while
+healthily hungry. Suddenly she recognised the street as the one where
+they had dined on Friday night. He pushed open a white-painted door, and
+it seemed to her that all the white-aproned waiters advanced to meet
+her; and the one who drew the table forward that she might pass seemed
+to fully appreciate the honour of serving them. A number of _hors
+d'oeuvres_ were placed before her, but she only ate bread and butter and
+a radish, until Owen insisted on her trying the _filets d'anchois_--the
+very ones she was originally most averse from. The sole was cooked very
+elaborately in a rich brown sauce. The tiny chicken which followed it
+was first shown to her in a tin saucepan; then the waiter took it away
+and carved it at a side table. She enjoyed the melon which, for her
+sake, ended instead of beginning the meal, as Owen said it should.
+
+An Englishman, a friend of Owen's, sat at the next table, and she could
+see he regretted that Owen had not introduced him. Most of his
+conversation seemed designed for that end, and when they got up to go,
+his eyes surely said, "Well, I wish that he had introduced us; I think
+we should have got on together." And the eyes of the young man who sat
+at the opposite table said, as plain as any words, "I'd have given
+anything to have been introduced! Shall we ever meet again?"
+
+So her exit was very thrilling; and no sooner were they on the pavement
+than another surprise was in store for her.
+
+A smart coachman touched his hat, and Owen stepped back for her to get
+into the victoria.
+
+"But this is not our carriage?"
+
+"You did not think we were going to the Lonchamps in a _fiacre_, did
+you? This is your carriage--I bought these horses yesterday for you."
+
+"You bought this carriage and these horses for me, Owen?"
+
+"Yes, dear, I did; don't let's waste time. _Aux courses!_"
+
+"Owen, dear, I cannot accept such a present. I appreciate your kindness,
+but you will not ask me to accept this carriage and horses."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Evelyn thought for some time before answering.
+
+"It would only make people think that I was an amateur. The fine clothes
+you have bought me I shall not be able to wear, except when I want you
+to think me nice. I shall have to learn Italian, of which I don't know
+a word, and French, of which I know very little."
+
+Owen looked at her, at once pleased and surprised.
+
+"You're quite right," he said; "this carriage and these horses are
+unsuitable to your present circumstances. The chestnuts took my fancy
+... however, I haven't paid for them. I'll send them back for the
+present; they, or a pair like them, will come in all right later on."
+
+After a slight pause she said--
+
+"I do not want to run into your debt more than I can help. If my voice
+develops, if it be all you think it is, I shall be able to go on the
+stage in a year, at latest in a year and a half from now. My mother was
+paid three and four hundred a week. Unless I fail altogether, I shall
+have no difficulty in paying you back the money you so generously lent
+me."
+
+"But why do you want to cost me nothing?"
+
+"I don't know. Why shouldn't I pay you back? If I succeed I shall have
+plenty of money; if I don't, I daresay you'll overlook the debt. Owen,
+dear, how enchanting it is to be with you in Paris, to wear these
+beautiful dresses, to drive in this carriage, to see those lovely
+horses, and to wonder what the races will be like. You're not
+disappointed in me? I'm as nice as you thought I'd be?"
+
+"Yes; you're a great deal nicer. I was afraid at one time you might be a
+bore; scruples of conscience aren't very interesting. But somehow in
+your case they don't seem to matter."
+
+"I do try to keep them to myself. There's no use in inflicting one's
+personal worries on others. I am all one thing or all the other. When
+I'm with you, I'm afraid I'm all the other."
+
+He had always known that he could "make something of her," as he used to
+put it to himself, but she exceeded his expectations; she certainly was
+an admirable mistress. Her scruples did not bore him; they were, indeed,
+a novelty and an excitement which he would not willingly be without.
+Moreover, she was so intelligent he had not yet heard her make a stupid
+remark. She had always been interested in the right things; and, excited
+by her admiration of the wooden balconies--the metal lanterns hanging
+from them, the vases standing on the steps leading to the porticoes, he
+attempted a reading of these villas.
+
+"How plain is this paganism," he said. "Seeing them, we cannot but think
+of their deep feather beds, the savoury omelettes made of new-laid eggs
+served at mid-day, and followed by juicy beefsteaks cooked in the best
+butter. Those villas are not only typical of Passy, but of France; their
+excellent life ascends from the peasant's cottage; they are the result
+of agriculture, which is the original loveliness. All that springs from
+agriculture must be beautiful, just as all that springs from commerce
+must be vile. Manchester is the ugliest place on the earth, and the
+money of every individual cotton spinner serves to multiply the
+original ugliness--the house he builds, the pictures he buys. Isn't that
+so?"
+
+"I can't say, dear; I have never been to Manchester. But how can you
+think of such things?"
+
+"Don't you like those villas? I love them, and their comfort is secure;
+its root is in the earth, the only thing we are sure of. There is more
+pagan of life and sentiment in France than elsewhere. Would you not like
+to have a Passy villa? Would you not like to live here?"
+
+"One of these days I may buy one, then you shall come to breakfast, and
+I'll give you an omelette and a beefsteak. For the present, I shall have
+to put up with something less expensive. I must be near my music
+lessons. Thanks all the same, dearest."
+
+She sought a reason for the expression of thoughtfulness which had
+suddenly come over his face.
+
+"I don't know how it is, but I never see Paris without thinking of
+Balzac. You don't know Balzac; one of these days you must read him. The
+moment I begin to notice Paris, I think, feel, see and speak Balzac.
+That dark woman yonder, with her scornful face, fills my mind with
+Balzacian phrases--the celebrated courtesan, celebrated for her diamonds
+and her vices, and so on. The little woman in the next carriage, the
+Princess de Saxeville, would delight him. He would devote an entire page
+to the description of her coat of arms--three azure panels, and so on.
+And I should read it, for Balzac made all the world beautiful, even
+snobbery. All interesting people are Balzacians. The moment I know that
+a man is an admirer of Balzac, a sort of Freemasonry is established
+between us, and I am interested in him, as I should be in a man who had
+loved a woman whom I had loved."
+
+"But I shouldn't like a woman because I knew that you had loved her."
+
+"You are a woman; but men who have loved the same woman will seek each
+other from the ends of the earth, and will take an intense pleasure in
+their recollections. I don't know whether that aphorism is to be found
+in Balzac; if not, it is an accident that prevented him from writing it,
+for it is quite Balzacian--only he would give it a turn, an air of
+philosophic distinction to which it would be useless for me to pretend."
+
+"I wonder if I should like him. Tell me about him."
+
+"You would be more likely than most women to appreciate him. Supposing
+you put the matter to the test. You would not accept these horses, maybe
+you will not refuse a humbler present--an edition of Balzac. There's a
+very good one in fifty-two volumes."
+
+"So many as that?"
+
+"Yes; and not one too many--each is a masterpiece. In this enormous
+work there are something like two thousand characters, and these appear
+in some books in principal, in other books in subordinate, parts. Balzac
+speaks of them as we should of real people. A young lady is going to the
+opera and to a ball afterwards, and he says--
+
+"'It is easy to imagine her delight and expectation, for was she not
+going to meet the delicious Duchesse de la Maufregneuse, and her friend
+the celebrated Madame d'Espard, Coralis, Lucien de Rubempre and
+Rastignac.'
+
+"These people are only mentioned in the _Memoires de deux jeunes
+Mariees_. But they are heroes and heroines in other books, in _Les
+Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan, Le Pere Goriot_, and _Les Illusions
+Perdues_." Before you even begin to know Balzac, you must have read at
+least twenty volumes. There is a vulgarity about those who don't know
+Balzac; we, his worshippers, recognise in each other a refinement of
+sense and a peculiar comprehension of life. We are beings apart; we are
+branded with the seal of that great mind. You should hear us talk among
+ourselves. Everyone knows that Popinot is the sublime hero of
+_L'Interdiction_, but for the moment some feeble Balzacian does not
+remember the other books he appears in, and is ashamed to ask.... But
+I'm boring you."
+
+"No, no; I love to listen. It is more interesting than any play."
+
+Owen looked at her questioningly, as if he doubted the flattery, which,
+at the bottom of his heart, he knew to be quite sincere.
+
+"You cannot understand Paris until you have read Balzac. Balzac
+discovered Paris; he created Paris. You remember just now what I said of
+those villas? I was thinking at the moment of Balzac. For he begins one
+story by a reading of the human characteristics to be perceived in its
+streets. He says that there are mean streets, and streets that are
+merely honest; there are young streets about whose morality the public
+has not yet formed any opinion; there are murderous streets--streets
+older than the oldest hags; streets that we may esteem--clean streets,
+work-a-day streets and commercial streets. Some streets, he says, begin
+well and end badly. The Rue Montmartre, for instance, has a fine head,
+but it ends in the tail of a fish. How good that is. You don't know the
+Rue Montmartre? I'll point it out next time we're that way. But you know
+the Rue de la Paix?"
+
+"Yes; what does that mean?"
+
+"The Rue de la Paix, he says, is a large street, and a grand street, but
+it certainly doesn't awaken the gracious and noble thoughts that the Rue
+Royale suggests to every sensitive mind; nor has it the dignity of the
+Place Vendome. The Place de la Bourse, he says, is in the daytime babble
+and prostitution, but at night it is beautiful. At two o'clock in the
+morning, by moonlight, it is a dream of old Greece."
+
+"I don't see much in that. What you said about the villas was quite as
+good."
+
+Fearing that the conversation lacked a familiar and personal interest,
+he sought a transition, an idea by which he could connect it with Evelyn
+herself. With this object he called her attention to two young men who,
+he pretended, reminded him of Rastignac and Morny. That woman in the
+mail phaeton was an incipient Madame Marneffe; that dark woman now
+looking at them with ardent, amorous eyes might be an Esther.
+
+"We're all creatures of Balzac's imagination. You," he said, turning a
+little so that he might see her better, "are intensely Balzacian."
+
+"Do I remind you of one of his characters?" Evelyn became more keenly
+interested. "Which one?"
+
+"You are more like a character he might have painted than anyone I can
+think of in the Human Comedy. He certainly would have been interested in
+your temperament. But I can't think which of his women is like you. You
+are more like the adorable Lucien; that is to say, up to the present."
+
+"Who was Lucien?"
+
+"He was the young poet whom all Paris fell in love with. He came up to
+Paris with a married woman; I think they came from Angouleme. I haven't
+read _Lost Illusions_ for twenty years. She and he were the stars in the
+society of some provincial town, but when they arrived in Paris each
+thought the other very common and countrified. He compares her with
+Madame d'Espard; she compares him with Rastignac; Balzac completes the
+picture with a touch of pure genius--'They forgot that six months would
+transform them both into exquisite Parisians.' How good that is, what
+wonderful insight into life!"
+
+"And do they become Parisians?"
+
+"Yes, and then they both regret that they broke off--"
+
+"Could they not begin it again?"
+
+"No; it is rarely that a _liaison_ can be begun again--life is too
+hurried. We may not go back; the past may never become the
+present--ghosts come between."
+
+"Then if I broke it off with you, or you broke it off with me, it would
+be for ever?"
+
+"Do not let us discuss such unpleasant possibilities;" and he continued
+to search the _Human Comedy_ for a woman resembling Evelyn. "You are
+essentially Balzacian--all interesting things are--but I cannot remember
+any woman in the _Human Comedy_ like you--Honorine, perhaps."
+
+"What does she do?"
+
+"She's a married woman who has left her husband for a lover who very
+soon deserts her. Her husband tries in vain to love other women, but
+his wife holds his affections and he makes every effort to win her back.
+The story is mainly an account of these efforts."
+
+"Does he succeed?"
+
+"Yes. Honorine goes back to her husband, but it cost her her life. She
+cannot live with a man she doesn't love. That is the point of the
+story."
+
+"I wonder why that should remind you of me?"
+
+"There is something delicate, rare, and mystical about you both. But I
+can't say I place _Honorine_ very high among Balzac's works. There are
+beautiful touches in it, but I think he failed to realise the type. You
+are more virile, more real to me than Honorine. No; on the whole, Balzac
+has not done you. He perceived you dimly. If he had lived it might, it
+certainly would, have been otherwise. There is, of course, the Duchesse
+Langeais. There is something of you in her; but she is no more than a
+brilliant sketch, no better than Honorine. There is Eugene Grandet. But
+no; Balzac never painted your portrait."
+
+Like all good talkers, he knew how to delude his listeners into the
+belief that they were taking an important part in the conversation. He
+allowed them to speak, he solicited their opinions, and listened as if
+they awakened the keenest interest in him; he developed what they had
+vaguely suggested. He paused before their remarks, he tempted his
+listener into personal appreciations and sudden revelations of
+character. He addressed an intimate vanity and became the inspiration of
+every choice, and in a mysterious reticulation of emotions, tastes and
+ideas, life itself seemed to converge to his ultimate authority. And
+having induced recognition of the wisdom of his wishes, he knew how to
+make his yoke agreeable to bear; it never galled the back that bore it,
+it lay upon it soft as a silken gown. Evelyn enjoyed the gentle
+imposition of his will. Obedience became a delight, and in its
+intellectual sloth life floated as in an opium dream without end,
+dissolving as the sunset dissolves in various modulations. Obedience is
+a divine sensualism; it is the sensualism of the saints; its lassitudes
+are animated with deep pauses and thrills of love and worship. We lift
+our eyes, and a great joy fills our hearts, and we sink away into
+blisses of remote consciousness. The delights of obedience are the
+highest felicities of love, and these Evelyn had begun to experience.
+She had ascended already into this happy nowhere. She was aware of him,
+and a little of the brilliant goal whither he was leading her. She was
+the instrument, he was the hand that played upon it, and all that had
+happened from hour to hour in their mutual existence revealed in some
+new and unexpected way his mastery over life. She had seen great ladies
+bowing to him, smiling upon him in a way that told their intention to
+get him away from her. She had heard scraps of his conversation with the
+French and English noblemen who had stopped to speak to him; and now,
+as Owen was getting into the victoria, after a brief visit to some great
+lady who had sent her footman to fetch him, a man, who looked to Evelyn
+like a sort of superior groom, came breathless to their carriage. He had
+only just heard that Owen was on the course. He was the great English
+trainer from Chantilly, and had tried Armide II. to win with a stone
+more on his back than he had to carry.
+
+"That is the horse," and Owen pointed to a big chestnut. "The third
+horse--orange and white sleeves, black cap ... they are going now for
+the preliminary canter. We shall have just time to back him. There is a
+Pari Mutuel a little way down the course; or shall we back the horse in
+the ring? No, it is too late to get across the course. The Pari Mutuel
+will do. Isn't the racecourse like an English lawn, like an overgrown
+croquet ground? and the horses go round by these plantations."
+
+It was not fashionable, he admitted, for a lady to leave her carriage,
+but no one knew her. It did not matter, and the spectacle amused her.
+But there was only time to catch a glimpse of beautiful toilettes,
+actresses and princesses, and the young men standing on the steps of the
+carriages. Owen whispered the names of the most celebrated, and told her
+she should know them when she was on the stage. At present it would be
+better for her to live quietly--unknown; her lessons would take all her
+time. He talked as he hastened her towards where a crowd had collected.
+She saw what looked like a small omnibus, with a man distributing
+tickets. Owen took five louis out of her purse and handed them to the
+man, who in return handed her a ticket. They would see the race better
+from their carriage, but it was pleasanter to stroll about the warm
+grass and admire the little woods which surrounded this elegant
+pleasure-ground, the white painted stands with all their flags flying on
+the blue summer air, the glitter of the carriages, the colour of the
+parasols, the bright jackets and caps of the jockeys, the rhythmical
+movement of the horses. Some sailed along with their heads low, others
+bounded, their heads high in the air. While Owen watched Evelyn's
+pleasure, his face expressed a cynical good humour. He was glad she was
+pleased, and he was flattered that he was influencing her. No longer was
+she wasting her life, the one life which she had to live. He was proud
+of his disciple, and he delighted in her astonishment, when, having made
+sure that Armide II. had won, he led her back to the Pari Mutuel, and,
+bidding her hold out her hands, saw that forty louis were poured into
+them.
+
+Then Evelyn could not believe that she was in her waking senses, and it
+took some time to explain to her how she had won so much money; and when
+she asked why all the poor people did not come and do likewise, since it
+was so easy, Owen said that he had had more sport seeing her win five
+and thirty louis than he had when he won the gold cup at Ascot. It
+almost inclined him to go in for racing again. Evelyn could not
+understand the circumstance and, still explaining the odds, he told the
+coachman that they would not wait for the last race. He had tied her
+forty louis into her pocket-handkerchief, and feeling the weight of the
+gold in her hand she leant back in the victoria, lost in the bright,
+penetrating happiness of that summer evening. Paris, graceful and
+indolent--Paris returning through a whirl of wheels, through
+pleasure-grounds, green swards and long, shining roads--instilled a
+fever of desire into the blood, and the soul cried that life should be
+made wholly of such light distraction.
+
+The wistful light seemed to breathe all vulgarity from the procession of
+pleasure-seekers returning from the races. An aspect of vision stole
+over the scene. Owen pointed to the group of pines by the lake's edge,
+to the gondola-like boat moving through the pink stillness; and the
+cloud in the water, he said, was more beautiful than the cloud in
+heaven. He spoke of the tea-house on the island, of the shade of the
+trees, of the lush grass, of the chatter of the nursemaids and ducks. He
+proposed, and she accepted, that they should go there to-morrow. The
+secret of their lips floated into their eyes, its echoes drifted through
+their souls like a faint strain played on violins; and neither spoke for
+fear of losing one of the faint vibrations. Evelyn settled her
+embroidered gown over her feet as the carriage swept around the Arc de
+Triomphe.
+
+"That is our rose garden," he said, pointing to Paris, which lay below
+them glittering in the evening light, "You remember that I used to read
+you Omar?"
+
+"Yes, I remember. Not three days ago, yet it seems far away."
+
+"But you do not regret--you would not go back?"
+
+"I could not if I would."
+
+"It has been a charming day, hasn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And it isn't over yet. I have ordered dinner at the Cafe des
+Ambassadeurs. I've got a table on the balcony. The balcony overlooks the
+garden, and the stage is at the end of the garden, so we shall see the
+performance as we dine. The comic songs, the can-can dancers and the
+acrobats will be a change after Wagner. I hope you'll like the dinner."
+
+He took a card from his pocket and read the menu.
+
+"There is no place in Paris where you get a better _petite marmite_ than
+the Ambassadeurs. I have ordered, you see, _filets de volaille, pointes
+d'asperges_. The _filets de volaille_ are the backs of the chickens, the
+tit-bits; the rest--the legs and the wings--go to make the stock; that
+is why the _marmite_ is so good. _Timbale de homard a l'Americaine_ is
+served with a brown sauce garnished with rice. You ought to find it
+excellent. If we were in autumn I should have ordered a pheasant
+_Sauvaroff_. A bird being impossible, I allowed myself to be advised by
+the head waiter. He assured me they have some very special legs of lamb;
+they have just received them from Normandy; you will not recognise it as
+the stringy, tasteless thing that in England we know as leg of lamb.
+_Souffle au paprike_--this _souffle_ is seasoned not with red pepper,
+which would produce an intolerable thirst, nor with ordinary pepper,
+which would be arid and tasteless, but with an intermediate pepper which
+will just give a zest to the last glass of champagne. There is a
+_parfait_--that comes before the _souffle_ of course. I don't think we
+can do much better."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+
+The appointment had been made, and he was coming back at half-past three
+to take her to Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, and at four
+her fate would be decided. She would then learn beyond cavil or doubt if
+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.... Lady Duckle was coming that
+evening--the woman whom she was going to live with--an unfortunate day
+for her to arrive; if Madame Savelli thought that she, Evelyn, had no
+voice to speak of, the secret could not be kept from her. Lady Duckle
+would know her for a poor little fool who had been wheedled from her
+home, and on the pretext that she was to become the greatest singer in
+Europe. It was all horrid.
+
+And when Owen returned he found Evelyn in tears. But with his scrupulous
+tact he avoided any allusion to her grief, and while she bathed her eyes
+she thanked him in her heart for this. Her father would have fretted and
+fussed and maddened her with questions, but Owen cheered her with
+sanguine smiles and seemed to look forward to her success as a natural
+sequence, any interruption to which it would be idle to anticipate; and
+he cleverly drew her thoughts from doubt in her own ability into
+consideration of the music she was going to sing. She suggested the
+jewel song in "Faust," or the waltz in "Romeo and Juliet." But he was of
+the opinion that she had better sing the music she was in the habit of
+singing; for choice, one of Purcell's songs, the "Epithalamium," or the
+song from the "Indian Queen."
+
+"Savelli doesn't know the music; it will interest her. The other things
+she hears every day of her life."
+
+"But I haven't the music--I don't know the accompaniments."
+
+"The music is here."
+
+"It is very thoughtful of you."
+
+"Henceforth it must be my business to be thoughtful."
+
+They descended the hotel staircase very slowly, seeing themselves in the
+tall mirrors on the landings. The bright courtyard glittered through the
+glass verandah; it was full of carriages. Owen signed to his coachman.
+They got into the victoria, and a moment after were passing through the
+streets, turning in and out. But not a word did they speak, for the
+poison of doubt had entered into his, as it had into her, soul. He had
+begun to ask himself if he was mistaken--if she had really this
+wonderful voice, or if it only existed in his imagination? True it was
+that everyone who had heard her sing thought the same; but the last time
+he had heard her, had not her voice sounded a little thin? He had
+doubts, too, about her power of passionate interpretation.... She had a
+beautiful voice--there could be no doubt on that point--but a beautiful
+voice might be heard to a very great disadvantage on the stage.
+Moreover, could she sing florid music? Of course, the "Epithalamium"
+she was going to sing was as florid as it could be. Purcell had suited
+it to his own singing.... A woman did not always sing to an orchestra as
+well as to a single instrument. That was only when the singer was an
+insufficient musician. Evelyn was an excellent musician.... If a woman
+had the loveliest voice, and was as great a musician as Wagner himself,
+it would profit her nothing if she had not the strength to stand the
+wear and tear of rehearsals. He looked at Evelyn, and calculated her
+physical strength. She was a rather tall and strongly-built girl, but
+the Wagnerian bosom was wanting. He had always considered a large bosom
+to be a dreadful deformity. A bosom should be an indication, a hint; a
+positive statement he viewed with abhorrence. And he paused to think if
+he would be willing to forego his natural and cultured taste in female
+beauty and accept those extravagant growths of flesh if they could be
+proved to be musical necessities. But Evelyn was by no means
+flat-chested ... and he remembered certain curves and plenitudes with
+satisfaction. Then, catching sight of Evelyn's frightened face, he
+forced himself to invent conversation. That was the Madeleine, a fine
+building, in a way; and the boulevard they had just entered was the
+Boulevard Malesherbes, which was called after a celebrated French
+lawyer. The name Haussmann recalled the Second Empire, and he ransacked
+his memory for anecdotes. But soon his conversation grew stilted--even
+painful. He could continue it no longer, and, taking her hand, he
+assured her that, if she did not sing well, she should come to Madame
+Savelli again. Evelyn's face lighted up, and she said that what had
+frightened her was the finality of the decision--a few minutes in which
+she might not be able to sing at all. Owen reproved her. How could she
+think that he would permit such a barbarism? It really did not matter a
+brass button whether she sang well or ill on this particular day; if she
+did not do herself justice, another appointment should be made. He had
+money enough to hire Madame Savelli to listen to her for the next six
+months, if it were required.
+
+He was truly sorry for her. Poor little girl! it really was a dreadful
+ordeal. Yet he had never seen her look better. What a difference
+dressing her had made! Her manner, too, had improved. That was the
+influence of his society. By degrees, he'd get rid of all her absurd
+ideas. But he sorely wished that Madame Savelli's verdict would prove
+him right--not for his sake--it didn't matter to him--such teeth, such
+hands, such skin, such eyes and hair! Voice or no voice, he had
+certainly got the most charming mistress in Europe! But, if she did
+happen to have a great voice it would make matters so much better for
+them. He had plenty of money--twenty thousand lying idle--but it was
+better that she should earn money. It would save her reputation ... in
+every way it would be better. If she had a voice, and were a success,
+this _liaison_ would be one of the most successful things in his life.
+If he were wrong, they'd have to get on as best they could, but he
+didn't think that he could be altogether mistaken.
+
+The door was opened by a footman in livery, and they ascended
+half-a-dozen steps into the house. Then, off a wide passage, a door was
+opened, and they found themselves in a great saloon with polished oak
+floor. There was hardly any furniture--three or four chairs, some
+benches against the walls and a grand piano. The mantelpiece was covered
+with photographs, and there were life-sized photographs in frames on the
+walls. Owen pointed to one of a somewhat stout woman in evening-dress,
+and he whispered an illustrious name.
+
+A moment after madame entered.
+
+She was of medium height, thin and somewhat flat-chested. Her hair was
+iron-grey, and the face was marked with patches of vivid colouring. The
+mouth was a long, determined line, and the lines of the hips asserted
+themselves beneath the black silk dress. She glanced quickly at Evelyn
+as she went towards Sir Owen.
+
+"This is the young lady of whom you spoke to me?"
+
+"Yes, madame, it is she. Let me introduce you. Madame Savelli--Miss
+Evelyn Innes."
+
+"Does mademoiselle wish to sing as a professional or as an amateur?"
+
+The question was addressed at once to Evelyn and to Owen, and, while
+Evelyn hesitated with the French words, Owen answered--
+
+"Mademoiselle will be guided by your advice."
+
+"They all say that; however, we shall see. Will mademoiselle sing to me?
+Does mademoiselle speak French?"
+
+"Yes, a little," Evelyn replied, timidly.
+
+"Oh, very good. Has mademoiselle studied music?"
+
+"Yes; my father is a musician, but he only cares for the very early
+music, and I have hardly ever touched a piano, but I play the
+harpsichord.... My instrument is the viola da gamba."
+
+"The harpsichord and the viola da gamba! That is very interesting,
+but"--and Madame Savelli laughed good-naturedly--"unfortunately we have
+no harpsichord here, nor yet a spinet only the humble piano."
+
+"Miss Innes will be quite satisfied with your piano, Madame Savelli."
+
+"Now, Sir Owen, I will not have you get cross with me. I must always
+have my little pleasantry. Does he get cross with you like that, Miss
+Innes?"
+
+"I didn't get cross with you, Madame Savelli."
+
+"You wanted to, but I would not let you--and because I regretted I had
+not a harpsichord, only a humble piano! Mademoiselle knows, I suppose,
+all the church songs. I only know operas.... You see, Sir Owen, you
+cannot silence me; I will have my little pleasantry. I only know opera,
+and have nothing but the humble piano. But, joking apart, mademoiselle
+wants to study serious opera."
+
+"Yes; mademoiselle intends to study for the stage, not for the church."
+
+"Then I will teach her."
+
+"You have three classes here. Mademoiselle would like to go into the
+opera class."
+
+"In the opera class I How you do go on, Sir Owen! If mademoiselle can go
+into the opera class next year, I shall be more than satisfied,
+astonished."
+
+"Perhaps you'll be able to say better if mademoiselle will be able to go
+into the opera class when you have heard her sing."
+
+"But I know, my dear Sir Owen, that is impossible. You don't believe me.
+Well, I am prepared to be surprised. It matters not to me. Mademoiselle
+can go into the opera class in three months if she is sufficiently
+advanced. Will mademoiselle sing to me? Are these her songs?" Madame
+Savelli took the music out of Sir Owen's hands. "I can see that this
+music would sound better on the harpsichord or the spinet.... Now, Sir
+Owen, I see you are getting angry again."
+
+"I'm not angry, Madame Savelli--no one could be angry with you--only
+mademoiselle is rather nervous."
+
+"Then perhaps my pleasantry was inexpedient. Let me see--this is it,
+isn't it?" she said, running her fingers through the first bars.... "But
+perhaps you would like to accompany mademoiselle?"
+
+"Which would you like, Evelyn?"
+
+"You, dear; I should be too nervous with Madame Savelli."
+
+Owen explained, and madame gave him her place at the piano with
+alacrity, and took a seat far away by the fireplace. Evelyn sang
+Purcell's beautiful wedding song, full of roulades, grave pauses and
+long-sustained notes, and when she had finished Owen signed to madame
+not to speak. "Now, the song from the 'Indian Queen.' You sang
+capitally," he whispered to Evelyn.
+
+And, thus encouraged, she poured all her soul and all the pure melody of
+her voice into this music, at once religious and voluptuous, seemingly
+the rapture of a nun that remembrance has overtaken and for the moment
+overpowered. When she had done, Madame Savelli jumped from her chair,
+and seizing her by both hands said,--
+
+"If you'll stop with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you."
+
+Then without another word she ran out of the room, leaving the door
+open behind her, and a few moments after they heard her calling on the
+stairs to her husband.
+
+"Come down at once; come down, I've found a star."
+
+"Then she thinks I've a good voice?"
+
+"I should think so indeed. She won't get over the start you've given her
+for the next six months."
+
+"Are you sure, Owen? Are you sure she's not laughing at us?"
+
+"Laughing at us? She's calling for her husband to come down. She's
+shouting to him that she's found a star."
+
+Then the joy that rose up in Evelyn's heart blinded her eyes so that she
+could not see, and she seemed to lose sense of what was happening. It
+was as if she were going to swoon.
+
+"I have told her," Madame Savelli said to her husband, who followed her
+into the room, "that, if she will remain a year with me, I'll make
+something wonderful of her. And you will stay with me, my dear...."
+
+Owen thought that this was the moment to mention the fact that Evelyn
+was the daughter of the famous Madame Innes.
+
+Monsieur Savelli raised his bushy eyebrows.
+
+"I knew your mother, mademoiselle. If you have a voice like hers--"
+
+"In a year, if she will remain with me, she will have twice the voice
+her mother had. Mademoiselle must go into the opera class at once."
+
+"I thought you said that such a thing could not be; that no pupil of
+yours had ever gone straight into the opera class?"
+
+Madame Savelli's grey eyes laughed.
+
+"Ah! I was mistaken.... I had forgotten that all the other classes are
+full. There is no room for Miss Innes in the other classes. It is
+against all precedence; it will create much jealousy, but it can't be
+helped. She must go straight into the opera class. When will
+mademoiselle begin? The sooner the better."
+
+"Next Monday. Will that be soon enough?"
+
+"On Monday I'll begin to teach her the _role_ of Marguerite. Such a
+thing was never heard of; but then mademoiselle's voice is one such as
+one never hears."
+
+Turning to her husband, she said--
+
+"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 Elysees 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 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 in the end they'd hit off the right ones. And
+that trick of going up in fifths. And then they go up in fifths on the
+half notes. I said if they do that again, I'll leave the theatre."
+
+Evelyn could see that Owen liked Lady Duckle, and her conversation,
+which at first might have seemed extravagant and a little foolish, was
+illuminated with knowledge and a vague sense of humour which was
+captivating. Her story of how she had met Rossini in her early youth,
+and the praise he had bestowed on her voice, and his intention of
+writing an opera for her, seemed fanciful enough, but every now and then
+some slight detail inspired the suspicion that there was perhaps more
+truth in what she was saying than appeared at first hearing.
+
+"Why did he not write the opera, Olive?"
+
+"It was just as he was ill, when he lived in Rue Monsieur. And he said
+he was afraid he was not equal to writing down so many notes. Poor old
+man! I can still see him sitting in his arm-chair."
+
+She seemed to have been on terms of friendship with the most celebrated
+men of the time. Her little book entitled _Souvenirs of Some Great
+Composers_ was alluded to, and Owen mentioned that at that time she was
+the great Parisian beauty.
+
+"But instead of going on the stage, I married Lord Duckle."
+
+And this early mistake she seemed to consider as sufficient explanation
+for all subsequent misfortunes. Evelyn wondered what these might be, and
+Owen said--
+
+"The most celebrated singers are glad to sing at Lady Duckle's
+afternoons; no reputation is considered complete till it has received
+her sanction."
+
+"That is going too far, Owen; but it is true that nearly all the great
+singers have been heard at my house."
+
+Owen begged Evelyn to get ready for dinner, and as she stood waiting for
+the lift, she saw him resume confidential conversation with Lady Duckle.
+They were, she knew, making preparations for her future life, and this
+was the woman she was going to live with for the next few years! The
+thought gave her pause. She dried her hands and hastened downstairs.
+They were still talking in the verandah just as she had left them. Owen
+signed to the coachman and told him to drive to Durand's. They were
+dining in a private room, and during dinner the conversation constantly
+harked back to the success that Evelyn had achieved that afternoon. Owen
+told the story in well-turned sentences. His eyes were generally fixed
+on Lady Duckle, and Evelyn sat listening and feeling, as Owen intended
+she should feel, like the heroine of a fairy tale. She laughed nervously
+when, imitating Madame Savelli's accent, he described how she had said,
+"If you'll stop with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you." Lady Duckle leaned across the table, glancing from time to time at
+Evelyn, as if to assure herself that she was still in the presence of
+this extraordinary person, and murmured something about having the
+honour of assisting at what she was sure would be a great career.
+
+Owen noticed that Evelyn seemed preoccupied, and did not respond very
+eagerly to Lady Duckle's advances. He wondered if she suspected him of
+having been Lady Duckle's lover.... Evelyn was thinking entirely of Lady
+Duckle herself, trying to divine the real woman that was behind all this
+talk of great men and social notabilities. One phrase let drop seemed to
+let in some light on the mystery. Talking of her, Lady Duckle said that
+it was only necessary to know what road we wanted to walk in to succeed,
+and instantly Lady Duckle appeared to her as one who had never selected
+a road. She seemed to have walked a little way on all roads, and her
+face expressed a life of many wanderings, straying from place to place.
+There was nothing as she said, worth doing that she had not done, but
+she had clearly accomplished nothing. As she watched her she feared,
+though she could not say what she feared. At bottom it was a suspicion
+of the deteriorating influence that Lady Duckle would exercise, must
+exercise, upon her--for were they not going to live together for years?
+And this companionship would be necessarily based on subterfuge and
+deceit. She would have to talk to her of her friendship for Owen. She
+could never speak of Owen to Lady Duckle as her lover. But as Evelyn
+listened to this pleasant, garrulous woman talking, and talking very
+well, about music and literature, she could not but feel that she liked
+her, and that her easy humour and want of principle would make life
+comfortable and careless. She was not a saint; she could not expect a
+saint to chaperon her; nor did she want a saint. At that moment her
+spirits rose. She wanted Owen, and she loved him the more for the tact
+he had shown in finding Lady Duckle for her. She accepted the good
+lady's faults with reckless enthusiasm, and when they got back to the
+hotel she took the first occasion to whisper that she liked Lady Duckle
+and was sure they'd get on very well together.
+
+"Owen, dear, I'm so happy, I don't know what to do with myself. I did
+enjoy my drive to the Bois. I never was so happy and I don't seem to be
+enjoying myself enough; I should like to sit up all night to think of
+it."
+
+"There's no reason why you shouldn't."
+
+"Only I should feel tired in the morning.... Are you coming to my room?"
+
+"Unless you want me not to. Do you want me to come?"
+
+"Do I look as if I didn't?"
+
+"Your eyes are shining like stars. It is worth while taking trouble to
+make you happy. You do enjoy it so.... We'll go upstairs now. We can't
+talk here, Lady Duckle is coming back. Leave your door ajar."
+
+"You don't think she suspects?"
+
+"It doesn't matter what people suspect, the essential is that they
+shouldn't know. I've lots to tell you. I've arranged everything with
+Lady Duckle."
+
+"I was just telling Miss Innes that in three years she'll probably be
+singing at the Opera House. In a year or a year and a half she'll have
+learnt all that Savelli can teach her. Isn't that so?"
+
+The question was discussed for a while, and then Lady Duckle mentioned
+that it was getting late. It was an embarrassing moment when Owen
+stopped the lift and they bade her good-night. She was on the third,
+they were on the second floor. As Evelyn went down the passage, Owen
+stood to watch her sloping shoulders; they seemed to him like those of
+an old miniature. When she turned the corner a blankness came over him;
+things seemed to recede and he was strangely alone with himself as he
+strolled into his room. But standing before the glass, his heart was
+swollen with a great pride. He remarked in his eyes the strange,
+enigmatic look which he admired in Titian and Vandyke, and he thought
+of himself as a principle--as a force; he wondered if he were an evil
+influence, and lost himself in moody meditations concerning the mystery
+of the attractions he presented to women. But suddenly he remembered
+that in a few minutes she would be in his arms, and he closed his eyes
+as if to delight more deeply in the joy that she presented to his
+imagination. So intense was his desire that he could not believe that he
+was her lover, that he was going to her room, and that nothing could
+deprive him of this delight. Why should such rare delight happen to him?
+He did not know. What matter, since it was happening? She was his. It
+was like holding the rarest jewel in the world in the hollow of his
+hand.
+
+That she was at that moment preparing to receive him brought a little
+dizziness into his eyes, and compelled him to tear off his necktie.
+Then, vaguely, like one in a dream, he began to undress, very slowly,
+for she had told him to wait a quarter of an hour before coming to her
+room. He examined his thin waist as he tied himself in blue silk
+pyjamas, and he paused to admire his long, straight feet before slipping
+them into a pair of black velvet slippers. He turned to glance at his
+watch, and to kill the last five minutes of the prescribed time he
+thought of Evelyn's scruples. She would have to read certain
+books--Darwin and Huxley he relied upon, and he reposed considerable
+faith in Herbert Spencer. But there were books of a lighter kind, and
+their influence he believed to be not less insidious. He took one out of
+his portmanteau--the book which he said, had influenced him more than
+any other. It opened at his favourite passage--
+
+'I am a man of the Homeric time; the world in which I live is not mine,
+and I know nothing of the society which surrounds me. I am as pagan as
+Alcibiades or as Phidias.... I never gathered on Golgotha the flowers of
+the Passion, and the deep stream which flowed from from the side of the
+Crucified and made a red girdle round the world never bathed me in its
+tide. I believe earth to be as beautiful as heaven, and I think that
+precision of form is virtue. Spirituality is not my strong point; I love
+a statue better than a phantom.' ... He could remember no further; he
+glanced at the text and was about to lay the book down, when, on second
+thoughts, he decided to take it with him.
+
+Her door was ajar; he pushed it open and then stopped for moment,
+surprised at his good fortune. And he never forgot that instant's
+impression of her body's beauty. But before he could snatch the long
+gauze wrapper from her, she had slipped her arm through the sleeves,
+and, joyous as a sunlit morning hour, she came forward and threw herself
+into his arms. Even then he could not believe that some evil accident
+would not rob him of her. He said some words to that effect, and often
+tried to recall her answer to them; he was only sure that it was
+exquisitely characteristic of her, as were all her answers--as her
+answer was that very evening when he told her that he would have to go
+to London at the end of the week.
+
+"But only for some days. You don't think that I shall be changed? You're
+not afraid that I shall love you less?"
+
+"No; I was not thinking of you, dear. I know that you'll not be changed;
+I was thinking that I might be."
+
+He withdrew the arm that was round her, and, raising himself upon his
+elbow, he looked at her.
+
+"You've told me more about yourself in that single phrase than if you
+had been talking an hour."
+
+"Dearest Owen, let me kiss you."
+
+It seemed to them wonderful that they should be permitted to kiss each
+other so eagerly, and it sometimes was a still more intense rapture to
+lie in each other's arms and talk to each other.
+
+The dawn surprised them still talking, and it seemed to them as if
+nothing had been said. He was explaining his plans for her life. They
+were, he thought, going to live abroad for five, six, or seven years.
+Then Evelyn would go to London, to sing, preceded by an extraordinary
+reputation. But the first thing to do was to get a house in Paris.
+
+"We cannot stop at this hotel; we must have a house. I have heard of a
+charming hotel in the Rue Balzac."
+
+"In the Rue Balzac! Is there a street called after him? Is it on account
+of the name you want me to live there?"
+
+"No; I don't think so, but perhaps the name had something to do with
+it--one never knows. But I always liked the street."
+
+"Which of his books is it like?"
+
+"_Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan_"
+
+They laughed and kissed each other.
+
+"At the bottom of the street is the Avenue de Friedland; the tram passes
+there, and it will take you straight to Madame Savelli's."
+
+The sparrows had begun to shrill in the courtyard, and their eyes ached
+with sleep.
+
+"Five or six years--you'll be at the height of your fame. They will pass
+only too quickly," he added.
+
+He was thinking what his age would be then. "And when they have passed,
+it will seem like a dream."
+
+"Like a dream," she repeated, and she laid her face on the pillow where
+his had lain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+As she lay between sleeping and waking, she strove to grasp the
+haunting, fugitive idea, but shadows of sleep fell, and in her dream
+there appeared two Tristans, a fair and a dark. When the shadows were
+lifted and she thought with an awakening brain, she smiled at the
+absurdity, and, striving to get close to her idea, to grip it about its
+very loins, she asked herself how much of her own life she could express
+in the part, for she always acted one side of her character. Her pious
+girlhood found expression in the Elizabeth, and what she termed the
+other side of her character she was going to put on the stage in the
+character of Isolde. Again sleep thickened, and she found it impossible
+to follow her idea. It eluded her; she could not grasp it. It turned to
+a dream, a dream which she could not understand even while she dreamed
+it. But as she awaked, she uttered a cry. It happened to be the note she
+had to sing when the curtain goes up and Isolde lies on the couch
+yearning for Tristan, for assuagement of the fever which consumes her.
+All other actresses had striven to portray an Irish princess, or what
+they believed an Irish princess might be. But she cared nothing for the
+Irish princess, and a great deal for the physical and mental distress of
+a woman sick with love.
+
+Her power of recalling her sensations was so intense, that in her warm
+bed she lived again the long, aching evenings of the long winter in
+Dulwich, before she went away with Owen. She saw again the Spring
+twilight in the scrap of black garden, where she used to stand watching
+the stars. She remembered the dread craving to worship them, the anguish
+of remorse and fear on her bed, her visions of distant countries and the
+gleam of eyes which looked at her through the dead of night. How
+miserable she had been in that time--in those months. She had wanted to
+sing, and she could not, and she had wanted--she had not known what was
+the matter with her. That feeling (how well she remembered it!) as if
+she wanted to go mad! And all those lightnesses of the brain she could
+introduce in the opening scene--the very opening cry was one of them.
+And with these two themes she thought she could create an Isolde more
+intense than the Isolde of the fat women whom she had seen walking about
+the stage, lifting their arms and trying to look like sculpture.
+
+No one whom she had seen had attempted to differentiate between Isolde
+before she drinks and after she has drunk the love potion, and, to avoid
+this mistake, she felt that she would only have to be true to herself.
+After the love potion had been drunk, the moment of her life to put on
+the stage was its moment of highest sexual exaltation. Which was that?
+There were so many, she smiled in her doze. Perhaps the most wonderful
+day of her life was the day Madame Savelli had said, "If you'll stay
+with me for a year, I'll make something wonderful of you." She recalled
+the drive in the Bois, and she saw again the greensward, the poplars,
+and the stream of carriages. She had hardly been able so resist
+springing up in the carriage and singing to the people; she had wanted
+to tell them what Madame Savelli had said. She had wished to cry to
+them, "In two years all you people will be going to the opera to hear
+me." What had stopped her was the dread that it might not happen. But it
+had happened! That was the evening she had met Olive. She could see the
+exact spot. Although Olive had only just arrived, she had been up to her
+room and put on a pair of slippers. They had dined at a cafe, and all
+through dinner she had longed to be alone with Owen, and after dinner
+the time had seemed so long. Before going up in the lift he had asked
+her if he might come to her room. In a quarter of an hour, she had said,
+but he had come sooner than she expected, and she remembered slipping
+her arm into a gauze wrapper. How she had flung herself into his arms!
+That was the moment of her life to put upon the stage when she and
+Tristan look at each other after drinking the love potion.
+
+In the second act Tristan lives through her. She is the will to live;
+and if she ultimately consents to follow him into the shadowy land, it
+is for love of him. But of his desire for death she understands nothing;
+all through the duet it is she who desires to quench this desire with
+kisses. That was her conception of women's mission, and that was her own
+life with Owen; it was her love that compelled him to live down his
+despondencies. So her Isolde would have an intense and a personal life
+that no Isolde had had before. And in holding up her own soul to view,
+she would hold up the universal soul, and people would be afraid to turn
+their heads lest they should catch each other's eyes. But was not a
+portrayal of sexual passion such as she intended very sinful? It could
+not fail to suggest sinful thoughts.... She could not help what folk
+thought--that was their affair. She had turned her back upon all such
+scruples, and this last one she contemptuously picked up and tossed
+aside like a briar.
+
+Her eyes opened and she gazed sleepily into the twilight of mauve
+curtains, and dreaded her maid's knock. "It must be nearly eight," she
+thought, and she strove to pick up the thread of her lost thoughts. But
+a sharp rap at her door awakened her, and a tall, spare figure crossed
+the room. As the maid was about to draw the curtains, Evelyn cried to
+her--
+
+"Oh, wait a moment, Herat.... I'm so tired. I didn't get to bed till
+two o'clock."
+
+"Mademoiselle forgets that she told me to awaken her very early.
+Mademoiselle said she wanted to go for a long drive to the other end of
+London before she went to rehearsal."
+
+Merat's logic seemed a little severe for eight o'clock in the morning,
+and Evelyn believed that her conception of Isolde had suffered from the
+interruption.
+
+"Then I am not to draw the curtains? Mademoiselle will sleep a little
+longer. I will return when it is time for mademoiselle to go to
+rehearsal."
+
+"Did you say it was half-past eight, Merat?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle. The coachman is not quite sure of the way, and will
+have to ask it. This will delay him."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know.... But I must sleep a little longer."
+
+"Then mademoiselle will not get up. I will take mademoiselle's chocolate
+away."
+
+"No, I'll have my chocolate," Evelyn said, rousing herself. "Merat, you
+are very insistent."
+
+"What is one to do? Mademoiselle specially ordered me to wake her....
+Mademoiselle said that--"
+
+"I know what I said. I'll see how I feel when I have had my chocolate.
+The coachman had better get a map and look out the way upon it."
+
+She lay back on the pillow and regretted she had come to England. There
+was no reason why she should not have thrown over this engagement. It
+wouldn't have been the first. Owen had always told her that money ought
+never to tempt her to do anything she didn't like. He had persuaded her
+to accept this engagement, though he knew that she did not want to sing
+in London. How often before had she not refused, and with his
+approbation? But then his pleasure was involved in the refusal or the
+acceptance of the engagement. He did not mind her throwing over a
+valuable offer to sing if he wanted her to go yachting with him. Men
+were so selfish. She smiled, for she knew she was acting a little comedy
+with herself. "But, quite seriously, I am annoyed with Owen. The London
+engagement--no, of course, I could not go on refusing to sing in
+London." She was annoyed with him because he had dissuaded her from
+doing what her instinct had told her was the right thing to do. She had
+wished to go to her father the moment she set foot in England, and beg
+his forgiveness. When they had arrived at Victoria, she had said that
+she would like to take the train to Dulwich. There happened to be one
+waiting. But they had had a rough crossing; she was very tired, and he
+had suggested she should postpone her visit to the next day. But next
+day her humour was different. She knew quite well that the sooner she
+went the easier it would be for her to press her father to forgive her,
+to entrap him into reconciliation. She had imagined that she could
+entrap her father into forgiving her by throwing herself into his arms,
+or with the mere phrase, "Father, I've come to ask you how I sing." But
+she had not been able to overcome her aversion to going to Dulwich, and
+every time the question presented itself a look of distress came into
+her face. "If I only knew what he would say when he sees me. If the
+first word were over--the 'entrance,'" she added, with a smile.
+
+It was hopeless to argue with her, so Owen said that if she did not go
+before the end of the week it would be better to postpone her visit
+until after her first appearance.
+
+"But supposing I fail. I never cared for my Margaret. Besides, it was
+mother's great part. He'll think me as bad an artist as I have been a
+bad daughter. Owen, dear, have patience with me, I know I'm very weak,
+but I dread a face of stone."
+
+Neither spoke for a long while. Then she said, "If I had only gone to
+him last year. You remember he had written me a nice letter, but instead
+I went away yachting; you wanted to go to Greece."
+
+"Evelyn, don't lay the blame on me; you wanted to go too.... I hope that
+when you do see your father you will say that it was not all my fault."
+
+"That what was not your fault, dear?"
+
+"Well--I mean that it was not all my fault that we went away together.
+You know that I always liked your father. I was interested in his ideas;
+I do not want him to think too badly of me. You will say something in my
+favour. After all, I haven't treated you badly. If I didn't marry you,
+it was because--"
+
+"Dearest Owen, you've been very good to me."
+
+He felt that to ask her again to go to see her father would only
+distress her. He said instead--
+
+"I hear a great deal about your father's choir. It appears to be quite
+the fashion to hear high mass at St. Joseph's."
+
+"Father always said that Palestrina would draw all London, if properly
+given. Last Sunday he gave a mass by Vittoria; I longed to go. He'll
+never forgive me for not going to hear his choir. It is strange that we
+both should have succeeded--he with Palestrina, I with Wagner."
+
+"Yes, it is strange.... But you promise me that you'll go and see him as
+soon as you've sung Margaret--the following day."
+
+"Yes, dear, I promise you I'll do that."
+
+"You'll send him a box for the first night?"
+
+"He wouldn't sit in a box. If he went at all, it would be in some
+obscure place where he would not be seen."
+
+"You had better send him a box, a stall and a dress circle, then he can
+take his choice.... But perhaps you had better not send. His presence
+among the audience would only make you nervous."
+
+"No, on the contrary, his presence would make me sing."
+
+For whatever reason she had certainly sung and acted with exceptional
+force and genius, and Margaret was at once lifted out of the obscurity
+into which it was slipping and took rank with her Elizabeth and her
+Elsa. As they drove home together in the brougham after the performance,
+Owen assured her that she had infused a life and meaning into the part,
+and that henceforth her reading would have to be "adopted."
+
+"I wonder if father was there? He was not in the box. Did you look in
+the stalls?"
+
+"Yes, but he was not there. You'll go and see him to-morrow."
+
+"No, not to-morrow, dear."
+
+"Why not to-morrow?"
+
+"Because I want him to see the papers. He may not have been in the
+theatre; on Thursday night is Lady Ascott's ball; then on Friday--I'll
+go and see father on Friday. I'll try to summon courage. But there is a
+rehearsal of 'Tannhaeuser' on Friday."
+
+And so that she might not be too tired on Friday morning, Owen insisted
+on her leaving the ball-room at two o'clock, and their last words, as he
+left her on her doorstep, were that she would go to Dulwich before she
+went to rehearsal. But in the warmth of her bed, not occupied long
+enough to restore to the body the strength of which a ball-room had
+robbed it, her resolution waned, and her brain, weak from insufficient
+sleep, shrank from the prospect of a long drive and a face of stone at
+the end of it. She sat moodily sipping her chocolate and _brioche_.
+
+"You were at the opera last night, Merat. Was Mademoiselle Helbrun a
+success?"
+
+"No, mademoiselle, I'm afraid not."
+
+"Ah!" Evelyn put down her cup and looked at her maid. "I'm sorry, but I
+thought she wouldn't succeed in London. She was coldly received, was
+she?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle."
+
+"I'm sorry, for she's a true artist."
+
+"She has not the passion of mademoiselle."
+
+A little look of pleasure lit up Evelyn's face.
+
+"She is a charming singer. I can't think how she could have failed. Did
+you hear any reason given?"
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, I met Mr. Ulick Dean."
+
+"What did he say? He'd know."
+
+"He said that Mademoiselle Helbrun's was the true reading of the part.
+But 'Carmen' had lately been turned into a _femme de la balle_, and, of
+course, since the public had tasted realism it wanted more. I thought
+Mademoiselle Helbrun rather cold. But then I'm one of the public.
+Mademoiselle has not yet told me what I am to tell the coachman."
+
+"You do not listen to me, Merat," Evelyn answered in a sudden access of
+ill humour. "Instead of accepting the answer I choose to give, you stop
+there in the intention of obtaining the answer which seems to you the
+most suitable. I told you to tell the coachman that he was to get a map
+and acquaint himself with the way to Dulwich."
+
+And to bring the interview to a close, she told Merat to take away the
+chocolate tray, and took up one of the scores which lay on a small table
+by the bedside--"Tannhaeuser" and "Tristan and Isolde." It would bore her
+to look at Elizabeth again; she knew it all. She chose Tristan instead,
+and began reading the second act at the place where Isolde, ignoring
+Brangaene's advice, signals to Tristan with the handkerchief. She glanced
+down the lines, hearing the motive on the 'cellos, then, in precipitated
+rhythm, taken up by the violins. When the emotion has reached breaking
+point, Tristan rushes into Isolde's arms, and the frantic happiness of
+the lovers is depicted in short, hurried phrases. The score slipped from
+her hands and her thoughts ran in reminiscence of a similar scene which
+she had endured in Venice nearly four years ago. She had not seen Owen
+for two months, and was expecting him every hour. The old walls of the
+palace, the black and watchful pictures, the watery odours and echoes
+from the canal had frightened and exhausted her. The persecution of
+passion in her brain and the fever of passion afloat in her blood waxed,
+and the minutes became each a separate torture. There was only one lamp.
+She had watched it, fearing every moment lest it should go out.... She
+had cast a frightened glance round the room, and it was the spectre of
+life that her exalted imagination saw, and her natural eyes a strange
+ascension of the moon. The moon rose out of a sullen sky, and its
+reflection trailed down the lagoon. Hardly any stars were visible, and
+everything was extraordinarily still. The houses leaned heavily forward
+and Evelyn feared she might go mad, and it was through this phantom
+world of lagoon and autumn mist that a gondola glided. This time her
+heart told her with a loud cry that he had come, and she had stood in
+the shadowy room waiting for him, her brain on fire. The emotion of that
+night came to her at will, and lying in her warm bed she considered the
+meeting of Tristan and Isolde in the garden, and the duet on the bank of
+sultry flowers. Like Tristan and Isolde, she and Owen had struggled to
+find expression for their emotion, but, not having music, it had lain
+cramped up in their hearts, and their kisses were vain to express it.
+She found it in these swift irregularities of rhythm, replying to every
+change of motion, and every change of key cried back some pang of the
+heart.
+
+This scene in the second act was certainly one of the most
+difficult--at least to her--and the one in which she most despaired of
+excelling. It suddenly occurred to her that she might study it with
+Ulick Dean. She had met him at rehearsal, and had been much interested
+in him. He had sent her six melodies--strange, old-world rhythms,
+recalling in a way the Gregorian she used to read in childhood in the
+missals, yet modulated as unintermittently as Wagner; the same chromatic
+scale and yet a haunting of the antique rhythm in the melody. Ulick knew
+her father; he had said, "Mr. Innes is my greatest friend." He loved her
+father, she could see that, but she had not dared to question him.
+Talking to Owen was like the sunshine--the earth and only the earth was
+visible--whereas talking to Ulick was like the twilight through which
+the stars were shining. Dreams were to him the true realities; externals
+he accepted as other people accepted dreams--with diffidence. Evelyn
+laughed, much amused by herself and Ulick, and she laughed as she
+thought of his fixed and averted look as he related the tales of bards
+and warriors. Every now and then his dark eyes would light up with
+gleams of sunny humour; he probably believed that the legends contained
+certain eternal truths, and these he was shaping into operas. He was the
+most interesting young man she had met this long while.
+
+He had been about to tell her why he had recanted his Wagnerian faith
+when they had been interrupted by Owen.... She could conceive nothing
+more interesting than the recantation by a man of genius of the ideas
+that had first inspired him. His opera had been accepted, and would be
+produced if she undertook the principal part. Why should she not? They
+could both help each other. Truly, he was the person with whom she could
+study Isolde, and she imagined the flood of new light he would throw
+upon it. Her head drowsed on the pillow, and she dreamed the wonderful
+things he would tell her. But as she drowsed she thought of the article
+he had written about her Margaret, and it was the desire to read it
+again that awoke her. Stretching out her hand, she took it from the
+table at her bedside and began reading. He liked the dull green dress
+she wore in the first act; and the long braids of golden hair which he
+admired were her own. He had mentioned them and the dark velvet cape,
+which he could not remember whether she wore or carried. As a matter of
+fact, she carried it on her arm. His forgetfulness on this point seemed
+to her charming, and she smiled with pleasure. He said that she made
+good use of the cape in the next act, and she was glad that he had
+perceived that.
+
+Like every other Margaret, her prayer-book was in her hand when she
+first met Faust; but she dropped it as she saw him, and while she shyly
+and sweetly sang that she was neither a lady nor a beauty, she stooped
+and with some embarrassment picked up the book. She passed on, and did
+not stop to utter a mechanical cry when she saw Mephistopheles, and then
+run away. She hesitated a moment; Mephistopheles was not in sight, but
+Faust was just behind her, and over the face of Margaret flashed the
+thought, "What a charming--what a lovely young man! I think I'll stop a
+little longer, and possibly he'll say something more. But no--after
+all--perhaps I'd better not," and, with a little sigh of regret, she
+turned and went, at first quietly and then more quickly, as though
+fearful of being tempted to change her mind.
+
+In the garden scene, she sang the first bars of the music
+absent-mindedly, dusting and folding her little cape, stopping when it
+was only half folded to stand forgetful a moment, her eyes far off,
+gazing back into the preceding act. Awaking with a little start, she
+went to her spinning-wheel, and, with her back to the audience, arranged
+the spindle and the flax. Then stopping in her work and standing in
+thought, she half hummed, half sang the song "Le Roi de Thule." Not till
+she had nearly finished did she sit down and spin, and then only for a
+moment, as though too restless and disturbed for work that afternoon.
+
+Evelyn was glad that Ulick had remarked that the jewels were not "the
+ropes of pearls we are accustomed to, but strange, mediaeval jewels,
+long, heavy earrings and girdles and broad bracelets." Owen had given
+her these. She remembered how she had put them on, just as Ulick said,
+with the joy of a child and the musical glee of a bird. "She laughed out
+the jewel song," he said, "with real laughter, returning lightly across
+the stage;" and he said that they had "wondered what was this lovely
+music which they had never heard before!" And when she placed the jewels
+back, she did so lingeringly, regretfully, slowly, one by one, even
+forgetting the earrings, perhaps purposely, till just before she entered
+the house.
+
+"In the duet with Faust," he said, "we were drawn by that lovely voice
+as in a silken net, and life had for us but one meaning--the rapture of
+love."
+
+"Has it got any other meaning?" Evelyn paused a moment to think. She was
+afraid that it had long ceased to have any other meaning for her. But
+love did not seem to play a large part in Ulick's life. Yet that last
+sentence--to write like that he must feel like that. She wondered, and
+then continued reading his article.
+
+She was glad that he had noticed that when she fainted at the sight of
+Mephistopheles, she slowly revived as the curtain was falling and
+pointed to the place where he had been, seeing him again in her
+over-wrought brain. This she did think was a good idea, and, as he said,
+"seemed to accomplish something."
+
+He thought her idea for her entrance in the following act exceedingly
+well imagined, for, instead of coming on neatly dressed and smiling like
+the other Margarets, she came down the steps of the church with her
+dress and hair disordered, in the arms of two women, walking with
+difficulty, only half recovered from her fainting fit. "It is by ideas
+like this," he said, "that the singer carried forward the story, and
+made it seem like a real scene that was happening before our eyes. And
+after her brother had cursed Margaret, when he falls back dead, Miss
+Innes retreats, getting away from the body, half mad, half afraid. She
+did not rush immediately to him, as has been the operatic custom, kneel
+down, and, with one arm leaning heavily on Valentine's stomach, look up
+in the flies. Miss Innes, after backing far away from him, slowly
+returned, as if impelled to do so against her will, and, standing over
+the body, looked at it with curiosity, repulsion, terror; and then she
+burst into a whispered laugh, which communicated a feeling of real
+horror to the audience.
+
+"In the last act, madness was tangled in her hair, and in her wide-open
+eyes were read the workings of her insane brain, and her every movement
+expressed the pathos of madness; her lovely voice told its sad tale
+without losing any of its sweetness and beauty. The pathos of the little
+souvenir phrases was almost unbearable, and the tragic power of the
+finish was extraordinary in a voice of such rare distinction and fluid
+utterance. Her singing and acting went hand in hand, twin sisters, equal
+and indivisible, and when the great moment in the trio came, she stepped
+forward and with an inspired intensity lifted her quivering hands above
+her head in a sort of mad ecstasy, and sang out the note clear and true,
+yet throbbing with emotion."
+
+The paper slid from Evelyn's hand. She could see from Ulick's
+description of her acting that she had acted very well; if she had not,
+he could not have written like that. But her acting only seemed
+extraordinary when she read about it. It was all so natural to her. She
+simply went on the stage, and once she was on the stage she could not do
+otherwise. She could not tell why she did things. Her acting was so much
+a part of herself that she could not think of it as an art at all; it
+was merely a medium through which she was able to re-live past phases of
+her life, or to exhibit her present life in a more intense and
+concentrated form. The dropping of the book was quite true; she had
+dropped a piece of music when she first saw Owen, and the omission of
+the scream was natural to her. She felt sure that she would not have
+seen Mephistopheles just then; she would have been too busy thinking of
+the young man. But she thought that she might take a little credit for
+her entrance in the third act. Somehow her predecessors had not seen
+that it was absurd to come smiling and tripping out of church, where she
+had seen Mephistopheles. She read the lines describing her power to
+depict madness. But even in the mad scenes she was not conscious of
+having invented anything. She had had sensations of madness--she
+supposed everyone had--and she threw herself into those sensations,
+intensifying them, giving them more prominence on the stage than they
+had had in her own personal life.
+
+Many had thought her a greater actress than a singer; and she had been
+advised to dispense with her voice and challenge a verdict on her
+speaking voice in one of Shakespeare's plays. Owen would have liked her
+to risk the adventure, but she dared not. It would seem a wanton insult
+to her voice. She had imagined that it might leave her as an offended
+spirit might leave its local habitation. Her Margaret had been accepted
+in Italy, so she must sing it as well as she acted it. But when she had
+asked the Marquis d'Albazzi if she sang it as well as her mother, he had
+said, "Mademoiselle, the singers of my day were as exquisite flutes, and
+the singers of your day give emotions that no flute could give me," and
+when she had told him that she was going to be so bold as to attempt
+Norma, he had raised his eyebrows a little and said, "Mademoiselle will
+sing it according to the fashion of to-day; we cannot compare the
+present with the past." Ah! _Ce vieux marquis etait tres fin_. And her
+father would think the same; never would he admit that she could sing
+like her mother. But Ulick had said--and no doubt he had already read
+Ulick's article--that she had rescued the opera from the grave into
+which it was gliding. None of them liked it for itself. Her father spoke
+indulgently about it because her mother had sung it. Ulick praised it
+because he was tired of hearing Wagner praised, and she liked it because
+her first success had been made in it.
+
+These morning hours, how delicious they were! to roll over in one's silk
+nightgown, to feel it tighten round one's limbs and to think how easily
+success had come. Madame Savelli had taught her eight operas in ten
+months, and she had sung Margaret in Brussels--a very thin performance,
+no doubt, but she had always been a success. Ulick would not have
+thought much of her first Margaret. Almost all the points he admired she
+had since added. She had learnt the art of being herself on the stage.
+That was all she had learnt, and she very much doubted if there was
+anything else to learn. If Nature gives one a personality worth
+exhibiting, the art of acting is to get as much of one's personality
+into the part as possible. That was the A B C and the X Y Z of the art
+of acting. She had always found that when she was acting herself, she
+was acting something that had not been acted before. She did not compare
+her Margaret with her Elizabeth. With Margaret she was back in the
+schoolroom. Still she thought that Ulick was right; she had got a new
+thrill out of it. Her Margaret was unpublished, but her Elizabeth was
+three times as real. There was no comparison; not even in Isolde could
+she be more true to herself. Her Elizabeth was a side of her life that
+now only existed on the stage. Brunnhilde was her best part, for into it
+she poured all her joy of life, all her love of the blue sky with great
+white clouds floating, all her enthusiasm for life and for the hero who
+came to awaken her to life and to love. In Brunnhilde and Elizabeth all
+the humanity she represented--and she thought she was a fairly human
+person--was on the stage. But Elsa? That was the one part she was
+dissatisfied with. There were people who liked her Elsa. Oh, her Elsa
+had been greatly praised. Perhaps she was mistaken, but at the bottom of
+her heart she could not but feel that her Elsa was a failure. The truth
+was that she had never understood the story. It began beautifully, the
+beginning was wonderful--the maiden whom everyone was persecuting, who
+would be put to death if some knight did not come to her aid. She could
+sing the dream--that she understood. Then the silver-clad knight who
+comes from afar, down the winding river, past thorpe and town, to
+release her from those who were plotting against her. But afterwards?
+This knight who wanted to marry her, and who would not tell his name.
+What did it mean? And the celebrated duet in the nuptial chamber--what
+did it mean? It was beautiful music--but what did it mean? Could anyone
+tell her? She had often asked, but no one had ever been able to tell
+her.
+
+She knew very well the meaning of the duet, when Siegfried adventures
+through the fire-surrounded mountain and wakes Brunnhilde with a kiss.
+That duet meant the joy of life, the rapture of awakening to the
+adventure of life, the delight of the swirling current of ephemeral
+things. And the duet that she was going to sing; she knew what that
+meant too. It meant the desire to possess. Desire finding a barrier to
+complete possession in the flesh would break off the fleshly lease, and
+enter the great darkness where alone was union and rest.
+
+But she could not discover the idea in the "Lohengrin" duet? Senta she
+understood, and she thought she understood Kundry. She had not yet begun
+to study the part. But Elsa? Suddenly the thought that, if she was going
+to Dulwich, she must get up, struck her like a spur, and she sprang out
+of bed, and laying her finger on the electric bell she kept the button
+pressed till Merat arrived breathless.
+
+"Merat, I shall get up at once; prepare my bath, and tell the coachman I
+shall be ready to start in twenty minutes."
+
+"Twenty minutes? Mademoiselle is joking."
+
+"No, I am not ... in twenty minutes--half-an-hour at the most."
+
+"It would be impossible for me to dress you in less than three-quarters
+of an hour."
+
+"I shall be dressed in half-an-hour. Go and tell the coachman at once; I
+shall have had my bath when you return."
+
+Her dressing was accomplished amid curt phrases. "It doesn't matter,
+that will do.... I can't afford to waste time.... Come, Merat, try to
+get on with my hair."
+
+And while Merat buttoned her boots, she buttoned her gloves. She wore a
+grey, tailor-made dress and a blue veil tied round a black hat with
+ostrich feathers. Escaping from her maid's hands, she ran downstairs.
+But the dining-room door opened, and Lady Duckle intervened.
+
+"My dear girl, you really cannot go out before you have had something to
+eat."
+
+"I cannot stay; I'll get something at the theatre."
+
+"Do eat a cutlet, it will not take a moment ... a mouthful of omelette.
+Think of your voice."
+
+There were engravings after Morland on the walls, and the silver on the
+breakfast-table was Queen Anne--the little round tea urn Owen and Evelyn
+had picked up the other day in a suburban shop; the horses, whose
+glittering red hides could be seen through the window, had been bought
+last Saturday at Tattersall's. Evelyn went to the window to admire them,
+and Lady Duckle's thoughts turned to the coachman.
+
+"He sent in just now to ask for a map of London. It appears he doesn't
+know the way, yet, when I took up his references, I was assured that he
+knew London perfectly."
+
+"Dulwich is very little known; it is at least five miles from here."
+
+"Oh, Dulwich!... you're going there?"
+
+"Yes, I ought to have gone the day after we arrived in London. ... I
+wanted to; I've been thinking of it all the time, and the longer I put
+it off the more difficult it will become."
+
+"That is true."
+
+"I thought I would drive there to-day before I went to rehearsal."
+
+"Why choose a day on which you have a rehearsal?"
+
+"Only because I've put it off so often. Something always happens to
+prevent me. I must see my father."
+
+"Have you written to him?"
+
+"No, but I sent him a paper containing an account of the first night. I
+thought he might have written to me about it, or he might have come to
+see me. He must know that I am dying to see him."
+
+"I think it would be better for you to go to see him in the first
+instance."
+
+Lady Duckle meant Evelyn to understand that it would not be well to risk
+anything that might bring about a meeting between Sir Owen and Mr.
+Innes. But she did not dare to be more explicit. Owen had forbidden any
+discussion of his relations with Evelyn.
+
+"Of course it would be nice for you to see your father. But you should,
+I think, go to him; surely that is the proper course."
+
+"We've written to each other from time to time, but not lately--not
+since we went to Greece.... I've neglected my correspondence."
+
+Tears rose to Evelyn's eyes, and Lady Duckle was sorely tempted to lead
+her into confidences. But Owen's counsels prevailed; she dissembled,
+saying that she knew how Evelyn loved her father, and how nice it would
+be for her to see him again after such a long absence.
+
+"I dare say he'll forgive me, but there'll be reproaches. I don't think
+there's anyone who hates a scene more than I do."
+
+"I haven't lived with you five years without having found out that. But
+in avoiding a disagreeable scene we are often preparing one more
+disagreeable."
+
+"That is true.... I think I'll go to Dulwich."
+
+"Shall you have time?... You're not in the first act."
+
+"Dulwich is not six miles from here. We can drive there easily in
+three-quarters of an hour. And three-quarters of an hour to get back.
+They won't begin to rehearse the second act before one. It is a little
+after ten now."
+
+"Then good-bye."
+
+Lady Duckle followed her to the front door and stood for a moment to
+admire the beauty of the morning. The chestnut horses pawed the ground
+restlessly, excited by the scent of the lilac which a wilful little
+breeze carried up from Hamilton Place. Every passing hansom was full of
+flowered silks, and the pale laburnum gold hung in loose tassels out of
+quaint garden inlets. The verandahed balconies seemed to hang lower than
+ever, and they were all hung and burdened with flowers. And of all these
+eighteenth century houses, Evelyn's was the cosiest, and the elder of
+the two men, who, from the opposite pavement, stood watching the prima
+donna stroking the quivering nostrils of her almost thoroughbred
+chestnuts with her white-gloved hand, could easily imagine her in her
+pretty drawing-room standing beside a cabinet filled with Worcester and
+old Battersea china, for he knew Owen's taste and was certain the Louis
+XVI. marble clock would be well chosen, and he would have bet
+five-and-twenty-pounds that there were some Watteau and Gainsborough
+drawings on the walls.
+
+"Owen is doing the thing well. Those horses must have cost four hundred.
+I know how much the Boucher drawing cost."
+
+"How do you know there is a Boucher drawing?"
+
+"Because we bid against each other for it at Christie's. A woman lying
+on her stomach, drawn very freely, very simply--quite a large
+drawing--just the thing for such a room as hers is, amid chintz and
+eighteenth century inlaid or painted tables."
+
+"I wonder where she is going. Perhaps to see him."
+
+"At ten o'clock in the morning! More likely that she will call at her
+dressmaker's on her way to rehearsal. She is to sing Elizabeth to-morrow
+night." And while discussing her singing, the elder man asked himself if
+he had ever had a mistress that would compare with her. "She isn't by
+any means a beautiful woman," he said, "but she's the sort of woman that
+if one did catch on to it would be for a long while."
+
+The young man pitied Evelyn's misfortune of so elderly an admirer as
+Owen. It seemed to him impossible that she could like a man who must be
+over forty, and the thought saddened him that he might never possess so
+desirable a mistress.
+
+"I wonder of she's faithful to him?"
+
+"Faithful to him, after six years of _liaison!_"
+
+"But, my dear Frank, we know you don't believe that any woman is
+straight. How do you know that he is her lover? Very often--"
+
+"My dear Cyril, because you meet her at a ball at Lady Ascott's, and
+because she has lived with that Lady Duckle--an old thing who used to
+present the daughters of ironmongers at Court for a consideration--above
+all, because you want her yourself, you are ready to believe anything. I
+never did meet anyone who could deceive himself with the same ease.
+Besides, I know all about her. It's quite an extraordinary story."
+
+"How did he pick her up?"
+
+"I'll tell you presently. She's got into her carriage; we shall be able
+to see if she rouges as she passes."
+
+Evelyn had noticed the men as she stood trying to explain as much of the
+way as she could to her somewhat obtuse coachman. Her bow was gracious
+as the chestnuts swept the light carriage by them; the young man pleased
+her fancy for the moment, and she tried to recall the few words they had
+exchanged as she left the ball. The elder man was a friend of Owen's.
+But his face was suddenly blotted from her mind. For if her father were
+to refuse to see her, if he were to cast her off for good and all, what
+would she do? Her life would be unendurable; she would go mad, mad as
+Margaret. But the picture did not frighten her, she knew it was
+fictitious; and looking into her soul for the truth, she saw the trees
+in the Green Park and the chimney pots of Walsingham House, and she
+realised that the nearest future is enveloped in obscurity. She had
+always dreaded the journey to London; she had been warned against
+London, and ever since she had consented to come she had been ill at
+ease and nervous--of what she did not know--of someone behind her, of
+someone lurking round her. She argued that she would not have had those
+feelings if there was not a reason. When she had them, something always
+happened to her, and nothing could convince her that London was not the
+turning-point in her fortune. The carriage seemed to be going very fast;
+they were already in Victoria Street; she cried to the coachman not to
+drive so fast, he answered that he must drive at that pace if he was to
+get there by eleven.... Surely her father would not refuse to see her.
+He could not, he would not take her by the shoulders and turn her out
+of the house--the house she had known all her life. Oh, good heavens! if
+he did, what would happen afterwards? She could not go back to Owen and
+sing operas at Covent Garden, and her soul wailed like a child and a
+deadly terror of her father came upon her. It might be her destiny never
+to speak to him again! That fate had been the fate of other women. Why
+should it not be hers? He might not send for her when he was dying, and
+if she were dying he might not come to her; and after death, would she
+see him? Would they then be reconciled? If she did not see her father in
+this world, she would never see him, for she had promised Owen to
+believe in oblivion, and she thought she did believe in nothing; but she
+felt now that she must say her prayers, she must pray that her father
+might forgive her. It might be absurd, but she felt that a prayer would
+ease her mind. It was dreadfully hypocritical to pray to a God one
+didn't believe in. There was no sense in it, nor was there much sense in
+much else one did.... She had promised Owen not to pray, and it was a
+sort of blasphemy to say prayers and lead a life of sin. She did not
+like to break her promise to Owen. She must make up her mind.... Her
+father might be at St. Joseph's! and it was with a sense of refreshing
+delight that she called the coachman and gave the order. The chestnuts
+were prancing like greyhounds amid heavy drays and clumsy, bear-like
+horses; the coachman was trying to hold them in and to understand the
+policeman, who shouted the way to him from the edge of the pavement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+
+But she ought not to go to St. Joseph's. She had promised Owen to avoid
+churches, priests--all that reminded her of religion. He had begged that
+until she was firm in her agnosticism she should not expose herself to
+influences which could but result in mental distress, and without any
+practical issue unless to separate them. She had escaped once; next time
+he might find it more difficult to win her back. How kind he was. He had
+not said a word about his own suffering.
+
+It had happened nearly three years ago in Florence, and an accident had
+brought it all about. One afternoon she was walking in the streets; she
+could still see the deep cornices showing distinct against the sky; she
+was admiring them when suddenly a church appeared; she could not tell
+how it was, but she had been propelled to enter.... A feeling which had
+arisen out of her heart, a sort of yearning--that was it. The church was
+almost empty; how restful it had seemed that afternoon, the rough
+plastered walls and the two figures of the nuns absorbed in prayer. Her
+heart had begun to ache, and her daily life with its riches and glories
+had seemed to concern her no longer. It was as if the light had changed,
+and she had become suddenly aware of her real self. A tall cross stood
+oddly placed between the arches; she had not seen it at first, but as
+her eyes rested upon it she had been drawn into wistful communion with
+her dying Redeemer. And all that had seemed false suddenly became true,
+and she had left the church overcome with remorse. That night her door
+was closed to Owen; she had pleaded indisposition, unable for some shame
+to speak the truth. On the next day and the day after the desire of
+forgiveness had sent her to the church and then to the priest, but the
+priest had refused her absolution till she separated from her lover. She
+had felt that she must obey. She had written a note--she could not think
+of it now--so cruel did it seem, yet at the time it had seemed quite
+natural. It was not until the next day, and the day after was worse
+still, that she began to plumb the depths of her own unhappiness; every
+day it seemed to grow deeper. She could not keep him out of her mind.
+She used to sit and try to do needlework in the hotel sitting-room. But
+how often had she had to put it down and to walk to the window to hide
+her tears? As the time drew near for her to go to the theatre, she had
+to vow not to cry again till she got home. He was always in his
+box--once she had nearly broken down, and, pitying her, he came no more.
+But not to see him at all was worse than the pain of seeing him. That
+empty box! And all through the night she thought of him in his hotel,
+only a street or two distant. She could not go through it again, nor
+could she think what would have happened if they had not met. Something
+had prompted her to go out one afternoon; she was weak with weeping and
+sick with love, and, feeling that there are burdens beyond our strength,
+she had walked with her eyes steadily fixed before her ... and somehow
+she was not surprised when she saw him coming towards her. He joined her
+quite naturally, as if by appointment, and they had walked on,
+instinctively finding their way out of the crowd. They had walked on and
+on, now and then exchanging remarks, waiting for a full explanation,
+wondering what form it would take. Cypresses and campanili defined
+themselves in the landscape as the evening advanced. Further on the
+country flattened out; there were urban gardens and dusty little
+vineyards. They had sat on a bench; above them was a statue of the
+Virgin; she remembered noticing it; it reminded her of her scapular, but
+nothing had mattered to her then but Owen. He said--
+
+"Well Evelyn, when is all this nonsense going to cease?"
+
+"I don't know, Owen; I'm very unhappy."
+
+The sense of reconciliation which overtook her was too delicious to be
+resisted, and she remembered how all the way home she had longed for the
+moment when she would throw herself into his arms. He had not reproved
+her nor reproached her; he had merely forgiven her the pain she had
+caused him. There were sounds of children's voices in the air and a glow
+of light upon the roofs. Their talk had been gentle and philosophic; she
+had listened eagerly, and had promised to shun influences which made her
+uselessly unhappy. And he had promised her that in time to come she
+would surely succeed in freeing herself from the tentacles of this
+church, and that the day would come when she would watch the Mass as she
+would some childish sport. "Though," he added, smiling, "it is doubtful
+if anyone can see his own rocking-horse without experiencing a desire to
+mount it." Nearly three years had passed since that time in Florence,
+and she was now going to put the strength of her agnosticism to the
+test.
+
+"They have not built a new entrance," she remarked to herself, as the
+coachman reined up the chestnuts before the meagre steps. "But
+alterations are being made," she thought, catching sight of some
+scaffolding. As she stepped out of her carriage she remembered that her
+dress and horses could not fail to suggest Owen's money to her father.
+She paused, and then hoped he would remember that she was getting three
+hundred pounds a week, and could pay for her carriage and gowns
+herself. And, smiling at the idea of dressing herself in a humble frock
+suitable for reconciliation, she entered the church hurriedly. She did
+not care to meet him in open daylight, in the presence of her servants.
+The church would be a better place. He could not say much to her in
+church, and she thought she would like to meet him suddenly face to
+face; then there would be no time for explanations, and he could not
+refuse to speak to her. Looking round she saw that Mass was in progress
+at one of the side altars. The acolyte had just changed the book from
+the left to the right, and the congregation of about a dozen had risen
+for the reading of the Gospel. She knew that her father was not among
+them. She must have known all the while that he was not in church. If he
+were at St. Joseph's, he would be in the practising room. She might go
+round and ask for him ... and run the risk of meeting one of the
+priests! They were men of tact, and would refrain from unpleasant
+allusions. But they knew she was on the stage, that she had not been
+back since she had left home; they could not but suspect; however they
+might speak, she could not avoid reading meanings, which very likely
+were not intended, into their words.... And she would see the practising
+room full of faces, and her father, already angry at the interruption,
+opening the door to her. It would be worse than meeting him in the
+street. No, she would not seek him in the practising room--then
+where--Dulwich? Perhaps, but not to-day. She would wait in the church
+and see if the Elevation compelled her to bow her head.
+
+And in this intention she took a seat in full view of the altar where
+the priest was saying Mass. Every shape and every colour of this church,
+its slightest characteristics, brought back an impression of long ago;
+the very wording of her childish thoughts was suddenly remembered; and
+she felt, whether she believed or disbelieved, that it was pleasant to
+kneel where she knelt when she was a little girl. It was touching to see
+the poor folk pray. The poor Irish and Italians--especially the
+Irish--how simple they were; it was all real to them, however false it
+may have become to her. Her eyes wandered among the little congregation;
+only one she recognised--the strangely thin and crooked lady who, as far
+back as she could remember, used to walk up the aisle, her hands crossed
+in front of her like a wooden doll's. She had not altered at all; she
+wore the same battered black bonnet. This lonely lady had always been a
+subject of curiosity to Evelyn. She remembered how she used to invent
+houses for her to live in and suitable friends and evenings at home. The
+day that Owen came to St. Joseph's before he went away on his yacht to
+the Mediterranean, he had put his hat on this lady's chair, and she had
+had to ask him to remove it. How frightened she had looked, and he not
+too well pleased at having to sit beside her. That was six years ago,
+and Evelyn thought how much had happened to her in that time--a great
+deal to her and very little to that poor woman in the black bonnet. She
+must have some little income on which she lived in a room with wax fruit
+in the window. Every morning and evening she was at St. Joseph's. The
+church was her one distraction; it was her theatre, the theatre
+certainly of all her thoughts.
+
+But at that moment the new choir-loft caught Evelyn's eye, and she
+imagined the melodious choirs answering each other from opposite sides.
+No doubt her father had insisted on the addition, so that such
+antiphonal music as the Reproaches might be given. Some rich carpets had
+been laid down, some painting and cleaning had been done, and the
+fashionable names on the front seats reminded her of the Grand Circle at
+Covent Garden. Evidently the frequentation of St. Joseph's was much the
+same as the theatres. The congregation was attracted by the choirs, and,
+when these were silenced, the worship shrank into the mumbled prayers of
+a few Irish and Italians. Evelyn wondered if the poor lady could
+distinguish between her father's music and Father Gordon's. The only
+music she heard was the ceaseless music of her devout soul.
+
+Was it not strange that the paper she had sent her father containing an
+account of her success in the part of Margaret contained also an account
+of his choir? They had both succeeded. The old music had made St.
+Joseph's a fashionable church. So far she knew, and despite her strange
+terror of their first meeting, she longed to hear him tell her how he
+had overcome the opposition of Father Gordon.
+
+The Gospel ended, the little congregation sat down, and Evelyn reflected
+how much more difficult belief was to her than to the slightly-deformed
+woman in front of her. The doctrine that a merciful God has prepared a
+place of eternal torment for his erring creatures is hard enough to
+credit. She didn't think she could ever believe that again; or that God
+had sent his Son on earth to expiate on the cross the sins which he and
+his Father in conjunction with the Holy Ghost had fated them to commit;
+or that bread and wine becomes, at the bidding of the priest, the
+creator of all the stars we see at midnight. True that she believed
+these doctrines no longer, but, unfortunately, this advancement brought
+her no nearer to the solution of the question directly affecting her
+life. Owen encouraged her to persevere in her agnosticism. "Old
+instincts," he said, "are not conquered at once. You must be patient.
+The Scotch were converted about three or four hundred years after
+Christ. Christianity is therefore fourteen hundred years old, whereas
+the seed of agnosticism has been sown but a few years; give it time to
+catch root." She had laughed, his wit amused her, but our feelings
+are--well, they are ours, and we cannot separate ourselves from them.
+They are certain, though everything else is uncertain, and when she
+looked into her mind (she tried to avoid doing so as much as possible,
+but she could not always help herself) something told her that the
+present was but a passing stage. Often it seemed to her that she was
+like one out on a picnic--she was amused--she would be sorry when it
+ended; but she could not feel that it was to last. Other women were at
+home in their lives; she was not in hers. We all have a life that is
+more natural for us to live than any other; we all have a mission of
+some sort to accomplish, and the happiest are those whose lives
+correspond to their convictions. Even Owen's love did not quite
+compensate her for the lack of agreement between her outer and inner
+life.
+
+All this they had argued a hundred times, but their points of view were
+so different. Once, however, she thought she had made him understand.
+She had said, "If you don't understand religion, you understand art.
+Well, then, imagine a man who wants to paint pictures; give him a palace
+to live in; place every pleasure at his call, imposing only one
+condition--that he is not to paint. His appetites may detain him in the
+palace for a while, but sooner or later he will cry out, 'All these
+pleasures are nothing to me; what I want is to paint pictures.'" She
+could see that the parable had convinced him, or nearly. He had said he
+was afraid she was hopeless. But a moment after, drawing her toward him
+with quiet, masterful arm, and speaking with that hard voice that could
+become so soft, it had seemed as if heaven suddenly melted away, and his
+kisses were worth every sacrifice.
+
+That was the worst of it. She was neither one thing nor the other. She
+desired two lives diametrically opposed to each other, consequently she
+would never be happy. But she was happy. She had everything; she could
+think of nothing that she wanted that she had not got: it was really too
+ridiculous for her to pretend to herself that she was not happy. So long
+as she had believed in religion she had not been happy, but now she
+believed no longer--she was happy. It was strange, however, that a
+church always brought the old feeling back again, and her thoughts
+paused, and in a silent awe of soul she asked herself if, at the bottom
+of her soul, she still disbelieved in God. But it was so silly to
+believe the story of the Virgin--think of it.... As Owen said, in no
+mythology was there anything more ridiculous. Nevertheless, she did not
+convince herself that the dim, vague, unquiet sensation which rankled in
+her was not a still unextirpated germ of the original faith. She tried
+to think it was not a religious feeling but the result of the terrible
+interview still hanging over her, the dread that her father might not
+forgive her. She tried to look into her mind to discover the impulse
+which had compelled her to turn from her intention and come to this
+church. She remembered the uncontrollable desire to say a prayer: that
+she could have resisted, but the moment after she had remembered that
+perhaps it was too late to find her father at home. But had she really
+hoped to find him at St. Joseph's, or had she used the pretext to
+deceive herself? She could not tell. But if religion was not true, if
+she did not believe, how was it that she had always thought it wrong to
+live with a man to whom she was not married? There was no use
+pretending, she never had quite got a haunting scruple on that point out
+of her mind.
+
+There could be but two reasons, he had insisted, for the maintenance of
+the matrimonial idea--the preservation of the race, and the belief that
+cohabitation without matrimony is an offence against God. But the race
+is antecedent to matrimony, and if there be no resurrection, there can
+be no religion.... If there be no personal God who manages our affairs
+and summons to everlasting bliss or torment, the matter is not worth
+thinking about--at least not to a Catholic. Pious agnosticism is a
+bauble unworthy to tempt anyone who has been brought up a Catholic. A
+Catholic remains a Catholic, or else becomes a frank agnostic. Only
+weak-minded Protestants run to that slender shelter--morality without
+God. "But why are you like this?" he had said, fixing his eyes.... "I
+think I see. Your father comes of a long line of Scotch Protestants; he
+became a Catholic so that he might marry your mother. Your scruples must
+be a Protestant heredity. I wonder if it is so? In no other way can I
+account for the fact that although you no longer believe in a
+resurrection, you cling fast to the doctrine which declares it wrong for
+two people, both free, to live together, unless they register their
+cohabitation in the parish books. Our reason is our own. Our feelings we
+inherit. You are enslaved to your Scotch ancestors; you are a slave to
+the superstitions of your grandmother and your grand-aunts; you obey
+them."
+
+"But do we not inherit our reason just as much as we inherit our
+feelings?"
+
+They had argued that point. She could not remember what his argument
+was, but she remembered that she had held her ground, that he had
+complimented her, not forgetting, however, to take the credit of the
+improvement in her intellectual equipment to himself, which was indeed
+no more than just. She would have been nothing without him. How he had
+altered her! She had come to think and feel like him. She often caught
+herself saying exactly what he would say in certain circumstances, and
+having heard him say how odours affected him, she had tried to acquire a
+like sensibility. Unconsciously she had assimilated a great deal. That
+little trick of his, using his eyes a certain way, that knowing little
+glance of his had become habitual to her. She had met men who were more
+profound, never anyone whose mind was more alert, more amusing and
+sufficient for every occasion. She sentimentalised a moment, and then
+remembered further similarities. They now ate the same dishes, and no
+longer had need to consult each other before ordering dinner. In their
+first week in Paris she had learnt to look forward to chocolate in the
+morning before she got up, and this taste was endeared to her, for it
+reminded her of him. In the picture galleries she had always tried to
+pick out the pictures he would like. If they could not decide how a
+passage should be sung, or were in doubt regarding the attitude and
+gesture best fitted to carry on a dramatic action, she had noticed that,
+if they separated so that they might arrive at individual conclusions,
+they almost always happened upon the same. To each other they now
+affected not to know from whom a certain quaint notion had come--clearly
+it had been inspired by him, but which had first expressed it was not
+sure--that the three great type operas were "Tristan and Isolde," the
+"Barber of Seville," and "La Belle Helene." Nor were they sure which had
+first suggested that in the last week of her stage career she should
+appear in all three parts. Evelyn Innes, as La Belle Helene, would set
+musical London by the ears.
+
+She had often wondered whether, by having absorbed so much of Owen's
+character, she had proved herself deficient in character. Owen
+maintained, on the contrary, that the sign of genius is the power of
+recognising and assimilating that which is necessary to the development
+of oneself. He mentioned Goethe's life, which he said was but the tale
+of a long assimilation of ideas. The narrow, barren soul is narrow and
+barren because it cannot acquire. We come into the world with nothing in
+our own right except the capacity for the acquisition of ideas. We
+cannot invent ideas; we can only gather some of those in circulation
+since the beginning of the world. We endow them with the colour and form
+of our time, and, if that colour and form be of supreme quality, the
+work is preserved as representative of a period in the history of
+civilisation; a name may or may not be attached to each specimen. Genius
+is merely the power of assimilation; only the fool imagines he invents.
+Owen would go still further. He maintained that if the circumstances of
+a man's life admitted the acquisition of only one set of ideas, his work
+was thin; but if, on the contrary, circumstances threw him in the way of
+a new set of ideas, a set of ideas different from the first set, yet
+sufficiently near for the same brain to assimilate, then the work
+produced by that brain would be endowed with richer colour; or, in
+severer form, the idea was, he said, to a work of art what salt is to
+meat--it preserved works of art against the corrupting action of time.
+
+How they had talked! how they had discussed things! They had talked
+about everything, and she remembered all he said, as she recalled the
+arguments he had used. The scene of this last conversation passed and
+repassed in vanishing gleams--Bopart on the Rhine. They had stopped
+there on their way to Bayreuth, where she was going to sing Elsa. The
+maidens and their gold, the fire-surrounding Brunnhilde, the death of
+the hero, the end of the legends: these she knew, but of "Parsifal" she
+knew nothing--the story or the music. The time was propitious for him to
+tell it. The flame of the candle burnt in the still midnight, and she
+had listened with bated breath. She could see Owen leaning forward,
+telling the story, and she could even see her own listening face as he
+related how the poor fool rises through sanctification of faith and
+repudiation of doubt, how he heals the sick king with the sacred spear
+and becomes himself the high priest of the Grail. It had seemed to
+Evelyn that she had been carried beyond the limits of earthly things.
+The thrill and shiver of the dead man's genius haunted the liquid ripple
+of the river; the moment was ecstatic; the deep, windless night was full
+of the haunting ripple of the Rhine. And she remembered how she had
+clasped her hands ... her very words came back to her....
+
+"It is wonderful ... and we are listening to the Rhine; we shall never
+forget this midnight."
+
+At that moment the Sanctus bell rang, and she remembered why she had
+stayed in church. She wished to discover what remnant, tatter or shred
+of her early faith still clung about her. She wished to put her
+agnosticism to the test. She wondered if at the moment of consecration
+she would be compelled to bow her head. The bell rang again.... She grew
+tremulous with expectation. She strove to refrain, but her head bowed a
+little, and her thoughts expanded into prayer; she was not sure that she
+actually prayed, for her thoughts did not divide into explicit words or
+phrases. There certainly followed a beautiful softening of her whole
+being, the bitterness of life extinguished; divine eyes seemed bent upon
+her, and she was in the midst of mercy, peace and love; and daring no
+longer to think she did not believe, she sat rapt till Mass was ended.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+
+Still under the sweet influence of the church and the ceremony she got
+into her carriage. But the mystery engendered in her soul seemed to fade
+and die in the sunshine; she could almost perceive it going out like a
+gentle, evanescent mist on the surface of a pool; she remembered that
+she would very likely meet Ulick at rehearsal, and could find out from
+him how her father would be likely to receive her visit. Ulick seemed
+the solution of the difficulty--only he might tell her that her father
+did not wish to see her. She did not think he would say that, and the
+swing of her carriage and her thoughts went to the same rhythm until the
+carriage stopped before the stage door of Covent Garden Theatre.
+
+As she ascended the stairs the swing door was pushed open. The pilgrims'
+song drifted through it, and she knew that they had begun the overture.
+She crossed a stage in indescribable disorder. Scene-shifters were
+calling to each other, and there was an incessant hammering in the
+flies. "We might as well rehearse in a barn with the threshing-machine
+going all the while," Evelyn thought. She had to pass down a long
+passage to get to the stalls, and, finding herself in inky darkness, she
+grew nervous, though she knew well enough whither it led. At last she
+perceived a little light, and, following it for a while, she happened to
+stumble into one of the boxes, and there she sat and indulged in angry
+comments on the negligence of English operatic management.
+
+Through the grey twilight of the auditorium she could see heads and
+hands, and shapes of musical instruments. The conductor's grey hair was
+combed back over his high forehead. He swung a lean body to the right
+and left. Suddenly he sprang up in his seat, and, looking in the
+direction of certain instruments, he brought down his stick
+determinedly, and, having obtained the effect he desired, his beat swung
+leisurely for a while.... "'Cellos, crescendo," he cried. "Ah, _mon
+Dieu!_ Ta-ra-la-la-la! Now, gentlemen, number twenty-five, please."
+
+For a few bars the stick swung automatically, striking the harmonium as
+it descended. "'Cellos, a sudden piano on the accent, and then no accent
+whatever. Ta-ra-ta-ta-ta!"
+
+At the back of the stalls the poor Italian chorus had gathered like a
+herd, not daring to sit in seats, the hire of which for a few hours
+equalled their weekly wages. But the English girls, whose musical tastes
+had compelled them from their suburban homes, had no such scruples.
+Confident of the cleanliness of their skirts and hats, they sat in the
+best stalls, their scores on their knees. One happened to look up as
+Evelyn entered. She whispered to her neighbours, and immediately after
+the row was discussing Bayreuth and Evelyn Innes.
+
+Meanwhile, the pilgrims' song grew more strenuous, until at last the
+trombones proclaimed, in unconquerable tones, Tannhaeuser's abjuration of
+sensual life, and at that moment the tall, spare figure of Mr. Hermann
+Goetze, the manager, appeared in the doorway leading to the stalls. He
+was with his apparitor and satellite, Mr. Wheeler, a foppish little man,
+who seemed pleased at being in confidential conversation with his great
+chief. Catching sight of Evelyn in the box just above his eyes, he
+smiled and bowed obsequiously. A sudden thought seemed to strike him,
+and Evelyn said to herself, "He's coming to talk with me about the
+Brangaene. I hope he has done what I told him, and engaged Helbrun for
+the part."
+
+At the same moment it flashed across her mind that Mademoiselle
+Helbrun's unsuccessful appearance in "Carmen" might cause Mr. Harmann
+Goetze to propose someone else. She hoped that this was not so, for she
+could not consent to sing Isolde to anyone but Helbrun's Brangaene, and
+it was in this resolute, almost aggressive, frame of mind that she
+received the manager.
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Hermann Goetze? Well, I hope you succeeded in
+inducing Mademoiselle Helbrun to play Brangaene?"
+
+"I have not had a moment, Miss Innes. I have not seen Mademoiselle
+Helbrun since last night. You will be sorry to hear that her Carmen was
+not considered a success.... Do you think--"
+
+"There is no finer artist than Mademoiselle Helbrun. If you do not
+engage her--"
+
+Mr. Hermann Goetze took his handkerchief from his pocket, and, upon
+inquiry, she learnt that he was suffering from toothache. Mr. Wheeler
+advised different remedies, but Mr. Hermann Goetze did not believe in
+remedies. There was nothing for it but to have it out. Evelyn suggested
+her dentist, and Mr. Hermann Goetze apologised for this interruption in
+the conversation. He begged of her not to think of him, and they entered
+into the difficult question of salary. He told her that Mademoiselle
+Helbrun would ask eighty pounds a performance, and such heavy salary
+added to the four hundred pounds a performance he was paying for the
+Tristan and Isolde would--But so intense was the pain from his tooth at
+this moment that he could not finish the sentence. A little alarmed,
+Evelyn waited until the spasm had ended, and when the manager's
+composure was somewhat restored, she spoke of the change and stress of
+emotion, often expressed in isolated notes and vehement declamation, and
+she reminded the poor man of Brangaene's long song in which she
+endeavours to appease Isolde. Mr. Hermann Goetze looked at her out of
+pain-stricken eyes, and said he was listening. She assured him that the
+melodious effect would be lost if Brangaene could not sing the long-drawn
+phrases in a single breath. But she stopped suddenly, perceiving that an
+aesthetic discussion was impossible with a man who was in violent pain.
+Mr. Wheeler proposed to go to the chemist for a remedy. Mr. Hermann
+Goetze shook his head; he had tried all remedies in vain; the dentist
+was the only resort, and he promised to go to Evelyn's when the
+rehearsal was over, and he retired from the box, holding his
+handkerchief to his face. When he got on to the stage, Evelyn was glad
+to see that he was a little better, and was able to give some directions
+regarding the stage management. She was genuinely sorry for him, for she
+had had toothache herself. Nevertheless, it was unfortunate that they
+had not been able to settle about Mademoiselle Helbrun's engagement. She
+pondered how this might be effected; perhaps, after rehearsal, Mr.
+Hermann Goetze might be feeling better, or she might ask him to dinner.
+As she considered the question, her eyes wandered over the auditorium in
+quest of Ulick Dean.
+
+She spied him sitting in the far corner, and wondered when he would look
+in her direction, and then remembering what he had said about the
+transmission of thought between sympathetic affinities, she sought to
+reach him with hers. She closed her eyes so that she might concentrate
+her will sufficiently for it to penetrate his brain. She sat tense with
+her desire, her hands clenched for more than a minute, but he did not
+answer to her will, and its tension relaxed in spite of herself. "He
+sits there listening to the music as if he had never heard a note of it
+before. Why does he not come to me?" As if in answer, Ulick got out of
+his stall and walked toward the entrance, seemingly in the intention of
+leaving the theatre. Evelyn felt that she must speak to him, and she was
+about to call to one of the chorus and ask him to tell Mr. Dean that she
+wanted to speak to him, but a vague inquietude seemed to awaken in him,
+and he seemed uncertain whether to go or stay, and he looked round the
+theatre as if seeking someone. He looked several times in the direction
+of Evelyn's box without seeing her, and she was at last obliged to wave
+her hand. Then the dream upon his face vanished, and his eyes lit up,
+and his nod was the nod of one whose soul is full of interesting story.
+
+He had one of those long Irish faces, all in a straight line, with flat,
+slightly hollow cheeks, and a long chin. It was clean shaven, and a
+heavy lock of black hair was always falling over his eyes. It was his
+eyes that gave its sombre ecstatic character to his face. They were
+large, dark, deeply set, singularly shaped, and they seemed to smoulder
+like fires in caves, leaping and sinking out of the darkness. He was a
+tall, thin young man, and he wore a black jacket and a large, blue
+necktie, tied with the ends hanging loose over his coat. Evelyn received
+him effusively, stretching both hands to him and telling him she was so
+glad he had come. She said she was delighted with his melodies, and
+would sing them as soon as she got an occasion. But he did not seem as
+pleased as he should have done; and sitting, his eyes fixed on the
+floor--now and then he muttered a word of thanks. His silence
+embarrassed her, and she felt suddenly that the talk which she had been
+looking forward to would be a failure, and she almost wished him out of
+her box. Neither had spoken for some time, and, to break an awkward
+silence, she said that she had been that morning at St. Joseph's. He
+looked up; their eyes met unexpectedly, and she seemed to read an
+impertinence in his eyes; they seemed to say, "I wonder how you dared go
+there!" But his words contradicted the idea which she thought she had
+read in his eyes. He asked her at once eagerly and sympathetically, if
+she had seen her father. No, he was not there, and, growing suddenly
+shy, she sought to change the conversation.
+
+"You are not a Roman Catholic, I think.... I know you were born a
+Catholic, but from something you said the other day I was led to think
+that you did not believe."
+
+"I cannot think what I could have said to give you such an idea. Most
+people reproach me for believing too much."
+
+"The other day you spoke of the ancient gods Angus and Lir, and the
+great mother Dana, as of real gods."
+
+"Of course I spoke of them as real gods; I am a Celt, and they are real
+gods to me."
+
+Now his face had lighted up, and in clear, harmonious voice he was
+arguing that the gods of a nation cannot die to that nation until it be
+incorporated and lost in another nation.
+
+"I don't see how you reconcile Angus and Lir with Christianity, that is
+all."
+
+"But I don't try to reconcile them; they do not need reconciliation; all
+the gods are part of one faith."
+
+"But what do you believe ... seriously?"
+
+"Everything except Atheism, and unthinking contentment. I believe in
+Christianity, but I am not so foolish as to limit myself to
+Christianity; I look upon Christianity as part of the truth, but not the
+whole truth. There is a continuous revelation: before Christ Buddha,
+before Buddha Krishna, who was crucified in mid-heaven, and the Gods of
+my race live too."
+
+She longed to ask Ulick so many questions that she could not frame one,
+so far had the idea of a continuous revelation carried her beyond the
+limits of her habitual thoughts; and while she was trying to think out
+his meaning in one direction, she lost a great deal of what he said
+subsequently, and her face wore an eager, puzzled and disappointed look.
+That she should have been the subject of this young man's thoughts, that
+she should have suggested his opera of Grania, and that he should have
+at last succeeded, by means of an old photograph, in imagining some sort
+of image of her, flattered her inmost vanity, and with still brightening
+eyes she hoped that he was not disappointed in her.
+
+"When did you begin to write opera? You must come to see me. You will
+tell me about your opera, and we will go through the music."
+
+"Will you let me play my music to you?"
+
+"Yes, I shall be delighted."
+
+At that moment she remarked that Ulick's teeth were almost the most
+beautiful she had ever seen, and that they shone like snow in his dark
+face.
+
+"Some afternoon at the end of the week. We're friends--I feel that we
+are. You are father's friend; you were his friend when I was away. Tell
+me if he missed me very much. Tell me about him. I have been longing to
+ask you all the time. What is he doing? I have heard about his choir. He
+has got some wonderful treble voices."
+
+"He is very busy now rehearsing the 'Missa Brevis.' It will be given
+next Sunday. It will be splendidly done ... You ought to come to hear
+it."
+
+"I should like to, of course, but I am not certain that I shall not be
+able to go to St. Joseph's next Sunday. How did you and father become
+acquainted?"
+
+"Through an article I wrote about the music of St. Joseph's. Mr. Innes
+said that it was written by a musician, and he wrote to the paper."
+
+"Asking you to come to see him?"
+
+"Yes. Your father was the first friend I made in London."
+
+"And that was some years ago?"
+
+"About four years ago. I had come over from Ireland with a few pounds in
+my pocket, and a portmanteau full of music, which I soon found no one
+wanted."
+
+"You had written music before you had met father?"
+
+"Yes, I was organist at St. Patrick's in Dublin for nearly three years.
+There's no one like your father, Miss Innes."
+
+"No one, is there?" she replied enthusiastically. "There's no one like
+him. I'm so glad you are friends. You see him nearly every day, and you
+show him all your music." Then after a pause, she said, "Tell me, did he
+miss me very much?"
+
+"Yes, he missed you, of course. But he felt that you were not wholly to
+blame."
+
+"And you took my place. I can see it all. It was father and son,
+instead of father and daughter. How well you must have got on together.
+What talks you must have had."
+
+The silence was confidential, and though they both were thinking of Mr.
+Innes, they seemed to become intimately aware of each other.
+
+"But may I venture to advise you?"
+
+"Yes. What?"
+
+"I'm sure you ought to go and see him, or at least write to him saying
+you'd like to see him."
+
+"I know--I know--I must go. He'll forgive me; he must forgive me. But I
+wish it were over. I'm afraid you think me very cowardly. You will not
+say you have seen me. You promise me to say nothing."
+
+Ulick gave her the required promise, and she asked him again to come to
+see her.
+
+"I want you," she said, "to go through Isolde's music with me."
+
+"Do you think I can tell you anything about the music you don't know
+already?"
+
+"Yes, I think you can. You tell me things about myself that I did not
+know. I hardly knew that I acted as you describe in Margaret. I hope I
+did, for I seemed very good in your article. I read it over again this
+morning in bed. But tell me, did father come?"
+
+"You must not press me to answer that question. My advice to you is to
+go and see your father. He will tell you what he thought of your singing
+if he came here.... The act is over," he said suddenly, and he seemed
+glad of the interruption. "I wonder what your Elizabeth will be like?"
+
+"What do you think?"
+
+"You're a clever woman; you will no doubt arrive at a very logical and
+clear conception of the part, but--"
+
+"But we cannot act what is not in us. Is that what you were going to
+say?"
+
+"Something like that."
+
+"You think I shall arrive at a logical and clear conception. Is that the
+way you think I arrived at my Margaret? Did it look like that? I may
+play the part of Elizabeth badly, but I sha'n't play it as you think I
+shall. This frock is against me. I've a mind to send you away."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+
+Instead of rushing wildly from side to side according to custom, she
+advanced timidly, absorbed in deep memory; at every glance her face
+expressed a recollection; she seemed to alternate between a vague dread
+and an unconquerable delight; she seemed like a dim sky filled with an
+inner radiance, but for a time it seemed uncertain which would
+prevail--sunlight or shadow. But, like the sunlight, joy burst forth,
+scattering uncertainty and alarm, illuminating life from end to end; and
+her emotion vented itself in cries of April melody, and all the barren
+stage seemed in flower about her; she stood like a bird on a branch
+singing the spring time. And she sang every note with the same ease,
+each was equally round and clear, but what delighted Ulick was the
+perfect dramatic expression of her singing. It seemed to him that he was
+really listening to a very young girl who had just heard of the return
+of a man whom she had loved or might have loved. A bud last night slept
+close curled in virginal strictness, with the morning light it awoke a
+rose. But the core of the rose is still hidden from the light, only the
+outer leaves know it, and so Elizabeth is pure in her first aspiration;
+she rejoices as the lark rejoices in the sky, without desiring to
+possess the sky. Ulick could not explain to himself the obsession of
+this singing; he was thrall to the sensation of a staid German princess
+of the tenth century, and the wearing of a large hat with ostrich
+feathers, and tied with a blue veil, hindered no whit of it. And the
+tailor-made dress and six years of _liaison_ with Owen Asher was no let
+to the mediaeval virgin formulated in antique custom. In the duet with
+Tannhaeuser she was benign and forgiving, the divine penitent who, having
+no sins of her own to do penance for, does penance for the sins of
+others.
+
+It was then that Ulick began to understand the secret of Evelyn's
+acting; in Elizabeth she had gone back to the Dulwich days before she
+knew Asher, and was acting what she then felt and thought. She believed
+she was living again with her father, and so intense was her conviction
+that it evoked the externals. Even her age vanished; she was but
+eighteen, a virgin whose sole reality has been her father and her
+chatelaine, and whose vision of the world was, till now, a mere
+decoration--sentinels on the drawbridge, hunters assembling on the
+hillside, pictures hardly more real to her than those she weaves on her
+tapestry loom.
+
+Ulick leaned out of the box and applauded; he dared even to cry encore,
+and, following suit, the musicians laid aside their instruments and,
+standing up in the orchestra, applauded with him. The conductor tapped
+approval with his stick on the little harmonium, the chorus at the back
+cried encore. It was a curious scene; these folk, whose one idea at
+rehearsal is to get it over as soon as possible, conniving at their own
+retention in the theatre.
+
+The applause of her fellow artistes delighted her; she bowed to the
+orchestra, and, turning to the chorus, said that she would be pleased to
+sing the duet again if they did not mind the delay; and coming down the
+stage and standing in front of the box, she said to Ulick--
+
+"Well, are you satisfied?... Is that your idea of Elizabeth?"
+
+"So far as we have gone, yes, but I shall not know if your Elizabeth is
+my Elizabeth until I have heard the end of the act."
+
+Turning to Mr. Hermann Goetze, she said--
+
+"Mr. Dean has very distinct ideas how this part should be played."
+
+"Mr. Dean," answered the manager, laughing, "would not go to Bayreuth
+three years ago because they played 'Tannhaeuser.' But one evening he
+took the score down to read the new music, and to his surprise he found
+that it was the old that interested him. Mr. Dean is always making
+discoveries; he discovers all my singers after he has heard them."
+
+"And Mr. Hermann Goetze discovers his singers before _he_ has heard
+them," cried Ulick.
+
+Mr. Hermann Goetze looked for a moment as if he were going to get angry,
+but remembering that Dean was critic to an important weekly, he laughed
+and put his handkerchief to his jaw, and Evelyn went up the stage to
+meet the Landgrave--her father--and she sang a duet with him. As soon as
+it was concluded, the introduction to the march brought the first
+courtiers and pages on the stage, and with the first strains of the
+march the assembly, which had been invited to witness the competitions,
+was seated in the circular benches ranged round the throne of the
+Landgrave and his daughter.
+
+Having consulted with his stage manager and superintended some
+alterations in the stage arrangements, Mr. Hermann Goetze, whose
+toothache seemed a little better again, left the stage, and coming into
+the box where Ulick was sitting, he sat beside him and affected some
+interest in his opinion regarding the grouping, for it had occurred to
+him that if Evelyn should take a fancy to this young man nothing was
+more likely than that she should ask to have his opera produced. With
+the plot and some of the music he was already vaguely acquainted; and
+he had gathered, in a general way, that Ulick Dean was considered to be
+a man of talent. The British public might demand a new opera, and there
+had been some talk of Celtic genius in the newspapers lately. Dean's
+"Grania" might make an admirable diversion in the Wagnerian
+repertoire--only it must not be too anti-Wagnerian. Mr. Goetze prided
+himself on being in the movement. Now, if Evelyn Innes would sing the
+title _role_, "Grania" was the very thing he wanted. And in such a frame
+of mind, he listened to Ulick Dean. He was glad that "Grania" was based
+on a legend; Wagner had shown that an opera could not be written except
+on a legendary basis. The Irish legends were just the thing the public
+was prepared to take an interest in. But there was one thing he
+feared--that there were no motives.
+
+"Tell me more about the music? It is not like the opera you showed me a
+year or two ago in which instead of motives certain instruments
+introduce the characters? There is nothing Gregorian about this new
+work, is there?"
+
+"Nothing," Ulick answered, smiling contemptuously--nothing recognisable
+to uneducated ears."
+
+"Plenty of chromatic writing?"
+
+"Yes, I think I can assure you that there is plenty of modulation, some
+unresolved dissonances. I suppose that that is what you want. Alas,
+there are not many motives."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Ulick waited to be asked if he could not introduce some. But at that
+moment Tannhaeuser's avowal of the joys he had experienced with Venus in
+Mount Horsel had shocked the Landgrave's pious court. The dames and the
+wives of the burgesses had hastened away, leaving their husbands to
+avenge the affront offered to their modesty. The knights drew their
+swords; it was the moment when Elizabeth runs down the steps of the
+throne and demands mercy from her father for the man she loves. The idea
+of this scene was very dear to Ulick, and his whole attention was fixed
+on Evelyn.
+
+He was only attracted by essential ideas, and the mysterious expectancy
+of the virgin awaiting the approach of the man she loves was surely the
+essential spirit of life--the ultimate meaning of things. The comedy of
+existence, the habit of life worn in different ages of the world had no
+interest for him; it was the essential that he sought and wished to put
+upon the stage--the striving and yearning, and then the inevitable
+acceptation of the burden of life; in other words, the entrance into the
+life of resignation. That was what he sought in his own operas, and from
+this ideal he had never wavered; all other art but this essential art
+was indifferent to him. It was no longer the beautiful writing of
+Wagner's later works that attracted him; he deemed this one to be,
+perhaps, the finest, being the sincerest, and "Parsifal" the worst,
+being the most hypocritical. Elizabeth was the essential penitent, she
+who does penance not for herself, she has committed no sin, but the
+sublime penitent who does penance for the sins of others. Not for a
+moment could he admit the penitence of Kundry. In her there was merely
+the external aspect. "Parsifal" was to Ulick a revolting hypocrisy, and
+Kundry the blot on Wagner's life. In the first act she is a sort of wild
+witch, not very explicit to any intelligence that probes below the
+surface. In the second, she is a courtesan with black diamonds. In the
+third, she wears the coarse habit of a penitent, and her waist is tied
+with a cord; but her repentance goes no further than these exterior
+signs. She says no word, and Ulick could not accept the descriptive
+music as sufficient explanation of her repentance, even if it were
+sincere, which it was not, and he spoke derisively of the amorous cries
+to be heard at every moment in the orchestra, while she is dragging
+herself to Parsifal's feet. Elizabeth's prayer was to him a perfect
+expression of a penitent soul. Kundry, he pointed out, had no such
+prayer, and he derisively sang the cries of amorous desire. The
+character of Parsifal he could admit even less than the character of
+Kundry. As he would say in discussion, "If I am to discuss an artistic
+question, I must go to the very heart of it. Now, if we ask ourselves
+what Siegfried did, the answer is, that he forged the sword, killed the
+dragon and released Brunnhilde. But if, in like manner, we ask ourselves
+what Parsifal did, is not the answer, that he killed a swan and refused
+a kiss and with many morbid, suggestive and disagreeable remarks? These
+are the facts," he would say; "confute them who may, explain them who
+can!" And if it were urged, as it often was, that in Parsifal Wagner
+desired the very opposite to what he had in Siegfried, the Parsifal is
+opposed to Siegfried as Hamlet is opposed to Othello, Ulick eagerly
+accepted the challenge, and like one sure of his adversary's life, began
+the attack.
+
+Wagner had been all his life dreaming of an opera with a subjective
+hero. Christ first and then Buddha had suggested themselves as likely
+subjects. He had gone so far as to make sketches for both heroes, but
+both subjects had been rejected as unpractical, and he had fallen back
+on a pretty mediaeval myth, and had shot into a pretty mediaeval myth all
+the material he had accumulated for the other dramas, whose heroes were
+veritable heroes, men who had accomplished great things, men who had
+preached great doctrines and whose lives were symbols of their
+doctrines. The result of pouring this old wine into the new bottle was
+to burst the bottle.
+
+In neither Christ nor Buddha did the question of sex arise, and that was
+the reason that Wagner eventually rejected both. He was as full of
+sex--mysterious, sub-conscious sex--as Rossetti himself. In Christ's
+life there is the Magdalen, but how naturally harmonious, how implicit
+in the idea, are their relations, how concentric; but how excentric
+(using the word in its grammatical sense) are the relations of Parsifal
+to Kundry.... A redeemer is chaste, but he does not speak of his
+chastity nor does he think of it; he passes the question by. The figure
+of Christ is so noble, that whether God or man or both, it seems to us
+in harmony that the Magdalen should bathe his feet and wipe them with
+her hair, but the introduction of the same incident into "Parsifal"
+revolts. As Parsifal merely killed a swan and refused to be kissed--the
+other preached a doctrine in which beauty and wisdom touch the highest
+point, and his life was an exemplification of his doctrine of
+non-resistance--"Take ye and eat, for this is my body, and this is my
+blood."
+
+In "Parsifal" there was only the second act which he could admire
+without enormous reservations. The writing in the chorus of the "Flower
+Maidens" was, of course, irresistible--little cries, meaningless by
+themselves, but, when brought together, they created an enchanted
+garden, marvellous and seductive. But it was the duet that followed that
+compelled his admiration. Music hardly ever more than a recitative,
+hardly ever breaking into an air, and yet so beautiful! There the notes
+merely served to lift the words, to impregnate them with more terrible
+and subtle meaning; and the subdued harmonies enfolded them in an
+atmosphere, a sensual mood; and in this music we sink into depths of
+soul and float upon sullen and mysterious tides of life--those which
+roll beneath the phase of life which we call existence. But the vulgarly
+vaunted Good Friday music did not deceive him; at the second or third
+time of hearing he had perceived its insincerity. It was very beautiful
+music, but in such a situation sincerity was essential. The airs of this
+mock redeemer were truly unbearable, and the abjection of Kundry before
+this stuffed Christ revolted him. But the obtusely religious could not
+fail to be moved; the appeal of the chaste kiss, with little sexual
+cries all the while in the orchestra, could not but stir the vulgar
+heart to infinite delight, and the art was so dexterously beautiful that
+the intelligent were deceived. The artiste and the vulgarian held each
+other's hands for the first time; they gasped a mutual wonder at their
+own perception and their unsuspected nobility of soul. "Parsifal," he
+declared, with true Celtic love of exaggeration, "to be the oiliest
+flattery ever poured down the open throat of a liquorish humanity."
+
+As he spoke such sentences his face would light up with malicious
+humour, and he was so interested in the subject he discussed that his
+listener was forced to follow him. It was only in such moments of
+artistic discussion that his real soul floated up to the surface, and
+he, as it were, achieved himself. He knew, too, how to play with his
+listener, to wheedle and beguile him, for after a particularly
+aggressive phrase he would drop into a minor key, and his criticism
+would suddenly become serious and illuminative. To him "Parsifal" was a
+fresco, a decoration painted by a man whose true genius it was to reveal
+the most intimate secrets of the soul, to tell the enigmatic soul of
+longing as Leonardo da Vinci had done. But he had been led from the true
+path of his genius into the false one of a rivalry with Veronese. Only
+where Wagner is confiding a soul's secret is he interesting, and in
+"Tannhaeuser," in this first flower of his dramatic and musical genius,
+he had perhaps told the story of his own soul more truly, more sincerely
+than elsewhere. To do that was the highest art. Sooner or later the
+sublimest imaginations pale before the simple telling of a personal
+truth, for the most personal truth is likewise the most universal.
+"Tannhaeuser" is the story of humanity, for what is the human story if it
+isn't the pursuit of an ideal?
+
+And this essential and primal truth Evelyn revealed to him and the very
+spirit and sense of maidenhood, the centre and receptacle of life, the
+mysterious secret of things, the awful moment when the whisper of the
+will to live is heard in matter, the will which there is no denying, the
+surrender of matter, the awaking of consciousness in things. And united
+to the eternal idea of generation, he perceived the congenital idea
+which in remotest time seems to have sprung from it--that life is sin
+and must be atoned for by prayer. Evelyn's interpretation revealed his
+deepest ideas to himself, and at last he seemed to stand at the heart of
+life.
+
+Suddenly his rapture was broken through; the singer had stopped the
+orchestra.
+
+"You have cut some of the music, I see," she said, addressing the
+conductor.
+
+"Only the usual cut, Miss Innes."
+
+"About twenty pages, I should think."
+
+The conductor counted them.
+
+"Eighteen."
+
+"Miss Innes, that cut has been accepted everywhere--Munich, Berlin,
+Wiesbaden--everywhere except Bayreuth."
+
+"But, Mr. Hermann Goetze, my agreement with you is that the operas I
+sing in are to be performed in their entirety."
+
+"In their entirety; that is to say, well--taken literally, I
+suppose--that the phrase 'In their entirety' could be held to mean
+without cuts; but surely, regarding this particular cut--I may say that
+I spoke to Sir Owen about it, and he agreed with me that it was
+impossible to get people into the theatre in London before half-past
+seven."
+
+"But, Mr. Hermann Goetze, your agreement is with me, not with Sir Owen
+Asher."
+
+"Quite so, Miss Innes, but--"
+
+"If people don't care sufficiently for art to dine half-an-hour
+earlier, they had better stay away."
+
+"But you see, Miss Innes, you're not in the first act; there are the
+other artistes to consider. The 'Venusberg' will be sung to empty
+benches if you insist."
+
+It seemed for a moment as if Mr. Hermann Goetze was going to have his
+way; and Ulick, while praying that she might remain firm, recognised how
+adroitly Hermann Goetze had contrived to place her in a false position
+regarding her fellow artistes.
+
+"I am quite willing to throw up the part; I can only sing the opera as
+it is written."
+
+The conductor suggested a less decisive cut to Evelyn, and Mr. Hermann
+Goetze walked up and down the stage, overtaken by toothache. His agony
+was so complete that Evelyn's harshness yielded. She went to him, and,
+her hand laid commiseratingly on his arm, she begged him to go at once
+to the dentist.
+
+Then some of the musicians said that they could hardly read the music,
+so effectually had they scratched it out.
+
+"If the musicians cannot play the music, we had better go home," said
+Evelyn.
+
+"But the opera is announced for to-morrow night," Mr. Hermann Goetze
+replied dolefully.
+
+Mr. Wheeler suggested that they might go on with the rehearsal; the cut
+could be discussed afterwards. Groups formed, everyone had a different
+opinion. At last the conductor took up his stick and cried, "Number 105,
+please."
+
+"They are going back," thought Ulick; "she held her ground capitally.
+She has more strength of character than I thought. But Hermann Goetze
+has upset her; she won't be able to sing."
+
+And it was as he expected; she could not recapture her lost inspiration;
+mood, Ulick could see, was the foundation and the keystone of her art.
+
+"No," she said, "I sang it horribly, I am all out of sorts, I don't feel
+what I am singing, and when the mood is not upon me, I am atrocious.
+What annoyed me was his attributing such selfishness to me, and such
+vulgar selfishness, too--"
+
+"However, you had your way about the cut."
+
+"Yes, they'll have to sing the whole of the finale. But I am sorry about
+his tooth; I know that it is dreadful pain."
+
+Ulick told an amusing story how he had once called on Hermann Goetze to
+ask if he had read the book of his opera.
+
+"He'd just gone into an adjoining room to fetch a clothes-brush--he had
+taken off his coat to brush it--but the moment he saw me, he whipped out
+his handkerchief and said that he must go to the dentist."
+
+"And when I asked him to engage Helbrun to sing Brangaene, and give her
+eighty pounds a week if she wouldn't sing it for less, he whipped out
+his handkerchief as you say, and asked me if I knew a dentist."
+
+"The idea of Wagner without cuts always brings on a violent attack," and
+Ulick imitated so well the expression of agony that had come into the
+manager's face that Evelyn exploded with laughter. She begged Ulick to
+desist.
+
+"I shan't be able to sing at all. But I have not told you of my make up.
+I don't look at all pretty; the ugly curls I wear come from an old
+German print, and the staid, modest gown. But it is very provoking; I
+was singing well till that fiend began to argue. Don't make me laugh
+again."
+
+He became very grave.
+
+"I can only think of the joy you gave me."
+
+His praise brightened her face, and she listened.
+
+"I cannot tell you now what I feel; perhaps I shall never find words to
+express what I feel about your Elizabeth. I shall be writing about it
+next week, and shall have to try."
+
+"Do tell me now. You liked it better than my Margaret?"
+
+Ulick shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and they looked in each
+other's eyes, and could hardly speak, so extraordinary was their
+recognition of each other; it was so intense that they could hardly help
+laughing, so strange it seemed that they should never have met before,
+or should have been separated for such a long time. It really seemed to
+them as if they had known each other from all eternity.
+
+"How can you act Elizabeth, she is so different from what you are?"
+
+"Is she?"
+
+Her pale blue eyes seemed to open a little wider, and she looked at him
+searchingly. He could not keep back the words that rose to his tongue.
+
+"You mean that your dead life now lives in Elizabeth."
+
+"Yes, I suppose that that is it."
+
+They asked each other whether any part of one's nature is ever really
+dead.
+
+A few moments after the pilgrims were heard singing, and Evelyn would
+have to go on the stage. She pressed her hands against her forehead,
+ridding herself by an effort of will of her present individuality. The
+strenuous chant of the pilgrims grew louder, the procession approached,
+and as it passed across the stage Elizabeth sought for Tannhaeuser, but
+he was not among them. So her last earthly hope has perished, and she
+throws herself on her knees at the foot of the wayside cross. And it was
+the anguish of her soul that called forth that high note, a G repeated
+three times; and it seemed to Ulick that she seemed to throw herself
+upon that note, that reiterated note, as if she would reach God's ears
+with it and force him to listen to her. In the religious, almost
+Gregorian, strain her voice was pure as a little child, but when she
+spoke of her renunciation and the music grew more chromatic, her voice
+filled with colour--her sex appeared in it; and when the music returned
+to the peace of the religious strain, her voice grew blanched and faded
+like a nun's voice. Henceforth her life will be lived beyond this world,
+and as she walked up the stage, the flutes and clarionets seemed to lead
+her straight to God; they seemed to depict a narrow, shining path,
+shining and ascending till it disappeared amid the light of the stars.
+
+"Well," she said, "did I sing it to your satisfaction?"
+
+"You're an astonishing artiste."
+
+"No, that's just what I am not. I go on the stage and act; I couldn't
+tell you how I do it; I am conscious of no rule."
+
+"And the music?"
+
+"The music the same. I have often been told that I might act
+Shakespeare, but without music I could not express myself. Words without
+music would seem barren; I never try to sing, I try to express myself.
+But you'll see, my father won't think much of my singing. He'll compare
+me to mother, and always to my disadvantage. I cannot phrase like her."
+
+"But you can; your phrasing is perfection. It is the very emotion--"
+
+"Father won't think so; if he only thought well of my singing he would
+forgive me."
+
+"How unaffected you are; in hearing you speak one hears your very soul."
+
+"Do you? But tell me, is he very incensed? Shall I meet a face of
+stone?"
+
+"He is incensed, no doubt, but he must forgive you. But every day's
+delay will make it more difficult."
+
+"I know, I know."
+
+"You cannot go to-morrow?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"To-morrow you sing this opera. Go on Saturday; you'll be sure to find
+him on Saturday afternoon. He has a rehearsal in the morning and will be
+at home about four in the afternoon."
+
+As they walked through the scenery she said, "You'll come to see me,"
+and she reminded him of his promise to go through the Isolde music with
+her.
+
+"Mind, you have promised," she said as she got into her carriage.
+
+"You'll not forget Saturday afternoon," he said as he shook hands.
+
+She nodded and put up her umbrella, for it was beginning to rain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+
+Evelyn found Owen waiting for her. As soon as she came into the room he
+said, "Well, have you seen your father?"
+
+She was not expecting him, and it was disagreeable to admit that she had
+not been to Dulwich. So she said that she had thought to find her father
+at St. Joseph's.
+
+"But how did you know he was not at home if you did not go to Dulwich?"
+
+"My gracious, Owen, how you do question me! Now, perhaps you would like
+to know which of the priests told me."
+
+She walked to the window and stood with her left hand in the pocket of
+her jacket, and he feared that the irritation he had involuntarily
+caused her would interfere with his projects for the afternoon. There
+passed in his eyes that look of absorption in an object which marks the
+end of a long love affair--a look charged with remembrance, and wistful
+as an autumn day.
+
+The earth has grown weary of the sun and turns herself into the shadow,
+eager for rest. The sun has been too ardent a lover. But the gaze of the
+sun upon the receding earth is fonder than his look when she raised
+herself to his bright face. So in Owen's autumn-haunted eyes there was
+dread of the chances which he knew were accumulating against
+him--enemies, he divined, were gathering in the background; and how he
+might guard her, keep her for himself, became a daily inquisition.
+Nothing had happened to lead him to think that his possession was
+endangered, his fear proceeded from an instinct, which he could not
+subdue, that she was gliding from him; he wrestled with the intangible,
+and, striving to subordinate instinct to reason, he often refrained from
+kissing her; he imitated the indifference which in other times he could
+not dissimulate when the women who had really loved him besought him
+with tears. But there was no long gain-saying of the delight of telling
+her that he loved her, and when his aching heart forced him to question
+her regarding the truth of her feelings towards him, she merely told him
+that she loved him as much as ever, and the answer, instead of being a
+relief, was additional fuel upon the torturing flame of his uncertainty.
+
+Ever since their rupture and reconciliation in Florence, their relations
+had been so uncertain that Owen often wondered if he were her lover.
+Whether the reason for these periods of restraint was virtue or
+indifference he could never be quite sure. He believed that she always
+retained her conscience, but he could not forget that her love had once
+been sufficient compensation for what she suffered from it. "The stage
+has not altered her," he thought, "time has but nourished her
+idiosyncrasies." He had been hoping for one of her sudden and violent
+returnings to her former self, but such thing would not happen to-day,
+and hardly knowing what reply to make, he asked if she were free to come
+to look at some furniture. She mentioned several engagements, adding
+that he had made her too many presents already.
+
+She spoke of the rehearsal at considerable length, omitting, somehow, to
+speak of Ulick, and after lunch she seemed restless and proposed to go
+out at once.
+
+As they drove off to see the Sheraton sideboard, he asked her if she had
+seen Ulick Dean. To her great annoyance she said she had not, and this
+falsehood spoilt her afternoon for her. She could not discover why she
+had told this lie. The memory rankled in her and continued to take her
+unaware. She was tempted to confess the truth to Owen; the very words
+she thought she should use rose up in her mind several times. "I told
+you a lie. I don't know why I did, for there was absolutely no reason
+why I should have said that I had not seen Ulick Dean." On Saturday the
+annoyance which this lie had caused in her was as keen as ever: and it
+was not until she had got into her carriage and was driving to Dulwich
+that her consciousness of it died in the importance of her interview
+with her father.
+
+In comparing her present attitude of mind with that of last Thursday,
+she was glad to notice that to-day she could not think that her father
+would not forgive her. Her talk on the subject with Ulick had reassured
+her. He would not have been so insistent if he had not been sure that
+her father would forgive her in the end. But there would be
+recriminations, and at the very thought of them she felt her courage
+sink, and she asked herself why he should make her miserable if he was
+going to forgive her in the end. Her plans were to talk to him about his
+choir, and, if that did not succeed, to throw herself on her knees. She
+remembered how she had thrown herself on her knees on the morning of the
+afternoon she had gone away. And since then she had thrown herself at
+his feet many times--every time she sang in the "Valkyrie." The scene in
+which Wotan confides all his troubles and forebodings to Brunnhilde had
+never been different from the long talks she and her father used to drop
+into in the dim evenings in Dulwich. She had cheered him when he came
+home depressed after a talk with the impossible Father Gordon, as she
+had since cheered Wotan in his deep brooding over the doom of the gods
+predicted by Wala, when the dusky foe of love should beget a son in
+hate. Wotan had always been her father; Palestrina, Walhalla, and the
+stupid Jesuits, what were they? She had often tried to work out the
+allegory. It never came out quite right, but she always felt sure in
+setting down Father Gordon as Alberich. The scene in the third act, when
+she throws herself at Wotan's feet and begs his forgiveness (the music
+and the words together surged upon her brain), was the scene that now
+awaited her. She had at last come to this long-anticipated scene; and
+the fictitious scene she had acted as she was now going to act the real
+scene. True that Wotan forgave Brunnhilde after putting her to sleep on
+the fire-surrounded rock, where she should remain till a pure hero
+should come to release her. A nervous smile curled her lip for a moment;
+she trembled in her very entrails, and as they passed down the long,
+mean streets of Camberwell her thoughts frittered out in all sorts of
+trivial observation and reflection. She wondered if the mother who
+called down the narrow alley had ever been in love, if she had ever
+deceived her husband, if her father had reproved her about the young man
+she kept company with. The milkman presented to her strained mind some
+sort of problem, and the sight of the railway embankment told her she
+was nearing Dulwich. Then she saw the cedar at the top of the hill,
+whither she had once walked to meet Owen. ... Now it was London nearly
+all the way to Dulwich.
+
+But when they entered the familiar village street she was surprised at
+her dislike of it; even the chestnut trees, beautiful with white bloom,
+were distasteful to her, and life seemed contemptible beneath them. In
+Dulwich there was no surprise--life there was a sheeted phantom, it
+evoked a hundred dead Evelyns, and she felt she would rather live in any
+ghostly graveyard than in Dulwich. Her very knowledge of the place was
+an irritation to her, and she was pleased when she saw a house which had
+been built since she had been away. But every one of the fields she knew
+well, and the sight of every tree recalled a dead day, a dead event.
+That road to the right led to the picture gallery, and at the cross road
+she had been nearly run over by a waggon while trundling a hoop. But
+eyesight hardly helped her in Dulwich; she had only to think, to see it.
+The slates of a certain house told her that another minute would bring
+her to her father's door, and before the carriage turned the corner she
+foresaw the patch of black garden. But if her father were at home he
+might refuse to see her, and she was not certain if she should force her
+way past the servant or return home quietly. The entire dialogue of the
+scene between her and Margaret passed through her mind, and the very
+intonation of their voices. But it was not Margaret who opened the door
+to her.
+
+"This way, miss, please."
+
+"No, I'll wait in the music-room."
+
+"Mr. Innes won't have no one wait there in his absence. Will you come
+into the parlour?"
+
+"No, I think I'll wait in the music-room. I'm Miss Innes; Mr. Innes is
+my father."
+
+"What, miss, are you the great singer?"
+
+"I suppose I am."
+
+"Do you know, miss, something told me that you was. The moment I saw the
+carriage, I said, "Here she is; this is her for certain." Will you come
+this way, miss? I'll run and get the key."
+
+"And who was it," Evelyn said, "that told you I was a singer?"
+
+"Lor'! miss, didn't half Dulwich go to hear you sing at the opera?"
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"No, I didn't go, Miss, but I heard Mr. Dean and your father talking of
+you. I've read about you in the papers; only this morning there was a
+long piece."
+
+"If father talks of me he'll forgive me," thought Evelyn. The girl's
+wonderment made her smile, and she said--
+
+"But you've not told me your name."
+
+"My name is Agnes, miss."
+
+"Have you been long with my father? When I left, Margaret--"
+
+"Ah! she's dead, miss. I came to your father the day after the funeral."
+
+Evelyn walked up the room, overcome by the eternal absence of something
+which had hitherto been part of her life. For Margaret took her back to
+the time her mother was alive; farther back still--to the very beginning
+of her life. She had always reckoned on Margaret.... So Margaret was
+dead. Margaret would never know of this meeting. Margaret might have
+helped her. Poor Margaret! At that moment she caught sight of her
+mother's eyes. They seemed to watch her; she seemed to know all about
+Owen, and afraid of the haunting, reproving look, Evelyn studied the
+long oval face and the small brown eyes so unlike hers. One thing only
+she had inherited from her mother--her voice. She had certainly not
+inherited her conduct from her mother; her mother was one of the few
+great artistes against whom nothing could be said. Her mother was a good
+woman.... What did she think of her daughter? And seeing her cold,
+narrow face, she feared her mother would regard her conduct even more
+severely than her father.... "But if she had lived I should have had no
+occasion to go away with Owen." She wondered. At the bottom of her heart
+she knew that Owen was as much as anything else a necessity in her
+life.... She moved about the room and wished the hands of the clock
+could be advanced a couple of hours, for then the terrible scene with
+her father would be over. If he could only forgive her at once, and not
+make her miserable with reproaches, they could have such a pleasant
+evening.
+
+In this room her past life was blown about her like spray about a rock.
+She remembered the days when she went to London with her father to give
+lessons; the miserable winter when she lost her pupils.... How she had
+waited in this room for her father to come back to dinner; the faintness
+of those hungry hours; worse still, that yearning for love. She must
+have died if she had not gone away. If it had to happen all over again
+she must act as she had acted. How well she remembered the moment when
+she felt that her life in Dulwich had become impossible. She was coming
+from the village where she had been paying some bills, and looking up
+she had suddenly seen the angle of a house and a bare tree, and she
+could still hear the voice which had spoken out of her very soul. "Shall
+I never get away from this place?" it had cried. "Shall I go on doing
+these daily tasks for ever?" The strange, vehement agony of the voice
+had frightened her.... At that moment her eyes were attracted by a sort
+of harpsichord. "One of father's experiments," she said, running her
+fingers over the keys. "A sort of cross between a harpsichord and a
+virginal; up here the intonation is that of a virginal."
+
+"I forgot to ask you miss"--Evelyn turned from the window, startled; it
+was Agnes who had come back--"if you was going to stop for dinner, for
+there's very little in the house, only a bit of cold beef. I should be
+ashamed to put it on the table, miss; I'm sure you couldn't eat it.
+Master don't think what he eats; he's always thinking of his music. I
+hope you aren't like that, miss?"
+
+"So he doesn't eat much. How is my father looking, Agnes?"
+
+"Middling, miss. He varies about a good bit; he's gone rather thin
+lately."
+
+"Is he lonely, do you think ... in the evenings?"
+
+"No, miss; I don't hear him say nothing about being lonely. For the last
+couple of years he never did more than come home to sleep and his meals,
+and he'd spend the evenings copying out the music."
+
+"And off again early in the morning?"
+
+"That's it, miss, with his music tied up in a brown paper parcel.
+Sometimes Mr. Dean comes and helps him to write the music."
+
+"Ah!... but I'm sorry he doesn't eat better."
+
+"He eats better when Mr. Dean's here. They has a nice little dinner
+together. Now he's taken up with that 'ere instrument, the harpy chord,
+they's making. He's comin' home to-night to finish it; he says he can't
+get it finished nohow--that they's always something more to do to it."
+
+"I wonder if we could get a nice dinner for him this evening?"
+
+"Well, miss, you see there's no shops to speak of about here. You know
+that as well as I do."
+
+"I wonder what your cooking is like?"
+
+"I don't know, miss; p'r'aps it wouldn't suit you, but I've been always
+praised for my cooking."
+
+"I could send for some things; my coachman could fetch them from town."
+
+"Then there's to-morrow to be thought about if you're stopping here. I
+tell you we don't keep much in the house."
+
+"Is my father coming home to dinner?"
+
+"I can't say for certain, miss, only that he said 'e'd be 'ome early to
+finish the harpy chord. 'E might have 'is dinner out and come 'ome
+directly after, but I shouldn't think that was likely."
+
+"You can cook a chicken, Agnes?"
+
+"Lor'! yes, miss."
+
+"And a sole?"
+
+"Yes, miss; but in ordering, miss, you must think of to-morrow. You
+won't like to have a nice dinner to-night and a bit of hashed mutton
+to-morrow."
+
+"I'll order sufficient. You've got no wine, I suppose?"
+
+"No, we've no wine, miss, only draught beer."
+
+"I'll tell my coachman to go and fetch the things at once."
+
+When she returned to the music-room, Agnes asked her if she was going to
+stop the night.
+
+"Because I should have to get your rooms ready, miss."
+
+"That I can't tell, Agnes.... I don't think so.... You won't tell my
+father I'm here when you let him in?... I want it to be a surprise."
+
+"I won't say nothing, miss. I'll leave him to find it out."
+
+Evelyn felt that the girl must have guessed her story, must have
+perceived in her the repentant daughter--the erring daughter returned
+home. Everything pointed to that fact. Well, it couldn't be helped if
+she had.
+
+"If my father will only forgive me; if that first dreadful scene were
+only over, we could have an enchanting evening together."
+
+She was too nervous to seek out a volume of Bach and let her fingers run
+over the keys; she played anything that came into her head, sometimes
+she stopped to listen. At last there came a knock, and her heart told
+her it was his. In another moment he would be in the room. But seeing
+her he stopped, and, without a word, he went to a table and began
+untying a parcel of music.
+
+"Father, I've come to see you.... You don't answer. Father, are you not
+going to speak to me? I've been longing to see you, and now--"
+
+"If you had wanted to see me, you'd have come a month ago."
+
+"I was not in London a month ago."
+
+"Well, three weeks ago."
+
+"I ought to have done so, but I had no courage. I could only see you
+looking at me as you are looking now. Forgive me, father.... I'm your
+only daughter; she's full of failings, but she has never ceased to love
+you."
+
+He sat at the table fumbling with the string that had tied the parcel he
+had brought in, and she stood looking at him, unable to speak. She
+seemed to have said all there was to say, and wished she could throw
+herself at his feet; but she could not, something held her back. She
+prayed for tears, but her eyes remained dry; her mouth was dry, and a
+flame seemed to burn behind her eyes. She could only think that this
+might be the last time she would see him. The silence seemed a great
+while. She repeated her words, "I had not the courage to come before."
+At the sound of her voice she remembered that she must speak to him at
+once of his choir, and so take their thoughts from painful reminiscence.
+
+"I went to St. Joseph's on Thursday, but you weren't there. You gave
+Vittoria's mass last Sunday. I started to go, but I had to turn back."
+
+She had not gone to hear her father's choir, because she could not
+resist Lady Ascott's invitation, and no more than the invitation could
+she resist the lie; she had striven against it, but in spite of herself
+it had forced itself through her lips, and now her father seemed to have
+some inkling of the truth, for he said--
+
+"If you had cared to hear my choir you'd have gone. You needn't have
+seen me, whereas I was obliged--"
+
+Evelyn guessed that he had been to the opera. "How good of him to have
+gone to hear me," she thought. She hated herself for having accepted
+Lady Ascott's invitation, and the desire to ask him what he thought of
+her voice seemed to her an intolerable selfishness.
+
+"What were you going to say, father?"
+
+"Nothing.... I'm glad you didn't come."
+
+"Wasn't it well sung?" and she was seized with nervousness, and instead
+of speaking to him about his basses as she had intended, she asked him
+about the trebles.
+
+"They are the worst part of the choir. That contrapuntal music can only
+be sung by those who can sing at sight. The piano has destroyed the
+modern ear. I daresay it has spoilt your ear."
+
+"My ear is all right, I think."
+
+"I hope it is better than your heart."
+
+Evelyn's face grew quite still, as if it were frozen, and seeing the
+pain he had caused her he was moved to take her in his arms and forgive
+her straight away. He might have done so, but she turned, and passing
+her hand across her eyes she went to the harpsichord. She played one of
+the little Elizabethan songs, "John, come kiss me now." Then an old
+French song tempted her voice by its very appropriateness to the
+situation--"_Que vous me coutez cher, mon coeur, pour vos plaisirs_."
+But there was a knot in her throat, she could not sing, she could hardly
+speak. She endeavoured to lead her father into conversation, hoping he
+might forget her conduct until it was too late for him to withdraw into
+resentment. She could see that the instrument she was playing on he had
+made himself. In some special intention it was filled with levers and
+stops, the use of which was not quite apparent to her; and she could see
+by the expression on his face that he was annoyed by her want of
+knowledge of the technicalities of the instrument.
+
+So she purposely exaggerated her ignorance.
+
+He fell into the trap and going to her he said, "You are not making use
+of the levers."
+
+"Oh, am I not?" she said innocently. "What is this instrument--a
+virginal or a harpsichord?"
+
+"It is a harpsichord, but the intonation is that of a virginal. I made
+it this winter. The volume of sound from the old harpsichord is not
+sufficient in a large theatre, that is why the harpsichord music in 'Don
+Juan' has to be played on the fiddles."
+
+He stopped speaking and she pressed him in vain to explain the
+instrument. She went on playing.
+
+"The levers," he said at last, "are above your knees. Raise your knees."
+
+She pretended not to understand.
+
+"Let me show you." He seated himself at the instrument. "You see the
+volume of sound I obtain, and all the while I do not alter the treble."
+
+"Yes, yes, and the sonority of the instrument is double that of the old
+harpsichord. It would be heard all over Covent Garden."
+
+She could see that the remark pleased him. "I'll sing 'Zerline' if
+you'll play it."
+
+"You couldn't sing 'Zerline,' it isn't in your voice."
+
+"You don't know what my voice is like."
+
+"Evelyn, I wonder how you can expect me to forgive you; I wonder how I
+can speak to you. Have you forgotten how you went away leaving me to
+bear the shame, the disgrace?"
+
+"I have come to beg forgiveness, not to excuse myself. But I wrote to
+you from Paris that I was going to live with Lady Duckle, and that you
+were to say that I had gone abroad to study singing."
+
+"I'm astonished, Evelyn, that you can speak so lightly."
+
+"I do not think lightly of my conduct, if you knew the miserable days it
+has cost me. Reproach me as you will about my neglect toward you, but as
+far as the world is concerned there has been no disgrace."
+
+"You would have gone all the same; you only thought of yourself.
+Brought up as you have been, a Catholic--"
+
+"My sins, father, lie between God and myself. What I come for is to beg
+forgiveness for the wrong I did you."
+
+He did not answer, but he seemed to acquiesce, and it was a relief to
+her to feel that it was not the moral question that divided them;
+convention had forced him to lay some stress upon it, but clearly what
+rankled in his heart, and prevented him from taking her in his arms, was
+a jealous, purely human feud. This she felt she could throw herself
+against and overpower.
+
+"Father, you must forgive me, we are all in all to each other; nothing
+can change that. Ever since mother's death--you remember when the nurse
+told us all was over--ever since I've felt that we were in some strange
+way dependent on each other. Our love for each other is the one
+unalterable thing. My music you taught me; the first songs I sang were
+at your concerts, and now that we have both succeeded--you with
+Palestrina, and I with Wagner--we must needs be aliens. Father, can't
+you see that that can never be? if you don't you do not love me as I do
+you. You're still thinking that I left you. Of course, it was very
+wrong, but has that changed anything? Father, tell me, tell me, unless
+you want to kill me, that you do not believe that I love you less."
+
+The wonder of the scene she was acting--she never admitted she acted;
+she lived through scenes, whether fictitious or real--quickened in her;
+it was the long-expected scene, the scene in the third act of the
+"Valkyrie" which she had always played while divining the true scene
+which she would be called upon to play one day. It seemed to her that
+she stood on the verge of all her future--the mystery of the abyss
+gathered behind her eyes; she threw herself at her father's feet, and
+the celebrated phrase, so plaintive, so full of intercession, broke from
+her lips, "Was the rebel act so full of shame that her rebellion is so
+shamefully scourged? Was my offence so deep in disgrace that thou dost
+plan so deep a disgrace for me? Was this my crime so dark with dishonour
+that it henceforth robs me of all honour? Oh tell me, father; look in
+mine eyes." She heard the swelling harmony, every chord, the note that
+gave her the note she was to sing. She was carried down like a drowning
+one into a dim world of sub-conscious being; and in this half life all
+that was most true in her seemed to rise like a star and shine forth,
+while all that was circumstantial and ephemeral seemed to fall away. She
+was conscious of the purification of self; she seemed to see herself
+white and bowed and penitent. She experienced a great happiness in
+becoming humble and simple again.... But she did not know if the
+transformation which was taking place in her was an abiding or a passing
+thing. She knew she was expressing all that was most deep in her nature,
+and yet she had acted all that she now believed to be reality on the
+stage many times. It seemed as true then as it did now--more true; for
+she was less self-conscious in the fictitious than in the real scene.
+
+She knelt at her father's or at Wotan's feet--she could not distinguish;
+all limitations had been razed. She was _the_ daughter at _the_ father's
+feet. She knelt like the Magdalen. The position had always been natural
+to her, and habit had made it inveterate; there she bemoaned the
+difficulties of life, the passion which had cast her down and which
+seemed to forbid her an ideal. She caught her father's hand and pressed
+it against her cheek. She knew she was doing these things, yet she could
+not do otherwise; tears fell upon his hand, and the grief she expressed
+was so intense that he could not restrain his tears. But if she raised
+her face and saw his tears, his position as a stern father was
+compromised! She could only think of her own grief; the grief and regret
+of many years absorbed her; she was so lost in it that she expected him
+to answer her in Wotan's own music; she even smiled in her grief at her
+expectation, and continued the music of her intercession. And it was not
+until he asked her why she was singing Wagner that she raised her face.
+That he should not know, jarred and spoilt the harmony of the scene as
+she had conceived it, and it was not till he repeated his question that
+she told him.
+
+"Because I've never sung it without thinking of you, father. That is why
+I sang it so well. I knew it all before. It tore at my heart strings. I
+knew that one day it would come to this."
+
+"So every time before was but a rehearsal."
+
+She rose to her feet.
+
+"Why are you so cruel? It is you who are acting, not I. I mean what I
+say--you don't. Why make me miserable? You know that you must forgive
+me. You can't put me out of doors, so what is the use in arguing about
+my faults? I am like that ... you must take me as I am, and perhaps you
+would not have cared for me half as much if I had been different."
+
+"Evelyn, how can you speak like that? You shock me very much."
+
+She regretted her indiscretion, and feared she had raised the moral
+question; but the taunt that it was he and not she that was acting had
+sunk into his heart, and the truth of it overcame him. It was he who had
+been acting. He had pretended an anger which he did not feel, and it was
+quite true that, whatever she did, he could not really feel anger
+against her. She was shrined in his heart, the dream of his whole life.
+He could feel anger against himself, but not against her. She was right.
+He must forgive her, for how could he live without her? Into what
+dissimulation he had been foolishly ensnared! In these convictions which
+broke like rockets in his heart and brain, spreading a strange
+illumination in much darkness, he saw her beauty and sex idealised, and
+in the vision were the eyes and pallor of the dead wife, and all the
+yearning and aspiration of his own life seemed reflected back in this
+fair, oval face, lit with luminous, eager eyes, and in the tangle of
+gold hair fallen about her ears, and thrown back hastily with long
+fingers; and the wonder of her sex in the world seemed to shed a light
+on distant horizons, and he understood the strangeness of the common
+event of father and daughter standing face to face, divided, or
+seemingly divided, by the mystery of the passion of which all things are
+made. His own sins were remembered. They fell like soft fire breaking in
+a dark sky, and his last sensation in the whirl of complex, diffused and
+passing sensations was the thrill of terror at the little while
+remaining to him wherein he might love her. A few years at most! His
+eyes told her what was happening in his heart, and with that beautiful
+movement of rapture so natural to her, she threw herself into his arms.
+
+"I knew, father, dear, that you'd forgive me in the end. It was
+impossible to think of two like us living and dying in alienation. I
+should have killed myself, and you, dear, you would have died of grief.
+But I dreaded this first meeting. I had thought of it too much, and, as
+I told you, I had acted it so often."
+
+"Have I been so severe with you, Evelyn, that you should dread me?"
+
+"No, darling, but, of course, I've behaved--there's no use talking about
+it any more. But you could never have been really in doubt that a lover
+could ever change my love for you. Owen--I mustn't speak about him, only
+I wish you to understand that I've never ceased to think of you. I've
+never been really happy, and I'm sure you've been miserable about me
+often enough; but now we may be happy. 'Winter storms wane in the
+winsome May.' You know the _Lied_ in the first act of the 'Valkyrie'?
+And now that we're friends, I suppose you'll come and hear me. Tell me
+about your choir." She paused a moment, and then said, "My first thought
+was for you on landing in England. There was a train waiting at
+Victoria, but we'd had a bad crossing, and I felt so ill that I couldn't
+go. Next day I was nervous. I had not the courage, and he proposed that
+I should wait till I had sung Margaret. So much depended on the success
+of my first appearance. He was afraid that if I had had a scene with you
+I might break down."
+
+"Wotan, you say, forgives Brunnhilde, but doesn't he put her to sleep on
+a fire-surrounded rock?"
+
+"He puts her to sleep on the rock, but it is she who asks for flames to
+protect her from the unworthy. Wotan grants her request, and Brunnhilde
+throws herself enraptured into his arms. 'Let the coward shun
+Brunnhilde's rock--for but one shall win--the bride who is freer than I,
+the god!'"
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it? Then with what flames shall I surround you?"
+
+"I don't know, I've often wondered; the flame of a promise--a promise
+never to leave you again, father. I can promise no more."
+
+"I want no other promise."
+
+The eyes of the portrait were fixed on them, and they wondered what
+would be the words of the dead woman if she could speak.
+
+Agnes announced that the coachman had returned.
+
+"Father, I've lots of things to see to. I'm going to stop to dinner if
+you'll let me."
+
+"I'm afraid, Evelyn--Agnes--"
+
+"You need not trouble about the dinner--Agnes and I will see to that. We
+have made all necessary arrangements."
+
+"Is that your carriage?... You've got a fine pair of horses. Well, one
+can't be Evelyn Innes for nothing. But if you're stopping to dinner,
+you'd better stop the night. I'm giving the 'Missa Brevis' to-morrow.
+I'm giving it in honour of Monsignor Mostyn. It was he who helped me to
+overcome Father Gordon."
+
+"You shall tell me all about Monsignor after dinner."
+
+He walked about the room, unwittingly singing the _Lied_, "Winter storms
+wane in the winsome May," and he stopped before the harpsichord,
+thinking he saw her still there. And his thoughts sailed on, vagrant as
+clouds in a Spring breeze. She had come back, his most wonderful
+daughter had come back.
+
+He turned from his wife's portrait, fearing the thought that her joy on
+their daughter's return might be sparer than his. But unpleasant
+thoughts fell from him, and happiness sang in his brain like
+spring-awakened water-courses, and the scent in his nostrils was of
+young leaves and flowers, and his very flesh was happy as the warm,
+loosening earth in spring. "'Winter storms,'" he sang, "'wane in the
+winsome May; with tender radiance sparkles the spring.' I must hear her
+sing that; I must hear her intercede at Wotan's feet!" His eyes filled
+with happy tears, and he put questions aside. She was coming to-morrow
+to hear his choir. And what would she think of it? A shadow passed
+across his face. If he had known she was coming, he'd have taken more
+trouble with those altos; he'd have kept them another hour.... Then,
+taken with a sudden craving to see her, he went to the door and called
+to her.
+
+"Evelyn."
+
+"Yes, father."
+
+"You are stopping to-night?"
+
+"Yes, but I can't stop to speak with you now--I'm busy with Agnes."
+
+She was deep in discussion with Agnes regarding the sole. Agnes thought
+she knew how to prepare it with bread crumbs, but both were equally
+uncertain how the melted butter was to be made. There was no
+cookery-book in the house, and it seemed as if the fish would have to be
+eaten with plain butter until it occurred to Agnes that she might borrow
+a cookery-book next door. It seemed to Evelyn that she had never seen a
+finer sole, so fat and firm; it really would be a pity if they did not
+succeed in making the melted butter. When Agnes came back with the book,
+Evelyn read out the directions, and was surprised how hard it was to
+understand. In the end it was Agnes who explained it to her. The chicken
+presented some difficulties. It was of an odd size, and Agnes was not
+sure whether it would take half-an-hour or three-quarters to cook.
+Evelyn studied the white bird, felt the cold, clammy flesh, and inclined
+to forty minutes. Agnes thought that would be enough if she could get
+her oven hot enough. She began by raking out the flues, and Evelyn had
+to stand back to avoid the soot. She stood, her eyes fixed on the fire,
+interested in the draught and the dissolution of every piece of coal in
+the flame. It seemed to Evelyn that the fire was drawing beautifully,
+and she appealed to Agnes, who only seemed fairly satisfied. It was
+doing pretty well, but she had never liked that oven; one was never sure
+of it. Margaret used to put a piece of paper over the chicken to prevent
+it burning, but Agnes said there was no danger of it burning; the oven
+never could get hot enough for that. But the oven, as Agnes had said,
+was a tricky one, and when she took the chicken out to baste it, it
+seemed a little scorched. So Evelyn insisted on a piece of paper. Agnes
+said that it would delay the cooking of the chicken, and attributed the
+scorching to the quantity of coal which Miss Innes would keep adding. If
+she put any more on she would not be answerable that the chimney would
+not catch fire. Every seven or eight minutes the chicken was taken out
+to be basted. The bluey-whitey look of the flesh which Evelyn had
+disliked had disappeared; the chicken was acquiring a rich brown colour
+which she much admired, and if it had not been for Agnes, who told her
+the dinner would be delayed till eight o'clock, she would have had the
+chicken out every five minutes, so much did she enjoy pouring the rich,
+bubbling juice over the plump back.
+
+"Father! Father, dinner is ready! I've got a sole and a chicken. The
+sole is a beauty; Agnes says she never saw a fresher one."
+
+"And where did all these things come from?"
+
+"I sent my coachman for them. Now sit down and let me help you. I cooked
+the dinner myself." Feeling that Agnes's eye was upon her, she added,
+"Agnes and I--I helped Agnes. We made the melted butter from the recipe
+in the cookery-book next door. I do hope it is a success."
+
+"I see you've got champagne, too."
+
+"But I don't know how you're to get the bottle open, miss; we've no
+champagne nippers."
+
+After some conjecturing the wires were twisted off with a kitchen fork.
+Evelyn kept her eyes on her father's plate, and begged to be allowed to
+help him again, and she delighted in filling up his glass with wine; and
+though she longed to ask him if he had been to hear her sing, she did
+not allude to herself, but induced him to talk of his victories over
+Father Gordon. This story of clerical jealousy and ignorance was
+intensely interesting to the old man, and she humoured him to the top of
+his bent.
+
+"But it would all have come to nothing if it had not been for Monsignor
+Mostyn."
+
+She fetched him his pipe and tobacco. "And who is Monsignor Mostyn?" she
+asked, dreading a long tale in which she could feel on interest at all.
+She watched him filling his pipe, working the tobacco down with his
+little finger nail. She thought she could see he was thinking of
+something different, and to her great joy he said--
+
+"Well, your Margaret is very good; better than I expected--I am speaking
+of the singing; of course, as acting it was superb."
+
+"Oh, father! do tell me? So you went after all? I sent you a box and a
+stall, but you were in neither. In what part of the theatre were you?"
+
+"In the upper boxes; I did not want to dress." She leaned across the
+table with brightening eyes. "For a dramatic soprano you sing that light
+music with extraordinary ease and fluency."
+
+"Did I sing it as well as mother?"
+
+"Oh, my dear, it was quite different. Your mother's art was in her
+phrasing and in the ideal appearance she presented."
+
+"And didn't I present an ideal appearance?"
+
+"It's like this, Evelyn. The Margaret of Gounod and his librettist is
+not a real person, but a sort of keepsake beauty who sings keepsake
+music. I assume that you don't think much of the music; brought up as
+you have been on the Old Masters, you couldn't. Well, the question is
+whether parts designed in such an intention should be played in the like
+intention, or if they should be made living creations of flesh and
+blood, worked up by the power of the actress into something as near to
+the Wagner ideal as possible. I admire your Margaret; it was a wonderful
+performance, but--"
+
+"But what, father?"
+
+"It made me wish to see you in Elizabeth and Brunnhilde. I was very
+sorry I couldn't get to London last night."
+
+"You'd like my Elizabeth better. Margaret is the only part of the old
+lot that I now sing. I daresay you're right. I'll limit myself for the
+future to the Wagner repertoire."
+
+"I think you'd do well. Your genius is essentially in dramatic
+expression. 'Carmen,' for instance, is better as Galli Marie used to
+play it than as you would play it. 'Carmen' is a conventional type--all
+art is convention of one kind or another, and each demands its own
+interpretation. But I hope you don't sing that horrid music."
+
+"You don't like 'Carmen'?"
+
+Mr. Innes shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
+
+"'Faust' is better than that. Gounod follows--at a distance, of
+course--but he follows the tradition of Haydn and Mozart. 'Carmen' is
+merely Gounod and Wagner. I hope you've not forgotten my teaching; as
+I've always said, music ended with Beethoven and began again with
+Wagner."
+
+"Did you see Ulick Dean's article?"
+
+"Yes, he wrote to me last night about your Elizabeth. He says there
+never was anything heard like it on the stage."
+
+"Did he say that? Show me the letter. What else did he say?"
+
+"It was only a note. I destroyed it. He just said what I told you. But
+he's a bit mad about that opera. He's been talking to me about it all
+the winter, saying that the character had never been acted; apparently
+it has been now. Though for my part I think Brunnhilde or Isolde would
+suit you better."
+
+The mention of Isolde caused them to avoid looking at each other, and
+Evelyn asked her father to tell her about Ulick--how they became
+acquainted and how much they saw of each other. But to tell her when he
+made Ulick's acquaintance would be to allude to the time when Evelyn
+left home. So his account of their friendship was cursory and
+perfunctory, and he asked Evelyn suddenly if Ulick had shown her his
+opera.
+
+"Grania?"
+
+"No, not 'Grania.' He has not finished 'Grania,' but 'Connla and the
+Fairy Maiden.' Written," he added, "entirely on the old lines. Come into
+the music-room and you shall see."
+
+He took up the lamp; Evelyn called Agnes to get another. The lamps were
+placed upon the harpsichord; she lighted some candles, and, just as in
+old times, they lost themselves in dreams and visions. This time it was
+in a faint Celtic haze; a vision of silver mist and distant mountain and
+mere. It was on the heights of Uisnech that Connla heard the fairy
+calling him to the Plain of Pleasure, Moy Mell, where Boadag is king.
+And King Cond, seeing his son about to be taken from him, summoned Coran
+the priest and bade him chant his spells toward the spot whence the
+fairy's voice was heard. The fairy could not resist the spell of the
+priest, but she threw Connla an apple and for a whole month he ate
+nothing but that. But as he ate, it grew again, and always kept whole.
+And all the while there grew within him a mighty yearning and longing
+after the maiden he had seen. And when the last day of the month of
+waiting came, Connla stood by the side of the king, his father, on the
+Plain of Aromin, and again he saw the maiden come towards him, and
+again she spoke to him--
+
+"'Tis no lofty seat on which Connla sits among short-lived mortals
+awaiting fearful death, but now the folk of life, the ever-living living
+ones, beg and bid thee come to Moy Mell, the Plain of Pleasure, for they
+have learnt to know thee."
+
+When Cond the king observed that since the maiden came Connla his son
+spake to none that spake to him, then Cond of the hundred fights said to
+him--
+
+"Is it to thy mind what the woman says, my son?"
+
+"'Tis hard on me; I love my folk above all things, but a great longing
+seizes me for the maiden."
+
+"The waves of the ocean are not so strong as the waves of thy longing;
+come with me in my currah, the straight gliding, the crystal boat, and
+we shall soon reach the Plain of Pleasure, where Boadag is king."
+
+King Cond and all his court saw Connla spring into the boat, and he and
+the fairy maiden glided over the bright sea, towards the setting sun,
+away and away, and they were seen no more, nor did anyone know where
+they went to.
+
+"My dear father, manuscript, and at sight, words and music!"
+
+"Come--begin."
+
+"Give me the chord."
+
+He looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"Won't you give me the keynote?"
+
+"In the key of E flat," he answered sternly.
+
+She began. "Is that right?"
+
+"Yes, that's right. You see that you can still sing at sight. I don't
+suppose you find many prima donnas who can."
+
+With her arm on his shoulder they sat together, playing and singing the
+music with which Ulick had interpreted the tale of "Connla and the Fairy
+Maiden."
+
+"You see," he said, "he has invented a new system of orchestration; as a
+matter of fact, we worked it out together, but that's neither here nor
+there. In some respects it is not unlike Wagner; the vocal music is
+mostly recitative, but now and then there is nearly an air, and yet it
+isn't new, for it is how it would have been written about 1500. You
+see," he said, turning over the pages of the full score, "each character
+is allotted a different set of instruments as accompaniment; in this way
+you get astonishing colour contrasts. For instance, the priest is
+accompanied by a chest of six viols; _i.e._, two trebles, two tenors,
+two basses. King Cond is accompanied by a set of six cromornes, like the
+viols of various sizes. The Fairy Maiden has a set of six flutes or
+recorders, the smallest of which is eight inches long, the biggest quite
+six feet. Connla is accompanied by a group of oboes; and another
+character is allotted three lutes with an arch lute, another a pair of
+virginals, another a regal, another a set of six sackbuts and trumpets.
+See how all the instruments are used in the overture and in the dances,
+of which there are plenty, Pavans, Galliards, Allemaines. But look here,
+this is most important: even in the instrumental pieces the instruments
+are not to be mixed, as in modern orchestra, but used in groups, always
+distinct, like patches of colour in impressionist pictures."
+
+"I like this," and she hummed through the fairy's luring of Connla to
+embark with her. "But I could not give an opinion of the orchestration
+without hearing it, it is all so new."
+
+"We haven't succeeded yet in getting together sufficient old instruments
+to provide an orchestra."
+
+"But, father, do you think such orchestration realisable in modern
+music? I see very little Wagner in it; it is more like Caccini or
+Monteverde. There can be very little real life in a parody."
+
+"No, but it isn't parody, that's just what it isn't, for it is natural
+to him to write in this style. What he writes in the modern style is as
+common as anyone else. This is his natural language." In support of the
+validity of his argument that a return to the original sources of an art
+is possible without loss of originality, he instanced the Pre-Raphaelite
+Brotherhood. The most beautiful pictures, and the most original pictures
+Millais had ever painted were those that he painted while he was
+attempting to revive the methods of Van Eyck, and the language of
+Shakespeare was much more archaic than that of any of his
+contemporaries. "But explanations are useless. I tried to explain to
+Father Gordon that Palestrina was one of the greatest of musicians, but
+he never understood. Monsignor Mostyn and I understood each other at
+once. I said Palestrina, he said Vittoria--I don't know which suggested
+the immense advantage that a revival of the true music of the Catholic
+would be in making converts to Rome. You don't like Ulick's music;
+there's nothing more to be said."
+
+"But I do like it, father. How impatient you are! And because I don't
+understand an entire aestheticism in five minutes, which you and Ulick
+Dean have been cooking for the last three years, I am a fool, quite as
+stupid as Father Gordon."
+
+Mr. Innes laughed, and when he put his arm round her and kissed her she
+was happy again. The hours went lightly by as if enchanted, and it was
+midnight when he closed the harpsichord and they went upstairs. Neither
+spoke; they were thinking of the old times which apparently had come
+back to them. On the landing she said--
+
+"We've had a nice evening after all. Good-night, father. I know my
+room."
+
+"Good-night," he said. "You'll find all your things; nothing has been
+changed."
+
+Agnes had laid one of her old nightgowns on the bed, and there was her
+_prie-dieu_, and on the chest of drawers the score of Tristan which Owen
+had given her six years ago. She had come back to sing it. How
+extraordinary it all was! She seemed to have drifted like a piece of
+seaweed; she lived in the present though it sank beneath her like a
+wave. The past she saw dimly, the future not at all; and sitting by her
+window she was moved by vague impulses towards infinity. She grew aware
+of her own littleness and the vastness overhead--that great unending
+enigma represented to her understanding by a tint of blue washed over by
+a milky tint. Owen had told her that there were twenty million suns in
+the milky way, and that around every one numerous planets revolved. This
+earth was but a small planet, and its sun a third-rate sun. On this
+speck of earth a being had awakened to a consciousness of the glittering
+riddle above his head, but he would die in the same ignorance of its
+meaning as a rabbit. The secret of the celestial plan she would never
+know. One day she would slip out of consciousness of it; life would
+never beckon her again; but the vast plan which she now perceived would
+continue to revolve, progressing towards an end which no man, though the
+world were to continue for a hundred million years, would ever know.
+
+Her brain seemed to melt in the moonlight, and from the enigma of the
+skies her thoughts turned to the enigma of her own individuality. She
+was aware that she lived. She was aware that some things were right,
+that some things were wrong. She was aware of the strange fortune that
+had lured her, that had chosen her out of millions. What did it mean? It
+must mean something, just as those stars must mean something--but what?
+
+Opposite to her window there was an open space; it was full of mist and
+moonlight; the lights of a distant street looked across it. She too had
+said, "'Tis hard upon me, I love my folk above all things, but a great
+longing seizes me." That story is the story of human life. What is human
+life but a longing for something beyond us, for something we shall not
+attain? Again she wondered what her end must be. She must end somehow,
+and was it not strange that she could no more answer that simple
+question than she could the sublime question which the moon and stars
+propounded.... That breathless, glittering peace, was it not wonderful?
+It seemed to beckon and allure, and her soul yearned for that peace as
+Connla's had for the maiden. Death only could give that peace. Did the
+Fairy Maiden mean death? Did the plains of the Ever Living, which the
+Fairy Maiden had promised Connla on the condition of his following her,
+lie behind those specks of light?
+
+But what end should she choose for herself if the choice were left to
+her--to come back to Dulwich and live with her father? She might do
+that--but when her father died? Then she hoped that she might die. But
+she might outlive him for thirty years--Evelyn Innes, an old woman,
+talking to the few friends who came to see her, of the days when Wagner
+was triumphant, of her reading of "Isolde." Some such end as that would
+be hers. Or she might end as Lady Asher. She might, but she did not
+think she would. Owen seemed to think more of marriage now than he used
+to. He had always said they would be married when she retired from the
+stage. But why should she retire from the stage? If he had wanted to
+marry her he should have asked her at first. She did not know what she
+was going to do. No one knew what they were going to do. They simply
+went on living. That moonlight was melting her brain away. She drew down
+the blinds, and she fell asleep thinking of her father's choir and the
+beautiful "Missa Brevis" which she was going to hear to-morrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+
+As they went to church, he told her about Monsignor Mostyn. Evelyn
+remembered that the very day she went away, he had had an appointment
+with the prelate, and while trying to recall the words he had used at
+the time--how Monsignor believed that a revival of Palestrina would
+advance the Catholic cause in England--she heard her father say that no
+one except Monsignor could have succeeded in so difficult an enterprise
+as the reformation of church music in England.
+
+The organ is a Protestant instrument, and in organ music the London
+churches do very well; the Protestant congregations are, musically, more
+enlightened; the flattest degradation is found among the English
+Catholics, and he instanced the Oratory as an extraordinary disgrace to
+a civilised country, relating how he had heard the great Mass of Pope
+Marcellus given there by an operatic choir of twenty singers. In the
+West-end are apathy and fashionable vulgarity, and it was at St.
+Joseph's, Southwark, that the Church had had restored to her all her own
+beautiful music. Monsignor had begun by coming forward with a
+subscription of one thousand pounds a year, and by such _largesse_ he
+had confounded the intractable Jesuits and vanquished Father Gordon. The
+poor man who had predicted ruin now viewed the magnificent congregation
+with a sullen face. "He has a nice voice, too, that's the strange part
+of it; I could have taught him, but he is too proud to admit he was
+wrong." However, _bon gre mal gre_, Father Gordon had had to submit to
+Monsignor. When Monsignor makes up his mind, things have to be done. If
+a thousand pounds had not been enough, he would have given two thousand
+pounds; Monsignor was rich, but he was also tactful, and did not rely
+entirely on his money. He had come to St. Joseph's with the Pope's
+written request in his hand that St. Joseph's should attempt a revival
+of the truly Catholic music, if sufficient money could be obtained for
+the choir. So there was no gainsaying, the Jesuits had had to submit,
+for if they had again objected to the expense, Monsignor would come
+forward with a subscription of two thousand a year. He could not have
+afforded to pay so much for more than a limited number of years, "but he
+and I felt that it was only necessary to start the thing for it to
+succeed."
+
+Mr. Innes told his daughter of Monsignor's social influence; Monsignor
+had the command of any amount of money. There is always the money, the
+difficulty is to obtain the will that can direct the money. Monsignor
+was the will. He was all-powerful in Rome. He spent his winters and
+springs in Rome, and no one thought of going to Rome without calling on
+him. It was through him that the Pope kept in touch with the English
+Catholics. He had a confessional at St. Joseph's, and he was _au mieux_
+with the Jesuits. It was the influence of Monsignor that had given
+Palestrina his present vogue. But a revival of Palestrina was in the
+air; through him the inevitable reaction against Wagner was making
+itself felt. Monsignor had made all the rich Catholics understand that
+it was their duty to support the unique experiment which some poor
+Jesuits in Southwark were making, and the fact that he had come forward
+with a subscription of one thousand a year enabled him to ask his
+friends for their money. He had told Mr. Innes that a dinner party which
+did not produce a subscriber he looked upon as a dinner wasted.
+Monsignor knew how to carry a thing through; his influence was
+extraordinary; he could get people to do what he wanted.
+
+Evelyn and her father had so much to say that it did not seem as if they
+ever would find time to say it in. There was the story to tell of the
+construction of the vast choir and the difficulties he had experienced
+in teaching his singers to read at sight, for, as she knew, contrapuntal
+music cannot be sung except by singers who can sing unaccompanied. The
+trebles and the altos were of course the great difficulty; the boys
+often burst into tears; they said they preferred to die rather than
+endure his discipline. He was often sorry for them, for he knew that the
+perfect singing of this contrapuntal music was almost impossible except
+by _castrati_. But he was able to communicate his enthusiasm; he told
+them stories of how the ancient choirs used to sing Palestrina's masses
+without a rehearsal, how the ancient choirs used to compete one against
+the other, singing music they had never seen against men in the opposite
+organ loft whom they did not even know. He was full of such stories;
+they served to fire the boys' enthusiasm, and to change dislike into an
+inspiration. He had hypnotised them into a love of Palestrina, and when
+they went home their parents had told him that the boys were always
+talking about the ancient music, and that they sat up at night reading
+motets. He had told them that they would abandon all foolish pastimes
+for Palestrina, and they had in a measure; instead of batting and
+bowling, their ambition became sight singing. Once a spirit of emulation
+is inspired, great things are accomplished. There had been some
+beautiful singing at St. Joseph's. Three months ago he believed that his
+choir would have compared with some of the sixteenth century choirs. Mr.
+Innes told an instructive story of how he had lost a most extraordinary
+treble, the best he had ever had. No, he had not lost his voice; a
+casual word had done the mischief. The boy had happened to tell his
+mother that Mr. Innes had said that he would give up cricket for
+Palestrina, and she, being a fool, had laughed at him. Her laughter had
+ruined the boy; he had refused to sing any more; he had become a
+dissipated young rascal, up to every mischief. Unfortunately, before he
+left he had influenced other boys; many had to be sent away as useless;
+and it was only now that his choir was beginning to recover from this
+egregious calamity. But though the difficulty of the trebles and the
+altos was always the difficulty of his choir, it no longer seemed
+insuperable. With the large amount of money at his disposal, he could
+afford to pay almost any amount of money for a good treble or alto, so
+every boy in London who showed signs of a voice was brought to him. But
+in three or four years a boy's voice breaks, and the task of finding
+another to take his place has to be undertaken. Very often this is
+impossible; there are times when there are no voices. The present time
+was such a one, and he fumed at the foolish woman whose casual word had
+broken up his choir three months ago, bemoaning that such a calamity
+should have happened just before Monsignor's return from Rome. It was
+for that reason he was giving the "Missa Brevis," a small work easily
+done. He declared he would give fifty pounds to recall his choir of
+three months ago, just for Evelyn and Monsignor to hear it. Evelyn
+easily believed that he would, and as they parted inside the church she
+said--
+
+"I wish I could take the place of the naughty boy."
+
+A look of hope came into his eyes, but it died away in an instant, and
+she watched his despondent back as he went towards the choir loft.
+
+The influence of Monsignor had worked great changes at St. Joseph's--the
+very atmosphere of the church was different, the sensation was one of
+culture and refinement, instead of that acrid poverty. From the altar
+rail to the middle of the aisle the church was crowded--in the free as
+well as in the paying parts. From the altar rails to the middle of the
+aisle there were chairs for the ease of the subscribers, and for those
+who were willing to pay a fee of two shillings. In front of each chair
+was a comfortable kneeling place, and slender, gloved hands held
+prayer-books bound in morocco, and under fashionable hats, filled with
+bright beads and shadowy feathers, veiled faces were bent in dainty
+prayer. Among these Evelyn picked out a number of her friends. There
+were Lady Ascott, who missed no musical entertainment of whatever kind,
+even when it took place in church, and Lady Gremaldin, who thought she
+was listening to Wagner when she was thinking of the tenor whom she
+would take away to supper in her brougham after the performance....
+Evelyn caught sight of a painter or two and a man of letters who used
+to come to her father's concerts. Suddenly she saw Ulick standing close
+by her; he had not seen her, and was looking for a seat. Catching sight
+of her, he came and sat in the chair next to hers. Almost at the same
+moment the acolytes led the procession from the sacristy. They were
+followed by the sub-deacon, the deacon and the priest who was to sing
+the Mass. When the Mass began the choir broke forth, singing the
+Introit.
+
+The practice of singing in church proceeds from the idea that, in the
+exaltation of prayer, the soul, having reached the last limit obtainable
+by mere words, demands an extended expression, and finds it in song. The
+earliest form of music, the plain chant or Gregorian, is sung in unison,
+for it was intended to be sung by the whole congregation, but as only a
+few in every congregation are musicians, the idea of a choir could not
+fail to suggest itself; and, once the idea of a choir accepted, part
+writing followed, and the vocal masses of the sixteenth century were the
+result. Then the art of religious music had gone as far as it could, and
+the next step, the introduction of an accompanying instrument, was
+decadence.
+
+The "Missa Brevis" is one of the most exquisite of the master's minor
+works. It is written for four voices, and with the large choir at his
+command, Mr. Innes was able to put eight to ten voices on a part; and
+hearing voices darting, voices soaring, voices floating, weaving an
+audible embroidery, Evelyn felt the vanity of accompaniment instruments.
+Upon the ancient chant the new harmonies blossomed like roses on an old
+gnarled stem, and when on the ninth bar of the "Kyrie" the tenors softly
+separated from the sustained chord of the other parts, the effect was as
+of magic. Evelyn lifted her eyes and saw her dear father conducting with
+calm skill.
+
+She had heard the Mass in Rome, and remembered the beautiful phrase
+which opens the "Kyrie" and which is the essence of the first part of
+that movement. But the altos had not the true alto quality; they were
+trebles singing in the lower register of their voices. Leaning towards
+her, Ulick whispered, "The altos are not quite in tune." She had heard
+nothing wrong, but, seeing that he was convinced, she resolved to submit
+the matter to her father's decision. She had every confidence in the
+accuracy of her ear; but last night her father had said that the modern
+musical ear was not nearly so fine as the ancient, trained to the exact
+intervals of the monochord, instead of the coarse approximation of the
+keyboard.
+
+She remembered that when she had heard the Mass in Rome there was a
+moment when she had longed for the sweet concord of a pure third. Now,
+when it came at the end of the first note of the basses, Ulick said, "It
+is as sharp as that of an ordinary piano." It had not seemed so to her,
+and she wondered if her ear had deteriorated, if the corrupting
+influence of modern chromatic music had been too strong, if she had lost
+her ear in the Wagner drama. The coarse intonation was more obvious in
+the "Christe Eleison," sung by four solo voices, than in the "Kyrie,"
+sung by the full choir; and she did catch a slight equivocation, and the
+discovery tended to make her doubt Ulick's assertion that the altos were
+wrong in the "Kyrie," for, if she heard right in one place, why did she
+not hear right in another? The leading treble had a hard, unsympathetic
+voice, which did not suit the florid passages occurring three times on
+the second syllable of the word Eleison. He hammered them instead of
+singing them tenderly, with just the sense of a caress in the voice.
+
+But outside of such extreme criticism, in the audience of the ordinary
+musical ear, the beautiful "Missa Brevis" was as well given as it could
+be given in modern times, and Evelyn was, of course, anxious to see the
+great prelate to whose energetic influence the revival of this music was
+owing, the man who had helped to make her dear father's life a
+satisfaction to him. It was just slipping into disappointment when the
+prelate had come to save it. This was why Evelyn was so interested in
+him--why she was already attracted toward him. It was for this reason
+she was sitting in one of the front chairs, near to where Monsignor
+would have to pass on his way to the pulpit. He was to preach that
+Sunday at St. Joseph's.... He passed close to her, and she had a clear
+view of his thin, hard, handsome face, dark in colour and severe as a
+piece of mediaeval wood carving; a head small and narrow across the
+temples, as if it had been squeezed. The eyes were bright brown, and
+fixed; the nose long and straight, with clear-cut nostrils. She noticed
+the thin, mobile mouth and the swift look in the keen eyes--in that look
+he seemed to gather an exact notion of the congregation he was about to
+address.
+
+Already Evelyn trembled inwardly. The silence was quick with
+possibility; anything might happen--he might even publicly reprove her
+from the pulpit, and to strengthen her nerves against this influence,
+she compared the present tension to that which gathered her audience
+together as one man when the moment approached for her to come on the
+stage. All were listening, as if she were going to sing; it remained to
+be seen if the effect of his preaching equalled that of her singing. She
+was curious to see.
+
+"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner
+that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need
+no repentance." In introducing this text he declared it to be one of the
+most beautiful and hopeful in Scripture. Was it the sweet, clear voice
+that lured the different minds and led them, as it were, in leash? Or
+was it that slow, deliberate, persuasive manner? Or was it the
+benedictive and essentially Christian creed which he preached that
+disengaged the weight from every soul, allowing each to breathe an
+easier and sweeter breath? To one and all it seemed as if they were
+listening to the voice of their own souls, rather than that of a living
+man whom they did not know, and who did not know them. The preacher's
+voice and words were as the voices they heard speaking from the bottom
+of their souls in moments of strange collectedness. And as if aware of
+the spiritual life he had awakened, the preacher leaned over the pulpit
+and paused, as if watching the effect of his will upon the congregation.
+The hush trembled into intensity when he said, "Yes, and not only in
+heaven, but on earth as well, there shall be joy when a sinner repents.
+This can be verified, not in public places where men seek wealth, fame
+and pleasure--there, there shall be only scorn and sneers--but in the
+sanctuary of every heart; there is no one, I take it, who has not at
+some moment repented." Instantly Evelyn remembered Florence. Had her
+repentance there been a joy or a pain? She had not persevered. At that
+moment she heard the preacher ask if the most painful moments of our
+lives were the result of our having followed the doctrine of Jesus or
+the doctrine of the world? He instanced the gambler and the libertine,
+who willingly confess themselves unhappy, but who, he asked, ever heard
+of the good man saying he was unhappy? The tedium of life the good man
+never knows. Men have been known to regret the money they spent on
+themselves, but who has ever regretted the money he has spent in
+charity? But even success cannot save the gambler and libertine from the
+tedium of existence, and when the preacher said, "These men dare not be
+alone," Evelyn thought of Owen, and of her constant efforts to keep him
+amused, distracted; and when the preacher said it was impossible for the
+sinner to abstract himself, to enter into his consciousness without
+hearing it reprove him, Evelyn thought of herself. The preacher made no
+distinctions; all men, he said, when they are sincere with themselves,
+are aware of the difference between good and evil living. When they
+listen the voice is always audible; even those who purposely close their
+ears often hear it. For this voice cannot be wholly silenced; it can be
+stifled for a while, but it can be no more abolished than the sound of
+the sea from the shell. "As a shell, man is murmurous with morality."
+
+Of the rest of the sermon Evelyn heard very little.... It was the phrase
+that if we look into our lives we shall find that our most painful
+moments are due to our having followed the doctrine of the world instead
+of the doctrine of Christ that touched Evelyn. It seemed to explain
+things in herself which she had never understood. It told her why she
+was not happy. ... Happy she had never been, and she had never
+understood why. Because she had been leading a life that was opposed to
+what she deemed to be essentially right. How very simple, and yet she
+had never quite apprehended it before; she had striven to close her
+ears, but she had never succeeded. Why? Because that whisper can be no
+more abolished than the murmur of the sea from the shell. How true! That
+murmur had never died out of her ears; she had been able to stifle it
+for a while--she had never been able to abolish it--and what convincing
+proof this was of the existence of God!
+
+Disprove it you couldn't, for it was part of one's senses--the very
+evidence on which the materialists rely to prove that beyond this world
+there is nothing. Yet what a flagrant contradiction her conduct was to
+the murmur of spiritual existence. And that was why she was not happy.
+That was why she would never be happy till she reformed.... But the
+preacher spoke as if it were easy for all who wished it to change their
+lives. How was she to change her life? Her life was settled and
+determined for her ever since the day she went away with Owen. If she
+sent Owen away again the same thing would happen; she would take him
+back. She could not remain on the stage without a lover; she would take
+another before a month was out. It was no use for her to deceive
+herself! That is what she would do. To sing Isolde and live a chaste
+life, she did not believe it to be possible--and she sat helpless,
+hearing vaguely the Credo, her attention so distracted that she was only
+half aware of its beauty. She noticed that the "Et incarnatus est" was
+inadequately rendered, but that she expected. It would require the
+strange, immortal voices she had heard in Rome. But the vigour with
+which the basses led the "Et resurrexit" was such that the other parts
+could not choose but follow. She felt thankful to them; they dissipated
+her painful personal reverie. Yes, the basses were the best part of the
+choir; among them she recognised two of her father's oldest pupils; she
+had known them as boys singing alto--beautiful voices they had been, and
+were not less beautiful now. But if she desired to reform her life, how
+was she to begin? She knew what the priest would tell her. He would say,
+send away your lover; but to send him away in the plenitude of her
+success would be odious. He was unhappy; he was ill; he needed her
+sorely. His mother's health was a great anxiety to him, and if, on the
+top of all, she were to announce that she intended leaving him, he would
+break down altogether. She owed everything to him. No, not even for the
+sake of her immortal soul would she do anything that would give him
+pain. But he had been anxious to marry her for some time. Would she make
+him a good wife? She was fond of him; she would do anything for him. She
+had travelled hundreds of miles to see him when he was ill, and the
+other night she could not sleep because she feared he was unhappy about
+his mother's health. She would marry him if he asked her. On that point
+she was certain. Refuse Owen? Not for anything that could be offered
+her; nothing would change her from that. Nothing! Her resolve was taken.
+No, it was not taken; it was there in her heart.
+
+And at the moment when the Elevation bell rang she decided not only to
+accept Owen if he asked her, but to use all her influence to induce him
+to ask her. This seemed to her equivalent to a resolution to reform her
+life, and, happier in mind, she bowed her head, and as a very unworthy
+Catholic, but still a Catholic, and feeling no longer as an alien and an
+outcast, she assisted at the mystery of the Mass. She even ventured to
+offer up a vague prayer, and when the dread interval was over, she
+remembered that her father had spoken to her of the second "Agnus Dei"
+as an especially beautiful number. It was for five voices; exquisitely
+prayerful it seemed to her. With devout insistence the theme is
+reiterated by the two soprani, then the voices are woven together, and
+the simile that rose up in her mind was the pious image of fingers
+interlaced in prayer.
+
+The first thrill, the first impression of the music over, she applied
+herself to the dissection of it, so that she might be able to discuss it
+with Ulick and her father afterwards. This beautiful melody, apparently
+so free, was so exquisitely contrived that it contained within itself
+descant and harmony. She knew it well; it is a strict canon in unison,
+and she had heard it sung by two grey-haired men in the Papal choir in
+Rome, soprano voices of a rarer and more radiant timbre than any woman's
+sexful voice, and subtle, and, in some complex way, hardly of the earth
+at all--voices in which no accent of sex transpired, abstract voices
+aloof from any stress of passion, undistressed by any longing, even for
+God. They were not human voices, and, hearing them, Evelyn had imagined
+angels bearing tall lilies in their hands, standing on wan heights of
+celestial landscape, singing their clear silver music.
+
+These men had sung this "Agnus Dei" as perhaps it never would be sung
+again, but she knew the boy treble to be incapable of singing this canon
+properly, so she could hardly resist the impulse to run up to the choir
+loft and tell her father breathlessly that she would take his place. She
+smiled at the consternation such an act would occasion. Even if she
+could get to the choir loft without being noticed, she could not sing
+this music, her voice was full of sex, and this music required the
+strange sexless timbre of the voices she had heard in Rome. But the boy
+sang better than she anticipated; his voice was wanting in strength and
+firmness; she listened, anxious to help him, perplexed that she could
+not.
+
+The last Gospel was then read, and she followed Ulick out of church.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+On getting outside the church, they were surprised to find that it had
+been raining. The shower had laid the dust, freshened the air, and upon
+the sky there was a beautiful flowerlike bloom; the white clouds hung in
+the blue air unlifting fugitive palace and tower, and when Evelyn and
+Ulick looked into this mysterious cloudland, their hearts overflowed
+with an intense joy.
+
+She opened her parasol, and told him that her father was lunching with
+the Jesuits. But he and she were going to dine together at Dowlands; and
+after dinner they were not to forget to practise the Bach sonata which
+was in the programme for the evening concert. She thought of the long
+day before them, and with mixed wonderment and pleasure of how much
+better they would know each other at the end of the day. She wanted to
+know how he thought and felt about things; and it seemed to her that he
+could tell her all that she yearned to know, though what this was she
+did not know herself.
+
+There were strange hills and valleys and fabulous prospects in the great
+white cloud which hung at the end of the suburban street, and it seemed
+to her that she would like to wander with him there among the white
+dells, and to stand with him upon the high pinnacles. She was happy in
+an infinite cloudland while he told her of her father's struggle to
+obtain mastery in St. Joseph's. But she experienced a passing pang of
+regret that she had not been present to witness the first struggles of
+the reformation.
+
+She was interested in the part that Ulick had played in it. He told her
+how almost every week he had written an article developing some new
+phase of the subject, and Evelyn told him how her father had told her of
+the extraordinary ingenuity and energy with which he had continued the
+propaganda from week to week. When her father was called away to
+negotiate some financial difficulty, Ulick had taken charge of the
+rehearsals. Mr. Innes had told Evelyn that Ulick had displayed an
+unselfish devotion, and she added that he had been to her father what
+Liszt had been to Wagner, and while paying this compliment she looked at
+him in admiration, thanking him with her eyes. Had it not been for him,
+her father might have died of want of appreciation, killed by Father
+Gordon's obstinacy.
+
+"But you came to him," she said, speaking unwillingly, "when I
+selfishly left him."
+
+Ulick would not concede that he was worthy of any distinction in the
+victory of the old music; it would have achieved its legitimate triumph
+without his aid. He had merely done his duty like any private soldier in
+the ranks. But from first to last all had depended upon Monsignor. Mr.
+Innes had shown more energy and practical intelligence than anyone, not
+excepting Evelyn herself, would have credited him with; he had
+interested many people by his enthusiasm, but nevertheless he had
+remained what he was--a man of ideas rather than of practice, and
+without Monsignor the reformation would have come to naught. Evelyn was
+strangely interested to know what Ulick thought of Monsignor, and she
+waited eager for him to speak. She would have liked to hear him
+enthusiastic, but he said that Monsignor was no more than an Oxford don
+with a taste for dogma and for a cardinal's hat. He was not a man of
+ideas, but a man that would do well in an election or a strike. He was
+what folk call "a leader of men," and Ulick held that power over the
+passing moment was a sign of inferiority. Shakespeare and Shelley and
+Blake had never participated in any movement; they were the movement
+itself, they were the centres of things. Christ, too, had failed to lead
+men, he was far too much above them; but St. Paul, the man of inferior
+ideas, had succeeded where Christ had failed. Mostyn, he maintained, was
+much more interested in dogma than in religion; he abhorred mysticism,
+and believed in organisation. He considered his Church from the point of
+view of a trades union. An unspiritual man, one much more interested in
+theology than in God--an able shepherd with an instinct for lost sheep
+whose fixed and commonplace ideas gave him command over weak and exalted
+natures, natures which were frequently much more spiritual than his own.
+Evelyn listened, amused, though she could not think of Monsignor quite
+as Ulick did. Monsignor had said that if we ask ourselves to what our
+unhappiness is attributable, we find that it is attributable to having
+followed the way of the world instead of the way of Christ.
+
+It seemed to her impossible that a man of inferior intelligence such as
+Ulick described could think so clearly. She reminded Ulick of these very
+sentences which had so greatly moved her, and it flattered her to hear
+him admit it, that the idea which had so greatly struck her was
+penetrating and far-reaching, but he denied that it was possible that it
+could be Monsignor's own. It was something he had got out of a book, and
+seeing the effect that could be made of it, he had introduced it into
+his sermon. In support of this opinion, he said that all the rest of the
+sermon was sententious commonplace about the soul, and obedience to the
+Church.
+
+"But you will be able to judge for yourself. He is coming to the
+concert to-night."
+
+"Then I must have a dress to wear, I suppose he would like me to wear
+sackcloth. But I am going to wear a pretty pink silk, which I hope you
+will like. Call that hansom, please."
+
+It was amusing to watch her write the note, hear her explain to the
+cabman: if he brought back the right dress he was to get a sovereign. It
+was amusing to stroll on through the naked Sunday streets, talking of
+the music they had just heard and of Monsignor, to find suddenly that
+they had lost their way and could see no one to direct them. These
+little incidents served to enhance their happiness. They were nearly of
+the same age, and were conscious of it; a generation is but a large
+family, united by ties of impulse and idea. Evelyn had been brought up
+and had lived outside of the influence of her own generation. Now it was
+flashed upon her for the first time, and under the spell of its
+instincts she ran down the steps to the railway and jumped into the
+moving train. Owen would have forbidden her this little recklessness,
+but Ulick accepted it as natural, and they sat opposite each other,
+their thoughts lost in the rustle and confusion of their blood. She was
+conscious of a delicious inward throbbing, and she liked the smooth
+young face, the colour of old ivory, and the dark, fixed eyes into which
+she could not look without trembling; they changed, lighting up and
+clouding as his thought came and went. She found an attraction in his
+occasional absent-mindedness, and wondered of what he was thinking.
+Looking into his eyes, she was aware of a mystery half understood, and
+she could not but feel that this enigma, this mystery, was essential to
+her. Her life seemed to depend upon it; she seemed to have come upon the
+secret at last.
+
+It was amusing to walk home to dinner together this bright summer's day,
+and to tell this young man, to whose intervention it pleased her to
+think that she owed her reconciliation to her father, how it was by
+pretending not to understand the new harpsichord that she had inveigled
+her father into speaking to her.... But it was only one o'clock--an hour
+still remained before dinner would be ready at Dowlands, and they were
+glad to dream it under the delicious chestnut trees. She sat intent,
+moving the tiny bloom from side to side with her parasol, thinking of
+her father. Suddenly she told Ulick of the Wotan and Brunnhilde scene,
+which she had always played, while thinking of the real scene that one
+day awaited her at her father's feet, and this scene she had at last
+acted, if you could call reality acting. She was dimly aware of the old
+Dulwich street, and that she had once trundled her hoop there, and the
+humble motion of life beneath the chestnut trees, the loitering of stout
+housewives and husbands in Sunday clothes, the spare figures of
+spinsters who lived in the damp houses which lay at the back of the
+choked gardens was accepted as a suitable background for her happiness.
+Her joy seemed to dilate in the morning, in the fluttering sensation of
+the sunshine, of summer already begun in the distant fields. Inspired by
+the scene, Ulick began to hum the old English air, "Summer is a-coming
+in," and without raising her eyes from the chestnut blooms that fell
+incessantly on the pavement, Evelyn said--"That monk had a beautiful
+dream."
+
+And for a while they thought of that monk at Reading composing for his
+innocent recreation that beautiful piece of music; they hummed it
+together, thinking of his quiet monastery, and it seemed to them that it
+would be a beautiful thing if life were over, if it might pass away, as
+that monk's life had passed, in peace, in aspiration whether of prayer
+or of art. Thinking of the music she had heard over night, that she had
+hummed through and that her father had played on the harpsichord, she
+said--"And you, too, had a beautiful dream when you wrote 'Connla and
+the Fairy Maiden'?"
+
+"Ah, your father showed it to you; you hadn't told me."
+
+Then, absorbed in his idea, never speaking for effect, stripping himself
+of every adventitious pleasure in the service of his idea, he told her
+of the change that had come upon his aestheticism in the last year. He
+had been organist for three years at St. Patrick's, and since then had
+been interested in the modes, the abandoned modes in which the plain
+chant is written. These modes were the beginning of music, the original
+source; in them were written, no doubt, the songs and dances of the folk
+who died two, three, four, five thousand years ago, but none of this
+music had been preserved, only the religious chants of this distant
+period of art have come down to us, and from this accident his sprung
+the belief that the early modes are only capable of expressing religious
+emotion. But the gayest rhythms can be written in these modes as easily
+as in the ordinary major and minor scales. It was thought, too, that the
+modes did not lend themselves to modulation, but by long study of them
+Ulick had discovered how they may be submitted to the science of
+modulation.
+
+"I see," Evelyn replied pensively. "The first line written in one of the
+ancient modes, and underneath the melody, chromatic harmonies."
+
+"No, that would be horrible," Ulick cried, like a dog whose tail has
+been trodden upon. "That is the infamous modern practice. I seek the
+harmony in the sentiment of the melody I am writing, in the tonality of
+the mode I am writing."
+
+And then, little by little, they entered the perilous question of the
+ancient modes. There were several, and three were as distinctive and as
+rich sources of melody and harmony as the ordinary major scale, for
+modern music limited itself to the major scale, the minor scale being a
+dependency. The major and minor modes or scales had sufficed for two or
+three centuries of music, but the time of their exhaustion was
+approaching, and the musicians of the future would have to return to the
+older scales. He refused to admit that they did not lend themselves to
+modulation, and he answered, when Evelyn suggested that the introduction
+of a sharp or a flat was likely to alter the character of the ancient
+scales, that she must not judge the ancient scales by what had already
+been written in them; it was nowise his intention to imitate the
+character of the plain chant melodies; she must not confuse the
+sentiment of these melodies with the modes in which they were written.
+It might be that in adding a sharp or a flat the musician destroyed the
+character of the mode which he was leaving and that of the mode he was
+passing into, but that proved nothing except his want of skill. His
+opera was written not only in the three ancient modes, but also in the
+ordinary major and minor scales, and he believed that he had enlarged
+the limits of musical expression.
+
+He was not the first young man she had met with schemes for writing
+original music. So far as she was capable of judging, his practice was
+better than his theory. But his music was not the origin of her interest
+for him. What really interested her were his beliefs; her personal
+interest in him had really begun when he had said that he believed in a
+continuous revelation. Of this revelation he had argued that Christ was
+only a part. These ideas, which she heard for the first time, especially
+interested her. Owen's agnosticism had given her freedom and command of
+this world, but it had made a great loneliness in her life which Owen
+was no longer able to fill. Life seemed a desert without some form of
+belief, and notwithstanding her success, her life was often intolerably
+lonely. She had often thought of the world's flowers and fruits as mere
+semblance of things without true reality, and what seemed a bountiful
+garden, a mere hard, dry, brilliant desert. It was only at certain
+moments, of course, that she thought these things, but sometimes these
+thoughts quite unexpectedly came upon her, and she could no longer
+conceal from herself the fact that she was lonely in her soul, and that
+she was growing lonelier. She was wearying a little of all the visible
+world, beginning to hunger for the invisible, from which she had closed
+her eyes so long, but which, for all that, had never become wholly
+darkened to her.
+
+Hearing Ulick speak of foreseeing and divinations by the stars was, too,
+like sweet rain in a dying land; and as they returned to Dowlands, she
+spoke to him of Moy Mell where Boadag is king, of the Plain of the Ever
+Living, of Connla and the Fairy Maiden gliding in the crystal boat over
+the Western Sea, and during dinner she longed to ask him if he believed
+in a future life.
+
+It was difficult for her, who had never spoken on such subjects before,
+to disentangle his philosophy, and it was not until he said that we
+must not believe as religionists do, that one day the invisible shall
+become the visible, that she began to understand him. Such doctrine, he
+said, is paltry and materialistic, worthy of the theologian and the
+agnostic. We must rather, he said, seek to raise and purify our natures,
+so that we may see more of the spiritual element which resides in
+things, and which is visible to all in a greater or less degree as they
+put aside their grosser nature and attain step by step to a higher point
+of vision. She had always imagined there was nothing between the
+materialism of Owen and the theology of Monsignor. Ulick's ideas were
+quite new to her; they appealed to her imagination, and she thought she
+could listen for ever, and was disappointed when he reminded her that
+she must practise the Bach sonata for the evening's concert.
+
+It did not, however, detain them long, for she found to her great
+pleasure that she had not lost nearly as much of her playing as she
+thought.
+
+The evening lengthened out into long, clear hours and thoughts of the
+green lanes; and to escape from hauntings of Owen--the music-room it
+seemed still to hold echoes of his voice--she asked him to walk out with
+her. They wandered in the cloudless evening. They sauntered past the
+picture gallery, and the fact that she was walking with this strange and
+somewhat ambiguous young man provoked her to think of herself and him as
+a couple from that politely wanton assembly which had collected at
+eventide to watch a pavane danced beneath the beauty of a Renaissance
+colonnade, and to accentuate the resemblance Evelyn fluttered her
+parasol and said, pointing across the yellow meadows--
+
+"Look at those idle clouds, the afternoon is falling asleep."
+
+She walked for some time touched with the sentiment that the evening
+landscape inspired, a little uncertain whether he would like to talk
+further about his spiritual nature, and whether she should rest
+contented with what she knew on that subject. "It is only curiosity, but
+I wonder how he would make love--how he'd begin? I wonder if he cares
+for women?" It was some time before she could get Ulick to talk of
+himself; he seemed to strive to change the conversation back to artistic
+questions. He seemed absorbed in himself; it seemed difficult to awaken
+him out of his absent-mindedness. At last he spoke suddenly, as was his
+habit, and she learned that the scene of his first love-making was a
+beautiful Normandy park. He was more explicit about the park than the
+lady, and he seemed to lay special stress on the fact that the great
+saloon in the castle was hung with a faded tapestry. The story seemed to
+Evelyn a little obscure, but she gathered that Ulick had been tragically
+separated from her, whether by the intervention of another woman or
+through his own fault did not seem clear. The story was vague as a
+legend, and Evelyn was not certain that Ulick had not invented the park
+and the tapestries as characteristic decorations of a love story as it
+should happen to him, if it did happen.
+
+Love as a theme did not seem to suit him; he seemed to fade from her; he
+was only real when he spoke of his ideas, and a fleeting comparison
+between him and herself passed across her mind. She remembered that she
+was no longer truly herself except when speaking of sexual emotion.
+Everything else had begun to seem to her trivial, trite and
+uninteresting. She could no longer take an interest in ordinary topics
+of conversation. If a man was not going to make love to her, she soon
+began to lose interest.... A long sequence of possibilities rose in her
+mind, and died away in the distance like flights of birds. Suddenly she
+began to sing, and they had a long and interesting talk about her
+rendering of Isolde in the first act. For a moment the love potion
+seemed as if it would carry the conversation back to their individual
+experiences of the essential passion; but they drifted instead into a
+discussion regarding the practice of sorcery in the middle ages. She was
+surprised to learn that she was not only a believer, but was apparently
+an adept in all the esoteric arts. But the subject being quite new to
+her, she followed with difficulty his account of a very successful
+evocation of the spirit of a mediaeval alchemist, a Fleming of the
+fourteenth century, and wonder often interrupted her attention. She
+could not reconcile herself to the belief that he was serious in all he
+said, and he often spoke of the Kabbala, which apparently was the secret
+ritual of a sect of which he was a member, perhaps a priest. Between
+whiles she thought of the indignation with which Owen would hear such
+beliefs. Then tempted as by the edge of an abyss, she admired Ulick's
+strange appearance, which helped to make his story credible. She could
+no longer disbelieve, so simply did he tell his tales, his white teeth
+showing, and his dark eyes rapidly brightening and clouding as he
+mentioned different spells and their effects. But so illusive were his
+narratives that she never quite understood; he seemed always a little
+ahead of her; she often had to pause to consider his meaning, and when
+she had grasped it, he was speaking of something else, and she had
+missed the links. To understand him better she attempted to argue with
+him, and he told her of the incredible explanation that Charcot, the
+eminent hypnotist, had had to fall back upon in order to account
+materialistically for some of his hypnotic experiments, and she was
+forced to admit that the spiritualistic explanation was the easier to
+believe.
+
+She was most interested when he spoke of the College of Adepts and the
+Rosicrucians. Life as he spoke seemed to become intense and exalted, and
+the invisible seemed on the point of becoming visible when he told her
+how the brotherhood greeted each other with, "Man is God, and son of
+God, and there is no God but man." He repeated all he could remember of
+their terrible oath. The College of Adepts, she learned, was the
+antithesis of the monastery. The monastery is passive spirituality, the
+College of Adepts is active spirituality; the monastery abases itself
+before God, the Adepts seek to become as gods. "There is a spiritual
+stream," he said, "that flows behind the circumstance of history, and
+they claim that all religions are but vulgarisations of their doctrine.
+The Adept, by conquering passion and ignorance, attains a mastery over
+change, and so prolongs his life beyond any human limit."
+
+She begged Ulick not to forget to bring the book of magic which
+contained the oath of the Rosicrucians.
+
+It was now after eight, and they returned home, watching the white mists
+creeping up the blue fields. The sky was lucent as a crystal, and the
+purple would not die out of the west until nearly midnight. Evelyn would
+have liked to have stayed with him in the twilight, for as the landscape
+darkened, his strange figure grew symbolic, and his words, whether by
+beauty of verbal expression or the manner with which they were spoken,
+seemed to bring the unseen world nearer. The outside world seemed to
+slip back, to become subordinate as earth becomes subordinate to the sky
+when the stars come. Evelyn felt the life of the flesh in which Owen had
+placed her fall from her; it became dissipated; her life rose to the
+head, and looking into the mists she seemed to discover the life that
+haunts in the dark. It seemed to whisper and beckon her.
+
+Her father was in the music-room when they returned, and at sight of him
+she forgot Ulick and his enchantments.
+
+"Father, dear, I am so proud of you." Standing by him, her hand on his
+shoulder, she said, "Your choir is wonderful, dear. Palestrina has been
+heard in London at last!"
+
+She told him that she had heard the Mass in Rome, but had been
+disappointed in the papal choir, and she explained why she preferred his
+reading to that of the Roman musician. But he would not be consoled, and
+when he mentioned that the altos were out of tune, Ulick looked at
+Evelyn.
+
+"Father, dear, Ulick and I have had an argument about the altos. He says
+they were wrong in the Kyrie. Were they?"
+
+"Of course they were, but the piano has spoilt your ear. What was I
+saying last night?"
+
+He took down a violin to test his daughter's ear, and the results of the
+examination were humiliating to her.
+
+According to Mr. Innes, Bach was the last composer who had distinguished
+between A sharp and B flat. The very principle of Wagner's music is the
+identification of the two notes.
+
+She ran out of the room, saying that she must change her dress, and Mr.
+Innes looked at Ulick interrogatively. He seemed a little confused, and
+hoped he had not hurt her feelings, and Ulick assured him that
+to-morrow she would tell the incident in the theatre, that she would be
+the first to see the humour of it. The news that she was staying at
+Dowlands, and the presumption that she would sing at the concert, had
+brought many a priest from St. Joseph's, and all the painters, men of
+letters, and designers of stained glass, and all the old pupils, the
+viol players, and the madrigal singers, and when Evelyn came downstairs
+in her pink frock, she was surrounded by her old friends.
+
+"Do come, girls; can you come on Thursday night? I'll send you seats. It
+would be such a pleasure to me to sing to you, but not to-night;
+to-night I want to be like old times. I am going to play the viola da
+gamba."
+
+"But you used to sing Elizabethan songs in old times."
+
+"Yes, but father thinks I have lost my ear; I shall not sing to-night."
+
+Ulick laughed outright; the others looked at Evelyn amazed and a little
+perplexed, and the consumptive man who wore brown clothes and who had
+asked her to marry him came forward to congratulate her. But while
+talking to him, her eyes were attracted by the tall, spare ecclesiastic
+who stood talking to her father. She thought vaguely of Ulick's
+depreciation. In spite of herself she felt herself gravitating towards
+him. Several times she nearly broke off the conversation with the
+consumptive man: her feet seemed to acquire a will of their own. But
+when her eyes and thought returned to the consumptive man, her heart
+filled with plaintive terror, for she could not help thinking of the
+little space he had to live, and how soon the earth would be over him.
+She met in his eyes a clear, plaintive look, in which she seemed to
+catch sight of his pathetic soul. She seemed to be aware of it, almost
+in contact with it, and through the eyes she divined the thought passing
+there, and it was painful to her to think that it was of her health and
+success he was thinking. She could see how cruelly she reminded him of
+his folly in asking her to marry him, and she was quite sure that he was
+thinking now how very lucky for her it was that she had refused him.
+Pictures were formulating, she could see, in his poor mind of how
+different her life would have been in the home he had to offer her, and
+all this seemed to her so infinitely pathetic that she forgot Ulick,
+Monsignor and everything else. Her father called her.
+
+"Evelyn," he said, "let me introduce you to Monsignor."
+
+The sight of a priest always shocked her; the austere face and the
+reserved manner, the hard yet kind eyes, that appearance of
+frequentation of the other world, at least of the hither side of this,
+impressed her, and she trembled before him as she had trembled six years
+ago when she met Owen in the same room. And when the concert was over,
+when she lay in bed, she wondered. She asked herself how it was that a
+little ordinary conversation  about church singing--Palestrina, plain
+chant, the papal choir, and the rest of it--should have impressed her so
+vividly, should have excited her so much that she could not get to
+sleep.
+
+She remembered the discontent when it began to be perceived that she did
+not intend to sing, and how Julia had said, when it came to her to sing,
+that she did not dare. Julia had fixed her eyes on her, and then
+everyone seemed to be looking at her. The consumptive man was emboldened
+to demand "Elsa's Dream," but she had refused to sing for him. She was
+determined that nothing would induce her to sing that night, but
+suddenly Monsignor had said--
+
+"I hope you will not refuse to sing, Miss Innes. Remember that I cannot
+go to the opera to hear you."
+
+"If you wish to hear me, Monsignor, I shall be pleased indeed."
+
+It was impossible for her to refuse Monsignor; it was out of the
+question that she should refuse to sing for him. If he had wished it,
+she would have had to sing the whole evening. All that was quite true,
+but there seemed to be another reason which she could not define to
+herself. It had given her infinite pleasure to sing to Monsignor, a
+pleasure she had never experienced before, not at least for a very long
+while, and wondering what was about to happen, she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+
+The music-room had seemed haunted with Owen's voice, and yesterday she
+had asked Ulick to walk with her in the lanes so that she might escape
+from it. But to-day half-pleased, half-perplexed by her own perversity,
+she could not resist taking him to the picture gallery--she wanted to
+show him "The Colonnade."
+
+The picture was merged in shadow, and no longer the picture she
+remembered; but when the sun shone, all the rows quickened with amorous
+intrigue, and the little lady held out her striped skirt (she had lost
+none of her bland delight), and the gentleman who advanced to meet her
+bowed with the mock humility of yore, and the beautiful perspectives of
+the colonnade floated into the hush of the trees, and the fountain
+warbled.
+
+For a reason which eluded her, she was anxious to know how this picture
+would strike Ulick, and she tried to draw from him his ideas concerning
+it.
+
+"Their thoughts," he said, "are not in their evening parade; something
+quite different is happening in their hearts...." And while waiting for
+her parasol and his stick, he said--
+
+"I can see that you always liked that picture; you've seen it often
+before."
+
+She had been longing to speak of Owen. He seemed always about them, and
+in phantasmal presence he seemed to sunder them, to stand jailor-like.
+It was only by speaking of Owen that his interdiction could be removed,
+and she said that she had often been to the gallery with him. Having
+said so much, it was easy to tell Ulick of the story of the three days
+of hesitation which had preceded her elopement.
+
+"The Colonnade," and "The Lady playing the Virginal," had seemed to her
+symbols of the different lives which that day had been pressed upon her
+choice. Ulick explained that Fate and free will are not as
+irreconcilable as they seem. For before birth it is given to us to
+decide whether we shall accept or reject the gift of life. So we are at
+once the creatures and the arbiters of destiny. These metaphysics
+excited and then eluded her perceptions, and she hastened to tell him
+how she had stood at the corner of Berkeley Square, seeing the season
+passing under the green foliage, thinking how her life was summarised in
+a single moment. She remembered even the lady who wore the bright
+irises in her bonnet; but she neglected to mention her lest Ulick should
+think that it was memory of this woman's horses that had decided her to
+the choice of her pair of chestnuts. She told him about the journey to
+France, the buying of the trousseau, and the day that Madame Savelli had
+said, "If you'll stay with me a year, I'll make something wonderful of
+you." She told him how Owen had sent her to the Bois by herself, and the
+madness that had risen to her brain: and how near she had been to
+standing up in the carriage and asking the people to listen to her. She
+told the tale of all this mental excitement fluently, volubly, carried
+away by the narrative. Suddenly she ceased speaking, and sat absorbed by
+the mystery.
+
+She sat looking into that corner of the garden where the gardener on a
+high ladder worked his shears without pausing. The light branches fell,
+and she thought of how she had grown up in this obscure suburb amid old
+instruments and old music. She remembered her yearning for fame and
+love; now she had both, love and fame. But within herself nothing was
+changed; the same little soul was now as it had been long ago, she could
+hear it talking, living its intense life within her unknown to everyone,
+an uncommunicable thing, unchanged among much change. She remembered how
+Owen, like Siegfried, had come to release her, and all the exhausting
+passion of that time. She had sat with him under this very tree. She was
+sitting there now with Ulick. Everything was changed, yet everything was
+the same.... She was going to fall in love with another man, that was
+all.
+
+She awoke with a start, frightened as by a dream; and before she had
+time to inquire of herself if the dream might come true, she remembered
+the girl with whom Ulick used to play Mozart in a drawing-room hung with
+faded tapestries. She feared that he would divulge nothing, and to her
+surprise he told her that it had happened two years ago at Dieppe, where
+he had gone for a month's holiday. At that time when he was writing
+"Connla and the Fairy Maiden." He had composed a great deal of the music
+by the sea-shore and in sequestered woods; and to assist himself in the
+composition of the melodies, he used to take his violin with him. One
+day, while wandering along the dusty high road on the look out for a
+secluded, shady place, he had come upon what seemed to be a private
+park. It was guarded by a high wall, and looking through an iron gate
+that had been left ajar, he was tempted by the stillness of the glades.
+"A music-haunted spot if ever there was one," he said to himself; and
+encouraged by the persuasion of a certain melody which he felt he could
+work out there, and nowhere but there, he pushed the gate open, and
+entered the park. A perfect place it seemed to him, no one but the birds
+to hear him, and the sun's rays did not pierce the thick foliage of the
+sycamore grove. Never did place correspond more intimately with the mood
+of the moment, and he played his melody over and over again, every now
+and then stopping to write. Her step was so light, and he was so deep to
+his music, that he did not hear it.... She had been listening doubtless
+for some time before he had seen her. He spoke very little French, and
+she very little English, but he easily understood that she wished him to
+go on playing. A little later her father and mother had come through the
+trees; she had held up her hand, bidding them be silent. Ulick could see
+by the way they listened that they were musicians. So he was invited to
+the villa which stood in the centre of the park, and till the end of his
+holiday he went there every day. The girl--Eliane was her beautiful
+name--was an exquisite musician. They had played Mozart in the room hung
+with faded tapestries, or, beguiled by the sunshine, they had walked in
+the park. When Evelyn asked him what they said, he answered simply, "We
+said that we loved each other." But when he returned to Dieppe three
+months later, all was changed. When he spoke of their marriage she
+laughed the question away, and he perceived that his visits were not
+desired; on returning to England, all his letters were returned to
+him.... Soon after she married a Protestant clergyman, and last year she
+had had a baby.
+
+He sat absorbed in the memory of this passion, and Evelyn and the garden
+were perceived in glimpses between scenes of youthful exaltations and
+romantic indiscretions. He remembered how he had threatened to throw
+himself from her window for no other reason except the desire of
+romantic action; and while he sat absorbed in the past, Evelyn watched
+him, nervous and irritated, striving to read in his face how much of the
+burden had fallen from him, and how free his heart might be to accept
+another love story.
+
+As he sat in the garden under the calm cedar tree he dreamed of a
+reconciliation with Eliane. He even speculated on the effect that the
+score of his opera would have upon her if he were to send it--all that
+music composed in her honour. But which opera? Not "Connla and the Fairy
+Maiden," for a great deal of it was crude, thin, absurd. No; he could
+not send it. But he might send "Grania." Yes, he would send "Grania"
+when he had finished it. To arrive suddenly from England, to cast
+himself at her feet--that might move her. Then, with a sigh, "These are
+things we dream of," he thought, "but never do. Only in dreams do men
+set forth in quest of the ideal."
+
+He looked up, Evelyn's eyes were fixed on him, and he felt like Bran
+returning home after his voyage to the wondrous isles.
+
+They saw the footman coming across the green sward. He had come to tell
+her that Mr. Innes was waiting for her. She was taking him to St.
+Joseph's. But there was not room in the victoria for three, and Ulick
+would have to go back to London by train.
+
+"But you will come and see me soon? You promised to go through the
+'Isolde' music with me. Will you come to-morrow?"
+
+Her clear, delightful eyes were fixed upon him; he felt for the first
+time the thrill of her personality; their light caused him to hesitate,
+and then to accept her invitation eagerly. He heard her remind her
+father that he had promised to come to-night to hear her sing Elizabeth.
+He would be there too. He would see her to-night as well, and he stood
+watching the beautiful horses bearing father and daughter swiftly away.
+The shady Dulwich street dozed under a bright sky, and the bloom of the
+flowering trees was shedding its fine dust. He thought of Palestrina and
+Wagner, and a delicious little breeze sent a shower of bloom about his
+feet, as if to remind him of the pathos of the passing illusion of which
+we are a part. He stood watching the carriage, and the happiness and the
+sorrow of things choked him when he turned away.
+
+She was happy with her father, and she felt that he loved her better
+than any lover. The unique experience of taking him to St. Joseph's in
+her carriage, and the event of singing to him that night at Covent
+Garden, absorbed her, and she dozed in her happiness like a beautiful
+rose. Never had she been so happy. She was happier than she merited. The
+thought passed like a little shadow, and a moment after all was
+brightness again. Her father was the real love of her life; the rest was
+mere excitement, and she wondered why she sought it; it only made her
+unhappy. Monsignor was right.... But she did not wish to think of him.
+
+On the steps of St. Joseph's, she bade her father good-bye, and remained
+looking back till she could see him no more. Then she settled herself
+comfortably under her parasol, intent on the enjoyment of their
+reconciliation. The two days she had spent with him looked back upon her
+like a dream from which she had only just awakened. As in a dream, there
+were blurred outlines and places where the line seemed to have so faded
+that she could no longer trace it. The most distinct picture was when
+she stood, her hand affectionately laid on his shoulder, singing Ulick's
+music. She had forgotten the music and Ulick himself, but her father,
+how near she was to him in all her sympathies and instincts! Another
+moment, equally distinct, was when she had looked up and seen him in the
+choir loft conducting with calm skill.
+
+He was coming to-night to hear her sing Elizabeth; that was the great
+event, for without his approval all the newspapers in the world were as
+nothing, at least to her. She hummed a little to herself to see if she
+were in voice. To convince him that she sang as well as mother was out
+of the question, but she might be able to convince him that she could do
+something that mother could not have done. It was strange that she
+always thought of mother in connection with her voice; the other singers
+did not seem to matter; they might sing better or worse, but the sense
+of rivalry was not so intimate. The carriage crossed Westminster Bridge,
+and as she looked down the swirling muddy current, her mother's face
+seemed to appear to her. In some strange way her mother had always
+seemed more real than her father. Her father lived on the surface of
+things, in this life, whereas her mother seemed independent of time and
+circumstance, a sort of principle, an eternal essence, a spirit which
+she could often hear speaking to her far down in her heart. Since she
+had seen her mother's portrait, this sensation had come closer; and
+Evelyn drew back as if she felt the breath of the dead on her face, as
+if a dead hand had been laid upon hers. The face she saw was grey,
+shadowy, unreal, like a ghost; the eyes were especially distinct, her
+mother seemed aware of her; but though Evelyn sought for it, she could
+not detect any sign of disapproval in her face. She looked always like a
+grey shadow; she moved like a shadow. Evelyn was often tempted to ask
+her mother to speak. Her prayer had always been a doubting, hesitating
+prayer, perhaps that was why it had not been granted. But now, sitting
+in her carriage in a busy thoroughfare, she seemed to see over the brink
+of life, she seemed to see her mother in a grey land lit with stars. She
+recalled Ulick's tales of evocation, and wondered if it were possible to
+communicate with her mother. But even if she could speak with her, she
+thought that she would shrink from doing so. She thought of what Ulick
+had said regarding the gain and loss of soul, how we can allow our soul
+to dwindle, and how we can increase it until communion with the
+invisible world is possible. She felt that it were a presumption to
+limit life to what we see, and Owen's argument that ignorance was the
+cause of belief in ghosts and spirits seemed to her poor indeed. Man
+would not have entertained such beliefs for thousands of years if they
+had been wholly false.
+
+Ulick was coming to-morrow. But he was going to read through Isolde's
+music with her, and she could hardly fail to learn something, to pick up
+a hint which she might turn to account.... Her conduct had been
+indiscreet; she had encouraged him to make love to her. But in this case
+it did not matter; he was a man who did not care about women, and she
+recalled all he had said to convince herself on this point. However this
+might be, the idea of her falling in love with him was out of the
+question. A second lover stripped a woman of every atom of self-esteem,
+and she glanced into her soul, convinced that she was sincere with
+herself, sure or almost sure that what she had said expressed her
+feelings truthfully. But in spite of her efforts to be sincere, there
+was a corner of her soul into which she dared not look, and her thoughts
+drew back as if they feared a lurking beast.
+
+Immediately after, she remembered that she had vowed in church that she
+would ask Owen to marry her. Owen would say yes at once, he would want
+to marry her at the end of the week; and once she was married, she would
+have to leave the stage. She would not be able to play Isolde.... But
+she knew the part! it would seem silly to give up the stage on the eve
+of her appearance in the part. It would be such a disappointment to so
+many people. All London was looking forward to seeing her sing Isolde.
+Mr. Hermann Goetze, what would he say? He would be entitled to
+compensation. A nice sum Owen would have to pay for the pleasure of
+marrying her. If she were to pay the indemnity--could she? It would
+absorb all her savings. More than all. She did not think she could have
+saved more than six or seven thousand pounds. The manager might claim
+twenty. Her thoughts merged into vague calculations regarding the value
+of her jewellery.... Even Owen would not care to pay twenty thousand
+pounds so that he might marry her this season instead of next. Next year
+she was going to sing Kundry! Her face tightened in expression, and a
+painful languor seemed to weaken and ruin all her tissues. He might ask
+her why she had so suddenly determined to accept what she had often
+avoided, put aside, postponed. She would have to give some reason. If
+she didn't, he would suspect--what would he suspect? That she was in
+love with Ulick?
+
+She might tell Owen that she wished to be married on account of scruples
+of conscience. But she had better not speak of Monsignor. Any mention of
+a priest was annoying to him. In that respect he was even more
+arbitrary, more violent than ever. But a sudden desire to see him arose
+in her, and she told the coachman to drive to Berkeley Square.
+
+The trees wore their first verdure, and there was a melody among the
+boughs, and she took pleasure in the graceful female figure pouring
+water from the long-necked ewer. She lay back in her carriage, imitating
+the lady she had seen six years ago, regretting that she would not know
+her if she were to meet her; she might be one of her present friends.
+
+Owen's house had been freshly painted that spring, its balcony was full
+of flowers chosen by herself, and arranged according to her taste ...
+and a pleasant look of recognition lit up in the eyes of the footmen in
+the hall, and the butler, whom Evelyn remembered since the first day she
+came to Berkeley Square, was sorry indeed that Sir Owen was out. But he
+was sure that Sir Owen would not be long. Would she wait in Sir Owen's
+room, or would she like lunch to be served at once? She said she would
+wait in Sir Owen's room, and she walked across the hall, smiling at the
+human nature of the servants' admiration. If their master had a
+mistress, they were glad that he had one they could boast about. And
+picking up two songs by Schubert, and hoping she was in good voice, she
+sat down at the piano and sang them. Then, half aware that she was
+singing unusually well, she sang another. The third song she sang so
+beautifully that Owen stood on the threshold loth to interrupt her, and
+when she got up from the piano he said--
+
+"Why on earth don't you sing like that on the stage?"
+
+"Ah, if one only could," she said, laughing, and taking him by the hand,
+she led him to the sofa and sat beside him as if for a long talk.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I've seen him. It's all right."
+
+"I'm so glad. I hope you said something in my favour. I don't want him
+to think me a brute, a villainous seducer, the man who ruined his
+daughter?"
+
+"No, there was nothing of that kind."
+
+She began at first very gravely, but her natural humour overcame her,
+and she made him laugh, with her account of her wooing of her father,
+and the part the new harpsichord had played in their reconciliation
+delighted him. He was full of pleasant comments, gay and sympathetic; he
+was interested in her account of Ulick, and said he would like to know
+him. This pleased her, and looking into Owen's eyes, she wondered if she
+should ask him to marry her. They talked of their friends, of the
+performance that night at the opera, and Evelyn thought that perhaps
+Owen ought not to go there lest he should meet her father, and she
+remembered that she had only to ask him to marry her in order to make it
+quite easy for him to meet her father. Every moment she thought she was
+going to ask him; she determined to introduce the subject in the first
+pause in the conversation, but when the pause came she didn't or
+couldn't; her tongue did not seem to obey her. She talked instead things
+that did not interest either her or him--the general principles of
+Wagner's music, or some technicality, whether she should insist on the
+shepherd's song being played on the English horn. At last she felt that
+she could not continue, so fictitious and strained did the conversation
+seem to her.
+
+"Are you going already? I've not seen you for four days. We are dining
+to-morrow at Lady Merrington's."
+
+Owen hoped that she would sing there the three songs which she had just
+sung so well, but she answered instantly that she did not think she
+would, that she wanted to sing Ulick's songs. She knew that this second
+mention of Ulick's name would rouse suspicion; she tried to keep it
+back, but it escaped her lips. She was sorry, for she did not think that
+she wished to annoy. She would not stop to lunch, though she could not
+urge any better reason than that Lady Duckle was waiting for her, and
+when he wished to kiss her, she turned her head aside; a moody look
+collected in her eyes, an ugly black resentment gathered in her heart;
+she was ashamed of herself, for there was nothing to warrant her being
+so disagreeable, and to pass the matter off, she described herself as
+being aggressively virtuous that morning.
+
+On her singing nights she dined at half-past five, and the interval
+after dinner she spent in looking through her part, humming bits of it
+to herself, but to-day Lady Duckle was quick to remark the score of
+"Tannhaeuser" in her hand. She sat with it on her knees, looking at it
+only occasionally, for she was thinking how the music would appeal to
+her father, and how her mother would have sung it. But she had to
+abandon these vain speculations. She must play the part as she felt it,
+to tamper with her conception would be to court failure. To please
+herself was her only chance of pleasing her father; if he did not like
+her reading of the part, if her singing did not please him, it was very
+unfortunate, but could not be helped. And when the carriage came to take
+her to the theatre, she was not sure that she would not be glad to
+receive a telegram saying that he was prevented from coming. She was
+very nervous while dressing, and on coming downstairs she stood watching
+the stage-box where he was sitting. She could distinguish his handsome,
+grave face through the shadows, and the orchestra was playing that
+rather rhetorical address to the halls which neither she nor Ulick cared
+much about. She waited, forgetful of her entrance, and she had to hurry
+round to the back of the stage.
+
+But the moment the curtain went up, she became the mediaeval German
+princess; her other life fell behind her, and her father was but a
+little shadow on her brain. Yet he was the inspiration of her acting,
+and that night the whole theatre consisted for Evelyn of one stage-box.
+Her eyes never wandered there, but she knew that there sat her ultimate
+judge, one whom no excess or trick could deceive. He would not judge her
+by the mere superficial appearance she presented on the stage, by the
+superficial qualities of her voice or her acting; he would see to the
+origin of the idea, whence it had sprung, and how it had been developed.
+He did not know this particular opera, but he knew all music, and would
+judge it and her not according to the capricious taste of the moment,
+but in its relation and her relation to the immutable canons of art,
+from the plain chant to Palestrina, from Palestrina to Bach and
+Beethoven. Her singing of every phrase would be passed as it were
+through the long tradition of the centuries; it would not be accepted as
+an isolated fact, it would be judged good, indifferent or bad, by
+learned technical comparison. That she was his daughter would weigh not
+a hair's weight in the scale, and the knowledge of this terrible justice
+raised her out of herself, detached her more completely from the
+superficial and the vulgar. She sang and acted as in a dream,
+hypnotised by her audience, her exaltation steeped in somnambulism and
+steeped in ecstasy.
+
+The curtain was raised several times, but that night the only applause
+or censure she was minded to hear awaited her in her dressing-room. She
+sent her maid out of the room, and waited for some sound of footsteps in
+the corridor, and at the first sound she rushed to the door and flung it
+open. It was her father, Merat was bringing him along the corridor, and
+they stood looking at each other; her clear, nervous eyes were trembling
+with emotion. His face seemed to tell her that he was pleased; she read
+upon it the calm exaltation of art, yet she could not however summon
+sufficient courage to ask him, and they sat down side by side. At last
+she said--
+
+"Why don't you speak? Aren't you satisfied? Was I so bad?"
+
+"You are a great artist, Evelyn. I wish your mother were here to hear
+you."
+
+"Is that really true? Say it again, father. You are satisfied with me.
+Then I have succeeded."
+
+He told her why she had sung well, and he knew so well. It was like
+walking with a man with a lantern; when he raised the light, she could
+see a little farther into the darkness. But she had still the prayer to
+sing to him. She wanted to know what he would think of her singing of
+the prayer. The voice of the call-boy interrupted them. She sang the
+prayer more purely than ever, and the flutes and clarionettes led her up
+a shining road, and when she walked up the stage she seemed to disappear
+amid the palpitation of the stars.
+
+Her father was waiting for her, and on their way to the station she
+could see that he was absorbed in her art of singing. His remarks were
+occasional and disparate, but she guessed his train of thought,
+supplying easily the missing links. His praise was all inferential, and
+this made it more delicate and delicious. On bidding him good-night he
+asked her to come to choir practice. She would have liked to, but her
+accompanist was coming at half-past ten.
+
+There were few days when she was not singing at night that she dispensed
+with her morning's work. She considered herself like a gymnast, bound to
+go through her feats in private, so as to assure herself of her power of
+being able to go through them in public. Even when she knew a part, she
+did not like to sing it many times without studying it afresh. She
+believed that once a week was as often as it was possible to give a
+Wagner opera, and even then an occasional rehearsal was indispensable if
+the first high level of excellence was to be maintained.
+
+With her morning's work she allowed no one to interfere. Owen was often
+sent away, or retained for such a time as his criticism might be of use.
+But to-day she was expecting Ulick; he had promised to go through the
+music with her; so when Merat came to tell her that the pianist had
+arrived, she hesitated, uncertain whether she should send him away. But
+after a moment's reflection she decided not to forego her serious study
+of the part. She only wished to talk to Ulick about the music, to sing
+bits of it here and there, to question him regarding certain readings,
+to get at his ideas concerning it. All that was very interesting and
+very valuable in a way, but it was not hard work, and she felt,
+moreover, that hard work was just what she wanted before the rehearsals
+of "Tristan" began; there were certain passages where she was not sure
+of herself. She thought of the cry Isolde utters in the third act when
+Tristan falls dead. The orchestra comes in then in a way very perplexing
+for the singer, and she had not yet succeeded in satisfying herself with
+those few bars.
+
+"Tell the young man that I shall be with him in half an hour."
+
+And when she had had her bath and her hair was dressed, she tied a few
+petticoats round her waist and slipped on a morning wrapper; that was
+enough, she paid no heed to her accompanist, treating him as if he were
+her hairdresser. She sang sitting close to his elbow, her arm familiarly
+laid upon the back of his chair, a little grey woollen shawl round her
+shoulders. In the passages requiring the whole of her voice, she got up
+and sang them right through, as if she were on the stage, listened to by
+five thousand people. Owen, accustomed as he was to her voice, sometimes
+couldn't help wondering at the power of it; the volume of sound issuing
+from her throat drowned the piano, threatening to break its strings. Her
+ear was so fine that it detected any slightest tampering with the text.
+"You have given me a false chord," she would say; and sure enough, the
+pianist's fingers had accidentally softened some harshness. Sometimes he
+ventured a slight criticism. "You should hold the note a little longer."
+Then she would sing the passage again.
+
+After singing for about two hours she had lunch. That day she was
+lunching with Lady Ascott, and did not get away until after three
+o'clock. Owen came to fetch her, and they went away to see pictures. But
+more present than the pictures were Ulick's dark eyes, and Owen noticed
+the shadow passing constantly behind her eyes. Twice she asked him what
+the time was, and she told him she would have to go soon.
+
+At last she said, "Now I must say good-bye."
+
+She could see he was troubled, and that she grieved him, and at one
+moment it was uncertain whether she would not renounce her visit and
+send Ulick a telegram. But she remembered that he had probably seen her
+father, and would be able to tell her more of what her father thought of
+her Elizabeth. It was that feeble excuse that sufficed to decide her
+conduct, and she bade him good-bye.
+
+Standing on the threshold of her drawing-room, Evelyn admired its
+symmetry and beauty. The wall paper, a delicate harmony in pale brown
+and pink roses, soothed the eye; the design was a lattice, through which
+the flowers grew. An oval mirror hung lengthwise above the white marble
+chimney piece, and the Louis XV. clock was a charming composition of two
+figures. A Muse in a simple attitude leaned a little to the left in
+order to strike the lyre placed above the dial; on the other side, a
+Cupid listened attentive for the sound of the hour, presumably his hour.
+There was a little lyrical inevitableness in the lines of this clock,
+and Owen could not come into the room without admiring it. On the
+chimney piece there were two bowls filled with violets, and the flowers
+partly hid the beautiful Worcester blue and the golden pheasants. And on
+either side of the clock were two Chelsea groups, factitious bowers made
+out of dark green shell-like leaves, in which were seated a lady in a
+flowered silk and a beribboned shepherd playing a flute.
+
+They had spent long mornings seeking a real Sheraton sofa, with six or
+eight chairs to match. For a long time they were unfortunate, but they
+had happened upon two sofas, certainly of the period, probably made by
+Sheraton himself. A hundred and twenty years had given a beautiful
+lustre to the satinwood and to the painted garlands of flowers, and the
+woven cane had attained a rich brown and gold; and the chairs that went
+with the sofa were works of art, so happy were the proportions of their
+thin legs and backs, and in the middle of the backs the circle of
+harmonious cane was in exquisite proportion.
+
+For a long while the question for immediate decision had become what
+carpet should be there. Evelyn had happened upon an old Aubusson carpet,
+a little threadbare, but the dealer had assured her that it could be
+made as good as new, and she had telegraphed to Owen to go to see its
+pale roses and purple architecture. He had written to her that its
+harmony was as florid, and yet as classical as an aria by Mozart. He was
+still more pleased when he saw it down, and he had spent hours thinking
+of what pictures would suit it, would carry on its colour and design.
+The Boucher drawing which he had bought at Christie's had seemed to him
+the very thing. He had brought it home in a cab.
+
+She was proud of her room, but she was doubtful if it would please
+Ulick, and was curious to hear what he would think of it. She remembered
+that Owen had said that such exquisite exteriorities were only possible
+in a pagan century, when man is content to look no farther than this
+strip of existence for the reason of his existence and his birthright.
+And while waiting for Ulick she wondered what his rooms were like, and
+if she would ever go there. She expected him about five, and she sat
+waiting for him by her tea-table amid the eighteenth century furniture,
+a little to the right of the Boucher.
+
+She watched him as he came towards her, expecting and hoping to see him
+cast a quick glance at the picture. He shook hands with her vaguely, and
+sat down on a Sheraton chair and fixed his eyes on the Aubusson carpet.
+She thought for some time that he was examining it, but at last the
+truth dawned; he did not see it at all, he was maybe a thousand years
+away, lost in some legendary past. Had she not seen him before pass from
+such remote mood and become suddenly animated and gay, she would have
+despaired of any pleasure in his visit. Above everything else she was
+minded to ask him if he had seen her father, and if her father had
+spoken to him about her Elizabeth. But shyness prevented her, and she
+spoke to him about ordinary things, and he answered her questions
+perfunctorily, and without any apparent reason he got up and walked
+about the room; but not looking at any object, he walked about, with
+hanging head, absorbed in thought. "If he won't look at me he might look
+at my room, I'm sure that is pretty enough," and she sat watching him
+with smiling eyes. When she asked him what he thought of the Boucher, he
+said that no doubt it was very graceful, but that the only art he took
+interest in, except Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci and some German
+Primitives, was Blake. Then he seemed to forget all about her, and she
+had begun to think his manner more than usually unconventional, and,
+having made all the ordinary remarks she could think of, she asked him
+suddenly if he had seen her father, and if he had said anything to him
+about her Elizabeth.
+
+"I went to Dulwich on purpose to hear."
+
+She blushed, and was very happy. It was delicious to hear that he was
+sufficiently interested in her to go to Dulwich on purpose to inquire
+her father's opinion of her Elizabeth.
+
+"I wonder if he will like my Isolde as well."
+
+He did not answer, and his silence filled her with inquietude.
+
+"I have been thinking over what you said regarding your conception of
+the part."
+
+She waited for him to tell her what conclusion he had come to, but he
+said nothing. At last he got up, and she followed him to the piano. When
+she came to the passage where Isolde tells Brangaene that she intended to
+kill Tristan, he stopped.
+
+"But she is violent; hear these chords, how aggressive they are. The
+music is against you. Listen to these chords."
+
+"I know those chords well enough. You don't suppose I am listening to
+them for the first time. I admit that there are a few places where she
+is distinctly violent. The curse must be given violently, but I think it
+is possible to make it felt that her violence is a sexual violence, a
+sort of wish to go mad. I can't explain. Can't you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I think I do; you want to sing the first part of the act
+languidly. There is more in the music which supports your reading than I
+thought. In the passage where Isolde says to Brangaene, but really to
+herself, 'To die without having been loved by that man!' the love motive
+appears here for the first time, but more drawn out, broader than
+elsewhere."
+
+She declared that Wagner had emphasised his meaning in this passage as
+if he had anticipated all the misreadings of this first act, and was
+striving to guard himself against them. She grew excited in the
+discussion. She had merely followed her instinct, but she was glad that
+Ulick had challenged her reading, for as they examined the music clause
+by clause, they found still further warrant for her conception.
+
+"Ah, the old man knew what he was doing," she said; "he had marked this
+passage to be sung gloomily, and by gloomily he meant infinite
+lassitude." But this intention had not been grasped, and the singers had
+either sung it without any particular expression, or with a stupid stage
+expression which meant if possible something less than nothing. "Then,
+you see, if I sing the first half of the first act as wearily as the
+music allows me, I shall get a contrast--an Isolde who has not drunk the
+love potion. The love potion is of course only a symbol of her surrender
+to her desire."
+
+Ulick would have liked to have gone through the whole of the music of
+the act with her. It was only in this way that he could get an idea of
+how her reading would work out. But in that moment each read in the
+other's eyes an avowal of which they were immediately ashamed, and which
+they tried to dissimulate.
+
+"I am tired. We won't have any more music this evening."
+
+His thoughts seemed to pass suddenly from her, and then, without her
+being aware how it began, she found herself listening intently to him.
+He was talking in that strange, rhythmical chant of his about the primal
+melancholy of man, and his remote past always insurgent in him. Although
+she did not quite understand, perhaps because she did not quite
+understand, she was carried away far out of all reason, and it seemed to
+her that she could listen for ever. Nor could she clearly see out of her
+eyes, and she felt all power of resistance dissolve within her. He might
+have taken her in his arms and kissed her then; but though sitting by
+her, he seemed a thousand miles away; his remoteness chastened her, and
+she asked him of what he was thinking.
+
+"When your father used to speak of you, I used to see you; sometimes I
+used to fancy I heard you. I did hear you once sing in a dream."
+
+"What was I singing? Wagner?"
+
+"No; something quite different. I forgot it all as I awoke except the
+last notes. I seemed to have returned from the future--you seemed in the
+end to lose your voice.... I cannot tell you--I forget."
+
+"It is very sad; how sad such feelings are."
+
+"But I never doubted that I should meet you, that our destinies were
+knit together--for a time at least."
+
+She wanted to ask him by what signs do we recognise the moment that we
+are destined to meet the one that is more important to us than all the
+world. But she could find no way of asking this question that would not
+betray her. She could not put it so that Ulick would fail to read some
+application of the question to herself, and to himself. So it seemed
+strange indeed that he should, as if in answer to her unexpressed
+thought, say that the instinct of man is to consult the stars. She
+remembered the evenings when she used to go into the patch of black
+garden and gaze at the stars till her brain reeled. She used even to
+gather the daffodils and place them on the wall in homage to the star
+which she felt to be hers. She could not refrain from this idolatrous
+act; but in her bed at night, thinking of the flowers and the star, she
+had believed herself mad or very wicked; for nothing in the world would
+she have had anyone know her folly, and she remembered the agony it had
+been to her to confess it. But now she heard that she had been acting
+according to the sense of the wisdom of generations. As he had said,
+"according to the immortal atavism of man."
+
+With her ordinary work-a-day intelligence, she felt that the stars could
+not possibly be concerned in our miserable existence. But deep down in
+her being someone who was not herself, but who seemed inseparable from
+her, and over whom she had no slightest control, seemed to breathe
+throughout her entire being an affirmation of her celestial dependency.
+She could catch no words, merely a vague, immaterial destiny like
+distant music; and her ears filled with a wailing certitude of an
+inseverable affinity with the stars, and she longed to put off this
+shameful garb of flesh and rise to her spiritual destiny of which the
+stars are our watchful guardians. It was like deep music; words could
+not contain it, it was a deep and indistinct yearning for the stars--for
+spiritual existence. She was conscious of the narrowness of the
+prison-house into which Owen had shut her, and looking at Ulick, she
+felt the thrill of liberation; it was like a ray of light dividing the
+dark. Looking at Ulick, she was startled by the conviction of his
+indispensability in her life, and the knowledge that she must repel him
+was an acute affliction, a desolate despair. It seemed cruel and
+disastrous that she might not love him, for it was only through love
+that she could get to understand him, and life without knowledge of him
+seemed failure.
+
+"I'm very fond of you, Ulick, but I mustn't let you kiss me. Can't we
+be friends?"
+
+He sat leaning a little forward, his head bent and his eyes on the
+carpet. He represented to her an abysmal sorrow--an extraordinary
+despair. She longed to share this sorrow, to throw her arms about him
+and make him glad. Their love seemed so good and natural, she was
+surprised that she might not.
+
+"Ulick."
+
+"Yes, Evelyn."
+
+He looked round the room, saw it was getting late, and that it was time
+for him to go.
+
+"Yes, it is getting late. I suppose you must go. But you'll come to see
+me again. We shall be friends, promise me that ... that whatever happens
+we shall be friends."
+
+"I think that we shall always be friends, I feel that."
+
+His answer seemed to her insufficient, and they stood looking at each
+other. When the door closed after him, Evelyn turned away, thinking that
+if he had stayed another moment she must have thrown herself into his
+arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+Dreams was the first of the five, but the music that haunted belonged to
+the third song. She could not quite remember a single phrase, nor any
+words except "pining flowers." She had thought of sending for it, but
+such vague memory suited her mood better than an exact text. If she had
+the song she would go to the piano, and she did not wish to move from
+the Sheraton sofa, made comfortable with pale blue cushions. But again
+the music stirred her memory like wind the tall grasses, and out of the
+slowly-moving harmonies there arose an invocation of the strange pathos
+of existence; no plaint for an accidental sorrow, something that
+happened to you or me, or might have happened, if our circumstances had
+been different; only the mood of desolate self-consciousness in which
+the soul slowly contemplates the disaster of existence. The melancholy
+that the music exhales is no querulous feminine plaint, but an
+immemorial melancholy, an exalted resignation. The music goes out like a
+fume, dying in remote chords, and Evelyn sat absorbed, viewing the world
+from afar, like the Lady of Shallott, seeing in the mirror of memory the
+chestnut trees of the Dulwich street, and a little girl running after
+her hoop; and then her mother's singing classes, and the expectation she
+had lived in of learning to sing, and being brought upon the stage by
+her mother. If her mother had lived, she would have been singing "Romeo
+and Juliet" and "Lucia." ... Her father would have deemed her voice
+wasted; but mother always had had her way with father. Then she saw
+herself pining for Owen, sick of love, longing, hungry, weak, weary,
+disappointed, hopeless. Her thoughts turned from that past, and her
+mother's face looked out of her reverie, grey and grave and watchful,
+only half seen in the shadows. She seemed aware of her mother as she
+might be of some idea, strangely personal to herself, something near and
+remote, beyond this span of life, stretching into infinity. She seemed
+to feel herself lifted a little above the verge of life, so that she
+might inquire the truth from her mother; but something seemed to hold
+her back, and she did not dare to hear the supernatural truth. She was
+still too thrall to this life of lies, but she could not but see her
+mother's face, and what surprised her was that this grey shadow was more
+real to her than the rest of the world. The face did not stir, it
+always wore the same expression. Evelyn could not even tell if the
+expression of the dim eyes was one of disapproval. But it needs must
+be--she could have no doubt on that point. What was certain and sure was
+that she seemed in a nearer and more intimate, in a more essential
+communication with her mother, than with her father who was alive.
+Nothing seemed to divide her from her mother; she had only to let her
+soul go, and it could mingle with her mother's spirit, and then all
+misunderstandings would be at an end.
+
+She was tempted to free herself from this fettering life, where all is
+limitation and division. Its individualism appeared to her particularly
+clear when she thought of Owen. They had clasped and kissed in the hope
+to become part of the other's substance. They had sought to mingle, to
+become one; now it was in the hope of a union of soul that Owen sought
+her, his kisses were for this end. She had read his desire in his eyes.
+But the barrier of the flesh, which at first could barely sunder them,
+now seemed to have acquired a personal life, a separate entity; it
+seemed like some invisible force thrusting them apart. The flesh which
+had brought them together now seemed to have had enough of them; the
+flesh, once gentle and persuasive, seemed to have become stern,
+relentless as the commander in "Don Juan." She thought of it as the
+forest in "Macbeth"; of something that had come out of the inanimate,
+angry and determined--a terrible thing this angry, frustrated flesh.
+Like the commander, it seemed to grasp and hurry her away from Owen, and
+she seemed to hear it mutter, "This vain noise must cease." The idea of
+the flesh was not their pleasure, but the next generation; the
+frustrated flesh was now putting them apart. She hummed the music, and
+the life she had lived continued to loom up and fall back into darkness
+like shapes seen in a faded picture. She had loved Owen, and sung a few
+operas, that was all. She remembered that everything was passing; the
+notes she sang existed only while she sang them, each was a little past.
+A moment approaches; it is ours, and no sooner is it ours than it has
+slipped behind us, even in the space of the indrawing of a breath. No
+wonder, then, that men had come to seek reality beyond this life; it was
+natural to believe that this life must be the shadow of another life
+lying beyond it, and she leaned forward, pale and nervous, in the pale
+grace of the Sheraton sofa.
+
+Her depression that morning was itself a mystery. What did it mean?
+Whence did it proceed? She had not lost her voice. Owen did not love her
+less. Ulick was coming to see her; but within her was an unendurable
+anxiety. It proceeded from nothing without; it was her own mind that
+frightened her. But just now she had been exalted and happy in the
+memory of that deeply emotional music. She tried to remember the exact
+moment when this strange, penetrating sorrow had fallen upon her.
+Whence had it come, and what did it mean? A few minutes ago it was not
+with her. She knew that it would not always be with her, yet it did not
+seem as if it would ever leave her. She could not think of herself as
+ever being happy again. But Ulick would distract this misery from her
+brain. She would send him to the piano, and the exalted sorrow in the
+music, which she could but faintly remember, would raise her above
+sorrow, would bear her out of and above the circle of personal
+despondency. Ulick might help her; she could not help herself. She was
+incapable of going to the piano, though she was fully conscious that her
+mood would pass away in music. She walked across the room, her eyes
+contracted with suffering, and she stretched herself like one who would
+rid herself of a burden.
+
+She felt as if she could resign with a little smile the part that she
+had to play in life. Not the past, that was no longer hers either to
+preserve or to blot out; she could not wish herself different from what
+she had been; but the future--was that to be the same as the past? Then,
+with an apparent contradiction to what she had been thinking a few
+moments before regarding the worthlessness of life, she began to think
+that her unhappiness was possibly the result of her eccentric life. She
+had lived in defiance of rules, governed by individual caprice.
+Apparently it had succeeded, but only apparently. Underneath the surface
+of her life she had always been unhappy. All her talent, all her
+intelligence had not been able to save her. And Owen? All that pride of
+intelligence had resulted in unhappiness in his case as in hers. Both
+had disobeyed the law which we feel to be right when we look into the
+very recesses of our soul, and that these laws seem foolish and
+illogical when criticised by the light of reason does not prove their
+untruth. There is something beyond reason, and to become concentric, to
+enter into the conventions, seemed to her in a vague and distant manner
+to be indispensable. She was weary of living in the inhospitable regions
+outside of prejudice and authority.... She felt that it was prejudice
+and authority that gave a meaning, or a sufficient semblance of a
+meaning, to life as it was; she was a helpless atom tossed hither and
+thither by every gust of passion as a leaf in a whirlwind, and she
+longed to understand herself and her mission in life.
+
+In her present attitude towards life, nothing mattered except the
+present reality, the satisfaction of the moment; her present conception
+of life only counselled sacrifice of personal desires for the sake of
+larger desires. But these larger satisfactions did not differ in kind
+from the lesser, and all went the same way, the pleasure we take in a
+bunch of violets, or that which a love story brings, and both pass, but
+one leaves neither remorse nor bitterness behind. A thought told her
+that she was, while in the midst of these moral reflections, preparing
+herself to be Ulick's mistress. She denied the thought and put it
+behind her angrily, attributing its intrusion to her nerves, and to
+separate herself from it she allowed thoughts on the mutability of
+things to again exclusively occupy her. If she were to get up from the
+sofa she would create another division in her life, and to-morrow she
+would not remember her mood of to-day; it would have vanished as if it
+had never been. She asked, What do we live for? and rose nervously from
+the sofa, and then stood still. That half-hour was now behind her; again
+her place in life had been shifted. Yesterday, too, was gone, and with
+it the pleasure of her walk with Ulick. She had walked with him
+yesterday in the Green Park, in the still crystal evening. She could
+almost see the two figures, she could see them at one spot, but if she
+looked too long they disappeared from her eyes. She remembered nothing
+of what they had said, only that the colour of the evening was pale
+blue, with a little east wind in it, and that was yesterday! They had
+talked and walked, and been tremulously interested in each other; but
+she remembered nothing that had been said until they turned to go home.
+Then arose an exact vision of herself and Ulick walking under the
+graceful trees which overhung the Piccadilly railings. There the park
+had been shaped into little dells, and it had reminded her of the
+picture in the Dulwich Gallery. There his pleading was more passionate.
+He had begged her to go away with him, and she had had to answer that
+she could not give Owen up. She had felt that it was better to speak
+frankly, though she was sorry to have to say things that would give him
+pain. She had told him the truth, and was glad she had done so, but she
+liked him very much, and had said it was a pity they had not met
+earlier. "I missed you by about a year," he answered. His words came
+back to her, and she wondered if there was a cause for the accident, and
+if it could have been predicted. They had walked slowly up the pathways,
+and seeing the young summer in the sky and trees, they had walked as
+upon air, borne up by the sadness of finding themselves divided. They
+had thought of what forms and colours their lives would have taken if
+she had waited a few months, if she had not gone away with Owen; or,
+better still, if she had never met Owen. She was conscious that such
+thoughts amounted to an infidelity, and she knew that she did love Ulick
+as she loved Owen. But the temptation was cruelly intense, and she could
+not wrench herself out of its grip. Their voices had fallen, they
+suffocated in the silence. Ulick had mentioned Blake's name, and she had
+accepted an artistic discussion as an escapement, but their hearts were
+overloaded, and it was in answer to his own thoughts that Ulick had
+spoken of the eighteenth-century mystic. For the question had arisen in
+him whether the passions of the flesh are not destructive of spiritual
+exaltation, and he told her that exaltation was the gospel according to
+Blake. We must seek to exalt ourselves, to live in the idea; sexual
+passion was a merely inferior state, but mean content was the true
+degradation.
+
+"Then passion is the highest plane to which the materialist can rise?"
+asked Evelyn, thinking of Owen.
+
+"Yes; I don't think I'm wrong in admitting that, in the main, that is
+Blake's contention."
+
+But at this point he had broken off his discourse, and told an anecdote
+in his half-witty, half-wistful way about an article which he had
+written on Blake and which had somehow strayed into the hands of a man
+and his wife living in Normandy. This couple were at the time engaged in
+continuing the tradition of Bastien Lepage. They laboriously copied what
+they saw in the fields--grey days, hobnailed boots and the rest of it.
+His article had, however, awakened them to the vanity of realism; and
+they had taken their pictures to a neighbouring tower, and at the top of
+it made a holocaust of all their abominable endeavour. And a few days
+after, two faded human beings had presented themselves at Ulick's
+lodgings in Bloomsbury, seemingly at once unhappy and excited, and
+professing their complete willingness to accept the gospel of life
+according to Blake. It was the man who did the talking, the woman, who
+was dressed in olive-green garments, acquiesced in what he said. They
+were tired of materialism; they had trudged that bleak road till they
+were weary, and now they desired Blake, submission to Blake, and were
+therefore disappointed when Ulick explained that Blake's doctrine was
+not subordination to Blake, but the very opposite, the development of
+self, the cultivation of personal will.
+
+"It was clear to me," Ulick said, "that the woman had abased herself
+before the man, that she ate what he ate, drank what he drank, thought
+what he thought, so I decided that we should begin with first
+principles; that the woman should decide for herself, without referring
+to her husband, what she should eat for dinner. But after some efforts
+to attain sufficient personal will, she confessed her incapacity, and I
+therefore proposed to the husband that she should be kept in her room
+until she had regained her will. They went away hopeful, but he called a
+few days after to tell me that the experiment had failed. For after
+striving for many hours to decide between soles and plaice, she had
+burst into tears, and I felt I could not advise him further."
+
+It had seemed a pity to ask Ulick how much of this story was true, how
+much invention; and it was a remembrance of the will-less lady in the
+olive-green gown that caused Evelyn's face to light up into smiles as
+she stood at the window watching for his coming.
+
+Her excuse for not marrying Owen was that she would have to retire from
+the stage. But she was not convinced that that was the real reason.
+There seemed to be another reason at the back of her mind which her
+reason could not drag out. She tried again and again, but it eluded
+her, and it was frightening to find that she had so little knowledge of
+the motives that had determined her life. Feeling that she must change
+her thoughts, she asked herself what a man like Ulick, of spiritual
+temperament, but uninfected with religious dogma, would think of her
+relations with Owen. "Ah, that was the front door bell!" She waited in a
+delicious tremble of expectation, and the servant announcing Sir Owen
+awoke her, and with a shock as painful as if she had been struck on the
+nape of the neck.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+On account of the numerous rehearsals demanded by Evelyn for the
+production of "Tristan and Isolde," Mr. Hermann Goetze's opera season
+was limited to four nights a week. But the hours she spent in the
+theatre were only a small part of the time she devoted to her idea. Her
+entire life was lived in or about the new incarnation, her whole life
+seemed to converge and rush into an ultimate channel, and Lady Ascott
+sought her in vain. She avoided social distractions, and the friends she
+saw were those who could talk to her about her idea. But while listening
+she forgot them, and absorbed in her dream strayed round the piano. She
+meditated journeys to Cornwall and Brittany; and one day when Owen
+called he heard that she had gone to Ireland, and was expected back
+to-morrow evening. She read Isolde into the morning paper, receiving
+hints from the cases that came up before the magistrates. She found
+Isolde in every book, all that happened seemed extraordinarily
+fortuitous, the light of her idea revealing significance in the most
+ordinary things. Her life was ransacked like an old work-box, all kinds
+of stages of mentality, opinions, beliefs, prejudices, trite and
+conventional enough, came up and were thrown aside. But now and then the
+memory of an emotion, of a feeling, would prove to be just what she
+wanted to add a moment's life to her Isolde; the memory of a gesture, of
+a look was sufficient, and she sank back in her chair, her eyes dilated
+and moody, thinking how she could work this truth to herself into the
+harmony of the picture she was elaborating.
+
+Evelyn had seen Rosa Sucher play the part, and had admired her rendering
+as far as we can admire that which is not only antagonistic, but even
+discordant to our own natures. She admitted it to be very sweeping,
+triumphant and loud, a fine braying of trumpets from the rise to the
+fall of the curtain. Rosa Sucher had no doubt attained an extraordinary
+oneness of idea, but at what price? Her Isolde was a hurricane, a sort
+of avalanche; and the woman was lost in the storm. She had missed the
+magic of the woman who, personal to our flesh and dream, breaks upon our
+life like the Spring; and this was just what Evelyn wanted to out on the
+stage. There was plenty of breadth, but it was breadth at the price of
+accent. There was a great frame and a sort of design within the frame,
+but in Evelyn's sense the picture was wanting. There was an
+extraordinary and incomprehensible neglect of that personal accent
+without which there is no life. And the difference between the Isolde
+who has not drunk, and the Isolde who has drunk the love potion which
+she, Evelyn, was so intent upon indicating, had never occurred to Rosa
+Sucher, or if it had, it had been swept aside as a negligible detail.
+After all, Isolde has to be a woman a man could be in love with, and
+that is not the impact and the shriek of a gale from the south-west. No
+doubt Rosa Sucher's idea of the part was Wagner's idea at one moment of
+his life. Wagner was a man with hundreds of ideas; he tried them all,
+retaining some and discarding others. Some half-dozen have fixed
+themselves immutably in certain minds, and an undue importance is given
+to them, an importance that Wagner would never have allowed. The absurd
+idea, propounded in the heat of controversy, that all the arts were to
+wax to one art in the music drama, that even sculpture was to be
+represented by attitudes of the actors and actresses! Wagner had written
+this thing in order to confound his enemies and bring the weak-kneed to
+his side, or maybe, it was merely written to make himself clear to
+himself. For it was impossible that a man of genius should be so
+seriously wanting in appreciation of sculpture as to think with the
+centre of his brain, that an actor standing, his hand on his hip, could
+fill the place hitherto occupied in the mind by, let us say, the Hermes
+of Praxiteles. Yet this idea still obtained at Bayreuth, and Rosa Sucher
+walked about, her arms raised and posed above her head, in the
+conventional, statuesque attitude designed for the decoration of beer
+gardens.
+
+"It really is very sad," Evelyn said, her eyes twinkling with the humour
+of the idea, "that anyone should think that such figuration could
+replace sculpture."
+
+"But you will not deny that the actor and the actress can supply part of
+the picturesqueness of a dramatic action."
+
+"No, indeed; but not by attitudinising, but by gestures that tell the
+emotion that is in the mind."
+
+By some obscure route of which they were not aware, these artistic
+discussions wound around the idea which dominated their minds, and they
+were led back to it continually. The story of "Tristan and Isolde"
+seemed to be their own story, and when their eyes met, each divined what
+was passing in the other's mind. The music was afloat on the currents of
+their blood. It gathered in the brain, paralysing it, and the nervous
+exhaustion was unbearable about six, when the servant had taken away the
+tea things; and as the afternoon drooped and the beauty of the summer
+evening began in the park, speech seemed vain, and they could not bring
+themselves to argue any longer.
+
+It was quite true that she had begun to feel the blankness of the
+positivist creed, if it were possible to call it a creed. There seemed
+nothing left of it, it seemed to have shrivelled up like a little
+withered leaf; true or false, it meant nothing to her, it crushed up
+like a dried leaf, and the dust escaped through her fingers. Then
+without any particular reason she remembered a phrase she had heard in
+the theatre.
+
+"As I always says, if one man isn't enough for a woman, twenty aren't
+too many."
+
+The homeliness of this speech seemed to accentuate the moral truth, and
+making application of it to herself, she felt that if she were to take
+another lover she would not stop at twenty. Her face contracted in an
+expression of disgust at this glimpse of her inner nature which had been
+flashed upon her; and looking into herself she could discover nothing
+but a talent for singing and acting. If she had not had her voice, God
+only knows what she would have been, and she turned her eyes from a
+vision of gradual decadence. If she were not to sink to the lowest, she
+must hold to her love of Owen, and not yield to her love of Ulick. This
+low nature which she could distinguish in herself she must conquer, or
+it would conquer her. "If one man isn't enough for a woman, twenty are
+not too many." The humble working woman who had uttered these words was
+right.... If she were to give way she would have twenty and would end by
+throwing herself over one of the bridges.
+
+She felt that she must marry Owen, and under this conclusion she stopped
+like one who has come face to face with a blank wall. But did she love
+him well enough to marry him? She loved him, but was her present love as
+intense as the love that had obsessed her whole nature in Paris six
+years ago? She tried to think that it was, and found casual consolation
+in the thought that if she were not so mad about him now as she was
+then, her love was deeper; it had become a part of herself, and was
+founded on such knowledge of his character that nothing could change or
+alter it. She knew now that in spite of all his faults she could trust
+him, and that was something; she knew that his love for her was
+enduring, that it was not a mere passing passion, as it easily might
+have been. He had given her fame, wealth, position--everything a woman
+could desire. Some might blame him for having taken her away from her
+home, but she did not blame him, for she knew that she could not have
+remained with her father at that time. If she had not gone away with
+Owen she might have killed herself; something had given way within her,
+she had to do what she had done.
+
+But did she love Owen, or was she getting tired of him? It was so easy
+to ask and so difficult to answer these questions. However closely we
+look into our souls, some part of the truth escapes us. One always
+slurred something or exaggerated something.... She remembered that Owen
+had been very tiresome lately; his egoism was ceaseless; it got upon her
+nerves, and she felt that, no matter what happened to her, she could
+not endure it. There were his songs! How tired she was of talking about
+his songs, the long considerations whether this chord or the other
+chord, this modulation or another, were the better. He could not compose
+a dozen bars without having them engraved and sending copies to his
+friends. He wished the whole world to be occupied about him and his
+affairs. He was so childish about his music. Other people said, "Oh,
+yes, very pretty," but she had to sing it. If she refused, it meant
+unpleasantness, and though he did not often say so, a charge of
+ingratitude, for, of course, without him she wouldn't have been able to
+sing at all. The worst of it was that he did not see the ridiculous
+side.
+
+When singing some of his songs, she had caught a look in people's eyes,
+a pitying look, and she could not help wondering if they thought that
+she liked such commonplace, or worse still, if they thought that she was
+obliged to sing it. But when she had remembered all he had done for her,
+it seemed quite a disgrace that she should hate to sing his songs. It
+was the one thing she could do to please him, and she reflected on her
+selfishness. She seemed to have no moral qualities; the idea she had
+expressed to Ulick regarding the necessity of chastity in women
+returned, and she felt sure that in women at least every other virtue is
+dependent on that virtue. But when Owen was ill she had travelled
+hundreds of miles to nurse him; she had not hesitated a moment, and she
+might have caught the fever. She wouldn't have done that if she did not
+love him.... She was always thinking how she could help him, she would
+do anything for him. But he was such a strange man. There were times
+when there was no one kinder, gentler, more affectionate, but at other
+times he turned round and snapped like a mad dog. The desire to be rude
+took him at times like a disease; this was his most obvious fault. But
+his worst fault, at least in her eyes, was his love of parade; his
+determination to appear to the world in the aspect which he thought was
+his by birth and position. Notwithstanding a seeming absence of
+affection and candour, he was always acting a part. True that he played
+the part very well; and his snobbery was never vulgar.
+
+Thinking of him profoundly, looking into his nature with the clear sight
+of six years of life with him, she decided that the essential fault was
+an inability to forego the temptation of the moment. For him the
+temptation of the moment was the greatest of all. He was the essential
+child, and had carried all the child's passionate egoism into his middle
+age. One gave way because everything seemed to mean so much more to him
+that it could to oneself. He could not be deprived of his toy; his toy
+came before everything. But why did he make himself offensive to many
+people by speaking against Christianity? It was so illogical to love
+art as he did and to hate religion.... He had listened much more
+indulgently to Ulick than she had expected, and seemed to perceive the
+picturesqueness of the gods, Angus and Lir. It was Christianity that
+irritated and changed him to the cynic he was not, and forced him into
+arguments which she hated: "that when you went to the root of things, no
+one ever acted except from a selfish motive" and his aphorism, "I don't
+believe in temptations that one doesn't yield to." Her thoughts went
+back over years, to the very day he had said the words to her for the
+first time.... It was true in a way, but it was not the whole truth. But
+to him it was the whole truth, that was the unfortunate part of it, and
+his life was a complete exemplification of this theory, and the result
+was one of the unhappiest men on the face of the earth. He would tell
+you he had the finest place in the world, and the finest pictures in the
+world, yet these things did not save him from unhappiness. He could not
+understand that happiness is attained through renunciation. He had never
+renounced anything, and so his life was a mere triviality. The clearness
+of her vision surprised her; she paused a moment and then continued. He
+must always be amused, he could not bear to be alone. Distraction,
+distraction, distraction was his one cry. She had to combat the spectre
+of boredom and save the man from himself. Hitherto she had done this, it
+had been her pleasure, but if she married him it would become her
+mission, her duty, her life. Could she undertake it? Her heart sank. He
+had worn her out, she could do no more. She grew frightened, life seemed
+too much for her; and then she bit her lips, and vowed that whatever it
+cost her she would marry him if he wished her to.... If she did not mean
+to take the consequences, she ought not to have gone away with him. To
+be Owen's wife was perchance her mission.
+
+It had always been arranged that they were to be married when she left
+the stage. But he wished her to remain on the stage till she had played
+Kundry; but if she were going to leave the stage she did not care to
+delay, nor did she care for the part of Kundry. The meaning of the part
+escaped her.... So the time had come for her to offer herself to Owen.
+Whatever his desires might be, his honour would force him to say Yes. So
+there was no escape. Fate had decreed it so, she was to be his wife; but
+one thing she need not endure, and that was unnecessary suspense. She
+had decided to go to Lady Ascott's ball.... But she wouldn't see him
+there. He was kept indoors by the gout. He had written asking her to
+come and pass the evening with him.... She might call to see him on her
+way to the ball; yes, that is what she would do, and she sat down at
+once and wrote a note.
+
+And she laughed and talked during dinner, and was surprised when Lady
+Duckle remarked how pale and ill she was looking, for she thought she
+was making a fine outward show of high spirits. She and Lady Duckle
+were dining alone, and she tried to devise a plan for going to Berkeley
+Square without taking Lady Duckle into her confidence. The horrible
+scene with Owen flitted before her eyes while talking of other things.
+And so the evening dragged itself out in the drawing-room.
+
+"Olive, I want to make a call before going to Lady Ascott's; I will send
+the carriage back for you."
+
+"But we need not get there until a quarter to one. There will be plenty
+of time."
+
+"Very well," Evelyn answered, as unconcernedly as she could. "I'll be
+here a little after twelve."
+
+In the carriage she remembered that she was going to the same house to
+tell him that she would be his wife as she had gone to tell him she
+would be his mistress.
+
+"Sir Owen has been very bad to-day, miss," the butler said in a
+confidential undertone. "It has taken him again in his right toe;" and
+he leaned forward to open the door of Owen's private sitting-room.
+
+She passed in, the door closed softly behind her, and she saw her lover
+lying in a large, chintz-covered arm-chair, full of cushions, deep like
+a feather bed. He held his book high, so that all the light of the
+electric lamp fell upon it, and the small, wrinkled face seemed to have
+suddenly grown older behind the spectacles, and the appearance at that
+moment was of a man just slipping over the years that divides middle
+from old age.
+
+In the single second that elapsed before they spoke, Evelyn felt and
+understood a great deal. Never had Owen seemed so like himself; the old
+age which so visibly had laid its wrinkles and infirmities upon him was
+clearly his old age, and the old age of his fathers before him. He was
+in his own old room, planned and ordered by himself. Even his arm-chair
+seemed characteristic of him. With whatever hardships he might put up in
+the hunting field or the deer forest, he believed in the deepest
+arm-chair that upholstery could stuff when he came home. In this room
+were his personal pictures, those he had bought himself. They, of
+course, included a beautiful woman by Gainsborough, and a pellucid
+evening sky, with a group of pensive trees, by Corot. There were
+beautiful painted tables and chairs, and marble and ormolu clocks, the
+refined and gracious designs of the best periods; and the sight of Owen
+sitting amid all these attempts to capture happiness, revealed to her
+the moral idea of which this man was but a symbol; and the thought that
+life without a moral purpose is but a passing spectre, and that our
+immortality lies in our religious life, occurred to her again. His first
+remark, too, about his gout, that it wasn't much, but just enough to
+make life a curse--could she tell him what end was served by torturing
+us in this way?--laid, as it were, an accent upon the thoughts of him
+that were passing in her mind.
+
+It was that crouching attitude in the arm-chair that had made him seem
+so old. Now that he had taken off his spectacles, and was standing up,
+he did not look older than his age. He wore a silk shirt and a black
+velvet smoking suit, and had kept his figure--it still went in at the
+waist. She admired him for a moment and then pitied him, for he limped
+painfully and pulled over one of his own chairs for her. But she
+declined it, choosing a less comfortable one, feeling that she must sit
+straight up if she were to moralise. She had imagined that the subject
+would introduce itself in the course of conversation, and that it would
+develop imperceptibly. She had imagined that they would speak of the
+first performance of "Tristan and Isolde," now distant but a couple of
+days, or of Lady Ascott's ball, at which she had promised to appear. But
+Owen had spoken of a song which he had re-written that afternoon, not
+having anything else to do. He believed he had immensely improved it,
+and wished that she would try it over. To sing one of his songs, to
+decipher manuscript, was the last thing she felt she could do, and the
+proposal irritated her. Her whole life was at stake; it had cost her a
+great deal to come to the decision that she must either marry him or
+send him away. Partly on purpose, and partly because she could not help
+it, her face assumed a calm and fixed expression which he knew well.
+
+"Evelyn, you're going to say something disagreeable. Don't, I've had
+enough to worry me lately; there's my mother's health, and this,
+miserable attack of gout."
+
+"I hope you won't think what I've come to say disagreeable, but one
+never knows." He waited anxiously, and after some pause she said, though
+it seemed to her that she had come to the point much too abruptly,
+"Owen, was it not arranged that we should marry when I left the stage?"
+She had not been able to lend herself to the diplomatic subtleties which
+she had been considering all the evening, and had stumbled in the first
+step. But the mistake had been made, they were face to face with the
+question--it was for her not to give way. She had noticed the look that
+had passed between his eyes, and she was not surprised at the slight
+evasion of his answer, "But you are going to sing Kundry next year?" for
+she knew him to be naturally as averse to marriage as she was herself.
+
+"I don't think I should succeed as Kundry. I don't know what the part
+means."
+
+"But she's a penitent. You like penitents; your Elisabeth--"
+
+"Elizabeth is different. Elizabeth is an inward penitent, Kundry is an
+external, and you know I can do nothing with externalities."
+
+He did not understand, and it was impossible to explain without entering
+into a complete exposition of Ulick's idea regarding "Parsifal." The
+subject of "Parsifal" had always been disagreeable to him, but he had
+not been able to find any argument against the art of it. So the
+criticism "revolting hypocrisy," "externality," and the statement that
+the prelude to "Lohengrin" was an inspiration, whereas the prelude to
+"Parsifal" was but a marvellous piece of handicraft, delighted him. He
+had always known these things, but had not been able to give them
+expression. He wondered how Evelyn had attained to so clear an
+understanding, and then, unconsciously detecting another mind in the
+argument, he said--
+
+"I wonder what Ulick Dean thinks of 'Parsifal?' Something original, I'm
+sure."
+
+She could not explain that she had not intended to deceive; she could
+not tell him that she was so pressed and obsessed by the question of her
+marriage that she hardly knew what she was saying, and had repeated
+Ulick's ideas mechanically. She already seemed to stand convicted of
+insincerity. He evidently suspected her, and all the while he spoke of
+Ulick and "Parsifal," she suffered a sort of trembling sickness, and
+that he should have perceived whence her enlightenment had come
+embittered her against him. Suddenly he came to the end of what he had
+to say; their eyes met, and he said,--
+
+"Very well, Evelyn, we'll be married next week; is that soon enough?"
+
+The abruptness of his choice fell upon her so suddenly, that she
+answered stupidly that next week would do very well. She felt that she
+ought to get up and kiss him, and she was painfully conscious that her
+expression was the reverse of pleased.
+
+"I don't want to limp to the altar; were it not for the gout I'd say
+to-morrow.... But something has happened, something has forced you to
+this?"
+
+He did not dare to suggest scruples of conscience. But his thoughts were
+already back in Florence.
+
+"Only that you often have said you'd like to marry me. One never knows
+if such things are true. It may have been mere gallantry on your part;
+on the other hand, I am vain enough to believe that perhaps you meant
+it." Then it seemed to her that she must be sincere. "As I am determined
+that our present relations shall cease, there was no help for it but to
+come and tell you."
+
+Her eyes were cast down; the expression of her face was calm resolution,
+whereas his face betrayed anxiety, and the twitching and pallor of the
+eyes a secret indecision with which he was struggling.
+
+"Then I suppose it is scruples of conscience.... You've been to Mass at
+St. Joseph's."
+
+"We won't enter into that question. We've talked it for the last six
+years; you cannot change me."
+
+The desire to please was inveterate in her, and she felt that she had
+never been so displeasing, and she was aware that he was showing to
+better advantage in this scene than she was. She wished that he had
+hesitated; if he had only given her some excuse for--She did not finish
+the sentence in her mind, but thought instead that she liked him better
+when he wasn't so good; goodness did not seem to suit him.
+
+She wore a beautiful attractive gown, a mauve silk embroidered with
+silver irises, and he regretted his gout which kept him from the ball.
+He caught sight of her as she passed down the glittering floor, saving
+with a pretty movement of her shoulders the dress that was slipping from
+them, he saw himself dancing with her.... They passed in front of a
+mirror, and looking straight over her shoulder his eyes followed the
+tremulous sparkle of the diamond wings which she wore in her hair. Then,
+yielding to an impulse of which he was not ashamed, for it was as much
+affection as it was sensual, he drew over a chair--he would have knelt
+at her feet had it not been for his gout--and passing his arm about her
+waist, he said--
+
+"Dearest, I'm very fond of you, you know that. It is not my fault if I
+prefer to be your lover rather than your husband." He kissed her on her
+shoulders, laying his cheek on her bosom. "Don't you believe that I am
+fond of you, Evelyn?"
+
+"Yes, Owen, I think you are."
+
+"Not a very enthusiastic reply. It used to be you who delighted to throw
+your arms about my neck. But all that is over and done with."
+
+"One is not always in such humours, Owen."
+
+Watching each other's eyes they were conscious of their souls; every
+moment it seemed as if their souls must float up and be discovered; and,
+while fearing discovery, there came a yearning to stand out of all
+shadow in the full light. But they could not tell their souls; words
+fell back abortive; and they recognised the mortal lot of alienation;
+and rebelling against it, he held her face, he sought her lips, but she
+turned her face aside, leaving him her cheek.
+
+"Why do you turn your lips away? It is a long time since I've kissed you
+... you're cold and indifferent lately, Evelyn."
+
+A memory of Ulick shot through her mind, and he would have divined her
+thought if his perception had not been blinded by the passion which
+swayed him.
+
+"No, Owen, no. We're an engaged couple; we're no longer lovers."
+
+"And you think that we should begin by respecting the marriage
+ceremony?"
+
+She seemed to lose sight of him, she perceived only the general idea,
+that outline of her life which he represented, and which she could in a
+way trace in the furniture of the room. It was in this room she had said
+she would be his mistress. It was from this room she had started for
+Paris. Her eyes lighted on the harpsichord. He had bought it in some
+vague intention of presenting it to her father, some day when they were
+reconciled; the viola da gamba he had bought for her sake; it was the
+poor little excuse he had devised for coming to see her at Dulwich.
+
+She saw the Gainsborough: how strange and remote it seemed! She looked
+at the Corot, its sentimentality was an irritation. In the Chippendale
+bookcases there were many books she had given him; and the white chimney
+piece was covered with her photographs. There he was, a tall, thin man,
+elegant and attractive notwithstanding the forty-five years, dressed in
+a silk shirt and a black smoking suit. Their eyes met again, she could
+see that he was thinking it over; but it was all settled now, neither
+could draw back, and the moments were tense and silent; and as if
+confronted by some imminent peril, she wondered.
+
+"You arranged that I should leave the stage when I married, and you say
+that we are to be married next week. You don't want me to throw up my
+engagement at Covent Garden? I should like to play Isolde."
+
+"Of course you must play Isolde; I must hear you sing Isolde."
+
+She felt that she must get up and thank him, she felt that she must be
+nice to him; and laying her hand on his shoulder, she said--
+
+"I hope I don't seem ungrateful; you have always been very good to me,
+Owen. I hope I shall make a good wife."
+
+"I think I am less changed than you; I don't think you care for me as
+you used to."
+
+"Yes, I do, Owen, but I am not always the same. I can't help myself."
+
+He watched her face; she had forgotten him, she was again thinking of
+herself. She had tried to be sincere, but again had been mastered by her
+mood. No, she did not dislike him, but she wished for an interval, a
+temporary separation. It seemed to her that she didn't want to see him
+for some weeks, some months, perhaps. If he would consent to such an
+alienation, she felt that she would come back fonder of him than ever.
+All this did not seem very sane, but she could not think otherwise, and
+the desire of departure was violent in her as a nostalgia.
+
+"We have been very fond of each other. I wonder if we shall be as happy
+in married life? Do you think we shall?"
+
+"I hope so, Owen, but somehow I don't see myself as Lady Asher."
+
+"You know everyone--Lady Ascott, Lady. Somersdean, they are all your
+friends, it will be just the same."
+
+"Yes, it'll be just the same."
+
+He did not catch the significance of the repetition. He was thinking of
+the credit she would do him as Lady Asher. He heard his friends
+discussing his marriage at the clubs. She was going to Lady Ascott's
+ball, and would announce her engagement there. To-morrow everyone would
+be talking about it. He would like his engagement known, but not while
+she was on the stage. But when he mentioned this, she said she did not
+see why their engagement should be kept a secret. It did not matter
+much; he was quite ready to give way, but he could not understand why
+the remark should have angered her. And her obstinacy frightened him not
+a little. If he were to find a different woman in his wife from the
+woman he had loved in the opera singer!
+
+"Evelyn, you have lived with me in spite of your scruples for the last
+six years; why should we not go on for one more year? When you have sung
+Kundry, we can be married."
+
+"Owen, do you think you want to marry me? Is not your offer mere
+chivalry? _Noblesse oblige_?"
+
+That he was still master of the situation caused a delicious pride to
+mount to his head. For a moment he could not answer, then he asked if
+she were sure that she had not come to care for someone else, and
+feeling this to be ineffective, he added--
+
+"I've always noticed that when women change their affections, they
+become a prey to scruples of conscience."
+
+"If I cared for anyone else, should I come to you to-night and offer to
+marry you?"
+
+"You're a strange woman; it would not surprise me if the reason why you
+wish to be married is because you're afraid of a second lover. That
+would be very like you."
+
+His words startled her in the very bottom of her soul; she had not
+thought of such a thing, but now he mentioned it, she was not sure that
+he had not guessed rightly.
+
+How well he understood one side of her nature; how he failed to
+understand the other! It was this want in him that made marriage between
+them impossible. She smiled mysteriously, for she was thinking how far
+and how near he had always been.
+
+"Tell me, Evelyn, tell me truly, is it on account of religious scruples,
+or is it because you are afraid of falling in love with Ulick Dean, that
+you came here to-night and asked me to marry you?"
+
+"Owen, we can live in contradiction to our theories, but not in
+contradiction to our feelings, and you know that my life has always
+seemed to me fundamentally wrong."
+
+For a moment he seemed to understand, but his egotism intervened, and a
+moment after he understood nothing, except that for some stupid morality
+she was about to break her artistic career sharp off.
+
+He strove to think what was passing behind that forehead. He tried to
+read her soul in the rounded temples, the bright, nervous eyes. His and
+her understanding of life and the mystery of life were as wide apart as
+the earth and the moon, and he could but stare wondering. No inkling of
+the truth reached him. As he strove to understand her mind he grew
+irritated, and turned against that shadow religion which had always
+separated them. Without knowing why--almost in spite of himself--he
+began to argue with her. He reminded her of her inconsistencies. She had
+always said that a lover was much more exciting than a husband. If it
+had not been for her religion, he did not believe they would have
+thought of marriage, they would have gone on to the end as they had
+begun. The sound of his voice entered her ears, but the meaning of the
+words did not reach her brain, and when she had said that she had come
+to him not on account of Ulick, but on account of her conscience, she
+sat perplexed, trying to discover if she had told the truth.
+
+"You're not listening, Evelyn."
+
+"Yes, I am, Owen. You said that I had always said that a lover was much
+more exciting than a husband."
+
+"If so, why then--"
+
+They stared blankly at each other. Everything had been said. They were
+engaged to be married. What was the use of further argument? She
+mentioned that it was getting late, and that Lady Duckle was waiting for
+her.
+
+"She will tell her first," he thought, "and she'll tell Lady Ascott.
+They'll all be talking of it at supper. 'So Owen has gone off at last,'
+they'll say. I'll hear of it at the club to-morrow."
+
+"I wonder what Lady Ascott will think?" he said, as he put her into the
+carriage.
+
+"I don't know.... I shall not go to the ball. Tell him to take me home."
+
+She lay back in the blue shadows of the brougham, striving to come to
+terms with herself, to arrive at some plain conclusion. It seemed to her
+that she had been animated by an honest and noble purpose. She had gone
+to Owen in the intention of marrying him if he wished to marry her,
+because it had seemed to her that it was her duty to marry him. But
+everything had turned out the very opposite of what she had intended,
+and looking back upon the hour she had spent with him, it seemed to her
+that she had certainly deceived him. She certainly had deceived herself.
+
+She could not believe that she was going to marry Owen. She felt that it
+was not to be, and before the presentiment her her soul paused. She
+asked herself why she felt that it was not to be. There was no reason;
+but she felt quite clear on the point, and could not combat the clear
+conviction. She began thinking the obvious drama--Owen discovering her
+with Ulick, declining ever to see her again, her suicide or his, etc.
+But she could not believe that Owen would decline ever to see her again
+even if--but she was not going to go wrong with Ulick, there was no use
+supposing such things, And again her thoughts paused, and like things
+frightened by the dark, withdrew silently, not daring to look further.
+
+She met Ulick every night at the theatre, and she had him to sit with
+her in her dressing-room during the entr'actes.... She remembered the
+pleasure she had taken in these conversations, and the strange, whirling
+impulse which drew them all the while closer, until they dreaded the
+touching of their knees. She had taken him back in the carriage and he
+had kissed her; she had allowed him to kiss her the other night, and she
+knew that if she were alone with him again that she would not be able to
+resist the temptation. Her thoughts turned a little, and she considered
+what her life would be if she were to yield to Ulick. Her life would
+become a series of subterfuges, and in a flash of thought she saw how,
+after spending the afternoon with Ulick, she would come home to find
+Owen waiting for her: he would take her in his arms, she would have to
+free herself, and, feeling his breath upon her cheek, save herself
+somehow from his kiss. He would suspect and question her. He would say,
+"Give me your word of honour that Ulick Dean is not your lover;" and she
+heard herself pledge her word in a lie, and the lie would have to be
+repeated again and again.
+
+Until she had met Ulick, she had not seen a man for years whose thoughts
+ranged above the gross pleasure of the moment, the pleasure of eating,
+of drinking, of love-making ... and she was growing like those people.
+The other night at dinner at the Savoy she had looked round the table at
+the men's faces, some seven or eight, varying in age from twenty-four to
+forty-eight, and she had said to herself, "Not one of these men has done
+anything worth doing, not one has even tried." Looking at the men of
+twenty-four, she had said to herself, "He will do all the man of
+forty-eight has done,--the same dinners, the same women, the same
+racecourses, the same shooting, the same tireless search after
+amusement, the same life unlit by any ideal." She was no better, Owen
+was no better. There was no hope for either of them? He had surrounded
+her with his friends, and she thought of the invitations ahead of her.
+Her profession of an opera singer chained her to this life.... She felt
+that a miracle would have to happen to extricate her from the social
+mire into which she was sinking, sinking.
+
+To give up Ulick would only make matters worse. He was the plank she
+clung to in the shipwreck of all her convictions. She could not tell how
+or why, but the conviction was overpowering that she could not give him
+up. Happen what might happen, she must see him. If Owen were to go for a
+sea voyage.... In three or four months she would have acquired that
+something which he could give her and which was necessary to complete
+her soul. She seemed to be quite certain on this point, and she lay back
+in the brougham lost in vague wonderment.  Her thoughts sank still
+deeper, and thoughts came to her that had never come before, that she
+had never dared to think before. Even if she were not done with Ulick
+when Owen returned, it seemed to her that she could make them and
+herself very happy; they both seemed necessary to her happiness, to her
+fulfilment; and in her dream, for she was not responsible for her
+thoughts, the enjoyment of this double love seemed to her natural and
+beautiful....
+
+But she awoke from her dream frightened, and feeling like one who has
+lost the clue which was to lead her out of the labyrinth.
+
+Instead of sending the footman to tell Lady Duckle that the carriage was
+waiting, Evelyn got out and went up to the drawing-room.
+
+"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Olive, but I can't go with you.
+Tell Lady Ascott I am very sorry. Good-night, I'm going to my room."
+
+"Oh, my dear Evelyn, not going ... and now that you're dressed."
+
+Evelyn allowed herself to be persuaded. If she went to bed now she would
+not sleep. She went to the ball with Lady Duckle, and as she went round
+in the lancers, giving her hand first to one and then to the other, she
+heard a voice crying within her, "Why are you doing these things? They
+don't interest you at all."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
+
+"Eternal night, oh, lovely night, oh, holy night of love." Rapture
+succeeded rapture, and the souls of the lovers rose, nearer to the
+surface of life. In a shudder of silver chords he saw them float away
+like little clouds towards the low rim of the universe.
+
+But at that moment of escape reality broke in upon the dream. Melot had
+betrayed them, and Ulick heard King Mark's noble and grave reproaches
+like a prophecy, "Thou wert my friend and didst deceive me," he sang,
+and his melancholy motive seemed to echo like a cry along the shore of
+Ulick's own life. Amid calm and mysteriously exalted melodies,
+expressive of the terror and pathos of fate fulfilled, Tristan's resolve
+took shape, and as he fell mortally wounded, the melancholy Mark motive
+was heard again, and again Ulick asked what meaning it might have for
+him. He heard the applause, loud in the stalls, growing faint as it rose
+tier above tier. Baskets of flowers, wreaths and bouquets were thrown
+from the boxes or handed up from the orchestra, the curtain was rung up
+again, and her name was called from different parts of the theatre. And
+when the curtain was down for the last time, he saw her in the middle of
+the stage talking to Tristan and Brangaene. The garden scene was being
+carried away, and to escape from it Evelyn took Tristan's hand and ran
+to the spot where Ulick was standing. She loosed the hand of her stage
+lover, and dropping a bouquet, held out two small hands to Ulick covered
+with violet powder. The hallucination of the great love scene was still
+in her eyes; it still, he could see, surged in her blood. She had nearly
+thrown herself into his arms, seemed regardless of those around; she
+seemed to have only eyes for him; he heard her say under her breath,"
+That music maddens me," then with sudden composure, but looking at him
+intently, she asked him to come upstairs with her.
+
+For the last few days he had been engaged in prediction, and last night
+he had been visited by dreams, the significance of which he could not
+doubt. But his reading of her horoscope had been incomplete, or else he
+had failed to understand the answers. That he was a momentous event in
+her life seemed clear, yet all the signs were set against their
+marriage; but what was happening had been revealed--that he should stand
+with her in a room where the carpet was blue, and they were there; that
+the furniture should be of last century, and he examined the cabinets in
+the corners, which were satinwood inlaid with delicate traceries, and on
+the walls were many mirrors and gold and mahogany frames.
+
+"Merat!" The maid came from the dressing-room. "You have some friends in
+front. You can go and sit with them. I sha'n't want you till the end."
+When the door closed, their eyes met, and they trembled and were in
+dread. "Come and sit by me." She indicated his place by her side on the
+sofa. "We are all alone. Talk to me. How did I sing to-night?"
+
+"Never did the music ever mean so much as it did to-night," he said,
+sitting down.
+
+"What did it mean?"
+
+"Everything. All the beauty and the woe of existence were in the music
+to-night."
+
+Their thoughts wandered from the music, and an effort was required to
+return to it.
+
+"Do you remember," she said, with a little gasp in her voice, "how the
+music sinks into the slumber motive, 'Hark, beloved;' then he answers,
+'Let me die'?"
+
+"Yes, and with the last note the undulating tune of the harps begins in
+the orchestra. Brangaene is heard warning them."
+
+They sat looking at each other. In sheer desperation she said--
+
+"And that last phrase of all, when the souls of the lovers seemed to
+float away."
+
+"Over the low rim of the universe--like little clouds."
+
+"And then?"
+
+He tried to speak of his ideas, but he could not collect his thoughts,
+and after a few sentences he said, "I cannot talk of these things."
+
+The room seemed to sway and cloud, and her arms to reach out
+instinctively to him, and she would have fallen into his arms if he had
+not suddenly asked her what had been decided at Sir Owen Asher's.
+
+"Let me kiss you, Evelyn," he said, "or I shall go mad."
+
+"No, Ulick, this is not nice of you. I shall not be able to ask you to
+my room again."
+
+He let go her hand, and she said--
+
+"I'm not going to marry Sir Owen, but I must not let you kiss me."
+
+"But you must, Evelyn, you must."
+
+"Why must I?"
+
+"Do you not feel that it is to be?"
+
+"What is to be?"
+
+"I do not know what, but I have been drawn towards you so long a
+while--long before I saw you, ever since I heard your name, the moment I
+saw that old photograph in the music-room, I knew."
+
+"What did you know?"
+
+"When I heard your name it called up an image in my mind, and that image
+has never wholly left me--it comes back often like a ghost."
+
+"When you were thinking of something different?"
+
+"I am your destiny, or one of your destinies."
+
+Her eyes were fixed eagerly upon him; his darkness and the mysteries he
+represented attracted her, and she even felt she could follow. At the
+same moment his eyes seemed the most beautiful in the world, and she
+desired him to make love to her. While enticing, she resisted him, now
+more feebly, and when he let go her hands she sat looking at him,
+wondering how she was to get through the evening without kissing him....
+She spoke to him about his opera. He asked her if she were going to sing
+it, and she looked at him with vague, uncertain eyes. He said he knew
+she never would. She asked him why he thought so, and again a great
+longing bent him towards her. She withdrew her hands and face from his
+lips, and they had begun to talk of other things when he perceived her
+face close to his. Unable to resist he kissed her cheek, fearing that
+she would order him from the room. But at the instant of the touching of
+his lips, she threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down as a
+mermaiden draws her mortal lover into the depths, and in a wondering
+world of miraculous happiness he surrendered himself.
+
+"Dearest, dearest," he said, raising himself to look at her.
+
+"Ulick, Ulick," she said, "let me kiss you, I've longed such a while."
+
+He thought he had never seen so radiant a face. What disguise had
+fallen? And looking at her, he strove to discover the woman who had
+denied him so often. This new woman seemed made all of light and love
+and transport, the woman of all his divinations, the being the old
+photograph in the old music-room had warned him of, the being that the
+voice of his destiny had told him he was to meet. And as they stood by
+the fireplace looking into each other's eyes, he gradually became aware
+of his happiness. It broke in his heart with a thrill and shiver like an
+exquisite dawn, opal and rose; the brilliancy of her eyes, the rapture
+of her face, the magnetic stirring of the little gold curls along her
+forehead were so wonderful that he feared her as an enchanter fears the
+spirit he has raised. Like one who has suddenly chanced on the hilltop,
+he gazed on the prospect, believing it all to be his. They stood gazing
+into each other's eyes too eager to speak, and when she called his name
+he remembered the legended forest, and replied with the song of the bird
+that leads Siegfried to Brunnhilde. She laughed, and sang the next two
+bars, and then seemed to forget everything.
+
+"Dearest, of what are you thinking?"
+
+"Only if I ever shall kiss you again, Ulick."
+
+"You will always kiss me!"
+
+She did not answer, and, frightened by her irresponsive eyes, he said--
+
+"But, Evelyn, you must love me, me--only me; you will never see him
+again?"
+
+She did not answer, and when he spoke, his voice trembled.
+
+"But it is impossible you can ever marry him now."
+
+"I am not going to marry Owen."
+
+"You told him so the other night?"
+
+"Yes, I told him, or very nearly, that I could not marry him."
+
+"You cannot marry him, you love me.... But why don't you answer. What
+are you thinking of?"
+
+"Only of you, dear.... Let me kiss you again," and in the embrace he
+forgot for the moment the inquietude her answer had caused him.
+
+"That is my call," she said. "How am I to sing the Liebestod after all
+this? How does it begin?"
+
+Ulick sang the opening phrase, and she continued the music for some
+bars.
+
+"I hope I shall get through it all right. Then," she said, "we shall go
+home together in the brougham."
+
+At that moment a knock was heard, and Merat entered. "Mademoiselle, you
+have no time to lose."
+
+The call boy's voice was heard on the stairs, and Evelyn hastened away.
+Ulick followed, and the first thing he heard when he got on the stage
+was Tristan's death motive. He listened, not so much to the music itself
+as to its occult significance regarding Evelyn and himself. And as
+Isolde's grief changed from wild lament for sensual delight to a
+resigned and noble prayer, the figure of ecstasy broke with a sound as
+of wings shaking, and Ulick seemed to witness a soul's transfiguration.
+He watched it rising in several ascensions, like a lark's flight. For an
+instant it seemed to float in some divine consummation, then, like the
+bird, to suddenly quench in the radiance of the sky. The harps wept
+farewell over the bodies of the lovers, then all was done, and he stood
+at the wings listening to the applause. She came to him at once, as soon
+as the curtain was down.
+
+"How did I sing it?"
+
+"As well as ever."
+
+"But you seem sad; what is it?"
+
+"It seemed to mean something--something, I cannot tell what, something
+to do with us."
+
+"No," she said, looking at him. "I was only thinking of the music. Wait
+for me, dear, I shall not keep you long."
+
+He walked up and down the stage, and in his hand was a wreath that some
+admirer had kept for the last. For excitement he could hardly bid the
+singers good-night as they passed him. Now it was Tristan, now Brangaene,
+now one of the chorus. The question raged within him. Was it fated that
+she should marry him? So far as he understood the omens she would not;
+but the readings were obscure, and his will threw itself out in
+opposition to the influence of Sir Owen. But he was not certain that
+that was the direction whence the danger was coming. He could only
+exert, however, his will in that direction. At last he saw her coming
+down the steep stairs, wrapped in a white opera cloak. They walked in
+silence--she all rapture, but his happiness already clouded. The
+brougham was so full of flowers that they, could hardly find place for
+themselves. She drew him closer, and said--
+
+"What is the matter, dear? Am I not nice to you?"
+
+"Yes, Evelyn, you're an enchantment. Only--"
+
+"Only what, dear?"
+
+"I fear our future. I fear I shall lose you. All has come true so far,
+the end must happen."
+
+She drew his arm about her waist, and laid his face on her bare
+shoulder.
+
+"Let there be no foreboding. Live in the present."
+
+"The future is too near us. Say you'll marry me, or else I shall lose
+you altogether. It is the one influence on our side."
+
+She was born, he said, under two great influences, but each could be
+modified; one might be widened, the other lessened, and both
+modifications might finally resolve into her destiny. So far as he could
+read her future, it centred in him or another. That other, he was sure,
+was not Sir Owen, nor was it himself, he thought; for when she and he
+had met in the theatre, she had experienced no dread, but he had dreaded
+her, recognising her as his destiny. He had even recognised her as
+Evelyn Innes before she had been pointed out to him.
+
+"But you had seen my photograph?"
+
+"But it was not by your photograph that I knew you."
+
+"And you knew that I should care for you?"
+
+"I knew that something had to happen. But you did not feel that I was
+your destiny. You said you experienced no dread, but when you met Sir
+Owen did you experience none?"
+
+"I suppose I did. I was afraid of him. At first I think I hated him."
+
+"Ah, Evelyn, we shall not marry--it is not our fate. You see that you
+cannot say you will marry me. Another fate is beckoning you."
+
+"Who is it who beckons me? Have I already met him?"
+
+He fell to dreaming again, and Evelyn asked him vainly to describe this
+other man.
+
+"Why are you singing that melancholy Mark motive?"
+
+"I did not know I was singing it." He returned to his dream again, but
+starting from it, he seized her hands.
+
+"Evelyn," he said, "we must marry; a reason obliges us. Have you not
+thought of it?" And then, as if he had not noticed that she had not
+answered his question, he said, "On your father's account, if he should
+ever know. Think what my position is. I have betrayed my friend. That is
+why the Marie motive has been singing in my head. Evelyn, you must say
+you will marry me. We must marry at once, for your father's sake. I have
+betrayed him, my best friend.... I have acted worse than that other
+man."
+
+"Ulick, dear, open the window; the scent of these flowers is
+overpowering.... That is better. Throw some of those bouquets into the
+street. We might give them to those poor men, they might be able to sell
+them.... Tell the coachman to stop."
+
+The chime of destiny sounded clearer than ever in their ears; it seemed
+as if they could almost catch the tune, and with a convulsive movement
+Evelyn drew her lover towards her.
+
+"Every hour threatens us," he said. "Can you not hear? Do not go to Park
+Lane--Park Lane threatens; your friend Lady Duckle threatens. I see
+nothing but threats and menaces; all are leagued against us."
+
+"Dearest, we cannot spend the night driving about London."
+
+He sighed on his mistress's shoulder. She threw his black hair from his
+forehead.
+
+"There is no hope. We shall be separated, scattered to different winds."
+
+"Why do you think that? How do you know these things, Ulick?"
+
+"Evelyn, in losing you I lose the principle of my life, but you will
+lose nothing in losing me. So it is written. But you are not listening;
+I am wearying you; you're clinging to the present, knowing that you will
+soon lose it."
+
+She threw herself upon him, and kissed him as if she would annihilate
+destiny on his lips, and until they reached Park Lane there was no
+future, only a delirious present for both of them.
+
+"I won't ask you in; I am tired. Good-bye, dearest, good-bye. I'll
+write."
+
+"Remember that my time is short," and there was a strange accent in his
+voice which she did not hear till long after. She had locked herself
+into the sensual present, and, lulled in happy sensations of gratified
+sense, she allowed Merat to undress her. She thought of the soft luxury
+of her bed, and lay down, her brain full of floating impressions of
+flowers, music and of love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
+
+And when Merat called her in the morning, she was dreaming of love. She
+turned over, and, closing her eyes, strove to continue her dream, but it
+fled like moonshine from her memory, and was soon so far distant that
+she could not even perceive the subject of it. And she awoke in spite of
+herself, and sat up in bed sipping her chocolate; and then lay back upon
+the pillow with Ulick for the inner circle of her thought. It seemed
+that she could think of him for hours; the romance of his personality
+carried her on and on. At one moment she dwelt on the gold glow in his
+dark eyes, the paint-like blackness of his hair, and his long thin
+hands. At another her fancy liked to evoke his superstitions. For him
+the past, present and future were not twain, but one thing. And every
+time she saw him, she was more and more interested. Every time she
+discovered something new in him--he did not exist on the surface of
+things, but deep in himself; and she wondered if she would ever know
+him.
+
+Her thoughts paused a moment, and then she remembered something he had
+said. It had struck her at the time, but now it appeared to her more
+than ever interesting. Catholicism, he had said, had not fallen from
+him--he had merely learnt that it was only part of the truth; he had
+gone further, he had raised himself to a higher spirituality. It was not
+that he wanted less, but more than Catholicism could give him. In
+religion, as in art, there were higher and lower states. We began by
+admiring "Faust," and went on to Wagner, hence to Beethoven and
+Palestrina. Catholicism was the spiritual fare of the multitude; there
+was a closer communion with the divine essence. She had forgotten what
+came next.... He held that we are always warned of our destiny and it
+had been proved that in the hypnotic sleep, when the pulse of life was
+weakest, almost at pause, there was a heightening of the powers of
+vision and hearing. A patient whose eyes had been covered with layers of
+cotton wool had been able to read the newspaper. Another patient had
+been able to tell what was passing in another mind, and at a distance of
+a mile. The only explanation that Charcot could give of this second
+experiment was that the knowledge had been conveyed through the rustling
+of the blood in the veins, which the hypnotic sleep had enabled the
+patient to hear. And Ulick submitted that this scientific explanation
+was more incredible than any spiritual one. There was much else. There
+was all Ulick's wonderful talk about the creation of things by thought,
+and his references to the mysterious Kabbala had strangely interested
+her. But suddenly she remembered that perchance his spiritualism was
+allied to the black art of the necromancers; and her Catholic conscience
+was mysteriously affrighted, and she experienced the attraction of
+terror. Was it possible that he believed that all the accidents, or what
+we suppose are accidents, have been earned in a preceding life? Did he
+really believe that lovers may tempt each other life after life, that a
+group of people may come together again?
+
+"Mademoiselle, it is half-past ten."
+
+"Very well, Merat, I will get up. I will ring for you when I have had my
+bath."
+
+"Lady Duckle has gone out, and will not be home for lunch."
+
+There was not even a letter, and the day stretched out before her. Ulick
+might call, but she did not think he would. She thought of a visit to
+her father, but something held her back, and Dulwich was a long way.
+After breakfast she went to the piano and sang some of Ulick's music;
+stopping suddenly in the middle of a bar, she thought she would send him
+a note asking him to come to lunch. But what should she do till two
+o'clock? it was now only eleven. Suddenly it struck her that she might
+take a hansom and go and see him. She had never seen his rooms, and to
+visit him there would be more amusing than for him to come to Park Lane;
+and she imagined his surprise and delight at seeing her. Her thoughts
+went to the frock she would wear--a new one had come home
+yesterday--this would be an excellent opportunity to wear it. She would
+take him to lunch with her at some restaurant! She was in excellent
+humour. Her thoughts amused her, and she reflected that she had done
+well to choose the pale shot silk with green shades in it. It was
+trimmed with black lace, and she selected a large black hat with black
+ostrich feathers to wear with it.
+
+And seeing the people in the streets as she drove past, she wondered if
+they were as happy as she was. She speculated on their errands, and
+wondered if many of the women were going, like her, to their lovers. She
+wondered what their lovers were like, and she laughed at her thoughts.
+Seeing that she was passing through a very mean street, she hoped that
+Ulick's rooms were not too Bohemian, and felt relieved when she found
+that the street she dreaded led into a square. A square, she reflected,
+always means a certain measure of respectability. And the faded,
+old-fashioned neighbourhood pleased her. Some of the houses seemed as if
+they had known more fashionable days; and the square exhaled a tender
+melancholy; it suggested a vision of dreamy lives--lives lived in
+ideas, lives of students who lived in books unaware of the externality
+of things.
+
+But the cabman could not find the number, and Evelyn impatiently
+inquired it from the vagrant children. There were groups of them on the
+wide doorstep, and Evelyn imagined the interior of the house, wide
+passages, gently-sloping staircase, its heavy banisters. It surprised
+and amused her to find that she had imagined it quite correctly; and
+when she reached the landing to which she had been directed, she
+stopped, hearing his voice. He was only talking to himself; she pushed
+the door and called to him.
+
+"Oh, it is you?" he said; "you have come sooner than I expected."
+
+"Then you expected me, Ulick?"
+
+"Yes, I expected you."
+
+"Expected me ...to-day! But, Ulick, what were you saying when I came
+in?"
+
+"Only some Kabbalistic formula," he replied, quite naturally.
+
+"But you don't really believe in such superstitions, and it surely is
+very wrong."
+
+He looked at her incredulously, as he might at some beautiful apparition
+likely at any moment to vanish from his sight, then reverentially drew
+her towards him and kissed her. Her hand was laid on his shoulder, and
+in a delicious apprehension she stood looking at him.
+
+"Where shall we sit?"
+
+He threw some books and papers from a long cane chair, and she lay down
+in it. He sat on the arm, and then tried to talk.
+
+"Let me take your hat."
+
+She unpinned it, and he placed it on the piano.
+
+His room was lighted by two square windows looking on the open space in
+front of the square, where the vagrant children gathered in noisy groups
+round a dripping iron fountain. The floor was covered with grey-green
+drugget, and near the fireplace, drawn in front of the window, was a
+large oak table covered with papers of various kinds. Against the end
+wall there was a bookcase, and there were shelves filled with books.
+There were two arm-chairs, a piano, and some prints of Blake's
+illustrations to Dante on the wall. The writing table, covered with
+manuscript music, roused Evelyn's curiosity. She glanced down a page of
+orchestration, and then picked up the first pages of an article, and
+having read them she said--
+
+"How severe you are in your articles. You are gentler in your music,
+more like yourself; but I see your servant does not waste her time
+dusting your books ...and that is your bedroom, may I see it?"
+
+He looked at her abashed. "I am afraid my room will seem to you very
+unluxurious. I have read of prima donnas' bed-rooms."
+
+But the bare simplicity of the room did not displease her; it seemed to
+her more natural to sleep in a low, narrow bed like his, than in fine
+linen and eiderdown quilts, and she liked the scant, bleak furniture,
+the two chairs, the iron wash-hand stand, and the window curtained with
+a bit of Indian muslin. They stood talking, hardly knowing what they
+were saying. Her eyes embarrassed him, and she stopped in the middle of
+a sentence.
+
+"Now, Ulick," she said, turning towards the door, "I want you to take me
+to lunch. We'll go to the Savoy."
+
+He had to admit he had not sufficient money. Three shillings and
+sixpence were what remained until he received the cheque from one of his
+newspapers.
+
+"But I am not going to have you pay for my lunch, Ulick. I am asking
+you. Be nice, don't refuse; what does it matter? What does money matter
+to me? It comes in so fast that I don't know what to do with it."
+
+It was at the end of the season, and there were not many people in the
+low-ceilinged dining-room. All the waiters knew Evelyn, and she was
+conducted ceremoniously to a table. And as she passed up the room, she
+wondered what was being thought of Ulick. He was so different from the
+exquisite, foppish elegance of the man she was usually seen with. He was
+strange-looking, but Ulick was as distinguished as Owen, only the
+distinction was of another kind.
+
+He always remembered how at the end of lunch she took out her gold
+knitted purse, and emptied its contents on the tablecloth. And he was
+astonished at the casualness with which she spent money in every shop
+that caught her fancy. The afternoon included a visit to the saddler's,
+where she had to make inquiries about bits and bridles. She called at
+two jewellers, where she had left things to be mended. She ordered a
+dozen pair of boots, and purchased a large quantity of stationery after
+a long discussion about dies, stamps and monograms. And when all this
+was finished, she proposed they should have tea in Kensington Gardens.
+
+Ulick knew very little of London. He knew Victoria Station, for he took
+the train there to Dulwich; the Strand, for he went there to see
+editors; and Bloomsbury, because he lived there. But he had never been
+to the park, and seemed puzzled when Evelyn spoke of the Serpentine and
+the round pond. It was surprising, he said, to find forest groves in the
+heart of London. They had tea at a little table set beneath huge
+branches, and after tea they sat on a sloping lawn facing the long
+water. She wondered if he were aware of the beauty of things, the wonder
+of life, the blue of the sky, the romance of the clouds. But she was
+bent on hearing of the invisible world apparently always so visible to
+him, and she tried to win his thoughts away from the park, and to lead
+him to speak of his visions. She did not know if she believed in them,
+but she pined for exaltation, for, an unloosening of the materialistic
+terror in which Owen had tied her, and in this mood Ulick's dreams
+floated up in her life, like clouds in a cloudless sky. He sat talking,
+lost in his dreams, and she sat listening like one enchanted. Now their
+talk had strayed from the descriptions of visions beheld by folk who
+lived in back parlours in Bloomsbury squares to the philosophy of his
+own belief; and she smiled for delight at seeing the Druid in him. The
+ancient faiths had survived in him, and it seemed natural and even right
+that he should believe that after death men pass to the great plain of
+the land over the sea, the land of the children of Dana. Men lived
+there, he said, for a while, enjoying all their desires, and at the end
+of this period they are born again. Man lives between two desires--his
+desire of spiritual peace and happiness, and his desire of earthly
+experience.
+
+"Oh, how true that is!"
+
+"Man's desire of earthly experience," Ulick continued, "draws him to
+re-birth, and he is born into a form that fits his nature as a glove
+fits a hand; the soul of a warrior passes into the robust form of a
+warrior; the soul of a poet into the most sensitive body of a poet; so
+you see how modern science has only robbed the myths of their beauty."
+
+He spoke of the old Irish legend of Mongan and the Bard, and Evelyn
+begged of him to tell it her.
+
+"Mongan," he said, "had been Fin MacCool two hundred years before. When
+he was Fin he had been present at the death of a certain king. The bard
+was singing before Mongan, and mis-stated the place of the king's death.
+Mongan corrected him, and the Bard was so incensed at the correction
+that he threatened to satirise the kingdom so that it should become
+barren. And he would only agree to withhold his terrible satire if
+Mongan would give him his wife.
+
+"Mrs. Mongan?"
+
+"Yes, just so," Ulick replied, laughing. "Mongan asked for three days'
+delay to consider the dreadful dilemma in which the Bard's threat had
+placed him. And during that time Mongan sat with his wife consoling her,
+saying, "A man will come to us, his feet are already upon the western
+sea." And at the time when the Bard stood up to claim the wife, a
+strange warrior came into the encampment, holding a barbless spear. He
+said that he was Caolte, one of Fin's famous warriors, that the king
+whose place of death was in dispute was killed where Mongan had said,
+that if they dug down into the earth they would find the spear-head,
+that it would fit the shaft he held in his hand, that it was the
+spear-head that had killed the king."
+
+"Go on, and tell me some more stories. I love to listen to you--you are
+better than any play."
+
+And she wondered if he were indeed an ancient Druid come to life again,
+and that the instinct of the ancient rites lingered in him. However this
+might be, he could answer all her questions, and she was much interested
+when at the end of another tale he told her of Blake's visions and
+prophetic books. She knew little about Blake, and listened to Ulick's
+account of his visions and prophecies. Evelyn thought of Owen, and to
+escape from the thought she spoke of a legend which Ulick had once
+mentioned to her.
+
+"You did not tell it to me, only the end; the very last phrase is all I
+know of it, 'and the further adventures of Bran are unknown.'"
+
+"Bran, the son of Feval, is the story of a man who went to the great
+plain, the land over the sea, the land of the children of Dana. He was
+sitting in his court when a beautiful woman appeared, and she told him
+to man his ship and sail to the land of the Gods, the land where no one
+dies, where blossoms fall for ever.... I have forgotten the song, what a
+wonderful song it is. Ah, I remember, 'Where music is not born, but
+continually is there, where' ... no, I can't remember it. Bran sails
+away, and after sailing for some days he meets a man driving a chariot
+over the waves. This man says, 'To my eyes you are sailing over the tops
+of a forest,' and in many other ways makes clear to him that all things
+are but appearances, and change with the eye that sees them."
+
+"How true that is. At Lady Ascott's ball I was enjoying myself,
+delighted with the brilliancy of the dresses, the jewellery and the
+flowers, and in a moment they all passed away; I only saw a little
+triviality and heard a voice crying within me, 'Why are you here, why
+are you doing these things? This ball means nothing to you.'"
+
+"That was the voice of your destiny; your life is no longer with Owen."
+
+"With whom is it, Ulick? Tell me, you can see into the future."
+
+"I know no more than I told you last night. I am your destiny for
+to-day."
+
+They looked at each other in fear and sadness--and though both knew the
+truth, neither could speak it.
+
+"Then what happens to Bran, the son of Feval?"
+
+"Bran visits many islands of many delights, but wishing to see his
+native land once more, he sails away, but the people of those islands
+have told him that he must not set foot on any earthly shore, or he will
+perish. So he sails close to his native land, but does not leave the
+ship. The inhabitants ask him who he is; he tells them, and they reply,
+'The voyage of Bran, son of Feval, is among our most ancient stories.'
+One man swims ashore, and the moment his foot touches earth he becomes a
+heap of dust. Bran sails away, and the story ends with a phrase which
+you already know--'The further adventures of Bran are unknown.'"
+
+"How true! how true! the stories of our lives are known up to a certain
+point, and our further adventures are unknown."
+
+They were glad of a little silence, and Evelyn sat striving to read her
+own destiny in the legend. Bran visited many islands of many delights,
+but when he wished to return to his native land he was told that he must
+do no more than to sail along its coast, that if he set foot on any
+earthly shore he would perish. But what did this story mean, what
+meaning had it for her? She had visited many islands of many delights,
+and had come home again! What meaning had this story for her? why had
+she remembered the last phrase? why had she been impelled to ask Ulick
+to tell her this story? She looked at him--he sat with his eyes on the
+ground absorbed in thought, but she did not think he was thinking of the
+legend, but of how soon he would lose her, and she shuddered in the warm
+summer evening as from a sudden chill. It was now nearly seven
+o'clock--she would soon have to go home to dress for dinner. They were
+dining out, she and Lady Duckle, and she would meet once more Lady
+Ascott, Lady Summersdean, those people whose lives she had begun to feel
+had no further concern for her.
+
+The hour was inexpressibly calm and alluring; the blue pallor of the sky
+and the fading of the sunset behind the tall Bayswater houses raised the
+soul with a tingling sense of exalted happiness and delicious
+melancholy? She did not ask herself if she loved Ulick better than Owen;
+she only knew that she must act as she was acting--that the moment had
+not come when she would escape from herself. They walked by the water's
+edge, their souls still like the water, and like it, full of calm
+reflections. They were aware of the evening's sad serenity, and the
+little struggling passions of their lives. Very often Nature seemed on
+the very point of whispering her secret, but it escaped her ears like an
+echo in the far distance, like a phantom that disappears in the mist.
+
+"Will you come and see me to-morrow?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"We had better not see each other every day," she said; "still, I don't
+see there would be any harm if you came to see me in the afternoon."
+
+Her conscience drowsed like this heavy, somnolent evening, and a red
+moon rose behind the tall trees.
+
+"The time will come," he said, "when you will hate me, Evelyn."
+
+"I don't think I shall be as unjust as that. Good-bye, dear, the
+afternoon has passed very pleasantly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
+
+
+Owen had telegraphed to her and she had come at once. But how callous
+and unsympathetic she was. If people knew what she was, no one would
+speak to her. If Owen knew that she had desired his mother's death ...
+But had she? She had only thought that, if Lady Asher were not to
+recover, it were better that she died before she, Evelyn, arrived at
+Riversdale. As the carriage drove through the woods she noticed that
+they were empty and silent, save for the screech of one incessant bird,
+and she thought of the dead woman's face, and contrasted it with the
+summer time.
+
+The house stood on the side of some rising ground in the midst of the
+green park. Cattle were grazing dreamily in the grass, which grew rich
+and long about a string of ponds, and she could see Owen walking under
+the colonnade. As the carriage came round the gravel space, his eyes
+sought her in the brougham, and she knew the wild and perplexed look on
+his face.
+
+"No, don't let's go into the house unless you're tired," he said, and
+they walked down the drive under the branches, making, they knew not
+why, for the open park. "This is terrible, isn't it? And this beautiful
+summer's day too, not a cloud in the sky, not a wind in all the air. How
+peaceful the cattle are in the meadow, and the swans in the pond. But we
+are unhappy. Why is this? You say that it is the will of God. That is no
+answer. But you think it is?"
+
+Fearing to irritate him, she did not speak, but he would not be put off,
+and she said--
+
+"Do not let us argue, Owen, dear. Tell me about it. It was quite
+unexpected?"
+
+"She had been in ill-health, as you know, for some time. Let us go this
+way."
+
+He led her through the shrubbery and through the wicket into the meadows
+which lay under the terrace, and, thinking of the dead woman, she
+wondered at the strange, somnolent life of the cattle in the meadows and
+the swans on the pond. The willows, as if exhausted by the heat, seemed
+to bend under the stream, and their eyes followed the lines of the woods
+and looked into the burning blue of the sky, striving to read the secret
+there. A rim of moist earth under their feet, and above their heads the
+infinite blue! The stillness of the summer was in every blade of grass,
+in every leaf, and the pond reflected the sky and willows in hard,
+immovable reflections. An occasional ripple of the water-fowl in the
+reeds impressed upon them the mystery of Nature's indifference to human
+suffering.
+
+"In that house behind that colonnade she lies dead. Good God! isn't it
+awful! We shall never see her. But you think we shall?"
+
+"Owen, dear, let as avoid all discussion. She was a good woman. She was
+very good to me."
+
+"I haven't told you that it was by her wish that I sent for you. She
+wanted to ask you to promise to marry me.... I told her that I had asked
+you, and that in a way we were engaged. I could not say more. You seemed
+unsettled, you seemed to wish to get out of your promise--is not that
+so?"
+
+Evelyn thought of the scene by Lady Asher's bedside that an accident had
+saved her from. Marriage was more than ever impossible. What should she
+have said if Lady Asher had not died before she arrived? The dying
+woman's eyes, the dying woman's voice! Good heavens! what would she have
+said? But she had considered nothing. After glancing at the telegram,
+she had told Merat to pack a few clothes, and had rushed away. She
+pondered the various excuses she might have sent. She might have said
+she was not in when the telegram came, she had only just caught the
+train as it was; if she had not got the telegram before eleven o'clock
+she would have been safe. But all that was past now, Lady Asher had died
+before she arrived. It were better that she had died--anything were
+better rather than that scene should have taken place; for she could not
+have promised to marry Owen. What would she have done? Refused while
+looking into her dying eyes, or run out of the room?
+
+"You don't answer me, Evelyn."
+
+"Owen, don't press me. Enough has been said on that subject. This is no
+time to discuss such questions."
+
+"But it is Evelyn--it was her dearest wish.... Is it then impossible?
+Have you entirely ceased to care?"
+
+"No, Owen, I'm very fond of you. But you don't really want to marry me,
+it is because your mother wished it."
+
+His face changed expression, and she knew that he was not certain on the
+point himself.
+
+"Yes, Evelyn, I do, indeed I do;" and convinced for the moment that what
+he said was true, he took her hands, and looking at her he added, "It
+was her wish, and if what you believe be true, she is listening now from
+behind that blue sky."
+
+Both were trembling, and while the swans floated by, they considered the
+depth of blue contained in the sky. He was taken with a little dread,
+and was surprised to find in himself a vague, haunting belief in the
+possibility of an after life. Suddenly his self-consciousness fell from
+him, was merged in his instinct of the woman.
+
+"Evelyn, if I don't marry you I shall lose you. I cannot lose you, that
+would be to lose everything. I don't ask any questions, whether you like
+Ulick Dean, nor even what your relations are. I only want to know if you
+will marry me."
+
+He read in her eyes that the tale of their love was ended, and heard his
+future life ring hollow. It seemed strange that at such a moment the
+serene swans should float about them, that the water-fowl should move in
+and out of the reeds, and that the green park and the cloudless sky were
+like painted paper.
+
+"Then everything is over, everything I had to live for, all is a blank.
+But when you sent me away before, you had to take me back; you're not a
+woman who can live without a lover."
+
+"It is difficult, I know."
+
+"What has come between us, tell me? This fellow Ulick Dean or religious
+scruples?"
+
+"I have no right to talk about religious scruples."
+
+"Then it is this man. You love him, you've ceased to care for me, and
+you ask me to barter my right to kiss you, to take you in my arms, so
+that I may remain your friend." "Why, Evelyn, have you got tired of me?"
+
+"But I have not got tired of you, Owen. I am very fond of you."
+
+"Yes, but you don't care any more for me to make love to you."
+
+"Of course it is not the same as it was in the beginning, but there is
+affection."
+
+"When passion is dead, all is dead, the rest is nothing."
+
+It seemed so shameful that he should suffer like this, and she strove to
+rouse herself out of her stony determination. She was like one upon a
+rampart; she could see the surrounding country, but could not escape to
+it; this rampart was the instinct, in which Nature had shut her soul.
+But she could not bear to see him cry.
+
+"Oh, Evelyn, this cannot be."
+
+Then, feeling that the reality was too brutal, she yielded to the
+temptation to disguise the truth.
+
+"I don't know what I shall do, Owen; there would be no use making
+promises."
+
+"Then you do love me a little, Evelyn?"
+
+"Yes, Owen, you must never doubt that. I shall always be fond of you;
+remember that, whatever happens."
+
+"Yes, I know, as a friend. Look round! the earth and the sky are quiet,
+and one day we shall be quiet too, only that is sure."
+
+As they walked towards the house, their self-consciousness rose to so
+high a pitch that the park and house seemed to them like a thin
+illusion, a sort of painted paper reality, which might fall to pieces
+at any moment. He thought how little were the hours between the present
+moment and the moment when she would be taken from him. Whereas she was
+thinking that these hours would never pass. She realised the long hours
+before the sunlight waned. She thought of their lonely dinner and their
+evening after it. All that while she would witness his grief for the
+love that had gone from her, a love which she could no more give than
+she could once withhold. The great green park lay before their eyes,
+they strayed through the woods talking of her Isolde. He had not seen
+the performance. He had been called away the day she played it, but his
+pockets were full of the articles that had been written about her. The
+leaves of the beech trees shimmered in the steady sunlight, and they
+could see the green park through the drooping branches. She often
+detected a sob in his voice, and once, while sitting under a cedar tree
+at the edge of the terrace, he had to turn aside to hide his tears, and
+the sadness of everything made her sick and ill.
+
+They had tea in the west hall. Owen had ceased to complain, and she had
+begun to think that she could not give him up entirely.
+
+The day had passed somehow; dinner was over. Around the green park the
+last light of the sunset grew narrower, and the cattle faded
+mysteriously into the gathering gloom. Owen held converse with himself,
+but with recognition of the fact that he was listened to by the second
+subject of his discourse, and that they themselves were his ideas, the
+figuration of his teaching, endowed his philosophy with a dramatic
+intensity.
+
+"How you used to hang round my neck and listen with eager nervous eyes.
+You always had the genius of exaltation. You were wonderful; I watched
+you, I understood you, I appreciated you; you were a marvellous jewel I
+had found, and of which I was excessively proud. I hardly lived at all
+for myself. You were my life; my life lived in you. Every time I went to
+see you, every appointment was a thrill, a wonder, a mystery. But it was
+not until you took me back after that separation at Florence that I sank
+into the depths of love. Then I became like a diver in the deep sea.
+What I had known before were but the shallows of passion. What I felt
+after Florence was the translucid calm of the ocean's depth. I lived in
+the light of an inner consciousness, seeing you always, your face always
+before me, and my whole being held in a rapt devotion, a
+self-sufficiency, an exaltation beyond the reach of words. Oh, Evelyn, I
+have been extraordinarily in love. But all this is nothing to you; it
+even bores you."
+
+"No, Owen, no, but you don't understand."
+
+The desire to tell him the truth came up in her throat, but the moment
+she sought to express it in words it became untruth, and it was to save
+herself from falsehood that she remained silent.
+
+"I knew my mistake, but the temptation was irresistible. I wanted so to
+tell you that I loved you. I could not deny myself, effusion, tears,
+aspiration. I gained two very wonderful years, and so I lost you. I
+wonder if any lover would have the courage to forswear these joys so
+that he might retain his mistress? Would any mistress be worthy of the
+sacrifice? 'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.'"
+
+"Owen, dear, you're very cruel. Why do you speak like that? I shall
+never cease to love you. Owen, dear, you don't hate me?" she said,
+turning towards him.
+
+The silence was intense. It seemed to enter her ears and eyes like water
+or fire, and with dim sight and a dissolution of personal control of her
+body, she was moved towards him, and without any sort of thrill of
+desire she was drawn, almost thrown at his feet.
+
+She accepted his kisses wearily. There was a strange look in her eyes
+which he could not interpret, and she could not confide her secret, and
+there was an inexpressible sadness in these last kisses, and Owen's
+heart seemed to stand still when he said,--
+
+"Her last wish was our marriage; she would be glad if she could see us."
+
+Evelyn hid her face on his shoulders several times. He thought she was
+weeping, but her eyes remained dry. He came to her room that evening,
+and now that they were lovers again, it seemed to him impossible that
+she could refuse to marry him. But she stood looking at him, absorbed,
+in the presence of her future life, her eyes full of a strange farewell.
+He could extort no words from her, and her eyes retained their strange
+melancholy till her departure; his last memory of her visit was their
+melancholy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
+
+The forces within her were at truce. She was conscious of a suspension
+of hostilities. The moment was one in which she saw, as in a mirror, her
+poor, vague little soul in its hopeless wandering through life. She drew
+back, not daring to see herself, and then was drawn forward by a febrile
+curiosity. She felt towards them so differently that she could not think
+of herself as the same person when she was with Owen as she was when she
+was with Ulick. She remembered what she had heard the "dresser" say, and
+she remembered the sin. But apart from the deception she practised upon
+both men, there was the wrong-doing. Her conscience did not assail her
+now; but she knew that she would suffer to-morrow or next day. That
+sense of sin which she could not obliterate from her nature would rise
+to her lips like a salt wave, and poison her life with its bitterness,
+and she asked herself vain questions: Why had she left her father? Why
+had she two lovers? Why did she rise to seek things that made her
+unhappy? She thought of yesterday's journey to see a dying woman, and of
+to-night's performance of "Tristan and Isolde." What an unhappy,
+maddening jingle. The bitter wave of conscience, which rose to her lips
+and poisoned her taste, forced from her an avowal that she would mend
+her life. She foresaw nothing but deception, and easily imagined that
+not a day would pass without lies. All her life would be a lie, and when
+her nature rose in vehement revolt, she looked round for means to free
+herself from the fetters and chains in which she had locked herself.
+Thinking of Owen, she vowed that it must not happen again. But what
+excuse would she give? Should she tell him that Ulick was her lover?
+That was the only way, only it seemed so brutal. Even so she would have
+a lover; and strictly speaking, she ought to send them both away. Very
+probably that is what she would do in the end.... In the meantime, she
+would keep them both on! Her face contracted in an expression of terror
+and disgust. Had her moralising, then, ended in such miserable
+selfishness as this?
+
+To escape from her thoughts she looked out at the landscape, hoping it
+would distract her. But she could take no interest in it. Yesterday it
+had seemed so beautiful, but to-day it was all reversed, and the light
+was different. She preferred to remember it. She thought that they must
+be nearing the river, and she remembered how in one place it ran round a
+field, making a silver horse shoe in the green land, they had crossed it
+twice in the space of a quarter of a mile; then it followed the railway,
+placid, docile, reflecting the trees and sky. Then like a child it was
+soon taken with a new idea; it ran far away out of sight, and Evelyn
+thought it would never return. But it came back again, turbulent and
+shallow; and with woods on the steep hillside, and spanned by a
+beautiful stone bridge. A little later its wanderings grew still more
+perplexing, and she was not sure that it had not been joined in some
+strange way by another river. But flowing round a low-lying field,
+coming suddenly from behind a bend in the land, it had seemed in that
+place like a pond. One bank was lined with bushes, the other lay open to
+a view of a treeless plain divided by ditches. Three ladies had held
+their light boat in the deep current, and she had wondered who they
+were, and what was their manner of living and their desires, and though
+she would never know these things, the image of these ladies in their
+boat had fixed itself in her mind for ever.
+
+Soon after the train began to slacken speed, and nervously she awaited
+her destiny.
+
+For she was uncertain whether she would send Ulick a telegram, telling
+him to come to Park Lane, or whether she would drive straight to his
+lodgings. At the bottom of her heart she knew that when she arrived at
+St. Pancras she would tell the cabman, "Queen's Square, Bloomsbury." And
+an hour later, nervous with expectation, she sat in the cab, seeing the
+streets pass behind her. She was beginning to know the characteristics
+of the neighbourhood, and in the afternoon light they awoke her out of a
+trembling lethargy. She recognised the old iron gateway, the open space,
+the thirsty fountain and the troop of neglected children. She liked the
+forlorn and rusty square. She experienced a sort of sinking anguish
+while waiting on the doorstep, lest he might not be at home. But when
+the servant girl said Mr. Dean was upstairs, she liked her dirty,
+good-natured smile, and she loved the stairs and banisters--it was all
+wonderful, and she could hardly believe that in a few moments more she
+would catch the first sight of his face. She would have to tell some
+part of the truth; and since Lady Asher was dead, he could not fail to
+believe. He would never think of asking her--she put the ugly thought
+aside, and ran up the second flight.
+
+In the pauses of their love-making, they often wandered round the walls
+participating in the mystery of the Wanderers, and the sempiternal
+loveliness of figures who stood with raised arms, by the streams of
+Paradise. It seemed a profanation to turn from these aspirations to the
+enjoyment of material love, and Evelyn looked at Ulick questioningly.
+But he said that life only became wrong when it ceased to aspire. In an
+Indian temple, it had once been asked who was the most holy man of all.
+A young saint who had not eaten for ten days had been pointed out, but
+he said that the holiest man who ever lived stood yonder. It was then
+noticed that the man pointed to was drunk ... Ulick explained that the
+drunkenness did not matter; it was an unimportant detail in the man's
+life, for none aspired as he did; and laughing at the story, they stood
+by the dusty, windy pane, her hand resting on his shoulder, and they
+always remembered that that day they had seen the foliage in the square.
+
+Lady Duckle had gone to Homburg; Owen had been obliged to go to Bath on
+account of his gout; and Evelyn was free to abandon herself to her love
+of Ulick and to her love of her father, and she begged him not to spoil
+her happiness, but to come to Dulwich with her. His scruples were easily
+argued away. She urged that he had not taken her away, he had brought
+her back to her father. This last argument was convincing, and the
+happiest time in their lives was the week they spent in Dulwich. They
+sat down together to dinner under the lamp at the round table in the
+little back room, and their evenings were passed at the harpsichord and
+the clavichord; and amid the dreams and aspirations of great men they
+attained their sublime nature. The music that had been given and that
+was to be given at St. Joseph's furnished a never-failing subject of
+discussion, and Mr. Innes told them stories of Italy in the sixteenth
+century. How almost every Sunday there was a festival in some church
+where the most beautiful music was heard. Along the nave were eight
+choirs, four on one side and four on the other, raised on stages eight
+to ten feet high, and facing one another at equal distances. Each choir
+had a portable organ, and the _maitre composateur_ beat the time for the
+principal choir. And Mr. Innes's eyes lighted up when he spoke of the
+admirable _style recitatif_ in the oratory of St. Marcellus when there
+was a congregation of the Brothers of the Holy Crucifix. This order was
+composed of the chief noblemen of Rome, who had therefore the power of
+bringing together the rarest musicians Italy could produce. The voices
+began with a psalm in motet form, and then the instruments played a
+symphony, after which the voices sang a story from the Old Testament.
+Each chorister represented a personage in the story, etc. He spoke of
+the great organist at St. Peter's, and the wonderful inventions he is
+said to have displayed in his improvisations. No one since had played
+the harp like the renowned Horatio, but there was no one who could play
+the lyre like the renowned Ferrabosco in England. Evelyn leaned across
+the table, transported three centuries back, hearing all this music,
+which she had known from her earliest years, performed by virtue of her
+father's description in Italy, in St. Peter's, in the oratory of St.
+Marcellus and in the church of Minerva. Sometimes her father and Ulick
+began an argument, her sympathies alternated between them; she spoke
+very little, preferring to listen, not liking to side with either,
+agreeing with them, sometimes angering her father by her neutrality. But
+one evening he was a little too insistent, and Evelyn burst into tears,
+and ran upstairs to her room. The two men looked at each other, and Mr.
+Innes begged Ulick to tell him if he had been unkind, and then besought
+him to go upstairs and try to induce Evelyn to come down. Her face
+brightened into merry laughter at her own folly, and it called from her
+many entertaining remarks, so Ulick was tempted to set them one against
+the other, and to do so he had only to ask if Evelyn could sing such
+light soprano parts as Zerlina or Rosetta as well as her mother.
+
+In the mornings Evelyn and Ulick lingered in the shade of the chestnut
+trees or loitered in the lanes. At one moment they were telling each
+other of the fatality of their passion; in the next, by some transition
+of which they were not aware, they found themselves discussing some
+musical question. They went for long drives; and Richmond Park, not more
+than eight or ten miles distant, was at this season a beautiful,
+plaintive languor. There was a strange stillness in the air and a tender
+bloom upon the blue sky which spoke to the heart as no words, as only
+music could. The shadows moved listlessly among the bracken, and every
+vista was an enticement. Soft rain had allayed the dust of the road, and
+the distant hillsides seemed in the morning mists extraordinarily blue
+and romantic. There were wide prospects suggesting some great domain,
+and about the large oaks which stood in these open spaces herds of deer
+browsed, themselves the colour of the approaching month. About a sudden
+hillside, brilliantly blue, the evanescent mist hung over the heavy
+fronds, going out in the sunlight that was breaking through a grey sky.
+Ulick exclaimed, "How beautiful," and at the same moment Evelyn said,
+"Look at the deer, they are going to jump the railings." But the deer
+ran underneath, and galloped down the sloping park between a line of
+massive oaks; and the white and the tan hinds and fawns expressed in
+their life and beauty something which thrilled in the heart, and
+perforce Evelyn and Ulick remained silent. The park was wreathed that
+morning in sunlight and mist, it seemed to invite confidences, and the
+lovers dreamed of a perfect union of soul. The carriage was told to wait
+for them, and they took a path leading under a long line of trees toward
+high ground. Carts had passed there, and the ruts were full of water,
+but the earth about them was a little crisp, as if there had been frost
+during the night. They had brought with them a score of "Parsifal," for
+it was not yet certain that Evelyn would not play the part of Kundry.
+Notwithstanding Ulick's criticism, she thought she would like to act in
+the third act. But they were too interested in each other to open the
+score, and they were excited by the wonder of Nature in the still
+morning. The sky was all silver, and a very little distance bathed the
+hillsides in beautiful blue tones. The leaves of the oak trees hung
+languidly, as if considering the lowly earth to which they must soon
+return. Yet the blood was hot and the nerves were highly strung, and
+life seemed capable of great things in this moody, contemplative
+morning. There was a wonder in the little wren that picked her way among
+the fronds, and a thrill in the scurry of the watchful rabbit; and when
+they reached the crest of the upland and saw an open expanse of park,
+with the deer moving away through the mist, their souls dilated, and in
+happy ecstasy they looked upon Nature with the same innocent wonderment
+as the first man and woman.
+
+The morning seemed to inspire adventure, and the little tale that Evelyn
+was telling was just what was required to enhance its suggestion. By
+some accident in the conversation she had been led to speak of how she
+had been nearly captured by pirates in the Mediterranean. They were
+becalmed off the African coast, and a boat had rowed out with fruits and
+vegetables. The suspicious countenances of this boat's crew did not
+strike them at the time. But they were a reconnoitring party, and next
+day about four in the afternoon they noticed a vessel propelled by sails
+and oars steering straight for them, as if in the intention of running
+them down. It paid no attention to the cries of the captain, but came
+straight at them, and would have succeeded in its design if the yacht
+had not been going through the water faster than the pirates supposed,
+so they fell astern, and no one thought any more of them till they
+tacked, and they had almost overtaken the yacht, they were hardly
+distant more than fifty yards, when their intention was suspected. The
+captain put the _Medusa's_ head up to the wind, and she soon began to
+leave her pursuer behind.
+
+"We had no arms on board, they were fifty to twenty; the men would have
+been massacred, and I should have finished my days in a harem."
+
+Ulick had brought his violin with him, and they walked under the
+drooping boughs, she singing and he playing old-world melodies by Lulli
+and Rameau. Sometimes a passer-by stopped, and peering through,
+discovered them in a hollow sitting under an oak. A snake crawled out of
+its hole, and Ulick was about to rush forward to kill it, but Evelyn
+laid her hand upon his, and said--
+
+"Let it listen, poor thing. No living thing should meet its death for
+its love of music."
+
+"You're no longer the Evelyn Innes that loved Owen Asher."
+
+"I think I have changed a great deal. I was very young when I knew him
+first."
+
+She spoke of the influence he had exercised over her, but now his ideas
+meant as little as he did himself--it was all far away. Only a little
+trick of speech and a turn of phrase remained to recall his passage
+through her life. When they returned home she found a letter from him on
+the table, and her face clouded as she read his letter, for it announced
+an intention to call when he came to town, and to avoid his visit she
+thought she would stop in Dulwich. But if she stayed over Saturday, she
+would have to go to Mass on Sunday. Last Sunday she escaped by pleading
+indisposition. She wondered which she would prefer, to face Owen or to
+brave the effect that she knew Mass would produce upon her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
+
+
+She was in the music-room, looking through the first act of "Grania,"
+and thinking that perhaps after all she might remain on the stage and
+create the part. Her father had gone to St. Joseph's for choir practice,
+Ulick had gone to London for strings for her viola da gamba; and all the
+morning she had been uneasy and expectant. The feeling never quite left
+her that something was about to happen, that she was to meet
+someone--someone for whom she had been waiting a long while. So she
+started on hearing the front door bell ring. She could think of no one
+whom it might be unless Owen. If it were, what would she say? And she
+waited, eager for the servant to announce the visitor. It was Monsignor
+Mostyn.
+
+She was dressed in a muslin tea-gown over shot green silk, and was
+conscious of her triviality as she stood before the tall, spare
+ecclesiastic. She admired the calm, refined beauty of his face, the
+bright, dark eyes and the thin features, steadfast and aloof as some
+saints she had seen in pictures.
+
+"I called to see your father, Miss Innes, but he is not in, and hearing
+that you were, I asked to see you. For my business is really with you,
+that is, if you can spare the time?"
+
+"Won't you sit down, Monsignor?"
+
+"I have come, Miss Innes, to remind you of a promise that you once made
+me."
+
+The colour returned to her cheeks, and a smile to her lips. But she did
+not remember, and was slightly embarrassed.
+
+"Did I make you a promise?"
+
+"Have you forgotten my speaking to you about some poor sisters who might
+be driven from their convent if they failed to pay the interest on a
+mortgage?"
+
+"Ah, yes, on the night of the concert."
+
+"They have paid the interest and kept a roof over their heads, but in
+doing so they have exhausted their resources; and not to put too fine a
+point upon it, I am afraid they often have not enough to eat. Something
+must be done for them. I thought that a concert would be the quickest
+way of getting them some money."
+
+"You want me to sing?"
+
+"It really would be a charitable action."
+
+"I shall be delighted to sing for them. Where is this convent?"
+
+"At Wimbledon."
+
+"My old convent! The Passionist Sisters!"
+
+"Your old convent?"
+
+"Yes," Evelyn replied, the colour rising slightly to her cheeks. "I made
+a retreat there, long ago, before I went on the stage."
+
+She was grieved to hear that the Reverend Mother she had known was dead;
+she had died two years ago, and Mother Margaret was dead too. Monsignor
+could tell her nothing about Sister Bonaventure. Mother Philippa was the
+sub-prioress; and in the midst of her questions he explained how the
+financial difficulties had arisen. They were, he said, the result of the
+imprudences of the late Reverend Mother, one of the best and holiest of
+women, but unfortunately not endowed with sufficient business foresight.
+He was quite prepared to admit that the little wooden chapel which had
+preceded the present chapel was inadequate, and that she was justified
+in building another, but not in expending nearly one thousand pounds in
+stained glass. The new chapel had cost ten thousand pounds, and the
+interest of this money had to be paid. There were other debts--
+
+"But there is no reason why I should weary you with an exact statement."
+
+"But you do not weary me, Monsignor; I am, on the contrary, deeply
+interested."
+
+"The convent owes a great deal to the late Reverend Mother, and the last
+thing I wish to express is disapproval. We do not know the
+circumstances, and must not judge her; we know that she acted for the
+best. No doubt she is now praying to God to secure the safety of her
+convent."
+
+Evelyn sat watching him, fascinated by the clear, peremptory,
+ecclesiastical dignity which he represented. If he had a singing voice,
+she said to herself, it would be a tenor. He had allowed the
+conversation to wander from the convent to the concert; and they were
+soon talking of their musical preferences. There was an impersonal
+tenderness, a spiritual solicitude in his voice which enchained her; no
+single idea held her, but wave after wave of sensation passed,
+transforming and dissolving, changeable as a cloud. Human life demands
+hope, and the priest is a symbol of hope; there is always a moment when
+the religionist doubts, and there is also a moment when the atheist
+says, "Who knows, perhaps." And this man had done what she had not been
+able to do: he had put aside the paltry pleasures of the world, he
+placed his faith in things beyond the world, pleasures which perchance
+were not paltry. An entirely sensual life was a terrible oppression;
+hers often weighed upon her like a nightmare; to be happy one must have
+an ideal and strive to live up to it. Her mind flickered and sank,
+changing rapidly as an evening sky, never coming to anything distinct
+enough to be called a thought. She desired to hear him speak, she felt
+that she must speak to him about religion; she wanted to know if he were
+sure, and how he had arrived at his certitudes.... She wanted to talk to
+him about life, death and immortality. She had tried to lead the
+conversation into a religious discussion, but he seemed to avoid it, and
+just as she was about to put a definite question, Ulick came into the
+room. He stood crushing his grey felt hat between his hands, a somewhat
+curious figure, and she watched him talking to Monsignor, thinking of
+the difference of vision. As Ulick said, everything was in that. Men
+were divided by the difference of their visions. She was curious to know
+how the dogmatic and ritualistic vision of Monsignor affected Ulick, and
+when the prelate left she asked him.
+
+He was as ingenuous and unexpected on this subject as he was on all
+subjects. If the antique priest, he said, clothed himself in purple, it
+was to produce an exaltation in himself which would bring him closer to
+the idea, which would render him, as it were, accessible to it. But the
+vestments of the modern priest had lost their original meaning, they
+were mere parade. This explanation was very like Ulick; she smiled, and
+was interested, but her interest was passing and superficial. The advent
+of the priest had moved her in the depths of her being, and her mind was
+thick with lees of ancient sentiment, and wrecks of belief had floated
+up and hung in mid memory. She knew that the beauty of the ritual, the
+eternal psalms, the divine sacrifice, the very ring of the bell, the
+antiquity of the language, lifted her out of herself, and into a higher,
+a more intense ecstasy than the low medium of this world's desires. And
+if she did not believe that the bread and wine were the true body and
+blood of God, she still believed in the real Presence. She was aware of
+it as she might be of the presence of someone in the room, though he
+might be hidden from her eyes. Though the bread and wine might not be
+the body and blood of Christ, still the act of consecration did seem to
+her to call down the spirit of God, and it had seemed to her to inhabit
+the church at the moment of consecration. It might not be true to Owen,
+nor yet to Ulick, but it was true to her--it was a difference of
+vision.... She sat buried in herself. Then she walked to the window
+confused and absorbed, with something of the dread of a woman who finds
+herself suddenly with child. When Ulick came to her she did not notice
+him, and when he asked her to do some music with him she refused, and
+when he put his arms about her she drew away sullenly, almost
+resentfully.
+
+A few days after she was in Park Lane. She had gone there to pay some
+bills, and she was going through them when she was startled by the front
+door bell. It was a visitor without doubt. Her thoughts leaped to
+Monsignor, and her face lighted up. But he did not know she was at Park
+Lane; he would not go there.... It was Owen come up from Bath. What
+should she say to him? Good heavens! It was too late to say she was not
+at home. He was already on the stairs. And when he entered he divined
+that he was not welcome. They sat opposite each other, trying to talk.
+Suddenly he besought her not to throw him over.... She had to refuse to
+kiss him, and that was convincing, he said. Once a woman was not greedy
+for kisses, the end was near. And his questions were to the point, and
+irritatingly categorical. Had she ever been unfaithful to him? Did she
+love Ulick Dean? Not content with a simple denial, he took her by both
+hands, and looking her straight in the face, asked her to give him her
+word of honour that Ulick Dean was not her lover, that she had never
+kissed him, that she had never even desired to kiss him, that no idea of
+love making had ever arisen between them. She pledged her word on every
+point, and this was the second time that her _liaison_ with Ulick had
+obliged her to lie, deliberately in so many words. Nor did the lying
+even end there. He wanted her to stay, to dine with him; she had to
+invent excuses--more lies.
+
+She was returning to Dulwich in her carriage, and until she arrived home
+her thoughts hankered and gnawed, pestered and terrified her. Never had
+she felt so ashamed, so disgusted with herself, and the after taste of
+the falsehoods she had told came back into her mouth, and her face grew
+dark in the beautiful summer evening. Her brows were knit, and she
+resolved that if the occasion happened again, she would tell Owen the
+truth. This was no mock determination; on this point she was quite sure
+of herself. Looking round she saw the mean streets of Camberwell. She
+saw them for a moment, and then she sank back into her reverie.
+
+She was deceiving Owen, she was deceiving her father, she was deceiving
+Ulick, she was deceiving Monsignor--he would not have thought of asking
+her to sing at the concert if he knew what a life was hers. Nor would
+those good women at the convent accept her aid if they knew what kind of
+woman she was. And the strange thing was that she did not believe
+herself to be a bad woman; at the bottom of her heart she loved truth
+and sincerity. She wished to have an ideal and to live up to it, yet she
+was doing the very opposite. That was what was so strange, that was what
+she did not understand, that was what made her incomprehensible to
+herself. She sighed, and at the bottom of her heart there lay an immense
+weariness, a weariness of life, of the life she was leading, and she
+longed for a life that would coincide with her principles, and she felt
+that if she did not change her life, she would do something desperate.
+She might kill herself.
+
+It is true that man is a moral animal, but it is not true that there is
+but one morality; there are a thousand, the morality of each race is
+different, the morality of every individual differs. The origin of each
+sect is the desire to affirm certain moral ideas which particularly
+appeal to it; every change of faith is determined by the moral
+temperament of the individual; we prefer this religion to that religion
+because our moral ideas are more implicit in these affirmations than in
+those.
+
+The restriction of sexual intercourse is the moral ideal of Western
+Europe; it is the one point on which all Christians are agreed; it is
+the one point on which they all feel alike. So inherent is the idea of
+sexual continence in the Western hemisphere that even those whose
+practice does not coincide with their theory rarely impugn the wisdom of
+the law which they break; they prefer to plead the weakness of the flesh
+as their excuse, and it is with reluctance that they admit that without
+an appeal to conscience it would be impossible to prove that it is wrong
+for two unmarried people to live together. It is not perceived that the
+fact that no material proof can be produced strengthens rather than
+weakens the position of the moralist. To do unto others as you would be
+done unto, to love your neighbour as yourself, are practical moralities
+which may be derived from social necessities, but the abstract
+moralities, that sexual intercourse is wrong except between married
+people, and that it is wrong to tell a lie, even if the lie be a
+perfectly harmless one, exist of themselves. That we cannot bring
+abstract moralities into the focus of our understanding is no argument.
+As well deny the stars because we cannot understand them. That abstract
+moralities impose on us should be a sufficient argument that they cannot
+be the futilities that Owen would argue them to be--not them, he only
+protested against one.... (She had not thought of that before--Owen was
+no more rational than she.) That the idea of chastity should persist in
+spite of reason is proof of its truth. For what more valid argument in
+favour of a chaste life than that the instinct of chastity abides in us?
+After all, what we feel to be true is for us the greatest truth, if not
+the only real truth. Ulick was nearer the truth than Owen. He had said,
+"A sense which eludes all the other senses and which is not
+apprehensible to reason governs the world, all the rest is
+circumstantial, ephemeral. Were man stripped one by one of all his
+attributes, his intelligence, his knowledge, his industry, as each of
+these shunks was broken up and thrown aside, the kernel about which they
+had gathered would be a moral sense."
+
+Evelyn remembered that when she had sent Owen away before, he had said,
+"Sexual continence at best is not the whole of morality; from your use
+of the word one would think that it was." But for her the sexual
+conscience was the entire conscience--she had no temptation to steal.
+There was lying, but she was never tempted to tell lies except for one
+reason; she could not think of herself telling a lie for any other. To
+her the sexual sin included all the others. She turned her head aside,
+for the bitterness of her conscience was unendurable, and she vowed
+that, whatever happened, she would speak the truth if Owen questioned
+her again. She could never bring herself to tell such horrible
+falsehoods again.
+
+These revulsions of feeling alternated with remembrances of Owen's
+tenderness; fugitive sensations of him tingled in her veins, and
+ill-disposed her to Ulick. She spoke little, and sat with averted eyes.
+When he asked her if he should come to her room, she answered him
+peremptorily; and he heard her lock her door with a determined hand.
+
+As she lay in bed, conscious of the inextricable tangle of her life, it
+was knotting so closely and rapidly that her present double life could
+not endure much longer, the odious taste of the lies she had told that
+afternoon rose again to her lips, and, as if to quench the bitterness,
+she vowed that she would tell Owen the truth ... if he asked her. If he
+did not ask her she would have to bear the burden of her lies. She tried
+not to wish that he might ask her. Then questions sallied from every
+side. She could not marry Owen without telling him about Ulick. She
+could not marry Ulick without telling him that she had been unfaithful
+to him with Owen. Should she send away Owen and marry Ulick, or would it
+be better to send away Ulick and marry Owen--if he would marry her after
+he had heard her confession? It was unendurable to have to tell lies all
+day long--yes, all day long--of one sort or another. She ought to send
+them both away.... But could she remain on the stage without a lover?
+Could she go to Bayreuth by herself? Could she give up the stage? And
+then?
+
+She awoke in a different mood--at least, it seemed to her that her mood
+was different. She was not thinking of Owen, of the lies she had told
+him; and she could talk gaily with Ulick about the concert she had
+promised to sing at. She seemed inclined to take the whole
+responsibility of this concert upon her own shoulders. As Ulick said, it
+was impossible for her to take a small part in any concert.
+
+They were driving in Richmond Park, not far from the convent. The
+autumn-tinted landscape, the vicissitudes of the woods, and the
+plaintive air brought a tender yearning into her mood, and she
+contrasted the lives of those poor, holy women with her own life. Ulick
+did not intrude himself; he sat silent by her, and she thought of
+Monsignor. Sometimes he was no more than a little shadow in the
+background of her mind; but he was never wholly absent, and that day all
+matters were unconsciously referred to him. She was curious to know what
+his opinions were of the stage; and as they returned home in the short,
+luminous autumn evening, she seemed to discover suddenly the fact that
+she was no longer as much interested in the stage as she used to be. She
+even thought that she would not greatly care if she never sang on the
+stage again. Last night she had put the thought aside as if it were
+madness, to-day it seemed almost natural. Thinking of the poor sisters
+who lived in prayer and poverty on the edge of the common, she
+remembered that her life was given up to the portrayal of sensual
+emotion on the stage. She remembered the fierce egotism of the stage--an
+egotism which pursued her into every corner of her life. Compared with
+the lives of the poor sisters who had renounced all that was base in
+them, her life was very base indeed. In her stage life she was an agent
+of the sensual passion, not only with her voice, but with her arms, her
+neck and hair, and every expression of her face, and it was the craving
+of the music that had thrown her into Ulick's arms. If it had subjugated
+her, how much more would it subjugate and hold within its sensual
+persuasion the ignorant listener--the listener who would perceive in the
+music nothing but its sensuality. Why had the Church not placed stage
+life under the ban of mortal sin? It would have done so if it knew what
+stage life was, and must always be. She then wondered what Monsignor
+thought of the stage, and from the moment her curiosity was engaged on
+this point it did not cease to trouble her till it brought her to the
+door of the presbytery. The ostensible object of her visit was to make
+certain proposals to Monsignor regarding the music she was to sing at
+the concert.
+
+She was shown into a small room; its one window was so high up on the
+wall that the light was dim in the room, though outside there was
+brilliant sunshine. The sadness of the little room struck cold upon her,
+and she noticed the little space of floor covered with cocoa-nut
+matting, and how it grated under the feet. The furniture was a polished
+oak table, with six chairs to match. A pious print hung on each wall.
+One was St. Monica and St. Augustine, and the rapt expression of their
+faces reminded her that she might be bartering a divine inheritance for
+a coarse pleasure that left but regret in the heart. And it was in such
+heartsick humour that Monsignor found her. He seemed to assume that she
+needed his help, and the tender solicitude with which he wished to come
+to her aid was in itself a consolation. She was already an incipient
+penitent as she told him of her project to bring an orchestra at her own
+expense to Wimbledon, and give the forest murmurs with the Bird Song
+from "Siegfried." Monsignor left everything to her; he placed himself
+unreservedly in her hands. After a long silence she pushed a cheque for
+fifty pounds across the table, begging him not to mention the name of
+the giver. She was singing for them, that was sufficient obligation. He
+approved of her delicacy of feeling, thanked her for her generosity,
+and the business of the interview seemed ended.
+
+"I'm so much obliged to you, Monsignor Mostyn, for having come to me,
+for having given me an opportunity of doing some good with my money.
+Hitherto, I'm ashamed to say, I've spent it all on myself. It has often
+seemed to me intolerably selfish, and I often felt that I must do
+something, only I did not know what to do."
+
+Then, feeling that she must take him into her confidence, she asked him
+what proportion of our income we should devote to charity. He said it
+was impossible to fix a precise sum, but he knew many deserving cases,
+and offered to advise her in the distribution of whatever money she
+might decide to spend in charity. Suddenly his manner changed; he even
+seemed to wish her to stay, and the conversation turned back to music.
+The conversation was mundane as possible, and it was only now and then,
+by some slight allusion to the Church, that he reminded Evelyn, and
+perchance himself, that the essential must be distinguished from the
+circumstantial.
+
+Again and again the temptation rose up, it seemed to look out from her
+very eyes, and she was so conscious of this irresistible desire to speak
+to him of herself that she no longer heard him, and hardly saw the blank
+wall with the pious print upon it.
+
+"I have not told you, Monsignor," she said at last, "that I am leaving
+the stage."
+
+She knew that he must ask her what had induced her to think of taking so
+important a step, and then she would have an opportunity of asking his
+opinion of the stage. Of course neither Ulick's nor Owen's name would be
+mentioned.
+
+"As at present constituted, the stage is a dangerous influence. Some
+women no doubt are capable of resisting evil even when surrounded by
+evil. Even so they set a bad example, for the very knowledge of their
+virtue tempts others less sure of themselves to engage in the same life,
+and these weak ones fall. The virtuous actress is like a false light,
+which instead of warning vessels from the rocks entices them to their
+ruin."
+
+He did not indite the Oberammergau Passion Play, but he could not accept
+"Parsifal." He had heard Catholics aver, while approving of the
+performance of "Parsifal," that they would not wish to see the piece
+performed out of Bayreuth. But he failed to understand this point of
+view altogether. It seemed to assume that a parody of the Mass was
+unobjectionable at Bayreuth, though not elsewhere. If there was no
+parody of the Mass, why should they say that they would not like to see
+the piece performed elsewhere? He had read the book and knew the music,
+and could not understand how a great work of art could contain scenes
+from real life. Whether these be religious ceremonies or social
+functions, the artistic sin is the same. He asked Evelyn why she was
+smiling, and she told him that it was because the only two whom she had
+heard disapprove of "Parsifal" were Monsignor Mostyn and Ulick Dean. It
+seemed strange that two such extremes should agree regarding the
+profligacy of "Parsifal." Monsignor was interested for a moment in Ulick
+Dean's views, and then he said--
+
+"But was it with the intention of consulting me, Miss Innes, that you
+introduced the subject? I hear that you are going to play the principal
+part next year--Kundry."
+
+"Nothing is settled. As I told you just now, Monsignor, I am thinking of
+leaving the stage, and your opinions concerning it do not encourage me
+to remain an actress."
+
+"My dear child, you have had the good fortune to be brought up in holy
+Church. You have, I hope, constant recourse to the sacraments. You have
+confided the difficulties of your stage life to your confessor. How does
+he advise you?"
+
+Raising her eyes, Evelyn said in a sinking voice--
+
+"Even if one has doubts about the whole doctrine of the Church, it is
+still possible to wish to lead a good life. Don't you think so,
+Monsignor?"
+
+"There are many Protestants who lead excellent lives. But I have always
+noticed that when a Catholic begins to question the doctrine of the
+Church, his or her doubts were preceded by a desire to lead an irregular
+life."
+
+And in the silence Evelyn became aware of the afternoon sun shining
+through the window above their heads, enlivening the dark parlour. It
+seemed strange to sit discussing such subjects in the sunshine. The ray
+that fell through the window lighted up the priest's thin face till it
+seemed like one of the wood carvings she had seen in Germany. When he
+resumed the conversation it was to lead her to speak of herself and the
+reasons which had suggested an abandonment of her stage career. The
+tender, impersonal kindness of the priest drew her out of herself, and
+she told him how she had begun to perceive that the stage had ceased to
+interest her as it had once done; she spoke of vulgarity and parade, yet
+that was not quite what she meant; it had come to seem to her like so
+much waste, as if she were wasting her time in doing things that did not
+matter, like grown people would feel if they were asked to pass the
+afternoon playing with dolls. Shrugging her shoulders hysterically, she
+said she could not explain.
+
+"But have you an idea of what life you wish to lead?"
+
+"No, I don't think I have; I only know that I am not happy in my present
+life."
+
+"I believe you see a good deal of Sir Owen Asher. He helped you, did he
+not, in your musical education?"
+
+"Yes," she answered under her breath. "He is an intimate friend." In a
+moment of unexpected courage, she said, "Do you know him, Monsignor?"
+
+"I have heard a good deal about him, and nothing, I regret to say, to
+his credit. He is, I believe, an avowed atheist, and does not hesitate
+to declare his unbelief in every society, and to make open boast of an
+immoral life. He has read and tried to understand a little more than the
+people with whom he associates. I suppose the doubts you entertain
+regarding the doctrine of the Church are the result of his teaching?"
+
+With a little pathetic air, Evelyn admitted that Owen had used every
+possible argument to destroy her faith. She had read Huxley, Darwin, and
+a little Herbert Spencer.
+
+"Herbert Spencer! Miserable collections of trivial facts, bearing upon
+nothing. Of what value, I ask, can it be to suffering humanity to know
+that such and such a fact has been observed and described? Then the
+general law! rubbish, ridiculous rubbish!"
+
+"The scientists fail to see that what we feel matters much more than
+what we know."
+
+"True, quite true," he said, turning sharply and looking at her with
+admiration. Then, recollecting himself, he said, "But God does not exist
+because we feel He exists. He exists not through us, but through
+Himself, from all time and through all eternity. To feel is better than
+to observe, to pray is better than to inquire, but indiscriminate
+abandonment to our feelings would lead us to give credence to every
+superstition. You have, I perceive, escaped from the rank materialism of
+Sir Owen's teaching, but whither are you drifting, my dear child? You
+must return to the Church; without the Church, we are as vessels without
+a rudder or compass."
+
+He walked up and down the room as though debating with himself. Evelyn
+held her breath, wondering what new turn the conversation would take.
+Suddenly she lost her courage, and overcome with fear got up to go, and
+Monsignor, considering that enough had been said, did not attempt to
+detain her. But as he bade her good-bye at the door, his keen eye fixed
+upon her, he added, "Remember, I do not admit your difficulties to be
+intellectual ones. When you come to realise that for yourself, I shall
+be glad to do all in my power to help you. God bless you, my child!"
+
+If only she could put the whole thing aside--refuse to bother her head
+any more, or else believe blindly what she was told. She hated wobbling,
+yet she did nothing else. Suddenly she felt that if she were to believe
+at all, it must be like Monsignor. The magnetism of his faith thrilled
+her, and, in a moment, it had all became real to her. But it was too
+late. She could never do all her religion asked. Her whole life would
+have to come to pieces; nothing of it would remain, and she entirely
+lost heart when she considered in detail the sacrifices she would have
+to make. She saw herself at Dulwich with her father, giving singing
+lessons, attending the services, and living about St. Joseph's. She saw
+herself singing operas in every capital, and always a new lover at her
+heels. Both lives were equally impossible to her. As she lay back in her
+carriage driving through the lazy summer streets, she almost wished she
+had no conscience at all. What was the use of it? She had just enough to
+spoil her happiness in wrong-doing, yet not enough to prevent her doing
+what deep down in her heart she knew to be wrong.
+
+That evening she wrote a number of letters, and begged a subscription of
+every friend--Owen was out of the question and she hesitated whether she
+should make use of Ulick. She would have liked to have left him out of
+this concert altogether, and it was only because she had no one else
+whom she could depend upon that she consented to let him go off in
+search of the necessary tenor. But to take him to the concert did not
+seem right.
+
+She dipped her pen in the ink, and then laid it down, overcome by a
+sudden and intolerable melancholy. She could have cried, so great was
+her weariness with the world, so worthless did her life seem. She had
+begged her father's forgiveness; he had forgiven her, but she had not
+sent away her lover.... She had told Monsignor that, in consequence of
+certain scruples of conscience, she intended to give up the stage, but
+she had not told him that she had taken another lover and brought him to
+live with her under her father's roof. Whether there was a God and a
+hereafter, or merely oblivion, such conduct as hers was surely wrong.
+She walked to and fro, and came to a resolution regarding her relations
+with Ulick, at all events in her father's house.
+
+Then life seemed perfectly hopeless, and she wished Monsignor had not
+come to see her. What could she do to shake off this clammy and
+unhealthy depression which hung about her? She might go for a walk, but
+where? The perspective of the street recalled the days when she used to
+stand at the window wondering if nothing would ever happen to her. She
+remembered the moment with singular distinctness when she heard the
+voice crying within her? "Will nothing ever happen? Will this go on for
+ever?" She remembered the very tree and the very angle of the house!
+Dulwich was too familiar; it was like living in a room where there was
+nothing but mirrors. Dulwich was one vast mirror of her past life. In
+Dulwich she was never living in the present. She could not see Dulwich,
+she could only remember it. One walk more in that ornamental park! She
+knew it too well! And the picture gallery meant Owen--she would only see
+him and hear his remarks. Her thoughts reverted to his proposal of
+marriage and her acceptance. Not for the whole world! Why, she did not
+know. He had been very good to her. Her ingratitude shocked her. She
+shrugged her shoulders hysterically; she could not help it--that was how
+she felt.
+
+But Ulick? Should she marry him and accept the Gods? That would settle
+everything.
+
+But a sense of humour solves nothing, and at that moment the servant
+brought her a small brown paper parcel. It looked like a book. It was a
+book. She opened it. Monsignor had sent her a book. As she turned the
+leaves she remembered the parcels of books from Owen which she used to
+open in the same room, sitting in the same chair. _Sin and its
+Consequences_! She began reading it. On one point she was sure, that sin
+did exist.... If we felt certain things to be wrong, they were wrong; at
+least they were wrong for those who thought them wrong, and she had
+never been able to feel that it was right to live with a man to whom she
+was not married. Everyone had a moral code. Owen would not cheat at
+cards, and he thought it mean to tell lies--a very poor code it was, but
+still he acted up to it. She did not know how Ulick felt on such
+matters; his beliefs, though numerous and picturesque, supplied no moral
+code, and she could not live on symbols, though perhaps they were better
+than Owen's theories. Her mistake from the beginning was in trying to
+acquire a code of morals which did not coincide with her feelings. But
+the teaching in this book did coincide with her feelings. Could she
+follow it? That was the point. Could she live without a lover? Owen
+thought not. She laughed and then walked about the room, unable to shake
+off a dead weight of melancholy. Though the Church was all wrong, and
+there was no God, she was still leading a life which she felt to be
+wrong; and if the Church were right, and there was a resurrection, her
+soul was lost. She took up the book and read till her fears became so
+intense that she could read no more, and she walked up and down the
+room, her nerves partially unstrung. In the evening she talked a great
+deal and rapidly, apparently not quite aware of what she was saying, or
+else her face wore a brooding look; sometimes it awakened a little, and
+then her eyes were fixed on Ulick.
+
+The next day was Friday, and as the train service seemed complex and
+inconvenient, and as she had not at Dulwich a suitable dress to wear at
+the concert, she decided to sleep at Park Lane and drive to Wimbledon in
+the afternoon. She left her father, promising to return to him soon, and
+she had told Ulick that she thought it better he should return by train.
+She saw that he had noticed the book in her hand, and she knew that he
+understood her plea that she did not wish to be seen driving with him to
+mean that she was going to call on Monsignor on her way home. She had
+thought of calling at St. Joseph's, but, unable to think of a
+sufficient excuse for the visit, had abandoned the idea. She knew the
+time was not opportune. Monsignor would be hearing confessions. But as
+the carriage turned out of Camberwell, she remembered that it would be
+polite to thank him for the book, and leaning forward she told the
+coachman to drive to St. Joseph's.... So after all she was going
+there.... Ulick was right.
+
+The attendant told her that Monsignor was hearing confessions, and would
+not be free for another half-hour. She drew a breath of relief, for this
+second visit had frightened her. The attendant asked her if she would
+wait. She thought she would like to wait in church. She desired its
+collectedness, its peace. But the thought of Monsignor's confessional
+frightened her, and she thanked the attendant hurriedly, and went slowly
+to her carriage.
+
+When Ulick came in that evening she was seated on the corner of the sofa
+near the window. The moon was shining on the breathless park, and a moth
+whirled between the still flames of the candles which burned on the
+piano. He noticed that her mood was subdued and reflective. She liked
+him to sit by her, to take her hand and tell her he loved her. She liked
+to listen to him, but not to music; nor would she sing that evening, and
+his questions as to the cause remained unanswered. Her voice was calm
+and even, and seemed to come from far away. There was a tremor in his,
+and between whiles they watched and wondered at the flight of the moth.
+It seemed attracted equally by darkness and light. It emerged from the
+darkness, fluttered round the perilous lights and returned again to its
+natural gloom. But the temptation could not be resisted, and it fell
+singed on the piano.
+
+"We ought to have quenched those candles," Evelyn said.
+
+"It would have found others," Ulick answered, and he took the maimed
+moth on to the balcony and trod it out of its misery. They sat there
+under the little green verandah, and in the colour of the clear night
+their talk turned on the stars and the Zodiacal signs. Ulick was born
+under the sign of Aquarius, and all the important events of his life
+began when Aquarius was rising. Pointing to a certain group of stars, he
+said--
+
+"The story of Grania is no more than our story, your story, my story,
+and the story of Sir Owen Asher, and I had written my poem before I saw
+you." Then, as a comment on this fact, he added, "We should be careful
+what we write, for what we write will happen. Grania is the beautiful
+fortune which we will strive for, which chooses one man to-day and
+another to-morrow."
+
+The idea interested her for a moment, but she was thinking of her
+project to find out if, like Owen, he thought that the virtue of
+chastity was non-essential in women, or if the other virtues were
+dependent upon it. But how to lead the conversation back to this
+question she did not for the moment know. At last she said--"You ask me
+to love you--but to be my lover you would have to surrender all your
+spiritual life, that which is most to you, that which makes your genius.
+Do you think it worth it?"
+
+He hesitated, then answered her with some vague reference to destiny,
+but she guessed the truth. As free as Owen himself from ethical
+scruples, he still felt that we should overcome our sexual nature. She
+asked herself why: and she wondered just as Owen wondered when
+confronted by her religious conscience. They looked at each other long
+and gravely, and he told her of the great seer who had collected in her
+own person all the cryptic revelation, all the esoteric lore of the
+East. He admitted that she had allowed carnal intercourse to some of her
+disciples while forbidding it to others.
+
+"Evidently judging chastity to be in some cases essential to the other
+virtues."
+
+She heard him say that a sect of mystics to which he belonged, or
+perhaps it was whose society he frequented, advised the married state
+but with this important reservation, that instead of corporal possession
+they should endeavour to aid each other to rise to a higher spiritual
+plane, anticipating in this life a little the perfect communion of
+spirit which awaited them in the next. But such theories did not appeal
+to Evelyn. She could only understand the renunciation of the married
+state for the sake of closer intimacy with the spiritual life; and she
+was more interested when he told her of the cruelties, the macerations
+and the abstinences which the Indian seers resorted to, so that the
+opacity of the fleshly envelope might be diminished and let the soul
+through. In modern, as in the most ancient ages, with the scientist as
+with the seer, marvels and prodigies are reached through the subjugation
+of the flesh; as life dwindles like a flame that a breath will quench,
+the spirit attains its maximum, and the abiding and unchanging life that
+lies beyond death waxes till it becomes the real life.
+
+"Is this life, then, not real?"
+
+"If reality means what we understand, could anything be more unreal?"
+
+"Then you do believe in a future state?"
+
+"Yes, I certainly believe in a future state.... So much so that it seems
+impossible to believe that life ends utterly with death."
+
+But to Evelyn's surprise, he seemed to doubt the immortality of this
+future state, and fell back on the Irish doctrine which holds that after
+death you pass to the great plain or land under the sea, or the land
+over the sea, or the land of the children of the goddess Dana.
+
+"Even now my destiny is accomplishing."
+
+The true Celt is still a pagan--Christianity has been superimposed. It
+is little more than veneer, and in the crises of life the Celt turns to
+the ancient belief of his race. But did Ulick really believe in Angus
+and Lir and the Great Mother Dana? Perhaps he merely believed that as a
+man of genius it was his business to enroll himself in the original
+instincts and traditions of his race.
+
+They were as unquiet as cattle before an approaching storm, and when
+they returned to the drawing-room it seemed to him like a scene in a
+theatre about to be withdrawn to make way for another part of the story.
+Even while looking at it, it seemed to have receded a little.
+
+At last it was time for Ulick to go. As they said good-night he asked
+her if he should come to lunch. She looked at him, uncertain if she
+ought to take him to the concert at all.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
+
+Monsignor, who was waiting for her at the steps of the hall which had
+been hired for the concert, introduced her to Father Daly, the convent
+chaplain. She shook hands with him, and caught sight of him as she did
+so. It was but a passing glance of a small, blonde man with white
+eyelashes, seemingly too shy to raise his eyes; and she was too
+stringently occupied with other thoughts to notice him further.
+
+Owing to her exertions and Monsignor Mostyn's, a large audience had been
+collected, and though the month was September, there were many
+fashionable, influential and musical people present.
+
+The idea of the band, which Evelyn had thought of bringing down in the
+intention of giving the Forest Murmurs and the Bird Music, had been
+abandoned, but the finest exponent of Wagner on the piano had come to
+play the usual things: the closing scene of the "Walkuere," the overture
+of the "Meistersinger" and the Prelude of "Tristan." And, mingled with
+the students and apostles from London, were a goodly number of young men
+and women from the various villas. Every degree of Wagner culture was
+present, from the ten-antlered stag who had seen "Parsifal" given under
+the eye of the master to the skipping fawns eagerly browsing upon the
+motives. "That is the motive of the Ride; that, dear, is the motive of
+the Fire; that is the motive of Slumber in the Fire, and that is the
+motive of Siegfried, the pure hero who will be born to save Valhalla."
+The class above had some knowledge of the orchestration. "You see," said
+a young man, pointing to the score, "here he is writing for the entire
+orchestra." "Three bars farther on he is writing for three violins and a
+flute. He withdraws his instruments in a couple of bars; it would take
+anyone else five-and-twenty." At a little distance the old stag who had
+never missed a festival at Bayreuth was telling the young lady at his
+side that the "Walkuere" is written in the same style as the "Rheingold"
+and the first two acts of "Siegfried." Another distinct change of style
+came with the third act of "Siegfried" and the "Dusk of the Gods," which
+were not composed till some years later. "Ah, that wonderful later
+style! That scale of half-notes! Flats and sharps introduced into every
+bar; C, C sharp; D, D sharp; E, F, F sharp; G, G sharp; A, B flat, B,
+C. In that scale, or what would seem to be that scale, he balances
+himself like an acrobat, springing on to the desired key without
+preparation," and so on until the old stag was interrupted by a friend,
+a lady who had just recognised him. As she squeezed past, she stopped to
+tell him that Wagner had spoiled her for all other music. She had been
+to hear Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony once more, but it had seemed to
+her like a pious book.
+
+Evelyn sang "Elsa's Dream," "Elizabeth's Prayer" and the "Liebestod,"
+and when she was recalled at the end of the concert, she sang Senta's
+ballad as a _bonne bouche_, something that the audience had not
+expected, and would send her friends away more than ever pleased with
+her.
+
+Her father had not been able to come--that was a disappointment--but
+Ulick had accompanied her beautifully, following her voice, making the
+most of it at every moment. When she left the platform, she took both
+his hands and thanked him. She loved him in that instant as a musician
+and as a mistress. But the joy of the moment, the ecstasy of admiration,
+was interrupted by Monsignor Mostyn and Father Daly. They too wished to
+thank her. In his courtly manner, Monsignor told her of the pleasure her
+singing had given him. But when Father Daly mentioned that the nuns
+expected her to tea, her courage seemed to slip away. The idea of a
+convent frightened her, and she tried to excuse herself, arguing that
+she had to go back to London.
+
+"If you're engaged for dinner, I'm afraid there will not be time,"
+Monsignor said. She looked up, and, meeting his eyes, did not dare to
+lie to him.
+
+"No; I'm not dining out, but I promised to take Mr. Dean back in my
+carriage."
+
+"Mr. Dean will, I'm sure, not mind waiting."
+
+It seemed to Evelyn that Monsignor suspected her relations with Ulick,
+and to refuse to go to the convent, she thought, would only confirm him
+in his suspicions. So she accepted the invitation abruptly, and when
+they turned to go, she said--
+
+"My carriage is here; I'll drive you," and, at the same moment, she
+remembered that Ulick was waiting. But she felt that she could not drive
+back to London with him after leaving the convent, and she hoped that
+Monsignor would not correctly interpret the disappointment which was
+plain upon his face. No; he must go back by train--no, there would be no
+use his calling that evening at Park Lane.
+
+She wore a black and white striped silk dress, with a sort of muslin
+bodice covered with lace, and there was a large bunch of violets in her
+waistband. The horses were beautiful in the sunshine, and their red
+hides glistened in the long, slanting rays. She put up her parasol and
+tried to understand, but she could only see the angles of houses, and
+the eccentricity of every passer-by. She saw very clearly the thin,
+facial line, and her eyes rested on the touch of purple at the throat to
+mark his Roman dignity. Father Daly sat opposite, rubbing his thumbs
+like one in the presence of a superior. He was not ill-looking, but so
+shy that his features passed unperceived, and it was some time before
+she saw his eyes; they were always cast down, and his thin, well-cut
+nose disappeared in his freckled cheeks. The cloth he wore was coarser
+than Monsignor's; his heavy shoes contrasted with the finely-stitched
+and buckled shoes of the Papal prelate.
+
+This visit to the convent frightened Evelyn more than the largest
+audience that had ever assembled to hear her, and, until they got clear
+of the town, she was not certain she would not plead some excuse and
+tell the coachman to turn back. But now it was too late. The carriage
+ascended the steep street, and, at the top of it, the town ended
+abruptly at the edge of the common. On one side was a high brick wall,
+hiding the grounds and gardens of the villas; on the other was the
+common, seen through the leaves of a line of thin trees. In her nervous
+agitation, she saw very distinctly--the foreground teeming with the
+animation of cricket, the more remote parts solitary, the windmill
+hovering in a corner out of the way of the sunset, and two horsemen and
+a horsewoman cantering along the edge of the long valley into which the
+plain dropped precipitously. The sun sank in a white sky, and Evelyn
+caught the point of one of the ribs of her parasol, so that she could
+hold it in a better position to shade her eyes, and she saw how the
+houses stretched into a point, the last being an inn, no doubt the noisy
+resort of the cricketers and the landscape painters. There was a painter
+making his way towards the valley, his paint-box on his back. But at
+that moment the carriage turned into a lane where a paling enclosed the
+small gardens. She then noticed the decaying pear or apple tree, to
+which was attached a clothes-line. Enormous sunflowers weltered in the
+dusty corners. The brick was crumbling and broken, beautiful in colour,
+"And in every one of these cottages someone is living; someone is
+laughing; someone will soon be dead. Good heavens, how strange!"
+
+"We are nearly there."
+
+Evelyn started; it was Father Daly speaking to her. "The cottages have
+spoilt the appearance on this side, but the view is splendid from the
+other."
+
+The lane ascended and Evelyn remembered how the house stood inside a
+wall behind some trees, looking westward, the last southern end of the
+common land as the windmill was the last northern end. There had been
+iron gates when a great City merchant lived in the Georgian house, which
+had been gradually transformed to suit the requirements of the sisters.
+The melancholy little peal of the bell hanging on a loose wire sounded
+far away, and in the interval Evelyn noticed the large double door,
+from which the old green paint was peeling. A step was heard within, and
+the little shutter which closed the grated peephole in the panel of the
+door was drawn back; the eyes and forehead band of a nun appeared for an
+instant in the opening; and then with a rattle of keys the door was
+hastily opened and the little porteress, with ruddy cheeks and a shy
+smile, stood aside to let Evelyn pass in. She kissed the hand of
+Monsignor as he turned to her with a kindly word of salutation. "The
+Reverend Mother is expecting you," she said, her agitation being due to
+the importance of the occasion.
+
+"No doubt they have been praying that I might sing well, poor dears,"
+Evelyn thought, as she followed the nun up the paved, covered way.
+Through the iron frame-work, woven through and through with creepers and
+monthly roses, she caught glimpses of the partly-obliterated carriage
+drive, and of the neatly-kept flower beds filled with geraniums and
+tall, white asters.
+
+In the hall an Adam's ceiling radiated in graceful lines from a central
+medallion, and before a statue of the Sacred Heart a light was burning.
+Evelyn remembered how the poor lay sisters laboured to keep the stone
+floor spotless, and it was into the parlour on the left, which Evelyn
+remembered to be the best parlour, that Sister Angela ushered them.
+
+In the old days, before a sudden crisis on the Stock Exchange had
+obliged the owner to sell the house for much less than its true value to
+the little community of sisters of the Passion who were then seeking a
+permanent house, this room, round which Evelyn and the two priests were
+looking for seats, had been used as a morning-room. Three long French
+windows looked out on the garden, and the flowers and air made it a
+bright, cheerful room, in spite of the severe pictures on the walls. She
+recognised at once the engraving of Leonardo's "Last Supper" which hung
+over the solid marble chimney piece a little above the statue of Our
+Lady of Lourdes and the two blue vases, and also the pale, distempered
+walls, and the coloured, smiling portrait of the Pope, and a full-length
+photograph of Cardinal Manning, signed in his own clear, neat
+handwriting.
+
+Evelyn and the priests, still undecided where they should sit, looked at
+the little horsehair sofa. Monsignor brought forward for her one of the
+six high, straight-backed chairs, and they sat at the circular table
+laid out with severe books; a volume of the _Lives of the Saints_ lay
+under her hand, and she glanced at a little box for contributions. She
+looked at the priests and then round the room, striving to penetrate the
+meaning which it vaguely conveyed to her--an indescribable air of
+scrupulous neatness and cleanliness, a sense of virginal dulness. But
+suddenly a startling sense of the incongruity came upon her, that she,
+the opera-singer, Owen Asher's mistress, should be admitted into a
+convent, should be received, the honoured guest of holy women. And she
+got up, leaving the two priests to discuss the financial results of the
+concert, and stood gazing out at the window. There was the rosery with
+the lilac bushes shutting out the view of the green fields beyond; and
+this was the portion of the garden given up to visitors and boarders.
+She used to walk there during the retreat. Away to the right was the
+big, sunny garden where the nuns went for their daily recreation. By
+special permission she had once been allowed there; she remembered the
+sloping lawns, the fringe of stately elms, and over them the view
+westward of Richmond Park. She thought of the nuns walking under their
+trees, half ghost-like, half sybil-like they used to seem in their grey
+habits with their long grey veils falling picturesquely, their thoughts
+fixed on an infinite life, and this life never seeming more to them than
+a little passing shadow.
+
+Evelyn returned slowly to the table. The priests were talking of the
+convent choir; Monsignor turned to address a question to her, but before
+he spoke, the door opened and two nuns entered, hardly of this world did
+they seem in their long grey habits.
+
+The Reverend Mother, a small, thin woman, with eager eyes and a nervous,
+intimate manner, hastened forward. Evelyn felt that the Reverend Mother
+could not be less than sixty, yet she did not think of her as an old
+woman. Between her rapid utterances an expression of sadness came upon
+her face, instilled through the bright eyes, and Evelyn contrasted her
+with Mother Philippa, the sub-prioress. Even the touch of these women's
+hands was different. There was a nervous emotion in the Reverend
+Mother's hand. Mother Philippa's hand when it touched Evelyn's expressed
+somehow a simpler humanity.
+
+She was a short, rather stout, homely-faced Englishwoman, about
+thirty-eight or forty, such a woman as is met daily on the croquet lawns
+in our suburbs, probably one of three plain sisters, and never could
+have doubted her vocation.
+
+"I cannot tell you how grateful we are, Miss Innes, for what you have
+done for us. Monsignor will have told you of the straits we are in....
+But you are an old friend, I understand of our convent. Mother Philippa,
+our sub-prioress, tells me you made a retreat here seven or eight years
+ago."
+
+"I don't think it was more than six years," Mother Philippa said,
+correcting the Reverend Mother. "I remember you very well, Miss Innes.
+You left us one Easter morning."
+
+Evelyn liked her plain, matter-of-fact face, a short face
+undistinguished by any special characteristic, yet once seen it could
+not be forgotten, so implicit was it of her practical mind and a desire
+to serve someone.
+
+"That silly Sister Agnes has forgotten the strawberry jam," she said,
+when the porteress brought in the tea. "I will run and fetch it; I
+shan't be a moment."
+
+"Oh, Mother Philippa, pray don't trouble; I prefer some of that cake."
+
+"No, no, I've been thinking all the afternoon of this jam; we make it
+ourselves; you must have some."
+
+The Reverend Mother apologised for having put sugar in Evelyn's tea, for
+she remembered now that Evelyn had said that she did not like sugar; and
+Monsignor took advantage of the occasion to reassure the Reverend Mother
+that the success of the concert had been much greater than he had
+anticipated.... Thanks to Miss Innes, he hoped to be able to hand her a
+cheque for more than two hundred pounds. This was more than double the
+sum she had hoped to receive.
+
+"We shall always pray for you," she said, taking Evelyn's hand. "I
+cannot tell you what a load you have taken off my shoulders, for, of
+course, the main responsibility rests upon me."
+
+Evelyn regretted that the nuns could not have tea with her, and wondered
+whether they were ever allowed to partake of their own excellent
+home-made cake. She was beginning to enjoy her visit, and to acquire an
+interest in the welfare of the convent. She had hitherto only devoted
+her money to selfish ends; but now she resolved that, if she could help
+it, these poor sisters should not be driven from their convent. Mother
+Phillippa asked her suddenly why she had not been to see them before.
+Evelyn answered that she had been abroad. But living abroad meant to the
+nun the pleasure of living in Catholic countries, and she was eager to
+know if Evelyn had had the privilege of going to Rome. She smiled at the
+nun's innocent curiosity, which she was glad to gratify, and told her
+about the old Romanesque churches on the Rhine, and the hundred marble
+spires of the Cathedral of Milan. But in the midst of such pleasant
+conversation came an unfortunate question. Mother Philippa asked if
+Evelyn had travelled with her father. Any simple answer would have
+sufficed, but she lost her presence of mind, and the "No," which came at
+last was so weak and equivocal that the Reverend Mother divined in that
+moment some part of the truth. Evelyn sat as if tongue-tied, and it was
+Monsignor who came to her rescue by explaining that she had sung in St.
+Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, and all the capitals of Europe.
+
+"You must excuse us," the Reverend Mother said, "for not knowing, but
+these things do not penetrate convent walls."
+
+The conversation dropped, and the Reverend Mother took advantage of the
+occasion to suggest that they should visit the chapel.
+
+Mother Philippa walked on with the priests in front, leaving Evelyn with
+the Reverend Mother.
+
+"I am forced to walk very slowly on account of my heart. I hope you
+don't mind, Miss Innes?"
+
+"Your heart, Reverend Mother? You suffer from your heart? I'm so sorry."
+
+The Reverend Mother said the new chapel had been built by the celebrated
+Catholic architect, and mentioned how the last three years of the
+Reverend Mother's life had been given over to this work Evelyn knew that
+the mouldings and carving and the stained glass had caused the pecuniary
+embarrassments of the convent, and did not speak of them She was told
+that the architect had insisted that every detail should be in keeping,
+and understood that the thirteenth century had proved the ruin of the
+convent; every minor decoration was faithful to it--the very patterns
+stitched in wool on the cushions of the _prie-dieu_ were strictly Gothic
+in character.
+
+Only the lower end of the nave was open to the public; the greater part
+was enclosed within a high grille of gilded ironwork of an elaborate
+design, through which Evelyn could vaguely discern the plain oak stalls
+of the nuns on either side, stretching towards the ornate altar, carved
+in white stone. And falling through the pointed windows, the long rays
+slanted across the empty chapel; in the golden air there was a faint
+sense of incense; it recalled the Benediction and the figures of the
+departed watchers who had knelt motionless all day before the elevated
+Host. The faintly-burning lamp remained to inspire the mind with
+instinctive awe and a desire of worship. And as always, in the presence
+of the Blessed Sacrament, Evelyn's doubts vanished, and she knelt in
+momentary prayer beside the two nuns.
+
+Then at her request they went into the garden. It was the part of the
+convent she remembered best. She recognised at once the broad terrace
+walk extending the full length of the house, from the new wing to the
+rose garden whence some steps led to the lower grounds. They were
+several acres in extent and sloped gently to the south-west. The
+Reverend Mother and the priests had turned to the left; they had
+business matters to discuss and were going round the garden by the outer
+walk. Evelyn and Mother Philippa chose the middle path. The sunset was
+before them, and the wistfulness of a distant park sinking into blue
+mist. Evelyn thought that in all her travels she had never seen anything
+so lovely as the convent garden in that evening light. It filled her
+soul with an ecstatic sense of peace and joy, and a sudden passionate
+desire to share this life of calm and happy seclusion brought tears to
+her eyes. She could not speak, but Mother Philippa, with a single, quick
+glance, seemed instinctively to understand, and it was in silence that
+they walked down a grassy path, that led between the narrow beds filled
+with a gay tangle of old-fashioned flowers, to a little summer-house.
+Behind the summer-house, at the bottom of the garden, was a broad walk
+pleasantly shaded by the overhanging branches of the elms.
+
+"We call this St. Peter's path," Mother Philippa said placidly, "and for
+his feast the novices put up his statue in the summer-house and decorate
+it with flowers. They always come here for their mid-day recreation."
+
+"Your garden is quite lovely, Mother Philippa; I remember it all so
+well."
+
+They wandered on, past the apple and plum trees laden with fruit--they
+made a pretty orchard in one corner; and while the nun passed here and
+there gathering flowers, Evelyn stood gazing, recalling all her girlish
+impressions. Almost every turn in the walks recalled some innocent
+aspiration, some girlish feeling of love and reverence. In every nook
+there was a statue of the Virgin, or a cross whereby the thoughts of the
+passer-by might be recalled to the essential object of her life. She
+remembered how she had stopped one morning before the crucifix which
+stood on the top of some rocks at the end of the garden. She had stopped
+as in a dream, and for a long while had stood looking at the face of the
+dying Redeemer, praying to his Father for pardon for them that
+persecuted him. She had felt as if crazed with love, and had walked up
+the pathway feeling that the one thing of worth in the world was to live
+for him who had died for her. But she had betrayed him. She had chosen
+Owen!
+
+Mother Philippa added another flower to the bouquet. She looked at it
+and, regarding it as finished, she presented it to Evelyn.
+
+"I hope I did not say anything that caused you pain in the parlour. If I
+did you must know that I did not mean it. I I hope your father is quite
+well."
+
+"Yes, he's quite well. You did not offend me, Mother Philippa," she
+said, raising her eyes, and in that moment the two women felt they
+understood each other in some mute and far-off way.
+
+"The day you left us was Easter Sunday. It was a beautiful morning, and
+you walked round the rose garden with an old lady; she asked you to
+sing, and you sung her two little songs."
+
+"Yes, I remember; her hair was quite white, and she walked with a
+stick."
+
+"I am glad you remember; I feared that you had forgotten, as you were so
+long coming back. I often prayed for you that you might come and see us.
+I always felt that you would come back, and when one feels like that, it
+generally happens."
+
+Evelyn raised her eyes, drawing delight from the nun's happy and
+contented face. She experienced an exquisite idea, a holy intimacy of
+feeling; there was a breathless exaltation in the heavens and on the
+earth, and the wild cry of a startled bird darting through the
+shrubberies sounded like a challenge or defiance. The sunset grew
+narrower in the slate-coloured sky, and the long plain of the common
+showed under two bars of belated purple. The priests and the Reverend
+Mother went up the steps and were about to enter the convent. Evelyn and
+Mother Philippa lingered by a distant corner of the garden marked by
+nine tall crosses.
+
+"When I was here there were but six. I remember Sister Bonaventure, thin
+and white, and so weak that she could not move. She was dying far from
+all she knew, yet she was quite happy. It was we who were unhappy."
+
+"She was happy, for her thoughts were set upon God. How could she be
+otherwise than happy when she knew she was going to him?"
+
+A few minutes after, Evelyn was bidding the nuns good-night. The
+Reverend Mother hoped that when she made another retreat she would be
+their guest. Mother Philippa was disappointed that they had not heard
+her sing. Perhaps one day she might sing to them. They would see how it
+could be arranged: perhaps at Benediction when she came to make another
+retreat. Evelyn smiled, and the carriage passed into the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
+
+
+The dawn crept through her closed eyelids, and burying her face in the
+pillows, she sought to retain the receding dream.
+
+But out of the gloom which she divined and through which a face looked,
+a face which she could not understand, but which she must follow, there
+came a sound as of someone moving. The dream dissolved in the sound, she
+opened her eyes, and upon her lips there was terror, and she could not
+move.... Nor did she dare to look, and when her eyes turned towards the
+doorway she could not see beyond it; she could not remember if she had
+left the door ajar. Shadows gathered, and again came the awful sound of
+someone; she slipped under the bedclothes, and lay there stark, frozen
+with terror. When she summoned sufficient courage, she looked towards
+the shadowy doorway, but the passage beyond it was filled with nameless
+foreboding shapes from an under-world; and the thought that the sound
+she had heard had been caused by her clothes slipping from a chair
+failed to reassure her. She was as cold as a corpse in a grave. She felt
+that it was her duty to explore the dark, but to get out of bed to stand
+in that grey room and look into the passage was more than she dared; she
+could only lie still and endure the sensation of hands at her throat and
+breath above her face.
+
+A little later she was able to distinguish the pattern of the
+wall-paper, and as she followed its design human life seemed black and
+intolerably loathsome. She strove against the thought, but she saw the
+creature leer so plainly that there was no way of escaping from the
+conviction that what she had accepted as life was but a mask worn by a
+leper. The vision persisted for what seemed a long while, and when it
+faded it was pictures of her own life that she read upon the wall; her
+soul cried out against the miserable record of her sins, and turning on
+her pillow she saw the dawn--the inexorable light that was taking her
+back to life, to sin, and all the miserable routine of vanity and
+selfishness which she would have to begin again. She had left her
+father, though she knew he would be lonely and unhappy without her. She
+had lived with Owen when she knew it was wrong, and she had acquiesced
+in his blasphemies, and by reading evil books she had striven to
+undermine her faith in God. It seemed to her incredible that anyone
+should be capable of such wickedness, yet she was that very one; she
+had committed all sins, and in her great misery she wished herself dead,
+so that she might think no more.
+
+With eyes wide open to the dawn and to her soul she lay hour after hour.
+She heard the French clock strike six sharp strokes, and unable to
+endure her hot bed any longer, she got up, slipped her arms into a
+dressing-gown, and went down to the drawing-room. It was filled with a
+grey twilight, and the street was grey-blue and silent save for the
+sparrows. Sitting on the edge of the sofa she remembered the convent.
+The nuns had thought her a good Catholic, and she had had to pretend she
+was. Monsignor, it is true, had turned the conversation and saved her
+from exposure. But what then? She knew, and he knew, everyone knew; Lady
+Ascott, Lady Mersey, Lady Duckle very probably didn't care, but
+appearances had to be preserved, and she had to tell lies to them all.
+Her life had become a network of lies. There was no corner of her life
+into which she could look without finding a lie. She had been faithful
+to no one, not even to Owen. She had another lover, and she had sent
+Owen away on account of scruples of conscience! She could not understand
+herself; she had taken Ulick to Dowlands and had lived with him
+there--in her father's house. So awful did her life seem to her that her
+thoughts stopped, and she became possessed of the desire of escape which
+takes a trapped animal and forces it to gnaw off one of its legs. She
+must escape from this life of lies whatever it cost her; she must free
+herself. But how? If she went to Monsignor he would tell her she must
+leave the stage, and she had promised to create the part of Grania. She
+had promised, and she hated not keeping her promise. He would say it was
+impossible for her to remain on the stage and live a virtuous life; he
+would tell her that she must refuse to see Owen. She was still very fond
+of him, and would like to see him sometimes. What reason could she give
+to her friends for refusing to see him? what reason could she give for
+leaving the stage?--to do so would set everyone talking. Everyone would
+want to know why; Lady Ascott, Lady Mersey, all her friends. How was she
+to separate herself from her surroundings? Wherever she went she would
+be known. Her friends would follow her, lovers would follow her,
+temptations would begin again, would she have strength to resist? "Not
+always," was the answer her heart gave back. A great despair fell upon
+her, and she walked up the room. Stopping at the window she looked out,
+and all reform of her life seemed to her impossible. She was hemmed in
+on every side. If she could only think of it no more! She had adopted an
+evil life and must pursue it to the end. She must be wretched in this
+life, and be punished eternally in the next.
+
+Hearing a footstep on the stairs, she drew herself behind the door, and
+when the sound passed downstairs she tried to reason with herself. After
+all, the housemaid would have been merely surprised to find her in the
+drawing-room at that hour. She could not have guessed why she was there.
+She ran up the stairs, and when she had closed the door of her room she
+stood looking at the clock. It was not yet seven, and Herat did not come
+to her room till half-past nine. She must try to get to sleep between
+this and then. She lay with her eyes closed, and did not perceive that a
+thin, shallow sleep had come upon her, for she continued to think the
+same thoughts; fear of God and hatred of sin assumed even more
+terrifying proportions, and she started like a hunted animal when Merat
+came in with her bath. "I hope Mademoiselle is not ill?" "No, I am not
+ill, only I have not slept at all."
+
+In order to distract her thoughts, she went for a walk after breakfast
+in the park, but any casual sight sufficed to recall them to the one
+important question. She could not see the children sailing their toy
+boats without thinking her ambitions were as futile, and a chance
+glimpse of a church spire frightened her so that she turned her back and
+walked the other way. In the afternoon she tried to interest herself in
+some music, but her hands dropped from the keys, so useless did it
+appear to her. At four she was dreaming of Owen in an armchair. The
+servant suddenly announced him, and he came in, seemingly recovered from
+his gout and his old age. His figure was the perfect elegance of a man
+of forty-three, and in such beautiful balance that an old admiration
+awakened in her. His "waistcoats and his valet," she thought, catching
+sight of the embroideries and the pale, subdued, terrified air of the
+personal servant. The valet carried a parcel which Evelyn guessed to be
+a present for her. It was a tea-service of old Crown Derby that Owen had
+happened upon in Bath, and they spent some time examining its pale roses
+and gilt pattern. She expected him to refer to their last interview, but
+he avoided doing so, preferring to take it for granted that he still was
+her lover, and he did so without giving her sufficient occasion to
+correct him on this point. He was affectionate and intimate; he sat
+beside her on the sofa, and talked pleasantly of the benefit he had
+derived from the waters, of the boredom of hotel life, and of a concert
+given in aid of a charity.
+
+"But that reminds me," he said; "I heard about the Wimbledon concert,
+and was sorry you did not write to me for a subscription. Lady
+Merrington told me about the nuns; they spent all their money building a
+chapel, and had not enough to eat."
+
+"I didn't think you would care to subscribe to a convent."
+
+"Now, why did you think that? Poor devils of nuns, shut up in a convent
+without enough to eat. Of course I'll subscribe; I'll send them a cheque
+for ten pounds to-morrow."
+
+This afternoon, whether by accident or design, he said no word that
+might jar on her religious scruples; he even appeared to sympathise with
+religious life, and admitted that the world was not much, and to
+renounce the world was sublime. The conversation paused, and he said, "I
+think the tea-service suits the room. You haven't thanked me for it yet,
+Evelyn."
+
+"I don't know that I ought to accept any more presents from you. I have
+accepted too much as it is."
+
+She was conscious of her feebleness. It would have been better to have
+said, "I am another man's mistress," but she could not speak the words,
+and he asked if they might have tea in the new service. She did not
+answer, so he rang, and when the servant left the room he took her hands
+and drew her closer to him. "I am another man's mistress, you must not
+touch me," rang in her brain, but he did not kiss her, and the truth was
+not spoken.
+
+"Lady Duckle is still at Homburg, is she not?" he asked, but he was
+thinking of the inexplicable event each had been in the other's life.
+They had wandered thus far, now their paths divided, for nothing
+endures. That is the sadness, the incurable sadness! He was getting too
+old for her; in a few more years he would be fifty. But he had hoped
+that this friendship would continue to the end of the chapter. And while
+he was thinking these things, Evelyn was telling him that Lady Duckle
+had met Lady Mersey at Homburg, and had gone on with her to Lucerne,
+where they hoped to meet Lady Ascott.
+
+"You are going to shoot with Lord Ascott next month?" she said, and
+looking at him she wondered if their relations were after all no more
+than a chance meeting and parting. While he spoke of Lord Ascott's
+pheasant shooting, she felt that whatever happened neither could divorce
+the other from his or her faults.
+
+"How beautiful the park is now, I like the view from your windows. I
+like this hour; a sense of resignation is in the air."
+
+"Yes," she said, "the sky is beautifully calm," and she experienced a
+return of old tendernesses, and she had no scruple, for he did not make
+love to her, and did not kiss her until he rose to leave. Then he kissed
+her on the forehead and on the cheek, and refrained from asking if they
+were reconciled.
+
+Never had he been nicer than he had been that afternoon, and she dared
+not look into her heart, for she did not wish to think that she would
+send him away. Why should she send him away? why not the other? She
+could not answer this question; she only knew that the choice had fallen
+upon Owen. She must send him away, but what reasons should she give? She
+felt that her conduct that afternoon had rendered a complete rupture in
+their relations more difficult than ever. It was as she lay sleepless in
+bed long after midnight that the solution of the difficulty suddenly
+sounded in her brain. She must write to him saying that he might come to
+see her once more, but that it must be for the last time. This was the
+way out of her difficulty, and she turned over in her bed, feeling she
+might now get to sleep. But instead of sleep there began the very words
+of this last interview, and her brain teemed with different plans for
+escape from her lover. She saw herself on ocean steamers, in desert
+isles, and riding wild horses through mountain passes. Barred doors,
+changes of name, all means were passed and reviewed; each was in turn
+dismissed, and the darkness about her bed was like a flame. There was no
+doubt that she was doomed to another night of insomnia. The bell of the
+French clock struck three, and, quite exhausted, she got up and walked
+about the room. "In another hour I shall hear the screech of the sparrow
+on the window-sill, and may lie awake till Merat comes to call me." She
+lay down, folded her arms, closed her eyes and began to count the sheep
+as they came through the gate. But thoughts of Owen began to loom up,
+and in spite of her efforts to repress them, they grew more and more
+distinct. The clock struck four, and soon after it seemed to her that
+the darkness was lightening. For a long while she did not dare to open
+her eyes. At last she had to open them, and the grey-blue light was
+indescribably mournful. Again her life seemed small, black and evil. She
+jumped out of bed, passed her arms into a tea-gown, and paced the room.
+She must see Owen. She must tell him the truth. Once he knew the truth
+he would not care for her, and that would make the parting easier for
+both. She did not believe that this was so, but she had to believe
+something, and she went down to the drawing-room and wrote--
+
+"DEAR OWEN--You may come and see me to-morrow if you care to. I am
+afraid that your visit will not be a pleasant one. I don't think I could
+be an agreeable companion to anyone at present, but I cannot send you
+away without explaining why. However painful that explanation may be to
+you, there is at all events this to be said, that it will be doubly
+painful to me. I am not, dear Owen, ungrateful; that you should think me
+so is the hardest punishment of all, and I am sorry I have not made you
+happier. I know other women don't feel as I do, but I can't change
+myself. I feel dreadfully hypocritical writing in this strain. I, less
+than anyone have a right to do so, especially now. But you will try to
+understand. You know that I am not a hypocrite at heart. I am determined
+to tell you all, and you will then see that no course is open to me but
+to send you away. Even if you were to promise that we should be friends
+we must not see each other, but I don't think that you would care to see
+me on those terms. I should have stopped you yesterday when you took my
+hand, when you kissed me, but I was weak and cowardly. Somehow I could
+not bring myself to tell you the truth. I shall expect you in the
+afternoon, and will tell you all. I am punishing myself as well as you.
+So please don't try to make things more difficult than they are.--Yours
+very sincerely, EVELYN INNES."
+
+Leaving this letter with directions that it should be posted at once,
+weary, and with her brain as clear as crystal, she threw herself upon
+her bed. Folding her arms, she closed her eyes, and strove to banish
+thoughts of Owen and the confession she was to make that afternoon. But
+when sleep gathered about her eyes, the memory of past sins, at first
+dense, then with greater clearness, shone through, and the traitor sleep
+moved away. Or she would suddenly find herself in the middle of the
+interview, the entire dialogue standing clear cut in her brain, she
+could almost see the punctuation of every sentence. Once more she
+counted the sheep coming through the gate; she counted and counted,
+until her imagination failed her, and in spite of herself, her eyes
+opened upon the dreaded room. She heard the clock strike nine. Merat
+would knock at her door in another half-hour, and she lay waiting,
+fearing her arrival. But at last her face grew quieter, she seemed to
+see Monsignor vaguely, she could not tell where nor how he had come to
+her, but she heard him saying distinctly that she must never sing Isolde
+again. He seemed to bar her way to the stage, and the music that was to
+bring her on sounded in her ears, yet she could see the shape of her
+room and its furniture. A knock came at the door, and she was surprised
+to find that she had been asleep.
+
+Her brain was a ferment; it seemed as if it were about to fall out of
+her head; she feared the day, its meal times and the long hours of
+morning and evening sunshine. The idea of the coming interview with Owen
+was intolerable. Her brain was splitting, she could not think of what
+she would say. But her letter had gone! After breakfast she felt a
+little rested, and went into the park and remained there till lunch
+time, dimly aware of the open air, the waving of branches, the sound of
+human voices. Beyond these, and much more distinct, was a vision of her
+evil life, and the cold, stern face of the priest watching her. She
+wandered about, and then hastened back to Park Lane. Owen had been. He
+had left word that he would call again about three o'clock. He would
+have stayed, but had an engagement to lunch with friends. She lunched
+alone, and was sitting on the corner of the sofa, heavy-eyed and weary,
+but determined to be true to her resolutions, when the servant announced
+him. He came in hurriedly, his hat in his hand, and his eyes went at
+once to where she was sitting. He saw she was looking ill, but there
+were more important matters to speak of.
+
+"I came at once, the moment I got your letter. I should have waited, but
+I was lunching with Lady Merrington. Such terribly boring people were
+there. It was all I could do to prevent myself from rushing out of the
+room. But, Evelyn, what are you determined to tell me? I thought we
+parted good friends yesterday. You have been thinking it over.... You're
+going to send me away." He sat beside her, he held his hat in both
+hands, and looked perplexed and worried. "But, Evelyn"--she sat like a
+figure of stone, there was no colour in her cheeks nor any expression in
+her eyes or mouth--"Evelyn, I am afraid you are ill, you are pale as a
+ghost."
+
+"I did not sleep last night, nor the night before."
+
+"Two nights of insomnia are enough to break anyone up. I am very sorry,
+Evelyn, dear--you ought to go away." Her silence perplexed him, and he
+said, "Evelyn, I have come to ask you to be my wife. Don't keep me in
+suspense. Will you give up the stage and be my wife? Why don't you
+answer? Oh, Evelyn, is it--are you married?"
+
+"No, I am not married, Owen. I don't suppose I ever shall be. If you had
+wished to marry me--"
+
+"I know all that, that if I wanted to marry you I ought to have done so
+long ago. But you said you were determined to tell me something--what is
+it?" The expression of her face did not change; her lips moved a little,
+she cast down her eyes, and said, "I've got another lover."
+
+He felt that he ought to get very angry, and that to do so was in a way
+expected of him. He thought he had better say something energetic, lest
+she should think that he did not care for her. But he was so overcome by
+the thought of his escape--it was now no longer possible for her to send
+him away--that he could think of nothing. It even seemed to him that
+everything was happening for the best, for he did not doubt that she
+would soon tire, if she were not tired already, of this musician, and
+then he would easily regain his old influence over her. Even if she did
+marry this musician, she'd get tired of him, and then who knows
+--anything was better than that she should go over to that infernal
+priest. While rejoicing in the defeat of his hated rival, he was anxious
+that Evelyn should not perceive what was passing in his mind, and,
+afraid to betray himself, he said nothing, leaving her to conjecture
+what she pleased from his silence.
+
+"I don't intend to defend my conduct; it is indefensible.... But, Owen,
+I want you to believe that I did not lie to you. Ulick was not my lover
+when I went to see you that evening in Berkeley Square."
+
+It was necessary to say something, and, feeling that any unguarded word
+would jeopardise his chances, he said--
+
+"I think I told you that night that you liked Ulick Dean. I can quite
+understand it; he is a nice fellow enough. Are you going to marry him?"
+
+"No, I am not in love with him--I never was. I liked him merely."
+
+"I can understand; all those hours you spent with him studying Isolde."
+
+"Yes, it was that music, it gets on one's nerves.... But, Owen, there is
+no excuse."
+
+"We'll think no more about it, Evelyn. I am glad you do not love him.
+My greatest fear was to lose you altogether."
+
+She was touched by his kindness, as he expected she would be, and he sat
+looking at her, keeping as well as he could all expression from his
+face. He thought that he had got over the greatest difficulty, and he
+congratulated himself on his cleverness. The question now was, what was
+the next move?
+
+"You are not looking very well, Evelyn. You don't sleep--you want a
+change. The _Medusa_ is at Cowes; what do you say for a sail?"
+
+"Owen, dear, I cannot go with you. If I did, you know how it would end,
+I being what I am, and you being what you are. There would be no sense
+in my going yachting unless I went as your mistress, and I cannot do
+that."
+
+"You love that fellow Ulick Dean too much."
+
+"I don't love him at all.... Owen, you will never understand."
+
+"Understand!" he cried, starting to his feet, "this is madness, Evelyn.
+I see! I suppose you think it wrong to have two lovers at the same time.
+Grace has come to you through sin. You are going to get rid of both of
+us."
+
+Evelyn sat quite still as if hypnotised. She was very sorry for him, but
+for no single moment did she think she would yield.
+
+Suddenly he asked her why he should be the one to be sent away, and he
+pleaded the rights of old friendship, going even so far as to suggest
+that even if she liked Ulick better she should not refuse to see him
+sometimes.
+
+"I have no right to seem shocked at anything you may say. I told you
+Ulick was my lover, but I did not say he was going to remain my lover."
+
+"Then what are you going to do? Will that priest get hold of you? I know
+him--I was at Eton with him. He always was--" and Owen muttered
+something under his breath. "Surely, Evelyn, you are not thinking of
+going to confession. After all my teaching has it come to this? My God!"
+he said, as he walked up the room, "I'd sooner Ulick got you than that
+damned hypocritical fool. You are much too good for God," he said,
+turning suddenly and looking at her, remarking at that moment the pretty
+oval of her face, the arched eyebrows, the clear, nervous eyes. "You'll
+be wasted on religion."
+
+"From your point of view, I suppose I shall be."
+
+They talked on and on, saying what they had said many times before.
+Sometimes Evelyn seemed to follow his arguments, and thinking that he
+was convincing her, he would break off suddenly. "Well, will you come
+for a cruise with me in the _Medusa_? I'll ask all your friends--we'll
+have such a pleasant time."
+
+"No, Owen, no, it's impossible, you don't understand. I don't blame
+you--you never will understand."
+
+And they looked at each other like wanderers standing on the straits
+dividing two worlds. The hands of the clock pointed to five o'clock. The
+servants had taken the tea-service away. Owen had urged Evelyn not to
+abandon the stage; he had urged the cause of Art; he had urged that her
+voice was her natural vocation; he had spoken of their love, and of the
+happiness they had found in each other--the conversation had drifted
+from an argument concerning the authenticity of the Gospels to a lake
+where they had spent a season five years ago. She saw again the reedy
+reaches and the steep mountain shores. They had been there in the month
+of September, and the leaves of the vine were drooping, and the grapes
+ready for gathering. They had been sweethearts only a little while, and
+the drives about the lake was one of his happiest memories.
+
+"Evelyn, you cannot mean that you will never see me again?"
+
+His eyes filled with tears, and she turned her head aside so that she
+might not see them.
+
+"Life is very difficult, Owen; try not to make it more difficult."
+
+"Evelyn, I had hoped that our friendship would have continued to the
+end. I never cared for any other woman, and when you are my age and look
+back, you will find that there is one, I don't say I shall be the one,
+who--" His voice trembled, and he passed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"It's very sad, Owen, and life is very difficult.... There is this
+consolation for you, that I am not sending you away on account of anyone
+else. Ulick must go too."
+
+"That does not make it any better for me. By God, I'd sooner that he got
+you than that infernal religion. Evelyn, Evelyn, it is impossible that
+an idea, a mere idea, should take you from me. It is inhuman, unnatural,
+I can't realise it!"
+
+"Owen, you must go now."
+
+"Evelyn, I don't understand. It is just as if you told me you were
+tallow, and would melt if there was a fire lighted. But never mind, I'll
+accept your ideas--I'll accept anything. Let us be married to-morrow."
+
+She was frightened in the depths of her feelings, and seemed to lose all
+control of her will.
+
+"Owen, I cannot marry you. Why do you ask me? You know it is now more
+than ever impossible."
+
+His face changed expression, but he was urged forward by an irresistible
+force that seemed to rise up from the bottom of his being and blind his
+eyes.
+
+"You don't love him, it was only a caprice; we'll think no more about
+it."
+
+She sought the truth in her soul, but it seemed to elude her. She was
+like a blind person in a vague, unknown space, and not being able to
+discover the reason why she refused him, she insisted that Ulick was the
+reason.
+
+"Are you going to marry him?"
+
+"No, I don't think so."
+
+"Don't you wish to? He is your father's friend."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Destiny, I suppose."
+
+The question was too profound for discussion, and they sat silent for a
+long while. A chance remark turned their talk upon Balzac, and Owen
+spoke about _Le Lys dans la Vallee_, and she asked him if he remembered
+the day he had first spoken to her about Balzac.
+
+"It was the day you took me to the races, our first week in Paris."
+
+"And a few days afterwards I took you to Madame Savelli's. She told you
+that you had the most beautiful voice she had ever heard. You could not
+speak; you were so excited that I was obliged to send you off for a
+drive in the Bois. Do you remember?"
+
+"Yes, I remember.... You were always very good to me."
+
+They talked on and on, conscious of the hands of the clock moving on
+towards their divided lives. When it struck seven, she said he must go,
+but he begged to be allowed to stay till a quarter past, and in this
+last period he urged that their separation should not be final. He
+pleaded that a time should be set on his alienation, and ended by
+extracting from her a sort of half promise that she would allow him to
+come and see her in three months. But he and she knew that they would
+never meet again, and the sad thought floated up into their eyes as they
+said good-bye. She went to the window, wondering if he would stay a
+moment to look back. He stood on the edge of the pavement, and she
+watched him unmoved. She was thinking of Monsignor, and of how he would
+approve of her conduct. He would tell her that what she liked and
+disliked was no longer the question. Owen still stood on the kerb, but
+she did not even see him. Her eyes looked into the sunset, and she was
+thrilled with a mysterious joy, a joy that came from the heart, not from
+passions, and it was exquisitely subtle as the light that faded in the
+remote west.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
+
+
+He walked up Park Lane, staring now and then at the quaint balconies
+from a mere habit of admiration. But all were indifferent to him, even
+the one supported by the four Empire figures. It did not seem that
+anything in the world could interest him again, and he wondered how he
+would get through the years that remained to him to live. He was tired
+of hunting and shooting; he had seen everything there was to be seen; he
+had been round the world twice; it did not seem to him that he would
+ever care for another woman, and he reflected with pride that he had
+been faithful to Evelyn for six years. "But I shall never see her
+again," his heart wailed; "in three months she'll be a different woman;
+she won't want to see me, she'll find some excuse. That infernal priest
+will refuse his absolution if--" Owen stopped suddenly. Far away a
+little pink cloud dissolved mysteriously. "In another second," he
+thought, "it will be no more." In the Green Park the trees rocked in the
+soft autumn air, and he noticed that now and then a leaf broke from its
+twig, fluttered across the path, and fell by the iron railings.
+
+"Well, Asher, how is it that you are in town at this time of year?"
+
+It was a club acquaintance, one of the ordinary conventional men that
+Owen met by the dozen in every one of his clubs, a man whose next
+question would surely be, "How are your two-year-olds?"
+
+"I should like to hear that they had all broken their legs," Owen
+answered through his teeth, and the colour mounted in his cheeks.
+
+"Asher always was mad ... now he seems madder than ever. What did he
+mean by saying he wished his two-year-olds had all broken their legs?"
+
+Owen lingered on the kerb, inveighing against the stupidity of his set.
+He had thought of dining at the Turf Club, but after this irritating
+incident he felt that he dared not risk it; if anyone were to speak to
+him again of his two-year-olds, he felt he would not be able to control
+himself. Suddenly he thought of a friend. He must speak to someone....
+He need mention no names. He put up his stick and stopped a hansom. A
+few minutes took him to Harding's rooms.
+
+The unexpectedness of the visit, and the manner in which Owen strode
+about the room, trying to talk of the things that he generally talked
+about, while clearly thinking of something quite different, struck
+Harding as unusual, and a suspicion of the truth had just begun to dawn
+upon him, when, breaking off suddenly, Owen said--
+
+"Swear you'll never speak of what I am going to say--and don't ask for
+names."
+
+"I'll tell no one," said Harding, "and the name does not interest me."
+
+"It's this: a woman whom I have known many years--a friendship that I
+thought would go on to the end of the chapter--told me to-day that it
+was all finished, that she never wanted to see me again."
+
+"A friendship! Were you her lover?"
+
+"What does it matter? Suffice it to say that she was my dearest friend,
+and now I have lost her. She has been taken from me," he said, throwing
+his arms into the air. It was a superb gesture of despair, and Harding
+could not help smiling.
+
+"So Evelyn has left him. I wonder for whom?" Then, with as much sympathy
+as he could call into his voice, he asked if the lady had given any
+reason for this sudden dismissal.
+
+"Only that she thinks it wrong; we've been discussing it all the
+afternoon. It has made me quite ill;" and he dropped into a chair.
+
+Harding knew perfectly well of whom they were speaking, and Owen knew
+that he knew, but it seemed more decorous to refrain from mentioning
+names, and Evelyn's soul was discussed as if it were an abstract
+quantity, and all indication of the individual incarnation was avoided.
+Owen admitted that, notwithstanding many seeming contradictory
+appearances, Evelyn had always thought it wrong to live with him, and
+yet, notwithstanding her being very fond of him, she had never shown any
+eagerness to be married. "Of course it is very wrong," she would say in
+her own enchanting way, "but a lover is very exciting, and a husband
+always seems dull. I don't think you'd be half as nice as a husband as
+you are as a lover." The recital of the Florence episode interested
+Harding, but it was the opposition of the priest and the musician that
+made the story from his point of view one of the most fascinating he had
+ever heard in his life.
+
+They dined together in an old-fashioned club, in a room lighted by wax
+candles in silver candlesticks. Tall mirrors in gold frames reflected
+the black mahogany furniture. In answer to Owen, who lamented that
+Evelyn was sacrificing everything for an idea, Harding spoke, and with
+his usual conscious exaltation, of the Christian martyrs, the Spanish
+Inquisition, and then Robespierre seemed to him the most striking
+example of what men will do for an idea. He mentioned a portrait by
+Greuze in which Robespierre appears as a beautiful young man. "Such a
+face," he said, "as we might imagine for a lover or a poet, a sort of
+Lucien de Rubempre, but in his brain there was a cell containing the
+pedantic idea, and for this idea he cut off a thousand heads, and would
+have cut off a million. The world must conform to his idea, or it was a
+lost world."
+
+Towards the end of dinner, the head waiter interrupted their
+conversation. He lingered about the table, anxious to hear something of
+Lord Ascott's two-year-olds; but, in the smoking-room over their coffee,
+they returned to the more vital question--the sentimental affections.
+They were agreed that the pleasure of love is in loving, not in being
+loved, and their reasons were incontrovertible.
+
+"It is the letters," said Harding, "that we write at three in the
+morning to tell her how enchanting she was; it is the flowers we send,
+the words of love that we speak in her ear, that are our undoing. So
+long as we are indifferent, they love us."
+
+"Quite true. At first I did not care for her as much as she did for me,
+and I noticed that as soon as I began to fall in love--"
+
+"To aspire, to suffer. Maybe there is no deep pleasure in contentment.
+In casting you out she has given you a more intense life."
+
+Owen did not seem to understand. His eye wandered, then returning to
+Harding, he said--
+
+"We cannot worship and be worshipped; is that what you mean? If so, I
+agree with you. But I'd sooner lose her as I have done than not have
+told her that I loved her.... There never was anyone like her. Sympathy,
+understanding, appreciation and enthusiasm! it was like living in a
+dream. Good God! to think that that priest should have got her; that,
+after all my teaching, she should think it wrong to have a lover! I
+don't know if you know of whom we are speaking. If you suspect, I can't
+help it, but don't ask me. I shouldn't speak of her at all; it is wrong
+to speak of her, even though I don't mention her name, but it is
+impossible to help it. If you are proud of a woman you must speak of
+her--and I was so proud of her. It is very easy to be discreet when you
+are ashamed of them," he added, with a laugh. "When I had nothing to do,
+I used to sit down and think of her, and I used to say to myself that if
+I were the king of the whole world I could not get anything better. But
+it is all over now."
+
+"Well, you've had six years, the very prime of her life."
+
+"That's true; you're very sympathetic, Harding. Have another cigarette.
+I was faithful to her for six years--you can't understand that, but it
+is quite true, and I had plenty of chances, but, when I came to think
+of it, it always seemed that I liked her the best."
+
+At the same moment Evelyn stood on her balcony, watching the evening.
+The park was breathless, and the sky rose high and pale, and calm as
+marble. But the houses seemed to speak unutterable things, and she
+closed the window and stood looking across the room. Then walking
+towards the sofa as if she were going to sit down, she flung herself
+upon it and buried her face among the cushions. She lay there weeping,
+and when she raised her face she dashed the tears from her streaming
+cheeks, but this pause was only the prelude to another passionate
+outbreak, and she wept again, finding in tears fatigue, and in fatigue
+relief. She sobbed until she could sob no more, and so tired was she
+that she no longer cared what happened; very tired, and her head heavy,
+she went upstairs, eager for sleep. And closing her eyes she felt a
+delicious numbing of sense, a dissolution of her being into darkness....
+
+But in her waking there was a consciousness, a foreboding of a nameless
+dread, of a heavy weight upon her, and when the foreboding in her ears
+grew louder, she seemed to know that an irreparable calamity had
+happened, and trying to fathom it, she saw the wall-paper, and it told
+her she was in her own room. She seemed to be trying to read something
+on it, but what she was trying to read and understand seemed to move
+away, and her brain laboured in anxious pursuit. Her eyes opened, and
+she remembered her interview with Owen. She had sent him away, she
+understood it all now, she had sent Owen away! She had told him that
+Ulick was her lover, so even if he were to come back it never could be
+the same as it was. Why had she told him about Ulick? It was bad enough
+to send him away, but she had degraded his memory of her, and the
+thought that she had not deceived him, but had told him what he
+otherwise might never have known, did not console her just then. She lay
+quite still, face to face with, seeing as it were into the eyes of the
+Irreparable. Never again would a man hold her in his arms, saying,
+"Darling, I am very fond of you!" Take love out of her life, and what
+barrenness, what weariness! After all, she was only seven-and-twenty,
+and the thought came upon her that she might have waited until she was a
+little older. The word "never" rang in her ears, and she realised as she
+had not done before all that a lover meant to her--romance, adventure,
+the brilliancy and sparkle of life. What was life without the delightful
+excitement of the chase, the delicious doubts regarding the hidden
+significance of every look and word, then the rapture of the final
+abandonment? She tried to think that the life she proposed to relinquish
+had not brought her happiness, but she could not put back memory of the
+enchanting days she had spent with her lovers. Oh, the intense hours of
+anticipation! and the wonderful recollections! rich and red as the
+heart of a flower! Such rapture seemed to her to be worth the remorse
+that came after, and the peace of mind that a chaste life would secure,
+a poor recompense for dreary days and months. She realised the length
+and the colour of the time--grey week after grey week, blank month after
+blank month, void year after void year! And she always getting a little
+older, getting older in a drab, lifeless time, in a lifeless life, a
+weary life filled with intolerable craving! She had endured it once, a
+feeling as if she wanted to go mad.... She picked up her letters.
+
+Among the letters she received that morning was one from Ulick. He was
+still in Paris, and would not be back for another week or ten days. He
+had been lonely, he had missed her, and looked forward to their meeting.
+He told her about the opera, the people he had met, and what they had
+said about his music. But the tender affection of his letter was not to
+her mind. Why did he not say that he longed to take her in his arms and
+kiss her on the lips? Knitting her brows, she tried to think that if he
+had written more passionately she would have taken the train and gone to
+him. She had sent Owen away on account of scruples of conscience, and a
+life of chastity extended indefinitely before her. But who was this
+woman to whom Ulick had shown his music, and who had said that if
+anything happened to prevent Evelyn Innes from singing the part, she
+hoped that Ulick would give it to her? Why should she have thought that
+something would happen to prevent Evelyn Innes from creating Grania? Had
+Ulick suggested it to her? But how could Ulick know? She tried to think
+if she had ever told him she was tired of the stage. Perhaps he had
+consulted the stars and had divined her future. This woman seemed to
+know that something might happen, and something was happening, there
+could be no doubt about that.
+
+There was no doubt that she was tired of the stage, but perhaps that was
+on account of hard work, perhaps she required a rest; in two or three
+months she might return eagerly to the study of Grania; for the sake of
+Ulick, she might remain on the stage till she had established the
+success of his opera. This might be if she and Ulick were not lovers.
+She had promised Owen that she would not keep him for her lover, but
+that did not mean that she would not sing his opera. If she didn't,
+another woman would, some wretched singer who did not understand the
+music, and it would be a failure. Ulick would hate her; he would believe
+that her refusal to sing his opera was a vile plan to do him an injury.
+He did not know what conscience meant--he only understood the legends
+and the Gods! She laughed, and a moment afterwards was submerged in
+difficulties. Her conduct would seem more incomprehensible to him than
+it did to Owen; she did not wish him to hate her, but he would hate her,
+and to avoid seeing her he would not go to Dowlands, and so she would
+rob her father of his friend--the friend who had kept him company when
+she deserted him. There was another alternative. If she liked him well
+enough to be his mistress, she should like him well enough to be his
+wife. But knowing that she would not marry him, she took up her other
+letters and began reading them.
+
+Lady Duckle liked Homburg; everyone was there, and she hoped Evelyn
+would not be detained in London much longer. The Duke of Berwick had
+proposed to Miss Beale, and Lady Mersey was always about with young Mr.
+So-and-So. Evelyn didn't read it all. She lay back thinking, for this
+letter, about things that interested her no longer, had led her thoughts
+back to self, and she inquired why in the midst of all her enjoyments
+she had felt that her real life was elsewhere, why she had always known
+that sooner or later the hour would come when she would leave the things
+which she enjoyed so intensely. The idea of departure had never quite
+died down in her, and she had always known that she would be one day
+quite a different woman. She had often had glimpses of her future self
+and of her future life, but the moment she tried to distinguish what was
+there, the vision faded. Even now she knew that she would not marry
+Ulick, and this not because she would refuse her father anything, but
+merely because it was not to be. Her eyes went to the piano, but on the
+way there she stopped to ask herself a question. Why was she in London
+at this time of year? She knew why she did not care to go to
+Homburg--because she was tired of society. But why did she not go to
+some quiet seaside place where she could enjoy the summer weather? She
+would like to sit on the beach and hear the sea. Her soul threatened to
+give back a direct answer, and she dismissed the question.
+
+She paced the empty alley facing the Bayswater Road. No one was there
+except a nursemaid and a small child, and she and they shared the
+solitude. She could see the omnibuses passing, and hear the clank of the
+heavy harness, and seated on one of the seats she drew diagrams on the
+gravel with her parasol. Owen said there was no meaning in life, that it
+was no more than an unfortunate accident between two eternal sleeps. But
+she had never been able to believe that this was so; and if she had
+sought to disbelieve in God, it was as Monsignor had said, because she
+wished to lead a sinful life. And if she could not believe in
+annihilation, there could be no annihilation for her, that was Ulick's
+theory. The name of her lover brought up the faded Bloomsbury Square,
+the litter of manuscript and the books on magic! She had tried to
+believe in readings of the stars. But such vague beliefs had not helped
+her. In spite of all her efforts, the world was slipping behind her;
+Owen and Ulick and her stage career seemed very little compared with the
+certainty within her that she was leading a sinful life, and she was
+only really certain of that. The omnibuses in the road outside, the
+railways beyond the town, the ships upon the sea, what were these things
+to her--or yet the singing of operas? The only thing that really
+mattered was her conscience.
+
+Then, almost without thinking at all, in a sort of stupor, she walked
+over the hill and descended the slope, and leaning over the balustrade
+she looked at the fountains. But the splashing water explained nothing,
+and she turned to resume her walk; and she reflected that to send away
+her lovers would avail her nothing, unless she subsequently confessed
+her sins and obtained the priest's absolution. Monsignor would tell her
+that to send away her lovers was not sufficient, and he would refuse his
+absolution unless she promised him not to see them any more. That
+promise she could not give, for she had promised Ulick that she would
+sing Grania, and she had promised Owen to see him in three months. It
+seemed to her both weak and shameful to break either of these promises.
+The spire of Kensington Church showed sharp as a needle on a calm sky,
+and it was in a sudden anguish of mind that she determined that her
+repentance must be postponed. She had considered the question from every
+point of view, and could not at once reverse her life; the change must
+come gradually. She had sent Owen away; that was enough for the present.
+
+The numerous pea-fowls had gathered in a bare roosting tree on an
+opposite hillside, and the immense tails of the cock-birds swept the
+evening sky. Owen would have certainly compared it to a picture by
+Honderhoker. The ducks clambered out of the water, keeping their cunning
+black eyes fixed on the loitering children whom the nursemaid was urging
+to return home. In Kensington Gardens, the glades were green and gold,
+and for some little while Evelyn watched the delicate spectacle of the
+fading light, and insensibly she began to feel that a life of spiritual
+endeavour was the only life possible to her, and that, however much it
+might cost her, she must make the effort to attain it. Even to feel that
+she was capable of desiring this ideal life was a delicious happiness,
+and her thoughts flowed on for a long while, unmindful of practical
+difficulties. Suddenly it came upon her like a sudden illumination, that
+sooner or later she would have to make all the sacrifices that this
+ideal demanded, that she would not have any peace of mind until she had
+made them. But even at the same moment the insuperable difficulties of
+the task before her appeared, and she despaired. The last obstacle was
+money. As she crossed the road dividing Kensington Gardens from Hyde
+Park, she understood that the simple fact of owing a few thousand pounds
+rendered her immediate retirement from the stage impossible. She had
+insisted that the money she required to live in Paris and study with
+Madame Savelli should be considered as a debt, which she would repay out
+of her first earnings. But Owen had laughed at her. He had refused to
+accept it, and he would never tell her the rent of the house in the Rue
+Balzac; he had urged that as he had made use of the house he could not
+allow her to pay for it. In the rough, she supposed that a thousand
+pounds would settle her debt for the year they had spent in Paris.
+
+Since then she had, however, insisted on keeping herself, but now that
+she came to think it out, it did not seem that she had done much more
+than pay her dressmaker's bills. She grew alarmed at the amount of her
+debt, which seemed in her excited imagination so large that all her
+savings, amounting to about six or seven thousand pounds, would not
+suffice to pay it off. Most of her jewellery had been given to her by
+Owen; there was the furniture, the pictures and the china in Park Lane!
+She would have to return all these, and the horses, too, if she wished
+to pay everything, and the net result would be that she would mortally
+offend the man who had done everything for her. She knew he would not
+forgive her if she sent back the presents he had made her, nor could she
+blame him, and she decided that such complete restitution was
+impossible. But, for all she knew, Monsignor might insist upon it. If he
+did? She felt that she would go mad if she did not put aside these
+scruples, which she knew to be in a measure fictitious, but which she
+was nevertheless unable to shake off. And she could not help thinking,
+though she knew that such thoughts were both foolish and unjust, that
+Owen had purposely contrived this thraldom. Then there was only one
+thing for her to do, to go to Paris after Ulick.... A moment after there
+came a sinking feeling. She knew that she could not. But what was she to
+do? All this uncertainty was loosening her brain.... She might go to
+Monsignor and lay the whole matter before him and take his advice. But
+she knew if she went to him she must confess. Better that, she thought,
+than that the intolerable present should endure.
+
+Mental depression and sleepless nights had produced nervous pains in her
+neck and arms. She could hardly drag herself along for very weariness.
+The very substance of her being seemed to waste away; that amount of
+unconsciousness without which life is an agony had been abstracted,
+leaving nothing but a fierce mentality.
+
+She slept a little after dinner, and awakening about eleven, she foresaw
+another night of insomnia. The chatter of her conscience continued,
+tireless as a cricket, and she had lost hope of being able to silence
+it. The hysterical tears of last night had brought her four hours of
+sleep, but there was no chance of any repetition of them. It would be
+useless to go upstairs. She sang through the greater part of
+"Lohengrin," and then took up the "Meistersinger," and read it till it
+fell from her hands. ... It was three o'clock; and feeling very tired,
+she thought that she might be able to sleep. But all night long she saw
+her life from end to end. Her miserable passage through this life, the
+weakness of her character and the vileness of her sins were shown to her
+in a hideous magnification. She was exhibited to herself like an insect
+in a crystal, and she perceived the remotest antennae of her being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY
+
+
+One night it occurred to her that she might ring for Merat and send her
+to the chemist's for a sleeping draught. But it was four o'clock in the
+morning, and she did not like to impose such a task on her maid.
+Moreover, she might get to sleep a little later on, so she wrote on a
+piece of paper that Merat was not to come to her room until she rang for
+her, and she lay down and folded her arms, and once more began to count
+the sheep through the gate. But that night sleep seemed further than
+ever from her eyes, and at eight she was obliged to ring. "Merat, I have
+not closed my eyes all night."
+
+"Mademoiselle ought to have a sleeping draught."
+
+"Yes, I'll take one to-night Get me some tea. Another night like this
+will drive me mad."
+
+Late in the afternoon she slept for an hour in an armchair, and, a
+little rested, went to walk in the park. She was not feeling so dazed;
+her brain was not so light, and the sense of whiteness was gone; the
+pains in the neck and arms too had died down; they were now like a dim
+suggestion, a memory. But the greatest relief of all was that she was
+not thinking, conscience was quiescent and in the calm of the evening
+and the gentleness of the light, life seemed easier to bear. If she
+could only get a night's sleep! Now she did not know which was the
+worst--the reality, the memory, or the anticipation of a sleepless
+night. She had wandered round the park by the Marble Arch, and had
+continued her walk through Kensington Gardens, and sitting on the
+hillside by the Long Water, with the bridge on her left hand and the
+fountains under her eyes, she looked towards Kensington. There an
+iridescent sky floated like a bubble among the autumn-tinted trees. She
+was then thinking of her music and her friends; she hardly knew of what
+she was thinking, when a thought so clear that it sounded like a bell
+spoke within her, and it said that the things of which she was thinking
+were as nothing, and that Life was but a little moment compared with
+Eternity, and she seemed to see into the final time which lay beyond the
+grave. "There and not here are the true realities," said the voice, and
+she got up and walked hurriedly down the hillside, fearing lest the
+fierce conflict of conscience should begin again in her. She walked as
+fast as she was able, hoping to extinguish in action the conscience
+that she dreaded, but she was weak and almost helpless, and had to pause
+to rest. She stood, one hand on the balustrade, not daring to turn her
+head lest she should see the spire of the Kensington Church.
+
+She walked across the gardens, through the great groves, and sat down.
+The grass was worn away about the roots of the trees and through the
+gnarled trunks she could see the keeper's cottage covered with reddened
+creeper. Perhaps it was the calm and seclusion that called her thoughts
+to the convent garden, and she reflected that if she had not accepted
+the nuns' invitation to tea, her life might have continued without
+deviation. She was impressed with the slightness of the thread on which
+our destiny hangs, and then by the inevitableness of our lives. We
+perceive the governing rule only when we look back. The present always
+seems chaos, but when we look back, we distinguish the reason of every
+action, and we recognise the perfect fulfilment of what must be. Her
+visit to the convent--how little it was when looked at from one side,
+when looked at from another how extraordinary! If she had known that
+Monsignor was going to ask her to go there, she would have invented a
+plausible excuse, but she had had no time to think; his kind eyes were
+fixed upon her, and he seemed so ready to believe all she said, that her
+courage sank within her, and she could not lie to him. Perhaps all this
+was by intention, by the very grace of God! The Virgin might have
+interceded on her behalf, for is it not said that whoever wears the
+scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel cannot lose his soul? But for the
+last two years, for more than two years, she has not worn her scapular.
+The strings had broken, and they had not been mended. She had intended
+to buy another, but had not been able to bring herself to do so, so
+hypocritical did it seem.
+
+It might be that these dreadful nights of insomnia had been sent so that
+she might have an opportunity of realising the wickedness of her life,
+and the risk she incurred of losing her immortal soul. She dare not have
+recourse to the sleeping draught, and must endure perhaps another
+sleepless night. If they had been sent, as she thought they were, for a
+purpose, she must not dare to hush, by artificial means, the sense God
+had awakened in her; to do so would be like flying in the face of
+Providence. She had never suffered from sleeplessness before, and could
+not think that this insomnia was accidental. No, she dare not have
+recourse to sleeping draughts, at least not till she had been to
+confession. If afterwards she did not get to sleep, it would be
+different. The fear arose in her of taking too much, of dying in her
+sleep. If she were to awake in hell! And that evening, when Merat
+reminded her of the draught, she said it was to be left on the table,
+and that she would take it if she required it.
+
+The darkness could not hide the slim bottle corked with a slim blond
+cork, and so clear was the vision that she could read the label through
+the darkness. It was only partially gummed on the bottom, and she could
+read the pale writing. "To be taken before bedtime." The temptation
+struck through the darkness, sweet and dreamily seductive it entered her
+brain. She was tempted as by a dark, dreamless river; hushed in an
+unconscious darkness she would be upon that river, floating through a
+long, winding night towards a dim, very distant day. If she were to
+drink, darkness would sink upon her, and all this visible world, the
+continual sight of which she felt must end in lunacy, would pass from
+her. So great was the temptation that she did not dare to get out of bed
+and put the bottle away--if she did she must drink it, so she lay quite
+still, her face turned against the wall, trying to find courage in the
+thought that God had imposed the torture of these sleepless nights upon
+her in order that she might be saved from the eternal sleeplessness of
+hell.
+
+Mistakes are made in the preparation of medicines, but if no mistake had
+been made, a change in her health might unfit her for so large a dose,
+and if through either of these chances she were to die in her sleep,
+there was no question that she must awake in hell. She did not dare to
+go to the draught, but lay quite still, her head close against the wall,
+praying for darkness, crying for relief from this too fierce mentality;
+it seemed to be eating up the very substance of her brain.
+
+On the following evening she sat in her armchair watching the clock. It
+had struck eleven--that was the time for her going to bed, but the hour
+had become a redoubtable one. Bedtime filled her with fear, and the
+thought of another sleepless night deprived her of all courage. She did
+not dare to go upstairs. She sat in her armchair as if in terror of a
+mortal enemy. She had hidden the bottle, but her maid had ordered
+another. There were now two, sufficient to procure death, said her
+conscience, and since dinner the temptation to commit suicide had been
+growing in her brain; like a vulture perched upon a jag of mountain
+rock, she could see the temptation watching her. She tried not to see,
+but the thought grew blacker and larger--its beak was in her brain, and
+she was drawn, as if by talons, tremblingly from her chair. She was so
+weak that she could hardly cross the room; but the thought of death
+seemed to give her courage, and without it she thought she never would
+have had the strength to get upstairs. The attraction was extraordinary,
+and her powerlessness to resist it was part of the fascination, and she
+looked round the room like a victim looking for the knife. She could not
+see the bottle on her dressing-table, and accepting this as a favourable
+omen, she undressed and lay down.
+
+After all, she might sleep without having recourse to death; but, lying
+on the pillow, she could think of nothing but the slim bottle and the
+slim blond cork, and a thick white liquid, and the dark river into
+which she would sink, the winding darkness on which she would float, and
+she had not strength to think whither it led. Her only thought was not
+to see this world any more; her only desire not to think of Ulick or
+Owen, and to be tortured no longer by doubt of what was right and what
+was wrong. She was aware that she was losing possession of her
+self-control, and would be soon drawn into the dreaded but much-desired
+abyss; and in this delirium, produced by long insomnia, she began to
+conceive her suicide as an act of defiance against God, and she rejoiced
+in her hatred of God, who had afflicted her so cruelly--for it was
+hatred that had come to her aid, and would enable her to secure a long,
+long sleep. "Out of the sight of this world"--she muttered the words as
+she sought the chloral--"I'll sleep, I'll sleep, I must sleep. Sleep or
+death, one or the other, so long as I am out of the sight of this
+world." But in her frenzy of desire for sleep she overlooked the slim
+bottle with the slim blond cork. Yet it stood on the toilet-table amid
+other bottles, right under her eyes, but over and over again she passed
+it by, until, frightened at not finding it, she opened drawer after
+drawer, and rushed to her wardrobe thinking it might be there. She
+sought for it, throwing her things about, and, not finding it anywhere,
+a cold sweat broke over her forehead. Another sleepless night and she
+must go mad. If she did not find it, she must find another way out of
+this agony, and the thought of cutting her throat, or throwing herself
+out of the window, flashed across her mind. "Sleep I must have--sleep,
+sleep, sleep!" she muttered, as with fearing fingers she emptied out the
+contents of her little workbox, where odds and ends collected. It was
+her scapular that came up under her hand, and at the sight of it, all
+her mad revolt was hushed, and a calm settled upon her. "A miracle, a
+miracle," she murmured, "the Virgin has done this; she interceded for
+me;" and at the same moment, catching sight of the chloral right under
+her very eyes, she could no longer doubt the miraculous interposition of
+the Virgin. For how otherwise could that bottle have escaped her notice?
+She had looked at the very place where it stood many times, and had not
+seen it; she had moved the other bottles and she had not seen it. The
+Virgin had taken it away--she was sure it was not there five minutes
+ago--or else the Virgin had blinded her eyes to it. A miracle had
+happened; and in a quivering peace of mind and an intense joy of the
+heart, she mended the strings of her broken scapular. Then she hung it
+round her neck, and kneeling by the bedside, she said the prayers that
+it enjoined; and when she got into bed she saw a light shining in one
+corner of the room, and, sure that it was the Virgin who had come in
+person to visit her, she continued her prayers till she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
+
+A knock came at her door, and Merat was glad to hear that Mademoiselle
+had slept. She noticed that the sleeping-draught had not been taken, and
+picking up the various things that Evelyn had scattered in her search,
+she wondered at the disorder of the room, making Evelyn feel
+uncomfortable by her remarks. Evelyn knew it would be impossible for
+Merat to guess the cause of it all. But when she hesitated about what
+dress she would wear, declaring against this one and that one, her
+choice all the time being fixed on a black crepon, Merat glanced
+suspiciously at her mistress; and when Evelyn put aside her rings,
+selecting in preference two which she did not usually wear, the maid was
+convinced that some disaster had happened, and was ready to conclude
+that Ulick Dean was the cause of these sleepless nights.
+
+Evelyn had chosen this dress because she was going to St. Joseph's or
+because she supposed she was going there. It did not seem to her that
+she could confess to anyone but Monsignor. But why he? one priest would
+do as well as another. She was too tired to think.
+
+Her brain was like one of those autumn days when clouds hang low, and a
+dimness broods between sky and earth. True that there were the events of
+last night--her search for the chloral, the finding of her scapular, her
+belief in a special interposition of Providence, and then her resolution
+to go to confession. It was all there; she knew it all, but did not want
+to think about it. She had been thinking for a week, and this was the
+first respite she had had from thought, and she wished this stupor of
+brain to continue till four o'clock. That was the time she would have to
+be at St. Joseph's. He was generally there at that time.
+
+She had lain down on the sofa after breakfast, hoping to sleep a little;
+if she didn't, the time would be very long; but as she dozed, she began
+to see the thin, worn face and the piercing eyes, and the intonation of
+his voice began to ring in her ears. As she thought or as she dreamed,
+the striking of the clock reminded her of the number of hours that
+separated them. Only four hours and she would be kneeling at his feet!
+Then she felt that she had advanced a stage, and was appreciably nearer
+the inevitable end, and lay staring at the sequence of events. She saw
+the hours stretching out reaching to him, and she, all the while, was
+moving through the hours automatically. All kind of similes presented
+themselves to her mind. She asked herself how it was that Monsignor had
+come into her life. She had not sought him; she had not wanted him in
+her life, but he had come! She remembered the first time she saw
+him--that Sunday morning when she went to St. Joseph's to meet her
+father's choir--and could recall the exact appearance of the church as
+he walked across the aisle to the pulpit. It was illuminated by a sudden
+ray of sunlight falling through one of the eastern windows, and she
+remembered how it had lighted up the thin, narrow face, bringing a glow
+of colour to the dark skin till it seemed like one of the carved saints
+she had seen in Romanesque churches on the Rhine. She remembered the
+shape of the small head, carried well back, and how she had been
+impressed by the slow stride with which he crossed the sanctuary. Then
+her thoughts passed to the moment when, standing in the pulpit, he had
+looked out on the congregation, seeming to divine the presence of some
+great sinner there. She had felt that he was aware of her existence, for
+in that moment the thin grey eyes seemed to see her, even to think her,
+and they had frightened her, they were so clear, so set on some
+purpose--God's or the Church's. She had met him that evening at a
+concert, and how well she remembered her father introducing him! He had
+spoken to her several minutes; everyone in the room was looking at them,
+and she recalled the scene--all the girls, their dresses, and the
+expression of their eyes. But she could not recall what Monsignor had
+said, only her impressions; the same strange fascination and fear which
+she had experienced when Owen came to the concerts long ago--that loud
+winter's night, harsh and hard as iron. Owen had stood talking to her
+too, and she had been fascinated.... He had admired her singing, and
+Monsignor had admired her singing; but she was determined not to sing
+until Monsignor had asked her to sing, and when he has asked her to go
+to the convent she had gone. It was very strange; she could not account
+for it. It was all beyond herself, outside of her, far away like the
+stars, and she felt now as she did whenever she looked at the stars. Was
+her character essentially weak, and was she liable to all these
+influences, these facile assimilations? Was there nothing within her, no
+abiding principle, nothing that she could call her own? She walked up
+the room, and tried to understand herself--what was she, bad or good,
+weak or strong? If she only knew what she was, then she would know how
+to act.
+
+There were her sins against faith. She had striven to undermine her
+belief in God. She had read Darwin and Huxley for this purpose, and not
+in the least to obtain knowledge. As Monsignor has said, "When a
+Catholic loses his faith, it is because he desires to lead a loose
+life," and she hardly dared to look into her soul, knowing that she
+would find confirmation of this opinion. She had not been to Mass,
+because at the Elevation she believed in spite of herself; so she had
+been as insincere in her unfaith as in her faith. Then there were the
+sins of the flesh, and their number and their blackness terrified her.
+There were sins that she strove to put out of her mind at once, sins she
+was even ashamed to think of; and the thought of confessing them struck
+her down, and once more it seemed that she could never raise herself out
+of the slough into which she had fallen. She had all along taken it for
+granted that a general admission that she had lived with Owen as his
+wife would be sufficient. But now it seemed to her that she would have
+to tell Monsignor how gross her life had been.
+
+In a corner of the room her sins crowded, and covering her face with her
+hands, she was convinced that she could not go to confession.
+
+Before she went away with Owen she had had no sins to confess, or only
+venial sins; that she had been late for Mass through her own fault; that
+she had omitted her evening prayers. Her worst sin was the reading of a
+novel which she thought she ought not to have read, but now her life was
+all sin. If the priest questioned her she could not answer, she must
+refuse to answer. So there seemed no hope for her. She could not confess
+everything, and the conviction suddenly possessed her that God had
+deserted her, and she could not hope for redemption from her present
+life. For she could not confess all her sins; her heart would fail her,
+she would be tempted to conceal something, and then to her other sins
+she would add the sin of a bad confession.
+
+Nervous pains began again in her arms and neck, and she experienced the
+same wasting away of the very substance of her being, of the protecting
+envelope of the unconscious. She was again a mere mentality, and she
+looked round the room with a frightened, distracted air. On the table
+was the book Monsignor had given her, _Sin and Its Consequences_. But
+she turned from it with a smile. She did not need anyone to tell her
+what were the consequences of sin--and the familiar proverb of bringing
+coals to Newcastle rose up in her mind. At the same moment she caught
+sight of the clock; it was half-past twelve, and she remembered that in
+about three hours and a half it would be time to go to St. Joseph's.
+Then like a flash the question came, was it Monsignor's influence that
+had induced this desire of a pure life in her? She could not deny to
+herself that she was attracted by his personality. So the question was,
+how far his personality accounted for the change that had come over her
+life? Was it the mere personal influence of the prelate, or an inherent
+sense of right and wrong that compelled her to send her lovers away and
+change her life? If it were the mere personal influence of Monsignor,
+her desire of a pure life would not last, and to attain something that
+was not natural to her she would have ruined her life to no purpose.
+Owen's influence had died in her; how did she know that Monsignor's
+would continue even so long? She had lived an evil life for six years;
+would she lead a good one for the same time? If she knew this she would
+know how to act. But not only for six years would she have to lead a
+good life, but till the very end of her life. If she did not persevere
+till the very end, all this present struggle and the years of
+self-denial which she was was about to enter on would be useless. She
+might just as well have had a good time all along. A good time! That was
+just it. She could not have a good time. She dare not face the agony,
+the agony which she was at present enduring, so she must go to
+confession, she must have inward peace.
+
+"So my life is over and done," she said, "and at seven-and-twenty!"
+
+She twisted in her fingers a letter which she had received that morning
+from Mademoiselle Helbrun. She was staying at the Savoy Hotel, and had
+just returned from Munich. Evelyn felt she would like to hear about her
+success as Frika, and how So-and-So had sung Brunnhilde, and the rest of
+the little gossip about the profession. She would like to lunch with
+Louise in the restaurant, at a table by the window. She would like to
+see the Thames, and hear things that she might never hear again. But was
+it possible that she was never going to join again in the tumult of the
+Valkyrie? She remembered her war gear, the white tunic with gold
+breastplates. Was it possible that she would never cry their cry from
+the top of the rocks; and her favourite horse, the horse that Owen had
+given her for the part, what would become of him? What would become of
+her jewellery, of her house, of her fame, of everything? She attempted a
+last stand against her conscience. Her scruples were imaginary. Owen had
+said it could not matter to God whether she kissed him or not. But she
+did not pursue this train of reasoning. She felt it to be wrong. But she
+could not confess--she could not explain everything, and again she was
+struck with a sort of mental paralysis. Why Monsignor--why not another
+priest? No, not another. She could not say why, but not another; he was
+the one. But perhaps she only wanted to tell someone, a woman--Louise,
+for instance. If she were to tell Louise--she put the idea out of mind,
+feeling it to be vain, and trying to think that there was no need why
+she should leave the stage, and uncertain whether she should stay on the
+stage if Monsignor forbade her, or if she wanted to even if he allowed
+her, she put on her hat and went to lunch with Louise. It would help her
+to pass the time; it would save her from thinking. She must speak to
+someone. But the Savoy was on her way to St. Joseph's. It was half-way
+there. A little overcome by the coincidence, she told her servant to
+call a hansom, and as she drove to the hotel she wondered why she had
+thought of going to see Louise.
+
+She met her in the courtyard, and the vivacious little woman cried, "My
+dear, how glad I am to see you!" and she stretched out both hands.
+Evelyn was more pleased to see her friend than she expected to be, and
+while listening to her she envied her for being so happy, and she
+wondered why she was so happy; and while asking herself these questions
+she noticed her dress. Mademoiselle Helbrun's plump figure was set off
+to full advantage in a black and white check silk dress, and she wore a
+wonderful arched hat with flowing plumes of the bird of paradise. She
+was a prima-donna every inch of her, standing on the steps of her hotel,
+whereas the operatic stage could hardly be distinguished at all in
+Evelyn's dress. With the black crepon skirt she wore a heliotrope
+blouse, and she stood, one foot showing beyond the skirt, in a
+statue-like attitude, her pale parasol held negligently over one
+shoulder.
+
+"My dear," she said, "I have come to ask you to let me lunch with you."
+
+"But I shall be enchanted, my dear. I wrote on the chance, never
+thinking that you would be in town this season."
+
+"Yes, it is strange. I don't know why I am here. There's no one in
+town."
+
+"Where would you like to lunch? In my room or in the restaurant?"
+
+"It will be gayer in the restaurant. I haven't seen a soul for nearly a
+week."
+
+"My dear!"
+
+Louise gave her a sharp look, in which the passing thought that Evelyn
+might be in want of money was dismissed as ridiculous. Louise thought of
+some unhappy love affair, and when they sat down to lunch she noticed
+that Evelyn avoided answering a question regarding herself, and turned
+the conversation on to the Munich performance. The evident desire of
+Evelyn not to talk about herself clouded Louise's pleasure in talking of
+herself, and she paused in her account of the Wotan, the Brunnhilde, the
+conductor and the Rhine Maidens to tell Evelyn of the inquiries that had
+been made about her--all were looking forward to her Kundry next year.
+Madame Wagner had said that there never had been such a Brunnhilde.
+
+"I daresay she said so, but at the bottom of her heart she did not like
+my Brunnhilde. It was against her ideas. She always thought I was too
+much woman. She said that I forgot that I was a Goddess. And she was
+right. I never could remember the Goddess. I never remember anything on
+the stage. 'Tisn't my way. I simply live it all out. I was enthusiastic
+when Siegfried came to release me, because I should have been
+enthusiastic about him." Evelyn's thoughts went back to Owen, and she
+remembered how he had released her from the bondage of music lessons
+with a kiss.
+
+"But when I came to tell you about the ruined Valhala and the poor
+fallen Gods you were sorry?"
+
+"Yes, I was sorry for father."
+
+"The All-Father?"
+
+Evelyn laughed.
+
+"No, my own father. That's my way. I think of what has happened to me
+and I act that. But tell me about the Munich performances."
+
+While Mademoiselle Helbrun told of the different points in which they
+excelled, Evelyn thought and thought of the strange charm of the woman
+who had so ably continued the Master's work. She recalled the tall,
+bending figure, she saw the alley of clipped limes, she remembered the
+spacious rooms, and then his study, the walls lined with bookcases,
+books of legends and philosophical works, the room in which he had
+written "The Dusk of the Gods" and "Parsifal." Thinking of the studious
+months she had spent in that house, a vivid memory of one night shot
+across her brain. It was a heavy, breathless night, without star or
+moon. She had wandered into the dark garden; she had found her way to
+the grave, and standing by the Master's side she had listened to the
+music and seen the guests passing across the lighted windows. The warble
+of the fountain had seemed to her like the pulse of Eternity. All that
+was three years ago. "It is very wonderful, very wonderful," she
+thought, and she awoke with a start, and Mademoiselle Helbrun saw she
+had not been listening. She answered Louise's subsequent remarks, and
+was glad that what had been had been. She was giving it all up, it was
+true, but it was not as if she had not known life.
+
+The sun was shining on the great brown river, and out of the
+smoke-dimmed sky white creamy clouds were faintly rising. Evelyn's eyes
+had wandered out there, and she seemed to see a thin face and hard, cold
+eyes, and she asked Louise abruptly what the time was, for she had
+forgotten her watch. It was only just three o'clock. She returned to the
+Munich performances, but Louise could see that Evelyn was all the time
+struggling against an overmastering fate. The only thing she could think
+of was that Evelyn was being forced into a marriage or an elopement
+against her will. Once or twice she thought that Evelyn was going to
+confide in her. She waited, afraid to say a word lest she should check
+the confidences that her friend seemed tempted to entrust her with.
+Evelyn's eyes were dull and lifeless. Louise could see that they did not
+see her, and it was with an effort that Evelyn said, "I am sorry I did
+not see your Frika;" and once started she rattled on for some time,
+hardly knowing what she was saying, arguing about the music and
+expressing opinions about everything and everybody. Stopping abruptly,
+she again asked her friend what time it was. Louise said that she must
+not go, and then tried to induce her to come for a drive with her; but
+Evelyn shook her head--she was engaged. There was no trace of colour in
+her face, and when Louise asked when they should meet again, she said
+she did not know, but she hoped very soon. She might be obliged to go to
+Paris to-morrow, and she had to pay some visits to Scotland at the end
+of the month. Louise did not like to question her, for she was sure that
+some momentous event was about to happen. As she drove away Louise said,
+"I should not be surprised if she did not play Kundry next year."
+
+While wondering at the grotesque movement of the trotting horse, Evelyn
+tried once more to save herself from this visit to St. Joseph's. She
+thought of what it would cost her--her present life! Her lovers were
+gone already, and Monsignor would tell her that she must give up the
+stage. But these considerations did not alter the fact that she was
+going to St. Joseph's. She was rolling thither, like a stone down a
+hill. She saw the streets and people as she passed them, as a stone
+might if it had eyes. All power of will had been taken from her; it was
+the same as when she went to meet Owen at Berkeley Square, and in a
+strange lucidity of mind, she asked herself if it were not true that we
+are never more than mere machines set in motion by a master hand,
+predestined to certain courses, purblind creatures who do not perceive
+their own helplessness, except in rare moments of heightened
+consciousness. As if to convince herself on this point, she strove to
+raise her hand to open the trap in the roof of the hansom, and her fear
+increased on finding that she could not. To acquire the necessary
+strength, she reminded herself that she was wrecking her whole life for
+an idea, for, perhaps, nothing more than a desire to confess her sins.
+Again she tried to raise her hand, and she looked round, feeling that
+nothing short of some extraordinary accident could save her, nothing
+except an accident to the horse or carriage could save her artistic
+life. Some material accident, nothing else.... Monsignor might not be at
+St. Joseph's. Perhaps he had left town. Nobody stayed in town in
+September, and for a moment it seemed hardly worth while to continue her
+drive. Her thoughts came to a standstill, and, as in a nervous vision,
+Evelyn saw that the whole of her future life depended on her seeing
+Monsignor that day. She foresaw that if she were turned away from the
+door of St. Joseph's, she would never come back; never would she be able
+to bring herself to the point again. She would find Owen waiting for
+her; wherever she went, she would meet him; sooner or later the
+temptation to return to him would overcome her. Then, indeed, she would
+be lost; then, indeed, her tragedy would begin.... Ah! if she could only
+cease to think for a little while; only for a little while. She had
+tried to escape from him once before, and had not succeeded because
+there was no one to help her. Now there was Monsignor. The reflection
+cheered her, and a few minutes were left to discover how much of her
+conversion was owing to her original nature, and how much to Monsignor's
+influence. It seemed to her that if she were certain of this point, she
+would know whether she should go forward or back. But her heart gave
+back no answer, and she grew more helpless, and terrified, like a bird
+fallen into the fascination of a serpent. She was uncertain if she could
+lead a good life. She no longer desired anything. She was conscious of
+no sensation, except that she was rolling independent of her own will,
+like a stone. A moment after, the gable of the church appeared against
+the sky, and she recognised the poor, ridiculous creature in the
+tattered black bonnet, whose stiff, crooked appearance she had known
+since childhood. She had changed little in the last twenty years. She
+walked with the same sidling gait her hands crossed in front of her like
+a doll. Her life had been lived about St. Joseph's; the church had
+always been the theatre and centre of her thoughts. Doubtless she was on
+her way to Benediction, and the temptation to follow her arose, but was
+easily resisted. Evelyn paid the cabman his fare, and in an increasing
+tremor of nervous agitation, she crossed the gravelled space in front of
+the presbytery. The attendant showed her into the same bare room, where
+there was nothing to distract her thoughts from herself except the four
+prints on the walls. She had recourse to them in the hope of stimulating
+her religious fervour, but as she gazed at St. Monica and St. Augustine
+she remembered the poor woman she had just seen. There had been scorn of
+her ridiculous appearance in her heart, and pride that she, Evelyn, had
+been given a more beautiful body, more perfect health, and a clearer
+intelligence. So she was overcome with shame. How dare she have scorned
+this holy woman. If she had been more richly gifted by Nature, to what
+shameful usage had she put her body and her talents? And Evelyn thought
+how much more lovely in God's eyes was this poor deformed woman. To sin
+is the common lot of humanity; but she had done more than commit sins,
+she had committed _the_ sin, she had striven to tear out of her heart
+that sense of right and wrong which God had planted there. She had
+denied the ideal as the Jews had denied Christ. Owen had not done that;
+he lived up to his principles, such as they were. But she had not
+thought she was acting right, she had always known that she was doing
+wrong, and she had gone on doing wrong, stifling her conscience, hoping
+always that it would be the last time.
+
+That poor woman whose appearance had raised a contemptuous thought in
+her heart had never sinned against her faith. She had not sought to
+raise doubts in her heart concerning God and morals; she had lived in
+ardent belief and love, never doubting that God watched her from his
+heaven, whither he would call her in good time. Almighty God! She was
+struck with fear lest she did not believe all that this poor woman
+believed. Did she believe that she, Evelyn Innes, would appear at the
+final judgment and be assigned a place for ever and ever in either
+eternal bliss or torment? She did not know if she believed this. Last
+night she was sure she believed, but to-day she did not know.... She did
+not know that heaven was as this poor woman imagined it. She asked
+herself if she believed in a future life of any sort? She was not sure,
+she did not know; she was only sure that whether there be a future life
+or none, our obligation to live according to the dictates of our
+conscience remains the same. But Monsignor might not deem this
+sufficient, and might refuse her absolution. She strove to convince
+herself, hurriedly, aware that the moments were fleeting, that she had a
+soul. That sense of right and wrong which, like a whip, had driven her
+here could be nothing else but the voice of her soul; therefore there
+was a soul, and if there was a soul it could not die, and if it did not
+die it must go somewhere; therefore there was a heaven and a hell. But
+in spite of her desire to convince herself, remembrance of Owen's
+arguments whistled like a wind through her pious exhortations, and all
+that she had read in Huxley and Darwin and Spencer; the very words came
+back thick and distinct, and like one who finds progress impossible in
+the face of the gale, she stopped thinking. "We know nothing ... we know
+nothing," were the words she heard in the shriek of the wind, and
+revealed religion appeared in tattered, miserable plight, a forlorn
+spectre borne away on the wind. So distinct was the vision, so explicit
+her hearing, that she could not pretend to herself that she was a
+Christian in any but a moral sense, and this would not satisfy
+Monsignor. Then question after question pealed in her ears. What should
+she say when he came? Was it not better for her to leave at once? But
+then? She took one step towards the door. However thin and shallow her
+belief might be, she must confess her sins. She felt that she must
+confess her sins even if she did not believe in confession. Her thoughts
+paused, and she was terrified by the mystery which her own existence
+presented to herself.
+
+The door opened, and the priest stood looking at her. She could see that
+he divined the truth. In the first glance he read that Evelyn had come
+to confession, and it was for him a moment of extraordinary spiritual
+elation.
+
+Monsignor Mostyn and Sir Owen had been at school together, and though
+they had not met since, they frequently heard of each other. Owen's
+ideas of marriage and religion were well known to the priest. He had
+heard soon after she had gone away that she had gone with Asher, his old
+schoolfellow. He knew the pride that Asher would take in destroying her
+faith, and this diabolic project he had determined to frustrate; and
+every year when he returned from Rome, he asked if Evelyn was expected
+to sing in London that season. As year after year went by, his chance of
+saving her soul seemed to grow more remote; but at the bottom of his
+heart he believed that he was the chosen instrument of God's grace. That
+night at the concert in her father's house, the first words--something
+in her manner, the expression in her eyes, had led him to think that the
+conversion would be an easy one. But it had come about quicker than he
+had expected. And as he stood looking at her, he was aware of an alloy
+of personal vanity and strove to stifle it; he thought of himself as the
+humble instrument selected to win her from this infamous, this renegade
+Catholic, and the trouble so visible in her was confirmation of his
+belief that there can be no peace for a Catholic outside the pale of the
+Church.
+
+"I have wanted to see you so much," she began hurriedly. "There is a
+great deal I want to tell you. But perhaps you have no time now."
+
+"My dear child, I have ample time, I am only too pleased to be of
+service to you. I am afraid you are in trouble, you look quite ill."
+
+The kindness of the voice filled her eyes with tears, and she understood
+in a moment the relief it would be to tell her troubles to this kind
+friend; to feel his kind advice allaying them one by one, and to know
+that the sleepless solitude in which she had tried to grapple with them
+was over at last. To give her time to recover herself, Monsignor spoke
+of a letter he had received that morning from the Superior of the
+Passionist Convent.
+
+"I will not trouble you with her repeated thanks for what you have done
+for her. She begs me to tell you that she and the sisters unite in
+inviting you to spend a few days with them. They suggest that you should
+choose your own time."
+
+"Oh, Monsignor, how can I go and stay with them! I thought I should have
+died of shame when I went there after the concert with you. Mother
+Philippa asked me if I had travelled with my father when I went abroad.
+You must remember, for you came to my assistance."
+
+"I turned the conversation, seeing that it embarrassed you."
+
+"But you must have guessed."
+
+"On account of your father's position at St. Joseph's, I had heard of
+you.... I had heard of your intimacy with Sir Owen Asher, and the life
+of an opera singer is not one to which a good Catholic can easily
+reconcile herself."
+
+As they sat on either side of the table, Evelyn was attracted, and then
+absorbed, by the distinctive appearance of the priest. His mind was in
+his face. The long, high forehead, with black hair growing sparely upon
+it; the small, brilliant eyes, and the long, firm line of the jaw, now
+distinct, for the head was turned almost in profile. The face was a
+perfect symbol of the mind behind it; and the intimate concurrence of
+the appearance and the thought was the reason of its attractiveness. It
+was the beauty of unity; here was a man whose ideas are so deeply rooted
+that they express themselves in his flesh. In him there was nothing
+floating or undecided; and in the line of the thin, small mouth and the
+square nostrils, Evelyn divined a perfect certainty on all points. In
+this way she was attracted to his spiritual guidance, and desired the
+support of his knowledge, as she had desired Ulick's knowledge when she
+was studying Isolde. Ulick's technical knowledge had been useful to her;
+upon it she had raised herself, through it she had attained her idea.
+And in the same way Monsignor's knowledge on all points of doctrine
+would free her from doubt. Then she would be able to rise above the
+degradation of earthly passion to that purer and higher passion, the
+love of God. Doctrine she did not love for its own sake as Monsignor
+loved it. She regarded it as the musician regards crotchets and quavers,
+as a means of expression; and she now felt that without doctrine she
+could not acquire the love which she desired; without doctrine she could
+not free herself from the bondage of the flesh, and every moment the
+temptation to give her soul into his keeping grew more irresistible.
+Rising from her chair, she said--
+
+"Will you hear my confession now, Monsignor?"
+
+"The priest looked at her, his narrow, hard face concentrated in an
+ardent scrutiny.
+
+"Certainly, my child, if you think you are sufficiently prepared."
+
+"I must confess now; I could not put it off again;" and glancing round
+the room, she slipped suddenly upon her knees.
+
+The priest put on his stole and murmured a Latin prayer, making the sign
+of the Cross over the head of his penitent.
+
+"I fear I shall never remember all my sins. I have been living in mortal
+sin so many years."
+
+"I remember that you spoke to me of intellectual
+difficulties--concerning faith. You see now, my dear child, that you
+were deceiving yourself. Your real difficulties were quite different."
+
+"I think that my doubts were sincere," Evelyn replied tremblingly, for
+she felt that Monsignor expected her to agree with him.
+
+"If your doubts were sincere, what has removed them? What has convinced
+you of the existence of a future life? That, I believe, was one of your
+chief difficulties. Have you examined the evidence?"
+
+Evelyn murmured that that sense of right and wrong which she had never
+been able to drive out of her heart implied the existence of God.
+
+"But savages, to whom the Scriptures are unknown, have a sense of right
+and wrong. Those who lived before the birth of Christ--the Greeks and
+Romans--had a sense of right and wrong."
+
+Knowing that the priest's absolution depended upon her acceptance of the
+doctrine of a future life, she strove to believe as a little child. But
+it was her sins of the flesh that she wanted to confess, and this
+argument about the Incarnation had begun to seem out of place. Suddenly
+it seemed to hear inexpressibly ludicrous that she should be kneeling
+beside the priest. She could not help wondering what Owen would think of
+her. She remembered his pointing out that it is stated in the Gospel
+that the Messiah should be descended from David. Now, Mary was not of
+royal blood, so it was through Joseph, who was not his father, that
+Christ was descended from David. But these discrepancies did not matter.
+She felt the Church to be necessary to her, and that its teaching
+coincided with her deepest feeling seemed to her enough. But Monsignor
+was insistent, and he pressed dogma after dogma upon her. All the while
+the cocoa-nut matting ate into her knees, and she was perplexed by
+remembrances of sexual abandonments. How to speak of them she did not
+know, and she was haunted and terrified by the idea of concealing
+anything which would invalidate her confession. So she hastily availed
+herself of the first pause to tell him that she had lived with Owen
+Asher for the last six years. The priest did not trouble to inquire
+further, and she felt that she could not leave him under the impression
+that she had lived with Owen the moderate, sexual life which she
+believed was maintained between husband and wife.
+
+"My life during the last six years," she said, interrupting him, "has
+been so abandoned. There are few--there are no excesses of which I have
+not been guilty."
+
+"You have said enough on that point," he answered, to her great relief.
+But at that moment she remembered Ulick, and she felt that she must
+mention him. To do so she had again to interrupt the priest.
+
+"But I must tell you--Sir Owen was not the only one"--she bowed her
+head--"there was another." Then, yielding to the temptation to explain
+herself, she told Monsignor how it was this second sin that had awakened
+her conscience. She had tried to look upon Sir Owen as her husband. "But
+one night at the theatre, during a performance of 'Tristan and Isolde,'
+I sinned with this second man."
+
+"And this showed you, my dear child, the impossibility of a moral life
+for one who was born a Catholic except when protected by the doctrine
+and the sacraments of our Holy Church. And that brings us back to the
+point from which we started--the necessity of an unquestioning
+acceptance of the entire doctrine, and, I may add, a general
+acquiescence in Catholic belief. It seems strange to you that I am more
+anxious about your sins against faith than your sins of the flesh. It
+is because I know that without faith you will fall again. It is because
+I know the danger, the seduction of the theory that even if there be
+neither hell nor heaven, yet the obligation to lead a moral life exists.
+Such theory is in essence Protestantism and a delicious flattery of the
+vanity of human nature. It has been the cause of the loss of millions of
+souls. You yourself are a living testimony of the untrustworthiness of
+this shelter, and it is entirely contrary to the spirit of the teaching
+of the Church, which is that we must lead a moral life in order to gain
+heaven and avoid the pain of hell."
+
+She leaned heavily on the table to relieve her knees from as much weight
+as possible, and she thought of the possibility of getting her
+handkerchief out of her pocket and placing it under her. But when her
+confession turned from her sins against faith to her sins of the flesh,
+she forgot the pain of her knees.
+
+"There is one more question I must ask you. You have lived with this man
+as his mistress for six years, you have spoken of the excesses to which
+you abandoned yourself, but more important than these is whether you
+deliberately avoided the probable consequences of your sin--I mean in
+regard to children?"
+
+"If we sin we must needs avoid the consequences of our sin. I know that
+it is forbidden--but my profession--I had to think of others--my
+father--"
+
+"Your answer, my dear child, does not surprise me. It shows me into what
+depths you have fallen. That you should think like this is part of the
+teaching of the man whose object was to undermine your faith; it is part
+of the teaching of Darwin and Huxley and Spencer. You were persuaded
+that to live with a man to whom you were not married differed in no wise
+from living with your husband. The result has proved how false is such
+teaching. The sacrament of marriage was instituted to save the weak from
+the danger of temptation, and human nature is essentially weak, and
+without the protection of the Church it falls. The doctrine of the
+Church is our only safeguard. But that you should have proved unfaithful
+to this man--this second sin which shocked you so much, and which I am
+thankful awakened in you a sense of sin, is not more important than to
+thwart the design of Nature. It is important that you should understand
+this, for an understanding on this point will show you how false, how
+contradictory, is the teaching of the naturalistic philosophy in which
+you placed your trust. These men put aside revealed religion and refer
+everything to Nature, but they do not hesitate to oppose the designs of
+Nature when it suits their purpose. The doctrine of the Church has
+always been one wife, one husband. Polygamy and polyandry are relatively
+sterile. It is the acknowledged wife and the acknowledged husband that
+are fruitful; it is the husband and wife who furnish the world with men
+and heaven with souls, whereas the lover and the mistress fulfil no
+purpose, they merely encumber the world with their vice, they are
+useless to Nature, and are hateful in God's sight; the nations that do
+not cast them out soon become decrepid. If we go to the root of things,
+we find that the law of the Church coincides very closely with the law
+of Nature, and that the so-called natural sciences are but a nineteenth
+century figment. I hope all this is quite clear to you?"
+
+Evelyn acquiesced. Her natural instinct forbade her the original
+sin--what happened after did not appeal to her; she could feel no
+interest in the question he had raised. But she was determined to avoid
+all falsehood--on that question her instinct was again explicit--and
+when he returned again in his irritation at her insubordination to his
+ideas, and questioned her regarding her belief as to a future life, her
+answer was so doubtful that after a moment's hesitation he said--
+
+"If you are not convinced on so cardinal a point of dogma, it is
+impossible for me to give you absolution."
+
+"Do not deny me your absolution. I cannot face my life without some sign
+of forgiveness. I believe--I think I believe. You probe too deeply.
+Sometimes it seems to me that there must be a future life, sometimes it
+seems to me--that it would be too terrible if we were to live again."
+
+"It would be too terrible indeed, my dear child, if we were to live
+again unassoiled, unpurified, in all our miserable imperfections. But
+these have been removed by the priest's absolution, by the sinner's
+repentance in this world and by purgatory in the next. Those who have
+the happiness to live in the sight of God are without stain."
+
+"I only know that I must lead a moral life, and that religion will help
+me to do so. I try to speak the truth, but the truth shifts and veers,
+and in trying to tell the whole truth perhaps I leave an impression that
+I believe less than I do. You must make allowance for my ignorance and
+incapacity. I cannot find words as you do to express myself. Do not
+refuse me absolution, for without it I shall not have strength to
+persevere.... I fear what may become of me. If you knew the effort it
+has cost me to come to you. I have not slept for many nights for
+thinking of my sins."
+
+"There is one promise you must make me before I give you absolution; you
+must not seek either of these men again who have been to you a cause of
+sin."
+
+The pain from her knees was expressed in her voice, and it was almost
+with a cry that she answered--
+
+"But I have promised to sing his opera."
+
+"I thought, my dear child, that you told me you intended to give up the
+stage. I feel bound to tell you that I do not see how you are to remain
+on the stage if you wish to lead a new life"
+
+"I have been kneeling a long while," and a cry escaped her, so acute was
+the pain. She struggled to her feet and stood leaning against the table,
+waiting for the pain to die out of her limbs. "The other man is father's
+friend. If I tell him or if I write to him that he may not come to the
+house, father will suspect. Then I have promised to sing his opera. Oh,
+Monsignor--"
+
+"These difficulties," said Monsignor, as he rose from his chair, "appear
+to you very serious. You are overcome by their importance because you
+have not adequately realised the awfulness of your state in the sight of
+God. If you were to die now, your soul would be lost. Once you have
+grasped this central fact in its full significance, the rest will seem
+easy. I will lend you a book which I think will help you."
+
+"But, Monsignor, are you going to refuse me your absolution?"
+
+"My dear child, you are in doubt regarding the essential doctrine of the
+resurrection, and you are unable to promise me not to see one of the men
+who have been to you a cause of sin."
+
+Her clear, nervous vision met the dry, narrow vision that was the
+priest, and there was a pause in the conflict of their wills. He saw
+that his penitent was moved to the depth of her being, and had lost
+control of herself. He feared to send her away without absolution, yet
+he felt that she must be forced into submission--she must accept the
+entire doctrine of the Church. He could not understand, and therefore
+could not sympathise with her hesitation on points of doctrine. If the
+penitent accepted the Church as the true Church, conscience was laid
+aside for doctrine. The value of the Church was that it relieved the
+individual of the responsibility of life. So it was by an effort of will
+that he retained his patience. He was determined to reduce her to his
+mind, but he was instinctively aware of the danger of refusing her
+absolution; to do so might fling her back upon agnosticism. He was
+contending with vast passions. An unexpected wave might carry her beyond
+his reach. The stakes were high; he was playing for her soul with Owen
+Asher. He had decided to yield a point if necessary, but his voice was
+so kind, so irresistibly kind, that she heard nothing but it. However
+she might think when she had left him, she could not withstand the
+kindness of that voice; it seemed to enter into her life like some
+extraordinary music or perfume. He could see the effect he was producing
+on her; he watched her eyes growing bright until a slight dread crossed
+his mind. She seemed like one fascinated, trembling in bonds that were
+loosening, and that in the next moment would break, leaving her
+free--perhaps to throw herself into his arms; he did not dare to
+withdraw his eyes. An awful moment passed, and she turned slowly as if
+to leave the room. But at the moment of so doing a light seemed to break
+upon her brain; where there was darkness there was light. He saw her
+walk suddenly forward. She threw herself upon her knees at the table,
+and like one to whom speech had suddenly come back, she said--
+
+"I believe in our holy Church and all that she teaches. Father, I
+beseech you to absolve me from my sins."
+
+So striking was the change that the priest himself was cowed by it, and
+his personal pride in his conquest of her soul was drowned in a great
+awe. He had first to thank God for having chosen him as the instrument
+of his will, and then he spoke to Evelyn of the wonder and magnitude of
+God's mercies. That at the very height of her artistic career he should
+have roused her to a sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle
+of his grace.
+
+His presence by her at that moment was a balm. She heard him say that
+life would not be an easy one, but that she must not be discouraged,
+that she must remember that she had made her peace with God, and would
+derive strength from his sacraments. An extraordinary sweetness came
+over her, she seemed borne away upon a delicious sweetness; she was
+conscious of an extraordinary inward presence. She did not dare to look
+up, or even to think, but buried herself in prayer, experiencing all the
+while the most wonderful and continuous sensation of delight. She had
+been racked and torn, and had fallen at his feet a helpless mass of
+suffering humanity. He had healed her, and she felt hope and life
+returning to her again, and sufficient strength to get up and continue
+her way. Never again would she be alone; he would be always near to
+guide her. She heard him tell her that she must recite daily for penance
+the hymn _veni sanctus spiritus_, and the thought of this obedience to
+him refreshed her as the first draught of spring water refreshes the
+wanderer who for weeks has hesitated between the tortures of thirst and
+the foul water of brackish desert pools. She was conscious that he was
+making the sign of the cross over her bowed head, the murmured Latin
+formula sounded strangely familiar and delicious in her ears, with the
+more clearly enunciated "_Ego te absolvo_" towards the close. In that
+supreme moment for which she had longed, the last traces of Owen's
+agnostic teaching seemed to fall from her, and she was carried back to
+the days of her girlhood, to the days of her old prayer-book, a "Garden
+of the Soul" bound in ivory; and she rose from her knees, weak, but
+happy as a convalescent.
+
+"I hope you will sleep well to-night," said Monsignor, kindly, noticing
+the signs of physical exhaustion in Evelyn as she stood mechanically
+drawing down her veil and putting on her gloves. "A good conscience is
+the best of all narcotics." Evelyn smiled through her tears, but could
+not trust herself to speak. "But I don't really like you living alone in
+Park Lane. It is too great a strain on your nerves. Could you not go to
+your father's for a time?"
+
+"Yes, perhaps, I don't know. Dear father would like to have me."
+
+He told her that the Mass he was to say to-morrow he would offer up for
+her; and as she drove home her joy grew more intense, and in a sort of
+spiritual intoxication she identified herself with the faith of her
+childhood. Life again presented possibilities of infinite perfection,
+and she was astonished that the difficulties which she had thought
+insuperable had been so easily overcome.
+
+All that evening she thought of God and his sacraments, and remembering
+the moment when his grace had descended upon her and all had become
+clear, she perforce believed in a miracle--a miracle of grace had
+certainly happened.
+
+She looked forward to the moment when her maid would leave the room, and
+she would throw herself on her knees and lose herself in prayer, as she
+had lost herself when she knelt beside Monsignor, and he absolved her
+from sin. But when the door closed she was incapable of prayer, she only
+desired sleep. Her whole mind seemed to have veered. She had exaggerated
+everything, conducted herself strangely, hysterically, and her prayers
+were repeated without ardour, almost indifferently.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
+
+
+But the next day she could not account to herself for the extraordinary
+relief she had derived from her confession. For years she had battled
+with life alone, with no light to guide her, blown hither and thither by
+the gusts of her own emotions. But now she was at peace, she was
+reconciled to the Church; she would never be alone again. The struggle
+of her life still lay before her, and yet in a sense it was a thing of
+the past. She felt like a ship that has passed from the roar of the surf
+into the shelter of the embaying land, and in the distance stretched the
+long peacefulness of the winding harbour.
+
+The solution of her monetary obligations to Sir Owen still perplexed
+her. She regretted not having laid the matter before Monsignor, and
+looked forward to doing so. She could hear his clear, explicit voice
+telling her what she must do, and guidance was such a sweet thing. He
+would say that to try to calculate hotel bills and railway fares was out
+of the question; but if she had said that the money Sir Owen had
+advanced her to pay Madame Savelli was to be considered as a debt, she
+must offer to return it. She knew that Owen would not accept it. It
+would be horrid of him if he did, but it would be still more horrid of
+her if she did not offer to return it.
+
+She had not really begun to make money till the last few years, and as
+there had been no need for her to make money, she had sacrificed money
+to her pleasure and to Owen's. She had refused profitable engagements
+because Owen wanted her to go yachting, or because he wanted to go to
+Riversdale to hunt, or because she did not like the conductor. So it
+happened that she had very little money--about five thousand pounds, and
+her jewellery would fetch about half what was paid for it.
+
+If she were to remain on the stage another year she could perhaps treble
+the amount, and to leave the stage she would have to provide herself
+with an adequate income. There was the tiara which the subscribers to
+the opera in New York had presented her with--that would fetch a good
+deal. It didn't become her, but it recalled a time of her life that was
+very dear to her, and she would be sorry to part with it. But from the
+point of view of ornament, she liked better the band of diamonds which
+a young Russian prince had sent to her anonymously. A few nights after,
+she had been introduced to him at a ball. His eyes went at once to the
+diamonds, a look of rapture had come into his face, and she had at once
+suspected he was the sender. They had danced many times, and retired for
+long, eager talks into distant corners. And the following evening she
+had found him waiting for her at the stage door. He had begged her to
+meet him in a park outside the city. He was attractive, young, and she
+was alone. Owen was away. She had thought that she liked him, and it was
+exciting to meet him in this distant park, their carriages waiting for
+them below the hill. She could still see the grey, lowering sky and the
+trees hanging in green masses; she had thought all the time it was going
+to rain. She remembered his pale, interesting face and his eager,
+insinuating voice. But he had had to leave St. Petersburg the next day.
+It was one of those things that might have, but had not, happened. How
+strange! She might have liked him. How strange; she never would see him.
+And she sat dreaming a long while.
+
+Owen had given her a clasp, composed of two large emerald bosses set
+with curious antique gems, when she played Brunnhilde. The necklace of
+gem intaglios, in gold Etruscan filigree settings, he had given her for
+her Elsa--more than her Elsa was worth. For Elizabeth he had given her
+ropes of equal-sized pearls, and the lustre of the surfaces was
+considered extraordinary. For Isolde he had given her strings of black
+pearls which the jewellers of Europe had been collecting for more than a
+year. Every pearl had the same depth of colour, and hanging from it was
+a large black brilliant set in a mass of white brilliants. He had hung
+it round her neck as she went on the stage, and she had had only time to
+clasp his hands and say "dearest." These presents alone, she thought,
+could not be worth less than ten thousand pounds.
+
+She kept her jewels in a small iron safe; it stood in her dressing-room
+under her washhand stand, and Merat surprised her two hours later
+sitting on her bed, with everything, down to the rings which she wore
+daily, spread over the counterpane. The maid gave her mistress a sharp
+look, remarking that she hoped Mademoiselle did not miss anything. In
+her hand there was a brooch consisting of three large emeralds set with
+diamonds; she often wore it at the front of her dress, it went
+particularly well with a flowered silk which Owen always admired. She
+calculated the price it would fetch, and at the same time was convinced
+that Monsignor's permission to sing on the concert platform, and
+possibly to go to Bayreuth to sing Kundry, would not affect her
+decision. She wanted to leave the stage. Half-measures did not appeal to
+her in the least. If she was to give up the stage, she must give it up
+wholly. It must be a thing over and done with, or she must remain on
+the stage and sing for the good of Art and her lovers. Since that was no
+longer possible, she preferred never to sing a note again in public. The
+worst wrench of all was her promise to Monsignor not to sing Grania, and
+since she had made that sacrifice, she could not dally with lesser
+things. Then, resuming her search among her jewellery, she selected the
+few things she would like to keep. She examined a cameo brooch set in
+filigree gold, ornamented with old rose diamonds, and she picked up a
+strange ring which a man whom Owen knew had taken from the finger of a
+mummy. It was a large emerald set in plain gold. A man who had been
+present at the unswathing of this princess, dead at least three thousand
+years, had managed to secure it, and Owen had paid him a large sum for
+it. She put it on her finger, and decided to keep a dozen other rings,
+the earrings she wore, and a few bracelets. The rest of her jewellery
+she would sell, if Owen refused to have them back. Of course there would
+be her teaching; she could not live in Dulwich doing nothing, and would
+take up her mother's singing classes....
+
+Her mother had lost her voice in the middle of her career, and her
+daughter had abandoned the stage at the moment of her greatest triumph!
+Looking at her jewels scattered all over the bed, Evelyn wondered what
+was going to happen to her. Was she really going to leave the stage?
+She--Evelyn Innes? When she thought of it, it seemed impossible. If
+religion were only a craze. If she were to go back to Owen, or to other
+lovers? How strange it was; it seemed strange to be herself, and yet it
+was quite true. Remembering that on Sunday she would partake of the Body
+and Blood which her Saviour had given for the salvation of sinners, her
+soul suddenly hushed, and catching sight of the jewels which symbolised
+the sacrifice she was making, it seemed to her that she could afford
+much greater sacrifices for what she was going to receive....
+
+She saw lights dying down in the distance, and the world which had once
+seemed so desirable seemed to her strangely trivial and easily denied.
+Already she could look back at the poor struggling ones, struggling for
+what to-morrow will be abandoned, forgotten, passing illusions; and she
+wondered how it was that she had not always thought as she thought
+to-day. Her thoughts passed into reveries, and she awoke, remembering
+that Monsignor had told her that he did not like her living alone in
+Park Lane. But in Dulwich she would be with her father, whom she had
+long neglected, and she would be near St. Joseph's and her confessor. At
+the same moment she remembered that she could not write to her lovers
+from Park Lane. She put her jewels back in the safe, and told Merat to
+pack sufficient things for a month, and to follow her with them to
+Dulwich. Merat asked for more precise instruction, but Evelyn said she
+must use her good sense; she was going away at once, and Merat must
+follow by a later train.
+
+"Then Mademoiselle does not want the carriage?"
+
+"No, I shall go by train."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She found her father in the workroom, and the sight of him in his cap
+and apron mending an old musical instrument caused many home scenes to
+flash across her mind, and she did not know whether it was from
+curiosity or a desire to please him that she asked the name of the
+strange little instrument he was repairing. It looked like an overgrown
+concertina, and he explained that it was a tiny virginal, and pointed
+out the date; it was made in 1631, in Roman notation.
+
+"Father," she said, "I have come back to you; we shall never be
+separated any more--if you'll have me back."
+
+"Have you back, dear! What has happened now?"
+
+He stood with a chisel in his hand, and she noticed that he dug the
+point nervously into the soft deal plank. She sat down on a small wooden
+stool, and kicking the shavings with her feet, she said--
+
+"Father, a great deal has happened. I have sent Owen away ... I shall
+never see him again; I'm sorry to have to speak about him to you; you
+mustn't be angry; he was very good to me, and he asked me to marry him;
+he did everything--I'm afraid I've broken his heart."
+
+"You're very strange, Evelyn, and I don't know what answer to make to
+you.... Why did you send him away, and why did you refuse to marry him?"
+
+"I sent him away because I thought it wrong to live with him, and I
+refused to marry him--well, I don't know, father, I don't know why I
+refused to marry him. It seemed to me that if he had wished to marry me
+he ought to have done so long ago."
+
+"Is that the only reason you can give?"
+
+"It is the only reason I know. You seem sorry for him, father, are you?
+I hope you are. He has been very good to me. I've often wished to tell
+you; it has often been in my heart to tell you that you should not hate
+him. He was very good to me, no one could have been kinder; he was very
+fond of me, you must not bear him any ill will."
+
+"I never said that I bore him ill will. He made you a great singer, and
+you say he was very kind to you and wanted to marry you."
+
+"Yes, and he was most anxious to see you, and he went with me to St.
+Joseph's the Sunday you gave the great Mass of Pope Marcellus. He was
+distressed that he could not see you to tell you about the choir."
+
+"They sang better that Sunday than the Sunday you heard the 'Missa
+Brevis.' I have got two new trebles. One has an exquisite voice. I wish
+I could get a few good altos. It was the altos that were wrong when you
+heard the 'Missa Brevis.' But you didn't hear they were out of tune.
+That piano has falsified your ear, but it will come back to you."
+
+"Dear father, how funny you are! If nothing were more wrong than my
+ear ..."
+
+They glanced at each other hastily, and to change the subject he
+mentioned that he had had a letter that morning from Ulick. He had
+finished scoring the second act of Grania, and thinking that he was on
+safe ground, Mr. Innes told her that Ulick hoped to finish his score in
+the autumn. The third act would not take him long; he had a very
+complete sketch of the music, etc. "I shall enjoy going through his
+opera with him."
+
+"Father, I don't know how to tell you. Will you ever forgive me or him.
+Ulick must not come back here--at least not while I am here. Perhaps I
+had better go."
+
+The chisel dropped from his hand, and he stood looking at his daughter.
+His look was pitiful, and she could not bear to see him shake his head
+slowly from side to side.
+
+"Poor father is wondering why I am like this;" and to interrupt his
+reflections she said--
+
+"I don't know why I am like this; that's what you're thinking, father,
+but henceforth I'll be like mother and my aunts. They were all good
+women ... I have often wondered why I am like this." Their eyes met, and
+seized with a sudden dread lest he should think (if such were really the
+case) that he was the original cause--she seemed to read something like
+that in his eyes--she said, "You must forgive me, whatever I am; you
+know that we've always loved each other, and we always shall. Nothing
+can come between us; you must be sorry for me, and kiss me, and love me
+more than ever, for I've been very unhappy. I haven't told you all I
+have given up so that I might be a good woman; it is not easy to make
+the sacrifices I have made, but I am happier now that I have made them.
+Ulick--Ulick must not come here while I'm here, but you'll want to see
+him--I had better go. Father, dear, it is hard to say all these things.
+I've done nothing but bring you trouble. Now I've robbed you of your
+friend. For I've promised not to see Ulick again. If I stay here,
+father, he must not come--I'm ashamed to ask you this, but what am I to
+do? I bring trouble. Later on, perhaps, but for a long while he and I
+must not meet."
+
+Mr. Innes stood looking at his daughter, and a peculiar puzzled
+expression had begun in his eyes, and had spread over his face. He
+suddenly shrugged his shoulders; the movement was like Evelyn's shrug,
+it expressed the same nervous hopelessness.
+
+"I promised Monsignor that I would not see either."
+
+"You went to confession--to him?"
+
+Evelyn nodded.
+
+"But how about Grania?"
+
+"I'm not going to sing Grania. I've left the stage for good."
+
+"Left the stage?"
+
+"Yes, father, I've left the stage, and I could not go back even if
+Monsignor were to permit me. But you must not argue with me; I argued
+with myself until I nearly went mad. Night after night went by
+sleepless; I was mad one night, and should have poisoned myself if I had
+not found my scapular. But you mustn't question me. Some day when it is
+all far away I'll tell you the whole story. I cannot speak of it at
+present, it is all too near. Suffice it to say that I have repented, and
+have come to ask you if you'll have me back to live with you?"
+
+"You're my daughter, and you must do as you like. You were always
+different from anyone else, I cannot cope with you. So you have left the
+stage, left the stage! What will people think?"
+
+"I could not be a good woman and remain on the stage, that's what it
+comes to." In spite of the gravity of the scene, a smile trickled round
+Evelyn's lips, for she could not help seeing her father like a hen that
+has hatched out a duckling. He stood looking at her sadly. She had come
+back--but what new pond would she plunge into? "I am a very
+unsatisfactory person, I know that. I can't make people happy; but there
+it is, it can't be otherwise. If I don't sing on the stage, I can sing
+at your concerts. Come downstairs and let's have some music. We've
+talked enough.
+
+"What shall we play--a Bach sonata? Ah, I remember this," she said,
+catching sight of the harpsichord part of a suite by J.P. Rameau, for
+the harpsichord and viola da gamba. "Where is the viola da gamba part?"
+
+"In the bottom of that bookcase, I think; don't you remember it?"
+
+"Well, it is some time since I've played it," she said, smiling, "but
+I'll try."
+
+It seemed to her that she remembered it all wonderfully well, and she
+was surprised how every phrase came up correctly under her bow. But she
+stopped suddenly.
+
+"I don't remember what comes next."
+
+Mr. Innes played the phrase, she played it after him, but she broke down
+a little further on, and it took some time to find the music. "No, not
+in that shelf," cried Mr. Innes, "the next one; not that volume, the
+next."
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember the volume, about the middle?" When she found the
+place she said, "Oh, yes, of course," and he answered--
+
+"Ah, it seems simple enough now," and they went on together to the end.
+
+"I've not lost much of my playing, have I?"
+
+"A little stiffness, perhaps, and you've lost your sense of the old
+forms. Now let's play this rondeau of Marais."
+
+When they had finished, it was dinner-time, and after dinner they had
+more music. Before going upstairs, Evelyn asked Agnes if there was any
+ink in her room. She had to ask her father for some writing paper, she
+would have avoided doing so if she could have helped it. She feared he
+would guess that she was writing to her lovers. She smiled--so odd did
+her scruples seem to her--she was writing to send them away. Her
+father's house was surely the right place. If it were to make
+appointments, that would be different. It was long past midnight when
+she read over her letter to Owen.
+
+"Dear Owen,--A great deal has happened since we last met, and I am
+convinced that it would be unwise for me to see you in three months as I
+promised. My confessor is of the same opinion; he thinks three months
+too soon, and I must obey him. I have taken the step which I hope you
+will take some day, for you too are a Catholic. In going to confession
+and resolving not to see you again, I had a long struggle with my
+feelings; but God gave me grace to overcome them. You know me well
+enough by this time, and can have no doubt that I could not live with
+you again as your mistress, and as I do not feel that I could marry you,
+no course is open to me but to beg of you not to write to me, or to try
+to see me. Owen, I feel that all this is horrid, that I am horrid looked
+at from your side. I cannot seem anything else. I hate it all, but it
+has to be done. Perhaps one of these days you will see things as I do.
+
+"I owe you--I do not know how much, but I owe you a great deal of money.
+I remember saying that Savelli's lessons were to be considered as a
+debt, also the expenses of the house in the Rue Balzac. You never would
+tell me what the rent of that house was, but as well as I can calculate,
+I owe you a thousand pounds for that year in Paris." (Evelyn paused. "It
+must be," she thought, "much more, but it would be difficult for me to
+pay more.")
+
+"You have," she continued, "paid for a hundred other things besides
+Savelli's lessons and the house in the Rue Balzac, but it would be
+impossible to make out a correct account, I feel, too, that you gave me
+the greatest part of my jewellery thinking that one day I would be your
+wife; you would not have given me so much if you had not thought so.
+Therefore I feel it is only just to offer you the whole of it back. I
+will only ask you to allow me to keep a few trifles--the earrings you
+bought for me the day we arrived in Paris, the mummy's ring, etc., not
+more than half-a-dozen things in all. I should like to keep these in
+memory of a time which I ought to forget, but which I am afraid I shall
+never have the courage even to try to forget. Dear Owen, I cannot tell
+you why I cannot marry you, I only know that I cannot. I am obeying an
+instinct far stronger than I, and I cannot struggle against it any
+longer.
+
+"One day perhaps we may meet--but it may not be for years, until we are
+both quite different.
+
+"Sincerely yours,
+
+"EVELYN INNES."
+
+The moment she had written the address, she threw the pen aside, and she
+sat striving against an uncontrollable sense of misery. At last her
+pent-up tears ran over her eyelids. She flung herself on her bed, and
+lay weeping, shaken by short, choking sobs. All her courage of the
+morning had forsaken her; she could not face her new life, she could not
+send away Owen. Her inmost life rose in revolt. Why was this new
+sacrifice demanded of her? Why was her life to be made so hard, so
+impossible for her to endure? She felt she could not live in the life
+which she foresaw awaited her. Then she felt that she was being tried
+beyond the endurance of any woman. But the storm did not last, her sobs
+died away. She sat up, mopping her eyes with a soaking pocket
+handkerchief, and utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, she
+began to undress. She felt the impossibility of saying her prayers, her
+one longing was for sleep, oblivion; she wished herself dead, and was
+too worn out to put the thought from her, though she knew it was wrong.
+
+In the morning the first thing she saw was the letter to Owen. There it
+was! And every word and letter sank into her brain. "Sir Owen Asher,
+Bart., Riversdale, Northamptonshire." She would have to post it, and
+never again would she see him. She questioned the right of the priest in
+obtaining from her a promise not to see him, so long as she did not sin.
+But Owen was an approximate cause of mortal sin....
+
+Ashamed of her instability, and feeling herself unworthy and no longer
+pure as absolution had made her, she went that afternoon to St.
+Joseph's, and in confession laid the matter before Monsignor Mostyn.
+Regarding the money question, he approved of what she had written to Sir
+Owen, and he was far more indulgent regarding her breakdown than she had
+dared to hope. He had expected some such mental crisis. It was
+extraordinary the strength it gave her even to see his stern, grave
+face; she was thrilled by his certainty on all points, and it no longer
+seemed difficult to send the letter she had written, or to write a
+similar letter to Ulick, which he advised her to send by the same post.
+She began it the moment she got home, and she wrote in perfect
+confidence and courage, the words coming easily to her, so easily that
+there were times when she seemed to hear Monsignor speaking over her
+shoulder.
+
+"Dear Ulick,--A very great event has happened in my life since I saw
+you. The greatest event that can happen in any life--Grace has been
+vouchsafed to me. Now I understand how sinful my life has been, as much
+from a human as a religious point of view. I deserted my dear father, I
+left him alone to live as best he could. I was not even faithful to my
+lover. From a worldly point of view I owed him everything, yet for the
+sake of my passion for you I encouraged myself for a while to dwell on
+his faults, to see nothing in him but the small and the mean. I strove
+to degrade him in my eyes so that I might find some excuse for loving
+you. You were nice, Ulick, you were kind, you were good to me, and I was
+enthusiastic about your genius. One of my greatest troubles now is that
+I shall not be able to sing your opera. For a long while this very thing
+prevented my repentance. I said to myself, 'It is impossible, I cannot,
+I have promised, I must do what I said I would do. He will think me
+hateful if I do not create the part.' But these hesitations between what
+is certainly right and what is certainly wrong existed in me because I
+did not then perceive how very little the things of this world are,
+compared with eternal things, and that nothing matters compared with the
+necessity of saving our souls. All this is now quite clear to me, and it
+would therefore be madness for me to remain on the stage, recognising as
+I do that it is a source of grave temptation to me. You will try to
+understand, dear Ulick, you will try to look at things from my point of
+view. You will see that it is impossible for me to act otherwise.
+
+"I am living now with my father, and must not see you when you return to
+London. I have promised my confessor not to see you. One of these days,
+in years to come, when you and I are different beings, we may meet, but
+we must not see each other at present. I must beg of you not to write or
+to try to see me. My resolve is unalterable, and any attempt on your
+part to induce me to return to my old life will be useless. It as
+already far away and inconceivable to me. I know that by asking you not
+to come to Dulwich I am robbing my father of his friend. I have never
+brought happiness to anyone, not to father, not to Sir Owen, not to you,
+not to myself. If other proof were wanting, would not this fact be
+enough to convince me that my life has been all wrong? What it will be
+in the future I don't know, I have confidence in the goodness of God and
+in the wisdom of my spiritual adviser.--Sincerely yours,
+
+"EVELYN INNES."
+
+"_P.S._--In course of conversation with my father, I mentioned
+inadvertently that you were my lover; I begged him not to be angry with
+you, but I know that I should not have mentioned your name. I must ask
+you to forgive me this too."
+
+The next day and the day following were lived within herself, sometimes
+viewing God far away, as if at one end of a great plain, and herself
+kneeling penitent at the other. She was filled with thoughts of his
+infinite goodness and mercy, and of the miraculous intercession of the
+Virgin at the moment when she was about to commit a crime that would
+have lost her her soul for ever. She went to Mass daily, and took
+peculiar delight in reciting the hymn which Monsignor had given her for
+a penance. She regretted it was not more. It seemed to her such a
+trivial penance, and she reflected on the blackness of her sins, and the
+penances which the saints had imposed upon themselves. But her chief
+desire was to keep herself pure in thought, and she read pious books
+when she was alone, and encouraged her mind to dwell on the profound
+mystery in which she was going to participate, and to believe in the
+marvellous change it would produce in her.
+
+It was on Friday morning that Agnes handed her Ulick's letter. She did
+not read it at once, it lay on the table while she was dressing, and she
+was uncertain whether it would not be better to put off reading it until
+she came back from St. Joseph's.
+
+"Alas, from our first meeting, and before it, we were aware of the fate
+which has overtaken us. We heard it in our hearts, that numb
+restlessness, that vague disquietude, that prophetic echo which never
+dies out of ears attuned to the music of destiny ... Love you less, you
+who are the source of all joy to me? Evelyn, my heart aches and my brain
+is light with grief, but the terrible certitude persists that we are
+being drawn asunder. I see you like a ship that has cleared the harbour
+bar, and is already amid the tumult of the ocean.... We are ships, and
+the destiny of ships is the ocean, the ocean draws us both: we have
+rested as long as may be, we have delayed our departure, but the tide
+has lifted us from our moorings. With an agonised heart I watched the
+sails of your ship go up, and now I see that mine, too, are going aloft,
+hoisted by invisible hands. I look back upon the bright days and quiet
+nights we have rested in this tranquil harbour. Like ships that have
+rested a while in a casual harbour, blown hither by storms, we part,
+drawn apart by the eternal magnetism of the sea. I would go to you,
+Evelyn, if I could, and pray you not to leave me. But you would not
+hear: destiny hears no prayers. In the depths of our consciousness,
+below the misery of the moment, there lies a certain sense that our ways
+are different ways, and that we must fare forth alone, whither we know
+not, over the ocean's rim; and in this sense of destiny we must find
+comfort. Will resignation, which is the highest comfort, come to us in
+time? My eyes fall upon my music paper, and at the same time your eyes
+turn to the crucifix. Ours is the same adventure, though a different
+breeze fills the sails, though the prows are set to a different horizon.
+God is our quest--you seek him in dogma, I in art.
+
+"But, Evelyn, my heart is aching so. How awful the word never, and the
+years are filled with its echoes. And the wide ocean which lies outside
+the harbour is so lonely, and I have no heart for any other joy. 'May we
+not meet again?' my heart cries from time to time; 'may not some
+propitious storm blow us to the same anchorage again, into the same
+port?' Ah, the suns and the seas we shall have sailed through would
+render us unrecognisable, we should not know each other. Last night I
+wandered by the quays, and, watching the constellations, I asked if we
+were divided for ever, if, when the earth has become part and parcel of
+the stars, our love will not reappear in some starry affinity, in some
+stellar friendship.--Yours,
+
+"ULICK DEAN."
+
+The symbol of the ships seemed to Evelyn to express the union and the
+division and the destiny that had overtaken them. She sat and pondered,
+and in her vision ships hailed each other as they crossed in mid-ocean.
+Ships drew together as they entered a harbour. Ships separated as they
+fared forth, their prows set towards different horizons. She sat
+absorbed in the mystery of destiny. Like two ships, they had rested side
+by side in a casual harbour. They had loved each other as well as their
+different destinies had allowed them. None can do more. She loved him
+better--in a way--but he was less to her than Owen. She felt that, and
+he had felt that.... As he said, if they were to meet again they would
+not recognise each other, so different were the suns that would shine
+upon them and the oceans they would travel through. She understood what
+he meant, and a prevision of her future life seemed to nicker up in her
+brain, like the sea seen through a mist; and through vistas in the haze
+she saw the lonely ocean, and her bark was already putting off from the
+shore. All she had known she was leaving behind. The destiny of ships is
+the ocean.
+
+Owen's letter she received in the evening about six o'clock. She changed
+colour at the sight of it, and her hand trembled, and she tore the
+envelope across as she opened it.
+
+"You ask me to make no attempt to save you. You ask me to stand on the
+bank while you struggle and are dragged down by the current. Evelyn, I
+have never disobeyed your slightest wish before, but I declare my right
+to use all means to save you from a terrible fate. I return to London to
+do so. God only knows if I shall succeed.... In any case I hope you will
+never allude again to any money questions. What I gave, I gave, and
+unless you want to kill me outright, never speak again of returning my
+presents.--As ever,
+
+OWEN ASHER."
+
+Her eyes ran through the lines, and her heart said, "How he loves me."
+But the temptation to see him quenched instantly in remembrance of her
+Communion, and she tore the letter hastily into two pieces, as if by
+destroying it she destroyed the difficulty it had created for her. She
+must not see him. But how was she to avoid meeting him? To-morrow be
+would be waiting in the street for her, and she walked about the room
+too agitated to think clearly. He seemed like the devil trying to come
+between her and God. She must not see him, of that she was quite sure.
+She would lock herself in her room. But then she would miss Holy
+Communion, and her heart was set on the Sacrament; the Sacrament alone
+could give her strength to persevere. To see him and to hear him would
+ruin her peace of mind, and peace of mind was essential to the reverent
+reception of the Sacrament. It was lost already, or very nearly. She
+stopped in her walk, she looked into her soul, she asked herself if any
+thought had crossed her mind which would render her unfit for Communion
+... and on the spot she resolved to go straight to Monsignor and consult
+him. He would advise her, he would find some way out of the difficulty.
+But it was now six; she could not get to St. Joseph's before seven. It
+was late, but she did not think he would refuse to see her; he would
+know that it was only a matter of the greatest moment that would bring
+her to inquire for him at that hour.
+
+It was as she expected. Monsignor did not receive anyone so late in the
+evening.
+
+"Yes, I know, but I think Monsignor Mostyn will see me. Tell him--tell
+him that my business does not admit delay."
+
+She was shown into the same waiting-room. This seemed to her a
+favourable presage, and she offered up a prayer that Monsignor would not
+refuse to see her; everything depended on that. She listened for his
+step; twice she was mistaken; at last the door opened. It was he, and he
+guessed, before she had time to speak, what had happened.
+
+"One of those men," he said, "has come again into your life?"
+
+She nodded, and, still unable to speak, she searched in her pocket for
+their letters.
+
+"I received these letters to-day--one this morning, the other, Sir
+Owen's, just now. That was why I came. I felt that I had to see you."
+
+"Pray sit down, my child, you are agitated." He handed her a chair.
+
+"You remember you said I might go to Communion on Sunday, and if I were
+to meet him to-morrow it would--there is no temptation, I don't mean
+that--but I do not wish to be reminded of things which you told me I was
+to try to forget."
+
+The priest stood reading the letters, and Evelyn sat looking into space,
+absorbed in the desire to escape from Owen. All her faith was in
+Monsignor, and she believed he would be able to save her from Owen's
+intrusion.
+
+"I don't think you need fear anything from Mr. Dean."
+
+"No, not from him."
+
+Monsignor continued to read Ulick's letter. Evelyn wished he would read
+Owen's; Ulick's interested her not in the least.
+
+"Mr. Dean seems a very extraordinary person. Does he believed in
+astrology, the casting of horoscopes, or is it mere affectation?"
+
+"I don't know; he always talks like that. He believes, or says he
+believes, in Lir and the great Mother Dana, in the old Irish Gods. But,
+Monsignor, please read Sir Owen's letter. I want to know what I am to
+do."
+
+He walked once across the room, and when he returned to the table he
+said half to himself, as if his thoughts had long out-stripped his
+words--
+
+"I am glad I advised you to leave Park Lane, for of course he will go
+there first."
+
+"He will easily find out I'm at Dulwich, he need not even ask--he will
+guess it at once."
+
+"Yes, to be sure."
+
+"If I am not to meet him I must go away--but where? All my friends and
+acquaintances are his friends. You would approve of none of them
+Monsignor," she said, smiling a little.
+
+He did not seem to hear her. Suddenly he said, "I think you had better
+go and spend a few days at the Passionist Convent. The Reverend Mother
+sent you an invitation through me, you remember, so we need have no
+hesitation in proposing it. Indeed, I feel confident that they will
+receive you with the greatest pleasure. It will do you a great deal of
+good. You will have peace and quiet, my child; you will find yourself in
+an atmosphere of faith and purity which cannot but be helpful to you in
+your present unsettled state."
+
+It seemed to Evelyn that that was what she had wanted all the time, only
+she had not been able to say so. Yes; to spend a week with those dear
+nuns, to sit in the convent garden, to kneel before the Blessed
+Sacrament in the convent church, it would be a real spiritual luxury.
+
+"Yes, I should love to go," she said. "I feel it is just what I need. I
+have so much to think out, so much to learn, and at home there are a
+hundred things to distract me."
+
+"Very well, then, that is settled. I will send the Reverend Mother word
+to-morrow; but there is no necessity, you can write yourself, and say
+you are coming in the afternoon; she will only have to get your room
+ready."
+
+"But, Monsignor, my Communion? I had forgotten it was from you I was to
+receive Holy Communion. Of course I know it doesn't really make any
+difference, but still, you heard my confession, and I would far rather
+receive Communion this first time from you than from anyone else. I
+don't think it could be quite the same thing--if it weren't from you."
+
+"And I should be sorry too, my child, as by God's grace I have been the
+means of bringing you thus far, not to complete your reconciliation to
+him. But I think we can manage that too without much difficulty. I say
+Mass to-morrow at nine o'clock, and will give you Communion then, and
+you can go to the convent for your retreat early in the afternoon. Will
+that suit you?"
+
+And Evelyn could not find words to express her gratitude.
+
+That evening she sat with her father. He was busy stringing a lute, and
+they had not spoken for some time; they often spent quite long whiles
+without speaking, and only occasionally they raised their eyes to see
+each other. The sensation of the other's presence was sufficient for
+their happiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
+
+
+It being Saturday, there was choir practice at St. Joseph's, and when
+Evelyn returned her father had left, and she breakfasted alone. After
+breakfast she sat absorbed in the mysteries of the Sacrament she had
+received. But in the middle of her exaltation doubt intervened, and
+Owen's arguments flashed through her mind. She strove to banish them; it
+was terrible that she should think such things over again, and on the
+morning of her Communion. Her spiritual joy was blighted; she could only
+hope that these dreadful thoughts were temptations of the devil, and
+that she was in no wise responsible. She stood in the middle of the
+room, asking herself if she had not in some slight measure yielded to
+them. No direct answer came to her question, but the words, "When I'm a
+bad woman I believe, when I'm a good woman I doubt," sounded clear and
+distinct in her brain, and she remained thinking a long while.
+
+Her father came in after lunch. And while she spoke about his trebles
+and his altos, she was thinking how she should tell him that she was
+going away that afternoon.
+
+"You're very silent."
+
+"I was at Holy Communion this morning."
+
+"This morning? I thought you were going to Communion on Sunday?"
+
+"Yes, so I was, but I received a letter from Owen Asher saying he
+intended to see me. I took it to Monsignor; he said it was necessary
+that I should not see Owen, and he advised me to go and stay with the
+Sisters at Wimbledon. That is why I went to Communion this morning; I
+wanted Monsignor to give me Communion. Father, I cannot remain here, I
+should be sure to meet him."
+
+"He will not come here."
+
+"No, but he'll be waiting in the street."
+
+"When are you going?"
+
+"This afternoon," she answered, and handed him Owen's letter. He glanced
+at it, and said--
+
+"He seems very fond of you."
+
+The answer shocked her, and nothing more was said on the subject. A
+little later she asked him about the trains. She did not know how she
+was to get from Dulwich to Wimbledon. Neither were very apt in looking
+out the trains, and eventually it was Agnes who discovered the changes
+that would have to be made. She would have to go first to Victoria, and
+then she would have to drive from Victoria to Waterloo, and this seemed
+so complicated and roundabout that she decided to drive all the way in a
+hansom. Dulwich and Wimbledon could not be more than ten miles apart.
+
+"I must go upstairs now, father, and pack my things."
+
+Her father followed her and stood by, while she hesitated what she
+should take. Smiling, she rejected a tea-gown as unsuitable for convent
+wear, and put in a black lace scarf which she thought would be useful
+for wearing in church; it would look better in the convent chapel than a
+hat. Instead of a flowered silk she chose a grey alpaca. Then she
+remembered that she must take some books with her. It would be useless
+to bring pious books with her, she would find plenty of those in the
+convent.
+
+"Have you any books, father? I must have something to read."
+
+"There are a few books downstairs; you know them all."
+
+"You don't read much, father?"
+
+"Not much, except music. But Ulick brings books here, you may find
+something among them."
+
+She returned with Berlioz's _Memoirs_, Pater's _Imaginary Portraits_,
+and Blake's _Songs of Innocence and Experience_.
+
+"I suppose these books belong to Ulick. I don't know if I ought to take
+them."
+
+"I cannot advise you; you must do as you like. I suppose you'll bring
+them back?"
+
+"Oh, yes, of course I shall bring them back."
+
+"Evelyn, dear, is it quite essential that you should go?"
+
+"Yes, father, yes, it is quite; but I don't know how I am to get away."
+
+"How you're to get away! What do you mean?"
+
+"Well," she answered, laughing, "you see in his letter he says he's
+coming to watch me. Father, I can see that you pity him; you're sorry
+for him, aren't you?"
+
+"Well, Evelyn, he offered to marry you, he made you a great singer, and
+you say he'd do anything for you. I suppose I am sorry for him."
+
+They stood looking out of the window.
+
+"You know I'd like to stop with you; it can't be helped; but I shall
+come back."
+
+"Do you think you'll come back?"
+
+"Of course I shall come back. Where should I go if I did not come back?"
+
+At that moment Agnes drove up in a hansom; she ran up the little garden,
+and carried out Evelyn's bag and placed it in the hansom.
+
+"I must go now, father; good-bye, darling. I shan't be away more than
+seven or eight days."
+
+A moment after her dear father was behind her, and she was alone in the
+hansom, driving towards the convent. About her were villas engarlanded
+with reddening creeper. On one lawn a family had assembled under the
+shade of a dwarf cedar, and miles of this kind of landscape lay before
+her. It seemed to her like painted paper, an illusion that might pass
+away at any moment. Her truth was no longer in the external world, but
+in her own soul. Her soul was making for a goal which she could not
+discern. She was leaving a life of wealth and fame and love for a life
+of poverty, chastity and obscurity. All the joy and emulation of the
+stage she was relinquishing for a dull, narrow, bare life at Dulwich,
+giving singing lessons and saying prayers at St. Joseph's. Yet there was
+no question which she would choose, and she marvelled at the strangeness
+of her choice.
+
+The road lay through fields and past farmhouses, but the suburban street
+was never quite lost sight of. Its blue roofs and cheap porticos
+appeared unexpectedly at the end of an otherwise romantic prospect, and
+so on and so on, until the driver let his horse walk up Wimbledon hill.
+When they reached the top she craned her neck, and was in time to catch
+a glimpse of the windmill far away to the right. The inn was in front of
+her, the end of a long point of houses stretching into the common, and
+the hansom rolled easily on the wide, curving roads. She anticipated the
+choked gardens, the decaying pear trees, the gold crowns of sunflowers;
+and a moment after the hansom passed these things and she saw the old
+green door, and heard the jangling peal. The eyes of the lay sister
+looked through the barred loop-hole.
+
+"How do you do, sister? I suppose you expected me?"
+
+The cabman put the trunk inside the long passage, and Evelyn said--
+
+"But my luggage."
+
+"If you'll come into the parlour I'll get one of the sisters to help me
+to carry it upstairs."
+
+Evelyn was sitting at the table turning over the leaves of the
+Confessions of St. Augustine, when the Reverend Mother entered. She
+seemed to Evelyn even smaller than she had done on the first occasion
+they had met; she seemed lost in the voluminous grey habit, and the
+long, light veil floated in the wind of her quick step.
+
+"I'm glad you were able to come so soon. All the sisters are anxious to
+meet you, you who have done so much for us."
+
+"I've done very little, Reverend Mother. Could I have done less for my
+old convent? I hope that your difficulties are at an end."
+
+"At an end, no, but you helped us over a critical moment in the fortunes
+of our convent."
+
+Her hands were leaned against the edge of the table, her white fingers,
+white with age, played with the hem of her veil, her blue, anxious eyes
+were fixed on Evelyn at once tenderly, expectantly, and compassionately.
+Her voice was the clear, refined voice which signifies society, and
+Evelyn would not have been surprised to learn that she belonged to an
+old aristocratic family, Evelyn imagined her to be a woman in whom the
+genius of government dominated, and who, not having found an outlet into
+the world, had turned to the cloister. Was that her story? Evelyn
+wondered, and suddenly seemed to forsee a day when she would hear the
+story which shone behind those clear blue eyes, and obliterated age from
+the white face.
+
+They went up the circular staircase, at the top of which was a large
+landing; there were two rooms at the head of the stairs, and the
+Reverend Mother said--
+
+"These are our guest chambers." Standing on a second landing, one step
+higher than the first, a solid wooden partition had been erected, and
+pointing to a door the nun said with a laugh, "That door leads to the
+sisters' cells. You must not make a mistake."
+
+Evelyn was pleased to see that her room had two windows overlooking the
+garden. There was a table covered by a cloth at which she could write,
+and she bent over the bowl of roses and wondered which kind nun had
+gathered them. The Reverend Mother left her, saying that she would be
+told when supper was ready, and on looking round the room she perceived
+her portmanteau, which the lay sister had not unstrapped. She would have
+to unstrap it herself. She remembered that she had brought very few
+things with her, and yet she was surprised at the smallness of her
+luggage. For she usually took half-a-dozen dresses with her, now she had
+only brought one change, a grey alpaca. She thought she might have left
+her dressing-case behind, a plain brush and comb would have been all she
+needed. But at the last moment, she had felt that she could not do
+without these bottles of scent and brushes and nicknacks; they had
+seemed indispensable. The dressing-case was Owen's influence still
+pursuing her. She had not known why she was compelled to bring the
+dressing-case, now she knew--Owen! Never would she be able to wholly
+separate herself from him. He had become part of her.
+
+As she stood in the convent room noticing the beeswaxed floor and the
+two rugs, one by the small iron bed, she remembered a hunting morning
+three years ago at Riversdale. She had gone to Owen's room to see if he
+were ready. A multitude of orders were being given there, the valet was
+searching anxiously in the large wardrobe, piled high with many various
+coats and trousers; Owen stood before the looking-glass tying a white
+scarf, and two footmen watched each movement, dreading a mistake. She
+remembered that she had been amused at the time, and she never recalled
+the scene without smiling. But she had liked Owen better for the
+innumerable superfluities, all of which were necessary to his happiness,
+the breakdown of any one of which made him the most miserable man alive.
+She remembered how she had secretly imitated him, and how she had
+gathered about her a mass of superfluous necessities. But they had never
+become necessities to her, they had always galled her. It was in a
+spirit of perversity she had imitated him. She had always felt it to be
+wrong to eat peaches at five francs a piece, and had always been aware
+of an inward resentment against the extravagance of a reserved carriage
+on the railway and private saloon on board the boat. She had always
+desired a simple life; the life of these nuns was a simple life, simpler
+perhaps than she cared for. There was no hot water in her room, she
+wondered how she would wash her hands, and smiling at her philosophical
+reflections, she thought how Owen would laugh if he could see her in her
+present situation--in a convent, crying out for a constant supply of hot
+water and her maid. A religious life with home comforts, that was what
+she wanted.
+
+She was always a subject of amusement to herself, and she was still
+smiling when a knock awoke her from her whimsical reveries. She answered
+"Come in," and an elderly nun told her that supper was ready in the
+parlour. In this room, furnished with a table and six chairs and four
+pious prints, Evelyn ate her convent meal, a sort of mixed meal, which
+included soup, cold meat, coffee, jam and some unripe pears. The
+porteress took the plates away, and somehow Evelyn could not help
+feeling that she was giving a good deal of trouble. She could see that
+the nuns did everything for themselves, and she abandoned hope of ever
+finding a can of hot water in her room. She remembered that when she
+made her retreat some years ago, she had not noticed these things. She
+owed all her wants to Owen. Mother Philippa came in, delighted to see
+her, and anxious to know if she had everything she wanted.
+
+"I thought you would be sure to be going abroad, and that next Easter,
+the time you were here before, would be the time to ask you."
+
+"But the Reverend Mother thought that now would be a better time."
+
+"Yes, she said that Easter was a long way off, and that a rest would do
+you good after singing all the season in London."
+
+Evelyn wondered what idea the phrase "the season in London" awoke in the
+mind of the nun. A little puzzled look did pass in her eyes, and then
+she resumed her friendly chatter. Evelyn listened, more interested in
+Mother Philippa's kind, amicable nature than in what she said. She
+imagined in different circumstances what a good wife she would have
+been, and what a good mother! "But she is happier as she is." Evelyn
+could not imagine any soul-rending uncertainties in Mother Philippa. At
+a certain age, at seventeen or eighteen, she had felt that she would
+like to be a nun; very probably she was not any more pious than her
+sisters; she had merely felt that the life would suit her. That was her
+story. Evelyn smiled, and looked into Mother Philippa's mild eyes, in
+which there was nothing but simple kindness, and with a yes and a no she
+kept the conversation going till the bell rang for Office.
+
+"I do not know if you would care to come to church. Perhaps you are
+tired after your journey?"
+
+"Journey! I have only driven a few miles."
+
+Evelyn ran upstairs for her hat, and she followed the nun down the
+cloister which led to the church.
+
+"That is your door, it will take you into the outer church."
+
+The nuns' choir was still empty, but the two candles on the high altar
+were already lit, ready for Matins and Lauds. Evelyn had only just taken
+her place, when at that moment a door opened on the other side of the
+grille, and the grey figures, their heads a little bent, came in couples
+and took their place in the stalls. They were wonderfully beautiful and
+impressive, and the idea they represented seemed to Evelyn
+extraordinary, simple and true. For, once we are convinced that there is
+a God, and that we are here to save our souls, it were surely folly to
+think of anything else. Our loves and our ambitions, what are they when
+we consider him? and Evelyn remembered how he waits for us in an
+eternity of bliss and love, only asking for our love. These were the
+wise ones, they thought of the essential and let the ephemeral and
+circumstantial go by them. Even from a worldly point of view, their life
+was the wiser, since it produced the greater happiness. Owen was a proof
+of this. She remembered how he used to say he had the finest place, the
+most beautiful pictures, and the most desirable mistress in Europe. Yet
+he was always the unhappiest man she knew. His life had been an
+unceasing effort to capture happiness, and he had failed because he had
+sought happiness from without instead of seeking it from within. He
+lived in externals, he was dependent on a multitude of things, the
+breakdown of any one of which was sufficient to cause him the acutest
+misery. The howl of a dog, the smell of a cigar, any trifle was
+sufficient to wreck his happiness. He had taught her to live in external
+things, to place her faith in the world instead of in her own
+conscience. How unhappy she had been; she had been driven to the brink
+of suicide. Ah, if it had not been for Monsignor. She bent her face on
+her hands, and did not dare to think further.
+
+When her prayer was finished, she listened to the high monotonous chant
+of the nuns reciting Matins. It sank into her soul, soothing it, and at
+the same time inspiring an ardent melancholy. The long, unbroken rhythm
+flowed on and on, each side of the choir chanting an alternate verse. In
+the dimness of her sensation, Evelyn lost count of time, nor did she
+know of what she was thinking. She was suddenly awakened by a sound of
+shuffling. The nuns had risen to their feet, and in the middle of the
+floor a sister began the lessons in a shrill voice, keeping always on
+the same note, never letting her voice fall at the close of the
+sentences. Evelyn grew more interested; the rite was full of a
+penetrating mystery. She viewed the lines of grey nuns and heard the
+Latin syllables. These poor nuns whom she was just now pitying for their
+ignorance of life could at all events read the Office in Latin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
+
+When she opened her eyes and saw the convent room, she remembered how
+she had come there. Her still dreaming face lighted up with a smile, and
+she began to wonder what was going to happen next. Soon after, someone
+knocked. It was the little porteress telling her that it was seven
+o'clock. Evelyn expected her to come in, pull up the blinds and pour out
+her bath. But she did not even open the door, and Evelyn lay looking
+through the strange room, unable to face the discomfort of a small basin
+of cold water. She would have to do her hair herself, and there was no
+toilette table. The convent seemed suddenly a place to flee from; she
+hadn't realised that it would be like this.... But it would never do for
+her to miss Mass, and she sat on the edge of the bed, unable to think of
+any solution of her difficulties. The only glass in the room was about a
+foot square; it had been placed on the chest of drawers, and nothing
+seemed to Evelyn more inefficient than this wretched glass. Its very
+position on the top of the chest of drawers was vexatious. She could not
+even get it into the proper angle, and when she removed the piece of
+paper that held it in position, it swung round and its back confronted
+her. That morning it seemed as if she could not dress herself. Her hair
+had curled itself into many a knot; she nearly broke the comb, and her
+hand dropped by her side, and then she laughed outright, having caught
+sight of some part of her dejection. As she hooked on her skirt she
+reflected on the necessity of not leaving bottles of scent nor too many
+sponges for the observation of the nuns; and the nightgown she had
+brought was certainly not a conventual garment.
+
+She hurried downstairs, and was just in time to see the nuns coming into
+church. They came in by a side door, walking two by two, and Evelyn was
+again struck by the beauty and mystery of this grey procession. She had
+seen on the stage the outward show of men who had renounced the
+world--the pilgrims in "Tannhaeuser," the knights in "Parsifal," but this
+was no outward show. The women she was now witnessing had renounced the
+world; the life she was witnessing was the life they lived from hour to
+hour, from day to day, from year to year. She had included lovers amid
+their renunciations; such inclusion was ridiculous, for of such sins as
+hers they had not even dreamed. To pass through life without knowing
+life! To have renounced, to have refused love, friends, art, everything,
+dinner-parties, conversations, all the distractions which we believe
+make life endurable, to have refused these things from the
+beginning--not even to have been tempted to taste, not even to have
+desired to put life to the test of a fugitive personal experience, but
+to have divined from the first, by instinct, by the grace of God, the
+worthlessness of life--that was what was so wonderful. Mother Philippa,
+that simple nun, had done this, instinct had led her--there was no other
+explanation. She had arrived at the same conclusion as the wisest of the
+philosophers and without any soul-searching, by instinct--each of the
+humble lay sisters, the little porteress had done this. And Evelyn was
+filled with shame when she thought of the effort it had cost her to free
+herself from a life of sin.
+
+In extraordinary beauty of grey habit and veil and solemn procession,
+the nuns passed to their seats. Now they were kneeling altarwise, and
+Evelyn was still occupied by the thought that this was not outward show
+as she had often seen it on the stage, but the thing itself. This was
+not acting, this was truth, the truth of all their lifetimes.
+
+Suddenly began the plaint of the organ, and some half-dozen voices sang
+a hymn; and these pale, etiolated voices interested her. It was not the
+clear, sexless voice of boys, these were women's voices, out of which
+sex had faded like colour out of flowers; and these pale, deciduous
+voices wailing a poor, pathetic music, so weak and feeble that it was
+almost interesting through its very feebleness, interested Evelyn. Tears
+trembled in her eyes, and she listened to the poor voices rising and
+falling, breaking forth spasmodically in the lamentable hymn. "Desolate"
+and "forgotten" were the words that came up in her mind.
+
+They were still kneeling altarwise; their profiles turned from her.
+Outside of the choir stalls, on either side of the church, were two
+special stalls, and the Reverend Mother and the sub-prioress knelt
+apart. Their backs were turned to Evelyn, and she noticed the fine
+delicate shoulders of the Reverend Mother, and the heavy figure of
+Mother Philippa. "Even in their backs they are like themselves," she
+thought. She smiled at her descriptive style, "like themselves," and
+then, seeing that Mass had begun, she resolutely repressed all levity,
+and began her prayers. She had not felt especially pious till that
+moment, and to rouse herself she remembered Monsignor's words, "That at
+the height of her artistic career she should have been awakened to a
+sense of her own exceeding sinfulness was a miracle of his grace," and
+she felt that the devotion of her whole life to his service would not be
+a sufficient return for what he had done for her. But in spite of her
+efforts she followed the sacrifice of the Mass in her normal
+consciousness until the bell rang for the Elevation. When the priest
+raised the Host she was conscious of the Real Presence. She raised her
+eyes a little, and the bent figures of the nuns, their veils hanging
+loose about them, contributed to her exaltation, and with a last effort,
+holding as it were her life in her hands, she asked pardon of God for
+her sins.
+
+Then the pale, etiolated voices of the nuns, the wailing of these weak
+voices--there were three altos, three sopranos--began again. They were
+singing an Agnus Dei, a simple little music nowise ugly, merely feeble,
+touchingly commonplace; they were singing in unison thirds and fifths,
+and the indifferent wailing of the voices contrasted with the firmness
+of the organist's touch; and Evelyn knew that they had one musician
+among them. She listened, touched by the plaintive voices, so feeble in
+the ears of man, but beautiful in God's ears. God heard beyond the mere
+notes; the music of the intention was what reached God's ears. The music
+of these poor voices was more favourable in his ears than her voice.
+Months she had spent seeking the exact rhythm of a phrase intended to
+depict and to rouse a sinful desire. Though the hymns were ugly--and
+they were very ugly--she would have done better to sing them; and she
+sought to press herself into the admission that art which does not tend
+to the glory of God is vain and harmful. Far better these hideous hymns,
+if singing them conducts to everlasting life. But every time she pressed
+her mind towards an inevitable conclusion, it turned off into an obscure
+bypath. She brought it back like an intractable ass, but the stubborn
+beast again dodged her, and she had to abandon the attempt to convince
+herself that art which did not tend to the honour and glory of God
+should be suppressed--should be at least avoided. Once we were convinced
+that there was a God and a resurrection, this world must become as
+nothing in our eyes, only it didn't become as nothing in our eyes; every
+sacrifice should become easy, but every sacrifice didn't become easy.
+That was the point; to these nuns, perhaps, not to her. At least not
+yet.
+
+She had fussed a great deal this morning because she had no hot water to
+wash with. Seven o'clock had seemed to her somewhat early to get up. But
+they had been up long before. She had heard of nuns who got up at four
+in the morning to say the Office. She did not know what time these nuns
+got up, but she felt that she was not capable of much greater sacrifice
+than six or seven o'clock. These nuns lived on a little coarse food, and
+spent the day in prayer. She thought of their aching knees in the long
+vigils of their adorations. She understood that the inward happiness
+their life gives them compensates them for all their privations. She
+understood that they are the only ones who are happy, yet the knowledge
+did not help her; she felt that she would never be happy in their
+happiness, and a great sorrow came over her. Mass was over, and again
+the beautiful procession, with bowed heads and meekly folded veils,
+glided out of the church. Only the watchers remained.
+
+Last night she had sat watching the stars shining on the convent garden.
+There were, as Owen said, twenty millions of suns in the Milky Way;
+beyond the Milky Way there were other constellations of which we know
+nothing, nebulae which time has not yet resolved into stars, or stars so
+distant that time has not yet brought their light hither. But why seek
+mystery beyond this poor planet? It furnishes enough, surely. That we
+should see the stars, that we should know the stars, that we should
+place God above the stars--are not these common facts as wonderful as
+the stars themselves? That those twenty or five-and-twenty women should
+give up all the seduction of life for the sake of an idea, accepting
+Owen's theory that it is but an idea, even so the wonder of it is not
+less; even from Owen's point of view is not this convent as wonderful as
+the stars?
+
+On coming out of church, she was told that in half-an-hour her breakfast
+would be ready in the parlour, and to loosen the mental tension--she had
+thought and felt a great deal in the last hour--she asked the lay sister
+who were the nuns who sang in the choir. The lay sister answered her
+perfunctorily. Evelyn could see that she was not open at that moment to
+conversation. She guessed that the sister had work to attend to, and was
+not surprised that she did not come back to take the things away.
+Although only just begun, the day had already begun to seem long. She
+proposed to herself some pious reading; and wondered how she was going
+to get through the day. She would have liked to go into the garden; but
+she did not know the rules of the convent, and feared to transgress
+them. However, she was free to go to her room. The books she had brought
+with her would help her to get through the morning.
+
+Berlioz's _Memoirs I_ The faded voices she had heard that morning
+singing dreary hymns were more wonderful than his orchestral dreams. Nor
+did she find the spiritual stimulus she needed in Pater's _Imaginary
+Portraits_. Some moody souls reflecting with no undue haste, without
+undue desire to arrive at any definite opinion concerning certain
+artistic problems, did not appeal to her. She put the book aside,
+fearing that she was in no humour for reading that morning; and with
+little hope of being interested, she took up another book. The size of
+the volume and the disproportion of the type seemed to drag her to it,
+and the title was a sort of prophetic echo of the interest she was to
+find in the book. Her thoughts clouded in a sense of delight as she
+read; she followed as a child follows a butterfly, until the fluttering
+colour disappears in the sky. And before she was aware of any idea, the
+harmony of the gentle prose captivated her, and she sat down, holding in
+her heart the certitude that she was going to be enchanted. The book
+procured for her the delicious sensualism of reading things at once new
+and old. It seemed to her that she was reading things that she had known
+always, but which she had somehow neglected to think out for herself.
+The book seemed like her inner self suddenly made clear. All that the
+author said on the value of Silence was so true. She raised her eyes
+from the page to think. She seemed to understand something, but she
+could not tell what it was. The object of every soul is to unite itself
+to another soul, to be absorbed in another, to find life and happiness
+in another; the desire of unison is the deepest instinct in man. But how
+little, the author asked, do words help us to understand? We talk and
+talk, and nothing is really said; the conversation falls, we walk side
+by side, our eyes fixed on the quiet skies, and lo! our souls come
+together and are united in their immortal destiny. She again raised her
+eyes from the page--now she understood, and she thought a long while.
+The chapter entitled "The Profound Life" interested her equally. The
+nuns realised it, but those who live in the world live on the surface of
+things. To live a life of silence and devotion, illumined not from
+without but from within, the eternal light that never fails or withers,
+and to live unconscious of the great stream of things, our back turned
+to that great stream flowing mysteriously, solemnly, like a river! The
+chapter entitled "Warnings" had for her a strangely personal meaning.
+How true it is that we know everything, only we have not acquired the
+art of saying it. Had she not always known that her destiny was not with
+Owen, that he was but a passing, not the abiding event of her life? She
+looked through the convent room, and the abiding event of her life now
+seemed to murmur in her ear, seemed to pass like a shadow before her
+eyes. At the moment when she thought she was about to hear and see, a
+knock came at her door, and the revelation of her destiny passed, with a
+little ironical smile, out of her eyes and ears.
+
+Her visitor was a strange little nun whom she had not seen before. Over
+her slim figure the white serge habit fell in such graceful, mediaeval
+lines as Evelyn had seen in German cathedrals; and her face was delicate
+and childlike beneath the white forehead band. She came forward with a
+diffident little smile.
+
+"Reverend Mother sent me to you; she is watching now, or she would have
+come herself, but she thought you might like me to take you round the
+garden. She will join us there when she comes out of church. But
+Reverend Mother said you must do just as you liked."
+
+The little nun corresponded to her mood even as the book had done; she
+seemed an apparition, a ghost risen from its pages. Her face was a thin
+oval, and the purity of the outline was accentuated by the white
+kerchief which surrounded it. The nose was slightly aquiline, the chin
+a little pointed, the lips well cut, but thin and colourless--lips that
+Evelyn thought had never been kissed, and that never would be kissed.
+The thought seemed disgraceful, and Evelyn noticed hastily the dark
+almond eyes that saved the face from insipidity; the black eyebrows were
+firmly and delicately drawn, her complexion, without being pale, was
+extraordinarily transparent, and the thin hands and long, narrow
+fingers, half hidden beneath the long sleeves, were in the same idea of
+mediaeval delicacy.
+
+"I was longing to go out, but I had not the courage. I feared it might
+be against the rule for me to go into the garden alone. But tell me
+first who you are."
+
+"Oh, I'm Sister Veronica. I'm only a novice as yet."
+
+Evelyn noticed that, unlike the other nuns she had seen, Sister Veronica
+wore neither the silver heart on her breast, suspended by a red cord,
+nor the long straight scapular which gave such dignity to the religious
+habit. Her habit was held in at the waist by a leather girdle; it looked
+as though it might slip any moment over the slight, boyish hips, and by
+her side hung a rosary of large black beads.
+
+Sister Veronica warned Evelyn that she must be careful how she went down
+the staircase, as it was very slippery. Evelyn said she would be
+careful; she added that the sisters kept the stairs in beautiful order,
+and wondered what her next remark would be. She was nervous in the
+presence of these convent women, lest by some unfortunate remark she
+should betray herself. And when they reached the garden it was Sister
+Veronica who was the most self-possessed--she was already confessing to
+Evelyn that they had all felt very nervous knowing that a "real" singer
+was listening to them.
+
+"Oh, do you sing?" Evelyn asked eagerly.
+
+"Well, I have to try," Sister Veronica answered, with a little laugh.
+"Mother Prioress thought perhaps I might learn, so she put me in the
+choir, but Sister Mary John says I shall never be the least use."
+
+"Is Sister Mary John the sister who teaches you?"
+
+"Yes; it is she who played the organ at Mass. She loves music. She is
+simply longing to hear you sing, Miss Innes. Do you think you will sing
+at Benediction this afternoon for us? It would be lovely."
+
+"I don't know, really. You see I haven't been asked yet."
+
+"Oh, Reverend Mother is sure to ask you--at least I hope she will. We
+all want to hear you so much."
+
+They were sitting in the shadow of a great elm; all around was a
+wonderful silence, and to turn the conversation from herself, Evelyn
+asked Sister Veronica if she didn't care for their beautiful garden.
+
+"Oh, yes, indeed I do. I'm glad you like it.... When I was a child my
+greatest treat was to be allowed to play in the nuns' garden."
+
+"Then you knew the convent long before you came to be a nun yourself?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I've known it all my life."
+
+"So it was not strange when you came here first?"
+
+"No, it was like coming home."
+
+Evelyn repeated the nun's words to herself, "Like coming home." And she
+seemed to see far into their meaning. Here was an illustration of what
+she had read in the book--she and Veronica seemed to understand each
+other in the silence. But it became necessary to speak, and in answer to
+a question, Sister Veronica told Evelyn that there were four novices and
+two postulants in the novitiate, and that the name of the novice
+mistress was Mother Mary Hilda. The novitiate was in the upper storey of
+the new wing, above the convent refectory.
+
+"And here is Reverend Mother," and Sister Veronica suddenly got up.
+Evelyn got up too, and they waited till the elderly nun slowly crossed
+the lawn. Evelyn noticed, even when the Reverend Mother was seated, that
+Veronica remained standing.
+
+"You can go now, Veronica."
+
+Veronica smiled a little good-bye to Evelyn, and left them immediately.
+
+"Veronica told you, Miss Innes, I was taking my watch?"
+
+"Yes, Reverend Mother."
+
+"I hope she has not been wearying you with the details of our life?"
+
+"On the contrary, I have been very much interested.... Your life here is
+so beautiful that I long to know more about it. At present my knowledge
+is confined to the fact that the second storey in the new wing is the
+novitiate, and that there are four novices and two postulants." The
+Reverend Mother smiled, and after a pause Evelyn added--
+
+"But Sister Veronica is very young."
+
+"She is older than she looks, she is nearly twenty. Ever since she was
+quite a child she wished to be a nun. Even then her mind was quite made
+up."
+
+"She told me that when she was a child her great pleasure was to be
+allowed to walk in the convent garden."
+
+"Yes. You don't know, perhaps, that she is my niece. My poor brother's
+child. She was left an orphan at a very early age. Her's is a sad story.
+But God has been good: she never doubted her vocation, she passed from
+an innocent childhood to a life dedicated to God. So she has been spared
+the trouble that is the lot of those who live in the world."
+
+An accent of past but unforgotten sorrow had crept into her voice; and
+once more Evelyn was convinced that she had not, like Veronica, passed
+from innocent childhood into the blameless dream of convent life. She
+had known the world and had renounced it. In the silence that had fallen
+Evelyn wondered what her story might be, and whether she would ever hear
+it. But she knew that in the convent no allusion is made to the past,
+that there the past is really the past.
+
+"I hope that you will sing for us at Benediction. All the sisters are
+longing to hear you. It will be such a pleasure to them."
+
+"I shall be very glad ... only I have brought nothing with me. But I
+daresay I shall find something among the music you have here."
+
+"Sister Mary John will find you something; she is our organist."
+
+"And an excellent musician. I noticed her playing."
+
+"She has always been anxious to improve the choir, but unfortunately
+none of the sisters except her has any voice to speak of.... You might
+sing Gounod's 'Ave Maria' at Benediction; you know it, of course, what a
+beautiful piece of music it is. But I see that you don't admire it."
+
+"Well," Evelyn said, smiling, "it is contrary to all the principles I've
+been brought up in."
+
+"We might walk a little; we are at the end of the summer, and the air is
+a little cold. You do not mind walking very slowly? I'm forbidden to
+walk fast on account of my heart."
+
+They crossed the sloping lawn, and walking slowly up St. Peter's walk,
+amid sad flutterings of leaves from the branches of the elms, Evelyn
+told the Reverend Mother the story of the musical reformation which her
+father had achieved. She asked Evelyn if it would be possible to give
+Palestrina at the convent and they reached the end of the walk. It was
+flushed with September, and in the glittering stillness the name of
+Palestrina was exquisite to speak. They passed the tall cross standing
+at the top of the rocks, and the Reverend Mother said, speaking out of
+long reflection--"Have I never heard any of the music you sing? Wagner I
+have never heard, but the Italian operas, 'Lucia' and 'Trovatore,' or
+Mozart? Have you never sung Mozart?"
+
+"Very little. I am what is called a dramatic soprano. The only Italian
+opera I've sung is 'Norma.' Do you know it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've sung Leonore--not in 'Trovatore,' in 'Fidelio.'"
+
+"But surely you admire 'Trovatore'--the 'Miserere,' for instance. Is not
+that beautiful?"
+
+"It is no doubt very effective, but it is considered very common now."
+Evelyn hummed snatches of the opera; then the waltz from "Traviata."
+"I've sung Margaret."
+
+"Ah."
+
+And as she hummed the Jewel Song she watched the Reverend Mother's
+face, and was certain that the nun had heard the music on the stage. But
+at that moment the angelus bell rang. Evelyn had forgotten the
+responses, and as she walked towards the convent she asked the Reverend
+Mother to repeat them once again, so that she might have them by heart.
+She excused herself, saying how difficult was the observance of
+religious forms for those who live in the world.
+
+After dinner she wrote two letters. One was to her father, the other was
+to Monsignor, and having directed the letters she imagined the postal
+arrangement to be somewhat irregular. After Benediction she would ask
+Veronica what time the letters left the convent. And looking across the
+abyss which separated them, she saw her passionate self-centred past and
+Veronica's little transit from the schoolroom to the convent. It seemed
+strange to her that she never had what might be called a girl friend.
+But she had arrived at a time when a woman friend was a necessity, and
+it now suddenly occurred to her that there would be something
+wonderfully sweet and satisfying in the uncritical love of a woman
+younger than herself. She felt that the love of this innocent creature
+who knew nothing, who never would know anything, and who therefore would
+suspect nothing, would help her to forget her past as Monsignor wished.
+She felt a sympathy awaken in her for her own sex which she had never
+known before, and this yearning was confounded in a desire to be among
+those who knew nothing of her past. Now she was glad that she had
+refrained from taking the Reverend Mother into her confidence, and she
+wondered how much Monsignor had told her the day they had walked in the
+garden; it relieved her to remember that he knew very little except what
+she had told him in confession.
+
+Someone knocked. She answered, "Come in." It was Mother Philippa and
+another nun.
+
+"I hope we're not interrupting.... But you're reading, I see."
+
+"No, I was thinking;" and glad of the interruption, she let the book
+fall on her knees. "Pray come in, Mother Philippa," and Evelyn rose to
+detain her.
+
+The nuns entered very shyly. Evelyn handed them chairs, and as she did
+so she remarked the tall, angular nun who followed Mother Philippa, and
+whose face expressed so much energy.
+
+"Good afternoon, Miss Innes. I hope you slept well last night, and did
+not find your bed too uncomfortable?"
+
+"Thank you, Mother Philippa. I liked my bed. I slept very well." Evelyn
+drew two chairs forward, and Mother Philippa introduced Evelyn to Sister
+Mary John. And while she explained that she had heard from the Reverend
+Mother that Miss Innes had promised to sing at Benediction, Sister Mary
+John sat watching Evelyn, her large brown eyes wide open. Her eagerness
+was even a little comical, and Evelyn smiled through her growing liking
+for this nun. She was unlike any other nun she had seen. Nuns were
+usually formal and placid, but Sister Mary John was so irreparably
+herself that while the others presented feeble imitations of the
+Reverend Mother's manner, her walk and speech, Sister Mary John
+continued to slouch along, to cross her legs, to swing her arms, to lean
+forward and interrupt when she was interested in the conversation; when
+she was not, she did not attempt to hide her indifference. Evelyn
+thought that she must be about eight-and-twenty or thirty. The eyes were
+brown and exultant, and the eyebrows seemed very straight and black in
+the sallow complexion. All the features were large, but a little of the
+radiant smile that had lit up all her features when she came forward to
+greet Evelyn still lingered on her face. Now and then she seemed to grow
+impatient, and then she forgot her impatience and the smile floated back
+again. At last her opportunity came, and she seized it eagerly.
+
+"I'm quite ashamed, Miss Innes, we sang so badly this morning; our
+little choir can do better than that."
+
+"I was interested; the organ was very well played."
+
+"Did you think so? I have not sufficient time for practice, but I love
+music, and am longing to hear you sing. But the Reverend Mother says
+that you have brought no music with you."
+
+"I hear," said Mother Philippa, "that you do not care for Gounod's 'Ave
+Maria.'"
+
+"If the Reverend Mother wishes me to sing it, I shall be delighted to do
+so, if Sister Mary John has the music."
+
+Sister Mary John shook her head authoritatively, and said that she quite
+understood that Miss Innes did not approve of the liberty of writing any
+melody over Bach's beautiful prelude. Besides, it required a violin. The
+conversation then turned on the music at St. Joseph's. Sister Mary John
+listened, breaking suddenly in with some question regarding Palestrina.
+She had never heard any of his music; would Miss Innes lend her some?
+Was there nothing of his that they could sing in the convent?
+
+"I do not know anything of his written for two voices. You might play
+the other parts on the organ, but I'm afraid it would sound not a little
+ridiculous."
+
+"But have you heard the Benedictine nuns sing the plain chant; they
+pause in the middle of the verse--that is the tradition, is it not?"
+
+Meanwhile Mother Philippa sat forgotten. Evelyn noticed her isolation
+before Sister Mary John, and addressed an observation to her. But Mother
+Philippa said she knew nothing about music, and that they were to go on
+talking as if she weren't there. But a mere listener is a dead weight in
+a conversation; and whenever Evelyn's eyes went that way, she could see
+that Mother Philippa was thinking of something else; and when she
+looked towards Sister Mary John she could see that she was longing to be
+alone with her. A delightful hour of conversation awaited them if they
+could only find some excuse to get away together, and Evelyn looked at
+Sister Mary John, saying with her eyes that the suggestion must come
+from her.
+
+"If I were to take Miss Innes to the organ loft and show her what music
+we have--don't you think so, Mother Philippa?'
+
+"Yes, I think that would be the best thing to do.... I'm sure the
+Reverend Mother would see no objection to your taking Miss Innes to the
+organ loft."
+
+Mother Philippa did not see the look of relief and delight that passed
+in Sister Mary John's eyes, and it was Evelyn who had a scruple about
+getting rid of Mother Philippa.
+
+"I was so disappointed not to have seen you the day you came here; and
+what made it so hard was that it was first arranged that it was the
+Reverend Mother and I who were to meet you. I had looked forward to
+seeing you. I love music, and it is seven years since I've spoken to
+anyone who could tell the difference between a third and a fourth.
+There's no one here who cares about music."
+
+It seemed to Evelyn that the problem of life must have presented itself
+to Sister Mary John very much as it presents itself to a woman who is
+suddenly called to join her husband in India. The woman hates leaving
+London, her friends, and all the habits of life in which she has grown
+up; but she does not hesitate to give up these things to follow the man
+she loves out to India.
+
+"I don't know why it was settled that Mother Philippa was to meet you
+instead of me; it seemed so useless, meeting you meant so little to her
+and so much to me; I'm always inclined to argue, but that day the
+Reverend Mother's heart was very bad; she had had a fainting fit in the
+early morning; we all got up to pray for her."
+
+"Yet she was quite cheerful; I never should have guessed."
+
+"Mother Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda tried to dissuade her. But she
+would see you."
+
+"Then it is with her heart disease that the Reverend Mother rules the
+convent," Evelyn thought, as she followed Sister Mary John up the spiral
+staircase to the organ loft. She looked over the curtained railing into
+the church. The watcher knelt there, her head bowed, her habit still as
+sculpture, and Evelyn heard Sister Mary John pulling out her music. She
+could not find what she wanted, and she sat with her legs apart,
+throwing from side to side piles of old torn music.
+
+"Never can one find a piece of music when one wants it: I don't know if
+you have noticed that nothing is so difficult to find as a piece of
+music. Day after day it is under your hands, it would seem as if there
+was not another piece in the organ loft, but the moment you want it, it
+has disappeared. I don't know how it is."
+
+"What are you looking for? Perhaps I can help you."
+
+"Well, I was thinking that you might like"--Sister Mary John looked up
+at Evelyn--"I suppose you can sing B flat, or even C?"
+
+"Yes, I can sing C;" and Evelyn thought of the last page of the "Dusk of
+the Gods." "But what are you looking for?"
+
+Sister Mary John did not answer. She threw the music from side to side,
+every minute growing more impatient. "It is most strange," she said at
+last, looking up at Evelyn. Evelyn smiled. With all her brusque,
+self-willed ways, Sister Mary John was clearly a lady born and an
+intelligent woman.
+
+"I'm afraid I shall not be able to find you anything that you'd care to
+sing."
+
+"Oh, yes, I shall," Evelyn replied encouragingly.
+
+"It is all such poor stuff. We've no singers here. Do you know, I've
+never heard a great singer, and I've often wished to. The only thing I
+regret is not having heard a little music before I came here. But I've
+heard of Wagner; you sing Wagner, don't you, Miss Innes?"
+
+"Yes, I sing little else. 'Fidelio'--"
+
+"Ah, I know some of the music. Do you sing--"
+
+Sister Mary John hummed a few bars.
+
+"Yes, I sing that."
+
+"Well, I shall hear you sing to-day. I've been wishing to go to St.
+Joseph's to hear Palestrina. You were brought up on music. You can sing
+at sight--in the key that it is written in?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"But all prima-donnas can do that?"
+
+"No; on the contrary, I think I'm the only one. Singers on the operatic
+stage learn their parts at the piano."
+
+She could see that to Sister Mary John music was the temptation of her
+life, and she imagined that her confession must be a little musical
+record. She had lost her temper with Sister So-and-So because she could
+not, etc. But time was getting on. If she was to sing that afternoon,
+she must find something, and seeing that Sister Mary John lingered over
+some sheets of music, as if she thought that it presented some
+possibility, Evelyn asked her what it was. It was a Mass by Mozart for
+four voices, which Sister Mary John had arranged for a single voice.
+
+"The choir and I sing the melody in unison, and I play the entire Mass
+on the organ."
+
+Evelyn smiled, and seeing that the smile distressed the nun, she was
+sorry.
+
+"To you, of course, it would sound absurd, it does to me too, but it was
+a little change, it was the only thing I could think of. We have some
+pieces written for two voices, but I can hardly get them sung. I have
+to teach the sisters the parts separately. Till they know them by heart,
+I can't trust them. It is impossible sometimes not to lose one's temper.
+If we had a few good voices, people would come to hear them, the convent
+would be spoken about, and some charitable people would come forward and
+pay off our mortgages. I've lain awake at night thinking of it; the
+Reverend Mother agrees with me. But in the way of voices we've been as
+unlucky as we could well be. I've been here eight years--there was one,
+but she died six years ago of consumption. It is heartbreaking. I play
+the organ, I beat the time, and, as I said to them the other day, 'There
+are five of you, and I'm the only one that sings.'"
+
+Sister Mary John asked Evelyn if she composed. Evelyn told her that she
+did not compose, and remembering Owen's compositions, she hoped that
+Sister Mary John had not an "O Salutaris" in manuscript.
+
+"Let me look through the music; we are talking of other things instead
+of looking."
+
+"So we are.... Let us look." At the bottom of a heap, Sister Mary John
+found Cherubini's "Ave Maria."
+
+"Could you sing this? It is a beautiful piece of music."
+
+Evelyn read it over.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I can sing it, but it wants careful playing; the end
+is a sort of little duet between the voice and the organ. If you don't
+follow me exactly, the effect will be like this," and she showed what it
+would be on the mute keyboard.
+
+"You haven't confidence in my playing."
+
+"Every confidence, Sister Mary John, but remember I don't know the
+piece, and it is not easy. I think we had better try it over together."
+
+"I should like to very much, but you will not sing with all your voice?"
+
+"No, we'll just run through it...."
+
+The nun followed in a sort of ecstasy, and when they came to what Evelyn
+had called the duet, she played the beautiful antiphonal music looking
+up at the singer. The second time Evelyn was surer of herself, and she
+let her voice flow out a little in suave vocalisation, so that she might
+judge of the effect.
+
+"I told you that I had never heard anyone sing before. If you were one
+of us!"
+
+Evelyn laughed, and then, catching sight of the nun's eyes fixed very
+intently upon her, she spoke of the beauty of the "Ave Maria," and was
+surprised that she did not know anything of Cherubini's.
+
+"Gracious, how the time has gone! That is the first bell for vespers."
+
+She hurried away, forgetting all about Evelyn, leaving her to find her
+way back to her room as best she could. But Evelyn found Sister Mary
+John waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. She had come back for
+her, she had just remembered her, and Sister Mary John apologised for
+her absence of mind, and seemed distressed at her apparent rudeness.
+They walked a little way together, and the nun explained that it was not
+her fault; her absence of mind was an inheritance from her father.
+Everything she had she had inherited from him--"my love of music and my
+absence of mind."
+
+She was intensely herself, quaint, eccentric, but she was, Evelyn
+reflected, perhaps more distinctly from the English upper classes than
+any of the nuns she had seen yet. She had not the sweetness of manner of
+the Reverend Mother, her manners were the oddest; but withal she had
+that refinement which Evelyn had first noticed in Owen, and afterwards
+in his friends, that style which is inheritance, which tradition alone
+can give. She had spoken of her father, and Evelyn could easily imagine
+Sister Mary John's father--a lord of old lineage dwelling in an
+eighteenth century house in the middle of a flat park in the Midlands.
+She could see a piece of artificial lake obtained by the damming of a
+small stream; one end full of thick reeds, in which the chatter of wild
+ducks was unceasing. But her family, her past, her name--all was lost in
+the convent, in the veil. The question was, had she renounced the world,
+or had she refused the world? Evelyn could not even conjecture. Sister
+Mary John was outside not only of her experience, but also of her
+present perception of things. Evelyn wondered why one of such marked
+individuality, of such intense personal will, had chosen a life the very
+_raison d'etre_ of which was the merging of the individual will in the
+will of the community? Why should one, the essential delight of whose
+life was music, choose a life in which music hardly appeared? Was her
+piety so great that it absorbed every other inclination? Sister Mary
+John did not strike her as being especially religious. What instinct
+behind those brown eyes had led her to this sacrifice? Apparently at
+pains to conceal nothing, Sister Mary John concealed the essential.
+Evelyn could even imagine her as being attractive to men--that radiant
+smile, the beautiful teeth, and the tall, supple figure, united to that
+distinct personality, would not have failed to attract. God did not get
+her because men did not want her, of that Evelyn was quite sure.
+
+There were on that afternoon assembled in the little white chapel of the
+Passionist Sisters about a dozen elderly ladies, about nine or ten stout
+ladies dressed in black, who might be widows, and perhaps three or four
+spare women who wore a little more colour in their hats; these might be
+spinsters, of ages varying between forty and fifty-five. Amid these
+Evelyn was surprised and glad to perceive three or four young men; they
+did not look, she thought, particularly pious, and perceiving that they
+wore knickerbockers, she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up
+from Richmond Park. They had come in probably to rest, having left
+their machines at the inn. Even though she was converted, she did not
+wish to sing only to women, and it amused her to perceive that something
+of the original Eve still existed in her. But if any one of these young
+men should happen to have any knowledge of music, he could hardly fail
+to notice that it was not a nun who was singing. He would ride away
+astonished, mystified; he would seek the explanation of the mystery, and
+would bring his friend to hear the wonderful voice at the Passionist
+Convent. By the time he came again she would be gone, and his friend
+would say that he had had too much to drink that afternoon at the inn.
+They would not be long in finding an explanation; but should there
+happen to be a journalist there, he would put a paragraph in the papers,
+and all sorts of people would come to the convent and go away
+disappointed.
+
+She looked round the church, calculating its resonance, and thought with
+how much of her voice she should sing so as to produce an effect
+without, however, startling the little congregation. The sermon seemed
+to her very long; she was unable to fix her attention, and though all
+Father Daly said was very edifying, her thoughts wandered, and wonderful
+legends and tales about a voice heard for one week at the Wimbledon
+Convent thronged her brain, and she invented quite a comic little
+episode, in which some dozen or so of London managers met at
+Benediction. She thought that their excuses one to the other would be
+very comic.
+
+She was wearing the black lace scarf instead of a hat; it went well with
+the grey alpaca, and under it was her fair hair; and when she got up to
+go to the organ loft after the sermon, she felt that the old ladies and
+the bicyclists were already wondering who she was. Her involuntary
+levity annoyed her, and she forced a certain seriousness upon herself as
+she climbed the steep spiral staircase.
+
+"So you have found your way ... this is our choir," and she introduced
+Evelyn to the five sisters, hurrying through their names in a low
+whisper. "We don't sing the 'O Salutaris,' as there has been exposition.
+We'll sing this hymn instead, and immediately after you'll sing the 'Ave
+Maria'; it will take the place of the Litany."
+
+Then the six pale voices began to wail out the hymn, wobbling and
+fluctuating, the only steady voice being Sister Mary John's. Though
+mortally afraid of the Latin syllables, Evelyn seconded Sister Mary
+John's efforts, and the others, taking courage, sang better than usual.
+Sister Mary John turned delighted from the organ, and, her eyes bright
+with anticipation, said, "Now."
+
+She played the introduction, Evelyn opened her music. The moment was one
+of intense excitement among the five nuns. They had gathered together in
+a group. The great singer who had saved their convent (had it not been
+for her they would have been thrown back upon the world) was going to
+sing. Evelyn knew what was passing in their minds, and was a little
+nervous. She wished they would not look at her so, and she turned away
+from them. Sister Mary John played the chord, and the voice began.
+
+Owen often said that if Evelyn had two more notes in her voice she would
+have ranked with the finest. She sang from the low A, and she could take
+the high C. From B to B every note was clear and full, one as the other;
+he delighted especially in the middle of her voice; for one whole
+octave, and more than an octave, her voice was pure and sonorous and as
+romantic as the finest 'cello. And the romance of her voice transpired
+in the beautiful Beethoven-like phrase of Cherubini's "Ave Maria." It
+was as if he had had her voice singing in his ear while he was writing,
+when he placed the little grace notes on the last syllable of Maria. The
+phrase rose, still remaining well within the medium of her voice, and
+the same interval happened again as the voice swelled up on the word
+"plena." In the beautiful classical melody her voice was like a 'cello
+heard in the twilight. In the music itself there is neither belief nor
+prayer, but a severe dignity of line, the romance of columns and
+peristyle in the exaltation of a calm evening. Very gradually she poured
+her voice into the song, and her lips seemed to achieve sculpture. The
+lines of a Greek vase seemed to rise before the eye, and the voice
+swelled on from note to note with the noble movement of the bas-relief
+decoration of the vase. The harmonious interludes which Sister Mary John
+played aided the excitement, and the nuns, who knelt in two grey lines,
+were afraid to look up. In a remote consciousness they feared it was not
+right to feel so keenly; the harmonious depth of the voice entered their
+very blood, summoning visions of angel faces. But it was an old man with
+a white beard that Veronica saw, a hermit in the wilderness; she was
+bringing him vestments, and when the vision vanished Evelyn was singing
+the opening phrase, now a little altered on the words Santa Maria.
+
+There came the little duet between the voice and the organ, in which any
+want of precision on the part of Sister Mary John would spoil the effect
+of the song; but the nun's right hand answered Evelyn in perfect
+concord. And then began the runs introduced in the Amen in order to
+exhibit the skill of the singer. The voice was no longer a 'cello, deep
+and resonant, but a lonely flute or silver bugle announcing some joyous
+reverie in a landscape at the close of day. The song closed on the
+keynote, and Sister Mary John turned from the instrument and looked at
+the singer. She could not speak, she seemed overpowered by the music,
+and like one more dreaming than waking, and sitting half turned round on
+her seat, she looked at Evelyn.
+
+"You sing beautifully," she said. "I never heard singing before."
+
+And she sat like one stupefied, still hearing Evelyn's singing in her
+brain, until one of the sisters advanced close and said, "Sister, we
+must sing the 'Tantum ergo.'"
+
+"Of course we must. I believe if you hadn't reminded me I should have
+forgotten it. Gracious! I don't know what it will sound like after
+singing like that. But you'll lead them?"
+
+Evelyn hummed the plain chant under her breath, afraid lest she should
+extinguish the pale voices, and surprised how expressive the antique
+chant was when sung by these etiolated, sexless voices. She had never
+known how much of her life of passion and desire had entered into her
+voice, and she was shocked at its impurity. Her singing sounded like
+silken raiment among sackcloth, and she lowered her voice, feeling it to
+be indecorous and out of place in the antique hymn. Her voice, she felt,
+must have revealed her past life to the nuns, her voice must have
+shocked them a little; her voice must have brought the world before them
+too vividly. For all her life was in her voice, she would never be able
+to sing this hymn with the same sexless grace as they did. Her voice
+would be always Evelyn Innes--Owen Asher's mistress.
+
+The priest turned the Host toward them, and she saw the two long rows of
+grey-habited nuns leaning their veiled heads, and knew that this was the
+moment they lived for, the essential moment when the body which the
+Redeemer gave in expiation of the sins of the world is revealed.
+Evelyn's soul hushed in awe, and all that she had renounced seemed very
+little in this moment of mystery and exaltation.
+
+"What am I to say, Miss Innes? I shall think of this day when I am an
+old woman. But you'll sing again before you leave?"
+
+"Yes, sister, whenever you like."
+
+"When I like? That would be all day. But I did follow you in the duet, I
+was so anxious. I hope I did not spoil it?"
+
+"I was never better accompanied. You made no mistake."
+
+As they passed by her the other nuns thanked her under their breath. She
+could see that they looked upon her as a providence sent by God to save
+them from being cast back upon the world they dreaded, the world from
+which they had fled. But all this extraordinary drama, this intensity of
+feeling, remained inarticulate. They could only say, "Thank you, Miss
+Innes; it was very good of you to come to sing for us." It was their
+very dumbness that made them seem so wonderful. It was the dumbness of
+these women--they could only speak in prayer--it was that that overcame
+her. But the Reverend Mother was different. Evelyn listened to her,
+thinking of nothing but her, and when the Reverend Mother left her,
+Evelyn moved away, still under the spell of the authoritative sweetness
+which her presence and manner exhaled. But the Reverend Mother was only
+a part of a scheme of life founded on principles the very opposite to
+those on which she had attempted to construct her life. Even in singing
+the "Ave Maria," she had not been able to subdue her vanity. Her
+pleasure in singing it had in a measure sprung out of the somewhat mean
+desire to proclaim her superiority over those who had attained the
+highest plane by renouncing all personal pride. They had proclaimed
+their superiority in their obeisance. It was in giving, not in
+receiving, praise that we rise above ourselves. This was the lesson that
+every moment of her convent life impressed upon her. Her thoughts went
+back to the Reverend Mother, and Evelyn thought of her as of some woman
+who had come to some terrible crisis in her worldly life--some crisis
+violent as the crisis that had come in her own life. The Reverend Mother
+must have perceived, just as she had done, as all must do sooner or
+later, that life out of the shelter of religion becomes a sort of
+nightmare, an intolerable torture. Then she wondered if the Reverend
+Mother were a widow--that appeared to her likely. One who had suffered
+some great disaster--that too seemed to her likely. She had been an
+ambitious woman. Was she not so still? Is a passion ever obliterated? Is
+it not rather transformed? If she had been personally ambitious, she was
+now ambitious only for her convent: her passion had taken another
+direction. And applying the same reasoning to herself, she seemed to see
+a future for herself in which her love passions would become transformed
+and find their complete expressions in the love of God.
+
+The Reverend Mother again addressed her, and Evelyn considered what age
+she might be. Between sixty and seventy in point of years, but she
+seemed so full of intelligence, wisdom and sweetness that she did not
+suggest age; one did not think of her as an old woman. Her slight figure
+still retained its grace, and though a small woman, she suggested a tall
+one; and the moment she spoke there was the voice which drew you like
+silk and entangled you as in a soft winding web. Evelyn smiled a little
+as she listened, for she was thinking how the Reverend Mother as a young
+woman must have swayed men. Presumably at one time it had pleased her to
+sway men's passion, or at least it pleased Evelyn's imagination to think
+it had. Not that she thought the Reverend Mother had ever been anything
+but a good woman, but she had been a woman of the world, and Evelyn
+attributed no sin to that. Even the world is not wholly bad; the
+Reverend Mother and Monsignor owed their personal magnetism to the
+world. Without the world they would have been like Father Daly and
+Mother Philippa--holy simplicities. She looked at the quiet nun, and her
+simple good nature touched her. Evelyn went toward her. Sister Mary John
+broke into the conversation so often that the Reverend Mother had once
+to check her.
+
+"Sister Mary John, we hope that Miss Innes will sing to-morrow and every
+day while she is with us. But she must do as she likes, and these
+musical questions are not what we are talking about now."
+
+But Sister Mary John was hardly at all abashed at this reproof. She was
+clearly the only one who stood in no awe of the Reverend Mother.
+
+They were sitting on the terrace, and a mauve sunset faded in the grey
+sky. There was a strange wistfulness in the autumn air and in the dim
+garden where the gentle nuns were taking their recreation. There was a
+subtle harmony in the grey habits and floating veils; they blended and
+mingled with the blue mist that was rising among the trees. And a pale
+light fell across the faded lawns, and Evelyn looked into the light, and
+felt the pang that the passing of things brings into the heart. This
+spectacle of life seemed to her strangely pathetic, and it seemed to
+mean something which eluded her, and which she would have given a great
+deal to have been able to express. Music alone could express the
+yearning that haunted her heart, the plaint of the Rhine Maidens was the
+nearest to what she felt, and she began to sing their song. Sister Mary
+John asked her eagerly what she was singing. She would have told her,
+but the Reverend Mother grew impatient with Sister Mary John.
+
+"You must be introduced to Mother Mary Hilda, our novice mistress, then
+you will know all the mothers except our dear Mother Christina, who is
+quite an invalid now, and rarely leaves her cell."
+
+On St. Peter's path a little group of nuns were walking up and down,
+pressing round a central figure. They were faint grey shadows, and their
+meaning would not be distinguished in the violet dusk. It was like a
+half-effaced picture in which the figures are nearly lost in the
+background; their voices, however, sounded clear, and their laughter was
+mysterious and far distant, yet distinct in the heart. Evelyn again
+began to hum the plaint of the Rhine Maidens. But the voices of the
+novices were more joyous, for they, Evelyn thought, have renounced both
+love and gold. The Reverend Mother clapped her hands to attract
+attention, and one of the novices, it was Sister Veronica, ran to them.
+
+"Ask Mother Mary Hilda to come and speak to me, Veronica."
+
+"Yes, Reverend Mother;" and Veronica ran with the message without once
+looking at Evelyn. Mother Mary Hilda crossed the lawn toward them, and
+Evelyn noticed her gliding, youthful walk. She was younger than the
+prioress or even the sub-prioress. And she had that attractive
+youthfulness of manner which often survives in the cloister after middle
+age.
+
+"Here is Miss Innes," said the prioress; "I know you wished to make her
+acquaintance."
+
+"Yes, indeed."
+
+Evelyn noticed the bright eyes and the small, clearly cut nose and the
+pointed chin, but her liveliest sensation was of Mother Hilda's hand; so
+small was it and soft that it seemed like a little crushed bird in
+Evelyn's hand, and Evelyn did not think that hers was a large hand.
+
+"I am sure, Miss Innes, you feel that you have been thanked sufficiently
+for all you have done for us, but you'll forgive us if we feel that we
+cannot thank you often enough. Your singing at Benediction to-day was a
+great pleasure to us all. Whose 'Ave Maria' was it, Miss Innes?"
+
+Evelyn told them, and thinking it would interest the nuns, she admitted
+that her father would not allow it to be sacred music. This led the
+conversation on to the question of Palestrina, and how the old music had
+rescued the Jesuits from their pecuniary embarrassments. A casual
+mention of Wagner showed her that the Reverend Mother was interested,
+and she said that she might sing them Elizabeth's prayer. Evelyn spoke
+of the Chorale in the first act of the "Meistersinger," and this led her
+into quite a little account of the music she sang on the stage. It
+pleased her to notice the different effect of her account of her art on
+the four nuns. The conversation, she could see, carried the prioress
+back into the past, but she put aside these memories of long ago and
+affected a polite interest in the stage. Mother Philippa listened as she
+might to a story, too far removed from her for her to be more than
+vaguely interested; Sister Mary John listened in the hopes that Evelyn
+would illustrate her experience with some few bars of the music--with
+her it was the music and nothing else; Mother Mary Hilda listened very
+prettily, and Evelyn noticed that it was she who asked the most
+questions. Mother Mary Hilda was the most fearless, and showed the least
+dread in the conversation. Yet for no single moment did Evelyn think
+that she was the worldliest of the four nuns. Evelyn thought that
+probably she was the least. Her trivial utterances were the necessity of
+the unimportant moment, and she seemed to bring to them the
+enlightenment of her own vivid faith. The holiness that shone out of her
+eyes inspired the calm, tender smile, and was in her whole manner. "She
+speaks," Evelyn thought, "of worldly things without affectation, but how
+clear it is that they lie outside, far outside, of her real life."
+
+Evelyn was saying that it was a long while since she had sung any sacred
+music, and, referring to the difference of the rule in France and in
+England, she mentioned that in Paris the opera singers frequently sang
+in the churches.
+
+"It must be hard on Catholics with beautiful voices like yours that they
+may not be allowed to sing in church choirs, for there can be nothing
+so delightful as to bring a great gift to God's service."
+
+It was the prioress who broke off the conversation, to Evelyn's regret.
+
+"Mother Hilda, I am afraid we are forgetting your young charges."
+
+"Yes, indeed, I must run back to my children. Good-bye, Miss Innes, I am
+so glad that you have come to us;" and the warm, soft clasp of the
+little hand was to Evelyn a further assurance of friendly welcome.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
+
+
+She was ashamed not to be able to follow the Office in chapel, so at the
+Reverend Mother's suggestion she consented to employ part of her long
+convent leisure in taking lessons in Latin. Mother Mary Hilda was to be
+her instructress.
+
+The library was a long, rather narrow room, once the drawing-room of the
+Georgian mansion. Only a carved Adams' chimney-piece, now painted over
+in imitation of oak remained of its former adornment; the tall windows
+were eighteenth century, and with that air they looked upon the terrace.
+The walls had been lined by the nuns with plain wooden shelves, and upon
+them were what seemed to be a thousand books, every one in a grey linen
+wrapper, with the title neatly written on a white label pasted on the
+back. Evelyn's first thought was of the time it must have taken to cover
+them, but she remembered that in a convent time is of no consequence. If
+a thing can be done better in three hours than in one, there is no
+reason why three hours should not be spent upon it. She had noticed,
+too, that the sisters regarded the library with a little air of demure
+pride. Mother Mary Hilda had told her that the large tin boxes were
+filled with the convent archives. There were piles of unbound
+magazines--the _Month_ and the _Dublin Review_. There was a ponderous
+writing-table, with many pigeon-holes; Evelyn concluded it to be the
+gift of a wealthy convert, and she turned the immense globe which showed
+the stars and planets, and wondered how the nuns had become possessed of
+such a thing, and how they could have imagined that it could ever be of
+any use to them. She grew fond of this room, and divided her time
+between it and the garden. It had none of the primness of the convent
+parlour, which gave her a little shiver every time she entered it. In
+the further window there stood a deep-seated, venerable arm-chair,
+covered in worn green leather, the one comfortable chair, Evelyn often
+thought, in the convent. And in this chair she spent many hours, either
+learning to construe the Office with Mother Mary Hilda, or reading by
+herself. The investigation of the shelves was an occupation, and the
+time went quickly, taking down book after book, and she seemed to
+penetrate further into the spirit of the convent through the medium of
+the convent books.
+
+The light literature of the convent were improving little tales of
+conversion, and edifying stories of Catholic girls who decline to enter
+into mixed marriages, and she thought of the novices reading this
+artless literature on Sunday afternoons. There were endless volumes of
+meditations, mostly translations from the French, full of Gallicisms and
+parenthetical phrases, and Evelyn often began a paragraph a second time;
+but in spite of her efforts to control her thoughts they wandered, and
+her eyes, lost in reverie, were fixed on the sunny garden.
+
+She returned the volumes to the shelves, and remembering Mother Mary
+Hilda's recommendation, she took down a volume of Faber's works. She
+found his effusive, sentimental style unendurable; and had turned to go
+to her room for one of the books she had brought with her when her eyes
+lighted upon Father Dalgairn's _Frequent Communion_. The father's
+account of the various customs of the Church regarding the
+administration of the Sacrament--the early rigorism of the African
+fathers, and the later rigorism of the Jansenists at once interested
+her, and, lifting her eyes from the book, she remembered that the
+Sacrament had always been the central light around which the spiritual
+belief of the church had revolved. Her instinctive religion had always
+been the Sacrament. When Huxley and Darwin and Spencer had undermined
+the foundations of her faith, and the entire fabric of revelation was
+showering about her, her belief in the Divine Presence had remained,
+burning like a lamp, inviolate among the debris of a temple. She had
+never been able to resist the Sacrament. She had put her belief in the
+mystery of transubstantiation to the test, and when the sanctus bell
+rang, her head had solemnly bowed; softer than rose leaves or
+snowflakes, belief had rained down upon her choked heart. She had never
+been able to reason about the Divine Presence--she felt it. She had
+believed whether she willed it or not. Owen's arguments had made no
+difference. Her desire of the Sacrament had more than once altered the
+course of her life, and that she should have unconsciously wandered back
+to the Passionist Convent, a convent vowed to Perpetual Adoration,
+seemed to her to be full of significance.
+
+Father Dalgairn's book had made clear to her that wherever she went and
+whatever she did she would always believe in the Divine Presence. His
+book had discovered to her the instinctive nature of her belief in the
+Sacrament, but it had not widened her spiritual perceptions, still less
+her artistic: the delicious terror and irresistible curiosity which she
+experienced on opening St. Teresa's _Book of Her Life_ she had never
+experienced before. It was like re-birth, being born to a new
+experience, to a purer sensation of life. It was like throwing open the
+door of a small, confined garden, and looking upon the wide land of the
+world. It was like breathing the wide air of eternity after that of a
+close-scented room. She knew that she was not capable of such pure
+ecstasy, yet it seemed to her very human to think and feel like this;
+and the saint's holy rapture seemed as natural--she thought for a
+moment--even more natural, even more truly human than the rapture which
+she had found in sinful love.
+
+Before she had read a dozen pages, she seemed to know her like her own
+soul, though yet unaware whether the saint lived in this century or a
+dozen centuries ago. For all she said about the material facts of her
+life St. Teresa might be alive to-day and in England. She lived in
+aspiration, out of time and place; and like one who, standing upon a
+hill top, sees a bird soaring, a wild bird with the light of the heavens
+upon its wings, Evelyn seemed to see this soul waving its wings in its
+flight towards God. The soul sang love, love, love, and heaven was
+overflowed with cries for its Divine Master, for its adorable Master,
+for its Bridegroom-elect.
+
+The extraordinary vehemence and passion, the daring realism of St.
+Teresa reminded Evelyn of Vittoria. She found the same unrestrained
+passionate realism in both; she thought of Belasquez's early pictures,
+and then of Ribera. Then of Ulick, who had told her that the great
+artist dared everything. St. Teresa had dared everything. She had dared
+even to discriminate between the love of God the Father and God the Son.
+It was God the Father that inspired in her the highest ecstasy, the most
+complete abandonment of self. In these supreme moments the human form of
+Jesus Christ was a hindrance, as in a lower level of spiritual
+exaltation it was a help.
+
+"The moment my prayer began to pass from the natural to the
+supernatural, I strove to obliterate from my soul every physical
+obstacle. To lift my soul up, to contemplate, I dared not; aware of my
+imperfection it seemed over bold. Nevertheless I knew the presence of
+God to be about me, and I tried to gather myself in him. And nothing
+could then induce me to return to the sacred humanity of the Saviour."
+
+But how touching is the saint's repentance for this infidelity to the
+Divine Bridegroom.
+
+"O Lord of my soul, of all my goods, Jesus crucified, I shall never
+remember without pain that I once thought this thing. I shall think of
+it as a great treason, and I stand convicted before the Good Master; and
+though it proceeded from my ignorance, I shall never expiate it with
+tears."
+
+Just as every variation of habit, of fashion is noticeable to those who
+live outside themselves, so the changes and complexities in the life of
+the soul are perceived by them who live within themselves. The saint
+relates how for many months she refrained from prayer, and as we know
+that prayer was the source of all her joy, a joy touching ecstasy, often
+above the earth and resplendent with vision, we can imagine the anguish
+that these abstinences must have caused her.
+
+"To destroy confidence in God the Demon spread a snare, his most
+insidious snare. He persuaded me that owing to my imperfections I could
+not, without being wanting in humility, present myself in prayer to God.
+This caused me such anguish that for a year and a half I refrained. For
+at least a year, for the six months following I am not sure of my
+memory. Unfortunate one, what did I do! By my own act I plunged myself
+in hell without demons being about to drag me there."
+
+This scruple is followed by others. The saint suspects the entire
+holiness of her joy in prayer, and she asks if these transports, these
+ravishments, these moments in which she lies exhausted in the arms of
+the Beloved Bridegroom, were contrived by the Demon or if they were
+granted to her by God. Her anxiety is great, and men learned in holy
+doctrine are consulted. They incline to the belief that her visions
+proceed from God, and encourage her to persevere. Then she cries to her
+Divine Master, to the Lord of her soul, to her adorable Master, to the
+adorable Bridegroom.
+
+"Cannot we say of a soul to whom God extends this solicitude and these
+delicacies of love that the soul has made for our Lord a bed of roses
+and lilies, and that it is impossible that this adorable Master will not
+come, though he may delay, and take his delight with her."
+
+This saint, in whom religion was genius, was one of Ulick's most
+unqualified admirations. He never spoke of her that his voice did not
+acquire an accent of conviction, or without alluding to the line of an
+old English poet, who had addressed her:
+
+  'Oh, thou undaunted daughter of desires.'
+
+She recalled with a smile his contempt of the Austins and the Eliots,
+those most materialistic writers, he would say, whose interest in
+humanity and whose knowledge of it is limited to social habits and
+customs. But St. Teresa he placed among the highest writers, among the
+great visionaries. "Her desire sings," he said, "like the sea and the
+winds, and it breaks like fire about God's feet." He had said that the
+soul that flashed from her pages was more intense than any soul in
+Shakespeare or Balzac. "They had created many, she but one incomparable
+soul--her own, and in surging drift of vehement aspiration, and in
+recession of temporal things we hear the singing of the stars, the
+beating of the eternal pulse."
+
+On Friday she had finished the autobiography, and before going into the
+garden she took down another of the saint's works, _The Way of
+Perfection_, intending to look through it in some sunny corner.
+
+She had slipped easily into the early hours of the convent. After
+breakfast she had the morning to herself, and she divided it between the
+library and the garden. The leaves were beginning to fall, and in the
+thinning branches there seemed to be an appearance of spring. From St.
+Peter's walk she strolled into the orchard, and then into the piece of
+uncultivated ground at the end of it. Some of the original furze bushes
+remained, and among these a streamlet trickled through the long grasses,
+and following it she found that it led her to the fish pond in the
+shrubbery, at the back of St. Peter's walk. There was there a pleasant,
+shady place, where she could sit and read. She stood for a moment
+watching the fish. They were so tame that they would take the bread from
+the novices' hands. She had brought some bread, but she had to throw it
+to them. She divided it amongst them, not forgetting to favour the
+little ones, and she thought it strange that they could distinguish her
+from the novices. That much they knew of the upper air. The fish watched
+her out of their beady eyes, stirring in their dim atmosphere with a
+strange, finny motion.
+
+At that hour of the day the sun was warm enough to sit out; the little
+shiver in the air was not unpleasant; and sitting on the garden bench,
+she opened her book in a little tremor of excitement. Her thoughts
+fluttered, and she strove to imagine what book the saint could have
+written to justify so beautiful a title. Her expectations were realised.
+The character of the book is clearly defined in the first pages: she
+perceived it to be a complete manual of convent life, a perfect
+compendium of a nun's soul. On its pages lay that shadowy, evanescent
+and hardly apprehensible thing--the soul of a nun, only the soul, not a
+word regarding her daily life: any mother-abbess could have written such
+a materialistic book: St. Teresa, with the instinct of her genius,
+addressed herself to the task which none but she could fulfil--the
+evolution of a nun's soul. And as Evelyn read she marked the passages
+that specially caught her attention.
+
+
+     "Do not imagine, my daughters, that it is useless to pray, as you
+     are constantly praying, for the defenders of the Church: Have a
+     care lest you should share the opinion of certain folk to whom it
+     seems hard that they should not pray much oftener for themselves.
+     Believe me that no prayer is better or more profitable than that of
+     which I am speaking. Perhaps you fear that it will not go to
+     diminish the pains which you will suffer in purgatory: I answer
+     that such prayer is too holy and too pleasing to God to be useless.
+     Even if the time of your expiation should be a little longer--well,
+     let it be so."
+
+"Oh, to be good like that," she thought. And her soul raised its eyes
+in a little shy emulation.... A few pages further on she read--
+
+
+     "That all may take heed. For neglect of this counsel a nun may find
+     herself in an entanglement from which she may not find strength to
+     free herself. And then, great God! What feebleness, what puerile
+     complaisances this particular friendship may not be the source. It
+     is impossible to say what number, none but an eye-witness may
+     believe. They are but trifles, and I see no reason for specifying
+     them here. I merely add: in whosoever it is found it is an evil, in
+     a superior it is a plague spot....
+
+     "An excellent remedy is to be together only at those times enjoined
+     by the rule, on other occasions to refrain from speech, as is now
+     our custom, and to live separately each in her cell as the rule
+     ordains. And, although it be a praiseworthy custom to unite for
+     work in a community room, I desire that the nuns of the convent of
+     St. Joseph shall be freed from this custom, for it is much easier
+     to keep silence if each works in her cell. Moreover, it is of the
+     first importance to accustom oneself to solitude, in order to
+     advance oneself in prayer; and as prayer should be the mortar of
+     this monastery, we should cherish all that which increases the
+     spirit in us."
+
+Glancing down the pages, her eyes were arrested by a passage of even
+more subtle, more penetrating wisdom.
+
+
+     "Would you know a certain sign, my daughters, by which you may
+     judge of your progress in virtue? Let each one look within herself
+     and discover if she believes herself to be the unworthiest of you
+     all, and if for the benefit of the others she makes it visible by
+     her actions that she really thinks that this is so, that is the
+     certain sign of spiritual advancement, and not delight in prayer,
+     nor ravishment, nor visions, and such like favours which God grants
+     to souls when he is so pleased. We shall only know the value of
+     such favours in the next world. It is not so with
+     humility--humility is a money which is always current, it is safely
+     invested capital, a perpetual income; but extraordinary favours are
+     money which is lent for a time and may at any moment be called in.
+     I repeat, our true treasure is profound humility, great
+     mortification, and an obedience which, seeing God in the superior,
+     submits to his every order."
+
+The saint's delicate yet virile perception, and her power of expressing
+the shadowy and evanescent, filled Evelyn with admiration; and the saint
+appeared to her in the light of a great novelist; she wondered if Balzac
+had ever read these pages.
+
+
+     "The best remedy, in my opinion, that a nun can employ to conquer
+     the imperfect affection which she still bears her parents, is to
+     abstain from seeing them until by patient prayer she has obtained
+     from God the freedom of her soul; when she is so disposed that
+     their visit is a cross, let her see them by all means. For then she
+     will bring good to their souls, and do no harm to her own."
+
+This seemed not a little grim. But how touching is the personal
+confession which appears on the following page.
+
+
+     "My parents loved me extremely, according to what they said, and I
+     loved them in a way that did not allow them to forget me.
+     Nevertheless I have seen from what has happened to me, and what has
+     happened to other nuns, how little we may count upon their
+     affection for us."
+
+The unselfishness of such conduct seemed open to doubt. But
+unselfishness is a word that none may speak without calling into
+question the entire conduct of his or her life. Evelyn remembered that
+she had left her father for the sake of her voice, and that she had
+refused to marry Owen because marriage, especially marriage with Owen,
+did not seem compatible with her soul's safety. Looked at from a certain
+side, her life did seem self-centred, but allowance, she thought, must
+be made for the difficulties--the entanglements in which the first false
+step had involved her. But in any case she must not question the
+efficacy of prayer, that was a dogma of the Church. The mission of the
+contemplative orders is to pray for those who do not pray for
+themselves, and if we believe in the efficacy of prayer, we need not
+scruple to leave our parents to live in a monastery where, by our
+prayers, we held them to eternal salvation. We leave them for a little
+while, but only that we may live with them for ever.
+
+
+     "Believe me, my dear sisters, if you serve him well you will not
+     find better parents than those the Divine Master sends you. I know
+     that it is even so."
+
+"What beauty there is in her sternness," Evelyn thought.
+
+
+     "I repeat that those whose trend is toward worldly things and who
+     do not make progress in virtue, shall leave this monastery; should
+     she persist in remaining a nun let her enter another convent; for
+     if she doesn't she will see what will happen to her. Nor must she
+     complain about me; nor accuse me of not having make known to her
+     the practical life of the monastery I founded. If there is an
+     earthly paradise it is in this house, but only for souls who desire
+     nothing but to please God, who have no thought for themselves; for
+     these the life here is infinitely agreeable."
+
+This passage is one of the very few in which appears the wise, practical
+woman, the founder of an order and of many monasteries, who lived side by
+side in the same body, the constant associate of the lyrical saint.
+Evelyn tried to picture her to herself, and two pictures alternated in
+her thoughts. She saw deep, eager, passionate eyes, and a frail,
+exhausted body borne along easily by the soul, and doing the work of the
+unconquerable soul. In the second picture, there were the same consuming
+eyes, the same wasted body, but the expression was quite different. The
+saint's manner was the liveliest, happiest manner, and Evelyn thought of
+the privilege of such companionship, and she envied those who had walked
+with her, hearing her speak.
+
+The little pond at her feet was full of fair reflections of the sky and
+trees, and the idea of convent life lay on the pages of the book even as
+fair. In itself it was disparate and vague, but on the pages of the book
+it floated clear and distinct. She asked if any of the Wimbledon nuns
+lived a life of that intense inward rapture which St. Teresa deemed
+essential if a sister were to be allowed to remain in the convent of St.
+Joseph at Avila, and the coincidence of the names gave her pause. This
+convent's patron saint was St. Joseph, and she sought for some
+resemblance between the Reverend Mother and St. Teresa. She wondered if
+she, Evelyn, were a nun, towards which of the nuns would her personal
+sympathies incline: would she love better Sister Veronica or Sister Mary
+John? It might be Mother Mary Hilda. It would be one of the three. There
+was not one among the others likely to interest her in the least. She
+tried to imagine this friendship: it assumed a vague shape and then
+dissolved in the distance. But would the Reverend Mother tolerate this
+friendship, or would it be promptly cut down to the root according to
+the advice of St. Teresa?
+
+Her thoughts pursued their way, now and then splashing as they leaped
+out of the soul's dimness. Only the splashing of the fish broke the
+stillness of the garden, and startled at a sudden gurgling sound, she
+rose, in time to see a shadowy shape sinking with a motion of fins amid
+the weeds. That she should be living in a convent, that she should have
+repented of her sins, that the fish should leap and fall back with
+strange, gurgling sound, filled her with wonderment. The vague autumn
+blue expressed some vague yearning, some indistinct aspiration; the air
+was like crystal, the leaves were falling.... We have perceptions of the
+outer forms of things, but that is all we know of them. The only thing
+we are sure of is what is in ourselves. We know the difference between
+right and wrong. She stood for a long time at the edge of the fish pond,
+gazing into the vague depths. Then she walked, exalted, overcome by the
+mystery of things. She seemed to walk upon air, the world was a-thrill
+with spiritual significances, all was symbol and exaltation. Her past
+life shrank to a tiny speck, and she knew that she had been happy only
+since she had been in the convent. Ah, that little chapel, haunted by
+prayers! it breathed prayer, in that chapel contemplation was never far
+off. She had prayed there as she had never prayed before, and she
+wondered if she should attribute the difference in her prayers to the
+chapel or to herself. She had always felt, in a dumb, instinctive way,
+that to her at least everything depended on her chastity.... She had
+been chaste now a long while. The explanation seemed to have come to
+her. Yes, it is by denial of the sexual instinct that we become
+religious.
+
+As she passed through the orchard she caught sight of the strange little
+person whom she had seen in chapel with a pile of prayer books beside
+her, and who always wore something startlingly blue, whether skirt,
+handkerchief or cloak. She had met her in the garden before, but she had
+hurried away, her eyes fixed on the ground. Mother Philippa had spoken
+of a Miss Dingle, a simple-minded person who had been sent by her family
+to the convent to be looked after by the nuns, and Evelyn concluded that
+it must be she. But at that moment other thoughts engaged her attention;
+and she lingered in the orchard, returning slowly by St. Peter's walk.
+As she passed the Georgian temple or summer-house, she was taken by a
+desire to examine it, and there she found Miss Dingle. She was seated on
+the floor, engaged, so Evelyn thought, in a surreptitious game of
+Patience. That was only how she could account for Miss Dingle's
+consternation and fear at seeing her. But what she had taken for cards
+were pious pictures. Evelyn stood in the doorway, and for the first time
+had an opportunity of seeing what Miss Dingle was really like. It was
+difficult to say whether her face was ugly or pretty; the features were
+not amiss--it was the expression, vague and dim like that of an animal,
+that puzzled Evelyn.
+
+"Please let me help you to pick up your pictures." Miss Dingle did not
+answer, and Evelyn feared for a moment that she had offended her. "Won't
+you let me help you to pick up your pictures?"
+
+"Yes," she said, "you may help me to pick them up, but you must be very
+quick."
+
+"But why must I be quick? Are you in such a very great hurry?"
+
+Miss Dingle seemed uncertain of her own thoughts, and to reassure her,
+Evelyn asked her if she would not like to walk with her in the orchard.
+
+"Oh," she said, looking at Evelyn shyly--it was a sort of child-like
+curiosity, "I dare not go into the orchard to-day.... I brought these
+pictures to keep him from me. I know that he is about."
+
+"Who is about?"
+
+"I'm afraid he might hurt me."
+
+"But who would hurt you?"
+
+"Well," she said cautiously, "perhaps he'd be afraid to come near me
+to-day," and she glanced at her frock. "But I'm sure he's about. Did
+you see any one as you came through the furze bushes?"
+
+"No," Evelyn answered; and trying to conceal her astonishment, she said,
+"I'm sure there's no one there."
+
+"Ah, he knows it would be useless." She glanced again at her frock. "You
+see my blue skirt, that has perhaps frightened him away."
+
+"But who has gone away?"
+
+"Oh, the devil is always about."
+
+"But you don't think he would hurt you?"
+
+Miss Dingle looked suspiciously at Evelyn, and some dim thought whether
+Evelyn was the devil in disguise must have crossed her mind. But
+whatever the thought was, it was but a flitting thought; it passed in a
+moment, and Miss Dingle said--"But the devil is always trying to hurt
+us. That is what he comes for."
+
+"So that is why you surrounded yourself with pious pictures--to keep him
+away?"
+
+Miss Dingle nodded.
+
+"What a nice dress you have on. I suppose you like blue. I always notice
+you wear it."
+
+"I wear blue, as much blue as I can, for blue is the colour of the
+Virgin Mary, and he dare not attack me while I have it on. But I wear
+sometimes only a handkerchief, sometimes only a skirt, but now that he
+is about so frequently, I have to dress entirely in blue."
+
+Evelyn asked her if she had lived in the convent long, and Miss Dingle
+told her she had lived there for the last three or four years, but she
+would give no precise answer when Evelyn asked if she hoped to become a
+nun, or whether she liked her home or the convent the better.
+
+"Now," she said, "I must really go and say some prayers in the church."
+
+Evelyn offered to accompany her, but she said she was well armed, and
+showed Evelyn several rosaries, which in case of need she would wave in
+his face.
+
+Sister Mary John was digging in the kitchen garden, and Evelyn told her
+how she had come upon Miss Dingle in the summer-house surrounded by
+pious pictures. Leaning on her spade, Sister Mary John looked across the
+beds thinking, and Evelyn wondered of what. She said at last that Miss
+Dingle thought too much of the devil.
+
+"We should not waste thoughts on him, all our thoughts should be for
+God; there is much more pleasure and profit in such thoughts."
+
+"But it does seem a little absurd to imagine that the devil is hiding
+behind gooseberry bushes."
+
+"The devil is everywhere, temptation is always near."
+
+Evelyn saw that the nun did not care for discussion on the subject of
+the devil's objectivity, and in the pause in the conversation she
+noticed Sister Mary John's enormous boots. They looked like a man's
+boots, and she had a full view of them, for Sister Mary John wore her
+skirt very short, so that she might be able to dig with greater ease.
+
+"One of the disadvantages of convent life are the few facilities it
+affords for exercise and for music," she added, with her beautiful
+smile. "I must have exercise, I can't live without it.... It is
+extraordinary how differently people are constituted. There is Mother
+Mary Hilda, she had never been for what I should call a good sharp walk
+in her life, and she does not know what an ache or a pain is."
+
+The nun pointed with admiration to the bed which she had dug up that
+morning, and complained of the laziness of the gardener: he had not done
+this nor that, but he was such a good man--since he became a Catholic.
+
+"He and I used to talk about things while we were at work: he said that
+he had never had it properly explained to him that there should only be
+one true religion.
+
+"Since he became a Catholic, has he not done as much work as he used to
+do?"
+
+"No, I'm afraid he has not," Sister Mary John answered. "Indeed, we have
+been thinking of sending him away, but it would be difficult for him to
+get another Catholic situation, and his faith would be endangered if he
+lived among Protestants."
+
+At this moment they were interrupted by a loud caw, and looking round,
+Evelyn saw the convent jackdaw. The bird had hopped within a few yards,
+cawing all the while, evidently desirous of attracting their attention.
+With grey head a-slanted, the bird watched them out of sly eyes. "Pay no
+attention to him; you'll see what he'll do," said Sister Mary John, and
+while Evelyn waited, a little afraid of the bird who seemingly had
+selected her for some purpose of his own, she listened to the story of
+his domestication. He had been hatched out in the hen-house, and had
+tamed himself; he had declined to go wild, preferring a sage convent
+life to the irregularity of the world. The bird hopped about, feigning
+an interest in the worms, but getting gradually nearer the two women. At
+last, with a triumphant caw caw, he flew on to Sister Mary John's
+shoulder, eyeing Evelyn all the while, clearly bent on making her
+acquaintance.
+
+"He'll come on your shoulder presently," said Sister Mary John, and
+after some plausive coquetting the bird fluttered on to Evelyn's
+shoulder, and Sister Mary John said--
+
+"You wait; you'll see what he will do."
+
+Evelyn remained quite still, feeling the bird's bill caressing her neck.
+When she looked round she noticed a wicked expression gathering in his
+eyes.
+
+"Pretend," said Sister Mary John, "not to see him."
+
+Evelyn did as she was bidden, and, satisfied that he was no longer
+observed, the bird plunged his beak into Evelyn's hair, pulled at it as
+hard as he could, and then flew away, cawing with delight.
+
+"That is one of his favourite tricks. We are so fond of him, and so
+afraid that one day a cat will take him. But there is Mother Mary Hilda
+coming to fetch you for your lesson."
+
+Evelyn bade Sister Mary John good-bye, and went forward to meet her
+instructress.
+
+The morning seemed full of adventure. There were Miss Dingle, her pious
+pictures, and the devil behind the gooseberry bushes. There was the
+picturesque figure of Sister Mary John, digging, making ready for the
+winter cabbages. There was the jackdaw, his story and his humours, and
+there was her discovery of the genius of St. Teresa. All these things
+had happened that morning, and Evelyn walked a little elated, her heart
+full of spiritual enthusiasm. The project was already astir in her for
+the acquisition of an edition in the original Spanish, and she looked
+forward to a study of that language as a pleasant and suitable
+occupation when she returned to London. She questioned Mother Mary Hilda
+regarding the merits of the English translation; the French, she said,
+she could read no longer. She described the worthy father's prose as
+asthmatic; she laughed at his long, wheezy sentences, but Sister Mary
+Hilda seemed inclined to set store on the Jesuit's pious intentions. The
+spirit was more essential than the form, and it was with this argument
+on their lips they sat down to the Latin lesson. The nun had opened the
+book, and Evelyn was about to read the first sentence, when, raising her
+eyes and voice, she said--
+
+"Oh! Mother Mary Hilda, you've forgotten ... this is my last lesson, I
+am going away to-morrow."
+
+"Even so it need not be the last lesson; you will come and see us during
+the winter, if you are in London. I don't remember that you said that
+you are going abroad to sing."
+
+"Mother Mary Hilda, I'm thinking of leaving the stage."
+
+The nun turned the leaves of the breviary, and it seemed to Evelyn that
+she dreaded the intrusion on her thoughts of a side of life the very
+existence of which she had almost succeeded in forgetting; and, feeling
+a little humbled, Evelyn applied herself to the lesson. And it was just
+as Mary Hilda's hand closed the books that the door opened and the
+Reverend Mother entered, bringing, it seemed, a new idea and a new
+conception of life into the room. Mother Mary Hilda gathered up her
+books, and having answered the Reverend Mother's questions in her own
+blithe voice, each word illuminated by the happy smile which Evelyn
+thought so beautiful, withdrew like an apparition.
+
+The Reverend Mother took the place that Mother Mary Hilda had left, and
+by her very manner of sitting down, showed that she had come on some
+special intention.
+
+"Miss Innes, I have come to ask you not to leave to-morrow. If you are
+not already tired of our life, it would give us great pleasure if you
+would stay with us till Monday."
+
+"It is very good of you to ask me to stay, I have been very happy;
+indeed, I dread returning; it is difficult to return to the life of the
+world after having seen what your life is here."
+
+"We should only be too happy if you will prolong your stay. You are free
+to remain as long as you please."
+
+"Thank you, Reverend Mother, it is very good of you, but I cannot live
+here in idleness, walking about the garden. What should I do if it were
+to rain?"
+
+"It looks like rain to-day. We have had a long term of fine weather."
+
+The nun's old white hand lay on the table, a little crippled, but still
+a nervous, determined hand, and the pale, sparkling eyes looked so deep
+into the enigma of Evelyn's soul that she lost her presence of mind; her
+breath came more quickly, and she hastily remembered that this retreat
+now drawing to a close had solved nothing, that the real solution of her
+life was as far off as ever.
+
+"Then I may take it that you will stay with us till Monday. I will not
+weary you with our repeated thanks for what you have done for us. You
+know that we are very grateful, and shall never forget you in our
+prayers, but you will not mind my thanking you again for the pleasure
+your singing has given us. You have sung every day. You really have been
+very kind."
+
+"I beg of you not to mention it, Reverend Mother; to sing for you and
+all the dear sisters was a great pleasure to me. I never enjoyed singing
+in a theatre so much."
+
+"I am glad you have enjoyed your stay, Miss Innes. Your room will always
+be ready. I hope you will often come to see us."
+
+"It will be a great advantage for me to come and stay with you from time
+to time." Neither spoke for a time, then Evelyn said, "Reverend Mother,
+is it not strange that I should have come back to this convent, my old
+convent? I never forgot it. I often wondered if I should come here
+again. When I was here before, it was just as now; it was in a great
+crisis of my life. It was just before I left home, just before I went to
+Paris to learn singing. I don't know if Monsignor has told you that I
+have decided to leave the stage."
+
+"Monsignor has entrusted you to me, and I should like to count you as
+one of my children. All the nuns tell me their little troubles. Though I
+have guessed there must be some great trouble in your life, I should
+like you to feel that you can tell me everything, if to do so can be the
+least help to you."
+
+Evelyn's eyes brightened, and, trembling with emotion, she leaned across
+the table; the Reverend Mother took her hand, and the touch of that old
+benign hand was a delight, and she felt that she must confide her story.
+
+"I have been several times on the point of speaking to you on the
+subject of my past, for if I am to come here again I feel that you
+should know something about me. But how to tell it. I had thought of
+asking Father Daly to tell you. To-day is your day for confession, but
+last week I confessed to Monsignor, and do not like to submit myself to
+another director. Do you understand?"
+
+"Father Daly is an excellent, worthy man, the convent is under the
+greatest obligations to him, but I could not recommend him as a very
+enlightened director of souls. That is why the nuns tell me all their
+troubles. I should like you to feel that you can tell me everything."
+
+"Reverend Mother, if you did not pass from the schoolroom to the convent
+like Veronica, you will have heard, you must know, that the life of an
+opera singer is generally a sinful life. I was very young at the time,
+only one-and-twenty. I knew that I had a beautiful voice, and that my
+father could not teach me to sing. But it was not for self-interest that
+I left him; I was genuinely in love with Sir Owen Asher. He was very
+good to me; he wanted to marry me; from the world's point of view I was
+very successful, but I was never happy. I felt that I was living a
+sinful life, and we cannot go on doing what we feel to be wrong and
+still be happy. Night after night I could not sleep. My conscience kept
+me awake. I strove against the inevitable, for it is very difficult to
+change one's life from end to end, but there was no help for it."
+
+Her story, as she told it, seemed to her very wonderful, more wonderful
+than she had thought it was, and she would have liked to have told the
+Reverend Mother all the torment and anguish of mind she had gone
+through. But she felt that she was on very thin ice, and trembled
+inwardly lest she was shocking the nun.
+
+It was exciting to tell that it was her visit to the convent that had
+brought about her repentance; how that very night her eyes had opened at
+dawn, and she had seen clearly the wickedness of her life, and she could
+not refrain from saying that it was Owen Asher's last letter, in which
+he said that at all hazards he would save her from losing herself in
+religion, that had sent her to Monsignor for advice. She noticed her
+omission of all mention of Ulick, and it seemed to her strange that she
+could still be interested in her sins, and at the same time genuinely
+determined to reform her life. The nun sat looking at her, thinking what
+answer she should make, and Evelyn wondered what that answer would be.
+
+"We shall pray for you.... You will not fall into sin again; it is our
+prayers that enable men to overcome their passions. Were it not for our
+prayers, God would have long ago destroyed the world. Think of the times
+of persecution and sacrilege, when prayer only survived in the
+monasteries."
+
+Evelyn could not but acquiesce: a world without prayer would be an
+intolerable world, as unendurable to man as to God. But if the Reverend
+Mother's explanation were a true one! If these poor forsakers of the
+world were in truth the saviours of the world, without whose aid the
+world would have perished long since!
+
+When she had gone, Evelyn sat thinking, her head leaned on her hand, her
+eyes fixed on the distant garden, seeing life from afar, strange and
+distant, like reflections in still waters. She could see distant figures
+in St. Peter's walk, tending the crosses and the statues of the Virgin
+placed in nooks, or hanging on the branches. Some four or five nuns were
+playing at ball on the terrace, and in the plaintive autumn afternoon,
+there was something extraordinarily touching in their simple amusement;
+and she had, perforce, to feel how much wiser was their childishness
+than the vanity of the world.
+
+Ulick had said that their adventure was the same, only their ways were
+different. He had said that he sought God in art, while she sought him
+in dogma. But if she accepted dogma, it was only as a cripple accepts a
+crutch, Catholicism was essential to her, without it she could not walk;
+but while conforming to dogma, it seemed possible to transcend its
+narrowness, and to attach to every petty belief a spiritual
+significance. It is right that we should acquiesce in these beliefs, for
+they are the symbols by which the faith was kept alive and handed down.
+God leads us by different ways, and though we may prefer to worship God
+in the open air, we should not despise him who builds a house for
+worship. The Real Being is all that we are sure of, for He is in our
+hearts, the rest is as little shadows. Ulick had quoted an Eastern
+mystic--'He that sees himself sees God, and in him there is neither I
+nor thou.'
+
+And, reflecting on the significance of these words, she turned with
+pensive fingers the leaves of _The Way of Perfection_.
+
+But she was going back to London on Monday! In London she would meet
+Owen and all her former life. She knew in a way how she was going to
+escape him. But her former life was everywhere. She got up and walked
+about the room, then she stood at the window, her hands held behind her
+back. She was sorely tried, and felt so weak in spirit that she was
+tempted, or fancied that she was tempted, to go away with Owen in the
+_Medusa_. Or she might tell him that she would marry him, and so end the
+whole matter. But she knew that she would do neither of these things.
+She knew that she would sacrifice Owen and her career as an opera singer
+so that she might lead a chaste life. Yet a life of prayer and chastity
+was not natural to her; her natural preferences were for lovers and
+worldly pleasures, but she was sacrificing all that she liked for all
+that she disliked. She wondered, quite unable to account for her choice
+to herself. Her life seemed very mad, but, mad or sane, she was going to
+sacrifice Owen and her career. She might sing at concerts, but she did
+not think such singing would mean much to her and she thought of the
+splendid successful life that lay before her if she remained on the
+stage. Again she wondered at her choice, seeking in herself the reason
+that impelled her to do what she was doing. She could not say that she
+liked living with her father in Dulwich, nor did she look forward to
+giving singing lessons, and yet that was what she was going to do. She
+strove to distinguish her soul; it seemed flying before her like a bird,
+making straight for some goal which she could not distinguish. She could
+distinguish its wings in the blue air, and then she lost sight of them;
+then she caught sight of them again, and they were then no more than a
+tremulous sparkle in the air. Suddenly the vision vanished, and she
+found herself face to face with herself--her prosaic self which she had
+known always, and would know until she ceased to know everything. She
+was here in the Wimbledon Convent, and Owen was in London waiting for
+her. She knew she never would live with him again. But how would she
+finally separate herself from him? How would it all come about? She
+could imagine herself yielding, but if she did, it would not last a
+week. Her life would be unendurable, and she would have to send him
+away. For it is not true that Tannhaeuser goes back to Venus. He who
+repents, he who had once felt the ache and remorse of sin, may fall into
+sin again, but he quickly extricates himself; his sinning is of no long
+duration! It was the casual sin that she dreaded; at the bottom of her
+heart she knew that she would never live a life of sin again. But she
+trembled at the thought of losing the perfect peace and happiness which
+now reigned in her heart, even for a few hours. Her face contracted in
+an expression of terror at the thought of finding herself again involved
+in the anguish, revolt and despair which she had endured in Park Lane.
+She recalled the moments when she saw herself vile and loathsome, when
+she had turned from the image of her soul which had been shown to her.
+Then, to rid herself of the remembrance, she thought of the joy she had
+experienced that morning at hearing in the creed that God's kingdom
+shall never pass away. Her soul had kindled like a flame, and she had
+praised God, crying to herself, "Thy kingdom shall last for ever and
+ever." It had seemed to her that her soul had acquired kingship over all
+her faculties, over all her senses, for the time being it had ruled her
+utterly; and so delicious was its subjection that she had not dared to
+move lest she should lose this sweet peace. Her lips had murmured an Our
+Father, but so slowly that the Sanctus bell had rung before she had
+finished it. Nothing troubled her, nothing seemed capable of troubling
+her, and the torrent of delight which had flowed into and gently
+overflowed her soul had intoxicated and absorbed her until it had seemed
+to her that there was nothing further for her to desire.
+
+She remembered that when Mass was over she had risen from her knees
+elated, feeling that she had prayed even as the nuns prayed, and she had
+retired to her room, striving to restrain her looks and thoughts so that
+she might prolong this union with God.
+
+To remember this experience gave her courage. For she could not doubt
+that the intention of so special a favour was to convince her that she
+would not be lacking in courage when the time came to deny herself to
+Owen Asher. At the same time she was troubled, and she feared that she
+was not quite sincere with herself. She would easily resist him now; but
+in six months' time, in a year? Besides, she would meet other men; her
+thoughts even now went out towards one. Ah! wretched weakness,
+abominable sin! She was filled with contempt for herself, and yet at the
+bottom of her heart, like hope at the bottom of Pandora's box, there was
+tolerance. Her sins interested her; she would not be herself without
+them, and this being so, how could she hope to conquer herself?
+
+Saturday and Sunday were monotonous and anxious days. She had begun to
+wonder what was in the newspapers, and she had written to say that her
+carriage was to come to fetch her on Monday at three o'clock.
+
+There had not been a gleam of light since early morning, only a gentle
+diffused twilight, and the foliage in the garden was almost human in its
+listlessness; a flat grey sky hung about the trees like a shroud. Mother
+Philippa and Mother Mary Hilda were walking with her about the
+grass-grown drive. They were waiting for the Reverend Mother, who had
+gone to fetch a medal for Evelyn. She heard her chestnuts champing their
+bits ready to take her back to London, and she could not listen to
+Mother Philippa's conversation, for she had been suddenly taken with a
+desire to say one last prayer in the chapel. She must say one more
+prayer in the presence of the Sacrament. So, excusing herself, she ran
+back, and, kneeling down, she buried her face in her hands. At once all
+her thoughts hushed within her; it was like bees entering a hive to make
+honey. Prayer came to her without difficulty, without even asking, and
+she enjoyed almost five minutes' breathless adoration.
+
+The three nuns kissed her, and as the Reverend Mother hung the medal
+round her neck, she told her that prayers would be constantly offered up
+for her preservation. The chestnuts plunged at starting.... If she were
+killed now it would not matter. But the horses soon settled down into
+their long swinging trot of ten miles an hour, and all the way to London
+she reflected. The Reverend Mother had said that the prayers of nuns and
+monks were the wall and bastion tower which saved a sinful world from
+the wrath of God, and she thought of the fume of prayer ascending night
+and day from this convent as from a censer. Men had always prayed, since
+the beginning of things men had prayed, and as Ulick had said, wisdom
+was not invented yesterday. He agreed with the naturalistic philosophers
+that force is indestructible, only objecting that the naturalistic
+philosophers did not go far enough, the theory of the indestructibility
+of force being equally applicable to the spiritual world. The world
+exists not in itself, but in man's thought.... Often an intense
+evocation has brought the absent one before the seer's eyes, and that
+there are sympathies which transcend and overrule the laws of time and
+space hardly admits of doubt. Life is but a continual hypnotism; and the
+thoughts of others reach us from every side, determining in some measure
+our actions. It was therefore certain that she would be influenced by
+the prayers that would be offered up for her by the convent. She
+imagined these prayers intervening between her and sin, coming to her
+aid in some moment of perilous temptation, and perhaps in the end
+determining the course of her life.
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+_Printed and Made in Great Britain by
+The Crypt House Press Limited
+Gloucester and London_
+
+
+
+
+
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