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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s?"

Madame Savelli's grey eyes laughed.

"Ah! I was mistaken.... I had forgotten that all the other cla.s.ses are full. There is no room for Miss Innes in the other cla.s.ses. It is against all precedence; it will create much jealousy, but it can't be helped. She must go straight into the opera cla.s.s. 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sure 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 circ.u.mstances; 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?"