Jtljara, JfjaJ ^Inrk 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5042.E9 1898 
 
 Evelyn Innes. 
 
 3 1924 013 526 409 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013526409 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE MOORE 
 
 LONDON 
 T. FISHER UNWIN 
 
 11 
 
By the Same Author 
 
 A Drama in Muslin. 
 
 Esther Waters. 
 
 The Strike at Arlingford: A Play 
 
 Celibates. 
 
 Impressions and Opinions. 
 
 A Modern Lover. 
 
 Modern Painting: Essays. 
 
 Vain Fortune. 
 
 A Mummer's Wife. 
 
 Sister Teresa. In preparation. 
 
 [All Rights Resemed.\ 
 
TO 
 
 ARTHUR SYMONS and W. B. YEATS 
 
 TWO CONTEMPORARY WRITERS 
 
 WITH WHOM 
 
 I AM IN SYMPATHY 
 
Evelyn Innes 
 
 I 
 
 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 after- 
 noon, 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 ad- 
 justed. 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 
 
i EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 w-as 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 irre- 
 vocably, 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 maititain, 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 de- 
 manded the music that had been written for it. Byrd's 
 beautiful vocal Mass had led him to Palestrina and Vittoria, 
 
EVELYN INNES 3 
 
 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 silversmith of Louis XL, 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 
 
4. EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 in- 
 terpretation 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 nota- 
 tion of our day. But impassable obstacles intervened : the 
 apathy and indifference of the Jesuits, wid their fear lest such 
 radical innovations should prove impopular and divert the 
 congregation of St Joseph's elsewhere. He had aban- 
 doned hope of converting them from their error, but 
 he was confident that reaction was preparing against the 
 jovialities of Rossini, whose Stahat 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 dis- 
 ciples 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 in- 
 sisted 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 re- 
 linquish 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 S 
 
 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 neces- 
 sities 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 to- 
 gether, 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 
 
6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 elabo- 
 rately 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 7 
 
 ' 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 arm 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.' 
 
8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 dis- 
 appointments. 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 pre- 
 sent,' 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 re- 
 covered its habitual note of cheerfulness. ' Then what do 
 
EVELYN INNES 9 
 
 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. Des- 
 jardin, 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, point- 
 ing 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 " — " posec " 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 re- 
 gretting her tongue's indiscretion, she tried to divert his 
 thoughts from herself. His brooding look continued, and 
 
10 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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.' 
 
II 
 
 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 Palestrinas 
 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 handftil, 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 them- 
 selves 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 in- 
 terrupted 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 ftir. The 
 face, wide across the forehead, acquired an accent in the 
 pointed chin and strongly marked jaw. The straight nose 
 
 II 
 
18 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 Inncs'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 wliich 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 Each. 
 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 
 
EVELYN INNES ij 
 
 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 Gains- 
 borough, 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 him- 
 self 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 move- 
 ment 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 
 
14 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 ap- 
 preciation 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 15 
 
 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 interro- 
 gation, 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 tlie 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 sparkl- 
 ing grey eyes asked her questions to which her whole nature 
 violently responded, and, though her feelings were inex- 
 plicable to herself, she was overcome with physical shame. 
 Father Railston was looking at her, and the thought crossed 
 
i6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 oldei 
 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 inter- 
 weaving of melodies. Now we have a tune with accom- 
 panying 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 17 
 
 or a 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 con- 
 sidered 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 
 
1 8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 furni- 
 ture. . . . 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 im- 
 provisations 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 mono- 
 chord, 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. 
 f 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 19 
 
 Monna Lisa, a print ot 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 re- 
 served 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 oiF his hands. Mr Innes thought he had 
 better take charge of the instruments himself, 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, 
 
xo EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 symphonies 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 look- 
 ing 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 discus- 
 sion, and supply her with an excuse. But his curiosity was 
 kindled, and while he considered how he could lead Evelyn 
 
EVELYN INNES 21 
 
 into confidences, he saw her arm trembling through the 
 gauze sleeve, for it seemed to her that all that was happen- 
 ing now had happened before. The walls covered with 
 red pleated silk, the bracket-clocks, the brocade - covered 
 chairs : where liad 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 bad 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 tell- 
 ing 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 particu- 
 larly 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 
 
22 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 direc- 
 tion of the tall woman with the red hair, who sat calmly 
 talking to her friends, never noticing him. He seenied 
 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 un- 
 tied it ; I'll tie it for you. It's your coat that wants 
 brushing.' 
 
 The black frock coat which he wore on Sundays was 
 
EVELYN INNES 23 
 
 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 
 
24 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 hao 
 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 considera- 
 tion, 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 neighbour- 
 hood. 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 at- 
 tracting 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 op- 
 ponents 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 Stahat Mater, or whatever other 
 musical idiom the neighbourhood craved for. 
 
 Religious rite, according to Father Gordon, should 
 
EVELYN INNES 25 
 
 conform to the artistic taste of the congregation, and 
 he urged, with some force, that the artistic taste of South- 
 wark stood on quite as high a level as that of Mayfair. 
 To get a Mayfeir 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 pro- 
 gress was slow. Father Gordon pleaded patience. The 
 neighbourhood was unfashionable ; it was difficult to per- 
 suade 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 
 chiu"ch. 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 wonder- 
 
26 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ful 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 uninterest- 
 ing 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 sec him leaning back in his brout:;ham, 
 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 v/as 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 remain- 
 ing in Dulwich, with nothing but a few music lessons to 
 
EVELYN INNES %-j 
 
 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 sznooth, 
 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 Eleva- 
 tion, 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, 
 
28 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Qome to see your father.' 
 
 ' You will find him in the organ loft. . . . But he'll 
 bu 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 ad- 
 dressed to her, that it was not for her that he had come to 
 St Joseph's. His carriage was waiting, he told the coach- 
 man 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 hinj 
 to stay he would have stayed ; but, of course, that wai 
 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. 
 
Ill 
 
 The name was no indication. None remembered that 
 Dowlands was the name of a famous sixteenth century 
 lutenist, and there was nothing in the snug masonry to 
 suggest an a3stheticism of any kind. The viols 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 require- 
 ments. 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 bed- 
 room — 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 
 
 29 
 
30 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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, help- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 31 
 
 her father's departure in the morning. Immediately after 
 breakfest 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 oiF 
 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 employ- 
 ment 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, 
 
iz EVELYN INNES 
 
 she used to go there and meet her father, but lately, for some 
 reason which she could not explain to herself, she had re- 
 frained. 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 sug- 
 gested 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 orna- 
 mental 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 agree- 
 able. Little stars speckled a mauve and misty sky and 
 out of the mysterious spring twilight there came a strange 
 
EVELYN INNliS 33 
 
 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 o^ 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 Thurs- 
 day. She would confess on Saturday, and go to Communion 
 on Sunday. 
 
 C 
 
34 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 sug- 
 gested 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.Jj^ll, 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 wai^eserved; 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 35 
 
 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 in- 
 stead of to God ? Her subsequent confessions seemed trite 
 and commonplace. Not that Father Railston foiled 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 notwtthstanding 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 
 she thought she would have liked a confessor who was 
 severe, who would have inflicted heavier penances, com- 
 pelled 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 had 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. 
 
36 EVELYN INNES 
 
 She fested, 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 honie ; 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 poofly. 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 notwithstand- 
 ing ; 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,' 
 
EVELYN INNES 37 
 
 She could not say which she liked the better, but 
 branched oiF into a description of the Carmelite who had 
 given the retreat — a 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 beautifiil 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 fish pond 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 
 
38 EVELYN INNES 
 
 dangerous the life of an opera singer is. I shall pray God 
 that He may watch over you. Promise me always to re- 
 member 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 un- 
 known 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 39 
 
 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 under- 
 stand J 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 listen- 
 ing, 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. 
 
+0 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' Nothing, father.' 
 
 'You don't seem to take iiny interest. The text is 
 incomplete, and some notes have been conjecturally added 
 by a French musician.' But much more interesting to 
 Evelyn wras 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, v^ith 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 con- 
 cert . . . 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 pos- 
 sibility 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. 
 
IV 
 
 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 oflF the coast of Asia Minor f ' 
 
 ' That was another storm. We have had rough weather 
 lately.' 
 
 The music dropped from her hand, and she stood look- 
 ing 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 waJit to miss the concert, I 
 came straight through.' 
 
 4J 
 
42 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' You must be very fond of music' 
 
 ' Yes, I am. . . . Music can be heard anywhere, but 
 your voice can only be heard at Dulw^ich.' 
 
 ' Was it to hear me sing that you came back ? ' 
 
 She had spoken unavsfares, 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 efiFort 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 ? ' 
 
EVELYN INNES 43 
 
 ' 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 con- 
 scious 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 hap- 
 pened 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.' 
 
44 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 w^ith 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 waist- 
 coat, 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 ship- 
 wrecked, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 45 
 
 think that her dream was no more than a merely physio- 
 logical 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 dis- 
 graceful 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 
 himdred 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 Dow- 
 lands what the Queen or the Prince of Wales should 
 have done long ago, namely, the publication of their an- 
 cestor'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 j 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 
 
4-6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 instru- 
 ments. 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 fos 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 im- 
 
EVELYN INNES 47 
 
 possible to speak without being overheard j 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 under- 
 stood 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 with- 
 out 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 
 
48 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 re- 
 turned 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 elfrontery 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES +9 
 
 The shadows of the leaves on the pavement drew a 
 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 miss- 
 ing, 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 c'onversation 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 every- 
 thing to go to the picture gallery with him. 
 
 'But I am not dressed, this is an old thing I wear in 
 n 
 
50 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 fether 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 dreanu' 
 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, 
 
EVELYN INNES 51 
 
 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, gather- 
 ing the meaning which they seemed to express. She won- 
 dered if Owen felt as she did, if he shared her admiration of 
 the sunlight which fell about the stile through the woven 
 branches, making rovmd 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 ; experi- 
 ence 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 i ' 
 
 ' 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 i Why did she fall in love with me ? ' 
 
 ' Is it, then, the same thing ? ' 
 
52 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Hke 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 un- 
 true, though he would not admit it to himself. He knew 
 that if Georgina were to hold up her httle 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, T 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 5J 
 
 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 fi-om the tendencies of our day. You have 
 received from your father an extraordinary musical educa- 
 tion. 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 him- 
 self 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, il am very 
 fond of father. We were always very fond of each other, 
 but now we are more like pals than father an^ daughter.' 
 
54- EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 influ- 
 ences 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 oxu" 
 mortal lot as might suffice to excuse a change in the con- 
 versation. 
 
 '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 its 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 sesthetic 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 tempta- 
 tion, 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 them- 
 selves 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 55 
 
 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 extra- 
 ordinary interest in her, and she begged of him to tell her 
 more about the paintings. He was not without a 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 j 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 1 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 f 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. 
 
S6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 fre- 
 quently 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 white- 
 ness 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, 
 
EVELYN INNES 57 
 
 how and whence I know not ; I only know that the im- 
 pulse 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 f ' 
 
 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 bea\itiful things in 
 the world.' 
 
V 
 
 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 contra- 
 dicted 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 INNES 59 
 
 Evelyn about herself, and now their entire conversation 
 floated back, transposed into a higher key. 
 
 ' I vsrant 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 whf r. 
 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 after- 
 noons 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.' 
 
6o EVELYN INIVES 
 
 ' Of what do you think ? " 
 
 • You see, I never met anyone like you before. You vc 
 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 1 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 tlie 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 6i 
 
 your father were present. Is not our first duty towards 
 ourselves ? The rest is vague and uncertain, the develop- 
 ment 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 keep- 
 ing, 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 
 
r« EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 diiierently ; and with sensations of an elopement 
 clattering in her brain, she sat still striving to restrain her 
 thoughts. 
 
VI 
 
 On leaving her at Victoria, he had walked down the Buck- 
 ingham 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 suflicient 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 
 
 63 
 
64 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 /'// 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 re- 
 ligious 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 Eng- 
 land. 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 ac- 
 quired 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 65 
 
 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 in- 
 telligence. Owen paused to think if there was not some- 
 thing 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 
 
 £ 
 
66 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 agnosticisin. 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 some- 
 where 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 dark- 
 ness the shuttle passes, weaving a strange pattern, har- 
 monious 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 ! Then they 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 67 
 
 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 con- 
 sidered 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 
 
68 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 were 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 had been 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 69 
 
 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 rehgion, 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 9 surburban 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 con- 
 tained 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 
 
70 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 I 
 
VII 
 
 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 fece, 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 asiced 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 
 71 
 
72 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 re- 
 turned 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 thev 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 un- 
 consciously, 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 hfe without love 
 was a desert, and many times the conversation trembled on 
 
EVELYN INNES 73 
 
 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.' 
 
74 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 75 
 
 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 feult.' 
 ' 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 
 
76 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 ! ' 
 
EVELYN INNES 77 
 
 ' 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. 
 
VIll 
 
 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 fort- 
 night 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 consola- 
 tion 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 
 
 78 
 
EVELYN INNES 79 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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, aiFectionately, as a matter of course, 
 deriving his enjoyment from the prescriptive right to do so, 
 and then talking to her about ordinary afi^airs 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 
 
8o EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 happi- 
 ness, 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 con- 
 tinue 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 dream- 
 ing. 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 win- 
 some 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 8i 
 
 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 Ow^en'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 hesita- 
 tion, 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 beauti- 
 fid 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. 
 
 F 
 
82 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 de- 
 lightfiil it would be to lie awake in the dark and remember 
 it all. And feehng 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 moon- 
 light. 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 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 compari- 
 son 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 wait- 
 ing 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 83 
 
 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 volup- 
 tuous meditations was that they necessitated the omission of 
 her evening prayers. She could not knee] 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. 6ut something told her 
 that if she were to confide her trouble to anyone, she would 
 lose the power she had acquired over herself. Something 
 
84 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 re- 
 sponsibility 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 under- 
 take the task for him. In the morning he had awakened in 
 the same nervous indecision, and had gone to Dulwich dis- 
 heartened, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 85 
 
 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. 
 
 Butof 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 
 
86 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 who 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 non- 
 sense : 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 87 
 
 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 knee so plaintively, that in 
 spite of all his resistance he took it and examined it. It did 
 not strike him as a particularly beautifiil 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 move- 
 ment which suggested active and spontaneous impulses. In 
 taking her hand and caressing it, he knew he was prejudic- 
 ing 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 plain- 
 tively, 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, except on the stage and in novels.' 
 
 * It would be much more exciting to run away together, 
 
88 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 con- 
 scious 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 
 goodbye, 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 
 "oice presented to his imagination. 
 
IX 
 
 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 day- 
 light, his motives were revealed to her. She was in the 
 humour to look at things sympathetically, and she under- 
 stood that for him to run away with her entailed as much 
 sacriiice 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 
 
 89 
 
90 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 steam- 
 boats, 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 her- 
 self on the stage, and heard her own voice singing as she 
 wished to sing. Nor did she foresee 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 them- 
 selves. 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, 
 
EVELYN INNES 91 
 
 and she dreamed on and on in kisses and tendernesses of 
 speech. 
 
 That afternoon she was going tj 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 refiiting 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 re- 
 nunciation 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 re- 
 sponsibilities ; not to cultivate her voice would be a sort 
 of suicide. This seemed quite clear to her, and she 
 '•eflected, 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 cer- 
 tain 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 
 
<)z EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 ; alw^ays 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 be- 
 fore 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 in- 
 tention of going to London. But if she went there, how 
 
EVELYN INNES 93 
 
 would she explain her visit ? . . . Owen would under- 
 stand ; 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 con- 
 tinued 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 lather 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 
 
9+ 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 pre- 
 vent 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 hand- 
 kerchief, 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 so 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 95 
 
 her, she was like one alone in a desert, and she ate without 
 tasting, saw without seeing what she looked at, spoke with- 
 out 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.' 
 
96 EVELYN INNES 
 
 '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 ! 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 dis- 
 cussed 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 97 
 
 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 speak- 
 ing 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.' 
 
 G 
 
98 EVELYN INNES 
 
 '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 v/ith 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 99 
 
 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 jer. 
 
 ' No, Evelyn, I sha'n'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 appoint- 
 ment with Monsignor, and you must say nothing to Owen 
 if you should meet him ; you promise me that ? It rests 
 with me, fether, 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 
 
100 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 i.ccidents, 
 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 
 
EVELYN INNES loi 
 
 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 wallced 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 over- 
 come 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. 
 
102 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 every- 
 one's peculiarities, wondering what were their business and 
 desires, and wondering also at the conductor's voice crying 
 
EVELYN INNES 103 
 
 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, grace- 
 ful and idle, seemed to mean something, but what f 
 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 swrung 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 
 
104 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 delightfijl, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 105 
 
 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, an affection which seemed in con- 
 tradiction 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 wondermg 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 peace- 
 ful 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 
 
io6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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. 
 
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 ex- 
 claimed, 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 
 107 
 
io8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 dark- 
 ness without them. Seen for a moment in the light of the 
 high moon, and then in shrouded blue night, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 109 
 
 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 ques- 
 tioning, 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 tem- 
 perament. 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, crouch- 
 ing 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 primaeval simplicities 
 
no EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 out- 
 lined against the heavy, lowering sky seemed to them signi- 
 ficant. 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 bad 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 un- 
 barred, were impassable. She thought she was shaking them, 
 but when she opened her eyes it was Owen teUing 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 follow- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES in 
 
 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 discre- 
 tion 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 pleasur- 
 able embarrassment. In the next shop — it was a glove shop 
 — as she was about to consult him regarding the number of 
 
112 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 elfort 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 ofi:' 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 113 
 
 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 thifiking 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 feced 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 
 
 H 
 
ii4 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 1 ' 
 
 ' 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 her- 
 self from his embraces, she said, 'I don't want to kiss you 
 any more. Let's talk.' 
 
 ' Dearest, do you know what time it is ? You must 
 get up and dress yourself. It is past nine o'clock. Wc 
 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 115 
 
 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 con- 
 trast 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 liands 
 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 hencefortli 
 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 tlie 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 — " ' 
 
ii6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 other- 
 wise 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 circum- 
 stances " ? ' 
 
 *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 who- 
 ever 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 ; where- 
 
EVELYN INNES 117 
 
 as 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. In- 
 terference 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 ? • 
 
ii8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' I've put the case truthfully, haven't I ? Nowr, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 119 
 
 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 dilFerence. 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 f ' 
 
 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 ? ' 
 
120 EVELYN INNES 
 
 '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 court- 
 yard 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 walk- 
 ing, they came against each other — swinging her parasol 
 pensively, wondering what happy word to say, a little per- 
 plexed 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 Iwrs d'ceuvrei 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 j 1 think we should 
 
EVELYN INNES 121 
 
 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 1 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 Longchamps 
 in 2. 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 ap- 
 preciate 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 j ' 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 ? ' 
 
122 EVELYN INNES 
 
 '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 dare- 
 say 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 ;;rcat 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 tilings ; 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 e^gs served at mid-day, and 
 followed by juicy bLc-Fsteaks 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 
 jre 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 indi- 
 iidual 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. 
 ''■'It hiiw can yon think of such things ?' 
 
EVELYN INNES 123 
 
 ' 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 of pagan 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 15:ilzacian phrases — the celebrated courtesan, cele- 
 brated for her diamonds and her vices, and so on. The 
 little woman in the next carriage, the Princesse de Saxe- 
 ville, 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 ap- 
 
124 EVELYN INNES 
 
 predate 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 thou- 
 sand 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 Mariecs. 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 U Inter- 
 diction^ 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 think- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 125 
 
 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 Ven- 
 dome. 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 femiliar 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 pre- 
 tended, reminded him of Rastignac and Morny. That 
 woman in the mail phaeton was an incipient Madame Mar- 
 nefiFe ; 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.' 
 
1^6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 com- 
 pares 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 trans- 
 form them both into exquisite Parisians." How good that 
 is, what wonderful insight into life 1 ' 
 
 '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 
 thijik he failed to realise the type. You are more virile, 
 
EVELYN INNES 147 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 
 
128 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 distribut- 
 ing 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 plcasanter 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 129 
 
 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 ex- 
 plaining 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 wistfiil 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. 
 
130 EVELYN INNES 
 
 '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'U 
 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, Jilets de volatile^ pointer d'asperges. The filets de 
 volatile 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 F 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 souffe, of course. 
 I don't think we can do much better.' 
 
XI 
 
 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 
 Hkely 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 
 
 131 
 
132 EVELYN INNES 
 
 back with the finest soprano voice in Europe, and an en- 
 gagement 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 com- 
 mitted ; but to return after an escapade of a week in Paris 
 would he 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 punish- 
 ment 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,' 
 
EVELYN INNES 133 
 
 ' But I haven't the music — I don't know the accompani- 
 ments.' 
 
 '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 every- 
 one 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 will- 
 ing 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 
 
134 EVELYN INNES 
 
 curves and plenitudes with satisfaction. Then, catching 
 sight of Evelyn's frightened face, he forced himself to invent 
 conversation. That w^as the Madeleine, a fine building, in 
 a viray ; 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 I 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 135 
 
 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 some- 
 what 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 
 
136 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 ! How you do go on, Sir Owen 1 
 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 sur- 
 prised. It matters not to me. Mademoiselle can go into 
 the opera class in three months if she is sufficiently ad- 
 vanced. 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 137 
 
 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 over- 
 powered. 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 laugh- 
 ing 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 — ' 
 
138 EVELYN INNfiS 
 
 ' 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 puptl 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 139 
 
 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 1 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 fev/ days, in a few weeks, this life will seem quite 
 
140 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 every- 
 thing 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 sufHce 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 unimagin- 
 able 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 141 
 
 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 happi- 
 ness, 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 
 
14.2 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 en- 
 gaged in conversation with an elderly woman — a woman 
 of about fifty, who, catching sight of her, whispered some- 
 thing 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 luiderstand 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 sink- 
 ing Wagner — that I shall be converted.' 
 
 'Lady Duckle is a heretic' 
 
 ' No, my dear Owen, I'm not a heretic, for I recognise 
 
EVELYN INNES 143 
 
 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 pre- 
 sented 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 ex- 
 travagant and a little foolish, was illuminated with know- 
 ledge 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 Mon- 
 sieur. 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. 
 
144 EVELYN INNES 
 
 'But instead of going on the stage, I married Lord 
 Ducklc' 
 
 And this early mistake she seemed to consider as suffi- 
 cient explanation for all subsequent misfortunes. Evelyn 
 wondered what these might be, and Owen said, — 
 
 'The most celebrated singers are glad to sing at Lady 
 Buckle'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 con- 
 fidential 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 feeUng, 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 hav- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 145 
 
 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 talk- 
 ing, and talking very well, about music and literature, she 
 could not but feel that she lii:ed 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 
 
 t' 
 
146 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 in 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 re- 
 membered 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 147 
 
 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 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 a moment, surprised at his own 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 arms 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 even- 
 ing 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 ? ' 
 
148 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 per- 
 mitted 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 Jive 
 abroad for five, six, or seven years. Then Evelyn would 
 go to London to sing, preceded by an extraordinary reputa- 
 tion. But the first thing to do was to get a house in Paris. 
 
 * We cannot stop at this hotel ; we must have a house. 
 1 have heard of a charming hotel in the Rue Balzac' 
 
 ' In the Rue Bal/ac ! 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 Prtncesse de Gad'ionan' 
 
 They laughed and kissed each other. 
 
 'At the bottom of the street is the Avenue de Fried- 
 land; 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 v/here his had lain. 
 
XII 
 
 Many were the wrangles that Madame Savelli and Owen 
 had over Evelyn's voice. He desired a Wagner singer, and 
 every day her voice seemed to develop in that direction. 
 She was, however, submissive to Madame Savelli, and learnt 
 all the music the singing-mistress wished her to learn. 
 But she domineered in the class-room, daring to laugh at 
 the trills with which Madame Savelli's favourite pieces were 
 embellished, and the pupils listened aghast ; no one else 
 dared to contravene Madame Savelli's opinion. As a set- 
 off to Evelyn's ridicule of Lucia, Madame Savelli said that 
 Evelyn took her ideas from Owen, that it was to please 
 him that she wished to sing Wagner, and Evelyn won- 
 dered if this were true. There was some truth in it ; 
 yes, it was to please Owen that she worked so hard with 
 her singing. 
 
 In the autumn of the following year he came from 
 England to hear her sing Margaret, and all day long they 
 sat in the hotel sitting-room, too nervous to speak, fearing 
 to speak lest speech should tire her voice. But it was 
 not in Brussels, nor yet in Gounod's music, that she made 
 her first success. It was in a small German town as Eliza- 
 beth in ' Tannhauser ' ; and this was surprising, for it was 
 not with the portrayal of religious but of amorous passion 
 that she believed her talent to lie. This was Owen's idea, 
 and by degrees love and music came to fill her life from 
 end to end. She could not discriminate between the two 
 passions, and yet she could discriminate. It was sex that 
 
 149 
 
150 EVELYN INNES 
 
 made her an artist ; it was sex that drew her to Wagner ; 
 and when she looked into her heart she knew that she 
 desired to succeed as an artist, because art was a means of 
 expressing her sex. 
 
 There were long intervals in which she did not see 
 Owen. He often went to England for racing, for shoot- 
 ing, for all the pleasures of his class, and in these intervals 
 she learnt another fact concerning herself; she learnt that 
 she loved men rather than a man, though for a moment one 
 man had absorbed her. It was in St Petersburg that the 
 first change came into their love story. There she had been 
 attracted by a young Russian, and a meeting she had given 
 him in a park outside the city had come to Owen's ears. 
 He besought of her to tell him the truth. She laid her 
 hand on his shoulder and said that it was quite different ; 
 and looking into her eyes he saw reflected there his own 
 loneliness ; a conviction gathered in his heart that he had 
 lost his peace of mind for ever. He spoke of friendship. 
 She answered that only one relationship was possible between 
 them, and her answer helped him forget the Russian. 
 
 One morning they stood on the battlements of a castle, 
 and, breathless with happiness, they gazed into the long 
 German plain, dotted witli towns. A few days after they 
 left for the Rhine, and it was with him that she visited 
 massive cathedrals, and it was from him that she learnt to 
 distinguish between the Romanesque and the Gothic. They 
 remembered walks in places to which they never re- 
 turned, and love-scenes in gardens which they would never 
 see again ; and the night he heard her sing Siegelinde was 
 an imperishable memory. A night on the Danube was 
 another, and the journey through the long plains of Russia, 
 with first sight of the green and gold domes of Moscow 
 at the end of it was another. She was, as he said, a very 
 flame of life, always a little wilful and strangely exciting 
 through the very personality of her passion, and the sense, 
 which she did not attempt to hide, of its insecurity whetted 
 his appetite. In Florence she had fancied herself overcome 
 by religious scruples, and had sent him away. Not only all 
 men, he declared, but God himself was his rival, and for the 
 study of Isolde he recommended the Grecian Archipelago. 
 
EVELYN INNES 151 
 
 There, on board the Medusa^ she would be safe from God 
 and men. Neither forgot the midnight that she sang to the 
 sailors ; the stars were shining, and the water lapped softly 
 about the yacht's bows. Never had they loved each other so 
 dearly. But at daybreak they were returning to England, 
 to London, where she had an engagement to fulfil at Covent 
 Garden. 
 
 As she lay between sleeping and waking in her house in 
 Park Lane there appeared in her dream 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 char- 
 acter 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 ahd 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 
 
152 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 in- 
 troduce 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 sculp- 
 ture. 
 
 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 to 
 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 seemeed 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 re- 
 membered 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 153 
 
 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 por- 
 trayal 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 
 avirakened 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, Merat. . . . 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 
 
154 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 her- 
 self. ' 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 ap- 
 probation ? 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 liad 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 
 Slid 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 155 
 
 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 yacht- 
 ing ; 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 
 fether. 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 
 
156 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Tank 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 re- 
 hearsal of " Tannhauser " on Friday.' 
 
 And so that she might not be too tired on Friday morn- 
 ing, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 157 
 
 a ball-room had robbed it, her resolution waned, and her 
 brain, weak from insufficient sleep, shrank from the pros- 
 pect 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 halle^ 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 — ' Tannhauser ' 
 and 'Tristan and Isolde.' It would bore her to look at 
 Elizabeth again ; she knew it all. She chose Tristan in- 
 stead, and began reading the second act at the place where 
 Isolde, ignoring Brangane's advice, signals to Tristan with 
 the handkerchief. She glanced down the lines, hearing 
 the motive on the 'cellos, then, in precipitated rhythm, 
 
158 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 en- 
 dured 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, 
 
EVELYN INNES 159 
 
 recalling in a way the Gregorian she used to read in child- 
 hood 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 ftither, 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 forgctfulness on this point seemed to her charming, 
 
i6o EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 f'aust ; 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 some- 
 thing more. But no--after all — perhaps I'd better not,' 
 and, with a little sigh of regrLt, 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, stoppijig 
 when it was only half folded to stand forgetful a moment, 
 her eyes far off, gazing back into the preceding act. Awak- 
 ing 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 thoua;ht, 
 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 dis- 
 turbed 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, mediasval 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 
 
EVELYN INNES i6i 
 
 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 comuig 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 hap- 
 pening before our eyes. And after her brother had cursed 
 Margaret, when he fells 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 im- 
 pelled 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 
 
i62 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 act- 
 ing 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 163 
 
 She had imagined that it might leave her as an oflFended 
 spirit might leave its local habitation. Her Margaret had 
 been accepted in Italy, so she must sing it as w^ell as she 
 acted it. But wbtn 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 vteux 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 mothei 
 had sung it. Ulick praised it because he was tired of hear- 
 ing Wagner praised, and she liked it because her first appear- 
 ance 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 ABC 
 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 
 
i64 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 heai;t 
 she could not but feel that her Elsa was a failure. The 
 truth was that she had never understood the story. It be»an 
 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 afer, 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 under- 
 stood Kundry. She had not yet begun to study the part. 
 
EVELYN [NNES 165 
 
 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' 
 
1 66 EVELYN INNES 
 
 '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 oiF 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 ofiF 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 meet- 
 ing between Sir Owen and Mr Innes. But she did not 
 dare to be more explicit. Owen had forbidden any dis- 
 cussion 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 six years without having found 
 out that. But in avoiding a disagreeable scene we are often 
 preparing one more disagreeable,' 
 
EVELYN INNES 167 
 
 * 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 re- 
 hearse 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. TJie 
 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 XVl. 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 
 
1 68 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 if she's faithfiil 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 iron- 
 mongers 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 ex- 
 plain 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 Walsingliam House, and 
 she realised that the nearest future is enveloped in obscurity. 
 She had always dreaded the journey to London ; she had 
 
EVELYN INNES 169 
 
 been warned against London, and ever since she had con- 
 sented to come she had been ill at ease and nervous — of 
 wfhat she did not knowr — of someone behind her, of some- 
 one lurking round her. She argued that she w^ould 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 I That fate had been the fate of other 
 women. Why should it not be hers f 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 i Would 
 they then be reconciled ? If she did not see her fether 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 refresh- 
 ing 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. 
 
XIII 
 
 But she ought not to go to St Joseph's. She had promised 
 Owen to avoid churches, priests — all that reminded her of 
 reh'gion. 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 
 ^bout his own suffering. 
 
 It had happened very nearly a year 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 yearn- 
 ing — 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, 
 
 170 
 
EVELYN INNES 171 
 
 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 wrritten 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 natur- 
 ally, as if by appointment, and they had walked on, instinct- 
 ively 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 ? ' 
 
1 7* EVELYN INNES 
 
 < 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 use- 
 lessly 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 any- 
 one' 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 
 tliu her father was not amonc; them. She mvr.t have known 
 
EVELYN INNES 173 
 
 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 aslc for him . . . and run the risk of meeting 
 one of the priests 1 Thejr 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 iie 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 
 
174 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Re- 
 proaches 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 frequen- 
 tation 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 175 
 
 these doctrines no longer, but, unfortunately, this advance- 
 ment brought her no nearer to the solution of the question 
 directly affecting her life. Owen encouraged her to per- 
 severe 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 it 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 convic- 
 tions. 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 j 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. 
 
176 EVELYN INNSS 
 
 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 re- 
 ligion 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 any- 
 thing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 177 
 
 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 Pro- 
 testants ; 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 feet that although you no longer believe in a resurrec- 
 tion, you cling fest 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 for- 
 getting, however, to take the credit of the improvement 
 in her intellectual equipment to himself, which indeed was 
 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 
 
178 EVELYN INNES 
 
 in the morning before she got up, and this taste was en- 
 deared 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 be- 
 ginning 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 circum- 
 stances 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 diff"erent from the first set, yet sufficiently 
 near for the same brain to assimilate, then the work pro- 
 
EVELYN INNES 179 
 
 duced 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, wind- 
 less 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 re- 
 membered 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 consecra- 
 tion she would be compelled to bow her head. The 
 bell rang again. . • . She grew tremulous with ex- 
 pectation. 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 
 
i8o EVELYN INNES 
 
 followed a beautiful softening of her whole being, the bitter- 
 ness 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. 
 
XIV 
 
 Still under the sweet influence of the church and the 
 ceremony she got into her carriage. But the mystery en- 
 gendered in her soul seemed to fade and die in the sunshine ; 
 she could almost perceive it going out like a gentle, evan- 
 escent 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 her- 
 self 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 com- 
 ments 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 sv/ung a lean body to the right and left. 
 
 i8i 
 
1 82 EVELYN INNES 
 
 Suddenly he sprang up in his seat, and, looking in the direc- 
 tion of certain instruments, he brought down his stick 
 determinedly, and, having obtained the effect he desired, 
 his beat swung leisurely for a while. ... ' 'Cellos, cres- 
 cendo,' 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 little conductor's piano as it descended. ' 'Cellos, a 
 sudden piano after 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, Tannhauser'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 seen 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 Brangane. 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 Hermann 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 Brangiine, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 183 
 
 hope you succeeded in inducing Mademoiselle Helbrun to 
 play Brangane ? ' 
 
 '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 a 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 Brangane'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 Brangane 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 fVom 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. 
 
1 84 EVELYN INNES 
 
 She was genuinely sorry for him, for she had had toothache her- 
 self. Nevertheless, it was unfortunate that they had not been 
 able to settle about Mademoiselle Helbrun's engagement. She 
 wondered 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 sym- 
 pathetic 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 towards 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. 
 
 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, leap- 
 ing 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 sittint', his eyes fixed on the 
 
EVELYN INNES 185 
 
 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. You spoke of the ancient gods Angus and Lir, 
 and the great mother Dana, as of real gods.' 
 
 He read that the gods of diiFerent races are the symbols 
 by which men have represented various states of eternal 
 consciousness ; and then he said that the gods are more than 
 symbols, every state of consciousness being a soul in a far 
 deeper sense than we are souls. The gods, he said, appeared 
 to primitive man, who had the power of seeing visions, 
 and talked to him, and advised him out of the wisdom of 
 the states they represented. 
 
 His face lighted up, and he began to argue in a clear, 
 harmonious voice that the gods of a race, because they are 
 connected with the scenery and history of a race, are its 
 true links with the spiritual world, and he mentioned places 
 in Ireland which had been named from gods, and from 
 legends of the gods. 
 
 ' I don't see how you reconcile Angus and Lir with 
 Christianity, that is all.' 
 
 ' I do not try to reconcile them ; they do not need re- 
 concilement ; all the gods are part of one faith. We should 
 no more talk of reconciling one religion with another, 
 than of reconciling Wagner with Shakespeare, or Homer 
 with Dante. Christianity is true, but it is not the whole 
 truth. Buddha was before Christ, and Krishna was before 
 
i86 EVELYN INNES 
 
 Buddha. The gods of Scandinavia, and the gods of Greece, 
 and the gods of my race express their side of the truth. 
 There is a continuous revelation, and music, and poetry, 
 and painting should accept their true mission and become 
 its ritual.' 
 
 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 mean- 
 ing 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.' 
 
 The thinness of his clean-shaven face seemed to her 
 emphasised by his black hair, and she remarked that his teeth 
 were almost the most beautiful she had ever seen. 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 187 
 
 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 i ' 
 
 ' 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 i ' 
 
1 88 EVELYN INNES 
 
 * 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 
 belike?' 
 
 ' 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 concep- 
 tion. 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.' 
 
XV 
 
 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 desirmg 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 Tannhauser she was 
 benign and forgiving, the divine penitent who, having no 
 
 189 
 
190 EVELYN INNES 
 
 sins of her own to do penance for, does penance for the 
 sins of others. 
 
 It was then that UHck 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 draw- 
 bridge, 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, conniv- 
 ing 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 liare 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 " Tann- 
 hiiuser." 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 dis- 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 191 
 
 coveries ; 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 w^ere 
 going to get angry, but remembering that Dean was critic 
 to an important w^eekly, he laughed and put his handker- 
 chief 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 Land- 
 grave and his daughter. 
 
 Having consulted with his stage manager and super- 
 intended 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 j 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 admir- 
 able 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? ft is not like the 
 
igz 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Tannhauser'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 predestined lover 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 in- 
 different to him. Tt 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 
 coulrl he admit the penitence of Knndrv Tn her there 
 
EVELYN INNES I93 
 
 was merely the external aspect. ' Parsifal ' was to Uliclc 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 oiit, 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, that Parsifal is op- 
 posed 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 sug- 
 gested 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 mediasval 
 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 
 
 N 
 
,94 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 writmg 
 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, mar- 
 vellous 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 195 
 
 music, but in such a situation sincerity was essential. The 
 airs of this mock redeemer were truly unbearable. And the 
 first scene that will seem old-fashioned will be this one, for 
 it is ornamental ; it is the first appearance in the art of Wagner 
 of the scene for its own sake ; it is an example of what 
 Schopenhauer calls ' the charming ' ; and it is only in its 
 taste for ' the charming ' that the taste of each generation 
 differs. Ulick called attention to the austerity of Tristan, 
 nowhere a trace of ornament, simple even to bareness ; and 
 in ' the Ring,' notwithstanding its many fantastic devices, he 
 said Wagner had never introduced a scene for its own sake. 
 He pointed to Gournemanz's explanations, and all his ' whys ' 
 and ' wherefores ' in introducing the scene he claimed as proof 
 that Wagner was not without suspicion that the scene was 
 ornamental, and sought to justify it. 'This is the scene,' 
 he added, ' that has made most converts to Wagnerism, and 
 it will be the beginning of the first heresy.' 
 
 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 confining a soul's secret is he in- 
 teresting, and in ' Tannhauser,' 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 sub- 
 limest imaginations pale before the simple telling of a per- 
 sonal truth, for the most personal truth is likewise the most 
 universal. ' Tannhauser ' is the story of humanity, for what 
 is the human story if it isn't the pursuit of an ideal ? 
 
196 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 awfful 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, Berlia, 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 par- 
 ticular 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 — ' 
 
 ' It 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 197 
 
 she might remain firm, recognised how adroitly Hermann 
 Goetze had contrived to place her in a false position regard- 
 ing 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 eflFectually 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 selfish- 
 ness, 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 
 
igS EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 Brangane, 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 sha'n'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 mc 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 ex- 
 traordinary was their recognition of each other ; it was so 
 intense that they could hardly help laughing, so strange il* 
 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 199 
 
 They asked each other whether any part oi' 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 Tannhauser, 
 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 — ' 
 
200 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' Father won't think so ; if he only thought well of my 
 singing he would forgive me.' 
 
 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. 
 
 ' And 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. 
 
XVI 
 
 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 her- 
 self into the shadow, eager for rest. The sun has been 
 too ardent a lover. But the gaze of the sun upon the re- 
 ceding 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 ac- 
 cumulating against him — enemies, he divined, were gathering 
 in the background ; and how he might guard her, ke^p 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 
 
202 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 re- 
 turnings 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 furni- 
 ture. She mentioned several engagements, adding that 
 he had made her too many presents already. 
 
 She spoke of the rehearsal at considerable length, omit- 
 ting, 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 
 wiis as keen as ever ; and it was not until she had got into 
 
EVELYN INNES 203 
 
 her carnage and was driving to Dulwich that her con- 
 sciousness 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 recrimina- 
 tions, 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 
 diiFerent 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 qjit 
 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 
 
204 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 milk- 
 man 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, beauti- 
 ful 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 hun- 
 dred 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 Dul- 
 wich ; 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 Mar- 
 garet 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 205 
 
 ' 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' I 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 
 ftither 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 fiineral.' 
 
 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 
 
2o6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 com- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 periments,' 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 I ' 
 
EVELYN INNES 207 
 
 ' 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 I . . . 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 nnish 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 'ouse.' 
 
 ' Is my father coming home to dinner ? ' ■ 
 
 ' I can't say for certain, mis';, 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 ot 
 to-morrow. You won't like to have a nice dinner to-night 
 and a bit of hashed mutton to-morrow.' 
 
2o8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 long- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 209 
 
 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 nervous- 
 ness, 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 contra- 
 puntal music can only be sung by those who can sing at 
 sight. The piano has destroyed the modern ear. I dare- 
 say 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 havi; 
 
 o 
 
210 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 — ' ^ue vous me coutez cher, 
 men cceur, 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 instru- 
 ment 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 it has much more power than the 
 old harpsichord. I made it this winter. The volume of sound 
 from the old harpsichord is not sufficient in a large theatre, 
 that is why the recitations in Mozart's operas have to be 
 played on the fiddles.' 
 
 He stopped speaking and she pressed him in vain to ex- 
 plain the instrument. She went on playing. 
 
 ' The levers,' he said at last, ' are right and left of your 
 knees. Press them.' 
 
 She pretended not to understand. 
 
 ' Let me show you.' He seated himself at the instru- 
 ment. ' You see the volume of sound I obtain, and all the 
 while I do not alter the quality of tone.' 
 
 ' 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 INNES 211 
 
 ' Evelyn, I wonder how you can expect me to forgive 
 you ; I wonder how I can speak to you. Have you for- 
 gotten 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 unalter- 
 able 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 ad- 
 mitted she acted ; she lived through scenes, whether fictitious 
 
212 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 ? Oh tell me, father ; look in mine eyes.' She 
 heard the silence of orchestra, and her voice singing in 
 sonorous space. She heard the clash of the chord at the end 
 of the phrase, then a questioning accompaniment among the 
 violins, and 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 213 
 
 saw his tears, his position as a stern father was compro- 
 mised ! 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 miser- 
 able ? 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 diiFerent.' 
 
 ' 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 I 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 
 
2 1+ EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 happen- 
 ing 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 meet- 
 ing. 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 215 
 
 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 
 surroimd you ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know, I've often wondered ; the flame of a 
 promise — a promise never to leave you again, father, I caii 
 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 arrange- 
 ments.' 
 
 ' 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 
 
2i6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 that her joy in 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 win- 
 some 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 INNES 217 
 
 Evelyn had to stand back to avoid the soot. She stood, her 
 eyes fixed on the fire, interested in the draught and the dis- 
 solution 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 
 receipt 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. 
 
2i8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 no 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 think- 
 ing of something different, and to her great joy he 
 said, — 
 
 ' Well, your Margaret is very good ; better than I ex- 
 pected — 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 extraordin- 
 ary 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 219 
 
 possible. I admire your Margaiet ; it was a wonderful 
 performance, but — ' 
 
 ' But what, father ? 
 
 ' It made me wish to see you in Elizabeth and Brunn- 
 hilde. 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 
 Grain 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 interpreta- 
 tion. 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 
 
220 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Woman." 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 
 ;?;reat longing seizes me for the maiden.* 
 
 'The waves of the ocean are not so strong as the waves 
 
EVELYN INNES 221 
 
 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 woman 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 f ' 
 
 '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 Woman.' 
 
 ' 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 
 WomaffMS 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 bassoons ; and another 
 character is allotted three lutes with an arch lute, another a 
 pair of virginals, another a regal, another a set of six sack- 
 buts and trumpets. See how all the instruments ?re used in 
 
223 EVELYN INNES 
 
 the overture and in the dances, of which there are plenty, 
 Pavans, Galliards, AUemaines. 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, alwzjs 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 orchestraticm 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 argu- 
 ment 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 223 
 
 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 1 She seemed to have drifted like a piece of sea- 
 weed ; 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 con- 
 sciousness 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 could 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. 
 
224 EVELYN INNES 
 
 What did it mean ? It must mean something, just as those 
 stars must mean something — but what i 
 
 Opposite to her window there was an open space ; it 
 was fiill 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 out- 
 live 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 moon- 
 light 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. 
 
XVII 
 
 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 vul- 
 garity, and it was at St Joseph's, Southwark, that the Church 
 had had restored to her all her own beautiful music. Mon- 
 signor 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 trial gre, Father Gordon had had to sub- 
 mit 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 ; 
 
226 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 influ- 
 ence ; Moiisignor 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. Mon- 
 signor 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 227 
 
 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 con- 
 trapuntal 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 Pales- 
 trina'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 aspiration. 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 emula- 
 tion 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 witli 
 some of the sixteenth century choirs. Mr Innes told an in- 
 structive 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 anv 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 
 
228 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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, in- 
 stead of that of 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 sub- 
 scribers, 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 entertain- 
 ment 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 per- 
 formance. . . . Evelyn caught sight of a painter or two 
 and a man of letters who used to come to her father's con- 
 certs. 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 229 
 
 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 ot 
 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 in- 
 struments. 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 
 
2 30 EVELYN INNES 
 
 intervals of the monochord, instead of the coarse approxima- 
 tion 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 fiiU 
 choir ; and she did catch a slight equivocation, and the dis- 
 covery 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 satisfac- 
 tion 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 medisval 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 231 
 
 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 intro- 
 ducing this text he declared it to be one of the most 
 beautifiil 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, feme 
 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 
 
232 EVELYN IN>7ES 
 
 the doctrine of Jesus or the doctrine of the world ? He 
 instanced the gambler and tlie 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 lie has spent in charity? But 
 even success cannot save the gambler and libertine from the 
 tedium of existence, and when the preaclier 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, be said, when 
 they are sincere vifith 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 tlie 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? Bec.utse tliat 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 ; 
 slie had been able to stifle it for a while — she had never been 
 able to abolish it — and what convincing proof tiiis was of the 
 existence of God i 
 
 Disprove it you couldn't, for it was part of one's senses 
 
EVELYN INNES 233 
 
 — 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 — beauti- 
 ful 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 pleni- 
 tude 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 any- 
 thing 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 
 
234 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 I 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 ; ex- 
 quisitely 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 con- 
 trived 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 235 
 
 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. 
 
XVIII 
 
 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 
 uplifting fugitive palace and tower, and when Evelyn ajid 
 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 infinity cloudland while he told her of her father's 
 struggle to obtain mastery in St Joseph's. But she ex- 
 perienced 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 
 
 236 
 
EVELYN INNES 237 
 
 propaganda from week to week. When her father was 
 called away to negotiate some financial difBculty, Ulick had 
 taken charge of tlie 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 IVlonsignor. 
 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 Mon- 
 signor 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 
 
238 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 
 ivould 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 
 chcy 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 bbt 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 239 
 
 Owen would have forbidden her tliis 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 morn- 
 ing, 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, — 
 
24° 
 
 EVELYN INNE3 
 
 'Tliat 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. Think- 
 ing 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 Woman " ? ' 
 
 ' 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 cEStheticism 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 has been preserved, only the religious chants 
 of this distant period of art have come down to us, and from 
 this accident has 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 tliemselves 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. 1 seek the harmony in the sentiment of 
 
EVELYN INNES 241 
 
 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 at least three of the 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 loneli- 
 ness in her life which Owen was no longer able to fill. 
 Life seemed a desert without some form of belief, and not- 
 
242 EVELYN INNES 
 
 withstanding 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 con- 
 ceal 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 Bodag 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 fiiture 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. 
 U lick'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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 243 
 
 The evening lengthened out into long, clear hours and 
 thoughts of the green lanes ; and to escape from haunt- 
 ings 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 pro- 
 voked her to think of herself and him as a couple from 
 that politely wanton assembly which had collected at even- 
 tide 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 be- 
 fore she could get Ulick to talk of himself; he seemed 
 to strive to change the conversation back to artistic ques- 
 tions. 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 vi^as 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 
 
24+ EVELYN INNES 
 
 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. But the subject 
 being quite new to her, she followed with diflSculty 
 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 could no longer dis- 
 believe, so simply did he tell his tales, his white teeth 
 showing, and his dark eyes rapidly brightening 
 and clouding as he mentioned difi-'erent 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 a famous French 
 hypnotist had had to fall back upon in order to 
 account materialistically for some of his hypnotic ex- 
 
EVELYN INNES 245 
 
 periments, and she was forced to admit that the spirituahstic 
 explanation was the easier to believe. 
 
 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 Rosicrucians greeted each other 
 with ' Man is God, and son of God, and there is no God 
 but man.' 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 vulgarisa- 
 tions 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, 
 and they returned home, watching the white mists 
 creeping up the blue fields. She would have liked to 
 have strayed with him in the twilight, for as the land- 
 scape 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 ; 
 the life of the flesh in which Owen had placed her 
 seemed to 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. 
 There was a strange allurement in the twilight ; some- 
 thing seemed to beckon her. 
 
 Her father was in the music-room when they re- 
 turned, 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 ! ' 
 
246 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 musi- 
 cian. But he v/ould not be consoled, and when he men- 
 tioned 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 first composer 
 who had ceased to distinguish 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 feel- 
 ings, 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 Dow- 
 lands, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 247 
 
 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 pain- 
 ful 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 caUed 
 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 
 
248 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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. Re- 
 member 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. 
 
XIX 
 
 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 
 sxinder them, to stand jailer-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 
 
 249 
 
2 50 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 IVIadame 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 251 
 
 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 Woman.' 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 in his music that he did not hear 
 it. . . . She had been listening, doubtless, for some time be- 
 fore he had seen her. He spoke very little French, but 
 she spoke excellent English, and she begged him to go 
 on playing. A little later her fether 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 
 
2 52 EVELYN INNES 
 
 away, and he perceived that his visits were not desired ; on 
 returning to England, all his letters were returned to him. 
 
 ' You w^ere very fond of her ? ' 
 
 ' I was in love with her.' 
 
 ' I suppose you have often been in love ? ' She did not 
 think that he would care for many women ; she felt that 
 most women would bore him, and it was on her lips to ask him 
 how Eliane had got him to love her, but at that moment she 
 contrasted him with Owen, aware of how different the two 
 men were ; and her feelings for them seemed so different 
 that the fidelity she owed to Owen did not seem to suffer 
 violation from her intimacy with Ulick. ' But you have not 
 told me what you used to talk to her about. You used to 
 talk about your music. . . . Then she, what did she say ? ' 
 
 ' We used to say that we loved each other.' 
 
 ' I can hardly fancy your only saying that . . . you 
 are still very fond of her ? I can see you are.' 
 
 He experienced a sense of discomfort in speaking of 
 Eliane to Evelyn. Suddenly he remembered a journey to 
 Brittany, which they had planned together, in search of folk 
 tales, and she asked him of what he was thinking. He 
 noticed the slight change of expression which passed in her 
 eyes. It passed quickly, like a light cloud, blotting the 
 sunlight out. She was jealous of the long conversations 
 that this unaccomplished journey to Brittany must have 
 entailed. It was disagreeable to her to think that any other 
 woman knew more of Ulick's intimate artistic life than she 
 did, and she determined to sing his opera and get nearer his 
 ideas than any other woman had. 
 
 'Why won't yo,u talk to me? Talk to me,' she said ; 
 ' recite verses as you did the other day ; I want to listen to you ; 
 I want to hear your ideas. Tell me about your opera, about 
 Grani.a, about the great scene in the third act, when Dermont, 
 whom the boar has mortally wounded, dashes to the ground 
 ':he water Fin Mac'Cool brings him in his helmet.' 
 
 ' In the legend Fin Mac'Cool brings Dermont water 
 in his hands, and he lets it run through his fingers before 
 Dermont's eyes, for Fin hates Dermont even in death, 
 because Dermont took Grania away from him.' 
 
 ' Fin is too great to torture a dying man ; it is much 
 
EVELYN INNES 253 
 
 better that Dermont should dash the water aside : he looks at 
 Grania, who is standing by, and will not drink water brought 
 by Fin Mac'Cool. I can see the scene. You must write it like 
 that, promise me that you will. I sha'n't be able to act it if you 
 don't. But I am talking all the while. I want you to talk to 
 me, recite some poems. . . . But here is my footman coming 
 to tell me that my father is waiting. How unfortunate ! ' 
 
 They saw tlie 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 to see me soon ? You promised to 
 go through the " Isolde " music with me. Will you come 
 to-morrow ? ' 
 
 The curved clear eyes were fixed upon him, and 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, 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 her father 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 beautifiil 
 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. 
 
254 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 con- 
 nection 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 indepen- 
 dent of time and circumstance, a sort of principle, an 
 eternal essence, a spirit which she could often hear speak- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 255 
 
 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 com- 
 municate 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 in- 
 visible 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 enter- 
 tained 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. 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. 
 
256 EVELYN INNES 
 
 It would be such a disappointment to so many people. AH 
 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 d*ire 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 recogni- 
 tion 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 257 
 
 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 comm^jits, 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 re- 
 membered that she bad 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 
 principle 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. 
 
258 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 de- 
 scribed 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 ' Tannhauser ' 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 unfortu- 
 nate, 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 pre- 
 vented 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 play- 
 ing 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, 
 
EVELYN INNES 259 
 
 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 ulti- 
 mate 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 capri- 
 cious 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 exalta- 
 tion 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.' 
 
26o EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 dark- 
 ness. 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 miss- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 261 
 
 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 at 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, threaten- 
 ing to break its strings. Her ear was so fine that it de- 
 tected 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 sec he was troubled, and that she grieved him, 
 
262 EVELYN INNES 
 
 and at one moment it was uncertain whecher 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 263 
 
 good as new, aiid 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 an unbelieving 
 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 at 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. He had come to go 
 through her part with her, and she wanted to know what he 
 would think of her reading of Isolde ; it was most important 
 that they should go through the music together. But she 
 wanted him to sit near her ; she wanted to listen, to hear 
 his ideas, to hear his voice, and both desires were equal in 
 her. She could not bring herself to interrupt him, and 
 she sat listening ; conversation had sprung up somehow, 
 without her being aware of it. She was interested in what 
 he was saying, but all the while a voice within chattered, 
 'You are missing your chance of hearing his opinion of 
 
26,^ EVELYN INNES 
 
 your Isolde.' She sat listening, her eyes fixed, and it was the 
 brightness of her eyes that interrupted him and brought a 
 change of expression into his face when he looked up. With 
 a little note of supplication in her voice, she said, ' Go on 
 talking. Why do you stop ? ' 
 
 She sat drawing her rings from her white fingers, and 
 he sat watching the glitter of the gold and the sparkle 
 of the jewels as she drew the rings over her knuckles. She 
 had taken ofF three rings, and they lay upon her knee ; the 
 fourth ring she passed back and forward over the knuckle of 
 her forefinger. Suddenly a strange expression filled her 
 round eyes, bright like a bird's eyes. She moved nearer, 
 and played nervously with her rings, and as if suddenly 
 aware of the temptation, she said in a voice, in which he 
 detected a sudden determination of will, ' You said you 
 would go through Isolde with me. But will it bore you 
 to do so ? ' 
 
 ' No, not in the least.' 
 
 'Oh ! very well, then.' 
 
 The mood which had overcome him so quickly, as 
 quickly passed away, and he followed her to the piano, 
 thinking of what she had told him of her reading of the 
 part. When she came to the passage where Isolde tells 
 Brangane 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 
 1 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 Brangane, but really to heiself, " 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 265 
 
 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.' 
 
 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.' 
 
 She wanted to ask him by what signs do we recognise 
 the moment that we are destined to meet the one that is 
 
266 EVELYN INNES 
 
 more important to us than all the world. But she lould 
 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 some- 
 one 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 insever- 
 able 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 
 
EVELYN JNNES 267 
 
 affliction, a desolate despair. It seemed cruel and dis- 
 astrous 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 dark, glowing eyes 
 seeming to compel her with their mystery ; she felt raised 
 above natural things, and the sensation was the more agree- 
 able as it was independent of her will. 
 
 'Ulick.' 
 
 He sat at a little distance. She reached out her hand, 
 drawing him nearer, as if she wished to understand him better. 
 She listened, and he spoke to her extravagantly, insisting that 
 he had always loved her, that she had been loved since the 
 world began. For the world did not consist for him as it did 
 for ordinary men of individuals who are born and who die, but 
 of certain principles of truth and beauty which live eternally 
 and are worshipped under varying names. Helen of Troy 
 as much as Grania represented the eternal idea which man 
 pursues for ever, and Helen and Grania live to-day with the 
 same life as they lived in Ancient Greece and Ireland ; and 
 they are followed now as they were followed then by all 
 who have hearts to desire the ideal and eyes to seek it. The 
 same eternal principles of beauty and truth are for ever 
 prevalent and active. Evelyn listened and smiled en- 
 raptured, allowing him to lay his head against her knee ; 
 and the belief that she was not made of perishable clay but 
 a last incarnation of some eternal truth, come amongst 
 men to be worshipped, pleased her fancy, and she saw no 
 reason why it should not be so. 
 
XX 
 
 ' 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 diilerent; 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 melan- 
 choly, an exalted resignation. The music goes out like a 
 fume, dying in remote chords, and Evelyn sat absorbed, view- 
 ing 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, dis- 
 appointed, 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, 
 
 7.6S 
 
EVELYN INNES 269 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 fece 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 communi- 
 cation 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 be- 
 come 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, re- 
 lentless 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 
 
270 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 baclc into darkness like shapes 
 seen in a faded picture. She had loved Owen, and sung a 
 kw 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 unendur- 
 able 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 tliat she had to play in life. Not the past, that was 
 no longer hers either to preserve or to blot out ; she could 
 
EVELYN INNES 271 
 
 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 suc- 
 ceeded, 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 con- 
 centric, 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 pre- 
 judice 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, attri- 
 buting 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 
 
272 EVELYN JNNES 
 
 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 27? 
 
 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-wistflil way about an 
 article which he had written on Blake and which had some- 
 how strayed into the hands of a man and his wife living in 
 Normandy. This couple were at the time engaged in con- 
 tinuing 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 them- 
 selves at Ulick's lodgings in Bloomsbury, seemingly at once 
 unhappy and excited, and professing their complete willing- 
 ness 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 Uhck 
 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 
 
474 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 sufKcient 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 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 ajid 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 an- 
 nouncing Sir Owen awoke her, and with a shock as painful 
 as if she had been struck on the nape of the neck. 
 
XXI 
 
 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 dis- 
 tractions, 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 extra- 
 ordinarily 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 con- 
 ventional 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 I'ar as we can admire that which 
 
 =175 
 
276 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 put 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 
 imdue 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 277 
 
 Sucher walked about, her arms raised and posed above her 
 head, in the conventional, statutesque attitude designed for 
 the decoration of beer gardens, 
 
 ' It really is very sad,' Evelyn said, her eyes tvi^inkling 
 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 un- 
 bearable 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 blank- 
 ness 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 dis- 
 
278 EVELYN INNES 
 
 cover 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 UHck. 
 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 con- 
 clusion 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 be- 
 come 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 re- 
 mained 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 ques- 
 tions. 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 1 How tired she was of talking about his songs, the 
 
EVELYN INNES 279 
 
 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 unpleasant- 
 ness, and though he did not often say so, a charge of in- 
 gratitude, 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 re- 
 garding 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 
 
28o EVELYN INNES 
 
 with the clear sight of six years of life with him, she de- 
 cided 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 than it could to oneself. He 
 could not be deprived of his toy ; his toy came before every- 
 thing. 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 ifrom 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 com- 
 plete 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 trivi- 
 ality. 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, dis- 
 traction, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 281 
 
 vowed that whatever it cost her she v/ould marry him if he 
 wished her to. , . , If she did not mean to take the con- 
 sequences, 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 th(; time had come for her to 
 oiFer 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 con- 
 fidence. 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 
 
282 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 ov/n 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 p'enods ; 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 
 i 1 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 
 'iiit, and had kept liis figure — it still went in at the waist. 
 
EVELYN INNES 283 
 
 Slie 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 im- 
 perceptibly. 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 dis- 
 agreeable, 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 
 Elizabeth — ' 
 
284. EVELYN INNES 
 
 * 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, uncon- 
 sciously 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 285 
 
 ' 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 niy 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 ? ' 
 
286 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 aliena- 
 tion ; 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, 
 chin man, elegant and attractive notwithstanding the forty- 
 
EVELYN INNES 287 
 
 five years, dressed in a silk shirt and a black smoking sui-t. 
 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 Somers- 
 dean, 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 v/as thinking of the credit she would do him as Lady 
 
288 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 engage- 
 ment should be kept a secret. It did not matter much ; 
 he was quite ready to give way, but he could not under- 
 stand 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 feehng 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 marcy 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 289 
 
 ^►, 
 in love with UliclbvJDean, 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 fore- 
 head. 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 wonder- 
 ing. 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 
 
zgo 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 look- 
 ing 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 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 beheve 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 291 
 
 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-mak- 
 ing . . . 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 climg 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 
 
29* 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 ro with you. l^ell 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.' 
 
 b 
 
XXII 
 
 ' 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 IJlick'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 Brangane. 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 stand- 
 ing. 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 re- 
 gardless of those around ; she seemed to have only eyes for 
 him; he heard her say under her breath, ' That music maddens 
 
 »93 
 
294 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 signific- 
 ance 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. Brangane 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 ^95 
 
 '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 fellen 
 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 f ' 
 
 ' 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 
 
296 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 dis- 
 cover 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 photo- 
 graph 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 en- 
 chanter 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 ? ' 
 
EVELYN INNES 297 
 
 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 fi-om 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 itf ' 
 
 ' 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,' 
 
298 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 Brangane, 
 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, and the 
 brougham 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 f ' 
 
 ' 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 299 
 
 * 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 fether's account, if he should ever know. Think 
 what my position is. I have betrayed my friend. That is 
 why the Mark 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 
 
300 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 ; 1 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 im- 
 pressions of flov»ers, music and of love. 
 
XXIII 
 
 And when Merat called her in the morning, she was dream- 
 ing 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 her- 
 self, 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 liketi 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 mterested. 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 remem- 
 bered 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. Catholic- 
 ism was the spiritual fare of the multitude; there was a closer 
 communion with the divine essence. She had forgotten 
 what came n<Jxt. . . . He held that we are always warned 
 
 301 
 
302 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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. A hypnotist had cast someone into 
 a trance at the distance of half a mile by simply willing 
 him asleep, and the only explanation that one of the greatest 
 men of science had been able to give, was that the hypnotist 
 had made some change in his own tissues by the tension of 
 his will, and that these changes had made a sound which 
 the hypnotic sleep had enabled the hypnotist to hear with 
 his physical ears. And Ulick had contended that this 
 explanation given by rnaterialism was more incredible than 
 any explanation that spiritualism, which believed that a 
 soul liberated by a trance could hear the unspoken words 
 of another soul, had ever dreamed of. 
 
 ' 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 break- 
 fast 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 303 
 
 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 cor- 
 rectly ; 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 ; ' I dreamed that you were 
 coming. I thought that you were coming, but I was not 
 quite certain. I stayed in for you.' 
 
 ' 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. 
 
304 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 in on the piano. 
 
 His room was lighted by two square windows look- 
 ing on the open space in front of the square, where the 
 vagrant children gathered in noisy groups round a drip- 
 ping 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' bedrooms.' 
 
 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 eider down 
 quilts, and she liked the scant, bleak furniture, the two 
 chairs, the iron wash-hand stand, and the window curtained 
 
EVELYN INNES 305 
 
 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 suiEcient 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 
 
3o6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 table set beneath huge branches, and after tea they sat on 
 a sloping lawn facing the long water. She wondered if 
 he were aware df 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 peaee 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 307 
 
 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 en- 
 campment, 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 pro- 
 phetic 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, 
 
3o8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 " Where music is not born, for music is eternally there." 
 No, that is out of some other old Irish poem. I can't re- 
 member 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 enjoy- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 309 
 
 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 I 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 tlie 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.' 
 
XXIV 
 
 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 colon- 
 nade. 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 oiF, 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.' 
 
 310 
 
EVELYN INNES 3" 
 
 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 I We shall never see her. But 
 you think we shall ? ' 
 
 ' Owen, dear, let us 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 f The dying woman's 
 eyes, the dying woman's voice ! Good heavens ! what would 
 she have said ? But she had considered nothing. After glanc- 
 ing 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 
 
312 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 difiicult, I know.' 
 
 ' What has come between us, tell me ? This fellow 
 Ulick Dean or religious scruples ? ' 
 
EVELYN INNES 313 
 
 ' 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 determina- 
 tion. 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. 1 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-conscious- 
 ness 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 
 
jH EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 vrith 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 ap- 
 pointment 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 hII this is nothing; to you ; it even bores you.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 315 
 
 ' 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 
 imtruth, 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 
 v/onderfiil 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 dis- 
 solution 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 word from her, 
 and her eyes retained their strange melancholy till her 
 departure ; his last memory of her visit was their 
 melancholy. 
 
XXV 
 
 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 her- 
 self, 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 re- 
 membered 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 bitter- 
 ness, 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 roimd 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 317 
 
 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 land- 
 scape, 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 be- 
 hind 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 expecta- 
 tion, she sat in the cab, seeing the streets pass behind her. 
 She was beginning to know the characteristics of the 
 
3i8 EVELVN INNES 
 
 neighbourhood, and in the afternoon light they awoke hei 
 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 
 aight. 
 
 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 E^/elyn 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 ti'ken her away, he had brought her back to her father. 
 
liVELYN INNLS 
 
 319 
 
 This last argument was convincing, and tbe 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 
 hi^h, and facing one another at equal distances. Each 
 choir had a portable organ, and the maestro di capello beat 
 the time for the principal choir. And Mr Innes's eyes 
 lighted up when he spoke of the admirable style recitaiif 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 there- 
 fore 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 Testa- 
 ment. 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 P'errabosco 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 in- 
 sistent, and Evelyn burst into tears, and ran upstairs to her 
 
320 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 approach- 
 ing 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. v 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 fewns 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 321 
 
 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 tliat Evelyn was telling was just what was required to 
 enhance its suggestion. By some accident in the conversa- 
 tion she had been led to speak of how she had been nearly 
 captured by pirates in the Meditei ranean. They were be- 
 calmed 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 after- 
 noon 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 tliem till they tacked, and they 
 had almost overtaken the yacht, they were hardly distant 
 more than fifty yards, when their intention was suspected. 
 
322 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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. 
 
XXVI 
 
 She was in the music-room, loolcing 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 wss about 
 to happen, that she w^as 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 em- 
 barrassed. 
 
 ' Did I make you a promise ? ' 
 
 'Have you forgotten my speaking to you about some 
 323 
 
324 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 un- 
 fortunately not endowed with sufficient business foresight. 
 He was quite prepared to admit that the little wooden 
 chapel which had preceded the present chapel was inade- 
 quate, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 325 
 
 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 im- 
 personal 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 know^s, 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 even- 
 ing 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 certi- 
 tudes. . . . 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 diiFerence of vision. 
 As Ulick said, everything was in that. Men were divided 
 by the diff^erence 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 
 
326 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 pass- 
 ing 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 sacri- 
 fice, 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 some- 
 one 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 327 
 
 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 un- 
 faithful to him ? Did she love Ulick Dean ? Not content 
 with a simple denial, he took her by both hands, and look- 
 ing 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, de- 
 liberately 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 false- 
 hoods 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 
 
328 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 Chris- 
 tians 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 weak- 
 ness 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 un- 
 married 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 neigh- 
 bour 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 under- 
 standing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 329 
 
 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 ^11, w hatw e feel to be true is for us the greatest truth, 
 ifrn^t the- rinly rT al trut h. Uliclc 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 con- 
 science 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 
 
330 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Mon- 
 signor. 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 331 
 
 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 fece, 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 imder 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 penitient as she told him of her pro- 
 ject to bring an orchestra at her own expense to Wimble- 
 don, 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 sing- 
 ing for them, that was sufficient obligation. He approved 
 
332 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 some- 
 thing, only I did not know what to do.' 
 
 Then, feeling that she must take him into her confid- 
 ence, 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 ofl^ered 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 333 
 
 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,' tliat 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 unobjec- 
 tionable 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 con- 
 cerning 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 
 dilBculties 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 Churcli, 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 after- 
 noon sun shining through the window above their heads. 
 
334 EVELYN INNES 
 
 enlivening the dark parlour. It seemed strange to sit dis- 
 cussing 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 Her- 
 bert 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 
 
EVELYN iNNES 335 
 
 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, fi-om all 
 time and through all eternity. To feel is better than 
 to observe, to pray is better than to inquire, but indis- 
 criminate abandonment to our feelings would lead us to 
 give credence to every superstition. You have, I per- 
 ceive, 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 Mon- 
 signor, 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 I ' 
 
 If only she could put the whole thing aside — refuse to 
 bother her head any more, or else beheve 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 iaith 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 con- 
 sidered 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 
 
336 EVELYN INNES 
 
 new lover at her heels. Both lives w^ere 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 wrongdoing, 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 in- 
 tended 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 v/hen 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 337 
 
 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 hving 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 1 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. Mon- 
 signor 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 
 beliefe, 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 oiF 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 
 
338 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 un- 
 strung. 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 con- 
 fessions. 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 con- 
 fessions, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 339 
 
 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 dark- 
 ness 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 carefiil 
 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 
 
34.0 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 inteixourse 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 they should seek rather sensuous intercourse, super- 
 sensual confluence of soul within soul, 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 Celtic 
 doctrine which holds that after death the soul dwells for 
 a time in the land of the children of Dana, beyond the 
 sea, or under the sea, or in some green hill. These descrip- 
 
EVELYN INNES 341 
 
 tions were all symbols, he said, and return again to tlie 
 world. 
 
 ' Even now my destiny is accomplishing.' 
 
 He had told her that the Irish peasant is still a Pagan 
 at heart, and believes far more in the faeries, who are really 
 the old gods, than in the saints. But did Ulick, who was 
 not a peasant, 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 enrol 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 with- 
 drawn 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. 
 
XXVII 
 
 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 eye- 
 lashes, 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 ' Walkiire,' 
 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 writ- 
 ing for the entire orchestra.' ' Three bars farther on he 
 
 34^ 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 343 
 
 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 ' Walkiire ' 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 1 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 recog- 
 nised him. As she squeezed past, she stopped to tell 
 him that Wagner had spoiled her for all other music. 
 She had \}een. 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, some- 
 thing 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 dis- 
 appointment — 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 menti,oned 
 that the nuns expected her to tea, her courage seemed to 
 slip away. The idea of the 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 
 
344 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 turnback. But now it was too late. The carriage ascended 
 
EVELYN INNES 345 
 
 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 anima- 
 tion 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 tlie 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 1 ' 
 
 ' 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 west- 
 ward, 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 
 
346 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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, 
 
EVELYN INNES 347 
 
 and they sat at the circuhir 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 indescrib- 
 able air of scrupulous neatness and cleanliness, a sense of 
 virginal dulness. But suddenly a startling sense of the in- 
 congruity 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 felling 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 for- 
 ward, 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 
 
3+8 p:velyn innes 
 
 when it touched Evelyn's expressed somehow a simpler 
 humanity. 
 
 She was a short, rather stout, homely-faced English- 
 woman, 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 un- 
 derstand, 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 re- 
 member 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 dcrire 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 sha'n'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 mc' 
 
EVELYN INNES 349 
 
 Evelyn regretted that the nuns could not have tea ivith 
 her, and wondered whether they were ever allowed to par- 
 take 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 Philippa 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 un- 
 fortunate 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 
 
350 EVELYN INNES 
 
 how the last three years of the Reverend Mother's life had 
 been given over to this work, Evelyn knew that the mould- 
 ings 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 re- 
 cognised 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 351 
 
 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 re- 
 member it all so well.' 
 
 They wandered on, past the apple and plum trees laden 
 vsfith 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 1 
 
 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 hope your father is quite well.' 
 
 'Yes, he's quite well. You did not offend me, Mother 
 
352 EVELYN INNES 
 
 Philippa,' she said, raising her eyes, and in that moment the 
 two women felt they understood each other in some mute 
 and far-oiF 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 for- 
 gotten, 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 fer 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. 
 
X X V 1 1 1 
 
 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 some- 
 one ; 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 
 feiled 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, 
 
354 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Dow- 
 lands 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 355 
 
 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 sur- 
 roundings ? Wherever she went she would be known. Her 
 friends would follow her, lovers would follow her, tempta- 
 tions 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 Merat 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 
 
356 EVELYN INNES 
 
 could not see the children sailing their toy boats v/ithout 
 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 
 lie 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 mc 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 sub- 
 scribe ; 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.^ 
 
EVELYN INNES 357 
 
 ' 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 f ' 
 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 after- 
 noon, 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 
 
358 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 rela- 
 tions 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 dis- 
 missed, 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 
 eflorts 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 359 
 
 pleasant one. I don't think I could be an agreeable com- 
 panion 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 
 
36o EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 v/as 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 
 wovild 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, 
 aJid was sitting on the corner of the sofa, hea\'y-eycd 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 \.r£ 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 Merring- 
 ton. 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 per- 
 plexed and worried. ' But, Evelyn '—she sat like a figure 
 or stone, there was no colour in her cheeks nor any exprcs- 
 
EVELYN INNES 361 
 
 sion 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 sus- 
 pense. 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 deter- 
 mined 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 were 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 indefen- 
 sible. . . . 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 
 
362 EVELYN INNES 
 
 Dean. I can quite understand it ; he is a nice lellow 
 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 him- 
 self on his cleverness. The question now was, what was 
 the next move ? 
 
 ' You are not looking very well, Evelyn. Y'ou 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 vou may 
 
EVELYN INNES 363 
 
 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 1 ' 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 ? ' 
 
364 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 pur 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. Uiick 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 1' 
 
 ' 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 
 isenied 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, un- 
 known 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,,' 
 
EVELYN INNES 365 
 
 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 
 ValUe^ 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 pave- 
 ment, 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. 
 
XXIX 
 
 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 con- 
 ventional 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 maddei 
 366 
 
EVELYN INNES 367 
 
 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 think- 
 ing 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 speak- 
 ing, and Owen knew that he knew, but it seemed more 
 
368 EVELYN INNKS 
 
 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 
 ofviewoneof 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, 
 ' '.& 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 olF 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 tv^o-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 wc speak in her 
 
EVELYN INNES 369 
 
 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.' 
 
 Owfen did not seem to understand. His eye wfandered, 
 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 1 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 
 
 2 A 
 
370 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 dark- 
 ness. . . • 
 
 But in her waking there was a consciousness, a fore- 
 boding 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 fethom 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 1 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 1 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 371 
 
 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 re- 
 collections ! 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 hap- 
 pened 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 sug- 
 gested 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 
 
372 EVEYLN INNES 
 
 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 re- 
 quired 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 be- 
 lieve 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 373 
 
 had glimpses of her ftiture 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 omni- 
 buses 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 out- 
 side, 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 lean- 
 ing over the balustrade she looked at the fountains. But 
 the splashing water explained nothing, and she turned to 
 
374 EVELYN INNES 
 
 resume her walk ; and she reflected that to send away her 
 lovers would avail her nothing, unless she subsequently con- 
 fessed her sins and obtained the priest's absolution. Mon- 
 signor 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 nurse- 
 maid 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 en- 
 deavour 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 in- 
 superable 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 ini- 
 
EVELYN INNES 375 
 
 possible. She had insisted that the money she required to 
 live in Paris and study with Madame Savelli should be con- 
 sidered as a debt, which she would repay out of her first 
 earnings. But Owen had laughed at her. He had refiised 
 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 
 
376 EVELYN INNES 
 
 nervous pains in her neck and arms. She could hardly 
 drag herself along for very weariness. The very sub- 
 stance 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 her- 
 self like an insect in a crystal, and she perceived the 
 remotest antennas of her beino^. 
 
XXX 
 
 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 arm- 
 chair, 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 sugges- 
 tion, 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 sleep- 
 less night. She had wandered round the park by the 
 Marble Arch, and had continued her walk through Ken- 
 sington 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 
 
 3?7 
 
378 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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. Per- 
 haps 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 ful- 
 filment 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 Virgm might 
 have interceded on her behalf, for is it not said that whoever 
 wears the scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel cannot 
 
EVELYN INNES 379 
 
 lose his soul ? But for the last two years, for more than two 
 years, she had 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 fece of Providence. She had never 
 suffered from sleeplessness before, and could not think that 
 this insomnia was accidental. No, she dare not have re- 
 course 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 1 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 writ- 
 ing. '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, dream- 
 less 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 
 
38o EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 sub- 
 stance 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 381 
 
 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 thin 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 I ' she 
 muttered, as with fearing fingers she emptied out the 
 contents of her little workbox, where odds and ends col- 
 lected. 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 mur- 
 mured, ' 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 
 
382 EVELYN INNES 
 
 seen it. The Virgin had taken it away — she was sure it wa^ 
 not there five minutes ago — or else the Virgin had blinded 
 her eyes to it. A miracle had happened; and in a quiver- 
 ing 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. 
 
XXXI 
 
 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. 
 
 383 
 
384 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 ivould 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 fece, 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 remem- 
 bered 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 385 
 
 her impressions ; the same strange fascination and fear 
 which she had experienced when Owen came to the con- 
 certs 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 deter- 
 mined not to sing until Monsignor had asked her to sing, 
 and when he had 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 Uke 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. 
 
 2 B 
 
386 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 com- 
 pelled 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 387 
 
 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 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 pos- 
 sible 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 an- 
 other. 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 
 
388 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 I ' 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 ques- 
 tions she noticed her dress. Mademoiselle Helbrun's plump 
 figure was set oiF 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 I ' 
 
 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 389 
 
 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 remem- 
 bered 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 witli bookcases, 
 books of legends and philosophical works, the room in 
 which he had written 'The Dusk of the Gods' and 
 'Parsifel.' 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 
 
39° 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 know- 
 ing what she was saying, arguing about the music and 
 expressing opinions about everything and everybody. Stop- 
 ping 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 knov/, 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 391 
 
 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 1 if 
 
39^ 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 re- 
 sisted. Evelyn paid the cabman his fare, and in an increas- 
 ing 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 stimul- 
 ating 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 appear- 
 ance 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 tjiought how much 
 rtiore lovely in God's eyes was this poor deformed woman. 
 
EVELYN INNES 393 
 
 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 wa^^ 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 con- 
 temptuous 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 1 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 be- 
 lieved 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 Mon- 
 signor 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 ; there- 
 fore there was a heaven and a hell. But in spite of her 
 desire to convince herself, remembrance of Owen's argu- 
 ments 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 
 
39+ EVELYN INNES 
 
 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, miser- 
 able 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 to- 
 gether, 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 de- 
 termined 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 instru- 
 ment selected to win her from this infamous, this renegade 
 
EVELYN INNES 395 
 
 Catholic, and the trouble so visible in her was confirmation 
 of his belief that there can be no peace for a Catholic out- 
 side the pale of the Church. 
 
 ' I have v/anted 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 dis- 
 
396 EVELYN INNES 
 
 tinct, for the head was turned almost in profile. The face 
 was a perfect symbol of the mind behind it ; and the inti- 
 mate 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 know- 
 ledge, as she had desired Ulick's knowledge when she wa-s 
 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 degrada- 
 tion 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 re- 
 gards 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 concen- 
 trated 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 diffi- 
 culties — concerning faith. You see now, my dear child, 
 
EVELYN INNES 397 
 
 that you were deceiving yourself. Your real difficulties 
 were quite diiFerent.' 
 
 '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 her inexpressibly ludicrous that she 
 should be kneeling beside the priest. She could not help 
 wondering what Owen would think of her. She remem- 
 bered 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 con- 
 cealing 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 
 
398 EVELYN INNES 
 
 she felt that she could not leave him under the impres- 
 sion 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, yield- 
 ing to the temptation to explain herself, she told Monsignoi 
 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 testi- 
 mony 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 399 
 
 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 answ'er, 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 under- 
 standing on this point will show you how false, how contra- 
 dictory, 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 rela- 
 tively sterile. It is the acknowledged wife and the acknow- 
 ledged 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 ftilfil no purpose, they 
 
400 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 fig- 
 ment. 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 behef as to a future 
 life, her answer was so doubtful that after a moment's hesita- 
 tion 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 think- 
 ing of my sins.' 
 
EVELVN INNES 401 
 
 ' 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 in- 
 tended 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, viraiting 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, 
 
 2 c 
 
402 EVELYN INNES 
 
 conscience was laid aside for doctrine. The value of the 
 Church was that it relieved the individual of the respon- 
 sibility of life. So it was by an effort of will that he retained 
 his pat'^nce. 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 \yill, 
 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 403 
 
 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 ' £go te ahsolvo ' 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 intoxica- 
 
404 EVELYN INNES 
 
 tion 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 de- 
 scended 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. 
 
XXXII 
 
 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 
 
 405 
 
4o6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 conductor. So it happened that she had very little money — 
 about five thousand pounds, and her jewrellery 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 the 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 follow- 
 ing 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 Peters- 
 burg 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 407 
 
 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 every- 
 thing, 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 any- 
 thing. 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 
 
4o8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 af?'ord 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 instruc- 
 tion, 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 v.'i'.nt the carriage?'' 
 
EVELYN INNES 409 
 
 ' 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 v/as 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 
 
4IO EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 look- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 411 
 
 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 fece. 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 me. 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 I 
 What will people think ? ' 
 
4-12 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 413 
 
 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 appoint- 
 ments, that would be di£Ferent. 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 con- 
 fessor 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 calcu- 
 late, 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 greater 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 ofiFer 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 
 
414- EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 morn- 
 ing 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, North- 
 amptonshire.' 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. . . . 
 
EVELYN INNES 415 
 
 Ashamed of her instability, and feeling herself un- 
 worthy 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 ex- 
 pected 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. 1 was 
 not even faithful to my lover. From a worldly point of 
 view I owed him everything, yet for the sake of my passion 
 fcfr 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 savinp 
 
4. 1 6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 our souls. All this is now quite clear to me, and it would 
 therefore be madness for me to remain on the stage, re- 
 cognising 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 con- 
 fessor 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 is already far away and inconceivable 
 to me. I know that by asking you not to come to Dul- 
 wich 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 men- 
 tioned 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 a 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 417 
 
 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 imtil 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 upou 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. La 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 
 
 2 D 
 
41 8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 over- 
 taken 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 flicker 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 419 
 
 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 w^hile you struggle and are dragged 
 down by the current. Evelyn, I have never disobeyed your 
 slightest vsrish 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 out- 
 right, 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 he 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 Sacra- 
 ment ; the Sacrament alone could give her strength to per- 
 severe. 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 
 
4-20 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 any- 
 one 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 ; every- 
 thing 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 
 believe in astrology, the casting of horoscopes, or is it mere 
 affectation ? ' 
 
 ' I don't know ; he always talks like that. He believes, 
 
EVELYN INNES 421 
 
 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 outstripped 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 
 
423 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Com- 
 munion 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. 
 
XXXIIl 
 
 It being Saturday, there was choir practice at St Joseph's, 
 and when Evelyn returned her fether 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 he 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 Com- 
 munion on Sunday ? ' 
 
 'Yes, so I was, but I received a letter from Owen 
 Asher saying he intended to see me. I took it to Mon- 
 signor ; 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 Com- 
 
 423 
 
424 EVELYN [NNES 
 
 munion. Father, I cannot remain here, 1 should be sure 
 to meet hirn.' 
 
 ' 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 look- 
 ing out the train, and eventually it was Agnes who dis- 
 covered 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 teagown 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 425 
 
 ' 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 I 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 sha'n'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 dis- 
 cern. She was leaving a life of wealth and feme 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. 
 
426 EVELYN INNES 
 
 The road lay through fields and past farmhouses, but 
 the suburban street was never quite lost sight of. Its blue 
 roofs and cheap porticoes appeared unexpectedly at the end 
 of an otherwise romantic prospect, and so on and so on, 
 until the driver let his horse walk up the 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 sun- 
 flowers ; 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 427 
 
 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 foresee 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 parti- 
 tion 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 bees- 
 waxed floor and the two rugs, one by the small iron bed, 
 she remembered a hunting morning three years ago at 
 
.1-2 8 EVELYN INNES 
 
 Riversdale. She had gone to Owen's room to see if he were 
 1 eady. 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 ; Ov/en stood 
 before the looking-glass tying a white scarf, and two foot- 
 men 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 
 (iked Owen better for the innumerable superfluities, all of 
 which were necessary to his happiness, the breakdown of 
 my 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 Eve francs a piece, and had always been aware of 
 a n 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 philo- 
 sophical 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 some- 
 how Evelyn could not help feeling that she was giving a 
 good deal of trouble. She could see that the nuns did every- 
 thing for themselves, and she abandoned hope of ever finding 
 a can of hot water in her room. She remembered that 
 
EVELYN INNES +29 
 
 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 tliat 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 
 
430 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 beauti- 
 ful 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 feith 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 431 
 
 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 wras just now pitying for their ignorance of 
 life could at all events read the Office in Latin. 
 
XXXIV 
 
 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 con- 
 fronted 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 con- 
 ventual garment. 
 
 432 
 
EVELYN INNES 433 
 
 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 ' Tannhauser,' 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 in- 
 cluded 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 distrac- 
 tions which we believe make life endurable, to have 
 refused these things firom 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 wail- 
 ing a poor, pathetic music, so weak and feeble that it 
 
 2 E 
 
+3-1- EVELYN INNES 
 
 was almost interesting through its very feebleness, inter- 
 ested Evelyn, Tears trembled in her eyes, and she listened 
 to the poor voices rising and falling, breaking forth spas- 
 modically in the lamentable hymn. ' Desolate ' and ♦ for- 
 gotten' 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, vrere 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 remem- 
 bered 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 eiForts 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 m'jsic 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 
 cars of man, but beautiful in God's ears. God heard beyond 
 the mere notes ; the music of the intention vi'as ^'hat 
 
EVELYN INNES 
 
 435 
 
 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 intract- 
 able 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 
 
436 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 wonderfiil 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 conversa- 
 tion. 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! 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 437 
 
 up another book. The size of the volume and the dispro- 
 portion 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 some- 
 how 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 xmderstand ? 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 every- 
 thing, 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 
 
438 EVELYN INNliS 
 
 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 s'ich graceful, mediaeval lines as Evelyn had seen in 
 German cathedrals ; and her face was delicate and child- 
 like 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 439 
 
 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.' 
 
44-0 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 novi- 
 tiate, 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, 1 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 441 
 
 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 shaU 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 
 
4|2 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 school- 
 room 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 
 
EVELYN INMES 4+3 
 
 never would know anything, and wlio therefore would sus- 
 pect 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 re- 
 frained from taking the Reverend Mother into her confi- 
 dence, 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 read- 
 ing, 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 for- 
 ward and interrupt when she was interested in the con- 
 versation ; when she was not, she did not attempt to hide 
 
444 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 prac- 
 tice, 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 con- 
 versation then turned on the music at St Joseph's. Sister 
 Mary John listened, breaking suddenly in with some ques- 
 tion regarding Palestrina. She had never heard any of his 
 music ; would Miss Innes lend her some ? Was there no- 
 thing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 44; 
 
 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 some- 
 thing 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 morn- 
 ing ; we all got up to pray for her.' 
 
4+6 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ' 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 feing I regret is not having heard a 
 little music before I came here. But I've heard of Wagner ; 
 "ou sing Witgner, don't you, Miss Innes ? ' 
 
EVELYN INNES +47 
 
 « 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 
 
448 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Ovfen'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,' shesaid, 'I can sing it, but it w^ants 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 1 
 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 mm 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 449 
 
 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 Rev- 
 erend 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 fether, 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 un- 
 ceasing. 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 com- 
 munity? 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 
 
 2 F 
 
450 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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, par- 
 ticularly pious, and perceiving that they wore knickerbockers, 
 she judged them to be cyclists who had ridden up from Rich- 
 mond Park. They had come in probably to rest, having left 
 their machines at the inn. Even though she was con- 
 verted, 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 explana- 
 tion 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 con- 
 gregation. 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 451 
 
 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 
 
452 
 
 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 c&lm 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 decora- 
 tion 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 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 over- 
 powered 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 453 
 
 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 
 
45+ EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 con- 
 struct her life. Even in singing the 'Ave Maria,' she had 
 not been able to subdue her vanity. Her pleasure in sing- 
 ing 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 intoler- 
 able 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 direc- 
 tion. And applying the same reasoning to herself, she 
 
EVELYN INNES +SS 
 
 seemed to see a future for herself in which her love passions 
 would become transformed and find their complete expres- 
 sions 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 intel- 
 ligence, 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 any- 
 thing 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 con- 
 versation 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 
 
456 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 nims were walking 
 up and down, pressing round a central figure. They were 
 faint grey shadows, and their meaning would not be dis- 
 tinguished in the violet dusk. It was like a half-efFaced 
 picture in which the figures are nearly lost in the back- 
 ground ; 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. x\nd 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.' 
 
EVELYN INNES 457 
 
 *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 in- 
 terested, 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 v/hole manner. *Shesp^J:s,' 
 
458 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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. 
 
XXXV 
 
 She was ashamed not to be able to follow the Office in 
 chapel, so at the Reverend Mother's suggestion she con- 
 sented 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 
 v/ith 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 hov/ 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 
 
 459 
 
4.6o EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 armchair, 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 conversions, 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 
 efiForts to control her thoughts they wandered, and her 
 eyes, lost in reverie, were fixed on the sunny garden. 
 
 She returned the volume to the shelves, and remember- 
 ing Mother Mary Hilda's recommendation, she took down 
 a volume of Faber's works. She found his eiFusive, 
 sentimental style imendurable ; 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 Dar- 
 win and Spencer had undermined the foundations of her 
 faith, and the entire fabric of revelation was shower- 
 ing 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 4.61 
 
 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 snowflalces, 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 signi- 
 ficance. 
 
 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 per- 
 ceptions, 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 
 iilight tov/ards God. The soul sang love, love, love, and 
 
462 EVELYN INNES 
 
 heaven was overflowed with cries for its Divine Master, 
 for its adorable Master, for its Bridegroom-elect. 
 
 The extraordinary vehemence and passion, the daring real- 
 ism of St Teresa reminded Evelyn of Vittoria. She found the 
 same unrestrained passionate realism in both ; she thought of 
 Velasquez's early pictures, and then of Ribera. Then of 
 Ulick, who had told her that the great artist dared every- 
 thing. St Teresa had dared everything. She had dared 
 even to discriminate between her 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 contem- 
 plate, 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 pro- 
 ceeded 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 com- 
 plexities 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 463 
 
 * 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 per- 
 severe. 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 
 
464 EVELYN INNES 
 
 placed among the highest writers, among the great vision- 
 aries. ' 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 con- 
 vent. 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 p'ece 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 dis- 
 tinguish 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 465 
 
 The character of the book is clearly defined in the firs 
 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 regard- 
 ing 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 suiFer 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 im- 
 possible 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 
 
 2 c 
 
466 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 467 
 
 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 with- 
 out 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 help 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. 
 
468 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 made 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 feir. 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 nims lived a 
 life of that intense inward rapture which St Teresa deemed 
 essential if a sister were to be allowed to remain in the con- 
 vent 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 Rev- 
 erend 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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 469 
 
 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 wrould it be 
 promptly cut dow^n 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 shadovyy 
 shape sinking with a motion of fins amid the weeds. That 
 she should be living in a convent, that she should have re- 
 pented 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, ex- 
 alted, 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 won- 
 dered 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, 
 
470 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 exn.mine 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 
 
EVELYN INNES +71 
 
 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 hand- 
 kerchief, 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. Lean- 
 
472 EVELYN INNES 
 
 ing 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 has 
 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 situa- 
 tion, and his faith would be endangered if he lived among 
 Protestants.' 
 
 At this moment they were interrupted by a loud caw, 
 and looking round, Evel)^ saw the convent jackdaw. The 
 
EVELYN INNES 473 
 
 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 con- 
 vent life to the irregularity of the world. The bird hopped 
 about, feigning an interest in the worms, but getting gradu- 
 ally nearer the two women. At last, with a triumphant 
 caw caw, he flew on to Sister Mary John's shoulder, eye- 
 ing 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 caress- 
 ing 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 for- 
 ward 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 
 
474 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 fether'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. 
 
EVELYN INNES 475 
 
 'Miss In lies, 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 be only 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 
 
476 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 Hke 
 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 tinies 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 con- 
 vent 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 every- 
 thing,' 
 
 ' Reverend Mother, if you did not pass from the school- 
 room 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. 
 
F.VELYN INNES 477 
 
 My conscience kept me awake. I strove against the in- 
 evitable, 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 ad- 
 vice. 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 persecu- 
 tion and sacrilege, when prayer only survived in the 
 monasteries.' 
 
 Evelyn could not but aquiesce : 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 I 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 Peters' 
 walk tending the crosses and the statues of the Virgin 
 placed in nooks, or hanging on the branches. Some four 
 
478 EVELYN INNES 
 
 or five nuns were playing at ball on the terrace, and in 
 the plaintive autumn afternoon, there was something extra- 
 ordinarily touching in their simple amusement ; and she 
 had, perforce, to feel how much wiser was their childish- 
 ness 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 
 ,1 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 ; 
 
EVELYN INNES 479 
 
 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 
 successfiil 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 sing- 
 ing 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 Tannhauser goes back 
 to Venus. He who repents, he who has 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 
 
48o EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 hear- 
 ing 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 mur- 
 mured 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 pro- 
 long 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 
 
EVELYN INNES 481 
 
 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 wait- 
 ing 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 pre- 
 sence 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 roimd 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 inde- 
 structible, 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 
 
 2 H 
 
482 EVELYN INNES 
 
 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 in- 
 fluenced by the prayers that would be oiFered 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