The curtain was raised several times, but that night the only applause or censure she was minded to hear awaited her in her dressing-room.  She sent her maid out of the room, and waited for some sound of footsteps in the corridor, and at the first sound she rushed to the door and flung it open.  It was her father, Merat was bringing him along the corridor, and they stood looking at each other; her clear, nervous eyes were trembling with emotion.  His face seemed to tell her that he was pleased; she read upon it the calm exaltation of art, yet she could not however summon sufficient courage to ask him, and they sat down side by side.  At last she said—­

“Why don’t you speak?  Aren’t you satisfied?  Was I so bad?”

“You are a great artist, Evelyn.  I wish your mother were here to hear you.”

“Is that really true?  Say it again, father.  You are satisfied with me.  Then I have succeeded.”

He told her why she had sung well, and he knew so well.  It was like walking with a man with a lantern; when he raised the light, she could see a little farther into the darkness.  But she had still the prayer to sing to him.  She wanted to know what he would think of her singing of the prayer.  The voice of the call-boy interrupted them.  She sang the prayer more purely than ever, and the flutes and clarionettes led her up a shining road, and when she walked up the stage she seemed to disappear amid the palpitation of the stars.

Her father was waiting for her, and on their way to the station she could see that he was absorbed in her art of singing.  His remarks were occasional and disparate, but she guessed his train of thought, supplying easily the missing links.  His praise was all inferential, and this made it more delicate and delicious.  On bidding him good-night he asked her to come to choir practice.  She would have liked to, but her accompanist was coming at half-past ten.

There were few days when she was not singing at night that she dispensed with her morning’s work.  She considered herself like a gymnast, bound to go through her feats in private, so as to assure herself of her power of being able to go through them in public.  Even when she knew a part, she did not like to sing it many times without studying it afresh.  She believed that once a week was as often as it was possible to give a Wagner opera, and even then an occasional rehearsal was indispensable if the first high level of excellence was to be maintained.

With her morning’s work she allowed no one to interfere.  Owen was often sent away, or retained for such a time as his criticism might be of use.  But to-day she was expecting Ulick; he had promised to go through the music with her; so when Merat came to tell her that the pianist had arrived, she hesitated, uncertain whether she should send him away.  But after a moment’s reflection she decided not to forego her serious study of the part.  She only wished to talk to Ulick about the music, to sing bits