of it here and there, to question him regarding certain readings, to get at his ideas concerning it.  All that was very interesting and very valuable in a way, but it was not hard work, and she felt, moreover, that hard work was just what she wanted before the rehearsals of “Tristan” began; there were certain passages where she was not sure of herself.  She thought of the cry Isolde utters in the third act when Tristan falls dead.  The orchestra comes in then in a way very perplexing for the singer, and she had not yet succeeded in satisfying herself with those few bars.

“Tell the young man that I shall be with him in half an hour.”

And when she had had her bath and her hair was dressed, she tied a few petticoats round her waist and slipped on a morning wrapper; that was enough, she paid no heed to her accompanist, treating him as if he were her hairdresser.  She sang sitting close to his elbow, her arm familiarly laid upon the back of his chair, a little grey woollen shawl round her shoulders.  In the passages requiring the whole of her voice, she got up and sang them right through, as if she were on the stage, listened to by five thousand people.  Owen, accustomed as he was to her voice, sometimes couldn’t help wondering at the power of it; the volume of sound issuing from her throat drowned the piano, threatening to break its strings.  Her ear was so fine that it detected any slightest tampering with the text.  “You have given me a false chord,” she would say; and sure enough, the pianist’s fingers had accidentally softened some harshness.  Sometimes he ventured a slight criticism.  “You should hold the note a little longer.”  Then she would sing the passage again.

After singing for about two hours she had lunch.  That day she was lunching with Lady Ascott, and did not get away until after three o’clock.  Owen came to fetch her, and they went away to see pictures.  But more present than the pictures were Ulick’s dark eyes, and Owen noticed the shadow passing constantly behind her eyes.  Twice she asked him what the time was, and she told him she would have to go soon.

At last she said, “Now I must say good-bye.”

She could see he was troubled, and that she grieved him, and at one moment it was uncertain whether she would not renounce her visit and send Ulick a telegram.  But she remembered that he had probably seen her father, and would be able to tell her more of what her father thought of her Elizabeth.  It was that feeble excuse that sufficed to decide her conduct, and she bade him good-bye.

Standing on the threshold of her drawing-room, Evelyn admired its symmetry and beauty.  The wall paper, a delicate harmony in pale brown and pink roses, soothed the eye; the design was a lattice, through which the flowers grew.  An oval mirror hung lengthwise above the white marble chimney piece, and the Louis XV. clock was a charming composition of two figures.  A Muse in a simple attitude leaned a little to the