him. It was terrible to think of, but it was
so, and nothing could change it. He tried to recall
his exact words, and easily imagined her father stricken
with remorse, and Evelyn looking across the table,
hating him in spite of herself. But if he could
persuade her to leave him for two years he would engage
to bring her back a great singer. And what an
interest it would be to watch the development of that
voice, surely the most beautiful soprano he had ever
heard! She might begin with “Margaret”
and “Norma,” if she liked, for in singing
these popular operas she would acquire the whole of
her voice, and also the great reputation which should
precede and herald the final stage of her career.
“Isolde,” “Brunnhilde,” “Kundry,”
Wagner’s finest works, had remained unsung—they
en merely howled. Evelyn should be the first
to sing them. His eyes glowed with subdued passion
as he thought of an afternoon, some three years hence,
in the great theatre planned by the master himself,
when he should see her rush in as the Witch Kundry.
The marvellous evocation of Arabia flashed upon him....
Would he ever hear her sing it?... Yes, if she
would consent to go away with him he would hear her
sing it. But would she go away with him?
Her love of her father, and her religion, might prevent
her.... She might not even care for him....
She might be thinking of marrying him. Was it
possible that she was such a fool! What good would
it do her to marry him? She could not go on the
stage as Lady Asher. Lady Asher as Kundry!
Could anything be more grotesque? How beset life
was with difficulties! Without her vocation she
was no longer the Evelyn Innes he was in love with....
Someone else, a pretty, interesting girl, the daughter
of a suburban organist. To marry her now would
be to ruin her. But he might marry her five or
six years hence, for there was no reason why she should
continue singing “Isolde” and “Brunnhilde”
till she had no shred of voice left. When she
had established a standard she would have achieved
her mission, then it would be for others to maintain
the standard. In the full blaze of her glory
she might become Lady Asher. He would have to
end his life somehow, that way as well as another.
Five years are a long while—anything might
happen. She might leave him for someone else
... anything—anything—anything
might happen. It was impossible to divine the
turn human lives would take. The simple fact of
his elopement contained a dozen different stories in
germ. Each would find opportunities of development;
they would struggle for mastery; which would succeed?...
Keep women you couldn’t; he had long ago found
out that. Marry them, and they came to hate the
way you walked across the room; remain their lover,
and they jilted you at the end of six months.
He had hardly ever heard of a liaison lasting
more than a year or eighteen months, and Evelyn would
meet all the nicest men in Europe. All Europe
would be his rival—really it would be better