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 likely 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 back with the finest soprano voice in Europe, and an engagement to sing at Covent Garden at a salary of L400 a week, the world would close its ears to scandal, the world would deny that any violation of its rules had been committed; but to return after an escapade of a week in Paris would be 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 punishment 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.