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.”

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!  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.