For whatever reason she had certainly sung and acted with exceptional force and genius, and Margaret was at once lifted out of the obscurity into which it was slipping and took rank with her Elizabeth and her Elsa.  As they drove home together in the brougham after the performance, Owen assured her that she had infused a life and meaning into the part, and that henceforth her reading would have to be “adopted.”

“I wonder if father was there?  He was not in the box.  Did you look in the stalls?”

“Yes, but he was not there.  You’ll go and see him to-morrow.”

“No, not to-morrow, dear.”

“Why not to-morrow?”

“Because I want him to see the papers.  He may not have been in the theatre; on Thursday night is Lady Ascott’s ball; then on Friday—­I’ll go and see father on Friday.  I’ll try to summon courage.  But there is a rehearsal of ‘Tannhaeuser’ on Friday.”

And so that she might not be too tired on Friday morning, Owen insisted on her leaving the ball-room at two o’clock, and their last words, as he left her on her doorstep, were that she would go to Dulwich before she went to rehearsal.  But in the warmth of her bed, not occupied long enough to restore to the body the strength of which a ball-room had robbed it, her resolution waned, and her brain, weak from insufficient sleep, shrank from the prospect of a long drive and a face of stone at the end of it.  She sat moodily sipping her chocolate and brioche.

“You were at the opera last night, Merat.  Was Mademoiselle Helbrun a success?”

“No, mademoiselle, I’m afraid not.”

“Ah!” Evelyn put down her cup and looked at her maid.  “I’m sorry, but I thought she wouldn’t succeed in London.  She was coldly received, was she?”

“Yes, mademoiselle.”

“I’m sorry, for she’s a true artist.”

“She has not the passion of mademoiselle.”

A little look of pleasure lit up Evelyn’s face.

“She is a charming singer.  I can’t think how she could have failed.  Did you hear any reason given?”

“Yes, mademoiselle, I met Mr. Ulick Dean.”

“What did he say?  He’d know.”

“He said that Mademoiselle Helbrun’s was the true reading of the part.  But ‘Carmen’ had lately been turned into a femme de la balle, and, of course, since the public had tasted realism it wanted more.  I thought Mademoiselle Helbrun rather cold.  But then I’m one of the public.  Mademoiselle has not yet told me what I am to tell the coachman.”

“You do not listen to me, Merat,” Evelyn answered in a sudden access of ill humour.  “Instead of accepting the answer I choose to give, you stop there in the intention of obtaining the answer which seems to you the most suitable.  I told you to tell the coachman that he was to get a map and acquaint himself with the way to Dulwich.”