She knew very well the meaning of the duet, when Siegfried adventures through the fire-surrounded mountain and wakes Brunnhilde with a kiss.  That duet meant the joy of life, the rapture of awakening to the adventure of life, the delight of the swirling current of ephemeral things.  And the duet that she was going to sing; she knew what that meant too.  It meant the desire to possess.  Desire finding a barrier to complete possession in the flesh would break off the fleshly lease, and enter the great darkness where alone was union and rest.

But she could not discover the idea in the “Lohengrin” duet?  Senta she understood, and she thought she understood Kundry.  She had not yet begun to study the part.  But Elsa?  Suddenly the thought that, if she was going to Dulwich, she must get up, struck her like a spur, and she sprang out of bed, and laying her finger on the electric bell she kept the button pressed till Merat arrived breathless.

“Merat, I shall get up at once; prepare my bath, and tell the coachman I shall be ready to start in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?  Mademoiselle is joking.”

“No, I am not ... in twenty minutes—­half-an-hour at the most.”

“It would be impossible for me to dress you in less than three-quarters of an hour.”

“I shall be dressed in half-an-hour.  Go and tell the coachman at once; I shall have had my bath when you return.”

Her dressing was accomplished amid curt phrases.  “It doesn’t matter, that will do....  I can’t afford to waste time....  Come, Merat, try to get on with my hair.”

And while Merat buttoned her boots, she buttoned her gloves.  She wore a grey, tailor-made dress and a blue veil tied round a black hat with ostrich feathers.  Escaping from her maid’s hands, she ran downstairs.  But the dining-room door opened, and Lady Duckle intervened.

“My dear girl, you really cannot go out before you have had something to eat.”

“I cannot stay; I’ll get something at the theatre.”

“Do eat a cutlet, it will not take a moment ... a mouthful of omelette.  Think of your voice.”

There were engravings after Morland on the walls, and the silver on the breakfast-table was Queen Anne—­the little round tea urn Owen and Evelyn had picked up the other day in a suburban shop; the horses, whose glittering red hides could be seen through the window, had been bought last Saturday at Tattersall’s.  Evelyn went to the window to admire them, and Lady Duckle’s thoughts turned to the coachman.

“He sent in just now to ask for a map of London.  It appears he doesn’t know the way, yet, when I took up his references, I was assured that he knew London perfectly.”

“Dulwich is very little known; it is at least five miles from here.”

“Oh, Dulwich!... you’re going there?”

“Yes, I ought to have gone the day after we arrived in London. ...  I wanted to; I’ve been thinking of it all the time, and the longer I put it off the more difficult it will become.”