“Evelyn, you’re going to say something disagreeable.  Don’t, I’ve had enough to worry me lately; there’s my mother’s health, and this, miserable attack of gout.”

“I hope you won’t think what I’ve come to say disagreeable, but one never knows.”  He waited anxiously, and after some pause she said, though it seemed to her that she had come to the point much too abruptly, “Owen, was it not arranged that we should marry when I left the stage?” She had not been able to lend herself to the diplomatic subtleties which she had been considering all the evening, and had stumbled in the first step.  But the mistake had been made, they were face to face with the question—­it was for her not to give way.  She had noticed the look that had passed between his eyes, and she was not surprised at the slight evasion of his answer, “But you are going to sing Kundry next year?” for she knew him to be naturally as averse to marriage as she was herself.

“I don’t think I should succeed as Kundry.  I don’t know what the part means.”

“But she’s a penitent.  You like penitents; your Elisabeth—­”

“Elizabeth is different.  Elizabeth is an inward penitent, Kundry is an external, and you know I can do nothing with externalities.”

He did not understand, and it was impossible to explain without entering into a complete exposition of Ulick’s idea regarding “Parsifal.”  The subject of “Parsifal” had always been disagreeable to him, but he had not been able to find any argument against the art of it.  So the criticism “revolting hypocrisy,” “externality,” and the statement that the prelude to “Lohengrin” was an inspiration, whereas the prelude to “Parsifal” was but a marvellous piece of handicraft, delighted him.  He had always known these things, but had not been able to give them expression.  He wondered how Evelyn had attained to so clear an understanding, and then, unconsciously detecting another mind in the argument, he said—­

“I wonder what Ulick Dean thinks of ‘Parsifal?’ Something original, I’m sure.”

She could not explain that she had not intended to deceive; she could not tell him that she was so pressed and obsessed by the question of her marriage that she hardly knew what she was saying, and had repeated Ulick’s ideas mechanically.  She already seemed to stand convicted of insincerity.  He evidently suspected her, and all the while he spoke of Ulick and “Parsifal,” she suffered a sort of trembling sickness, and that he should have perceived whence her enlightenment had come embittered her against him.  Suddenly he came to the end of what he had to say; their eyes met, and he said,—­

“Very well, Evelyn, we’ll be married next week; is that soon enough?”

The abruptness of his choice fell upon her so suddenly, that she answered stupidly that next week would do very well.  She felt that she ought to get up and kiss him, and she was painfully conscious that her expression was the reverse of pleased.