“Then it is true.  I suppose it is true, but I wish I could feel this life to be true.”

She looked up and saw the clouds moving across the sky; she looked down and saw the people passing along the streets.

“In a few days, in a few weeks, this life will seem quite real.  But, if you cannot bear the present, how will you bear the success that is to come?”

“When I was a tiny girl, the other girls used to say, ’Evey, dear, do make that funny noise in your throat,’ and that was my trill.  But since mother’s death everything went wrong; it seemed that I would never get out of Dulwich.  I never should have if it had not been for you.  I had ceased to believe that I had a voice.”

“In that throat there are thousands of pounds.”

Evelyn put her hand to her throat to assure herself that it was still on her shoulders.

“I wonder, I wonder.  To think that in a year—­in a year and a half—­I shall be singing on the stage!  They will throw me bouquets, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, you need have no fear about that; this park would not suffice to grow all the flowers that will be thrown at your feet.”

“It seems impossible that I—­poor, miserable I—­should be moving towards such splendour.  I wonder if I shall ever get there, and, if I do get there, if I shall be able to live through it.  I cannot yet see myself the great singer you describe.  Yet I suppose it is all quite certain.”

“Quite certain.”

“Then why can’t I imagine it?”

“We cannot imagine ourselves in other than our present circumstances; the most commonplace future is as unimaginable as the most extravagant.”

“I suppose that is so.”

The carriage stopped at the Continental, and he asked her what she would like to do.  It was just five.

“Come and have a cup of tea in the Rue Cambon.”

She consented, and, after tea, he said, standing with one foot on the carriage step—­

“If you’ll allow me to advise you, you will go for a drive in the Bois by yourself.  I want to see some pictures.”

“May I not come?”

“Certainly, if you like, but I don’t think you could give your attention to pictures; you’re thinking of yourself, and you want to be alone with yourself—­nothing else would interest you.”

A pretty flush of shame came into her cheeks.  He had seen to the bottom of her heart, and discovered that of which she herself was not aware.  But, now that he had told her, she knew that she did want to be alone—­not alone in a room, but alone among a great number of people.  A drive in the Bois would be a truly delicious indulgence of her egotism.  The Champs Elysees floated about her happiness, the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne seemed to stretch out and to lead to the theatre of her glory; and, looking at the lake, its groups of pines, its gondola-like boats, she recalled, and with little thrills of pleasure, the exact words that madame had used—­