“You, Sir Owen, if you will be kind enough.”

The card-players were glad to lay down their cards and the women to cease talking of their friends’ love affairs.  All the world over it is the same, a soprano voice subjugating all other interests; soprano or tenor, baritone much less, contralto still less.  Many came forward to thank her, and, a little intoxicated with her success, she began to talk to some of her women friends, thinking it unwise to go back into a shadowy corner with Owen, making herself the subject of remark; for though her love story with Owen Asher had long ceased to be talked about, a new interest in it had suddenly sprung up, owing to the fact that she had sent Owen away, and was thinking of becoming a nun—­even to such an extent her visit to the convent had been exaggerated; and as the women lagging round her had begun to try to draw from her an account of the motives which had induced her to leave the stage, and the moment not seeming opportune, even if it were not ridiculous at any moment to discuss spiritual endeavour with these women, she determined to draw a red herring across the trail.  She told them that the public were wearying of Wagner’s operas, taste was changing, light opera was coming into fashion.

“And in light opera I should have no success whatever, so I was obliged to turn from the stage to the concert-room.”

“We thought it was the religious element in Wagner.”

A card party had come from a distant drawing-room and joined in the discussion regarding the decline of art, and it was agreed that motor-cars had done a great deal to contribute—­perhaps they had nothing to do with the decline of Wagner—­but they had contributed to the decline of interest in things artistic.  This was the opinion of two or three agreeable, good-looking young men; and Evelyn forgot the women whom she had previously been talking to; and turning to the men, she engaged in conversation and talked on and on until the clock struck eleven.  Then the disposition of every one was for bed.  Whispers went round, and Lady Ascott trotted upstairs with Evelyn, hoping she would find her room comfortable.

It was indeed a pleasant room, wearing an air of youthfulness, thanks to its chintz curtains.  The sofa was winning and the armchairs desirable, and there were books and a reading-lamp if Evelyn should feel disposed to draw the armchair by the fire and read for an hour before going to bed.  The writing-table itself, with its pens and its blotting-book, and notepaper so prettily stamped, seemed intended to inveigle the occupant of the room into correspondence with every friend she had in the world; and Evelyn began to wonder to whom she might write a letter as soon as Lady Ascott left the room.