Evelyn Innes | Page 9

and looked at her, a delicious
sensation penetrated through the very tissues of her flesh, and she
experienced the tremor of a decisive moment; and then there came
again a gentle sense of delicious bewilderment and illusion.
She did not know how it would all happen, but her life seemed for the
first time to have come to a definite issue. The very moment he had
spoken of Madame Savelli, the great singing mistress, it was as if a
light had begun in her brain, and she saw a faint horizon line; she
seemed to see Paris from afar; she knew she would go there to study,
and that night she had fallen asleep listening to the applause of three
thousand hands.
But she did not like to stand before him, offering him first the cup of
tea, then the milk and sugar, then the cake, and bread and butter. Her
repugnance had nothing to do with him; it was an obscure feeling, quite
incomprehensible to herself. When he looked up she answered him

with a smile which she felt to be mysterious, and he perceived its
mystery, for he compared it to the hesitating smile of the Monna Lisa, a
print of which hung on the wall. But the remark increased her
foreboding and premonition. And she was sorry for her father, who was
saying that he hoped to send her abroad in the spring; that he would
have done so before, but she was studying harmony with him. And she
could see that Owen was bored. He was only staying on in the hope of
speaking to her, but she knew that her father was not going out, so there
was no chance of their having a few words together. His invitation to
Mr. Innes to bring the instruments to London, and give a concert
to-morrow night at Berkeley Square, he had reserved till the moment he
had got up to go. Mr. Innes was taken aback. He doubted if there would
be time to get the instruments to London. But Owen said that all that
was necessary was a Pickford van, and that if he would say "Yes," the
van and a competent staff of packers would be at Dulwich in the
morning, and would take all further trouble off his hands. The question
was debated. Mr. Innes thought the instruments had better go by train,
and Owen could not help smiling when he said that he would arrive
with the big harpsichord and Evelyn about nine or half-past.
She had two evening gowns--a pale green silk and a white. The pale
green looked very nice; it had cost her three pounds. The white had
nearly ruined her, but it had seemed to suit her so well that she had not
been able to resist, and had paid five pounds ten, a great deal for her to
spend on a dress. Its great fault was that it soiled at the least touch. She
had worn it three times, and could not wear it again till it had been
cleaned. It was a pity, but there was no help for it. She would have to
wear the green, and to console herself she thought of the compliments
she had had for it at different parties. But these seemed insignificant
when she thought of the party she was going to to-night.
She had never been to Berkeley Square, and expected to be surprised.
But it lay in a hollow, a dignified, secluded square, exactly as she had
imagined it. Nor did the great doorway, and the carpet that stretched
across the pavement for her to walk upon, surprise her, nor the lines of
footmen, nor the natural grace of the wide staircase. She seemed to
have seen it all before, only she could not remember where. It came

back to her like a dream. She seemed to recognise the pictures of the
goddesses, the Holy Families and the gold mirrors; and lifting her eyes,
she saw Owen at the head of the stairs, and he smiled so familiarly, that
it seemed strange to think that this was only the third time she had seen
him.
He introduced her father to a fashionable musician, whose pavanes and
sonatas were composed with that lack of matter and excess of erudition
which delight the amateur and irritate the artist, and he walked down
the rooms looking for seats where they could talk undisturbed for a few
minutes. He was nervous lest Georgina should find him sitting with this
girl in an intimate corner, but he did not expect her for another
half-hour, and could not resist the temptation. He was curious to know
how far Evelyn acquiesced in the obscure lot which her father imposed
upon her, to play the viola da gamba, and