Presently the music stopped. Instantly the tickling noise stopped too.

There was languid applause--the applause of smart people on a summer afternoon--from beyond the screen. Then the grave girl reappeared, looking graver and hot. Those who had been busily talking while she was playing gathered round her to express their delight in her kind accompaniment. The pianist hurried up to a stout man with a low, turned-down collar and a white satin tie, whose double chin, and general air of rather fatuous prosperity, proclaimed him the possessor of a tenor voice, and Miss Schley walked quietly, but with determination, up to where Lady Holme was sitting and took a seat beside her.

"Glad to meet you again," she drawled.

She called Leo Ulford with a sharp nod. He hesitated, and began to look supremely uncomfortable, twisting the bouquet of carnations round and round in nervous hands.

"I've been simply expiring all season to hear you sing," Miss Schley continued.

"How sweet of you!"

"That is so. Mr. Ulford, please bring my flowers."

Leo had no alternative but to obey. He came slowly towards the sofa, while the tenor and the pianist vanished behind the screen. That he was sufficiently sensitive to be conscious of the awkwardness of the situation Miss Schley had pleasantly contrived was very apparent.

He glowered upon Lady Holme, forcing his boyish face to assume a coarsely-determined and indifferent expression. But somehow the body, which she knew her husband had thrashed, looked all the time as if it were being thrashed again.

The voice of the hidden tenor rose in "_Celeste Aida!_" and Lady Holme listened with an air of definite attention, taking no notice of Leo. The music gave her a perfect excuse for ignoring him. But Miss Schley did not intend to be interfered with by anything so easily trampled upon as an art. Speaking in her most clear and choir-boyish tones, she said to Leo Ulford:

"Sit down, Mr. Ulford. You fidget me standing."

Then turning again to Lady Holme she continued:

"Mr. Ulford's been so lovely and kind. He came up all the way from Hertfordshire just to take care of marmar and me to-day. Marmar's fair and crazy about him. She says he's the most lovely feller in Europe."

Leo twisted the bouquet. He was sitting now on the edge of a chair, and shooting furtive glances in the direction of Lord Holme, who had begun to look extremely stupid, overwhelmed by the cool impudence of the American.

"Your husband looks as if he were perched around on a keg of rattlesnakes," continued Miss Schley, her clear voice mingling with the passionate tenor cry, "_Celeste Aida!_" "Ain't he feeling well to-day?"

"I believe he is perfectly well," said Lady Holme, in a very low voice.

It was odd, perhaps, but she did not feel at all angry, embarrassed, or even slightly annoyed, by Miss Schley's very deliberate attempt to distress her. Of course she understood perfectly what had happened and was happening. Fritz had spoken to the actress about her mimicry of his wife, had probably spoken blunderingly, angrily. Miss Schley was secretly furious at his having found out what she had been doing, still more furious at his having dared to criticise any proceeding of hers. To revenge herself at one stroke on both Lord and Lady Holme she had turned to Leo Ulford, whose destiny it evidently was to be used as a weapon against others. Long ago Lady Holme had distracted Leo's wandering glances from the American and fixed them on herself. With the instinct to be common of an utterly common nature Miss Schley had resolved to awake a double jealousy--of husband and wife--by exhibiting Leo Ulford as her _ami intime_, perhaps as the latest victim to her fascination. It was the vulgar action of a vulgar woman, but it failed of its effect in one direction. Lord Holme was stirred, but Lady Holme was utterly indifferent. Miss Schley's quick instinct told her so and she was puzzled. She did not understand Lady Holme. That was scarcely strange, for to-day Lady Holme did not understand herself. The curious mental detachment of which she had been conscious for some time had increased until it began surely to link itself with something physical, something sympathetic in the body that replied to it. She asked herself whether the angel were spreading her wings at last. All the small, sordid details of which lives lived in society, lives such as hers, are full, details which assume often an extraordinary importance, a significance like that of molecules seen through a magnifying glass, had suddenly become to her as nothing. A profound indifference had softly invaded her towards the petty side of life. Miss Schley, Leo Ulford, even Fritz in his suppressed rage and jealousy of a male animal openly trampled upon, had nothing to do with her, could have no effect on her at this moment.

She remembered that she had once sighed for release. Well, it seemed to her as if release were at hand.

The tenor finished his romance. Again the muffled applause sounded. As the singer came from behind the screen, wiping beads of perspiration from his self-satisfied face, Lady Holme got up and congratulated him.

Then she crossed over to her husband.

"Why don't you go into the concert-room, Fritz? You're missing everything, and you're only in the way here."

She did not speak unkindly. He said nothing, only cleared his throat.

"Go in," she said. "I should like to have you there while I am singing."

He cleared his throat again.

"Right you are."

He stared into her eyes with a sort of savage admiration.

"Cut her out," he said. "Cut her out! You can, and--damn her!--she deserves it."

Then he turned and went out.

Lady Holme felt rather sick for a moment. She knew she was going to sing well, she wished to sing well--but not in order to punish Miss Schley for having punished Fritz. Was everything she did to accomplish some sordid result? Was even her singing--the one thing in which Robin Pierce and some other divined a hidden truth that was beautiful--was even that to play its contemptible part in the social drama in which she was so inextricably entangled? Those gossamer threads were iron strands indeed.

Someone else was singing--her friend with the contralto voice.

She sat down alone in a corner. Presently the French actor began to give one of his famous monologues. She heard his wonderfully varied elocution, his voice--intelligence made audible and dashed with flying lights of humour rising and falling subtly, yet always with a curious sound of inevitable simplicity. She heard gentle titterings from the concealed audience, then a definite laugh, then a peal of laughter quite gloriously indiscreet. The people were waking up. And she felt as if they were being prepared for her. But why had Fritz looked like that, spoken like that? It seemed to spoil everything. To-day she felt too far away from--too far beyond, that was the truth--Miss Schley to want to enter into any rivalry with her. She wished very much that she had been placed first on the programme. Then there could have been no question of her cutting out the American.

As she was thinking this Miss Schley slowly crossed the room and came up to her.

"Lady Holme," she said, "I come next."

"Do you?"

"I do. And then you follow after."

"Well?"

"Say, would you mind changing it? It don't do to have two recitations one after the other. There ought to be something different in between."

Lady Holme looked at her quite eagerly, almost with gratitude.

"I'll sing next," she said quickly.

"Much obliged to you, I'm sure. You're perfectly sweet."

Lady Holme saw again a faint look of surprise on the American's white face, succeeded instantly by an expression of satisfaction. She realised that Miss Schley had some hidden disagreeable reason for her request.

She even guessed what it was. But she only felt glad that, whatever happened, no one could accuse her of trying to efface any effect made by Miss Schley upon the audience. As she sang before the "imitations,"

if any effect were to be effaced it must be her own. The voice of the French actor ceased, almost drowned in a ripple of laughter, a burst of quite warm applause. He reappeared looking calm and magisterial. The applause continued, and he had to go back and bow his thanks. The tenor, who had not been recalled, looked cross and made a movement of his double chin that suggested bridling.

"Now, Miss Schley!" said the pianist. "You come now!"

"Lady Holme has very kindly consented to go first," she replied.

Then she turned to the French actor and, in atrocious but very self-possessed French, began to congratulate him on his performance.

"Oh, well--" the pianist hurried up to Lady Holme. "You have really--very well then--these are the songs! Which do you sing first?

Very hot, isn't it?"

He wiped his long fingers with a silk pocket-handkerchief and took the music she offered to him.

"The Princesses seem very pleased," he added. "Marteau--charming composer, yes--very pleased indeed. Which one? '_C'est toi_'? Certainly, certainly."

He wiped his hands again and held out one to lead Lady Holme to the platform. But she ignored it gently and went on alone. He followed, carrying the music and perspiring. As they disappeared Miss Schley got up and moved to a chair close by the screen that hid the platform. She beckoned to Leo Ulford and he followed her.

As Lady Holme stepped on to the low platform, edged with a bank of flowers, it seemed to her as if with one glance she saw everyone in the crowded room, and felt at least something swiftly of each one's feeling.

The two Princesses sat together looking kind and serious. As she curtseyed to them they bowed to her and smiled. Behind them she saw a compact mass of acquaintances: Lady Cardington sitting with Sir Donald and looking terribly sad, even self-conscious, yet eager; Mrs. Wolfstein with Mr. Laycock; Mr. Bry, his eyeglass fixed, a white carnation in his coat; Lady Manby laughing with a fat old man who wore a fez, and many others. At the back she saw Fritz, standing up and staring at her with eyes that seemed almost to cry, "Cut her out!" And in the fourth row she saw a dreary, even a horrible, sight--Rupert Carey's face, disfigured by the vice which was surely destroying him, red, bloated, dreadfully coarsened, spotted. From the midst of the wreckage of the flesh his strange eyes looked out with a vivid expression of hopelessness. Yet in them burned fires, and in fire there is an essence of fierce purity. The soul in those eyes seemed longing to burn up the corruption of his body, longing to destroy the ruined temple, longing to speak and say, "I am in prison, but do not judge of the prisoner by examining the filthiness of his cell."

As Lady Holme took in the audience with a glance there was a rustle of paper. Almost everyone was looking to see if the programme had been altered. Lady Holme saw that suddenly Fritz had realised the change that had been made, and what it meant. An expression of anger came into his face.