§ 1
SHE waited fully ten minutes in the drawing-room at “Claremont.” “Mr. Verreker will be here directly,” the maid had said, and Catherine had time to look about her. It was a lovely May evening: the windows were wide open at the bottom, and from the garden came the rich cloying scent of wallflowers. Somebody was working a lawn-mower.
He came in two minutes after the sound of the lawn-mower had ceased. There were scraps of grass about the fringes of his trousers.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he announced briskly.
“Don’t mention it,” she murmured, with perhaps a trace of sarcasm.
“I oughtn’t to, really, ought I?” he then said, “since you kept me waiting an hour last Saturday.”
She said nothing, but the atmosphere was definitely hostile.
He asked her what pieces she played. She told him. He took a sheet of paper, and scribbled them down as she recited them. He made no comment till she had said, “and a few others.”
“Ambitious!” he muttered, pondering over the list.
“Oh yes, I am, very.” She thought she would seize this opportunity of letting him know.
“Well, play the Debussy,” he said.
She did so.
“H’m!” he said, when she had finished.