§ 1
ARRIVED at Gifford Road one summer’s evening after a dusty journey on top of a crowded motor-bus, Catherine took pen and paper immediately (without taking off her hat) and wrote:
DEAR MR. VERREKER,
I am thinking of giving a pianoforte recital in one of the London concert halls. I should be very grateful for your advice and assistance in the matter. Will you do this for me?
Yours sincerely,
CATHERINE WESTON.
When Catherine had set out some hours before she had had no thoughts of a pianoforte recital. To be sure, the idea was always revolving more or less nebulously in her line of vision, but till this moment it had lacked definition. A pianoforte recital involved a good deal of risk. It meant hours and hours of preparatory practice, much worry and anxiety, and the possible loss of a good deal of money. It meant running the gauntlet of all the blasé and supercilious musical critics. It meant learning some good solid “background” piece of work to placate the British public—something heavy and hackneyed and academic—a Brahms sonata or some Beethoven pomposity. And to consult Verreker on the matter was merely to invite showers of disappointment and disillusionment. He would assuredly recommend her not to attempt a recital. He would tell her candidly that her abilities were not equal to it. And if she insisted, he would tell her to go somewhere else for advice: he would not risk his reputation by backing her. He would be violently rude and outspoken. He would repeat his dictum that she could never advance beyond the front rank of the second-raters....
She knew all these things. She had thought of them, weighed them up, and counted them nothing. She was impulsive, but she knew whither her impulse led and what it involved. She knew that Verreker would insult her.... And yet she wrote to him.
As she ran joyously down Gifford Road to post the letter she thought: “What will he think of my note? What will he think of the wording of it? How will the concluding sentence affect him?—‘Will you do this for me?’—So charming, so delightfully personal, so intimate, with a dash of roguish coquetry! But will he see all that?—or will he think it merely impudent?”
Anyway, she decided, I should get an answer by Wednesday morning....