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A STRANGE thing had happened. Something unbelievable, something half-expected yet absolutely incredible when it happened. She had scored a brilliant success....
In the small room behind the concert hall the applause was still echoing in her ears. She looked proudly in the mirror and she saw herself flushed and triumphant. She knew instinctively that she had been hugely successful. She knew that she had exceeded her own expectations. Something had gripped her and carried her magnificently forward. And even the critics had smiled dourly upon her.
A press association man had requested an interview.... A photographer’s agency had asked for permission to photograph her.... And her vanity suggested: The next visitor ought to be from a gramophone company asking to record my playing.... But this proved premature....
She stood in front of the mirror and told herself in mad ecstasy: It’s done! You’ve done it! You’ve passed the barrier! Henceforward no more worries—no more fits of disappointment—no more dashed hopes—no more thwarted ambitions! This breaks up all pessimism. Whatever fit of despondency you fall into the remembrance of to-day will lift you out of it. You have in this an unfailing antidote for depression.... Taste this moment to the full—it will never grow stale, but it will not always be so fragrant as now. Drink in the ecstasy of success! ... The tears welled up in her eyes as she yielded to the enchantment of realization.
She looked at her hands. Strange, weirdly fascinating things—that could achieve what they had achieved! Wonderful fingers that could lift her so magically on to the pinnacles of fame!
Verreker entered. During the performance he had occupied an inconspicuous seat about the middle of the hall. He was dressed professionally—that is, in a dark lounge suit which threw into prominence his barbaric cast of countenance.
“Well,” he began, “I suppose I ought to congratulate you——”
She gave him an extraordinary glance of mingled triumph and defiance.
“You ought,” she said, “but you’re not going to, are you?”
He smiled grimly. “On the contrary,” he replied, “I will compliment you so far as to say that your playing was extraordinarily good.”
Like an impulsive child she seized hold of his coat sleeve.
“Say it again!” she cried ecstatically. “Oh, do say it again! That’s the biggest compliment you’ve ever paid me, and I do love being praised! Say it again!” She was looking up into his face with delirium in her eyes. Also she was trembling, and her hot fingers tightened over his wrist.
“Don’t get excited,” he replied reprovingly. “And don’t imagine you’re famous all at once. You didn’t play the Mozart very brilliantly.”
She laughed hysterically.
“I don’t care what you say about that! You’re trying to unsay that compliment and you can’t! I don’t care whether you say it again or not—you’ve said it once. And I shall remember!”
“You shouldn’t live for compliments.”
“I don’t. But I should die without them.”
“You’re much too excited. Calm down.”
“I can’t.... Oh, I can’t.... I feel I shall never be calm again.”
“Well, get home as quietly as you can, anyway. I’m not going back to Upton Rising to-night or I’d take you.... Don’t think too much of yourself ... Good-bye!”
He went abruptly from the room.
She gazed after him and then again at herself in the mirror. A man appeared at the door and asked if she wanted a cab.
“Oh yes—a taxi,” she said, and was thrilled at the polygon significance of what had happened. Now she was suddenly translated to that social sphere in which taxis are habitually employed....