'Never!' said Miss Gardner. 'Good-bye all!'
Thus ended Miss Gardner's long career as an operatic artist—and not without pathos, for the ageing woman sobbed as she left the room from which she had been driven by a pitiless child.
According to custom Harry Burgess set out from the National School, where the rehearsals were held, with Ethel and Milly for Hillport. But at the bottom of Church Street Ethel silently fell behind and joined a fourth figure which had approached. The two couples walked separately to Hillport by the field-path. As Harry and Milly opened the wicket at the foot of Stanway's long garden, Ethel ran up, alone again.
'That you?' cried a thin voice under the trees by the gate. It was Rose, taking late exercise after her studies.
'Yes, it's us,' replied Harry. 'Shall you give me a whisky if I come in?'
And he entered the house with the three girls.
'I'm certain Rose saw you with Fred in the field, and if she did she's sure to split to mother,' Milly whispered as she and Ethel ran upstairs. They could hear Harry already strumming on the piano.
'I don't care!' said Ethel callously, exasperated by three days of futility at the office, and by the manifest injustice of fate.
'My dear, I want to speak to you,' said Leonora to Ethel, when the informal supper was over, and Harry had buckishly departed, and Rose and Milly were already gone upstairs. Not a word had been mentioned as to the great episode of the rehearsal.