“Yes, and the brute says he won’t give me any more lessons. Oh, not because I don’t need any more—he made that delightfully clear, though, of course, one knew it—but because I won’t take it up professionally!”
He lit his cigarette and turned around to Edith.
“Why should I?” he said. “We really had rather a row; he says it isn’t fair on him.”
Edith felt so keenly on this point that before she answered she had to remind herself that she had met this young man for the first time that evening.
“Ah, I see his point of view, I must say!” she said. “No voice is, as we both know, worth anything till it is trained. You owe him a good deal; everyone who hears you sing owes him a good deal.”
“But I don’t want to,” said Hugh, as if that quite settled the matter.
He paused a moment.
“Do let me consult you,” he said, “if it doesn’t bore you. You see, what has happened is that the Opera Syndicate have asked him if I would take an engagement for next year. That’s what we had a row about.”
“Did you definitely say you would not?”
“Yes, but he refused to take any answer until I had thought about it. He said I must take a fortnight to consider it.”