The day drew near for Ada Wellington's debut. Alma met this young lady, but they did not take to each other; Miss Wellington was a trifle 'loud', and, unless Alma mistook, felt fiercely jealous of any one admired by Felix Dymes. As she could not entertain at their own house (somewhere not far south of the Thames), Mrs. Wellington borrowed Dymes's flat for an afternoon, and there, supported by the distinguished composer, received a strange medley of people who interested themselves in her daughter's venture. Alma laughed at the arrangement, and asked Dymes if he expected her congratulations.
'Don't make fun of them,' said Felix. 'Of course, they're not your sort, Alma. But I've known them all my life, and old Wellington did me more than one good turn when I was a youngster. Ada won't make much of it, but she'll squeeze in among the provincial pros after this send off.'
'You really are capable of generosity?' asked Alma.
'I swear there's nothing between us. There's only one woman living that I have eyes for—and I'm afraid she doesn't care a rap about me; at all events, she treats me rather badly.'
This dialogue took place in a drawing-room the evening before Miss Wellington's day. Alma had declined to meet her agent a second time at the Apollo Theatre; they saw each other, by arrangement, at this and that house of common friends, and corresponded freely by post, Dymes's letters always being couched in irreproachable phrase. Whenever the thing was possible, he undisguisedly made love, and Alma bore with it for the sake of his services. He had obtained promises from four musicians of repute to take part in Alma's concert, and declared that the terms they asked were lower than usual, owing to their regard for him. The expenses of the recital, without allowing for advertisements, would amount to seventy or eighty pounds; and Dymes guaranteed that the hall should produce at least that. Alma, ashamed to appear uneasy about such paltry sums, always talked as though outlay mattered nothing.
'Don't stint on advertisements,' she said.
'No fear! Leave that to me,' answered Felix, with a smile of infinite meaning.
Ada Wellington could not afford to risk much money, and Alma thought her announcements in the papers worth nothing at all. However, the pianist was fairly successful; a tolerable audience was scraped together (at Steinway Hall), and press notices of a complimentary flavour, though brief, appeared in several quarters. With keen anxiety Alma followed every detail. She said to herself that if her appearance in public made no more noise than this, she would be ready to die of mortification. There remained a fortnight before the ordeal; had they not better begin to advertise at once? Thus she wrote to Dymes, who replied by sending her three newspapers, in each of which a paragraph of musical gossip informed the world that Mrs. Harvey Rolfe was about to give her first public violin recital at Prince's Hall. Mrs. Rolfe, added the journalists in varying phrase, was already well known to the best musical circles as an amateur violinist, and great interest attached to her appearance in public, a step on which she had decided only after much persuasion of friends and admirers. Already there was considerable demand for tickets, and the audience would most certainly be both large and distinguished. Alma laughed with delight.
The same day, by a later post, she received a copy of a 'society' journal, addressed in a hand unknown to her. Guided by a red pencil mark, she became aware of no less than a quarter of a column devoted to herself. From this she might learn (if she did not already know it) that Mrs. Harvey Rolfe was a lady of the utmost personal and social charm; that her beauty was not easily described without the use of terms that would sound extravagant; that as a violinist she had stood for a year or two facile princeps amid lady amateurs; that she had till of late lived in romantic seclusion 'amid the noblest scenery of North Wales', for the sole purpose of devoting herself to music; and that only with the greatest reluctance had she consented to make known to the public a talent—nay, a genius—which assuredly was 'meant for mankind'. She was the favourite pupil of that admirable virtuoso, Herr Wilenski. At Prince's Hall, on the sixteenth of May, all lovers of music would have, &c, &c.
This batch of newspapers Alma laid before dinner on Harvey's desk, and about an hour after the meal she entered the library. Her husband, smoking and meditating, looked up constrainedly.