She looked at him beseechingly.
"Then it is true. I suppose it is true, but I wish I could feel this life to be true."
She looked up and saw the clouds moving across the sky; she looked down and saw the people passing along the streets.
"In a few days, in a few weeks, this life will seem quite real. But, if you cannot bear the present, how will you bear the success that is to come?"
"When I was a tiny girl, the other girls used to say, 'Evey, dear, do make that funny noise in your throat,' and that was my trill. But since mother's death everything went wrong; it seemed that I would never get out of Dulwich. I never should have if it had not been for you. I had ceased to believe that I had a voice."
"In that throat there are thousands of pounds."
Evelyn put her hand to her throat to assure herself that it was still on her shoulders.
"I wonder, I wonder. To think that in a year—in a year and a half—I shall be singing on the stage! They will throw me bouquets, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, you need have no fear about that; this park would not suffice to grow all the flowers that will be thrown at your feet."
"It seems impossible that I—poor, miserable I—should be moving towards such splendour. I wonder if I shall ever get there, and, if I do get there, if I shall be able to live through it. I cannot yet see myself the great singer you describe. Yet I suppose it is all quite certain."