“What you’ve just been talking about. I don’t understand in the least.... You say he heard you at a concert?”
“Well, I presume so, anyway. What remarkably short memories you musical people have! Razounov apparently heard me at the concert, and sent me a message to come and see him the next day. You ought to remember that: it was you yourself who brought it. You tracked me down to the Forest Hotel.”
“Yes, yes. I remember that.... But the concert?”
She was becoming more and more sarcastic as his mystification increased.
“Oh yes, the concert. I played Liszt’s Concert Etude in A flat (the one you don’t like). As I remarked before, presumably Razounov heard me, or else why should he send for me to——”
“I am afraid you have presumed falsely,” he interrupted. (She shivered at the stateliness of the phrasing: it reminded her of “I know of no reason at all.”) “Razounov could not possibly have heard you play. He never attends local concerts. Besides, he must have been on at the Hippo——”
“Then why did he send for me?” she cried shrilly.
He scratched his chin reflectively. She hated him for that gesture.
“I believe—I think he did tell me once.... I fancy it was something rather unusual. Somebody—I can’t tell you who, because I believe I’m pledged to secrecy—wrote to Razounov offering to pay for a course of lessons for you. His name was to be kept out of it. I mean, the name of the person.”
He frowned irritably at the slip of his tongue, and still more at the rash correction which had given prominence to it.