She was in a mood of childish impressionableness. When she reached High Wood she found the great green arena round the tram terminus dotted with couples.... She was not in the mood to call anything vulgar. She was amazed at the things she had missed. She remembered countless evenings at the Victoria Theatre when she had heard comedians make cheap witticisms about love and the twilight.... And now, sauntering about the fringe of the Forest, she glanced hastily at each couple as she passed them and asked herself: “Is this love?”
Even in the noisy procession of youths and maidens arm-in-arm and singing music-hall ditties, she could not discern vulgarity. And the scampering of brown-legged and bare-footed urchins over the dark turf was nothing but pure poetry. Life—life, she echoed in her mind, and did not quite know why she did so.... And a single glance down the long High Road, where the swirling trams glittered like a chain of gems, made her wish to cry with the very ecstasy of being alive....
CHAPTER XV
SUCCESS
§ 1
A STRANGE thing had happened. Something unbelievable, something half-expected yet absolutely incredible when it happened. She had scored a brilliant success....
In the small room behind the concert hall the applause was still echoing in her ears. She looked proudly in the mirror and she saw herself flushed and triumphant. She knew instinctively that she had been hugely successful. She knew that she had exceeded her own expectations. Something had gripped her and carried her magnificently forward. And even the critics had smiled dourly upon her.
A press association man had requested an interview.... A photographer’s agency had asked for permission to photograph her.... And her vanity suggested: The next visitor ought to be from a gramophone company asking to record my playing.... But this proved premature....
She stood in front of the mirror and told herself in mad ecstasy: It’s done! You’ve done it! You’ve passed the barrier! Henceforward no more worries—no more fits of disappointment—no more dashed hopes—no more thwarted ambitions! This breaks up all pessimism. Whatever fit of despondency you fall into the remembrance of to-day will lift you out of it. You have in this an unfailing antidote for depression.... Taste this moment to the full—it will never grow stale, but it will not always be so fragrant as now. Drink in the ecstasy of success! ... The tears welled up in her eyes as she yielded to the enchantment of realization.
She looked at her hands. Strange, weirdly fascinating things—that could achieve what they had achieved! Wonderful fingers that could lift her so magically on to the pinnacles of fame!
Verreker entered. During the performance he had occupied an inconspicuous seat about the middle of the hall. He was dressed professionally—that is, in a dark lounge suit which threw into prominence his barbaric cast of countenance.