He cleared his throat again.
“Right you are.”
He stared into her eyes with a sort of savage admiration.
“Cut her out,” he said. “Cut her out! You can, and—damn her!—she deserves it.”
Then he turned and went out.
Lady Holme felt rather sick for a moment. She knew she was going to sing well, she wished to sing well—but not in order to punish Miss Schley for having punished Fritz. Was everything she did to accomplish some sordid result? Was even her singing—the one thing in which Robin Pierce and some other divined a hidden truth that was beautiful—was even that to play its contemptible part in the social drama in which she was so inextricably entangled? Those gossamer threads were iron strands indeed.
Someone else was singing—her friend with the contralto voice.
She sat down alone in a corner. Presently the French actor began to give one of his famous monologues. She heard his wonderfully varied elocution, his voice—intelligence made audible and dashed with flying lights of humour rising and falling subtly, yet always with a curious sound of inevitable simplicity. She heard gentle titterings from the concealed audience, then a definite laugh, then a peal of laughter quite gloriously indiscreet. The people were waking up. And she felt as if they were being prepared for her. But why had Fritz looked like that, spoken like that? It seemed to spoil everything. To-day she felt too far away from—too far beyond, that was the truth—Miss Schley to want to enter into any rivalry with her. She wished very much that she had been placed first on the programme. Then there could have been no question of her cutting out the American.
As she was thinking this Miss Schley slowly crossed the room and came up to her.
“Lady Holme,” she said, “I come next.”