“My dear Mrs. Condor,” Stillman explained, as that lady came up to them, “we sha’n’t have to wait for Flora Menzies.  Miss Robson will accompany you.”

Claire sat unmoved.  She was beyond so trivial a sensation as anxiety.  Stillman drifted away; Mrs. Condor began to run through the sheet music lying on the piano.

“Of course you know Schumann, Miss Robson.  Shall we start at once?  How is the light?  If you moved your stool a little—­so.  There, that’s better.”

Claire did not reply.  She looked at the music before her.  She was conscious that it was a piece she knew, although its name registered no other impression.  She began to play.  The opening bars almost startled her.  She felt a hush fall over the noisy room.  Her fingers stumbled—­she caught the melody again with staggering desperation.  Mrs. Condor was singing....  The room faded; even the sound of Mrs. Condor’s voice became remote.  Claire had a desire to laugh.

All manner of strange, disconnected thoughts ran through her head.  She remembered a doll she had broken years ago and buried with great pomp and circumstance, a pink parasol that had been given her as a child, the gigantic and respectable wig which had incased the head of her old German music-teacher, Frau Pfaff.  And as she played on and on the music further evoked the memory of this worthy lady who had given her services in exchange for lodgings in an incredibly small hall bedroom, with certain privileges at the kitchen stove.  And pictures of this irritating woman rose before her, stewing dried fruit, or preparing sour beef, or borrowing the clothes boiler for a perennial wash.  What compromises her mother had made to give her child the gentle accomplishments that Mrs. Robson associated with breeding!  It came to Claire that it was almost cruel to have denied this mother a share in the triumphs of that evening.  And with that, she realized that Mrs. Condor had ceased singing.  A hum broke loose, followed by applause.  Claire grew faint.  Her head began to swirl.  She clutched the piano stool and by sheer terror at the thought of creating a scene she managed to keep her consciousness as she felt Mrs. Condor’s hand upon her shoulder and heard a voice that just missed being patronizing: 

“My dear, you did it beautifully.”

Claire longed to burst into tears....

The concert was over shortly after eleven o’clock.  Besides Mrs. Condor, there had been a ’cellist, very masculine in his looks but rather forceless in his playing, and a young, frail girl who brought great breadth and vigor to her interpretations at the piano.  But Claire was really too excited for calm enjoyment.  Supper followed—­creamed minced chicken and extraordinarily thin sandwiches, and a dry, pale wine that Claire found at first rather distasteful.  Claire sat with a little group composed of Mrs. Condor, Ned Stillman, a fashionable young man, Phil Edington, who frankly confessed boredom at all things musical except one-steps and fox-trots, and two or three artistic-looking souls who pretended to be quite shocked by young Edington’s frankness.