‘I might have done,’ Alma admitted; ’but marriage put an end to that.  You have too much sense to think I mean that I repent it.’

‘I don’t see why marriage should put an end to it,’ urged Dora.  ’I’m quite sure your husband would be very proud if you came out and had a great success.’

‘But if I came out and made a fiasco?’

‘You wouldn’t.’

That was in the summer of 1890, when the Rolfes had been living at Pinner for eight months.  The new violin (new to her, old and mellow in itself) had inspired Alma to joyous exertions.  Again she took lessons from Herr Wilenski, who was sparing of compliment, but, by the mere fact of receiving her at all, showed his good opinion.  And many other people encouraged her in a fine conceit of herself.  Mrs. Strangeways called her ‘an unrecognised genius’, and worshipped at her feet.  To be sure, one did not pay much attention to Mrs. Strangeways, but it is sweet to hear such phrases, and twice already, though against her better judgment, Alma had consented to play at that lady’s house.

On both these occasions Cyrus Redgrave was present.  Choosing his moment, he approached her, looked in her face with a certain timidity to which Alma was not insensible, and spoke as an ordinary acquaintance.  There was no helping it; the man had been formally introduced, and, as he suggested, they had begun to know each other afresh.  Alma liked to remember how severely she had treated him at that first encounter; perhaps that was enough for dignity.  Mr. Redgrave would hardly forget himself again.  For the rest, she could not pretend, within herself, to dislike him; and if he paid homage to her beauty, to her social charm, to her musical gifts (all of which things Alma recognised and tabulated), it might be only just to let him make amends for something known to both of them.  The insult Alma was far from forgiving.  But when she had talked twice with Redgrave distantly, as a stranger to all his affairs —­ it began to steal upon her mind that there would be a sweetly subtle satisfaction in allowing the man to imagine that her coldness was not quite what it seemed; that so, perchance, he might be drawn on and become enslaved.  She had never been able to congratulate herself on a conquest of Cyrus Redgrave.  The memory of Bregenz could still, at moments, bring the blood to her face; for it was a memory of cool, calculating outrage, not of passion that had broken bounds.  To subdue the man in good earnest would be another thing, and a peculiarly delicious morsel of revenge.  Was it possible?  Not long ago she would have scoffed at the thought, deeming Redgrave incapable of love in any shape.  But her mind was changing in an atmosphere of pleasure and flattery, and under the influence of talk such as she heard in this house and one or two others like it.