m.

'By-the-bye,' he asked, 'is Dymes the comic opera man?'

'Yes. I rather wondered, Harvey, whether you would awake to that fact.
He will be one of our greatest composers.'

She went on with enthusiasm, purposely exaggerating Dymes's merits, and
professing a warm personal regard for him. In the end, Harvey's eye was
upon her, still smiling, but curiously observant.

'Why hasn't he been here? Doesn't he think it odd that you never ask
him?'

'Oh, you know that I don't care to ask people. They are aware'--she
laughed--'that my husband is not musical.'

Harvey's countenance changed.

'Do you mean that you tell them so?'

'Not in any disagreeable way, of course. It's so natural, now, for
married people to have each their own world.'

'So it is,' he acquiesced.

Alma would have gone to Gunnersbury the very next day, but she feared
to excite some suspicion in her husband's mind. He little imagined her
capable of opening his letters, and to be detected in such a squalid
misdemeanour would have overwhelmed her with shame. In a day or two she
would be going to Mrs. Rayner Mann's, to meet a certain musical critic
'of great influence', and by leaving home early she could contrive to
make a call upon Mrs. Abbott before lunching at Putney. This she did.
She saw little Minnie Wager, scrutinised the child's features, and had
no difficulty whatever in discerning Harvey's eyes, Harvey's mouth. Why
should she have troubled herself to come? It was very hard to control
her indignation. If Mrs. Abbott thought her rather strange, rather
abrupt, what did it matter?

At Mrs. Rayner Mann's she passed into a soothing and delicious
atmosphere. The influential critic proved to be a very young man,
five-and-twenty at most; he stammered with nervousness when first
addressing the stranger, but soon gave her to understand, more or less
humorously, that his weekly article was 'quite' the most important
thing in latter-day musical criticism, and that he panted for the
opportunity of hearing a new violinist of real promise. But Alma had
not brought her violin; lest she should make herself cheap, she never
played now at people's houses. The critic had to be satisfied with
hearing her talk and gazing upon her beauty. Alma was become a very
fluent talker, and her voice had the quality which fixes attention. At
luncheon, whilst half-a-dozen persons lent willing ear, she compared
Sarasate's playing of Beethoven's Concerto with that of Joachim,