ill. But in
London she had obtained neither engagements nor pupils: she had never
believed in herself. She knew of dozens of pianists whom she deemed
more brilliant than little, pretty, modest Clara Toft; and after her
father's death and the not surprising revelation of his true financial
condition, she settled with her faded, captious mother in Turnhill as a
teacher of the pianoforte, and did nicely.

Then, when she was twenty-six, and content in provincialism, she had met
during an August holiday at Llandudno her old fellow pupil, Albert
Barbellion, who was conducting the Pier concerts. Barbellion had asked
her to play at a 'soiree musicale' which he gave one night in the
ball-room of his hotel, and she had performed Tschaikowsky's immense and
lurid Slavonic Sonata; and the unparalleled Otto, renowned throughout
the British Empire for Otto's Bohemian Autumn Nightly Concerts at Covent
Garden Theatre, had happened to hear her and that seldom played sonata
for the first time. It was a wondrous chance. Otto's large, picturesque,
extempore way of inviting her to appear at his promenade concerts
reminded her of her father.

II

In the bleak three-cornered artists'-room she could faintly hear the
descending impetuous velocities of the Ride of the Walkyries. She was
waiting in her new yellow dress, waiting painfully. Otto rushed in, a
glass in his hand.

'You all right?' he questioned sharply.

'Oh, yes,' she said, getting up from the cane-chair.

'Let me see you stand on one leg,' he said; and then, because she
hesitated: 'Go on, quick! Stand on one leg. It's a good test.' So she
stood on one leg, foolishly smiling. 'Here, drink this,' he ordered, and
she had to drink brandy-and-soda out of the glass. 'You're better now,'
he remarked; and decidedly, though her throat tingled and she coughed,
she felt equal to anything at that moment.

A stout, middle-aged woman, in a rather shabby opera cloak, entered the
room.

'Ah, Cornelia!' exclaimed Otto grandly.

'My dear Otto!' the woman responded, wrinkling her wonderfully enamelled
cheeks.

'Miss Toft, let me introduce you to Madame Lopez.' He turned to the
newcomer. 'Keep her calm for me, bright star, will you?'

Then Otto went, and Clarice was left alone with the world-famous
operatic soprano, who was advertised to sing that night the Shadow Song
from 'Dinorah.'

'Where did he pick you up, my dear?' the decayed diva inquired
maternally.

Clarice briefly expl