ained.

'You aren't paying him anything, are you?'

'Oh, no!' said Clarice, shocked. 'But I get no fee this time----'

'Of course not, my dear,' the Lopez cut her short. 'It's all right so
long as you aren't paying him anything to let you go on. Now run along.'

Clarice's heart stopped. The call-boy, with his cockney twang, had
pronounced her name.

She moved forward, and, by dint of following the call-boy, at length
reached the stage. Applause--good-natured applause--seemed to roll
towards her from the uttermost parts of the vast auditorium. She
realized with a start that this applause was exclusively for her. She
sat down to the piano, and there ensued a death-like silence--a silence
broken only by the striking of matches and the tinkle of the embowered
fountain in front of the stage. She had a consciousness, rather than a
vision, of a floor of thousands of upturned faces below her, and tier
upon tier of faces rising above her and receding to the illimitable dark
distances of the gallery. She heard a door bang, and perceived that some
members of the orchestra were creeping quietly out at the back. Then she
plunged, dizzy, into the sonata, as into a heaving and profound sea. The
huge concert piano resounded under the onslaught of her broad hands.
When she had played ten bars she knew with an absolute conviction that
she would do justice to her talent. She could see, as it were, the
entire sonata stretched out in detail before her like a road over which
she had to travel....

At the end of the first movement the clapping enheartened her; she
smiled confidently at the conductor, who, unemployed during her number,
sat on a chair under his desk. Before recommencing she gazed boldly at
the house, and certain placards--'Smoking permitted,' 'Emergency exit,'
'Ices,' and 'Fancy Dress Balls'--were fixed for ever on the retina of
her eye. At the end of the second movement there was more applause, and
the conductor tapped appreciation with his stick against the pillar of
his desk; the leader of the listless orchestra also tapped with his
fiddle-bow and nodded. It seemed to her now that she more and more
dominated the piano, and that she rendered the great finale with
masterful and fierce assurance....

She was pleased with herself as she banged the last massive chord. And
the applause, the clapping, the hammering of sticks, astounded her,
staggered her. She might have died of happiness while she bowed and
bowed again. She