CHILD OF MUSIC

First published in 1970 by Mills & Boon Limited,

17 - 19 Foley Street, London, England

SEN 373-01508-9

Harlequin Canadian edition published July, 1971

Harlequin U.S. edition published October, 1971

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the Author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the Author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

The Harlequin trade mark, consisting of the word HARLEQUIN and the portrayal of a Harlequin, is registered in the United States Patent Office and in the Canada Trade Marks Office. CLS

Copyright, © , 1970 by Mary Burchell.  All rights reserved.

Printed in Canada

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

Mary Elliott entered the staff room at Carmalton Girls' School; flung down a pile of books and, as she went to help herself to the rather weak coffee provided, exclaimed resignedly,

'Does anyone share my view that Janet Morton isn't really quite all there?'

Miss Curtis, always ready to take umbrage, even about so undistinguished a member of her class as Janet Morton, bristled slightly. 'It depends what you mean by "not quite all there". She's a dreamy child, of course.'

'Dreamy! She's in a trance half the time.' Mary Elliott laughed exasperatedly, for teaching maths to resistant juniors is no fun. 'I'd got them all more or less busy this morning when I saw her gazing out of the window, obviously a hundred miles away. And when I asked her to favour us with her thoughts—'

'You shouldn't do that,' interjected Miss Curtis. 'Sarcasm withers children.'

'It didn't wither Janet Morton. She came back from her hundred-mile journey and said, "I was thinking about the wind." '

'The wind? Oh, dear!' Miss Sharpe, longest on the staff and with an effortless sense of discipline which was the envy of all, laughed outright. 'She was just showing off.'

'But she wasn't,' sighed Mary Elliott crossly. 'If she had been I could have dealt with her. I think she really had been thinking about the wind, and how one does that I just wouldn't know. I told her to get on with her work, of course, and she did. But when Ï looked at it afterwards it was all wrong, and I felt somehow defeated.'

'When you've been at it ten years you won't mind so much,' Miss Sharpe told her consolingly.

'When I've been at it ten years I'll be certifiable if many of them are like Janet Morton,' retorted Mary Elliott, as the door opened again to admit her special friend Felicity Grainger.

'Who's talking about Janet Morton?' Felicity wanted to know.

'All of us. Which is a bad sign. No child is sufficiently important to command general attention,' declared Miss Sharpe.

'Not even if she's a near-genius?' Felicity inspected the coffee and grimaced, while Mary Elliott said,

'Oh, Felicity, really! Just because the child scrapes that violin of hers effectively!'

'What makes you think Janet Morton a near-genius?' inquired Miss Sharpe with genuine curiosity.

'In some odd way, she's the most truly musical person — and I mean person, not just child — that I've ever come across.' Felicity frowned consideringly. 'It's not only that she has a technique and a capacity for sheer hard work outstanding in a child of eleven. There's a sort of inner knowledge — an instinctive awareness and artistic judgment which almost frighten me at times.'

'Then we'll leave the subject,' Miss Sharpe declared amusedly. 'The day those brats begin to frighten one it's time to take them less seriously.'

Everyone laughed feelingly at that, and the subject was dropped. But later, in the kitchen of the pleasant cottage which Mary Elliott and Felicity Grainger shared, Mary paused over the joint preparations of their evening meal and said impulsively,

'Do you really think the Morton child so out of the ordinary, musically speaking? It isn't just that you're sorry about her being an orphan and romantically inclined to exaggerate her gifts?'

'Heavens, no!' Felicity laughed. 'Naturally I'm sorry for any child robbed of both parents in the same ghastly accident. Who wouldn't be? But I wouldn't judge her gifts sentimentally because of that. Anyway, I think she's quite happy in her foster-home with the Emlyns. Mrs. Emlyn is kind and homely and hasn't read any books on child psychology. She just gives Janet the sort of simple day-to-day security which is what she most needed after such a shock.'

'Maybe you're right.' Mary nodded thoughtfully. 'But I shouldn't have thought the Emlyn household conducive to artistic development, would you?'

'No, it isn't. But security and normality were what Janet needed most. She's allowed to practise as much as she likes without being thought either wonderful or tiresome, which is important. I don't think anyone has ever told her she's unusual, for the simple reason that the Emlyns don't even know that she is. That must have been very healthy for her! But now, of course—'

Felicity paused and into her beautiful grey eyes came a determined gleam which Mary had seen there once or twice before when her friend was about to display unusual obstinacy.

'Now,' Felicity went on firmly, 'it's time Janet was found a place in a school specially geared to the training of musically gifted children. In fact — the Tarkman Foundation School.'

'I thought perhaps we were coming to that,' Mary looked both curious and amused. 'They say the competition is pretty ferocious, and that only one in a hundred gets in.'

'I know. But, unless I'm much mistaken, Janet Morton is that one in a hundred,' replied Felicity, setting her mouth.

It occurred to Mary to say that Felicity could very well be mistaken, but she rejected the idea. For when Felicity looked like that Mary knew by now that argument was pointless.

On the surface the two friends had little in common, Mary being quick, volatile, impatient and superficially a trifle hard, while Felicity was quieter, artistic and something of a dreamer. But, in fact, of the two Felicity was the one who could stand foursquare for the few things she regarded as important.

They had come to Carmalton in the same term just over a year ago and, as neither wanted to live in lodgings, inevitably they converged on the same charming cottage which was the only one to be rented in the district. They met literally on the doorstep, concealed with difficulty their dislike of each other as rivals and then, on discovering that the rent was considerably more than either had anticipated, simultaneously hit on the idea of sharing it, at least for an experimental three months.

'It would be a risk, of course,' Mary said. 'We may loathe each other within a week. But, on the principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, how about trying it?'

'I'm willing,' Felicity agreed. 'But I should warn you that in my job as music teacher I'm bound to do a certain amount of practising, both piano and violin.'

'Are you any good?' inquired Mary candidly.

'I am rather.'

'Then I'll risk it. If I find it insupportable I'll tell you so and we'll have to come to some oilier arrangement."

But she found it far from insupportable. She even said sometimes that she quite enjoyed it. And on her side, Felicity, who had been an only child, found Mary Elliott's companionship both stimulating and pleasant.

Both were reasonably domesticated without being obsessively so and, with the twice weekly assistance of an invaluable Mrs. Arnold, they shared the household chores amicably. That particular evening, Felicity was, in her own phrase, knocking up a meat pie while Mary peeled vegetables — and presently came round once more to the subject of Janet Morton.

'How do you propose to set about getting her into Tarkmans?' she inquired. 'Have you discussed it with Mrs. Bush?'

'Oh, no! Not yet.' Mrs. Bush was the head of the school and, although respected by both for her immensely efficient organization, not somehow quite the person with whom one discussed the early stages of an ambitious dream.

'I'll have to enlist her support at some point, of course,' Felicity admitted. 'But I have an idea that any actual lobbying on Janet's behalf will have to be done on my own.'

'Which means seeing Stephen Tarkman himself, I suppose?' Mary glanced up quickly. 'They say he's as tough as old boots.'

'He is,' Felicity confirmed. 'I met him once.'

'You did? My dear, what an interesting past you have.' Mary looked amused. 'I didn't know you consorted with millionaires.'

'I don't,' Felicity laughed. 'And he's not. Although he's chief administrator of the Tarkman Trust, he's only reasonably wealthy himself, I believe. Anyway, I met him only passingly at one of the few really thrilling dinner-parties I've ever attended. And I was there simply because in my student days I used to room in the same boarding-house as Anthea Warrender—'

'The conductor's wife?'

'Yes. Though she was Anthea Benton then, of course. She was the really outstanding one of us all, with a voice which even we knew was something extraordinary.'

'That was why Warrender married her, wasn't it?'

'Partly. Though I think he was very much in love with her too. She was an extraordinarily nice sort of girl and when success came to her it didn't spoil her at all. Frankly, none of us expected to see any more of her after she married Warrender. But in spite of the fact that she soon became so successful on her own account, quite apart from being his wife, she never forgot her student friends. She would recall us by name and circumstances whenever she ran across us. There was a sort of warm intensity about her which made you feel you were important to her. No wonder he adored her,' added Felicity reflectively.

'And did he really adore her? — that cold fish.'

'Oh, Warrender's not a cold fish. He's authoritative and a bit of a tyrant, of course. But I suppose in his position he's entitled to be. And underneath all that he's an unusually human person. I don't think Anthea would have fallen for him otherwise.'

'Well, back to our own little genius.' Mary went to the sink to rinse the potatoes she had peeled, but continued to speak over her shoulder. 'Having met Stephen Tarkman at the Warrender dinner-table, you feel able to tackle him on the basis of old friends?'

'Oh, I didn't say that!' Felicity laughed and pulled a slight face. 'As a matter of fact, we didn't hit it off at all well. But it's nearly three years ago now — not long after I qualified. He wouldn't remember an unimportant contact at a dinner-party. If —I mean when —I go to see him, I shall go as a complete stranger. And as to not minding — I do mind. But one doesn't reject a worthwhile enterprise because it has disagreeable aspects.'

'I do,' said Mary frankly. At which Felicity laughed again.

But she changed the subject after that. For not even to Mary was she prepared to admit that the recollection of her encounter with Stephen Tarkman still had the power to anger and embarrass her.

It was extraordinary how clearly she remembered the incident. She could even remember the dress she had worn. Possibly because it was the most becoming — and certainly the most expensive — dress she had ever possessed. But then when you are invited to dine with celebrities you don't wear last year's renovated model.

Felicity had felt shy but excited when she arrived at the Warrenders' luxurious penthouse overlooking St. James's Park. But Anthea — lovely in a breathtakingly simple white dress — had opened the door herself, welcomed Felicity warmly and taken her into her bedroom where she proceeded to give her a rapid resume of the other guests who were coming.

'Why did you include me?' Felicity had asked with a frank laugh. 'They sound a formidable lot.'

'They aren't really. Except perhaps Gina Torelli, who still makes me feel like a beginner. And I included you for the simple reason that I wanted you,' Anthea concluded endearingly. 'It was such fun running into you the other night and recalling our student days. It made me think how long it was since I'd seen any of the old crowd, and I hoped you'd like to come.'

'I adore coming!' Felicity had assured her. 'I feel a bit intimidated, that's all. They're all top-drawer professionals, aren't they? It makes me feel rather the minor music-teacher.'

'Don't be silly. You're probably just as well informed musically as any of them,' Anthea had declared encouragingly. 'Anyway, I've put you beside Stephen Tarkman. He doesn't sing or play anything, if that's any help.'

'What does he do, then?'

'My dear, he doesn't do. He just is,' Anthea had explained comprehensively. 'He is TARKMAN. Of the Tarkman Musical Foundation, you know.'

'I think I've heard of that,' Felicity said, delving into her memory. 'But put me in the picture.'

'His father was a millionaire several times over. He made half his fortune out of armaments during the last war, and had a sort of guilt complex about it, apparently. Which Oscar says is idiotic because where would we have been without armaments? — but that's by the way. Anyway, poor Tarkman senior, feeling badly about his millions, left nearly all his money to found a big artistic trust, mostly for music. It makes grants to deserving composers and artists, finances a home for old musicians who have fallen on bad times and, above all, supports a special school for the training of musically talented children. Oscar is a director, which is why we know Stephen. He's tough, but stimulating. You'll like him.'

But Felicity had not liked him.

From the moment he came into the room she resented his faintly arrogant air. The air of a man who wields power and enjoys the fact. And because she was already feeling nervous and a little unsure of herself she found his brusque manner both frightening and irritating.

At dinner she talked as much as possible to the partner on her other side and when she had to speak to Stephen Tarkman she confined herself to harmless generalities. Until the conversation suddenly turned on Rodney Eskith, a young pianist who had just made a sensational debut in London. It happened that Felicity had heard him and been greatly impressed, so that she was incensed beyond discretion when she heard Stephen Tarkman say, as though there could be no second opinion,

'Just a flash in the pan. He won't last. No really outstanding talent. Without that clever build-up he wouldn't have made more than a ripple on the surface of the musical world.'

'What makes you so sure of that?' Felicity asked quietly beside him. And he turned in surprise to glance at the girl who had challenged his opinion.

'Considerable experience and a good natural judgment,' he told her drily.

'You don't think you might be — could possibly be — wrong?' The note of sarcasm in her tone was so delicate that she thought he was too insensitive to notice it.

But he got it all right and, turning on her the full force of a mockingly amused smile, he said flatly, 'No, I don't. You beg to differ, I gather?'

'No, I don't beg anything,' she retorted, her colour flaring suddenly. 'In my view, he has a great future. And possibly if you played yourself you might be able to see that too. You don't play any instrument, do you?'

'Not professionally.' The smile had become almost lazy, but there was the strangest hint of danger about it. 'Do you?'

'I'm not a — a public performer. I teach. Piano and violin.'

'A teacher? I see.'

He did not permit himself the quotation, "Those who can — do. Those who can't —- teach.' But she saw it passing through his mind as clearly as if he had said it. She also knew in that moment how it was that some men occasionally had their faces slapped.

But not, of course, at the Warrenders' dinner- table.

The rest of the evening she managed to enjoy, so long as she avoided his company and resolutely banished him from her mind. But when the party was breaking up and Anthea kissed her good-bye and said, 'Darling, I'm sure Stephen will give you a lift. He's going your way,' she could not bite back the words—

'I'd rather go on hands and knees than accept a lift from Mr. Tarkman!'

'Really?' Anthea looked astonished. 'Why, I thought—' Then she stopped, glanced beyond Felicity and said hastily, 'Well — perhaps—'

At the same moment Gina Torelli came up, cast a kindly look on Felicity, who had managed during the evening to express her genuine and overwhelming admiration rather tellingly, and said graciously, 'Does this dear child go my way?'

The dear child said breathlessly that she did, and found herself swept off in the wake of the famous soprano — past Stephen Tarkman, whose slightly raised eyebrows and mocking smile left her convinced that he had overheard the strictures on himself.

Momentarily discomfort was almost obliterated by the thrill of driving home in company with the famous Torelli. But the recollection of Stephen Tarkman returned again and again over the years to annoy and embarrass her. If he had ultimately been proved wrong in that argument she might have forgiven him and forgotten the incident. But within a couple of years Rodney Eskith had been more or less sunk without trace. It is almost unforgivable when the people we dislike are proved right.

Felicity had had an exceptionally happy childhood and girlhood. The only child of affectionate parents, she had been allowed to develop her very real musical talent to the full, without being given too wildly inflated ideas about her gifts. Her father, with kindly but astringent realism, had pointed out from the beginning that few people reached the heights of the public performer and that if she ended as a good and successful teacher, she could still regard herself as having a certain value in the musical world.

At that stage she was still inclined to see herself as sweeping on and off platforms, with the world more or less waiting on tiptoe to hear her, so she took these words of wisdom rather scornfully. But their basic good sense remained somewhere at the back of her mind and, as she gradually found her feet in a competitive world, she also found the true measure of her gifts.

She was a born teacher, with a splendid capacity for arousing interest in her pupils and opening new and glorious vistas for them. No child ever looked bored in her classes, and no individual pupil ever felt of less than supreme interest and importance in her musical scheme of things.

Faced with her very first class of almost uniformly blank pupils, she had asked if they had heard of this composer or that work. One and all shook discouraged heads and waited for the criticism. But instead she cried,

'You lucky children! You've got it all before you. We're going to have a wonderful time. Just listen to this for a start.' And she went to the piano and played a simple, tripping, heart-warming little tune. 'Do you like it?'

One or two said tentatively that they did. Several still looked blank. And the trouble-maker in the class giggled.

'You've got the right idea.' Felicity picked him out at once. 'It's funny — it's gay — it's something to laugh at. Come here. — Yes, you. The boy who knew when to laugh.'

He came slowly, not at all sure that she was not going to hold him up to ridicule.

'How old are you?' Felicity asked.

'Twelve,' he admitted reluctantly.

'Twelve? Just two years younger than the chap who wrote this. His name was Mozart. Listen again.' She played it once more. 'He was fourteen when he wrote that, and he meant it for boys and girls like you, so that you could laugh and enjoy something easy but of quality. There are lots of tunes like this. They make you feel good and they're fun to sing, even if you only la-la the tune.'

'I could sing it now,' he asserted suddenly.

'Sing it, then.'

So he piped his way through it with a certain degree of accuracy. Then the others wanted to join in. They sang it twice. Then someone said in a way it was prettier than pop. And Felicity knew the class was hers.

By the time she came to Carmalton her methods were a trifle less naïve, but she never had the slightest trouble in holding the interest of a class. She loved her subject. And in a warm, unsentimental way she loved her pupils too. She knew that in a commercially corrupted world they were constantly assailed by the ugly, the puerile and the insidiously damaging. And she tried with all her heart and skill to make beauty and artistic truth as easily available to them as the trash with which they were perpetually bombarded.

Only a small proportion in her classes really assimilated much of what she was trying to put over to them, she knew. But few remained untouched by it and some even developed a musical enjoyment and curiosity which made every effort worthwhile.

With her individual pupils, of course, she was able to do much more. And among those the outstanding discovery was Janet Morton.

The first time she saw Janet she was already aware of the child's tragic history, and she put down her dreamy, withdrawn manner to the shock of the then recent car crash which had robbed her of both her parents. But as soon as she heard the child play her violin, and noted her reaction to music far beyond her natural age-group's understanding, Felicity knew that she was dealing with something quite out of the ordinary.

To say that Janet lived in a world of her own would not have been quite correct. But, in some odd way, she withdrew sometimes into a world of her own, where she seemed perfectly happy and from which she came back refreshed, enlivened and somehow enriched.

She was a plain-looking little girl, small for her age, pale, and with no remarkable feature except her dark- lashed, quite wonderful smoky-blue eyes. These, however, were usually framed in round spectacles, since she was short-sighted. But when she took off her glasses, which she did sometimes when she was playing from her prodigious memory, she could look almost beautiful.

To some people — Mary Elliott included — her composure was disquieting. To Felicity it had the fascinating quality of someone who knew where she was going. And once, when she was listening to Janet playing and watching her absorbed, intelligent little face above her violin, Felicity recalled the old Italian saying about the world standing aside for the man who knows where he is going. That, she realized, was exactly how Janet looked. She knew where she was going to such a degree that it seemed likely one day the world would stand aside for her.

Felicity had thought a great deal about Janet Morton before she had finally come to the conclusion that every effort should be made to get her into the Tarkman School. But the fact that it was not more than three miles away from Carmalton really made it the obvious first choice, once one accepted the fact that the child's education should move from the general class into the particular.

For a while Felicity considered the possibility of invoking the help and interest of Anthea and her famous husband. But for a couple of years now she had seen nothing of the Warrenders. Their paths had inevitably lain in different directions. Besides, if she made her approach through them it was possible that a chord would be touched in Stephen Tarkman's memory, and this would hardly be helpful to her candidate. Better far that the approach should be made formally and professionally. As the music-teacher of a genuinely gifted child, Felicity might reasonably be expected to be involved in the application on her behalf.

The day following her talk with Mary, Felicity kept Janet back at the end of her music lesson and inquired, almost casually, if she ever thought what she would like to be when she grew up.

'Oh, yes, Miss Grainger.' Janet looked slightly surprised, 'I'm going to be a violinist. I wouldn't want to be anything else.'

With any other child Felicity might have pointed out mildly that 'want' was not necessarily the operative word in relation to what one eventually did for a living. But instead she said, 'You do understand, don't you, that the professional concert player is up against very stiff competition?'

'I was just thinking of making music,' replied Janet simply. And, unworldly though the reply was, it went straight to Felicity's heart. For there spoke the true artist. It was not success, a big career, the importance of being 'someone' which appealed to the child, as to most children. It was the music which was more important than herself.

'You have the right idea,' Felicity told her with a smile. 'But, as your teacher, I must look at the more practical side of things.' She hesitated a moment and then went on, 'I'm inclined to think you have a talent which would justify your being trained for a public career. And for that it would be necessary for you to go to a special school, one where all your education was geared to that end.'

'Somewhere like the Tarkman School, you mean?' Janet said coolly.

'Oh, you know about that?'

Janet nodded, and then added astonishingly, 'My aunt knows Mr. Tarkman.'

'Your aunt does? But I didn't know you had any family at all, Janet.'

'Only my aunt. And she doesn't like me,' Janet explained unemotionally. 'I don't like her either,' she added without heat. 'I wouldn't have wanted to live with her after my — after I was left alone. And she said she didn't want me either.'

'Did she?' said Felicity before she could stop herself. But then she realized that, intriguing though this subject might be, it was quite an unsuitable one to discuss further with a child. So she reverted to the subject of the school instead and explained that for some while she had been considering the possibility of getting Janet into the Tarkman School.

'I'd like that!' The plain little face lit up and Janet took off her glasses and gazed eagerly at Felicity with her beautiful, short-sighted eyes. 'Would there be — any chance?'

'Frankly, I don't know,' Felicity admitted. 'But personally I think it's worth applying, though I had to find how you felt about it first. Now that you tell me your aunt knows Mr. Tarkman—'

'But I told you, she doesn't like me,' Janet explained patiently.

'You might be mistaken about that,' Felicity smiled. 'The fact that she didn't feel able to have you live with her might have depended on circumstances beyond her control, you know. She would almost certainly be interested in a member of her family who showed marked talent and—'

Then Felicity stopped. Because instead of her tactful words producing any reaction on or fresh information from Janet, it had become obvious that the little girl had politely withdrawn into her own thoughts until Miss Grainger should have talked herself out on a subject she did not understand.

Felicity laughed exasperatedly and for a moment knew what it was about Janet which annoyed Mary Elliott.

'All right, Janet, I'll see what I can do. I'll have a word with Mrs. Bush first.'

In the event, Mrs. Bush proved considerably more interested than Felicity had expected, though she uttered a word of caution against raising the child's hopes too high.

'She's had enough emotional upset in her life already without having to face a bitter disappointment too.'

'I know. Do you know anything about her aunt?' Felicity inquired on impulse. 'She made some cryptic reference to her, but I thought it best not to follow that up. I was always under the impression that she had no family and that this was why she lived in a foster-home with the Emlyns.'

'No, that's not quite right. Though for all practical purposes, I suppose it is. The aunt is an aunt by marriage and, as she made abundantly clear at the time, has absolutely no legal responsibility towards Janet. She's a very pretty woman and likes, I believe, to be known as a widow; though in actual fact, I think Janet's uncle divorced her at least a year before he died.'

'He died too? Not in the same accident, surely? What a tragic family!' exclaimed Felicity.

'No, he wasn't in the accident. It was a coronary or something. But you're right about its being a tragic family.'

'Poor Janet!' exclaimed Felicity compassionately. 'I'm afraid she is herself well aware that her aunt firmly rejected her or any claim that could be made on her behalf.'

'Very likely. Mrs. Morton — her name was also Morton — was that kind of woman. I didn't take to her,' added Mrs. Bush, with what Felicity felt was probably masterly understatement. 'That's partly why I feel one must be specially careful about raising hopes in Janet which could be cruelly dashed. You really think she is sufficiently talented to make this approach to Tarkman?'

'Yes, I do.' Felicity was firm about that. 'I've tried to warn her against too easy hopes, though of course she is too intelligent to be unaware of what is involved. But she must risk failure if she is going to make any real bid for success. One always has to.'

'I realize that.' Mrs. Bush smiled a little drily. 'But, as I'm not musical myself, Miss Grainger, I have to rely on you alone to assess the child's talents. I understand your enthusiasm, but I don't want that to topple your judgment. If you have guessed wrong and Janet is, in a sense, rejected again it could be very damaging for her.'

A momentary and chilling sense of indecision gripped Felicity. Her faith in her own judgment of Janet was very strong, but of course she could be wrong. She had been sadly wrong, for instance, about Rodney Eskith, three years ago. Though why that should return at this precise moment to shake her confidence she could not imagine.

But a decision had to be made and made very soon. And since there were no parents — nothing but an admittedly indifferent aunt — to judge for Janet or protect her interests, it was Felicity, backing her own judgment, who had to decide if the child should be left in possibly quite happy obscurity or shepherded, coaxed, dragooned along the road which might lead to almost sensational heights.

For nearly half a minute she remained silent, her head bent. Then she looked up and said resolutely, 'This isn't a hasty decision. I've thought about it a lot and, as far as I'm capable of judging, I think Janet has the possibility of a great future. This is only the very first step, of course, but I think she should be encouraged to take it.'

'Very well,' Mrs. Bush said. 'I will make the initial application to the Tarkman School on Janet's behalf.'

This was not quite what Felicity had intended. But a moment's reflection convinced her that a formal application from the child's headmistress — even an admittedly unmusical headmistress - was the correct first approach. Later, when it came to discussing Janet's qualifications with whoever made the first selection for entrants, it would be her turn to speak.

Once the matter was out of her hands, even temporarily, Felicity became restless and dissatisfied about the way she had handled it. She should have been more enthusiastic, more emphatic in what she had said to Mrs. Bush. After all, her views, for what they were worth, had to be relayed at second-hand, as it were, and must certainly lose something in the transmission.

She managed to conceal her anxiety from Janet, directing her attention firmly to her day-to-day work, and not allowing her to look any further ahead than the end-of-term concert at which Janet was to play.

A week, ten days, went past during which, as Mary told her though without rancour, she was not entirely easy to live with. Then, on a wet Wednesday morning, Mrs. Bush called Felicity into her room at the mid- morning break and handed her a letter.

'This came this morning. It's from Mr. Tarkman's secretary.'

With a not entirely steady hand Felicity took the letter and studied it. It was courteous, brief and impersonal and merely stated that, as a preliminary step, Mr. Stephen Tarkman would be glad if Janet Morton's music teacher could make it convenient to call and see him in his office at the Tarkman Foundation at eleven- thirty on the following Saturday morning. If this was not a suitable time, would he or she telephone to make another appointment?

'It's as much as we could expect,' Mrs. Bush said. 'At least we have a foot in the door. The next move is up to you. Can you manage this Saturday morning?'

'Oh, yes, I can manage it,' Felicity assured her a trifle breathlessly.

As she came out of Mrs. Bush's room she ran straight into Mary, who stopped, gave her a second glance and said, 'You look — stirred up somehow. Have you been promoted, or sacked?'

'Neither. I've been bidden to the Tarkman presence on Saturday morning to discuss Janet Morton,' Felicity replied, and she was annoyed to hear her own voice run up the scale slightly with sheer excitement.

'Good for you!' Mary patted her on the shoulder in a congratulatory sort of way. 'Be sure you play it cool.'

'I mean to,' Felicity declared.

But from then until she walked up the steps of the handsome building which housed the Tarkman Trust on that Saturday morning, Felicity was seldom free from a slight tremor of nervous excitement.

The name of Stephen Tarkman, and the letter which she presented, opened all doors and she was rapidly wafted up to a pleasant but not ostentatious office on the first floor. And here the man who rose to greet her looked so exactly as she remembered him at the Warrender dinner-party that it seemed impossible he should not recall her vividly too.

He showed no sign of doing so, however. Indeed, as he said, 'Sit down, Miss - Grainger,' he glanced down at his desk where she could see her own note confirming the interview, as though he were refreshing his memory about an entirely unfamiliar name.

That steadied her and she took the seat he indicated with what she hoped was an air of great composure.

'Well, Mrs. Bush wrote very persuasively about this child, Janet Morton,' he began, coming straight to the point. 'But she is frank about not being qualified herself to judge musically. She says in her letter that this she leaves entirely to you. Tell me about Janet, Miss Grainger.'

So she began to explain about Janet as clearly and eloquently as she could. Nothing to do with the child's personal background, lest she should be thought to be offering special pleading on behalf of a touching case. She spoke sympathetically but authoritatively about the little girl's remarkable technique, infinite capacity for hard work and, above all, her innate musicality. And he listened attentively. Much more attentively than he had listened to anything she had had to say at that dinner-party of unhappy memory.

At the end he said, 'Naturally I should have to hear her myself. And I should want Professor Blackthorn to hear her too. But I must make it quite clear from the beginning that the applicants far exceed the few vacancies available, and no child without really outstanding gifts has any chance of being accepted.'

'Janet's gifts are outstanding,' replied Felicity quietly.

'You're very sure of that?'

'Quite sure.'

'As sure as you were about Rodney Eskith, for instance?' He looked up suddenly and that mocking smile was there, to remind her with painful clarity of an occasion she would so willingly have forgotten.

She caught her breath slightly, resisted the almost overwhelming temptation to reply tartly and said with complete honesty, 'I was wrong about Rodney Eskith.'

'Yes, you were, weren't you? But it's courageous of you to admit it so frankly,' he added unexpectedly.

'It wouldn't be much good doing anything else.' She gave a small, wry smile. 'He provided incontrovertible evidence of the fact, didn't he?'

Stephen Tarkman laughed so heartily at that that for the first time she thought she saw why Anthea War- render had expected her to like him. The impression was gone in a moment, however, as he said carelessly,

'You could have pretended you didn't remember a thing about the discussion.'

'Just as you pretended you didn't remember a thing about me?'

'I didn't until a minute or two ago,' he assured her with brutal frankness. 'But so far as Janet Morton is concerned—'

'Please—' interrupted Felicity eagerly. 'Although I admit to having been mistaken about Rodney Eskith, I do assure you I am right about Janet. Please give her a chance and hear her for yourself.'

'I intend to. When and how can I hear her?'

'Oh—' Felicity was so surprised by this easy acceptance of her plea that for a moment she was almost put off her stroke. Then she said doubtfully, 'But don't you hold auditions here?'

'Yes, certainly we do. But if possible — and certainly in the case of a child as young as Janet Morton — it's better for her to be heard without knowing what is involved. What do you suggest?'

'Well, she is playing at the end-of-term concert in about a fortnight's time,' Felicity began.

'Yes, that's the kind of thing exactly.'

'It would mean sitting through a certain amount of stuff definitely below Tarkman standard,' Felicity warned him with a slight smile.

'I'm used to that. So is Professor Blackthorn, who will come too if he is free. Would our presence in the audience seem unusual?'

'No. It's the kind of concert to which parents come.'

'Then I shall be there — trying to look like a parent,' he assured her. And he rose, held out his hand and made it perfectly clear that the interview was at an end.

On the short bus ride back to Carmalton Felicity felt elated beyond expression. She had secured this great chance for Janet, and in a form that robbed it of the terrifying significance which a formal audition might have. It was beyond anything she could have hoped for. And she was bound to admit that this was due to the imaginative understanding of Stephen Tarkman — to whom she had, until now, certainly not attributed either imagination or human understanding.

Naturally she gave a full account of her interview to both Mrs. Bush and Mary. The former said the most important thing was that there should be no talk beforehand and no question of Janet's knowing the extra importance attaching to the occasion - with which Felicity entirely agreed. The latter said that Stephen Tarkman sounded rather nice, after all.

' "Nice" isn't quite the word,' Felicity protested.

'What is, then?'

'I don't know.' Felicity looked doubtful. 'He's nothing as innocuous as nice. Attractive, I suppose, in a very forceful way. Impossible to ignore, but not really likeable, if you know what I mean.'

'No, I don't think I do,' replied Mary amusedly. 'But I'll see for myself on the night of the concert. What is your star chick going to play? Unaccompanied Bach, or something grim like that?' Mary was becoming quite knowledgeable after a year with Felicity.

Felicity shook her head and laughed.

'Not for general parental consumption,' she said. 'I'm letting her do two movements of a Haydn sonata. Deceptively simple-sounding and easily accessible to a mixed audience, but extraordinarily difficult to play with real style and musical understanding. Janet will be all right, though. It's just the kind of thing to show off her unusual gifts.'

In the ensuing two weeks Felicity became more and more sure of this. She was also greatly reassured by the fact that Janet showed no undue nervousness. On the actual day of the concert she looked a little tense. But her 'run-through' in the morning was faultless.

Then, since there was a half-day's holiday, Felicity told her to go home and rest during the afternoon. And, as she told Mary afterwards, 'Off that child went, with the serious, dedicated air of the real professional ! You'd have thought she was going to play at the Festival Hall, no less.'

'Not at all nervous?' Mary asked.

'No more so than any real artist should be,' replied Felicity, unaware that she had paid Janet the final compliment of speaking of her as though she were an adult performer.

However calm Janet might be about it all, Felicity herself suffered a good deal of nervous excitement during those last hours of waiting. And, to her surprise, she realized that it was not all on Janet's account. There was a sort of enjoyable anxiety about the coming meeting with Stephen Tarkman which had something much more personal about it than she would ever have thought possible. And the exact reason for that she simply could not fathom.

She dressed with some care for the occasion, telling herself that it was necessary to look her best, while not taking any of the limelight from the young performers — particularly not from Janet, for whom she was, of course, playing the piano part of the Flaydn sonata. But she was inordinately pleased when Mary said,

'You look lovely. That queer shade of greyish blue is just you, somehow.'

When they arrived at the school, there was already a great air of activity and self-importance attaching to those who were taking part in the evening's performance. About half of them were pupils of Felicity. The others were, as they importantly styled themselves to admiring parents, drama students.

'Everything's going to be fine,' Mary told Felicity as they looked from an upper window at the gratifying number of cars drawing up before the main entrance of the school. 'I must say the parents in this school do then- stuff very nobly. I think I'd be in agony if I had to listen to my own offspring murdering Shakespeare or lacerating Beethoven.'

'My pupils don't lacerate Beethoven,' retorted Felicity mildly. 'Oh, there's Stephen Tarkman, getting out of that ordinary-looking black car.'

'I'd have thought he would sport a Rolls,' commented Mary. 'Who is his glamorous companion?'

'Glamorous companion !' Felicity craned her neck to see the other side of the car. 'I thought Professor Blackthorn was coming. Perhaps he couldn't and this is another member—'

'Oh, no, dear! The lady is no professor,' Mary laughed.

And Felicity, catching a glimpse at last of Stephen Tarkman's companion, could only agree. There was nothing professorial about the slim, tall, red-haired woman with him.

'Perhaps it's his wife,' suggested Mary.

'Perhaps,' agreed Felicity doubtfully. 'Though he didn't seem married, somehow. Too - too—'

But before she could complete that qualification she glanced at her watch and saw it was time for her to round up her performers and give them a last word of advice and good cheer.

'Good luck!' Mary sketched a little gesture of encouragement and went to take her seat in the hall, while Felicity made her way to the classroom which had been set aside as a sort of 'green room'.

High spirits had given way now to quieter, more nervous chattering. But only one person was utterly silent, and that was Janet, who sat alone in a corner, looking unexpectedly attractive without her glasses and in a slightly old-world frock with a lace collar. One glance at her, however, told Felicity that something was desperately wrong. She was pale and tense and so utterly withdrawn from the busy scene round her that Felicity felt her heart plummet.

She went immediately to the child and, trying to make her voice warm and reassuring, said, 'All right, Janet?'

'Miss Grainger, I can't play.5 Janet got to her feet and spoke in a rapid, husky half-whisper. 'I'm not well —I can't play.'

'But of course you can, dear.' Felicity took her hand and was dismayed to find it icy. 'Everyone is a bit nervous beforehand. It's just—'

'No, it's nothing to do with being nervous. You don't know who's there, in the audience. I've just seen. I looked into the hall.'

In that moment Felicity could have kicked herself for all her well-intentioned discretion. She should have foreseen this contingency and guarded against this last- minute recognition and reaction. But it was too late now.

Still warmly and persuasively she smiled, squeezed the cold little hand comfortingly and said, 'Mr. Tarkman isn't an ogre, my dear child. He'll understand, better than anyone else there, just how good you are.

As a matter of fact, I can't wait to show you off to him. Gome, cheer up—'

'Mr. Tarkman?' repeated Janet, so blankly that Mary would have said she looked almost idiotic. 'I don't know anything about Mr. Tarkman. It's my aunt who is there - that pretty woman with the red hair. And I can't play if she's there. I hate her - she makes me feel dreadful. She takes all my confidence away. I can't play, I tell you. Not if she's there. I — can't — play!'

CHAPTER TWO

Janet's tone carried such conviction that Felicity could almost see her carefully laid plans drifting to disaster on the rock of the child's obsession. For once this evening's chance was gone, any audition, formal or informal, was unlikely to recur.

It was vital to do something and do it quickly. So, repressing a sense of panic almost equal to Janet's own, she glanced across the room to where the first two or three performers were preparing nervously for their entry on to the platform and, on a rapid reckoning, decided that she still had about a quarter of an hour before she herself would be called on to take any active part in the concert. Then she sat down with Janet's hand still in hers and made a tremendous effort to see the problem from the child's own viewpoint.

Reasonable argument and false cheerfulness would, she could see, be alike useless. She must accept the situation at Janet's valuation or give up here and now.

'Listen, dear—' she made the child face her, so that their eyes met— 'I do understand that for all of us there are people who scare us and make us feel inadequate. If your aunt is one of those people for you, I'm not going to pretend it's a small matter. But, Janet, I must tell you now that I've made a very special effort to get Mr. Tarkman here tonight to hear you play. I didn't tell you beforehand for fear of making you nervous—'

'He doesn't make me nervous. Only my aunt does,' reiterated Janet with a sort of stubborn wretchedness.

'I understand that,' Felicity said patiently. 'But it's Mr. Tarkman who is important tonight. He has come to hear you in the hope that you'll prove suitable for a place in the Tarkman School.'

'Can't I play for him when my aunt isn't there?' Janet gazed rather forlornly back at Felicity.

'I doubt if another opportunity could be arranged. Can't you summon all your courage, ignore your aunt and make the effort?'

'I don't think so,' said Janet. 'I feel sick.'

So did Felicity, she discovered to her surprise. But she could not think about her own reactions at that moment. Mary would probably have regarded Janet as a tiresome child who had no right to invent difficulties at this late hour. But Felicity knew that behind the frightened child was a deeply disturbed artist and, with a slight sigh, she tried again.

'I hardly know what else to say to you, Janet. I can't force you to play, of course. But this is a great chance for you, and I can't bear to see you throwing it away without so much as trying.'

Janet looked down at her clasped hands, and then up again as though something other than her own misery had impinged on her consciousness.

'You said it was difficult for you to get Mr. Tarkman here. Does that mean you'd be made to look small if I — if I just backed out now?'

It had not been in Felicity's mind to plead her own false position. But she felt so desperate at that moment that even a little bit of emotional blackmail seemed justified.

'My position isn't really what matters,' she said. 'But, since you mention it, yes, I would feel rather awful. You see—' determinedly she put herself on the same footing as the child— 'I once made rather a fool of myself to Mr. Tarkman. I was over-confident about a personal opinion and was afterwards proved wrong. I was so sure that I was right about you that I rather stuck my neck put again. I suppose if my candidate actually refused to perform tonight he would think me more of a fool than ever. But if you feel you simply can't—'

Janet took out her glasses, polished them nervously and put them back again.

'I'll play,' she said briefly, and Felicity with difficulty refrained from embracing her. Instead, she just said,

'That's a good, brave girl. Forget your aunt and play for Mr. Tarkman.'

'Where is he sitting?' Janet inquired.

'I don't know,' lied Felicity, realizing that Janet was still unaware that die important Mr. Tarkman and the hated aunt were together. She just put up a confused little prayer to whatever guardian angel looks after temperamental geniuses and hoped for the best.

In ordinary circumstances, of course, a school concert would not exactly have taxed Felicity's nerves. On the contrary, she was expected to be the calm support of the jittery young performers she had to accompany. But when she finally went on to the platform with Janet she experienced all the familiar symptoms of acute stage-fright. The dry throat, the inescapable chill, the horrid empty feeling in the pit of her stomach, the awareness that her smile was fixed and that she could do nothing about it.

Janet wasted no smile - not even a fixed one — on her audience. She looked at no one, but proceeded to tune her violin with something less than her usual calm security. Silence had fallen on the hall already, for the school was well aware that Janet could out-play and out-class them all, and in a way they were rather proud of her.

It was therefore certainly not from any member of the school that the slight, mocking little laugh came. And because of Janet's immediate reaction Felicity knew, as surely as if Mrs. Morton had been named, that it was Janet's aunt who had made that almost imperceptible sound.

At once Janet gave Felicity a little nod, to indicate that she was ready to begin. And Felicity, knowing that any further delay would unnerve the child completely, simply could not let Janet know that for once her impeccable ear was at fault and that her E string was fractionally sharp.

At almost any other time it would not have been serious enough to matter. Indeed, Felicity knew that not one per cent of the audience that night would have any inkling of the fact. Almost all of them were there to applaud and praise indiscriminately anyway. And Janet - even Janet at less than her best — could not fail to astonish and impress them.

But it was not the unknowing ninety-nine per cent who mattered. It was Stephen Tarkman. And Felicity had not the slightest doubt that he would be alert to the smallest fault.

In spite of the faulty E string, however, Janet launched into her sonata with the near-brilliance of someone beyond her years, and for the first few minutes Felicity dared to think that perhaps she was going to do herself justice, after all.

But then a change began to come over her performance, something so subtle and intangible that only someone as knowledgeable as Felicity could have pinpointed it. It was as though the life and light drained out of the work. The notes continued to be played with considerable skill and accuracy and, considering the faulty tuning of the instrument, the intonation was good. But the beauty and knowledge, the insight and poetry which Janet had unfailingly brought to her playing simply were not there.

She could have been any gifted, hard-working little pupil doing her best. The magic which Felicity had found so incredible in a child of her age was gone. It was a highly meritorious performance. But, thought Felicity bitterly, even brilliant failure would probably have been more arresting.

At the end there was tremendous applause, partly from her fellow-pupils who thought it fantastic that Janet Morton could play so many notes and get them all right, and partly from indulgent parents who either knew Janet's sad history and wished her well or were just touched that anyone so small could give evidence of such hard work.

Felicity glanced once in the direction of Stephen Tarkman. He was clapping, it was true, and perhaps rather more than perfunctorily. But his head was bent and he was listening with a smile to something which was being said with some emphasis by the laughing woman beside him.

'I was rotten,' Janet said stonily as they came off the platform together.

'You were quite astonishingly good, considering that you were upset,' replied Felicity firmly.

'But not good enough. And my E string was sharp. Was Mr. Tarkman the man sitting beside my aunt?'

'Yes,' said Felicity because it was not much good saying anything else.

'I thought so. She whispered something to him quite near the beginning. I knew it was no good then. She didn't mean him to like me.'

Felicity was hard put to it not to shake Janet and tell her to snap out of this nonsense. Surely not even a sensitive, temperamental child need allow anyone to affect her so strongly. But she realized resignedly that one might as well tell a rabbit to buck up and not mind the snake. Janet, for reasons which seemed sufficient to herself, both hated and feared her aunt to such a degree that she had probably spoiled her chances of a Tarkman scholarship.

Unless, that was, Felicity could talk Stephen Tarkman into taking a lenient view now and hearing her again in more favourable circumstances. It was not a task she relished, and at that moment Janet added the last piece of information needed to make Felicity feel defeated before she had begun.

'My aunt wants Mr. Tarkman to marry her. She always spoke of him in a funny, possessive sort of way. My father used to say he wouldn't have a chance if she really went all out to get him.'

Felicity was so startled to hear Janet refer to, even quote, her father — and in such terms — that for a moment she was dumb. Then she said hastily, 'People often say things like that without exactly meaning them.'

'My father meant it,' replied Janet simply. And there really seemed nothing else to add to the argument.

The concert, however, was not of course standing still for Janet Morton's individual tragedy. There were other pupils to be cheered, inspired and even accompanied. Felicity forced herself to say something conventionally comforting, though she felt certain the words never even reached Janet's comprehension, and then addressed herself to her other duties of the evening.

By the end of the concert she felt as exhausted as if she had given a solo recital at the Festival Hall. And she was not exactly revived by the information supplied by two of Janet's classmates that she had gone home.

'Gone home!' exclaimed Felicity in consternation. 'But why didn't she wait until the end of the evening? Everyone was expected to do that.'

'She said she didn't feel well, Miss Grainger,' one of them explained. And the other added, for good measure, 'She looked ghastly.'

There was nothing left for her to do but seek out Stephen Tarkman over the modest refreshments now being handed round, and see if she could judge his reactions and undo some of the harm which had been done.

Even getting anywhere near him was difficult because anxious or gratified parents bore down on her from every side, eager to ask about their own darlings. To each one she somehow managed to sound as though the progress of their child was her abiding interest.

And, in spite of her inward agitation, she still looked reasonably relaxed and unflustered by the time she reached Stephen Tarkman and his companion.

He insisted on procuring coffee for her immediately and made the introductions.

'Mrs. Morton is Janet's aunt, you know,' he explained. 'She wants to have a word with you about her.'

'Yes, indeed! and a very congratulatory word.' Mrs. Morton smiled so engagingly that for a bewildered moment Felicity thought Janet's antipathy must surely be groundless and unjust. But then the other woman went on,

'You must have worked terribly hard to bring the child to this standard, because she's really rather — what shall I say? — limited. Clever as a monkey with her finger work, but not a very accurate ear. Much more the little mechanical show-off than the true artist.'

'I totally disagree.' Felicity did not even try to conceal the contemptuous hostility in her voice. 'Janet is an artist to her finger-tips, and more truly musical than any other child I've ever handled.'

'Oh, really—' the other woman began, on a note of smiling protest.

'Miss Grainger is very emphatic when it comes to praising or blaming,' put in Stephen Tarkman amusedly. 'I warn you, she'll defend any candidate of hers to the death.'

'It's too sweet of you to feel like this about Janet.' Mrs. Morton still smiled, but she spoke as though Felicity were sentimentally allowing any judgment she might have to be clouded by her emotions. 'Of course one would like the poor chick to be something out of the ordinary, to compensate for her personal tragedy, and I do understand your feeling like that—'

'I don't feel in the least like that,' interrupted Felicity almost rudely and, turning deliberately to Stephen Tarkman, she asked bluntly, 'What did you think of Janet?'

'I'm not quite sure,' he said frankly. 'I heard nothing tonight which convinced me that she was outstanding, except perhaps the opening phrases. And it was disquieting, to say the least of it, that she could not even tune her instrument accurately. If she has a faulty ear—'

'But she hasn't!' Felicity assured him. 'She was nervous—'

'Why? Surely you didn't tell her beforehand that I was coming?'

'No, of course not.' Felicity felt that the last-minute admission, which had left Janet completely untouched, need not be mentioned.

'Do you mean that such a minor ordeal as a school concert can upset her sufficiently to spoil her work?' Stephen Tarkman looked sceptical.

'No, it wasn't that. It was just — I hardly know how to say this without being offensive,' said Felicity, who would have welcomed the opportunity to be offensive to Mrs. Morton, but not in front of Stephen Tarkman. 'The fact was that Janet was put out to the point of panic at finding she was to play in front of you, Mrs. Morton. I don't know if she felt you might be over- critical, or whether it was just that, like many people, she couldn't bear to have a member of her own family there. It makes some people self-conscious, you know — inhibited—'

'Oh, don't apologize, Miss Grainger.' Mrs. Morton gave an understanding little laugh. 'Janet just doesn't like me, I'm afraid. It's as simple as that. She was a very spoiled, over-praised little girl in her parents' lifetime and had a remarkable capacity for putting herself in the centre of the scene. I said so frankly, and was very unpopular in consequence. She is a gifted child superficially. But when you've had her a little longer under your care you'll find that there's not much staying power behind the initial good impression. Her father was the same,' she added reflectively.

'You do dislike her, don't you?' Felicity said drily.

'Miss Grainger, not at all!' The dark-fringed grey eyes looked shocked rather than angry. 'It's just that I know my own family rather well, and I don't want natural sympathy to cloud anyone's artistic judgment. There are so few of those precious vacancies at Tarkmans. We don't any of us want them wasted on the wrong people, do we?'

'No,' agreed Felicity, with an irony she had not thought herself capable of. 'We really don't, do we?'

Then she turned away to answer the tentative approaches of another eager parent. And when she had dealt adequately with that situation, Stephen Tarkman and his companion had left.

'I muffed the whole thing,' Felicity told Mary much later that night. 'I panicked. Inside only, of course. But panic is infectious, and by the time I tackled Stephen Tarkman and that woman I felt nearly as badly about her as Janet does. And I lost my temper too. That was inexcusable.'

'Anyone would have in the circumstances,' Mary insisted loyally.

'No.' Felicity shook her head. 'Losing one's temper is an indulgence — an indulgence one can't afford when the cards are stacked against one. He hasn't absolutely pronounced against Janet yet, of course. But Mrs. Morton means to spoil the child's chances if she can. I can't really think why I Why does she dislike her so much? She isn't an objectionable child. Dreamy and irritating at times perhaps, so that quite reasonable people — you, for instance — might not particularly like her, but—'

'I?' Mary looked startled and rather indignant. 'I've nothing against the kid and I wish her well. It's just that so far as my particular subject is concerned she's plain ivory from the neck upwards.'

'Well, that's it! That's what I mean. As you say, you have nothing against the kid. But she has. Mrs. Morton, I mean.'

'Perhaps,' Mary said drily, 'it's enough that Stephen Tarkman is interested in her. I sat near them and naturally kept them under what is called close observation. She isn't a lady who would like any sort of competition, even from a child. Particularly a child she had brushed off anyway. Incidentally, I think she's out to handle the Tarkman millions, if you ask me.'

'Most of them are in trust,' Felicity reminded her, in the interests of strict accuracy.

'But there must be a nice picking left for whoever hooks Stephen,' retorted Mary with a grin. 'She means to be the one if I'm not much mistaken.'

'Funny you should say that.' Felicity looked at her friend with amused respect. 'Janet told me that was what her father once said.'

'It has been an evening for exchanging interesting information, hasn't it?' Mary laughed. 'So Janet found time between the gusts of panic to tell you that, did she?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it looks to me as though that dreamy innocent has come to the surface on more than one occasion and shown Aunt Morton that she knows quite well what she's up to. There is nothing — and I mean nothing — more infuriating and disturbing than to have an innocent creature you've underestimated suddenly look you in the eye and see to the bottom of your least admirable thought and project.'

'You could be right.'

'I quite often am,' said Mary modestly. 'I have a sort of horse-sense which serves me better than any book on psychology. Well, don't let this disappointment spoil your holiday. It isn't absolutely the end of the world even if Janet Morton doesn't get into Tarkmans.'

'It would always represent a bitter failure to me, though,' Felicity replied with a sigh. 'I know that child has it in her to be a fine, possibly a great, musician. It's like being given the responsibility of polishing a diamond. And I made a mess of the first vital process ! I find it hard to forgive myself and can't wait to retrieve the position in some way. I could almost wish the holidays away,' she finished gloomily.

'Oh, come,' protested Mary. 'Easter holidays are all too short in any case. Enjoy them while you can. That fortnight you planned in Brittany will make you feel quite different. And by the time we come back who's to say that Stephen Tarkman won't have decided after all to take Janet?'

'Miracles don't happen,' replied Felicity with conviction.

But in this she was wrong. For the very first evening after she returned from her holiday, refreshed and invigorated, she was called to the telephone to hear Stephen Tarkman's abrupt but well-modulated voice at the other end.

'Miss Grainger? Stephen Tarkman. I got your telephone number from the school office—'

'Is it about Janet?' she breathed, suddenly quite sick with excitement.

'No. At least, it's not about any firm decision relating to her. There was only one vacancy this term and it went to a boy who was, beyond question, the most promising candidate we've had in years. We'll consider her perhaps at a later date. But what I'm phoning about at the moment is something different. Are you by any chance free on Thursday evening?'

'Why — why, yes, I think so.' Almost inarticulate with astonishment, Felicity hastily jettisoned a half- made plan to go with Mary to the local repertory theatre on Thursday evening.

'Good. The Warrenders are coming down here. He has to attend a meeting of the Trust. I'm giving a small dinner party for them and I thought you might like to come. You know Anthea Warrender quite well, I believe?'

'Yes, I do. At least,' Felicity amended, 'I knew her well when we were students together. I haven't seen her for some years now. But I'd welcome the chance of meeting her again.'

'On Thursday, then, at my house. You know it, do you? The grey stone house just inside the north gate.'

'Yes, I know it. Thank you very much.' She tried not to sound too much like a child being given the fairy off the Christmas tree, but she could not quite control the lilt of astonished delight in her voice. 'What time, Mr. Tarkman?'

'Can you come about seven? The others will be a little later. But I would like to talk to you first.'

'About Janet?' she asked, still hopeful.

'No, about you,' he replied. And then he rang off.

'About me!' She stood there, still holding the receiver in her hand. 'What can he have to say about me?' Then she rushed to Mary's room, radiant and breathless, and announced, 'I can't come to the theatre on Thursday, after all!'

'Your jubilation isn't exactly flattering,' Mary said. 'But what's happened?'

'Just imagine! Stephen Tarkman has invited me to his place. He's giving a party for the Warrenders. And he's asking me too. I must have my hair done. And what on earth shall I wear? I never thought to ask if—'

'Did he mention Janet Morton?' interrupted Mary.

'Oh, yes—' With sudden remorse Felicity realized how completely she had forgotten Janet's interests for the moment. 'He said they had only one vacancy this term and that it had gone to some specially gifted boy. I gather he would have got it anyway. But he did add that perhaps Janet might be reconsidered at a later date.'

'Hence your radiant expression?' suggested Mary mischievously. 'All on account of Janet's renewed chances.'

'Well—' Felicity flushed and laughed. 'A bit that it's thrilling to meet the Warrenders again, of course. This isn't the kind of invitation that often comes the way of a mere music-teacher.'

'And nothing at all on account of poor Stephen Tarkman himself? I call that ungrateful.'

'Idiot !' said Felicity. 'Very well then — just a little because of Stephen Tarkman himself. I don't really like him, as you know, but he's tremendously stimulating and — and—'

'You don't have to explain yourself, my love,' Mary assured her amusedly. 'If you weren't rather thrilled at the idea of dining with Stephen Tarkman in his own house there would be something seriously wrong with you. Even if you're only there to balance up the numbers,' she added as a sobering afterthought.

'I don't think,' Felicity said slowly, 'that's it. He said he wanted me to come a little before the others because he wanted to talk to me about something.'

'About Janet?' asked Mary in her turn.

'No. That's the odd thing. He said it was about me.'

'About you? How intriguing.'

'I thought so too. But it must surely have something to do with Janet as well. I think I'd better make it my business to see her before Thursday evening. I haven't had a chance to speak to her since the night of the concert and I'd better have some idea of her later reactions.'

It was still a day or two before the new term opened, but when she was out in the town the following morning, Felicity made a slight detour so that she could pass the neat, conventional house which Janet now called home. And here she found Mrs. Emlyn in the front garden, tying up some early gladioli.

In answer to Felicity's inquiries Mrs. Emlyn declared that Janet was very well and had enjoyed her holidays, for she was always one to assume the best unless full proof to the contrary could be given.

'She's scraping away on that fiddle of hers in the back room now, if you like to go in and have a word with her,' she offered. 'Works really hard, I must say. But it seems to keep her happy, poor little soul, which is the important thing, isn't it?'

Felicity said that no doubt it was, and then inquired curiously, 'Do you like music yourself, Mrs. Emlyn?'

'I don't mind it,' replied Mrs. Emlyn broad-mindedly. And on that Felicity went into the house, through the bright, cheerful, highly-polished hall to the back room, where she found Janet 'scraping away' with an absorbed and contented air which she found decidedly reassuring.

When the little girl saw Felicity, however, she stopped immediately, looked faintly guilty and said, 'Oh, Miss Grainger, are you angry with me for running away from the school concert?'

'No, of course not.' Smiling, Felicity shook her head. 'I was sorry you didn't stay to meet Mr. Tarkman. I'd have liked him to get some impression of you as a person. But if you were feeling miserable I expect it was best for you to go home. How do you feel about it all now?'

'I just don't think about it.' Janet suddenly became remote and composed. 'I don't like thinking about my aunt, so I don't think about the concert.' Then she paused and said, 'Did you speak to Mr. Tarkman afterwards?'

'Yes. And again on the phone yesterday evening.'

'I suppose—' Janet's composure cracked, and naked anxiety peeped through - 'I suppose Aunt Julia made sure that he didn't even consider me any further?'

'Oh, no, my dear! Of course not. Responsible people don't make decisions that way,' declared Felicity, with a confidence she was far from feeling. But she knew she must firmly underestimate Julia Morton's powers of mischief-making if she were ever to do anything about Janet's obsession. 'Mr. Tarkman told me last night that there was only one vacancy this term and that it went to a boy who apparently outclassed everyone else. But he spoke as though there would be another chance of hearing you, and I mean to keep him to that.'

'Oh, Miss Grainger, thank you!' Janet's face glowed, as though a lamp had suddenly been lit inside her. 'I won't be stupid next time. Not,' she added, 'if my aunt isn't there.'

'Well, I don't see why she should be,' Felicity said reassuringly. 'Though really, my dear, if you ever come to the standard of a public performer, you won't be able to choose your own audience, you know.'

'If I'm important enough to play in public, I'll be important enough to say she can't come in. And I shall!' asserted Janet, unexpectedly thrusting out her lower lip, like a four-year-old saying someone shouldn't play with her toys.

'Poor little one!' thought Felicity with a great wave of compassion and yet amusement. 'She's such a child, really. I must remember.'

And aloud she said, 'Janet, can't we lay this bogey somehow? Why does your aunt—? I mean what makes you so certain that she dislikes you and wishes you ill?'

'I just know it,' Janet asserted, not very helpfully. 'Here,' she added, pressing an expressive hand to her thin little chest.

'But it's quite absurd and illogical ! Why should she? You're an inoffensive sort of child—'

'Oh, not to her,' said Janet, and a slow, oddly disturbing smile spread over her features, making her look this time so much older than her age that Felicity felt it was almost uncanny how the child could change personality from minute to minute. 'She knows I see through her,' explained Janet coolly. 'And anyway, there's something to do with money too, I think.'

'With money?' Felicity was surprised.

'Yes. I think my uncle left quite a lot of money to me and not much to her. She didn't like that, you know. She's very fond of money.'

'Well—' Felicity cleared her throat and slid tactfully away from that subject — 'try not to bother about the situation any more. As you get older and feel more confidence in yourself you'll find that the thought of your aunt doesn't worry you much.'

'Yes, Miss Grainger,' said Janet politely. And, not for the first time, Felicity felt that Janet preferred her own inner core of knowledge to anything that a grownup could tell her.

It aggravated and yet intrigued her. But there was obviously no point in discussing things further. She said good-bye and went on her way, pausing only to make an appointment to have her hair done on Thursday afternoon.

By the time Felicity was ready on the all-important evening she felt both nervous and elated. The social life of a small-town music-teacher is neither rich nor varied, and to be going among distinguished strangers on her own was something of an ordeal as well as a pleasure. It was true that Anthea Warrender was no stranger and that in the past she had been invariably friendly. But time had gone on and it might have changed even Anthea, who by now was an international star.

'You wouldn't have been asked if you hadn't been wanted,' Mary reminded her bracingly. 'Stephen Tarkman doesn't consult anything but his own wishes in this as in anything else, I feel sure. Go and enjoy yourself, my child, secure in the fact that Julia Morton at any rate could never wear that gorgeous shade of red. It's for ash-blondes only — and ash-blondes of quality, at that.'

So Felicity lifted her chin a little higher and went out to the waiting taxi, in which she was to drive to what Mary insisted on referring to as the Tarkman mansion.

Mansion it was not, exactly. But it was certainly a very distinguished and luxurious house to which Felicity was admitted by a respectful manservant. Having taken her fur jacket from her, he led her across the wide panelled hall and through an archway into the most delightful room she had ever seen.

It was large and beautifully proportioned, with a pale amber carpet and darker amber curtains and furniture, all of which lent a faint honey-coloured cast to the cream walls. There were few flowers, but incredibly beautiful climbing plants in each corner of the room, and on the walls were some exquisite water-colours which, even at a glance, Felicity judged to be something very special indeed.

She had little time to take in more than a general impression before Stephen Tarkman came in from the garden by way of the French windows, but she was already so utterly charmed with the place that she greeted him with, 'What a perfectly beautiful room!'

'It is nice, isn't it?' He smiled at her with unexpected friendliness. 'It was my father's favourite room. And he would have approved of you standing there in that very charming dress. He always used to say that what this room required to set it off was a lovely woman wearing a dress which made a really brilliant splash of colour against all the paler tints.'

'Oh, thank you.' The compliment was so unexpected that she found herself blushing like one of her own schoolgirls. At which he looked amused and asked her what she would drink.

She tried to look sophisticated and at ease as she watched him bring their two glasses across, and she hoped that he would now tell her what it was he had wanted to talk over with her.

He made no attempt, however, to start the subject immediately. Instead, he began to tell her something about the house and the school, which now occupied what had once been the original family house.

r

'I spent all my growing-up years there, of course. I always remember it as incredibly large and impersonal and unsuitable for private living. It requires about fifty people to make it feel lived in, which is what it has now, of course — along with a number of other civilizing improvements. This house where we are now was built in the grounds in the last years of my father's life, when he decided to start the Tarkman School and use the big house for the purpose.'

'So the original idea for this special school for musical children was his, not yours?'

'Certainly it was his idea. So was almost everything else to do with the administration of the Trust. He was a man of considerable vision. I merely try to carry out his ideas as I think he wanted them to be.'

'Turning visions into practical fact is quite something, isn't it?' She smiled at him in her turn. 'Everyone says you make a marvellous job of it.'

'Not everyone,' he assured her cynically. 'Some people think I'm just an arrogant bounder who rides roughshod over some of the most cherished theories of the day.'

'Oh, well—' began Felicity. Then she stopped and looked confused.

'Do go on,' he said amusedly.

She turned her glass on its stem, smiled suddenly and said, 'At the risk of being rude to my host, I was going to say that I could well imagine your riding roughshod and being—'

'Arrogant,' he prompted.

'Arrogant,' she accepted. 'But I'm quite sure that you're scrupulous to the last degree about carrying out what you think your father really wished to have done.'

'I do my best,' he conceded, 'even if I sometimes translate into my own terms. What I do always keep in mind is his overriding wish that the school should turn out not simply self-absorbed, technically stunning exhibitionists, but real music-makers in the truest sense of the term.'

'I know—' suddenly her eyes were shining with sympathy and eagerness — 'I know exactly what he meant.'

'Yes, you do, don't you? Because that's your speciality too.'

'How do you know?' She was rather taken aback.

'I've been making quite a lot of inquiries about you,' he told her coolly.

'You have? From whom?'

'First from Mrs. Bush, who may not know much about music but is a very shrewd judge of her staff as people. Then from the head at your last school—'

'Miss Evesham !'

'Yes, Miss Evesham. And finally the very remarkable headmaster of your first school.'

'Oh, he really did know about music-making!' she said quickly.

'Yes, so I realized. But each one of the three, though different in outlook and temperament, had exactly the same thing to say about you in one respect.'

'And what was that?' She was surprised and intrigued.

'That they had never come across anyone with your remarkable capacity for arousing interest and enthusiasm. Or, as Miss Evesham rather picturesquely put it, for opening windows on fresh and exciting horizons.'

'She said that?' Felicity was genuinely touched, for she had not known that Miss Evesham rated her so highly. 'How very nice of her. But, Mr. Tarkman, why have you been going round collecting opinions about me? And incidentally, what was it you wanted to discuss with me before the others arrived?' She glanced at her watch.

He noted the gesture with a smile and said, 'I can save time by giving the same answer to both those questions. I want to persuade you to join the staff of Tarkmans as a visiting lecturer on music appreciation — or whatever term you choose to apply to your special gift for opening windows on fresh musical horizons.'

'Me? You want me to teach at Tarkmans? But—' genuine humility came over her — 'I'm not at all sure I'm that standard.'

'If you weren't I shouldn't be asking you,' he assured her drily. 'Think it over, Miss Grainger. I hear our first guests arriving. And let me know your decision at the end of the evening.'

CHAPTER THREE

Dazed as she was by Stephen Tarkman's unexpected offer, Felicity found some difficulty in pulling herself together sufficiently to appear calm and sociable when the first visitors were ushered in. But as one of them proved to be Julia Morton, she called on all her powers of self-control, smiled sweetly and contrived to say all the right things.

With Mrs. Morton came Professor Blackthorn who was, Felicity remembered, the other person Stephen Tarkman had originally proposed to bring with him to the ill-fated school concert. Apparently the professor — a pleasant, middle-aged man with shrewd dark eyes behind horn-rimmed spectacles — remembered this too, because he immediately said,

'I was sorry not to come to your end-of-term concert a few weeks ago, but I had to go north to adjudicate at a county competition that night. How did things go?'

She was taken aback to find that apparently Janet had not rated so much as a word of discussion between the two men and she asked quickly, 'Didn't Mr. Tarkman tell you?'

'I haven't had a chance to talk to him since,' the professor explained.

'Oh — well,' Felicity admitted, 'I'm afraid my protégée had a fit of nerves and did herself less than justice, but—'

'It often happens,' he interrupted consolingly. 'She may get another opportunity. How old is she?'

'Eleven. She is Mrs. Morton's niece,' Felicity added in a lower tone, and she glanced across the room to where Stephen Tarkman was displaying to his other guests what appeared to be a recent addition to his collection of water-colours.

'Really?' Professor Blackthorn seemed interested. 'Was it she who first drew Tarkman's attention to the girl?'

'On the contrary,' replied Felicity drily. 'In my view, Mrs. Morton seriously underrates her niece's gifts, and there seems little sympathy between them. But of course one doesn't want to bring personalities into these matters.'

'Of course not,' agreed the professor, but rather regretfully, as though he would have enjoyed a little gossip at that point.

Sounds of other arrivals were heard just then, however, and into the room came Oscar Warrender, preceded by his wife.

Once more Anthea Warrender looked so engagingly like the Anthea Benton Felicity remembered from her student days that the years seemed to fall away, and she watched smiling while Stephen Tarkman welcomed his distinguished guests. Then Anthea turned, saw Felicity and cried,

'Felicity Grainger ! I don't believe it! Where did you find her, Stephen?' She kissed Felicity warmly and, still holding one of her hands, turned to her husband. 'Oscar, you remember Felicity? She and I roomed together at Mrs. McManus's when we were students.'

Felicity could think of no reason why Oscar Warrender should remember her, and she shrewdly suspected that he couldn't either. But he greeted her with a touch of the famous charm which he used when he wanted to be specially nice to a friend or unpleasant to an enemy, and the talk became general.

Within the next few minutes other guests arrived — mostly connected in some way with the Foundation or local friends of Stephen Tarkman, Felicity judged. Then dinner was announced and she found she was seated between Professor Blackthorn and an engaging young man called Edgar Inglis, who turned out to be Warrender's private secretary.

'You must have stamina!' she remarked, regarding him with slightly envious interest. 'Isn't it rather a hectic life?'

'Unbelievably so,' he agreed. 'But never dull, except when the fan-mail gets knee-deep. It's the life for me. It would kill me — although I'm remarkably tough — to have regular hours and some fool of a union man telling me which part of the job was mine and which wasn't.'

'How would you define your job exactly?' she asked, intrigued. 'Apart from the actual secretarial work, I mean?'

'I couldn't,' he assured her cheerfully. 'It varies from travel agent to psychiatrist, from father confessor to court jester.'

'And you mean to say Mr. Warrender really requires all that?'

'Oh, he doesn't. He's the most self-sufficient creature I ever came across. But one's inevitably involved with all the people who surround one's boss. And if he happens to be an international stage figure and a driving force in the musical world they include agents, managers, fans, pensioners, adorers, haters, fellow artists — both talented and dud-ambitious mums, self-deluded amateurs, jealous old pros — oh, the lot!'

'And how,' inquired Felicity with real interest, 'does Anthea make out in all this?'

'Anthea? Oh—' his mischievous smile softened slightly — 'she's our guardian angel, good fairy, or whatever else of the kind you like to call her. I tell you — if she wanted me to, I'd lie down on the ground and let her walk over me. But fortunately, she isn't given that way,' he added lightly. 'The only one she ever walks over — very occasionally — is Warrender.'

'She can do that?'' Felicity was impressed.

'Only for his own good,' Edgar Inglis assured her with a grin.

After dinner, when the company moved back into the other room, Anthea found the opportunity to come and talk to Felicity and to ask what she had done since they had last seen each other at her own dinner-party three years ago.

'It's I who should be asking you that,' Felicity declared with a laugh. 'You are the one who has done the interesting things. What is it like to be a famous singer in your own right and married to the greatest conductor in the world?'

'Heaven, with an occasional dash of hell,' said Anthea succinctly. 'But I truly want to know about you. What's this about your coming to teach at Tarkmans?'

'Who told you that?' Felicity demanded.

'Stephen, of course.'

'As a settled thing?' She looked rather vexed. 'He is sure of himself, isn't he?'

'Well, of course, darling. Men like Stephen Tarkman don't get where they are by being urasure of themselves,' Anthea pointed out. 'Isn't it true, then?'

'It's true that he asked me, just before the rest of the guests arrived. I was to think it over and let him know my decision at the end of the evening.'

'And you're busy thinking out ways of refusing?' inquired Anthea with a sceptical smile.

'No, of course not!' said Felicity. And then they both laughed so much that Stephen Tarkman who was passing stopped to ask with a smile if they were recalling their misspent student days together.

'We haven't got to the past yet,' Anthea assured him gaily. 'We were talking about the future — and about Felicity coming to teach at Tarkmans.'

"And is Felicity coming to teach at Tarkmans?' His amused glance moved so quickly to the other girl that he could not have failed to catch the look of sparkling delight which brightened her eyes and parted her lips.

'Yes, please,' she said, with the naive and breathless eagerness of a child. And at the same moment Julia Morton came up, slipped her arm into Stephen Tarkmans, and inquired what discussion was making Miss Grainger look so starry-eyed.

'It's not a discussion. It's a decision,' Stephen Tarkman informed her. 'Felicity — Miss Grainger — is going to take some classes for us at Tarkmans.'

'But I thought—' there was an almost imperceptible hardening of that charming voice — 'I thought Miss Grainger had a full-time post at Carmalton School!'

'She has,' he replied coolly. 'But arrangements can be made. I've already had a word with her headmistress about that.*

'Have you?' Felicity was astonished.

Mrs. Morton was evidently astonished too, and not pleasantly so. But she laughed and said in an amusedly admonishing sort of tone, 'You do get busy in holiday time, don't you, Stephen?'

'Of course. Sometimes one does more in holiday time than term time,' he agreed easily. Then he passed on, taking her with him, and Anthea, looking intrigued, murmured,

'Who is she? I was introduced, but I've forgotten her name.'

'Mrs. Morton,' said Felicity, carefully confining herself to the exact question.

But that was not enough for Anthea, who replied promptly, 'Don't be cagey. Why was she mad at the idea of your coming to Tarkmans? Is she jealous or something?'

'She has no reason to be.'

'Jealousy isn't based on reason,' retorted Anthea.

'We clashed rather over her niece, who is a pupil of mine,' Felicity admitted. 'And I think I said more than was advisable.'

She laughed slightly, but Anthea did not. Instead she looked thoughtfully after the woman who had just left them, and after a moment she said. 'Shall I tell you something? She's dangerous, that woman. If she were a rival soprano — I'd be just a little bit afraid of her.'

'Would you?' Felicity glanced at her friend curiously. 'Why?'

'Partly because she doesn't show her real feelings at all. She just bottles them up and smiles. I've seen the same thing in my profession, and it nearly always means danger. The extroverts like Torelli, for instance, can rage and behave abominably and enjoy a scene and forget it. It's about as dangerous as a nosebleed in an ordinary person. But the cold sweet ones, like Peroni, will smile entrancingly as they hand you the poisoned cup.' And she gave an odd little shiver.

'You're surely not afraid of Peroni nowadays?' Felicity smiled incredulously, though she remembered that some people said the famous soprano had preceded Anthea in Warrender's affections as well as in the roles in which the younger woman now excelled. 'I thought she retired some time last year.'

'Oh, yes. At least, she gave a farewell appearance. There's no professional rivalry between us nowadays. But do you know, Felicity, if I'm aware that she's in the audience I'm never on top form. I can't tell you why. She just has that effect upon me. Though he says nothing, I think Oscar goes to great pains to see I don't know she is there. But she usually sends me flowers, so as to make sure that I do know. Gorgeous flowers. And they always make me feel sick.'

'You feel like that about her?' Felicity gazed at the successful, securely established Anthea Warrender, but what she saw was the small, pale, spectacled face of Janet Morton. 'Why, Janet says—'

But just then Oscar Warrender glanced across the room and Anthea said instantly, 'I must go. He wants me for something. Felicity, we must manage to see each other again. We're at the Royal for the next three days. Call me up and we'll arrange something.'

With a quick smile she was gone, and almost immediately her place was taken by Professor Blackthorn, who had just heard about Felicity's proposed connection with Tarkmans and wanted to talk shop. They talked shop very enjoyably, as a matter of fact, for a good part of the evening after that. But almost all the time, at the back of her mind, Felicity thought of what Anthea had said about Peroni — and Julia Morton.

To her great surprise, when the party was breaking up, Mrs. Morton very cordially offered to give her a lift in her car. But before Felicity could think quite what to do with this offer, Stephen Tarkman intervened.

'Don't worry, Julia. Miss Grainger goes in the opposite direction from you. I am running her home myself.'

'I can have a taxi—' Felicity began.

'It isn't necessary,'' he told her, and turned to say goodnight to the other woman. Julia Morton looked past him for a moment and there was an odd, flinty glitter in her eyes as they rested on Felicity. Then she leaned forward and rather deliberately kissed Stephen Tarkman.

It was true that one or two others, including Anthea, kissed their host good night. But none of them, Felicity thought, in quite the way Julia Morton did.

When all the other guests had gone, he took Felicity out to his car. And as he handed her in she said impulsively, 'I still can't quite believe that this has happened to me, or that you can be in any way sure that I'm qualified for the job.'

'Shall we say that I'm sufficiently sure to give you a fair trial?' he replied. 'Your academic qualifications are excellent and all your previous employers speak highly of you. Both important points. But in addition you have something I've been looking for for a long time. The quality of capturing and holding attention to an extraordinary degree.'

'Have I? But how do you know?'

'Because I've spent some time observing you closely,' he told her coolly. 'Even three years ago, whatever gaffes you made, at least you captured my attention.' He smiled, not entirely kindly.

'Then!' She laughed incredulously. 'You're joking.'

'Only half. When I recognised you again I found I could recall almost every detail of that occasion—'

'Oh, not every detail, I hope!' she protested with some embarrassment.

'I'm willing to gloss over some of them,' he said with that dry little smile. 'But the fact remains that you, and what you said, were completely printed on my mind. With anyone else — almost anyone else — I should have allowed the whole thing to slip into unimportant oblivion. Then at the school concert I watched very carefully your handling of your pupils. With each you were subtly different, but for each you represented security and a sort of compulsive interest which carried them through. That's quite a gift, Miss Grainger.'

'But for my poor little Janet I couldn't do it,' murmured Felicity half to herself.

'With your poor little Janet you permitted yourself to become too emotionally involved,' he informed her drily. 'Which brings me to the one point on which I think I should utter a warning. Don't let your prejudices — either for or against — take too close a hold on you, Miss Grainger. That might make your position at Tarkmans less enjoyable than it should be.'

She thought of the way Julia Morton had looked at her not half an hour ago and was sorely tempted to argue the point. But her better judgment prevailed. If she could not accept that with submissive words, at least she could remain silent, which she did. And after a moment he went on,

'Apart from that, I see no reason why you should not be a great success. I noticed at that concert with everyone of those girls that, scared though they might be, they were all deeply involved. Not one of them looked even remotely bored.'

'Bored? Oh, no, I don't think any pupils of mine are bored. But I shouldn't have thought that any student of the Tarkman standard ran any danger of that. Boredom argues a certain lack of intelligence, doesn't it?'

'Of course. But the lack of intelligence can be on the teacher's part as well as the pupil's.'

'Well, that's true,' Felicity admitted with a smile. 'But at Tarkmans—'

'At Tarkmans, Miss Grainger,' he interrupted, 'inevitably there is far more specialization — and discipline — than elsewhere. Training has to be intensive if there is to be success beyond the average. But the danger inherent in that is that a sort of mechanical brilliance can set in, and the means can become more important than the end.'

'I know.' She nodded. 'Just as it's true that "without vision the people perish" so without inspiration the artist stifles. And although inspiration almost invariably comes from within, it's the teacher's business to — what was that? — open new windows and point to fresh horizons.'

'Exactly.' And then he added, 'I thought you were the right person. Now I know it.'

She was so moved and flattered that for a moment or two she could think of nothing but her own deep satisfaction. It was not only that the praise of a man like Stephen Tarkman was indescribably pleasing. It was also that his words seemed to confer some accolade on all that she had striven for in her work. She was in a daze of happiness, until he suddenly said,

'I think we've gone past your turning, haven't ' we?'

'Oh—' she glanced out of the window - 'yes, we have. Quite a long way past. I'm sorry, I wasn't noticing.'

'It doesn't matter. I'll back and turn here.'

He did so. And it was as the headlights of his car swept an arc of light along and across the lane that Felicity leaned forward and exclaimed sharply, 'Wait! There's a child walking — Drive on the way we were going. I think there's something wrong—'

He followed her instructions immediately. And, as the lights caught the small moving figure again, Felicity said, in a distressed half-whisper, 'She's in — in a nightdress, with nothing on her feet. It's Janet. I thought it was! She must be sleep-walking or something. Draw up quietly.'

Stephen Tarkman drew the car to a standstill a few yards beyond the walking child, and made as though to get out. But Felicity said almost fiercely, 'No! I'll get her.'

'Be careful. Don't wake her suddenly.'

'No, it's all right.' Felicity slipped out of the car and went back towards Janet, who showed no sign at all of seeing her.

'Darling—' Very gently Felicity took her hand, which was frighteningly cold, and walked a few yards with her. 'Come home with me now. You must be tired and want your bed.5

'Tired,' Janet agreed with a small sigh. 'Tired. But I don't want to see Aunt Julia.'

They had come level with the car now and Stephen Tarkman, standing at the open door, could not fail to hear what was said. But Felicity, still in the same soothing, matter-of-fact tone, replied firmly, 'You don't have to see your Aunt Julia, dear. Come with me, Janet. It's Miss Grainger.'

'Miss Grainger—' Janet drew against her suddenly. 'I'm cold. Terribly, terribly cold. But I don't want—'

'I know, dear. Come in the warm with me.' Again Stephen Tarkman moved to take over, but Felicity shook her head and whispered, 'She doesn't know you. She might be frightened.' And he let her half lift Janet into the car, though it was something of an effort.

'There's a rug,' he murmured, handing that in to her, and she wrapped it round Janet and drew her close again.

At that the child half roused herself and said in a tone of great surprise, 'Miss Grainger! Where on earth—? What happened?'

'It's all right, Janet. You're quite safe. You went walking in your sleep. But now I'm taking you home.' And then to Stephen Tarkman, who was back in the driving seat by now, she said, 'If you turn and drive back the way we came, the Emlyns' house is just opposite the big oak tree with the wooden bench under it.' Janet yawned suddenly and completely naturally. 'I was dreaming,' she said. 'I thought Aunt Julia was coming to hear me play—' then she stopped, gave a funny apologetic little laugh, as though she realized she was being silly, and asked, 'How did you find me, Miss Grainger?'

'Mr. Tarkman was driving me home from a party—'

'Is that Mr. Tarkman?' Janet interrupted in a discreet whisper, and she raised her head and peeped past Felicity with an air of interested respect.

He said, 'Hello, Janet,' in a friendly, matter-of-fact tone.

But her answering, 'Hello,' was shy and subdued. And, dropping her head back against Felicity again, she remained silent until they arrived at the Emlyns' house.

It looked, Felicity thought, as though Janet's absence had already been discovered, for late though it was, lights shone from every window in the small house. And the moment there was the sound of a car stopping, the front door was snatched open by an eager hand and Mrs. Emlyn, in a dressing gown, came running down the short path to the gate.

'It's all right, Mrs. Emlyn, we've got Janet quite safe,' Felicity called softly. And poor Mrs. Emlyn looked in at the open window of the car and said in quite a shaky voice,

'Oh, you silly, naughty little girl! What have you been doing, wandering right away out of the house like that? I'd have locked the door if I'd even thought of such a thing. It's bad enough when you do it in the house—'

'I'm sorry.' Janet put out a hand and touched Mrs. Emlyn with a sort of affectionate confidence which deeply touched Felicity. 'I was asleep, I didn't know. But it's all right. Miss Grainger and Mr. Tarkman found me.'

'But you've next to nothing on!' Mrs. Emlyn clucked her tongue distressfully as she took in the meagreness of Janet's attire. 'You might have caught your death of cold. She worries me — really, she does, Miss Grainger. This is the third time. As you know, it's that wretched aunt of hers that preys on her mind, and when she gets upset she always—'

'Wouldn't it be better to postpone discussion and get Janet safely to bed?' interrupted Stephen Tarkman coolly.

And Mrs. Emlyn, recognizing the tone of masculine authority, said, 'Yes, of course. Give her here to me, Miss Grainger. Goodness, child, you've no shoes on! Well, you're just a slip. I can carry you.'

'I'll carry her.' Stephen Tarkman leaned forward and scooped Janet up in his arms.

'Be careful with her,' Felicity said sharply.

'What else should I be?' His mocking eyes met hers challenging over Janet's smooth head. And Felicity felt suddenly foolish and just said, 'Good night, Janet. Sleep well now.'

She watched the tall figure of Stephen Tarkman, carrying Janet so easily, follow Mrs. Emlyn into the house. Then she sat back in her seat and allowed her anxiety and anger to take full hold on her.

That wretched Julia Morton! Trouble-maker that she was. And Stephen Tarkman had had the effrontery to accuse her, Felicity, of letting her prejudices get the better of her.

He ought to be feeling — and looking — pretty small by now. But she did not think that feeling small came easily to Stephen Tarkman. Instead he had looked at her in that challenging way and made her feel silly just because she wanted a little extra tenderness for Janet just now.

But even he could hardly explain away what Mrs. Emlyn had said. She at least could not be accused of prejudice. And her opinion of Julia Morton had come out as clearly and innocently as possible. No wonder he had wanted the discussion cut short ! But he should not get away with that so easily, Felicity decided suddenly.

And when he returned a few minutes later and got back into the car, she said without preamble, And what about my prejudices now?'

He started the car before he answered. Then he said, but not at all defensively, 'What do you mean by that?'

'You know perfectly well what I mean.' She had forgotten for the moment that he had given her a wonderful evening and offered her a stimulating job. She only knew that he had rather mockingly put her in the wrong and that she had no intention of staying there. 'A little while ago,' she reminded him sweetly, 'you more or less accused me of allowing my prejudices to run away with me. Now you heard for yourself what Mrs. Emlyn said about Julia Morton.'

'Yes, I heard.' His tone was not that of a man who felt in the wrong. 'She said, 'As you know, Miss Grainger, it's her aunt who upsets her—" or some such words. The "as you know" interested me. I take it that you and Mrs. Emlyn have had a satisfying talk about Mrs. Morton and that you have transferred your views to her. Gossip of that kind isn't advisable in a place like this. What I said about your prejudices was justified, I think.'

Felicity gasped aloud.

'I never exchanged a word about her with Mrs. Emlyn,' she exclaimed indignantly. 'I shouldn't dream of doing such a thing!'

'Well, if not directly, then by way of Janet, who has been encouraged, I'm afraid, to—'

'So Janet must be dragged into it too!' Felicity turned to him, her cheeks hot with indignation and her eyes bright. 'In fact, everyone must be guilty except Julia Morton. Who's being prejudiced now?'

'Perhaps I am,' he admitted quite unperturbed. 'But where Julia is concerned you must allow me a little prejudice, I'm afraid. I am going to marry her. This is your house, isn't it?'

'Y-yes,' said Felicity in a very small voice indeed. And then, as he came round to open the car door for her, she managed to get out a few more words. 'I'm — sorry, Mr. Tarkman. I couldn't know you were so personally involved.'

'No, you couldn't know,' he agreed. 'But that's what I meant about not letting your prejudices run away with you. Expressed in your rather forceful way—' his smile softened that a little, but only a little - 'they can be quite formidable.'

'I'm sorry,' she said again, and she looked as though all the joy and light had gone out of the evening.

Perhaps he noted that and was sorry in his turn, because he said in a businesslike way, 'I'll phone Mrs. Bush in the morning and arrange for us all to discuss details of the Tarkman appointment. We're hoping to have you for two afternoons and at least one evening a week, if that's acceptable to you and her.'

'Oh, it is! I mean it is to me,' she assured him fervently. Then, fearing that she might have sounded too slavishly glad to be back on friendly terms again, she managed to lighten her voice and say with a rueful smile, 'And please forgive my final gaffe and let me say again how much I have to thank you for a wonderful evening.'

'It was quite an evening for me too, you know.' He held her hand for a moment and smiled down at her. 'Tonight you accepted a lift from me without reservations.'

'Without reservations?' She looked puzzled.

'Once,' he reminded her not very kindly, 'I heard you say that you'd rather go home on hands and knees than accept a lift from me. I feel I've made some progress.'

Then he got back into the car and drove away, leaving Felicity feeling dismayed and charmed and indefinably excited all at once.

As she let herself in, Mary called from her room, 'Come on in. I'm wide awake and want a blow-by- blow account.'

She went into the room immediately and stood there smiling, ready to give a full account of her evening. But suddenly the priorities seemed to arrange themselves in strange order and, quite unbidden, the words which rose to her lips were, 'He's going to marry Julia Morton.'

'Was that what he invited you there to discuss?' Mary looked amused and curious.

'No, of course not. He wanted to offer me a job at Tarkmans.'

'That's better!' Mary declared. 'To teach at Tarkmans—' she savoured the announcement as though she were tasting something with a sharp but delicious flavour. 'Just about the highest compliment that could be paid you, I suppose. Are you going to take it?'

'Why, of course, Mary!'

'Even though he's going to marry Julia Morton?'

'What on earth could that have to do with my decision to go and teach at Tarkmans?' Felicity stared at her friend.

'I wondered,' Mary said. 'I — wondered. You gave me as your first and most important piece of news the fact that he was going to marry Mrs. Morton. The bit about his incredible offer to you came second. Was that just by chance, or an instinctive arranging of the facts in their order of importance to you?'

'Neither. And don't make idiotic insinuations,' Felicity replied crossly. 'The fact was that he'd just told me about his — his coming marriage. Only a minute or two before we said good night. It was the most recent thing in my mind when I came in. That and the fact that we came across Janet sleep-walking along the lane. She'd nothing on but her nightdress, poor little thing. Not even slippers on her feet.'

She launched into an account of the scene quickly and in some detail, not realizing at that moment that she was instinctively fending off any return to the absurd line of thought which Mary had introduced.

But much later when, having told Mary the whole story of the evening, she was alone in her own room, she went to the window and stood looking out into the moonlit garden. From the church across the meadows came the sound of the half-hour striking, and she knew it must be half-past two. Hardly the moment to linger in thought, with her bed waiting invitingly for her. But she stood there for minutes on end, thinking of the wonderful evening Stephen Tarkman had given her, of the offer he had made her — and the fact that he was going to marry Julia Morton.

She told herself it was natural to feel disturbed about the last fact, if only on Janet's account. She told herself it was understandably tiresome to have to start the glorious new job inhibited by the fact that she must tread warily in the near presence of an undoubted enemy. After a while, however, she told herself just that she was sorry Stephen Tarkman was going to marry - anyone.        '

And then she went to bed.

During the next few days everything began to arrange itself with a speed which surprised Felicity, but which was evidently characteristic of Stephen Tarkman.

The discussion between her, Mrs. Bush and Stephen Tarkman was clear, to the point and eminently satisfactory to all parties. Stephen Tarkman got exactly what he wanted. Mrs. Bush was gratified to realize that to have her music-mistress also teaching at Tarkmans would confer a distinction on her own school. And Felicity was left with the pleasant impression that both valued her services highly.

In spite of all her preoccupation with the new turn of affairs, however, she still found time to telephone to Anthea. And the two met over coffee at the War- renders' hotel while the conductor himself attended his board meeting at the Tarkman Foundation.

'Everything is settled,' Felicity told Anthea, a lilt of pure happiness in her voice. 'I'm to start at Tarkmans next week, doing two afternoon sessions with the younger children, and one evening with the older students. A sort of "music appreciation" talk to suit the different age groups. Something to make their tops spin and make them, realize that hard work and exciting discoveries go hand in hand.'

'Stephen thinks a lot of you, doesn't he?' Anthea smiled affectionately at her.

'Oh, I don't know.' The possibility seemed suddenly almost dangerously sweet, but Felicity repressed any temptation to over-confidence.

'He does,' Anthea asserted calmly. 'I heard him say so to Oscar. And I tell you who didn't like it one little bit. Julia Morton. She gave that cool, disparagingly little laugh of hers, raised her eyebrows and said doubtfully, "Have you all that much confidence in her, Mr. Warrender?"

'And what,' asked Felicity with understandable interest, 'did Mr. Warrender say to that?'

'Oh, he gave her one of those deceptively vague glances which he keeps for people who think they're pulling wool over his eyes and said, "I don't have to. I have confidence in Stephen and he makes the staff appointments." Then he went on talking to Stephen and I think she could have boiled him in oil with pleasure.'

Felicity laughed, but a little uneasily. She was on the point of asking Anthea if she knew about the impending marriage. But something — perhaps it was Stephen Tarkman's stinging warning about avoiding gossip — prompted her to silence. If Anthea already knew about it, she evidently regarded the information as confidential. If she did not know, it was not for Felicity to break the confidence made to her.

She would dearly have ill-red to discuss the subject which was rapidly - and inexplicably - coming to be of disproportionate interest to her. But the visit ended without the slightest reference to it.

'If you come to London during the season let me know.' Anthea said as she kissed Felicity good-bye. 'I don't want to lose sight of you again. And if you'd like to hear me sing any time, I'll see you have tickets.'

Warmed by so much friendliness, and the promise of considerable future pleasure. Felicity said good-bye in her turn and went out iato the street once more to wait for her bus to Carmalton. Aggravatingly enough, she missed one by a matter of yards and settled down resignedly to a long wait. But she had not been standing at the bus stop more than three or four minutes when a car slid to a standstill beside her and Julia Morton leaned from the open window and said,

'Jump in.. Miss Grainger. I'll give you a lift home. This time I am going your way.'

It was impossible to refuse without discourtesy. And, in any case, a lift in a car was greatly to be preferred to a wait of indefinite duration. Even a lift from Julia Morton. So Felicity smiled, her thanks as agreeably as she could and got into the car. Though she did wander» as they shot away down the sleepy main street, how she was going to sustain light conversation with Julia Morton all the way to Carmalton.

She need not have worried, however. The initiative was not left to her. They had hardly drawn clear of the main street before Julia said, as though she had a right to know, 'How far has this idea of your teaching at Tarkmans gone?'

Felicity allowed a small pause before her reply, partly from astonishment, but mostly to indicate that this was no business of Julia Morton's. Then she said briefly, 'It's settled, barring a few details.'

Utterly uncrushed, the other woman asked sharply, 'Has anything been signed?'

'Signed? What should be signed in a teaching arrangement of this sort?'

'There's usually a contract, isn't there? — or at least a contractual letter. If everything has been verbal up to now—?' she paused in her turn, as though inviting Felicity to confirm or query that.

'As it happens,' Felicity said drily, 'everything has been verbal up to now, but—'

'Then you could still withdraw?'

'If Ï wished to. But I don't wish to, Mrs. Morton,' Felicity stated coldly and finally. 'And I find it rather odd that you should speak like this about something which concerns me only.'

'No, not only you. Stephen too.' The other woman was completely unmoved. 'And, at the risk of your finding this even more odd, I'm going to suggest to you that it would be better if you did withdraw from the arrangement.'

There was something so single-minded about her determination to press her own point of view that she was almost frightening. And it took quite an effort for Felicity to remind herself that this was not only an impertinent conversation but a slightly ridiculous one.

'Mrs. Morton, I don't think you can realize how absurd that sounds,' she said, and she managed to give a cool little laugh. 'Can you give me one good reason why I should do any such thing?'

'Yes, I can.' The car had stopped at a crossroads while they waited for the light to change, and she turned and looked full at Felicity. 'I don't like you, Miss Grainger. I don't want you at Tarkmans. And I can be a very dangerous adversary indeed if someone crosses me over anything important.'

CHAPTER FOUR

The traffic lights changed, the car shot forward again, and Felicity clenched her teeth against the furious, scornful retort which rose to her lips. There was a slight nervous jerkiness about her companion's driving, but when Felicity glanced at Julia Morton she could detect no nervousness in her expression. Only a half smiling determination which hardened the line of her mouth.

'Take time for your reply,' Felicity told herself. 'Take time.'

And then, recalling that nothing is more disturbing to a provocative speaker than an indifferent silence, she relaxed in her seat and refused to utter a word.

In a way it was a trial of strength between them and, during the last few minutes of the drive, Felicity thought she detected a slight crack in the other woman's monumental self-confidence. At any rate, having glanced sideways in her turn and established beyond doubt that Felicity's silence was not a crushed one, she finally said, as though driven to seek a different, less satisfactory explanation,

'Well, Miss Grainger, what have you to say to my warning?'

'Absolutely nothing,' Felicity assured her cheerfully. 'You say you don't like me. You don't have to, you know. Come to that, I don't much like you. And you say you don't want me at Tarkmans, to which the only possible reply is that the decision doesn't rest with you.

As for what you regard as a warning—' she laughed — 'I find that rather childish. It's the kind of thing kids say to each other on the way home from school. I suppose I've done it myself in my time, but I've outgrown it. Don't you think you should try to do the same?'

They had reached the cottage by now, for which Felicity was thankful. For, cool though she had managed to remain, she was curiously shaken really by the strength of dislike which emanated from the woman beside her.

Julia Morton stopped the car and turned to look full at Felicity. She was still smiling slightly, and all she said was, 'There was nothing childish about my warning, I assure you.'

'No? Well, thank you for the lift,' replied Felicity lightly. Then she got out of the car and opened the front gate, and went up the path without even glancing backwards. She heard the car start up again and drive away, and as she did so she suddenly had the clearest recollection of Anthea Warrender saying, 'She's dangerous, that woman.'

Perhaps that was why she was glad to hear Mary call cheerfully from the back of the cottage, and why the day-to-day normality of their pleasant little kitchen was extraordinarily welcoming.

'I thought you'd missed the bus.'  Mary was intent on something which smelled very appetizing as she lifted it from the oven. 'I saw it go by several minutes ago, and didn't expect you for another quarter of an hour or so."

'I got a lift,* said Felicity slowly. 'From Mrs. Morton.'

'And—?' Mary looked up, suddenly alert and inquiring.

'What do you mean — and?' Felicity gave a vexed little laugh.

'Well, I see that something disagreeable happened.'

'Does it really show as obviously as that?' Felicity bit her lip. 'Well, she warned me off going to Tarkmans. Said she didn't like me and could be a dangerous woman to oppose.'

'She didn't!' Mary looked incredulous, 'Does anyone really talk like that outside a bad film? Who does she think she is? I hope you tore a strip off her.'

'I said the dislike was mutual and that my going to Tarkmans didn't depend on her. I also made fun a little of her actually threatening me and told her she should grow up.'

'Good for you! That should show her,' declared Mary.

'But you know,' Felicity said, thoughtfully, 'I don't think it did. She has a quite terrible singleness of purpose. It's not unusual to meet people who are principally concerned with themselves, but it's shattering to meet someone who is totally so. I begin to see why Janet is mesmerized by her. There's a sort of power in her conviction that she matters more than anyone else.'

'It can't be quite like that,' Mary protested. 'Would an intelligent man like Stephen Tarkman be taken in by such a woman? Ï know men cari, be great fools - women too, of course,' she added broadmindedly. 'But surely he would see something of what you see, even if lie's infatuated.5

'No.' Felicity shook her head. 'He doesn't see what I see at all. She takes good care of that. And she isn't only sìnglerninded, she's a quite marvellous actress too. Ï can still see her air of affectionate concern when she first spoke to me about Janet — in front of him. You'd have thought she was deeply troubled and concerned about her, and yet she hates that poor kid from the bottom of her heart, if she has one.'

'Suppose,' said Mary, 'that you told him, quite calmly and circumstantially, about this ridiculous conversation you've just had!"

'Oh, my dear Mary, he wouldn't believe a word of it! He already thinks I'm prejudiced against her and that I've even influenced Mrs. Emlyn. He said as much after Mrs. E. had let slip her candid views about Janet's aunt.'

'In other words, Mrs. Morton's word would be taken against yours as a matter of course?"

'I'm afraid so.'

'Then — you aren't going to like what I'm going to say — but if I were you I don't think I'd go to Tarkmans.'

'Not go?' Felicity flushed with the intensity of her feeling and laughed angrily. 'Nothing on earth would make me refuse now.'

'Other opportunities will come your way, Felicity,' Mary said. 'You're a unique teacher. Does it have to be Tarkmans?'

'Of course it has to be Tarkmans!' Felicity spoke almost fiercely. 'It's the sort of appointment I wouldn't have even dreamed of on  my own. And now Stephen Tarkman himself has offered me the chance. Nothing would make me give it up. Certainly not the hysterical threats of a woman Ï despise. Why, I love the very Idea of teaching there.'

'Only the idea of teaching there?' Mary's eyebrows lifted rather humorously.

'Don't be silly.' Felicity looked taken aback. 'That's the second time you've said something of the sort. You think I'm dazzled by Stephen Tarkman, don't you? That I'm fascinated by him rather than the job.'

'Not exactly — no.' Mary obviously chose her words with care. 'I think you're attracted by him. Who wouldn't be in the circumstances? He's handed you your heart's desire on a silver plate, accompanied no doubt by his most engaging smile. You'd have wanted to accept even if he had been bald and boring. But he's neither. He's forceful and attractive. Someone I suppose one would either like or loathe.'

'All right, I like him. I expect to go on liking him. But I'm not proposing to make a fool of myself about him. Is there any special disadvantage in working for a man you both like and admire?'

'There's this dangerous idiot of a woman—'

'Oh, her? Felicity laughed angrily. 'I'm not taking her seriously, and you needn't either. I'm sorry I even told you about this absurd incident.'

'I'm not. It's given me a chance to say my little piece, even if it annoys you,' Mary insisted obstinately. 'Unlike you I am inclined to take her seriously. She obviously sees you as someone in her path—'

'She can't. I'm not in her path,' Felicity objected impatiently.

'In her view you are. Else why does she want to get rid of you, even to the extent of being rather ridiculous in the way she handles the situation?'

'She resents my support of Janet.'

'Oh, no, Felicity ! She may dislike her niece, but she wouldn't make a major issue of her. She's afraid Stephen Tarkman thinks too highly of you.'

'Thinks — too highly of me?' Mingled with the extraordinary stab of pleasure which that gave her came swift recollection of what Anthea Warrender had said. The few words between Stephen Tarkman and her husband, which she had so willingly handed on. 'Well —- yes, he does think highly of me as a teacher. He told Oscar Warrender so, I understand. But he has to think highly of his staff. Otherwise why should he select them?'

'I doubt if many of them are exceptionally attractive young women,' Mary retorted with a laugh. 'But I'm not going to labour the point. I only want to point out that a jealous, utterly self-absorbed woman who thinks you're in her way wouldn't stop at much to discredit you. Ordinarily, you would have your own good sense and integrity to protect you. But by your own admission Stephen Tarkman — your employer, whom you like — would unhesitatingly take her word against yours. Very tricky, if you ask me.'

There was a slight pause. Then Felicity said, 'You're dead right, of course. And thanks for the warning. I'll tread carefully, I promise.'

'You'll need to,' Mary told her drily. 'You'll need to.'

And yet during the first few weeks at Tarkmans everything went with unbelievable smoothness. Felicity was nervous at that first afternoon class, naturally. But the children were so very much like her own pupils at Carmalton - only perhaps more alert and inquiring - that she found herself handling them with the same easy warmth and enthusiasm.

When she took her first evening class with the older students Stephen Tarkman himself came to introduce her. She was impressed by the way he combined an authoritative manner with a relationship of unforced friendliness towards young people. And she was a good deal touched and pleased by the way he spoke of herself. Without being fulsome, he somehow indicated that they were fortunate to have Miss Grainger among them, and in the informal discussion which followed, he gave her several opportunities to show herself in her most likeable and informative light.

'He doesn't make you feel he could do anything,' she told Mary afterwards. 'He makes you feel you could.'

'Perhaps that's how he's given Julia Morton the wrong ideas,' retorted Mary mischievously. But Felicity shook her head and smiled.

'She doesn't seem to be around much, I'm glad to say.'

'As a matter of interest, exactly where does she live?' Mary inquired.

'I'm not sure,' Felicity frowned consideringly. 'She has a flat in London, I know. I suppose that's her actual home. But the once or twice I've seen her since I went to Tarkmans she's tended to speak and behave as though she also is an integral part of the place.'

'Does anyone speak about her being engaged to Stephen Tarkman?'

'No. No one has mentioned it,' Felicity conceded. 'But perhaps there's been no formal announcement. And Tarkmans isn't what you'd call a gossipy sort of place.'

'I wouldn't call an engagement to Julia Morton a matter of gossip,' replied Mary with a laugh. 'I'd call it a disastrous fact.' But there the discussion ended.

Preoccupied though Felicity was with her new and exciting assignment, she lost none of her affection for and interest in her Carmalton pupils. And chief among these of course remained Janet. The child seemed to have recovered completely from the setback over the school concert, and once more she both astonished and delighted Felicity by her progress.

She was, Felicity knew, as good material as any at Tarkmans and better than all but the most advanced. It was maddening to think that the way had been virtually open for her, only to be barred by her aunt's dislike and spite. With any other child she would already have reopened the subject with Stephen Tarkman. But with Julia Morton's niece there were such very special difficulties in the way. Each time she felt an opening was about to present itself the recollection of their previous sharp disagreement laid an inhibiting restraint upon her, and she found herself unable to take just the right, impersonal line.

She reproached herself for cowardice, but could not bring herself to do anything that might cloud her happy relationship with Stephen Tarkman. It was strictly an employer-teacher relationship but, within those limits, an extraordinarily pleasant, even rich, one. He was not given to over-emphasis, but she knew that she was fulfilling all his high hopes of her, and never in her life had she been happier.

Janet's interests must wait for just the propitious moment, she told herself. If only there could be some informal, easy opportunity, some occasion when she could bring up the subject quite unemotionally, almost lightly.

And then, against all expectation or hope, the occasion presented itself. Anthea wrote from London to say that she would be singing towards the end of that month at Covent Garden. The unusual 'Adriana Lecouvreur' was being staged more or less for her.

'I've always wanted to do it,' she wrote. 'It's musically fine and dramatically a honey — including a gorgeous death scene when I'm poisoned by a jealous rival. Would you like to come? I suppose a Saturday performance would be best for you. There is one on the thirty-first. Oscar tells me that Stephen Tarkman will be coming, so he could give you a lift. I take it you no longer have objections to driving in his car! Anyway, let me know if you would like to come and I'll see you have a ticket.'

'You'll go, of course?' said Mary when Felicity breathlessly read out the letter to her.

'Go? I'd like to see anyone try to stop me! And if Stephen Tarkman really is going too—' She paused, looked more excited than she realized, and then went on more soberly, 'I'll have to leave it to him to suggest any question of a lift.'

'You might give him a useful little nudge in the right direction,' Mary suggested.

But, in fact, this was not required. Either by chance or tactful arrangement, the Warrenders had smoothed Felicity's path. For when she next ran into Stephen Tarkman in one of the long corridors of the big house, he stopped and said,

'Have you heard from Anthea about the "Adriana" performance on the thirty-first? Warrender mentions in a letter to me that she is inviting you, and suggests that we might drive up to London together. What do you say?'

Felicity just managed not to say that the arrangement struck her as idyllic, that in fact nothing in all the world could be more delightful. With becoming restraint she merely said that, if the arrangement suited him, she would be most grateful for the lift. But no amount of self-control could keep the colour from her cheeks or the sparkle from her eyes.

She wrote her joyous acceptance to Anthea, and from then until the all-important Saturday she quaked at every remote possibility which might threaten the arrangement.

Nothing intervened, however. Both she and Stephen Tarkman remained in perfect health, no unforeseen disaster involved either of them, work was arranged so that the week-end remained blissfully free, and even the weather obliged with the most perfect summer day for their expedition.

In actual driving time the journey was no more than a couple of hours. But they left Carmalton about eleven o'clock, idled pleasantly on the way, and stopped for lunch at an attractive riverside restaurant. Here, over a meal excellent enough to guarantee anyone's good humour, she finally broached the subject of Janet.

A discussion about one or two of the more promising students at Tarkmans led quite naturally to an opening, the more so that he had consulted her opinion with an air of having respect for her views. It was not really difficult to say,

'And now may I bring up the subject of Janet Morton again? It troubles me that the child did herself so much less than justice on that one occasion when you heard her. I'm very anxious to secure a second chance for her.'

He made a slight face and said, with an air of lazy protest which gave little importance to the matter, 'Do we have to dig up that particular bone of contention?'

'Yes, I'm afraid we do.' She managed to smile composedly, though she was secretly dismayed that he should immediately show a degree of antagonism over her very harmless protégée. 'You've been good enough to show some confidence in my judgment. Why should you feel I am wrong in this particular instance?'

'I wasn't much impressed by her when I heard her.'

'There were special circumstances then, as you know.'

'We're rather going round in circles, aren't we?' He gave a slight, vexed laugh. 'You think I'm prejudiced and I think you are. There doesn't seem to be any meeting point for us about this particular child. Heaven knows there are all too few places at Tarkmans for the number of candidates on which you and I see eye to eye. Can't we just leave out the disputed cases - including Janet?'

'No.'

She added nothing to the monosyllable, although she knew it sounded stark on its own.

'You're a very obstinate person, aren't you, Felicity?'

It was the first time he had actually addressed her by her first name, and the touch of warm intimacy which it introduced into the conversation made her long to withdraw all opposition, rather than risk a cooling of their relationship. But Felicity was a natural fighter for justice, and she knew that in some sense of the term Janet was being denied justice.

She took a deep breath and looked Stephen Tarkman full in the face.

'I don't want to seem difficult about this, and I certainly don't want to make a personal issue of it. But I'd be lacking in professional integrity if I didn't fight for Janet and her chance of full development. She is, quite simply, the most remarkable pupil I've ever had through my hands — and that goes for the amazingly gifted children you have at Tarkmans too. If I agreed to desert her cause I wouldn't be worthy of the trust you have placed in me.'

He frowned and was silent for almost a whole minute. Then he said moodily, 'I told you once before, you let your sympathies with this rather pathetic little girl run away with your judgment.'

'No, you didn't say that,' she told him drily. 'Her aunt did — in front of you. What you told me was that I had allowed myself to become too emotionally involved to be a real support to her. You were both wrong, as it happens. I'm attached to Janet, for she's a likeable child. But what interests me — excites me — is the incredible degree of her musical feeling and understanding. To any teacher a child of that calibre is like a diamond. You can't believe you've really found it. Then you're overwhelmed by the responsibility of bringing it to perfection. Don't you see? -I couldn't let her be dismissed, along with other gifted children, as someone who wouldn't make the grade. I'd reproach myself for the rest of my life for failing the person I should have helped.'

'You're a very persuasive advocate, Felicity.' He smiled.

'I'm deeply convinced of the justice of my cause.' She also smiled, but her eyes were still anxious.

'I'll see what can be done about it.' He reached for the bottle of wine and refilled their glasses, as though that settled the matter.

'Can't you give me something a little more positive than that?' she asked.

'No, I can't, my dear.' His tone was rather curt now. 'What's the hurry anyway? The child is young.'

'If I tell you what the hurry is, will you promise not to be annoyed?* she said impulsively.

'No.' But his smile was decidedly indulgent that time. Then, with a hint of curiosity, he added, 'Tell me, all the same.'

She was afraid she had overreached herself, but there was no going back now, and in a half-nervous effort to soften what she was going to say, she put her hand on his arm.

'I'd like Janet to have a quite unprejudiced hearing from you,' she said steadily. 'And I think she might get that more easily now than — than later.'

'What do you mean by "later"?' He spoke abruptly, but he glanced down in a slightly startled way at the hand on his arm and made no move to withdraw from her touch.

'I mean—' Felicity swallowed nervously — 'that when you are married to Julia Morton it might be more difficult for you to—'

'Who says I'm going to be married to Julia Morton?' he interrupted harshly, and he brushed her hand from his arm then with an impatient movement.

'Why, you did!' For an appalled moment she wondered if she could possibly have been mistaken in what he had said. But he had been quite categorical. It had been the most emphatic — and painful — part of his rebuke. 'It was the — the night we found Janet sleepwalking,' she reminded him, steadying her voice with an effort. 'You reproved me for being prejudiced about Janet and I — I said you were prejudiced about her. About Mrs. Morton. And you told me you had a right to be so, because you were going to marry her. I'm sorry if—'

'Forget it,' he told her curtly.

'You mean it's not — true—' By a tremendous effort she kept her tone unemotional, almost incurious, though she felt half suffocated by the wave of pure joy which engulfed her.

'Let's say I jumped the gun rather.' He gave a grim, unamused little laugh. 'It's a habit of mine — a bad habit. I'm over-sure of myself. Didn't you once tell me that? Or perhaps you only looked it. Anyway, that's how you'd describe me, I don't doubt. Over-sure of myself.'

She had too! — but to Anthea, not to him. Now, however, joy on her own behalf and sympathy on his were intermingled in the most inexplicable way, so that she longed to say something comforting to him and snatched at the recollection of Anthea's words.

'People like you don't get where they are by being unasure of themselves,' she told him. 'Anthea once said that about you, and it's perfectly true.'

He laughed at that, patted her hand sharply but not unkindly and said, 'You're sweet. Let's go, shall we?'

So they went, even Felicity realizing that this was hardly the moment to prolong any argument about Janet. Besides, if he were indeed not going to marry Julia — oh, wonderful, wonderful thought! — the urgency about settling Janet's affairs no longer existed.

Beside him once more in the car, she managed to chat casually, so that he might not be put out by the realization that her thoughts and feelings were totally engaged by what he had just told her. But presently they fell quite naturally silent, and she was able to examine that curt admission more thoroughly.

That he had spoken of marrying Julia as a fact when it was no more than his intention was obvious. But what happened after that? Was it he who had had second thoughts, or, inconceivably, had she refused him?

He had not spoken like a man who had made the decision. In fact he had said he had been too sure of himself. That meant a rebuff of some sort, surely. Then — she had refused him. Or perhaps tried to make terms which he found unacceptable?

Yes, that was more likely.

A refusal would be contrary to everything one knew or guessed about Julia Morton. She meant to marry Stephen. Even Janet's father had said as much. And by her own observation Felicity could not doubt the fact. A flat refusal was out of the question. But - unacceptable terms? That sounded more like Julia.

For a few minutes Felicity taxed her powers of judgment and invention with the effort of deciding what possible terms Julia could have tried to impose. But the question was an academic one, so she gave it up and luxuriated instead in the single fact that the marriage between Julia and Stephen Tarkman was no longer a certainty. The realization of this brought a fresh wave of such inexplicable happiness that she shivered involuntarily with sheer excitement.

'Gold?' He glanced at her inquiringly.

'Oh, no! It's just — I'm excited about tonight, I suppose. It's so long since I heard a full-scale operatic performance and, judging from the reviews, Anthea must be wonderful in this.'

'Warrender too, I don't doubt. It should be quite an occasion. You're coming to the supper party afterwards, of course.'

That was a statement rather than a question. But she said diffidently, 'I don't know. I haven't been invited.'

'I'm inviting you. The supper party is mine, as it happens.'

'Oh!' She turned to smile at him. 'How absolutely perfect !'

He laughed, as though her naïve delight gave him real pleasure, and said, 'It will be at the Gloria. You're staying there, aren't you?'

'Yes. I thought I'd be madly extravagant just for one night. And as the Warrenders are there it seemed the easiest way of seeing something of Anthea. Not beforehand, of course. But perhaps after the performance.'

'Do you know your way round backstage?'

'I think so — yes. I went there once or twice in my student days. Though usually we got no further than standing breathlessly round the stage door,' Felicity admitted with a laugh.

'I'll look out for you in the house, and you can come round with me,' he told her, as they drew up in front of the Gloria Hotel, and Felicity felt that nothing could have more fittingly signalized the beginning of a magical experience than those words.

Her room — though doubtless one of the most modest that the Gloria provided — was in keeping with the glamorous unreality of the occasion, and she walked round it once or twice, savouring its charm. The unusual colour-scheme, the velvety thickness of the carpet, the discreetly luxurious appearance of her bathroom, and finally the view of the river from her wide window.

And all the time, at the back of her mind, was the thought that she was to spend most of the evening with Stephen Tarkman, and that he was probably not going to marry Julia Morton after all.

Anthea had promised that her ticket would be waiting for her at the box office, so it did not occur to her to try to make any contact before the performance, for she was well aware that undisturbed rest was essential to an artist at such a time. Felicity was therefore astonished when, on answering the summons of her telephone bell, she heard Anthea say at the other end of the wire, 'You got in all right, then? Did Stephen bring you?'

'Yes. And thank you for arranging everything so marvellously, Anthea. I thought you weren't supposed to open your mouth before a performance.'

'I'm not. But I sometimes do. Was it a nice drive up?'

'It was wonderful!' declared Felicity with such a lilt in her voice that the other girl laughed and asked mischievously.

'What did you talk about?'

'Oh, all sorts of things. Janet, for one. She's the little girl I think so highly of, you know. Stephen heard her once, but very much at a disadvantage because her beastly aunt was there. She's the niece of Julia Morton who—'

'Means to marry Stephen.'

'You think so?'

'I'm sure of it.'

'Suppose I tell you that he tried his luck and was turned down?' said Felicity before she could stop herself.

'I'd refuse to believe it. Who told you such a thing?'

'He did — Stephen. He made fairly light of it, but obviously had taken a bit of a knock. He said he had been over-confident. I can't believe she actually refused him, any more than you can. My guess is that she possibly put forward conditions he wasn't prepared to accept.'

'Such as turning you down for Tarkmans?'

'Oh, no, my dear! Of course not. I don't imagine that I came into it anywhere?'

'Why not?'

'Well, for one thing, I wouldn't rate as specially important to either of them,' Felicity said candidly. 'Certainly not important enough for them to have any sort of dispute about me.'

'Don't you believe it!' She heard Anthea laugh. 'She very much wanted you out of the way. I know that from the way she spoke to Oscar. If she was silly enough — and nothing is sillier than a jealous woman — she just might have tried to force Stephen's hand.'

'But he wouldn't have bothered to stand out over me,' Felicity protested. 'He didn't even know me very well at that point.'

'Oh, he wouldn't fight it on personalities,' Anthea said. 'Simply on the principle that he wouldn't have any woman trying to dictate policy at Tarkmans. And quite right too. I don't say it was that, but it could be.'

Felicity was silent for half a minute, and then Anthea said, 'Why does she dislike you so much, Felicity?'

'I've told you, I think her niece is a near-genius. I know she is, and I'm determined to get her into Tarkmans if I can. Julia hates her, and I think hates me even more for pushing her claims. She'd love to set Stephen against both of us and—'

'You're sure the child is really good?'

'As sure as I've ever been of anything.'

'Leave it to me, then. I'll see what can be done. Julia Morton isn't the only interfering woman around Tarkmans when it comes to the crunch. I also can exercise a little pressure.'

'Anthea ! What do you mean?'

'Never mind. I can't talk any more now. I think I hear Oscar coming along the corridor and he'll be mad if he finds me yattering on the phone just before a performance. I'll see you later. But just one more thing, Felicity—

'Yes?'

'Is all this terribly important to you?'

'About Janet Morton, you mean?'

'No, about Stephen Tarkman. Is it important to you that he might not marry Julia Morton after all?'

In the background Felicity thought she heard the sound of a door opening, and she knew suddenly that she had only a few seconds in which to decide on one of the most vital statements of her life.

'Yes,' she said steadily. 'Yes, it's terribly important, Anthea.'

And then the telephone went dead.

CHAPTER FIVE

To Felicity a seat in the stalls on what was virtually a gala occasion was still sufficiently a novelty for her to derive a good deal of naïve pleasure from the experience. She arrived at the Opera House early, lingered for a few minutes in the crowded foyer, and then went into the still half-empty house.

With a pleasant twinge of nostalgia she glanced up at the gallery where she had often sat in her student days. Now it was dignified by the name of 'amphitheatre', but the hum of conversation which drifted down from it held the same note of shared enthusiasm as in her day.

She felt almost lonely at first in her unfamiliarly exalted position. Then a steady stream of people began to come in from both sides of the auditorium and she watched with interest. But although she noted one or two well-known personalities among them, the one for whom she was looking was not there. So, having failed to discover Stephen Tarkman, she addressed herself to her programme and read the excellent résumé of the story which seemed tragic and complicated enough to satisfy any opera-lover.

It was faintly disappointing to have the seats on either side of her occupied by strangers. But she had hardly hoped that Stephen's seat would be actually beside her, and he had promised to look for her when the evening was over so that he could take her backstage with him. Until then the performance would be enough to engage every scrap of her interest, she felt sure. And, even as she thought that Oscar Warrender came into the orchestra pit. He threaded his way among music-stands and players to a gathering volume of half affectionate, half respectful applause, took his place at the conductor's desk and raised his baton.

Even years later Felicity was to look back upon that performance of 'Adriana Lecouvreur' with undiminished wonderment and pleasure. For to see Anthea, whom she dearly liked, flower into superb artistic fulfilment was something which moved and excited her beyond measure.

She was not uncritical, even where her affections were deeply engaged. Her musical sense was too highly developed and her natural taste too fine for that. But just because her standards were high she was able to savour to the full the achievement of the girl who had once been her fellow student, and her own generosity of spirit enabled her to assess and enjoy someone else's triumph as though it had been her own.

It is not unusual, Felicity knew, to hear a beautiful voice. But to hear a beautiful voice which has been developed instead of exploited, nurtured instead of forced, is a joy which warms the heart and enriches the spirit. She looked at the strong, intelligent, rather hard face of Oscar Warrender in the light from the orchestra and she thought, 'No wonder she loves him if he really did all that for her.'

Then she was lost again in the absorbing drama taking place on the stage, for Anthea — a fine actress in her own right — was supported by one of the few great singing actors of the age in the part of the ageing stage director who loves Adriana without hope of return.

In the first interval Felicity wandered out and up the great main staircase to the crush-bar, and here she almost immediately ran into Stephen Tarkman. He, whom she had always regarded as rather difficult to move, was as enthusiastic as she was, and they were discussing the first act with mutual enjoyment when she saw his gaze shift fractionally from her face, and he looked beyond her as though something or someone had riveted his attention.

She was not entirely surprised when, a second later, Julia Morton's voice said behind her, 'Hello, Stephen. I thought you might be here tonight. Especially as you didn't manage the first night.'

'No, I couldn't get to town until today. Miss Grainger and I drove up this afternoon,' explained Stephen, drawing Felicity into the conversation.

'Miss—? Oh.' Julia registered Felicity's presence with a cool, sweet smile which so entirely dismissed her from the scene that, against all her inclination or intention, Felicity found herself giving a careless little nod and then moving off, as though she had seen someone else she knew.

As she did so, she heard the other woman say, in a pleasantly warm and intimate tone, 'What about supper afterwards, Stephen? I've been — missing you.'

The slight catch in her voice was extremely effective, and Felicity would not have been human if she had not lingered to hear Stephen's reply.

'I'm giving a party afterwards for the Warrenders,' she heard him say. 'I hope you'll join us.'

'And I hope she won't!' thought Felicity, angry and disappointed. But she could not imagine Julia passing up a chance like that. She would come all right — and half Felicity's pleasure would be gone.

She returned to her seat in somewhat sombre spirits. Gone was her chance of being taken round backstage, she felt sure. Having found him, Julia would see to it that he remained her escort for the evening. Indeed, glancing up and to the side, Felicity saw that Stephen and Julia Morton were entering a box on the first tier. She could not decide if he were joining her, or she him. But in either case her own chances of a happy evening in his company had vanished.

Better concentrate on drawing all the enjoyment she could from the performance, for she could not imagine that she would see much more of Stephen that evening. This she did to such good effect that her eyes were full of tears during the last scene — partly because Anthea was so truly moving and partly, it must be admitted, because of her own disappointment. With Anthea dying on the stage, poisoned by a jealous rival, and Julia Morton sitting triumphantly beside Stephen Tarkman in the box, it really did seem that the unjust were having it altogether too much their own way.

Fortunately, however, good sense dried her tears before they could actually spill over, and Felicity found herself clapping madly for Anthea and Warrender and the baritone and the tenor — but most of all for Anthea, who restored her morale in the most engaging way by picking her out in the audience and smiling at her from the stage.

Sufficiently sure of herself now to go backstage on her own, she joined the slowly moving crowd now making their way out. But in the foyer Stephen Tarkman came up to her, took her evening wrap from her arm and put it round her shoulders and said, 'You're going to need that. It's turned chilly, and we have to go outside to reach the stage door.'

'Isn't — I mean, aren't we waiting for Mrs. 'Morton?'

'No. She has gone ahead to the hotel. Dressing-room adulation isn't much in her line, you know.'

No, it wouldn't be! Felicity thought. Not enough generosity there for her to be able to admire someone else wholeheartedly. But she kept that thought strictly to herself. And when they had passed the stage-door and negotiated the cheerless stone passages and steps which are in such strange contrast to the glamour usually associated with stage life, they arrived at Anthea's dressing-room.

She was still in her last-act costume, starry-eyed and slightly flushed with triumph and happiness. There were several people in the room, but when she saw Felicity she held out her hand, while continuing to talk to someone else, and for a few seconds only the clasp of that strong, warm hand told Felicity how pleased she was to have her there.

The woman to whom she was speaking was small, elderly and unfashionably dressed, but Anthea gave the most affectionate attention to her, even though it was obvious that slight criticism mingled with the admiration she was expressing.

Then Anthea said, 'Felicity, this is Miss Sharon, my first singing teacher. It was she who encouraged me to go in for the competition where I met Oscar.'

'No, no, my dear!' Miss Sharon corrected her with some asperity. 'I didn't encourage you. I was against it, if you remember. You were not ready then for anything of the sort. But since you insisted I tried to see to it that you were well prepared. Fortunately Mr. Warrender was sensible enough to see you didn't win, and then he was able to take on your training himself.'

'Yes. Very unscrupulous of him,' Anthea said with a laugh.

'Very far-seeing,' retorted the old singing teacher. 'And most fortunate for you. The end justified the means.'

Then she moved aside and, before Anthea could turn to Felicity, her place was taken by a very different figure, a woman beautiful in a strange, ageless way, and so authoritative that Felicity was not surprised to see everyone draw back instinctively for her.

'Madame Peroni!' Anthea exclaimed, and for a moment her fingers tightened on Felicity's hand before she released her. 'I didn't know you were in the house.'

'Didn't you get my flowers, dear child?' Peroni leaned forward and kissed her on both cheeks. 'I made sure they would be in time.'

'I'm sure they were. Forgive me—' suddenly Felicity realized that Anthea was also talking in the same charming, meaningless way, a little as though they were going through some ritual. 'I haven't had time to look at all the cards. But how sweet of you to come. I thought you were in Paris.'

'I was. I flew over yesterday. I couldn't stay away. "Adriana" was always a favourite role of mine. Ai - ai—' she had an absolutely matchless way of combining this exclamation with a sigh — 'Oscar and I did it so many times together. He has coached you well, my dear. With a little more experience—' she left the sentence unfinished as though criticism, though called for, must not perhaps be put into words. 'I must go and see Oscar. The usual room, I suppose?'

'Yes, I think so.'

'I must ask him why he took the monologue faster than usual. Perhaps he felt those long phrases might prove too difficult—' again she left that unfinished. Then she added, with a charming, tolerant smile, 'It takes a very experienced singer indeed to manage those phrases at the right pace.'

Then she kissed Anthea again and went her way. And little Miss Sharon said in an awed tone, 'Was that Peroni, Anthea?'

'Yes,' replied Anthea briefly.

'Without doubt a very great artist. But not a very nice person.'

'Not very,' Anthea agreed with a smile. Then, as Miss Sharon took her departure, she turned at last to Felicity and said cryptically, 'You see what I mean?'

'Absolutely!' Felicity laughed. 'But I don't think you need fear anyone tonight, my dear.'

At that Anthea's expression relaxed suddenly and she said, 'Hello, Stephen,' to Felicity's companion. And Stephen asked curiously, 'What was it that Felicity was supposed to see about Peroni?'

'Just a basic likeness to someone we neither of us like,' Anthea assured him lightly. 'I must clear the room now, darlings, and get changed. If you love me, Stephen, go and see Peroni doesn't have a long tête-à-tête with Oscar. And, whatever the blandishments, don't ask her to the supper-party, or I'll never speak to you again.'

'I promise,' he said with a smile. Then he and Felicity left and went to the conductor's dressing-room, where they found him being very pleasant and rather distant to Peroni, and Peroni being very pleasant and rather intimate to him.

If he was either relieved or annoyed to have the conversation interrupted he showed no signs of it, and it struck Felicity that he was well able to handle Peroni or indeed anyone elsewithout assistance. He said a few courteous words to Felicity and Stephen, then he in his turn — and rather more brusquely than Anthea — cleared his dressing-room, and Stephen and Felicity left the Opera House and walked the short distance to the Gloria.

'I see why Anthea is still afraid of that woman,' Felicity said impulsively after a few moments' silence.

'Of Peroni?' Stephen sounded genuinely astonished. 'But, as you yourself said, she has no reason to fear anyone tonight. She is pretty well reigning prima donna in her own right now, while Peroni is virtually retired.'

'Oh, I didn't mean professionally afraid of her. I was thinking that, in my student days, they used to say Oscar Warrender was in love with Peroni.'

'They say!' he repeated with, scornful amusement. 'Who says? The public? The papers? The continental dirt-sheets? They all say the most ridiculous things at one time or another, and what they can't find out they make up.'

'Then you don't believe that particular story?'

'I just don't know. But if there was anything in it, it's all over long ago. You women!  The way you stir yourselves up about things that don't any longer matter.

And who was the someone you and Anthea dislike and who, for some unknown reason, reminded you of Peroni? Julia Morton, I suppose.'

'Yes.' Though startled, Felicity answered boldly, though her voice came out as more breathlessly defiant than she had intended. 'How did you know? By noting the same likeness yourself?'

'On the contrary, I see no likeness whatever,' he told her drily. 'Except that they are both attractive women. I merely asked myself whom you know in common who could be described as clever, good-looking and rather intimidating.'

'Oh—' Felicity's tone was slightly subdued.

'There are times,' he said pleasantly, 'when I could beat you.' But he took her by the arm just then — possibly because it was dark and the pavement uneven — and the warm clasp of his fingers on her arm somehow conveyed an odd sense of amused liking rather than real anger.

The strangest sensation tingled down her arm. Nothing to do with the actual physical clasp, which was fight enough. But after a moment she said in a placatory tone, 'I don't have to like her, do I?'

'No more than she has to like you,' was the answer. 'But life would be a lot simpler for me if you and she had a little more common sense about the whole business.'

Before she could ask him just what he meant by that they arrived at the Gloria. But Felicity did note with some pleasure that his remark seemed to imply some criticism of Julia as well as herself, which was somewhat comforting.

She went up to her room before joining the party in the restaurant. Mostly because she thought she would rather have the moral support of the Warrenders - or at least Anthea - before encountering Julia Morton again. So she spent some minutes powdering her nose, combing her hair and then quite frankly studying herself in the long mirror.

Stephen had spoken of Julia, quite correctly, as clever, good-looking and rather intimidating. No one could have described the girl facing her now in the mirror as anything like that. And presumably Stephen had been describing the kind of woman he found attractive.

Good-looking she might be, in a slightly ingenuous, out-giving way. Reasonably intelligent no doubt, though hardly what Stephen had meant by 'clever' as applied to Julia Morton. As for intimidating - not in the least.

'But I wouldn't want to be!' thought Felicity. 'I'd hate to make people feel as she does. Or as Peroni does,' she added as an afterthought. 'And anyway, Stephen held my arm as though he liked me, and he was smiling when he said there were times when he could beat me. Whatever he meant by that !'

She laughed, felt unaccountably reassured, and went downstairs to join the supper-party.

It had been arranged in one of the big, half curtained-off alcoves of the restaurant, an admirable arrangement which imparted an air of privacy without actually concealing a distinguished gathering from the gaze of those members of the public who reckoned to do a little enjoyable star-gazing if they paid the prices charged at the Gloria. There were about a dozen guests in all, seated so that, if conversation became general, there would be no difficulty in merging individual groups into one.

To her secret delight and surprise, Felicity found herself seated by Stephen himself. On her other side was Warrender's invaluable secretary, Edgar Inglis, who greeted her with apparent pleasure, remembered her name with flattering ease, and immediately showed that he was up in the news of even so inconsiderable a person as herself by asking her how she was enjoying teaching at Tarkmans.

'I love it — of course. How did you remember I was going to teach there?' Felicity was amused.

'It's my business to remember everything,' he told her. 'Besides, you're the sort of girl one does remember.'

Felicity nearly said, 'Am I?' in genuine surprise. But, seeing the gleam of mischief in his eyes, she changed that to 'Do you get results with that line?'

'Almost invariably,' he told her, unabashed. 'Nothing is nicer than to be remembered, you know. I keep a private dossier about everyone — here,' he added, touching his forehead. Then he laughed and declared, 'I meant it where you are concerned. Genuine people are always memorable in our world. Besides Anthea speaks of you quite often, and what Anthea says I remember without effort.'

'He's a little bit in love with her in his laughing way,' thought Felicity. 'But I can't blame him for that' And she glanced across the table at Anthea, who immediately gave her a very special smile in return, before leaning forward and saying to Julia Morton.

'I'm glad you were able to come this evening. I wanted to have a word with you about Janet — about your niece. I understand she is a very gifted little girl, and I'm going to make a point of hearing her next time we are at Tarkmans.'

If Felicity was startled to hear the war being taken into the enemy's camp in this unexpected way, Julia apparently was not. She answered a shade too quickly, it was true, but her charming speaking voice betrayed no edge at all as she replied courteously, 'But she's not at Tarkmans, you know.'

'Not yet. But if she proves to be as good as I gather, I hope she will go there next term.'

Anthea's voice, Felicity noticed, had taken on exactly the note which had been there when she addressed Peroni, earlier in the evening, and she thought, 'That's her special voice for when she's sparring with the enemy! But, bless her generous heart, I almost wish she wouldn't.' For along with the gratitude which she felt was a half-frightened awareness that Stephen had suddenly fallen silent.

'I'm not sure that you've been very accurately informed about Janet.' A slight note of worried regret crept into Julia's voice at this point. 'She's a clever little monkey, it's true. But not much staying power, I'm afraid. Not the Tarkman type of student at all. More — what shall I say? — more really a slick performer than a genuine music-maker.'

'I'm sure we can leave it to my husband to decide that,' Anthea laughed agreeably. And Julia really was startled then into exclaiming, 'But surely—'

'Warrender doesn't usually bother about auditioning youngsters,' cut in Stephen shortly, as though that disposed of the matter.

'Only,' retorted Anthea, with a sort of sweet obstinacy that was oddly compelling, 'only if I specially ask him to do so.'

'And you have asked him in this case?' Stephen's eyebrows went up.

'I have asked him in this case,' Anthea agreed.

'Very interfering of you,' commented Stephen drily.

'Yes, isn't it?' Anthea smiled charmingly. 'I begin to think I must be getting rather horrid and prima donnaish. And, judging from the way you're frowning, you seem to be thinking just that too. Are you, Stephen?'

'If I'm frowning, my dear, it couldn't be on your account after tonight's performance,' Stephen said, with a little ironical bow in her direction.

'I'm so glad.' Anthea opened her eyes with an air of innocence which belonged to one of her more ingenuous roles. 'Then that's settled. We'll try to malee it quite soon. In fact, I think Oscar had some idea of coming down to Tarkmans about the middle of the coming month.'

'How exciting!' Julia's apparent pleasure and excitement were so well done that Felicity could hardly help admiring her. 'Janet will be thrilled. I only hope—' she broke off, and then added, as though her deepest feelings were engaged, 'If only she can make the grade, poor baby. She has no parents, you know, but I'll be there to support her and—'

'No!' Felicity could hardly believe it was her voice which had, so to speak, fired that one explosive protest. She only knew that, somehow, Julia must be stopped from spoiling things yet again.

There was a moment's silence. To Felicity it almost seemed that all conversation ceased round the supper- table, though this was not the case. The cold, inimical silence which enveloped her came only from Julia Morton and, she realized with dismay, from the suddenly alienated Stephen.

'If Janet's aunt wishes to be there—' began Stephen very coldly indeed.

And then, incredibly, rescue came from a totally unexpected quarter. Oscar Warrender turned at that moment from a conversation which had seemed to be engaging his whole attention.

'When I audition,' he said, briefly and rather disagreeably, 'I prefer to do it on my own.'

Then he returned to his conversation, and the talk flowed round the table again.

The whole incident, from the moment when Anthea had thrown down her smiling challenge to Julia Morton, had taken perhaps five minutes. In that time, thought Felicity, if she were not much mistaken, Janet's cause had been won. But balanced against that was something equally important. For some reason best known to himself, Stephen's friendship had withered at the roots. He hardly addressed a word to her during the rest of the evening.

It was ridiculous — and most unfair ! The only part she had taken in the whole conversation was that one protesting, 'No!' And surely, she thought indignantly, she was entitled to one word of comment. Even if it were one he did not want to hear.

Anthea, she could see, was in highest spirits. Her air of happy triumph could be set down, it was true, entirely to her operatic success that evening. It had been dazzling enough. But to Felicity — and to Stephen too, she felt sure — it was obvious that in a lighthearted but remarkably determined way, Anthea was also rather flown with her success in espousing the cause of Janet, and Felicity, against Julia Morton.

When she finally bade Felicity good night, as the party was breaking up, she said softly and mischievously, 'Well, was I as good as my word?'

'You were wonderful!' Felicity kissed her gratefully. 'And Mr. Warrender's intervention was more than I could possibly have hoped for.'

'I briefed him on the situation,' Anthea said shamelessly. 'He took a little persuading, but he can't refuse me much on a day of performance.' And they both laughed and for a moment Felicity's heart felt lighter.

Most of the company were drifting into the big foyer now, some of them on their way to their rooms, others to find their cars or taxis. Felicity looked round for Stephen, so that she could bid him good night and thank him for her evening, and found that he was nearer than she had supposed. He was apparently just taking leave of Julia, and her hand was in his - a little as though it had been there some time.

She gave him a farewell smile at that moment and said with an air of good-humoured reproach, 'Don't ever accuse me again of interfering over anything to do with Tarkmans.'

'I won't,' Stephen said briefly. 'So long as you resist the desire to say "I told you so" to me.'

Then he kissed her lightly and turned away. Felicity was almost full in his path, but he barely seemed to notice her. Instead he made quite a long business of saying good night to another of his guests, and when he finally did have time for her, it was only to throw her a careless, 'Good night, Miss Grainger.'

She found herself stammering her thanks, not at all as she had intended to express them, while he listened with a faintly exaggerated courtesy which was rather unnerving. Then he said coolly, 'Not at all. It was a pleasure to have you  and most illuminating.'

And before she could ask the exact meaning of that, his attention was on someone else. There was nothing for her to do but retire to her luxurious bedroom, and sleep rather badly for the rest of the night.

With the morning came the consoling thought that at least there would be the long drive back to Carmalton. During that time there would be ample opportunity to set right any misunderstanding. The whole thing was trivial really. If Anthea chose to give some support to her favourite pupil there was absolutely no reason why she, Felicity, should be treated as though she had offended in some way against some code of behaviour. Even Stephen would see the injustice of that, once he had had time to think things over.

But nothing worked out that way at all.

When she came down to join him at the hotel entrance at the agreed time, she found Julia there, and it seemed that she also was having a lift back to Carmalton. It was a circumstance to ruin any drive, but most particularly a drive during which she had counted on making some delicate explanations and retrieving an awkward position.

Inevitably it was Julia who sat in front — though she did make some charming play of offering the place to Felicity. It was — final humiliation and disappointment — Stephen who said, 'No, no, Julia, you come in front. I have several things I want to discuss with you. Miss Grainger and I did all our talking on the way up yesterday. She'll be glad to be quiet in the back, I don't doubt.'

Like a tiresome child being consigned to the seat where she would be of least nuisance!

Felicity loathed every mile of the journey which, in reverse, had been so wonderful. Most of all she loathed it when Julia turned in her seat — as she did from time to time — and gave an admirable imitation of trying in the friendliest way possible to draw Felicity into the conversation. The condescension was insupportable, though the manner was irreproachable. And nothing could have indicated more clearly her awareness that the London visit had been to her advantage rather than to Felicity's.

To the last, Felicity clung to the faint hope that they might drop Julia off first at her place, thus leaving her a few precious minutes in which to make all well even now with Stephen. But it was not to be.

At last — or all too soon, she was not sure which it was - they were in Carmalton and the cottage was in sight. But here fate did seem inclined to relent to a very small degree. For Stephen also got out of the car, took her case and walked up the path with her. It gave her a chance to thank him once more for the lift and the supper party - and this time in a more natural manner than she had contrived the night before.

Again he said, with absurd formality and palpable untruth, 'Not at all. It was a pleasure.' So that she was stung into replying,

'And most illuminating? That was what you said, wasn't it? Though I can't imagine what you meant by it,'

She rummaged hastily in her handbag for her key, so that she should not have to look at him.

'Think it over,' he advised her coolly, 'and you'll realize what was meant.' And then, as she still seemed to have some difficulty in finding her key, he added, 'When are your friends coming to audition Janet?'

'My friends?' she looked up then in astonishment. 'Don't be ridiculous!' All the nervous frustration of the last hour went into that and made it rather more emphatic than she had intended. 'The Warrenders are very much more your friends than mine, and Mr. Warrender is actually on the Board of Tarkmans.'

'Exactly,' he said pleasantly. 'And that being so, had I wished them — or him — to give an opinion about Janet, I was perfectly capable of arranging it myself.'

'But it just happened that way!'

'Oh, Miss Grainger!' He laughed slightly, and she wondered if it were possible that he had ever called her Felicity. 'You must think me very dumb if you suppose I didn't see through that little charade.'

'I assure you—'

'That you never mentioned either Julia or Janet to Anthea?' he suggested sceptically.

'Of course I spoke of Janet. Why not? I'm entitled to praise my pupils to my friends, surely?'

'And you're asking me to believe that no hint of your absurd theories about Julia crept into the conversation, or that you didn't in any way solicit Anthea's intervention?'

'I—' began Felicity. And then she stopped short, overwhelmed by the recollection of that short telephone talk she had had with Anthea the previous afternoon.

In that confused moment it was difficult to remember what she had said or what Anthea had volunteered. They had laughed, of course — and Anthea had asked how important the whole thing was to her — and she had admitted that it was desperately important.

Was that what had ranged Anthea so wholeheartedly on her side? or Janet's side. It was difficult to keep the two apart when it came to Julia-

Felicity honestly struggled to find an answer which was truthful and yet not incriminating. And, as she did so, he laughed again; that slight laugh which made her want to hit him - just as she had wanted to hit him all that time ago when he contemptuously dismissed her championship of that wretched, long-forgotten pianist.

'Well,' he said, after what seemed to her a very long silence, 'I think I have my answer. And now I'm going to give you a friendly warning. No member of my staff ever gets more than one warning, Miss Grainger,' he added, presumably in case she should be taking the 'friendly' too literally. 'The one thing never permitted at Tarkmans is interference by anyone — and I mean anyone — with my direction or decisions. No lobbying, no intriguing, no meddling. Is that understood?'

'Perfectly,' said Felicity, who had gone pale with mingled anger and dismay. 'But—'

'And no arguing,' he finished unforgivably. 'Goodbye, Miss Grainger.'

Then he turned and went back to the car, where Julia Morton was still sitting in the front seat. She was looking ahead, apparently interested in something in the village street. But to Felicity she was reminiscent of a cat who had eaten the cream. All the cream.

CHAPTER SIX

To Felicity the ensuing weeks were the most restless and miserable of her life. Until then, one of the many attractions of her work at Tarkmans had been the fact that at any time she might run across Stephen Tarkman, either in the school itself or as she came through the grounds on her way there. Now she took pains to avoid him, even to the extent of finding a slightly different route so that she need not even pass his house.

But, once she was away from the place and a day or two stretched before her until she could go there again, she regretted not having accepted — or even sought — some opportunity to speak to him and so set right the unhappy discord between them.

It was all so absurd, she kept on telling herself. There must be a commonsense way of recapturing their friendship. The rift was based on little more than a triviality, and only Julia's mischief-making could have given it such importance. That, and the fact that Stephen apparently deeply resented anything savouring of interference in his management of Tarkmans.

Even the familiar relief of talking things over with Mary was denied her. For she simply could not bring herself to describe to a third person the humiliation she had suffered. Besides, the loyal Mary would undoubtedly blame Stephen. And, blameworthy though he might be, Felicity was illogically averse to hearing anyone else put into words the things she indignantly said about him to herself.

So to Mary she spoke only of the highlights of her London visit. The journey there, the performance at the opera and the subsequent supper-party sounded like a dream of delight as she described them. Which was what they had been, of course. It was only the ending which had been so disastrous.

Mary, who was a great one for detail, naturally put her tìnger on the weak spot and asked, 'How was the journey back, after all that?'

'The less said about that, the better,' Felicity told her lightly. 'Julia Morton chose to return from London also at just that moment. So we had the doubtful pleasure of her company.'

And if Mary gathered from this that Stephen had regarded the addition to the party in that light too, Felicity hoped somewhat disingenuously that was the impression she had given.

She went about her work both at Carmalton School and Tarkmans with all her usual conscientious attention. But she knew that something of her natural enthusiasm and pleasure had gone out of it. She simply could not find the familiar joy in it. But she had no idea that this was apparent to anyone else until Janet said to her one day,

'Miss Grainger, aren't you well?'

'Well, Janet? Yes, of course I'm well. What made you think otherwise?'

'You're quiet and, somehow, sad. You don't smile so often over the musical jokes that Haydn and Mozart make. I just — wondered.'

This acute observation by the usually dreamy Janet so struck Felicity that she was silent for a moment, and Janet went on, 'You aren't worrying about not getting me into Tarkmans, are you?'

'No, Janet.' Felicity laughed a little, but she forbore to mention any fresh hopes for fear of further disappointment. After all, Stephen's final reaction to Anthea's interference was still very much in doubt, and it was difficult to say just how far Anthea would press her support if he showed determined opposition.

'I daresay I've been getting a bit overtired,' she told Janet reassuringly. 'It's quite something getting used to doing the two jobs, you know.'

'But you like being at Tarkmans, don't you?' Janet pressed.

'I love it!' Felicity spoke with emphasis. For, however unhappy she might be at the moment, it was inconceivable that her pleasure in her work could be permanently affected. 'Satisfied?' She smiled at Janet.

'Oh, yes.' Janet picked up her violin thoughtfully. 'Yes, certainly - if you say it's all right.'

And at that moment there was a tap on the music-room door, and a prefect looked in.

'Mrs. Bush said to tell you she has a visitor for you, Miss Grainger. She'll be bringing him along in a minute or two.'

'A visitor?  in school hours?' Felicity's natural surprise was immediately tinged with unfamiliar apprehension, and her thoughts flew to Stephen and the nightmare possibility that he had come to say she was no longer wanted at Tarkmans. But the absurdity of his taking that line, however angry he might be, reassuringly banished the thought, just as Janet said,

'Shall I go?'

'Mrs. Bush said he was for Janet too,' observed the prefect, looking frankly curious.

'Oh!' Another, much, much more exciting possibility then presented itself to Felicity, and she said, All right, Marion — thank you.' And then to Janet, 'We'll just go on with your lesson.'

Janet, who had a remarkable capacity for dismissing the irrelevant (or what was to her irrelevant) and concentrating on essentials, lightly flicked the strings of her instrument to make sure it was still in tune and then, nodding to Felicity, who was seated at the piano, she launched into the third movement of the Mozart sonata she was studying at the moment.

Felicity was facing the door and saw immediately when it opened. She would have paused for her headmistress in any case, but since on this occasion Mrs. Bush was accompanied by Oscar Warrender, she came to an abrupt stop.

But Warrender said briefly, 'Go on.' And, since Janet had not even faltered, Felicity resumed her part.

With equal courtesy and firmness, the conductor somehow dismissed Mrs. Bush from the scene, without offence and without question. Then he stood by the door, his head slightly bent, his whole attention, Felicity felt sure, on what he was hearing.

He looked up suddenly and said, 'Wait—' so authoritatively that Janet as well as Felicity stopped. Then he came forward, past Felicity at the piano, and asked Janet as though he were really interested in what she had to say, 'Why did you take that repeated phrase so unusually slowly?'

'Because I think the repetition is a — a sort of looking back,' was the unhesitating reply. 'It's the only repetition in three pages of a — an onward sweep. I think it's a pause in thought. A lingering pause in thought. Or perhaps it's just—' she took off her glasses and smiled at the conductor — 'that Mozart liked it so much he couldn't resist repeating it.'

Warrender laughed.

'Mozart was too well disciplined to repeat anything just for the pleasure of doing it,' he said, as though speaking to a grown-up. 'But the lingering pause in thought — yes, I suppose it could be a nostalgic backward look. It's quite an interesting idea. A bit fanciful, but not illogical. I'd like to hear the second movement. I'll play for you.' He gave Felicity the same politely dismissing glance he had given Mrs. Bush, and she rose at once.

'No,' stated Janet with unexpected firmness. 'I'd like Miss Grainger to stay.'

'Why? You're not nervous of me, are you?'

'Oh, no!' Janet looked surprised. 'You're Mr. Warrender, aren't you? I recognized you when I took off my glasses. There's a photograph of you on the cover of the recording of the Brahms First. It's a wonderful recording, and I think you conduct it jolly well.'

'You set my mind at rest,' said Oscar Warrender. 'Why do you want Miss Grainger to stay if you aren't nervous? I understood you were a very nervous little girl.'

'Oh, no. Not of anyone like you,' Janet explained. 'Only of my Aunt Julia.'

If the famous conductor found it chastening to be rated as less intimidating than anyone's Aunt Julia he concealed the fact and merely repeated, 'Why do you want Miss Grainger to stay?'

'Because she's had everything to do with my playing. She's helped and encouraged me, and done all the hard work of teaching me. Now it's exciting to have you come and listen to me, and I think she should enjoy it too.'

'Miss Grainger, you may stay,' observed Warrender, and he went to the piano. 'Second movement, Janet. And I'd like you to stand where you and I can see each other.'

She moved her music-stand immediately, so that she stood facing him. Then she put on her glasses again and nodded to him, using exactly the same little gesture with which she indicated to Felicity that she was ready to begin.

But, instead of accepting his cue, he said, quite kindly, 'Think about those opening phrases for a moment, Janet. They're among the most beautiful in the whole range of music. Very simple, but the ultimate expression of a great musical thought.'

'Yes,' said Janet. And she paused obediently for a minute or two. Then she looked at him again and they both smiled. He softly struck the opening chords on the piano and, strongly and sweetly, unhurriedly but confidently, the violin came in on the rising melody.

To her astonishment and embarrassment, Felicity felt her eyes fill with tears. It was not just the exquisite relief of knowing that at last Janet was playing to someone who could appreciate her gifts; nor even the emotional excitement of being proved right in a cause she had passionately espoused. It was the sheer, almost unearthly beauty of the sound. Almost as though she were healing those familiar phrases for the first time.

He let the child play the movement without interruption. Then he held out his hand and said, 'Come here, Janet.'

She came immediately and put her hand in his.

'Do you know what I mean by a music-maker?' he asked her.

'Yes, I think so.'

'It's something quite different from a performer, you know. Different from someone who goes on a platform to demonstrate —often very successfully — how accomplished he or she may be. It means someone who serves the great art of music with heart and soul, as well as—' he smiled and spread out the small hand he was holding  'as well as fingers and brain. It takes everything, Janet, to make the real thing. Above all, there must be that desire to serve, rather than to impress. To be humble rather than easily satisfied with oneself.'

Janet considered that for a moment. Then, to Felicity's mingled amusement and alarm, she looked very directly at Oscar Warrender and asked simply, 'Are you humble?'

'Not as a man, either by temperament or experience,' the conductor assured her, again exactly as though he were speaking to a grown-up. 'But as a musician — yes, Janet, I am. Though few people would believe me if I said so.'

'I believe you,' said Janet kindly.

'Well, that's fine.' The conductor laughed and ruffled her hair slightly, as though he suddenly remembered that she was indeed a child. 'And will you remember what I have told you about being a music- maker?'

Janet nodded. 'Did you mean that I might be one?'

'You might. Nothing is sure in this unsure world. But the possibility is there, Janet. I will only say —try to be one. Now your lesson is over. Run along. I want to talk to Miss Grainger.'

'May I ask you one thing first?'

'Oh, yes.'

'Did you like my playing?'

He regarded her almost sombrely for several seconds before he replied. Then he simply said, 'Yes, I liked your playing.'

She was, Felicity saw with surprise, completely satisfied with this modest degree of praise. She put away her violin and bow in their case with her usual meticulous care. Then, having closed and fastened the case, she picked it up, said a comprehensive, 'Goodbye,' which evidently included them both, and went away.

For a minute after her undramatic exit there was silence in the room. Then Felicity looked at the conductor and asked her own version of Janet's question.

'Did you like her playing, Mr. Warrender?'

'No,' he said. 'I didn't "like" it. That was the only word I could use to the child without giving her inflated ideas about herself too soon. I was astounded and moved by it. Not an experience which comes often to me nowadays, I assure you — and never, I think, where a child was concerned. Infant prodigies are not in my line.'

'But she isn't that, is she?'

'No. That's the interesting thing about her.' He sat down opposite Felicity and regarded her thoughtfully. 'She plays with an almost adult understanding. There's nothing precocious about her in the usual sense of the word. She just has a perfectly natural musical instinct far beyond her years. What I can't understand—' he frowned — 'is that Tarkman failed to spot it too. He has quite exceptional musical judgment usually.'

'She played very much less than her best when he heard her,' Felicity explained in all justice.

'Yes, yes, I understand that.' Warrender made an impatient little movement with his expressive hand. 'She was nervous, I don't doubt, and probably muffed some of her passage work. But Stephen has plenty of experience in judging nervous youngsters. How could he not have seen what was really there? If that child played really badly she would still be interesting.'

'But that was just it, Mr. Warrender! She didn't play really badly. She just wasn't interesting,' Felicity admitted with a rueful smile.

'Really?' He gave her one of those quick, penetrating glances. 'Explain.'

'Well, it probably sounds mad to you—'

'Nothing sounds mad to me. I live my life among artists,' Warrender interrupted disagreeably.

Felicity laughed and relaxed slightly from the tension which invariably seized her now when she had to speak of Julia Morton.

'The trouble is that Janet dislikes and fears her aunt to an almost pathological degree. I've tried not to involve myself in what doesn't concern me, but naturally I am on Janet's side and—'

'Naturally. She is your concern. Julia Morton is not,' said the conductor in such a matter-of-fact tone that Felicity found herself wishing desperately that Stephen had just a little of his impersonal viewpoint.

She found it not difficult after that to explain about Janet's disastrous reaction on the night of the school concert.

'It wasn't just stage-fright or ordinary nervousness, you understand. It was concerned solely with the fact that her aunt was there, and she was almost literally petrified.  I remember thinking, as I tried to find bracing words to stiffen her morale, that I might as well have told a rabbit not to be frightened of a snake. As I said, this may sound mad—'

'No.' Once more Warrender interrupted her on that word. 'It's something I have come across occasionally even in an experienced artist.' He paused for a moment and frowned slightly, and she felt certain he was thinking of Anthea. 'It's all the more devastating because it is against all reason and therefore yields to no form of reassurance. In Janet's case it is simply something we must accept and guard against. The aunt must keep out of her way, particularly on any important occasion.'

With difficulty Felicity resisted the desire to say, 'You tell that to Stephen Tarkman!'

Instead, she replied very reasonably, 'Julia Morton isn't a woman to co-operate over anything like that, you know. She wouldn't see why she should. In fact, I'm afraid she dislikes Janet as much as Janet dislikes her, and she rather enjoys the fact that she frightens the child.'

'Then it must be made clear to her that she must keep away. She is of no importance in comparison with this clever child,' stated Oscar Warrender, with a brutal frankness which endeared him to Felicity for the most ignoble reasons. 'Stephen must talk to her,' he added. 'He's the one who knows her well enough to do it.'

'Oh, I don't think Stephen —I don't think Mr. Tarkman would be prepared to do that,' exclaimed Felicity, pleasurably shocked at the very idea.

'Why not? If you explain to him exactly what the situation is—'

'If I do? But, Mr. Warrender, I couldn't possibly explain to Mr. Tarkman in any terms he would accept. He — he doesn't like me, for one thing,' she added quite ridiculously.

"Like you? He doesn't have to like you,' said Oscar Warrender, dismissing her fondest hopes with one crushing sentence. 'I don't much like many of my colleagues, and even more of them don't like me, I strongly suspect. It's of no importance whatever, so long as one's opinion — one's judgment — is respected. If Tarkman respects your judgment about this child—'

'But he doesn't!' interjected Felicity agitatedly.

'He will when he hears that I've confirmed it absolutely!' replied the conductor calmly. 'I'll see him when I go from here. I'm seeing him about some other things in any case —matters which have to be settled before Anthea and I leave for the States at the end of next week. I shall explain that Janet is my personal choice for the next vacancy. That is a decision which will not be queried by anyone, I can assure you.'

'I believe you,' said Felicity earnestly. 'And I'm more grateful than I can say, on Janet's behalf. But please, Mr. Warrender, could you also explain to Mr. Tarkman about Mrs. Morton'

'What do you want me to explain about Mrs. Morton?' He looked suddenly amused.

'What you said just now. What we agreed. That she must keep away when Janet is under any sort of strain, and that she must be made to accept — and respect — the fact that she has a damaging effect on the child.'

'Wouldn't that come better from you —her teacher?' he asked carelessly.

'Oh, no! There's been trouble enough already about — about what I think of Mrs. Morton,' Felicity explained confusedly. And then she went crimson at the realization that she had made that sound altogether too personal.

'Really?' Again the conductor looked a good deal amused. 'Very well, I'll see what I can do. But you are the one who will be on the spot most of the time, and I rely on you to see that gifted child is properly protected. You've done extraordinarily well by her so far. I congratulate you. But looking after a sensitive artist in those formative years is a full-time job, and the responsibility is great, as I think you realize.'

'I do indeed. And I'll do my very best,' Felicity assured him. 'But there are circumstances — I mean there may be great personal difficulties—' she broke off rather distressedly.

'There are difficulties attaching to everything worthwhile, Miss Grainger,' Oscar Warrender said drily, 'and one must be prepared to stand up to them. Any fool can say "yes" and drift with the tide. The important thing is to be able to say "no" at the right time and to the right person.'

She thought of saying 'no' to Stephen, and disliked the idea very much indeed.

'There is no need to be afraid of the Julia Mortons of this world,' Warrender told her, not unkindly.

'I'm not afraid of Julia Morton herself,' Felicity said with great candour. 'I am a little afraid of what she can make — other people think.'

'By "other people" I take it you mean Stephen Tarkman?'

Felicity nodded.

'I don't think she could say anything that would shake your position at Tarkmans, Miss Grainger. If you don't know it already, I don't mind telling you that Stephen thinks very highly indeed of you as a teacher. He told me so himself.'

'Oh, as a teacher, yes, I know that.' Felicity caught her breath on a slight sigh.

'How else do you want him to think of you, then?' inquired Warrender, with brutal directness.

'How else?' She was indescribably startled and looked it. Then she saw where the conversation had led her, and made a tremendous effort to retrieve the position. 'No other way — of course! Except that, in the earlier days, Mr. Tarkman was kind enough to treat me as a friend as much as a colleague. Then, when we — we failed to see eye to eye over Mrs. Morton's attitude towards Janet, he—' Felicity paused, suddenly sensing further verbal dangers. Finally, she said in a very reserved sort of tone, 'I don't think he regards me as a friend any longer. And I'm sorry about it.'

'These things pass,' Oscar Warrender assured her, with an easy indifference she could not share. 'Relationships are changing all the time, particularly in a world where ambition and temperament and genuine concern about the things that matter are all mixed up together. It's only a question of getting one's priorities right. The important person in all this is Janet. Though of course,' he added warningly, 'it would be most unwise to let the child know that.'

'Of course,' agreed Felicity with sincerity. 'I mean that I realize both that she is the important person, and equally that she must be left in healthy ignorance of the fact.'

'Then we understand each other.' The conductor glanced at his watch and stood up. 'Keep her artistic importance continually in mind and, when you have to, give full consideration to her peculiar sensitiveness over the aunt. If I'm not mistaken — and I seldom am,' he added, without either conceit or false modesty, 'you have a near-genius on your hands. She's worth a row or two with any Julia Morton. Or with Stephen either, if it should come to that. Though why it should I can't imagine,' he finished, with the casual confidence of the totally uninvolved.

'I hope it won't.' Felicity managed to put some seeming confidence into her own smile at that. For one did not query Oscar Warrender's major decisions. Nor, of course, did one presume to bore the great man with any further personal anxieties.

She could not even bring herself to remind him that he was to speak warningly to Stephen about Julia Morton's unfortunate influence on her niece. She could only shake hands with him, thank him once more from her heart for his interest in Janet, and hope that he would not forget to smooth a few places for her in what might be a very rough path ahead.

When he had gone Felicity sat for some minutes alone in the music room. Janet had been her last pupil for the afternoon, and her time was now her own.

Gradually the inner agitation about her own affairs began to subside. And in their place flowed the warm, strong, intoxicating realization that Janet's future development was secure. She had won! She had not battled in vain. She had not shirked the most important challenge of her teaching life. She might have made an implacable enemy in Julia Morton.; she might even, however unreasonably, have alienated Stephen further. But the fact was that the finest pupil she was ever likely to handle was to have her full chance of coming to complete development.

'And that's what Oscar Warrender meant about getting one's priorities right, I suppose,' she thought amusedly.

Suddenly elated, and much more tranquilly happy than she had been for many days, Felicity went to report to her headmistress on the successful outcome of the informal audition.

There was no question of Mrs. Bush's congratulatory interest, and she gave Felicity full credit for the part she had played. But all this was nothing compared to the almost indecent jubilation in which Mary indulged when Felicity came home to describe in full the exciting events of the afternoon.

'You mean that Oscar Warrender himself tried out our Janet, and said you were dead right about her? What absolute triumph! Don't you feel like clashing cymbals, and thumbing your nose at Julia Morton and Stephen Tarkman and the lot?'

'Not at Stephen Tarkman,' Felicity objected. 'He—'

'He virtually turned Janet down, didn't he? And then queried your judgment in a superior way, just because he wanted to find excuses for the Morton's behaviour. Blessings on Warrender's distinguished head! I've never heard him conduct, and wouldn't know much about it if I did. But he obviously knows more about music than all the Tarkman crowd put together. Except you, of course,' Mary added with splendid lack of prejudice.

'That's what I like about you,' Felicity teased. 'You're so objective about your friends.'

'I am being objective,' Mary declared. 'I just happen to realize that you know more than the others. And what better proof could you need than Oscar Warrender's confirmation of your judgment? How does it feel to have the great man say you were right?'

'It's wonderful,' Felicity acknowledged. 'Both for the personal gratification and the knowledge that I've done what I set out to do and secured the right training for Janet. In spite of Julia Morton,' she added with a touch of understandable malice.

'I wonder,' said Mary reflectively, 'how the self-confident Mr Tarkman will like being put in the wrong.'

'Oh, he and Oscar Warrender are old friends,' Felicity said quickly, 'Stephen thinks him the last word on musical matters, and wouldn't dream of querying any pronouncement of his.'

'I wasn't thinking of his querying it. I just wondered if he might resent it.'

'From Warrender? — No,' Felicity shook her head emphatically.

'There's such a thing as transferring one's resentment elsewhere,' observed Mary sagely. 'I mean — don't be too much upset if he's rather off-brushing to you about it at first. He'll probably give way to Warrender with the utmost grace and willingness, but he may not feel entirely sweet towards the humble instrument who proved him wrong.'

'That,' said Felicity firmly, 'would be unreasonable and unjust.'

'Well, of course,' Mary agreed. 'People are unreasonable and unjust when their pride has been stung.'

'Not Stephen Tarkman. You underestimate him,' Felicity declared. And her assurance was all the more emphatic because Mary's words exactly echoed the anxiety in her own heart.

She maintained an air of smiling confidence, however, right up to the time when she set out for the Tarkman School later in the evening, to give her usual weekly lecture to the older students. Then she did experience some tremors of apprehension.

Oscar Warrender's visit, however, had put some heart into her and. so determined was she to seem cool and courageous, even to herself, that she made herself pass Stephen's house near the north gate, disdaining to give tacit admission to her fears by going round the way she had chosen recently.

She need not have worried. Neither outside the house nor through the large windows at the front was there any sign of Stephen. She made herself glance casually in the direction of the house just to make sure. Then, steadied by the effort of having made herself behave normally, she went on her way breathing a little more easily.

Just inside the school entrance she ran into Professor Blackthorn, who stopped to exchange greetings and the odd bit of school news. For, as he frankly admitted, he was something of a gossip and everything to do with Tarkmans interested him.

'Have you heard that we're losing young Camilla Ronci?' he said. 'That will mean an unexpected vacancy in the Junior School. I thought you'd like to know in case you wanted to put forward that girl you have at Carmalton.'

Felicity nearly said, 'Oscar Warrender will be putting her forward now.' But, not wanting to speak too soon of that, she restrained herself — and the rush of excitement which overcame her at the thought of Janet's probable good fortune. Then, quite composedly, she asked why Camilla Ronci was leaving.

'Oh, nothing to do with her work. She's quite promising in a plodding way,' the Professor declared. 'It's a family matter. I believe the grandfather has died, leaving them a villa in Florence and enough cash to go with it. So they're all going back to Italy, and I can't say I blame them. I wish someone would leave me a villa. And the cash to go with it, of course.'

'It would be nice,' Felicity agreed with a laugh. 'And thanks for letting me know about the vacancy right away. I think Janet might have a chance.' Then she went on to her classroom in excellent spirits.

It was one of those evenings when nothing could go wrong. The students were relaxed and responsive. She captured their delighted attention from the first few minutes. Everyone asked the right questions and none of the wrong ones. And through all the serious study ran a thread of something like gaiety which somehow made sheer hard work seem like fun,

Ten minutes before the end of the session Stephen slipped into the room, and stood at the back watching proceedings.

If he had come early in the evening it might have unnerved her. But now, though she felt her throat tighten for a moment, Felicity knew the evening was too well launched, too solidly and palpably successful for anything to upset it. It was able to run on its own momentum, so to speak. And she was aware of genuine enjoyment of the fact that he should be seeing and hearing her hold a class when she was on top form.

At the end, at least half the students crowded round her, still asking questions and making comments. But Stephen did not go away. He waited, smiling slightly, until she was free. Then he came up and said formally, though quite pleasantly, 'Have you got ten minutes? I should like to have a few words with you.'

'Yes, of course.' She smiled at him as easily and naturally as she could, but she found herself wishing that he had addressed her by name. Either name! If he had called her 'Felicity' she would have known that everything was all right and that they were friendly again. If he had called her 'Miss Grainger' she would have been identified as the teacher - successful teacher notwithstanding - rather than a friend.

But he called her neither, and so she followed him to his study with something less than confidence.

When they got there, he pushed forward a comfortable chair for her and said very courteously, 'Do sit down.'

Then, still standing but leaning back against his desk, he smiled at her not entirely reassuringly and said,

'Well, Miss Grainger, it seems I owe you an apology.'

So it was to be Miss Grainger still!

CHAPTER SEVEN

'Please don't talk about apologies,' said Felicity eagerly. 'They simply aren't called for. So far as Janet was concerned, I had seen much more of her than you had and so, naturally, I was able to assess her gifts more accurately.'

'Which doesn't explain away the fact that perhaps I should have allowed you that from the beginning.' He made a slight grimace. 'And, according to Warrender, I should have been able to see her quality for myself, even though she was not at her best when I heard her.'

'There were — special circumstances,' murmured Felicity rather uncomfortably. 'Don't let's go over that again. I'd much rather hear about your reactions to Mr. Warrender's verdict.'

'There can be only one reaction — of course,' he admitted immediately. 'Warrender is so confident about the child that he's prepared to sponsor her himself. He wants her to be a resident pupil. I suppose that can be arranged? There would be no objection to her leaving her present foster-home and coming here?'

'I don't imagine so. There are no parents to consult, as you know.'

Julia's name hung unspoken in the atmosphere. And finally, with a real effort of courage, Felicity said, 'I think Mrs. Morton is her only relation — and that simply by marriage. I have always understood that she preferred not to assume any responsibility towards Janet, and so—'

'There, as a matter of fact, you are wrong,' Stephen told her drily. 'You may be surprised to hear that the moment she learned Janet would be admitted to Tarkmans, Mrs. Morton offered to defray all the child's expenses.'

'But she can't!' cried Felicity, frankly astounded and then absolutely appalled as she saw the implications. For how did one forbid the person who footed the bill from coming in contact with the one who profited?

'Why not?' His tone was very cold, 'As you probably know, lack of money is never a bar to a gifted child so far as Tarkmans is concerned. But that was her offer.'

Felicity sought for an inoffensive reply and found none. Then, as the silence lengthened, inspiration came to her.

'Perhaps "can't" isn't quite the word,' she admitted in a placatory voice. 'What I really meant was that it wouldn't be necessary. I think Janet has a certain amount of money in her own right. She told me once that her uncle had left her some money and that was why—' she coughed and the sentence remained unfinished.

'That was why?' he prompted.

'Nothing. Let's just say that Janet made the statement. She may have been mistaken, of course. But obviously means have been available to pay for her present maintenance and her quite heavy fees at Garmalton. I don't think one need call on Mrs. Morton's — generosity.'

'I hope not. But the offer was freely and instantly made. I thought you should know that.'

Infuriated by his tone, she longed to say, 'Why, for heaven's sake?' But she choked back the impulse and asked instead, very calmly, when Janet was likely to enter Tarkmans.

He told her then, in his turn, about Camilla Ronci and the vacancy which had unexpectedly occurred.

'And you're satisfied that it should go to Janet?' she urged, aching for him to make just one sign that he shared something of the excitement and interest which had moved her and Oscar Warrender.

'Of course.' That was almost offensively indifferent. "There could be no question of her suitability from the way Warrender spoke.'

'But don't you want to hear her for yourself, Stephen?' The name slipped out before she could stop it. 'Aren't you interested?'

'In this particular child rather than any other? Why should I be?'

That suddenly released the nervous rage which had been boiling in Felicity for some minutes now.

'Because Mr. Warrender is excited about her. Because she's Julia Morton's niece, if you like. Because — oh, anything, so long as you'll stop being a pompous ass!' she cried.

'What did you say?' He looked as startled as if she had slapped his face. And now she almost wished she had.

'Exactly what you thought I said. And richly was the remark deserved. Ever since we came into this room you've been offensive and — yes, pompous. You've displayed the sort of exaggerated courtesy which is almost insulting. You haven't smiled, laughed, said one generous word about the discovery of what is admittedly an excitingly gifted child. If Janet had come to you any other way you'd have been as excited as I am. Does it hurt so much having been in the wrong for once? Or is it just that you dislike me so much that you extend that dislike to the totally inoffensive Janet?'

'I don't dislike you,' he said, stopping her in her tracks so effectively that she suddenly realized with horror just what she had said — and that in a voice much louder than any she habitually used.

'D-don't you?' she stammered in utter confusion.

'No. You infuriate me at times when you're incorrigibly meddlesome, but that's a different thing. And I admit that in Janet's case the interference may even have been justified. I resent your going behind my back to the Warrenders, but I'm sure to you it was immaterial that you might have made bad blood between me and my most important director. According to you — and apparently to Warrender too, I'm bound to say — the end justified the means. Janet will come to Tarkmans.'

'I - I'm sorry. I should never have spoken to you like that. Will you please try to forget it and—'

'On the contrary, I shall try to remember every salutary word,' he assured her rather unkindly. 'Particularly the bit about being pompous.'

'Oh—' a slight irresistible smile twitched the corners of her mouth. Then impulsively she held out her hand. 'Please forgive me. I hate not being friends.'

He slowly took her hand in his and looked down at it. 'I don't much like it either,' he admitted.

'Then I'm forgiven?'

'For what, exactly?'

'Principally the outburst just now. And then — whatever it is that has so offended you and spoiled our pleasant relationship,' she told him frankly.

'The outburst is completely forgiven. It was quite refreshing, to tell the truth. One so seldom hears a candid opinion of oneself. I even forgive you for being right about Janet and I was wrong—' he smiled wryly, and then suddenly his expression changed. 'What I can't forgive is the fact that, even when you had triumphantly carried your point about the child, you couldn't leave it at that. You had to infect Warrender, of all people, with your unworthy suspicions about a valued and generous friend of mine.'

'Oh—' she snatched her hand away, but in nervousness rather than anger — 'you just won't believe it's anything but some sort of silly vendetta against Julia Morton, will you?'

'Isn't that what it amounts to, Felicity?' He did at least call her Felicity once more. 'You disliked her from the first, and you tried all ways to convince me that she wished Janet ill. And yet, as I've just told you, her first reaction on hearing that Janet had been accepted for Tarkmans was to offer to pay for anything that was required. Hardly the gesture of a mean, ill-wishing aunt, was it?'

'It was, however, only a gesture,' Felicity felt bound to point out. 'I suppose she knew as well as you did that it wouldn't be necessary to implement it. It looked good, but it didn't cost anything.'

'Not,' he remarked after a pregnant little silence, 'a particularly generous remark on your part.'

'I know it isn't, but it's true! — Oh, I'm sorry. It isn't a subject we're ever likely to agree upon. Can't we just leave it at that?'

'Rather difficult in the particular circumstances,' he said drily. 'Delusions are very dangerous things, particularly when they concern people.'

'Delusions?' The word stung her into fresh anger.

'That's what I said. You have completely deluded yourself, Felicity, with an absurd theory started by a highly-strung and spoiled little girl, and you use every chance word or action to bolster up that theory.'

'You really — think that?'

'Yes, I do. And I find it hard to be even moderately patient when you start handing on this atrocious invention to other people.'

Felicity took a deep breath.

'You don't think,' she said rather dangerously, 'that you could possibly be wrong?'

'You said that to me once long ago, Felicity.' He smiled, not very kindly. 'I can hear almost the same tone of voice. It was when you differed with me over that forgotten pianist - what was his name? Rodney Eskith. And on that occasion, my dear, if I may remind you, I was right - against all your passionate belief to the contrary.'

She was shaken beyond expression, for nothing he could have said could have made a more powerful appeal. She had been so confident on that occasion — and so hopelessly wrong. And for the very first time the idea came to her that this time too she might — she just might — be wrong.

Suppose Janet were indeed a fanciful, temperamental little girl, playing up to a sympathetic audience and imposing her own obstinate view of her aunt on Felicity? The very idea was shattering.

But, even as she gripped her hands together in nervous indecision, she recalled Oscar Warrender saying, 'It is something I have come across occasionally even in an experienced artist.' And a little confidence flowed back into her.

'If I'm being unjust to Julia I'm sorry.' She spoke a little huskily. 'And I'll try to be quite objective in future. But about her effect on Janet there is simply no doubt, whether the child is being reasonable or unreasonable. If you want to get the best out of Janet I'm afraid you — we must allow for this odd weakness of hers. Mr. Warrender thinks the same. Not because of anything I said but because he has had to recognize and accept the same reaction in Anthea where Peroni is concerned.'

'Peroni?' Then a half amused, half annoyed look came into his face. 'Was that what you two were discussing so cryptically in her dressing-room the other night?'

'Yes. But don't be cross about that,' Felicity pleaded quickly. 'It was just that Anthea had told me earlier about her unreasoning fear when Peroni was in the house. And what she described coincided exactly with the situation I had to tackle when Janet panicked at the school concert.'

'All right.' He capitulated with a vexed little laugh. 'I will accept the situation as far as I can. But remember that I simply cannot allow major clashes between you and me about this child, once she is at Tarkmans. I wouldn't do so with any pupil or any member of my staff.'

'I do see that.' Felicity sounded as submissive as she could, though she had to stifle some nervous misgivings even now.

Then he went over to his desk and flicked over the pages of his diary. 'When can you bring Janet here for me to hear her for myself?' he inquired.

'Then you do want to hear her?' Sudden joy flashed into her face.

He didn't answer that directly, but stood with his pencil poised over his desk diary.

'Could you bring her along after school tomorrow? I'll get Blackthorn to come and hear her too.'

'Oh, thank you! Yes, of course I'll bring her. I can't thank you enough.'

'Don't try. I might turn pompous again,' he said disagreeably. But it was he who held out his hand as he said good night and for a moment the clasp was firm enough for her to decide it was friendly.

By running halfway down the drive she caught the bus which came half an hour after her usual one. But even so, she was late enough for Mary to remark on the fact when she reached home.

'Any sensational developments?' Mary wanted to know.

'I don't know if that's the way to describe them.' Felicity laughed, kicked off her shoes, flung herself down in a chair and put her feet up on a stool. 'I'm exhausted!' she declared.

'By the evening class?'

'Oh, no! That went like oiled silk. I had a discussion about Janet with Stephen later. I won't go into all the details, but he's going to hear Janet for himself tomorrow, and she's to be admitted to Tarkmans in a week or two, because an unexpected vacancy has arisen. As for any difficulties in the future between Janet and her aunt, I'll just have to tackle them as they come along.'

'With Oscar Warrender as an ally need you worry?'

'As to the final outcome — no,' Felicity admitted. 'But I can't expect him to fight my personal battles for me, can I?'

'And it's still a very personal matter with Stephen Tarkman?' Mary looked curious.

'He describes Julia as a valued and generous friend,' said Felicity resignedly.

'Wouldn't it have been simpler just to describe her as his fiancée?' Mary asked drily. 'If she is, I mean. It's all a bit of a mystery to me. First you rush in all wide-eyed from that first dinner-party and tell me he's going to marry Julia. Then he tells you on the way to London that he's not. Did she refuse him, or did his good sense get the better of him, or is the whole thing on again since he still seems to be carrying a torch for her in a big way?'

'I don't know.' Felicity drew a long sigh, and then tried to laugh that off as Mary glanced at her quickly. 'Anthea's theory is that Julia made unacceptable terms. Something like demanding that the unlikeable and interfering Miss Grainger should not be employed at Tarkmans after all. But I can't think that either of them would make a major issue of the appointment of a mere teacher.'

'Not so much of the "mere",' retorted Mary with energy. 'He very much wanted you there, and she would rather see you dead. She just might have been silly enough to try to force the issue, and he would of course greatly resent such impertinent interference. Engagements have been wrecked on smaller rocks than that!'

'I know. But I should have expected her to give way gracefully and just bide her time.'

'She has bided her time, my dear. And very well it has served her, if you ask me. She dug in her toes, which is a much better way of showing strength than giving in gracefully. Then, when he considered you were interfering by bringing in the Warrenders on Janet's behalf, she had a wonderful opportunity to say virtuously, "Me interfering? What about that Felicity Grainger, who thinks she can lead you by the nose so far as the choice of pupil is concerned?" And ever since then she's been fanning the flames of his wrath whenever she got a chance.'

Felicity laughed. But uneasily, for she knew Mary was more than half serious, and she was not herself sure that there was not a considerable degree of truth in what she was suggesting.

'Don't make me nervous,' she said as lightly as she could. 'I shall need all my courage and self-possession when I take Janet to him tomorrow.'

'What about Janet? Isn't she the one who will need some courage?'

'Unless I'm much mistaken, Janet will be as cool as the proverbial cucumber, so long as there is no sign of Julia,' Felicity declared. 'She isn't a bit afraid of people just because they are something big in their own line - particularly if it's a musical line. You should have seen her measuring up to Oscar Warrender and telling him she thought he conducted the Brahms First very well.'

They both laughed a good deal over that, and Felicity felt better. But when it came to the following afternoon and she accompanied Janet to Tarkmans, it was perfectly true that of the two Janet was undoubtedly the less scared.

Naturally, Felicity concealed her inner nervousness. It was not for her to convey any sense of crisis — much less alarm — to the child. But she secretly envied Janet her air of easy enjoyment when she first viewed the Tarkman building from near at hand.

'It's pretty splendid, isn't it?' she said admiringly, though this was not the case. The ornate yet ponderous style of the original great house had no special architectural beauty. But since it fulfilled its function admirably, and was at least surrounded by exceptionally pleasant grounds, Felicity was able to agree that it had its points.

'I like Mr. Tarkman's own house better,' she remarked, as they passed this. 'It was built a good deal later and has considerable charm, I think.'

Janet accorded it a brief glance and then said quickly, 'She won't be there, will she?'

Felicity did not go through the motions of pretending not to know who was meant by 'she'.

'No. Only Mr. Tarkman and Professor Blackthorn will be there,' she asserted with some confidence. For she was virtually certain that Stephen Tarkman was not a man to take any malicious pleasure in forcing his personal views at a time when he was seriously considering the merits of a pupil.

Indeed, nothing could have been more reassuring and friendly than his reception of Janet, and he paid her the compliment of stating the exact position without any evasions.

'We have heard a very good account of you from Mr. Warrender, Janet,' he said. 'And Professor Blackthorn and I are both looking forward to hearing you.'

'You heard me once before,' Janet reminded him with equal directness.

'Yes, I know. But we all have our off moments. You were not at your best that night, I understand. And I think perhaps my powers of judgment were not at their best either. We'll wash out that occasion and start again. And this time I'll listen very attentively.'

'It wasn't your fault that other time,' Janet told him generously. 'I was rotten. But I like playing for you and Professor Blackthorn and I'll do my best.'

Which she did. Just as she had risen to the occasion for Oscar Warrender, so she quite cheerfully played her best for Stephen and the professor who would be her teacher in future. And, again to a degree which brought the tears to her eyes, Felicity was moved afresh by the purity of her musical vision and the perfection of her technique.

Both Stephen and Professor Blackthorn asked her a good many questions, most of which she seemed to answer to their satisfaction. Then the professor took her through some exercises which were a speciality of his, and there was no doubt that he was delighted with her response.

'She has been very well taught.' He smiled approvingly at Felicity.

'I can't take full credit for that,' Felicity said quickly. 'Janet had been remarkably well grounded before she came into my hands. It has been a pleasure to teach her during the time I have had her in my care.'

'Well—' Professor Blackthorn glanced at Stephen —'there's nothing more I want to ask or hear. How about you?'

'Nothing musically speaking,' Stephen affirmed.

'Then I'll go. I have a busy evening.' The professor shook hands with his small pupil-to-be and told her he was going to enjoy having her work with him. Then he went away and Stephen Tarkman called Janet to his side.

She came and stood beside him, unperturbed, attentive but completely relaxed, and Felicity thought it was with mutual pleasure that they exchanged a very direct glance. Then Stephen said calmly, 'Can you tell me, Janet, why it was that you played so differently that other evening when I heard you? — so differently, in fact, that I would hardly have believed it was the same girl playing.'

Felicity caught her breath on an audible gasp, and Stephen raised his hand slightly, as though to silence the interruption which, in fact, she had no intention of making.

'Yes,' replied Janet with complete frankness. 'I played badly because my aunt was there.'

'So I've been told. But that seems to me rather improbable, you know. Why should her presence make such a difference to you? — No, don't answer that without thinking about it carefully. And don't imagine I'm being merely curious. I should really like to know. One can sometimes help people who have these unreasoning feelings.'

'This isn't an unreasoning feeling,' Janet told him, after a moment's thought. 'It's a bit the sort of feeling some people have about cats, you know. They can't be in the same room with them without being upset. That is an unreasoning feeling perhaps — but it's there. The more straightforward reason is that she doesn't like me and I don't like her. And — I'm afraid of her.'

'Suppose I told you that she does like you?'

'You'd be wrong,' said Janet with great simplicity, as though that ended the discussion.

'You don't think a grown-up might be better able to judge your aunt's feelings and intentions than you — a little girl?' He asked that quite kindly, without a trace of sarcasm.

'No,' replied Janet equably. 'It's nothing to do with being grown-up. Some grown-ups—' she looked at him almost tenderly — 'are not specially good at knowing about people. But anyway, only the person concerned can know if they are disliked. You can be mistaken and think someone likes you when they don't. You can't be mistaken when someone dislikes you. It's like a disharmony. Like when you strike a wrong note in a chord.'

'Is it?' He smiled faintly, but he was slightly taken aback, Felicity saw. 'I don't know that I find your reasoning quite convincing, Janet. And I think I must tell you that your aunt has offered to pay your expenses at Tarkmans. How about that?"

'She doesn't have to pay them,' Janet replied a little contemptuously. 'I have a trustee who has quite a lot of money for me. She knows that as well as I do.'

'Then why should she make this offer?' he countered impatiently.

'I suppose,' Janet said simply, 'she thought it would impress you. And it did, didn't it?'

He didn't answer that. He got to his feet, patted her cheek and said, 'I think we've had enough discussion for one evening. Try not to have fanciful ideas about people, Janet. You might make yourself and other people unhappy for no reason.'

She smiled and said almost mischievously, 'I haven't any fanciful ideas about you. Or Professor Blackthorn. I like you both.'

'Well, that's a relief!' Stephen Tarkman laughed.

'And I think,' she added shyly and quite without offence, 'you like me too, don't you?'

For a moment he looked as though he were going to reply with suitable lightness. Then he said quite seriously, 'Yes — I like you.' And Felicity guessed that the very slight shade of surprise in his tone derived from the fact that Julia Morton had confidently assured him he would not.

While Janet went to put away her violin, Stephen drew Felicity into one of the deep window embrasures.

'You can say "I told you so", with as much emphasis as you like,' he said wryly. 'The child is everything that you — and Warrender — claimed. She is a natural for Tarkmans, and I could never have forgiven myself if I had been the means of turning her away from here.'

'You wouldn't have been the means,' thought Felicity. But aloud she merely said, 'Thank you, Stephen, for such a generous admission. And I'm glad she is to have her chance. It isn't only that she's the nearest thing to a musical genius I'm ever likely to handle. She's a good child too.'

'Yes,' he said slowly, on a note of surprised conviction. 'She's a good child too. I shall like having her at Tarkmans. And though you will be losing her as your individual pupil, I hope you will still have a great deal to do with her development even after she comes here.'

'If it rests with me, I shall,' Felicity assured him with a smile.

Then Janet came back carrying her violin case in her hand, and Felicity and she took their leave. They were companionably silent for a few minutes as they walked down the long drive. Then, as they passed Stephen's house, Janet said,

'Poor Mr. Tarkman is a very nice man, isn't he?'

'Very,' agreed Felicity. 'But why do you call him "poor" Mr. Tarkman?' she asked, both amused and curious.

'Because he doesn't understand about Aunt Julia at all. And he'll probably go and marry her, just as my father used to say.'

'Janet,' protested Felicity feebly, 'I don't think it's for us to make personal speculations about Mr. Tarkman. It's not quite our business, you know.'

Janet digested that for the next hundred yards or so. Then she said with a sigh, as though the cares of the world rested on her shoulders, 'He ought not to marry Aunt Julia. She'll make him miserable. He ought to marry you. You'd suit him much better.'

'I know I would!' thought Felicity, with such a pang of anguish that a great lump stuck in her throat and made it impossible to find enough voice to tell Janet not to make absurd suggestions.

In silence she hustled the little girl along to the bus stop, where the deserted scene suggested that they had just missed a bus.

'I'm afraid we may have quite a long wait,' Felicity said, and she was pleased to notice that her voice sounded quite normal and matter-of-fact. Probably her silence had merely conveyed to Janet that her foolish comment was not even worth a reply.

'I don't mind,' Janet replied contentedly. 'There are such a lot of nice things to think about.'

No doubt there were — if you were Janet, with all your happy hopes and ambitions about to be realized. Not so much so if you were Felicity, so emotionally confused that you hardly knew what you hoped and what you feared.

They were still silent, and still alone, when a long, low car slid to a standstill beside them, and Julia Morton's charmingly pitched voice said, 'Jump in, both of you, and I'll give you a lift. Have you just had your audition, Janet? And how did you get on?'

Neither of them could say a word for a moment, Felicity being almost as petrified as Janet at the sight of Julia, leaning back in the driving seat and regarding them with something the same smile as Peroni had used when she sweetly implied that Anthea's superb performance had been a little below standard.

'Thank you, but the bus will be here any minute now,' Felicity declared, suddenly recovering her self- possession.

'It won't, you know.' Julia glanced at her wrist-watch. 'It isn't due for another ten minutes at least. I can get you home in the time you'd be waiting here.'

If she had been alone, Felicity would have made the best of it and accepted the lift. But Janet, uninhibited by any grown-up concern for doing the correct thing, found her voice and said huskily but firmly, 'I don't want a lift, thank you. I'd rather wait ten minutes for the bus.'

'Why?' Her aunt looked at her with faintly scornful amusement. 'Is your conscience troubling you about the naughty lies you've just been telling Mr. Tarkman about me?'

It was a bow at a venture, but obviously one which she expected to disconcert her young niece. And, remembering some of the candid things which had been said, Felicity rather expected it too. But Janet replied with a calmness which secretly surprised Felicity,

'I didn't tell any lies,' she said. 'I just played to him and Professor Blackthorn.'

'With no questions asked and no half truthful replies?' Julia laughed sceptically, but lightly, as though it were all more than half a joke.

'Mrs. Morton,' Felicity cut in, 'of course there were quite a lot of questions from both Mr. Tarkman and Professor Blackthorn. Musical questions. They were there to test Janet's knowledge and reactions, and I think they were very satisfied with her replies.'

If Felicity had been a fly Julia could not have taken less notice of her. She continued to look at Janet with that disturbing smile, and she said very pleasantly,

'I'm going to tell you something for your own good, Janet. If, while you're at Tarkmans, you make any trouble between me and Mr. Tarkman you're going to be a very, very unhappy little girl indeed.'

Felicity almost expected Janet to shrink against her at these preposterous words, and she put out her hand in an instinctive gesture of protection. But something had happened to Janet during the triumphant last few days. She took off her glasses and looked straight back at her formidable aunt.

'And I'll tell you something,' she said, breathlessly but resolutely. 'Mr. Tarkman isn't going to marry you. He's going to marry Miss Grainger.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

'Janet, how could you have said such a thing?'

They were sitting now in the front seat of the bus which had mercifully appeared only a few seconds after Janet had delivered her shattering retort to her aunt. But Felicity could still see in her mind's eye the way Julia Morton had paled. She had said absolutely nothing in reply. She had merely looked at Janet - and then for a second at Felicity too - with a sort of naked hatred.

'Are you cross with me?' Janet sounded faintly subdued, though there was still a touch of defiant elation about her.

'Yes, I think I am. You had no right to drag me into this business—'

'But you're in it,' interrupted Janet with characteristic simplicity. 'And anyway, what I said is true.'

'Janet, it isn't true!' Felicity spoke almost desperately. 'What could make you think such a thing?'

'Wouldn't you like to marry Mr. Tarkman, then?' Janet turned and looked at her owlishly through those round spectacles.

'That's absolutely nothing to do—' Felicity caught herself up before she could complete the sentence. 'I refuse to discuss such academic nonsense,' she stated firmly. 'You had no right whatever to couple my name with — with his like that. Mrs. Morton could read all sorts of undesirable implications into such a remark. And you know as well as I do that she wouldn't be slow to make mischief out of it.'

'I'm sorry,' said Janet. 'I didn't think about that.' Then, as Felicity remained too vexed to reply, she added stubbornly, 'Anyway, it's true.'

'What's true?' Felicity asked crossly.

'What I said. He won't marry her. He'll marry you.'

'Janet, if you say that again I'll shake you! You haven't the very smallest reason for making such a statement, and a lot of trouble—'

'Yes, I have.' Janet looked oddly complacent for a moment. 'I have sort of — flashes sometimes. And I couldn't resist telling her when I had that one. It shook her, didn't it?' Janet looked inordinately pleased.

'Whatever flashes or hunches you have,' Felicity said patiently, 'please keep them to yourself if they have anything to do with me. Anything! It's kind of you to do all that wishful thinking on my behalf, but I'd rather do without it, thank you. I can manage my own life — just — if no one else interferes. Is that clear?'

'Yes, Miss Grainger.' Janet spoke very submissively now, and after a moment she slipped her hand into Felicity's as it lay, clenching and unclenching, on her lap.

It was impossible to reject the unspoken appeal of that small, strong, clever hand, and almost immediately Felicity clasped it and her own fingers ceased to curl and uncurl quite so agitatedly.

They said no more about the encounter with Julia Morton after that. But, once she had seen Janet home, Felicity walked the short distance to the cottage in a turmoil of anxiety, shot through with a completely irrational sense of wild hope. Not that she really attached any importance to Janet's absurd statement. But somehow, to have even a child put into trenchant words the secret hope in her heart was to give faint substance to something which had been no more than a forbidden shadow up to now.

'I'm crazy!' Felicity told herself. 'What did he ever say to me to support such an idea? The only praise he ever bestowed on me has been for my teaching. That and the reluctant admission that he didn't dislike me.'

Such modified and negative praise was enough to make one laugh. In fact, she did laugh slightly at her own absurdity. But when she recalled Julia's white, hating face, and thought of the way she could twist what Janet had said, her laughter, feeble as it had been, ceased abruptly.

If only there had been some way of forestalling the damaging account Julia would undoubtedly give of that ridiculous encounter. If one could say something casually — making a joke of the whole thing. But it was inconceivable that — either directly or indirectly, seriously or laughingly — one could actually introduce a subject of such ghastly embarrassment. The smallest mention of it would only underline the very implication she so longed to remove from it. There was only one person who could afford to mention the incident, and that was Julia. And mention it she would, with all the spiteful innuendo at her command, Felicity felt certain.

Even to Mary she felt unable to speak of what had happened. She reported in full on Janet's success with Stephen and Professor Blackthorn, and accepted her congratulations and speculations on the future with all the smiling satisfaction she could summon up.

Not until she was alone in bed that night could she concentrate once more on that scene at the bus stop. And then it was only to writhe with fresh embarrassment as her lively imagination supplied her with the kind of comment Julia would undoubtedly make. Perhaps had already made.

'What do you think my imaginative young niece has got into her head now? She informed me that you are going to marry Miss Grainger! — Yes, standing there at the bus stop, with Miss Grainger beside her. No, Miss Grainger didn't say anything. Where do you suppose she got that idea?' Gay, sweet, speculative laughter. 'Someone must have been doing some wishful thinking. My poor Stephen, don't you know it's dangerous to be quite so good-looking when impressionable young women are around? — You never thought so? Oh, I did. I always thought the poor girl was after you. Why shouldn't she be? There can't be much in her life, poor thing.'

Felicity gave a little groan of anguish and rolled over and wept a few irrepressible tears into her pillow.

She lay awake for a long time. Not all night, though it felt like that, but certainly until a few sleepy birds cheeped at the first faint streaks of dawn. And even when she did sleep it was the very lightest degree of unconsciousness, disturbed by confused and anxious dreams.

In the end she must have slept heavily, for after what seemed a cruelly short time she was dragged reluctantly to the surface by the raucous sound of her alarm clock. She almost threw something at its bland face, hating the very thought of getting up and facing whatever the day might bring. She also felt, most unusually, that she hated everyone she knew, from the offending Janet to Stephen himself. But most of all she hated herself for ever having arrived in the false, humiliating position in which she now was.

For a black moment or two she saw as the only solution that she should leave Tarkmans and Carmalton and go right away to teach somewhere else. But the thought of deserting the scene just as Janet had arrived at the most exciting part of her development was inconceivable.

She got up and dressed, shivering although it was not cold. She consumed her breakfast without appetite, although it was a good one. And she snapped at Mary whose usually welcome morning good humour seemed to her, in her jaundiced state, both fatuous and offensive.

'And this,' thought Felicity despairingly, 'is how it is going to be, day after day and week after week. This is how people feel when their self-respect is gone and they have to live perpetually with humiliation and their own stupidity.'

That was not, of course, quite how it worked out. Things very seldom do work out as we most hope or fear. To begin with, no one at Carmalton had any inkling of what had happened and, since everyone was anxious to congratulate her upon getting Janet into Tarkmans, her stock was remarkably high. The kind and congratulatory things which were said to her, not only by Mrs. Bush but by her colleagues, served to steady her shaken nerve so that she began to regain a better-proportioned view of life again.

The test came, naturally, when she next had to go to Tarkmans. She thought that if she saw Stephen Tarkman—

He was, in fact, the first person she saw when she came into the building, and he gave her his usual curt nod and 'Good afternoon,' as he passed. She felt she had gone red and then white, like some Victorian heroine with palpitations. But as he passed in a matter of seconds perhaps he had not noticed this singular performance on her part.

She was actually trembling slightly as she went on along the corridor, but at least the first encounter was over and she had survived. Once more her view of the situation shifted into more reasonable focus, and for the first time it occurred to her that possibly she had been tormenting herself quite unnecessarily.

Suppose Julia had given him a spiteful account of the absurd incident at the bus stop? Was he not as likely to have laughed it off as to have taken it seriously? Whatever Julia had said, perhaps he had realized that she wanted to make much out of little. He might well have seen it for what it was — a cheeky piece of repartee on the part of a provoked and excited Janet.

For some days Felicity basked in a, sense of exquisite relief, believing that the incident had sunk into the oblivion it merited. And then, so subtly that she could not possibly have pinpointed the difference, she became aware that there was no renewed warmth in her relationship with Stephen, as she had hoped after the acceptance of Janet. There was just a courteous coolness, to which she could take no exception and in which she could take no possible pleasure.

Whatever Julia had chosen to say had found its mark somewhere. If he had not taken all she had said at its face value, he was certainly not permitting any silly member of his staff to imagine she might be of undue importance to him. And there was absolutely nothing Felicity could do to set the record right. She could only smart under whatever he was thinking of her and curse Julia Morton in her heart.

It was, of course, initially Janet's fault. But somehow she found it comparatively easy to forgive Janet's part in her misery and humiliation. The more so when she saw the ease and interest and sheer joy with which the child made the transfer to Tarkmans.

She was frankly sorry to leave Mrs. Emlyn, who kissed her heartily and, with singular imagination, gave her a key to the house, telling her that she must always look on the place as her home and come back whenever she liked. The smile with which the rootless child turned the key over and over in her hand touched Felicity deeply, and she thought, not for the first time, that a touch of common sense and kindliness was worth a whole volume on child psychology.

There were also a few regrets about parting from some of her school friends at Carmalton, of course. But it was not as though Janet were leaving the district. The separation was an easy one. And in any case, the richness and fullness of the musical life which closed round her at Tarkmans obviously raised her to the greatest heights of happiness.

She blossomed like a rose in a warm summer shower. Not that there had been anything of the parched plant about Janet before. She had been a reasonably contented and happy child, especially with Felicity to guide her in her musical development. But Tarkmans was something different. The specialization was not one-sided enough to harm the personal development of the children there, but everything was geared to the idea that music was the driving force of their lives.

Janet settled into Tarkmans as though the whole of her short life so far had been no more than a preparation for this. And Felicity's happiness in observing this helped to compensate in some measure for the un- happiness and frustration which fretted her whenever she thought of Stephen - which was often.

She tried hard to discipline her thoughts and feelings; to tell herself that she was lucky just to have him for an employer, since he not only appreciated her teaching ability to the full but gave her the kind of scope she could have found nowhere else.

But academic fulfilment is not a complete substitute for personal and emotional satisfaction. She loved Stephen Tarkman. She admitted the fact now. And she longed to be something special in his life. The fact that it was something utterly paltry which had spoiled the natural development of their friendship only increased the feeling of frustration. To scale tragic heights can be elating and ennobling. To plumb silly and tawdry shallows is a bitter business.

Bearing in mind the charge which Oscar Warrender had laid upon her, Felicity made it her business to have a few words with Janet on most occasions when she came to Tarkmans. There at least there was no shadow on the relationship. And without any difficulty she managed to elicit the fact that so far Julia had made no attempt to intrude into Janet's new life.

'I saw her once when she came to the school with Mr. Tarkman,' Janet volunteered. 'But she didn't say anything to me and I didn't say anything to her. As long as she doesn't come and talk to me alone it's all right,' she added elliptically.

'And you're very soon going to grow out of that feeling too,' Felicity predicted with a smile. 'It belongs to rather childish days, you know. Now that you are growing more confident—'

But she did not even finish the sentence, for she saw that vague look come into Janet's short-sighted eyes, and knew, with a mixture of dismay and irritation, that the child was withdrawing mentally from a discussion which she regarded as more or less meaningless.

'She hasn't changed a bit in that respect,' Felicity told Mary with a sigh, later that evening. 'She's beyond argument where Julia is concerned. I thought after that outburst at the bus stop—'

'What outburst at the bus stop?' Mary looked surprised.

'Oh—' Felicity bit her lip - 'I didn't tell you at the time, did I? I suppose I just tried to forget it myself. It was after Janet's triumphant audition with Stephen and Professor Blackthorn. She and I were waiting for the bus back home and Julia drove up and offered us a lift. I tried quite politely to put her off. But something seemed to get into Janet and she was - well, she was pretty rude and provocative.'

'What did she say?' inquired Mary with the utmost curiosity.

Felicity hesitated. Then the desire to share her anxieties with someone trustworthy suddenly overwhelmed her.

'I'm afraid she said that Stephen Tarkman would never marry Julia—'

'She did? You know, I really like that kid,' declared Mary heartily.

'I didn't like her much at that moment,' replied Felicity grimly. 'She went on to prophesy that he would marry me.'

Mary let out a shout of delighted laughter, and asked, 'What on earth did the Morton say to that?'

'Nothing. But she looked—' Felicity made a slight movement of her shoulders — 'indescribable. I tell you, if a glance could have killed, we'd both have been brought home feet first.'

'You don't say.' Mary looked sympathetic but curious. 'You're a little afraid of her yourself, aren't you?'

'I think her will to harm is quite phenomenal,' Felicity replied slowly. 'But she's basically a stupid woman and I'm not sure that her power to harm amounts to much. All the same, if I believed in hunches—'

She stopped, and Mary said, 'Do you believe in hunches?'

'Not really.' Felicity smiled as she recalled Janet's assertion that her disastrous announcement had been based on a hunch. 'But I'll be glad when Warrender is back in this country. Sometimes my gifted little Janet seems a heavy responsibility.'

'Isn't it a responsibility that's shared with Stephen Tarkman now?'

'Not in the full sense of the term,' Felicity said. And she stifled a sigh again as she turned away, for it seemed to her that nowadays she shared nothing with Stephen. Nothing at all.

She was therefore all the more surprised and pleased when, in the following week, she was asked to dinner at his house. One or two other members of the staff were also invited, and she knew it was not unusual for Stephen to arrange these social gatherings where informal discussion often yielded more interesting results than any formal school meeting could achieve. But, as a part-time member of the staff, she might easily have been passed over, and the fact that he had invited her cheered and pleased her.

To be back once more in the beautiful room where he had first told her he wanted her to teach at Tarkmans was like turning back the clock to happier times. Though when Julia Morton proved to be one of the party she thought that was a repetition of circumstances which she could well have done without.

Even so, she was prepared to enjoy the evening. She was on excellent terms with her colleagues, particularly with Professor Blackthorn, who was also there. And she tried in every way to give the lie to whatever Julia had said of her by being reserved and discreet to the point of self-effacement.

Perhaps that was why Stephen sought her out after dinner and had ten minutes' talk with her on her own. Perhaps that was also why, when she glanced at her watch, he said, 'Don't worry about the time. I'm driving you home.'

It was more than anything she could possibly have hoped — those few precious minutes alone with him in the car — and she could not resist some wild speculation about the possibility of explaining away whatever misunderstanding Julia had so carefully fostered. But good sense told her that dignified silence on the subject would be far better than any clumsy abortive attempt at explanation, and she contented herself with the thought that at least he was not going out of his way to avoid her.

Up to the very last minute of departure she was scared lest anyone else should offer her a lift in circumstances she could hardly refuse. And even when some had departed, and the others were in the hall donning coats and wraps, she tensed at every genial word that was said.

Indeed, when there was a sudden ring at the front door bell and Stephen went to answer it, she felt despairingly sure that someone had come back with the kindly offer to give Miss Grainger a lift. But no beaming fellow-guest stood on the step outside. It was the Matron of Tarkmans who stood there, and although she was usually a very calm and self-possessed person, it was obvious that at this moment she was agitated.

'Oh, Mr. Tarkman, I'm so glad to find you in,' she exclaimed. 'Something very disturbing has happened. One of the children is missing. It's the little new girl — Janet Morton. I looked into her room ten minutes ago, and she's not there. The other two girls who sleep in the room don't know anything about it. At least—'

'I'll come,' Stephen interrupted sharply. 'Felicity, you'd better come too.'

'Yes, of course.' She reached for her coat. And at the same time Julia Morton said, in a resigned sort of tone,

'I'm not a bit surprised. It's her way of drawing attention to herself. She wants you to think she's run away. It's just the sort of self-advertising thing she always did. She's just hiding somewhere. — I'd better come too.'

'You don't need to,' Stephen told her shortly.

'But, Stephen, she is my niece. She's family. And anyway, I expect I can deal with this better than you can.'

It was obvious that she was not going to be brushed off easily, and it was no moment for prolonged argument. Though Felicity thought Stephen would have liked to argue. While the others quickly dispersed, Felicity and the Matron bundled into the back of the car, and Julia seated herself firmly in front with Stephen.

As they shot down the drive towards the main building, Stephen said over his shoulder, 'Do the other two children really know nothing about it, Matron?'

'Well, Isobel Acton — you know, she's the eldest of the three — says Janet was upset when she went to bed. That she cried but wouldn't say why. And she insisted on having her violin with her beside her bed. She seemed nervous about it.'

'Nervous? — About her violin?' Julia laughed her soft, fluting laugh. And to Felicity's stupefaction — and presumably Matron's too — Stephen said savagely, 'Shut up! — What else about the violin, Matron?'

'Only that she's taken it with her.'

'Taken it with her?'

'But her clothes are still there, Mr. Tarkman. That's what is so disturbing. Only her coat is missing. She must have gone out with her coat over her nightdress, taking her violin with her.'

'She's sleep-walking!' cried Felicity softly. 'She did it before, don't you remember, Stephen? Whenever she was deeply upset she tended to walk in her sleep.'

'But why should she be upset?' Stephen jerked the car to a halt in front of the school, and they all hurried out and up the steps. 'I thought she was so happy here.'

'She is — she is. Don't worry.' Instinctively Felicity put a comforting hand on his arm. 'It's nothing to do with Tarkmans.'

He touched her fingers briefly with his other hand, as though grateful for her reassurance, and they all went up to the large, pleasant room which Janet shared with two other children. The younger one was fast asleep again. But Isobel Acton was sitting up, alert and unusually calm and sensible. And in answer to Stephen's request that she should tell them exactly what had happened, she obviously gathered her thoughts carefully together before she said,

'I come to bed later than Janet, you know, and when I came up she was crying — something she'd never done before. I mean, she wasn't at all homesick, like some of the kids, or anything like that. I tried to make her tell me what was wrong — petted her a bit, you know. She's very young for her age in some ways. Younger even than Evangeline—' and she gestured towards Evangeline, whose flushed, angelic countenance looked almost cherubic in the subdued light.

'Did she tell you what was wrong, Isobel?' Stephen asked, quietly but with a slight air of strain.

'She said she was frightened something would happen to her violin — that she didn't think it was safe. She was terribly fond of her violin. Her father gave it to her and he's dead now. I told her it was perfectly safe and asked why she should think anything else. And she said her aunt had been talking to her and said violins were easy to break—'

'Oh, really, she is a little beast,' said Julia languidly. 'What next will she put on to me?'

Isabel paused and looked in surprise at the beautiful woman who had made this interruption, while Stephen turned to Julia and asked curtly, 'Had you said any such thing?'

'No, of course not.' Julia looked bored and contemptuous. 'She was just romancing in the mischief making way she does. I've told you — she's a very dangerous little girl to those she dislikes. You're all taken in because—'

'Had you spoken to her at all today?' Stephen persisted.

'No,' said Julia again. But Felicity noticed — and she thought Stephen noticed too — that there was an infinitesimal pause before the denial that time.

'Go on, Isobel,' said Stephen, turning back to her.

'I said that if she was so worried about the violin she'd better have it upstairs with her. She's only a little kid, really —' Isobel glanced apologetically at Matron - 'even though she's so gifted. And it seemed the best way to pacify her.'

'Yes, of course,' said Stephen quickly, and Matron nodded.

'So I fetched the violin for her and put it by her bed, and she seemed absolutely satisfied. She was asleep before I was undressed. And I fell asleep pretty quickly too. I didn't know anything else until Matron woke me and asked where Janet was.'

'Thank you, Isobel. That's very clear.' Then he turned to Felicity, still with that calm but strained air. 'Where would she make for, Felicity? You know her so much better than the rest of us. Where would she go — sleep-walking?'

'I've been trying to think. All the time Isobel was talking I've been wondering about that. And, although, she may not have got there, I think she'd make for the Emlyns' place. It was home to her. She felt absolutely safe there.'

'She felt safe there,' repeated Stephen softly, and an expression of real pain crossed his face. 'She felt safe there. But not at Tarkmans.'

'Don't think of it like that.' Again she touched his arm in that comforting way. 'It's just that she'd been with Mrs. Emlyn for years. She even had a key of the place, so that she should feel it was always a home. That's the sort of thing which sticks in a child's mind.'

'Yea, of course. But isn't it a terribly long way for her to walk — in her sleep?'

'If she got the whole way, yes. But we don't know when she started, do we? We've just no means of knowing. She may not have gone far. We may pick her up just a little way beyond the gates,' Felicity suggested cheeringly.

But there was no sign of Janet just a little way beyond the gates, nor anywhere on the road to Garmalton. They drove slowly, scanning every turn in the road, exchanging only a brief word now and then, while Julia, who had still insisted on accompanying them, leaned back in her seat and smiled a slight, sceptical smile.

Once she said, 'I think you're on the wrong track entirely. If you ask me, she's hiding somewhere at Tarkmans and playing you up.'

But neither of them took any notice of her.

Within a quarter of a mile of Carmalton, Felicity suddenly gave a gasp and said, 'I've just remembered! The Emlyns went on holiday yesterday. I met Mrs. Emlyn on Saturday, and she told me they were visiting her sister. The house will be empty.5

Stephen gave something like a groan. But then he said, 'She may be there just the same. Didn't you say she had a key?'

"Yes.' Felicity tried not to think of a terrified, bewildered Janet waking in an empty house. 'She — she may be hanging about in the garden even, unable to get in,' she added shakily.

'Then thank God it's not a cold night,' replied Stephen grimly.

And then they were silent again until they came in sight of the Emlyns' small house, which looked terribly, discouragingly dark and empty. It was Felicity who was out of the car almost before it had stopped, and she made a quick gesture to Stephen and muttered, 'It's best I should go alone.'

He must have understood that she meant, 'Keep her out of sight,' for he stayed where he was, though he watched Felicity with painful anxiety as she went up the short path to the door.

She cast a quick glance over the place and, as she did so, her heart gave a great leap of relief, for a faint light showed in the small fanlight above the door. A peculiar light, it was true. One which came and went fitfully.

Then suddenly it blazed into bright light. And she knew with a sickening lurch of her heart that 'blaze' was the right word. Somewhere beyond that front door something was burning. And, as she watched in horrified fascination, the light steadied and grew stronger.

'Janet I' She ran to the side of the house and called up wildly to the window of the child's bedroom. 'Janet! Janet!'

And, with a faint scraping sound, half of the small paned dormer window was pushed open and a small figure appeared in the dim light.

'Miss Grainger? — Miss Grainger?' The voice was vague and puzzled. 'I'm glad you've come — I was frightened — I don't understand. There's a lot of smoke—'

'And the staircase is probably blazing by now,' thought Felicity despairingly, and suddenly realized that Stephen was beside her.

'Janet—' his voice was kind but absolutely authoritative — 'you must get out of the window — and quickly. Miss Grainger and I have a rug. We'll catch you quite easily. Come on — quickly ! There's a good, brave child.'

'I couldn't make the light go on—' she seemed to have some vague idea that she must explain herself. 'I struck some matches. I think the curtains on the stairs caught fire. I've shut the door — but the smoke keeps on coming in—'

'Janet ! Do as I tell you. Climb on the window ledge and sit with your legs outside. It's not far. Just slip down and into the rug. We're ready.'

'There's my violin — I have to take care of my violin—'

'I know. Drop the violin into the rug first then. But hurry !'

Like someone in a slow-motion film, she stooped down and reached for something on the floor. Then presently her hoarse little voice said, 'Be careful with it—' and the violin case came sliding out of the window and into the outstretched rug which Stephen and Felicity were holding between them.

'That's right! See how easy it is,' Stephen encouraged her. 'Now come yourself. Climb on to the window- ledge.'

Obediently she did as he bade her. Her knee was actually on the ledge when there was a great puff of smoke behind her. It curled round and enveloped her and, before their horrified gaze, Janet slid back into the room and there was silence.

CHAPTER NINE

For a few seconds Felicity felt literally paralysed. Even her thoughts stopped dead as she stood staring at the open window from which smoke was now pouring.

Then she heard Stephen say, 'It's the stairs now — or nothing.'

Almost before she realized what he was doing, he had rushed to the car, torn the car-tools from the boot and was back, battering the lock of the front door. While Julia, who had run after him, stood there crying, 'What are you doing? What's happened?'

'The place is on fire,' Felicity told her unnecessarily. 'And Janet's in there. Go and knock up some people from the houses round, can't you? Perhaps someone has a ladder.'

But Julia stood motionless in her turn. And, even as Felicity made a, move to fetch help herself, the door swung open to disclose a blazing staircase.

'No!' cried Julia, on a high, hysterical note. 'Not you, Stephen — not you!' And she flung her arms round him with almost maniac strength.

'Let me go, you fool!' He wrenched at her arms. 'The child will die—'

'Then let her die,' cried Julia wildly. 'She doesn't matter, don't you see? She doesn't matter, beside you. She doesn't matter—'

'Stephen, that staircase won't hold your weight.' That was Felicity, suddenly completely calm. 'It might take mine. I'm going in.'

'No, Felicity!'

But she had already slipped past him and into the house, while he flung Julia from him at last, with such force that she staggered back against the little fence, still repeating the hysterical, self-revealing words, 'She doesn't matter — she doesn't matter!'

To Felicity everything was suddenly like a ghastly dream, except that it was so horrifyingly clear.  The roar of the flames, the frightful heat of the air which seemed to scorch her very lungs, the pain of her hand as she grasped at something for support, and then the swaying and trembling of the blazing stairway as she leapt up it.

She had known everything depended on split-second timing. She was not really surprised to hear half the staircase give way behind her with a rending sound. In that moment the crash was hardly more terrifying than the shower of sparks which stung and singed her.

And then she was in the smoke-filled room, some blessed instinct having guided her to the right door at the first attempt.

'Janet—' she slammed the door behind her, shutting out — but again only for seconds, she knew — the worst of the flames. Coughing and choking, as she tried to draw breath into her bursting lungs, she groped her way to the window and found the little bundle which was Janet huddled there.

She had always thought of her as a lightly-built, almost fragile child, but as Felicity, with a muscle-cracking effort, hauled her from the floor, Janet seemed made of pig-iron. She balanced her at last on the window-sill and vaguely saw that there were quite a lot of people now below.

Someone was calling over and over again that they had a blanket ready — they would catch the child. And with her last bit of strength she pushed Janet out and heard a shout of encouragement from below. Then, with the conviction that she had done what she had come to do, she was overwhelmed by the most utter longing to sink down on the floor and give up the agonizing struggle.

The will to live sank to the bottom of her consciousness. It was no more than the tinkling of a tiny warning bell, incalculably too weak to spur her to the gigantic effort still required. She didn't care — she didn't care—

And then, just as she was slipping into the final depths, something pierced the fog with a poignant sharpness that hurt.

'Felicity!' That was Stephen's voice. She would have known it — and obeyed it — anywhere. 'Jump, Felicity! I'll catch you. Jump, darling!'

He had never called her that before, nor spoken to her with that loving urgency. She must do what he told her, or he would be angry again — and she couldn't bear that. Not after he had called her darling.

Painfully she clambered up what seemed to be a high cliff. Over the top — over the top — then she was falling. Something checked her fall, painfully — but then everything was pain now.

And at least she was in Stephen's arms. Only, incredibly, he was crushing her and handling her roughly. Then someone said, 'Roll her in the blanket — that will put it out.' And she was almost stifled again. Then just as she slipped into unconsciousness someone kissed her and she was nearly sure it was Stephen.

Minutes, hours — perhaps days — later Felicity came drifting back to consciousness. But when she opened her eyes the light hurt, so she closed them again, and she felt faintly sick because that horrible smell of burning was still in her nostrils.

'Felicity—' That was Mary's voice, and it was so wonderful to hear anything so normal and reassuring that the tears came into her eyes.

'Don't cry, dear. You're all right now,' Mary said, and she realized that the silly, weak tears had forced their way from under her lashes.

'I'm not crying — really.' It was strange how husky her own voice sounded. 'Is Janet — all right?'

'She's getting on splendidly. There's nothing wrong which a few days in bed won't set right. She's in the next room.'

'The next room — where?' With an effort Felicity tried to grapple with a new situation.

'In the Cottage Hospital. You were both brought here last night after the fire.'

'And — Stephen?' Felicity whispered. 'Is Stephen all right?'

'Yes, of course. Except that he burnt his hands putting out the flames in your hair and your clothes.'

'My hair?' Feebly she put up a hand towards her hair but somehow could not reach it. 'Is my hair burnt?'

'Not too badly. More singed than frizzled,' replied Mary cheerfully. 'Nothing that won't grow again in a week or two.'

'I suppose that's why I can still smell singeing.'

'Forget about it,' Mary ba-' her kindly but briskly. 'You have no need to worry about anything any more.'

She seemed so sure of this that Felicity accepted the reassurance gratefully and basked in it for a few minutes. But her mind was slowly beginning to work in its accustomed paths again and, after a while, she asked, 'What about Julia?'

'What about her?' Mary countered.

'She went — somehow crazy, you know. She kept on saying Janet didn't matter. — Or did I just imagine that?' Felicity frowned anxiously.

'No, you didn't imagine it,' Mary assured her grimly. 'She was completely hysterical, and all that surface composure cracked like broken enamel. All her hatred of that poor little kid boiled over at the thought of anything happening to Stephen and interfering with the future as she had planned it. It was like people who give themselves away when they're drunk. The façade was gone, and there was nothing to hide the naked, ugly truth.'

'And Stephen — heard her?'

'Heard her? Of course he heard her. Everyone did. I don't imagine she could ever show her face in this district again. Janet needn't worry ever again about Auntie turning up, I can assure you.'

'Oh, I'm glad! She'd managed to frighten Janet again, you know. Waylaid her somehow at Tarkmans, I think, and tormented her by threatening the safety of her violin. That was why the child walked in her sleep.'

'So I gathered from Stephen Tarkman.'

'You — talked to him about it?'

'He vouchsafed me a few agitated words while we were waiting to hear the first report on you,' Mary said amusedly. 'He was in a frightful flap.'

'About Janet?'

'No, idiot — about you. I tried to console him by telling him you were really as tough as old boots, and he seemed to think I was insulting you.'

Felicity laughed a little, looked rather shyly curious and was about to ask some more when Mary said, 'Janet must be a great deal tougher than she looks too. Apparently she walked all the way to the Emlyns' place! I still can't understand why no one saw her and stopped her.'

'There wouldn't be many people on the road at that time of night. We didn't see a soul all the way when we drove in search of her,' Felicity recalled. 'And with her coat on over her nightdress she wouldn't be so conspicuous, I suppose.'

'Of course she would!' Mary countered indignantly. 'A little kid alone at that time of night! But that's the way people are nowadays. They aren't on the lookout to help or involve themselves in case it might mean a bit of trouble or difficulty for them. Why — oh, I'm tiring you.' Suddenly her voice dropped to a very gentle note. 'Don't listen to me, Felicity. Just go to sleep if you feel like it.'

To her surprise, Felicity realized that she did feel like it. So she closed her eyes again. And when she opened them once more it was evening — she could see that by the change in the light - and someone else was sitting by her bed.

'Stephen—' she spoke a little uncertainly.

'I didn't wake you, did I?' He smiled at her slightly, but behind the smile was a taut, strained expression.

'No. And it wouldn't have mattered if you had. Don't look so worried. I'll be as good as new quite soon. How are your poor hands?'

'My hands?' He glanced down at his bandaged right hand. 'Oh, they were only scorched a bit. It's absolutely nothing.'

'Well, I was only scorched a bit too,' she said with a faint smile. And she lay and looked at him with great contentment. But presently, seeing that his expression had not relaxed, she repeated, 'Don't look so worried, Stephen. It's all over now.'

'Yes,' he agreed slowly, 'it's all over now.' And she thought perhaps he was remembering Julia and the hideous minute or two when she had shown herself as she really was. And some innate sense of justice for even the erring Julia made her say, 'She loved you in her way, Stephen, and she didn't want you to go into danger. Perhaps that was as far as she got.'

'She said that Janet didn't matter,' he replied stonily. 'With the house on fire and Janet in there, she could say the child didn't matter. That isn't love — for anyone, Felicity. She was willing — eager — for Janet to die rather than that she should lose the man she wanted. What do you suppose it feels like to be that man? It's like being  tainted with the same ghastly self-absorption.'

'You're being too hard on yourself. Possibly on her too,' Felicity said mildly. 'One doesn't think straight at such a time.'

'You thought straight, didn't you?' he countered almost savagely. 'Your one thought was to save the child. To you she did matter. More than yourself. You went into that house even though it might have meant a horrible death.'

'You were prepared to go in too,' she reminded him.

'Prepared?' he laughed that off contemptuously. 'That's theory, Felicity. It was you who went. I'll never forget that. It was you who went. I was prevented — by someone I should never have allowed to be in the position to prevent me.'

'Oh, well — Now we're complicating the issue rather, aren't we?' Felicity smiled. 'You're getting away from the main point.'

'No,' he countered doggedly, 'that is the main point. I had refused to see Julia as she was, though the opportunity was given to me time and time again. In my arrogance I didn't want to be wrong. If you want the full contemptible admission, I suppose I didn't want you to be right.'

'It was very human,' murmured Felicity. 'And again you needn't be so hard on yourself. In some ways Julia is a very clever woman, and she was ruthlessly determined to marry you, wasn't she?'

'Yet she refused me,' he said curtly.

'On terms?' inquired Felicity with genuine curiosity.

'Yes. How did you know?'

She felt it would be tactless to bring either Anthea or Mary into this, so she simply said, 'I suppose she wanted you to get rid of me?'

'Yes. That interference with my own affairs I did at least resist. But I should have known her then for what she was. I should have made a clean break then.'

It occurred to Felicity to say that perhaps Julia would not have let him. But then she reflected that his self-respect had been bruised enough, and so she changed it and said instead, rather kindly, 'Perhaps you loved her too much to do that.'

'But I didn't, you know.' Suddenly he was like a man dredging out the painful truth from an accumulation of wrong assumptions. 'That's the extraordinary thing. I was intrigued by her, amused, a good deal attracted physically. — Oh, I suppose a bit infatuated. But I know now — I'd suspected it uneasily for some time — I did not love her. And yet I let the situation remain undefined because I wouldn't face the fact that I'd been so wrong. If I'd done so,' he finished bitterly, 'she wouldn't have been there last night. And I would have gone into that house instead of letting you be half killed.'

'I wasn't half killed,' Felicity stated in the interests of accuracy. 'And if Julia ever did anything useful it was in holding you back. Those stairs wouldn't have held you, Stephen. They were pretty well crumbling under my weight. If you'd gone in you'd have been killed, and Janet probably wouldn't have been saved. In fact—' she laughed, compelling him to smile back at her — 'do you realize how much we all owe to Julia?'

'You darling, impossible girl—' he laughed reluctantly. 'It's not true, of course. But you have the most wonderful way of making one feel much better and as though — what was the phrase used by that headmistress of yours? — as though you're still opening window on fresh horizons. Felicity, do you think you could possibly—'

But at that moment, of all moments, there was a little tap, the door opened slowly, and Janet stood in the doorway in a faded hospital dressing-gown and said, 'Can I come in, Miss Grainger?'

'Janet! Come in, darling!' She sat up and actually held out her arms. And Janet, who was not used to having Miss Grainger behave quite so emotionally, ran across and hugged her.

'Are you much hurt?' she asked anxiously.

'No. Are you?' Felicity asked.

Janet shook her head. 'I'm a bit scraped and bruised. And I swallowed a lot of smoke,' she explained, though apparently without any horrifying recollection of her dangerous experience. 'But I'm all right. And so is my violin.'

'Of course. We took good care of that, didn't we?' Felicity smiled at her reassuringly. 'No need to worry about it ever again.'

'No.' Janet shook her head once more and looked singularly happy and contented. 'Because Aunt Julia's gone and won't ever come back.'

'Did Mr. Tarkman assure you of that?' Felicity glanced quickly from Janet to Stephen.

'Oh, no.' Janet gave Stephen a friendly smile which, however, conferred no godlike power upon him. 'Mr. Warrender did.'

'Mr. Warrender? Has he been here, then?' asked Felicity in astonishment.

'He's here now. And so is she,' Janet explained. 'They came about half an hour ago, and they want to know if you can see them. They flew across from America this morning and came straight down here. And Mr. Warrender says Aunt Julia won't ever come near me or my violin again. And that I needn't feel too badly about setting fire to poor Mrs. Emlyn's house, because I didn't know what I was doing so it wasn't really my fault. And he says if the insurance company turns nasty he'll pay. Isn't he wonderful? And will you see him and Mrs. Warrender now?'

'Yes,' said Felicity to all of that.

And Janet went to the door to admit Anthea — smiling but anxious — closely followed by her husband, who was looking a good deal more benevolent and less intimidating than he usually did.

As Anthea tenderly embraced Felicity, with slight exclamations of concern and sympathy, Janet took the conductor by the hand and said kindly, 'I expect you know Mr. Tarkman already, don't you?'

'Since before you were born,' replied Warrender. But he did not withdraw his hand, Felicity noticed, and without even appearing to take particular notice of Janet, he put her into the only remaining chair in the room and stood beside her as he talked to Stephen.

'I'm not going to say too much about what must have been a dreadful experience,' Anthea said, regarding Felicity anxiously. 'But we gather that you've been an absolute heroine, and Oscar just hasn't got words to thank you for looking after Janet to such an incredible degree.'

'I have plenty of words for the subject, as a matter of fact.' The conductor smiled briefly across at Felicity. 'But I generously allowed Anthea first innings. In any case—' he suddenly looked very kind — 'it can't need any words of ours to increase the happiness you must feel over your part in this business.'

'I am happy,' Felicity agreed with a shy smile. And suddenly she knew how profoundly true that was. She was happy in a way she had never known before — with a completeness which comes only once or twice in any lifetime. Happy because Janet was safe after all, and would develop to complete artistic fulfilment in the care of the friends she had now found. Happy because she herself, in a moment of crisis, had instinctively done what was right. Happy, above all — though perhaps on a slightly less exalted plane — because Stephen had said categorically that he did not love Julia Morton.

She took little part in the conversation of the next few minutes, content to drift in a sort of golden haze, picking out only a word here and there. Until Stephen's well-loved voice said quietly, 'We're tiring her.'

And at the same time the door opened to admit a somewhat outraged nurse who exclaimed, 'I said one visitor only! And, Janet Morton, what are you doing here?'

'I'm visiting Miss Grainger, who saved my life,' Janet replied rather grandly. 'And you can't order us all out because this is Mr. Oscar Warrender and he's the greatest conductor in the world.'

'I don't care if he's top of the pops,' replied the nurse briskly, defining fame in her own idiom. 'I'm in charge here and you must all go.'

'Quite right.' The conductor turned on her the unexpected smile which he kept for very special occasions. 'We must all support authority in each other's fields. I'm no more important here than you would be in my orchestra.'

'Oh, well—' she wavered slightly before the famous charm. 'I — I did say one visitor, of course.'

'But I'm not that one,' Warrender assured her. 'Come, it's time we went.' And with singular understanding he put a seemingly careless arm round Janet and gave a summoning glance at his wife.

Both got up immediately. But Stephen asked, rather humbly for him, 'May I stay a few minutes longer?'

'If you must.' The nurse sounded less indulgent to him than she had to the conductor whose famous name she was now just faintly recalling.

'I must,' replied Stephen firmly. And, perhaps because she recognized authority again, she yielded.

Good-byes were exchanged and Felicity watched her well-loved visitors until the door closed behind them and the nurse. Then she turned her head and smiled slowly at Stephen.

'Can you bear just a few more words?' His answering smile was anxious.

'Oh, yes.'

'Then—' Suddenly he seemed strangely unsure of himself, almost stammering in his nervous eagerness. 'We — were interrupted, weren't we?'

'Were we?' She frowned slightly in the effort to recall the point at which their conversation had been broken off.

'Yes. On the famous phrase about opening windows on fresh horizons,' he reminded her urgently. 'And — and I wanted to ask you—' He stopped, and then suddenly he took her in his arms. 'Felicity, I've been such a fool! There are fresh horizons. They've been waiting there all the time. Only I wouldn't let you open the windows for me. — Oh, why am I talking in this damned fanciful way? I love you, Felicity. That's what I'm trying to say. You've given a new meaning, breadth, depth — joy to life. I don't deserve you — arrogant, obstinate, bone-headed creature that I've been, but—'

'Stephen dear !' She put up her hand against his lips. 'I simply don't know you in this mood of self-abasement. I won't have you say such things. If they were true I wouldn't love you, and—'

'Do you love me?' He pushed her hand away quite roughly in order to ask the question.

'Yes, of course,' Felicity said, slightly stunned to find that all she felt, thought, hoped and feared could actually be compressed into three words.

He drew a long breath of exquisite relief. And at the same time the ever-watchful nurse gave a sharp tap of reminder on the door.

'I'm coming — I'm coming,' cried Stephen. And then, forgetting to change his tone in his excitement — 'You will marry me, darling, won't you?'

The nurse opened the door and put her head in.