She was very conscious of the effect her hair was or ought to be producing.... As a matter of fact, nobody was either looking at her or listening to her with any particular interest or eagerness. She was awakened from her egoistic dreams by the half-hearted applause of those people who by divine instinct know when a piece is coming to an end several bars ahead, and start their applause at the last bar but one.... She bowed graciously in front of the piano, and tripped lightly behind the scenes. The applause did not justify an encore.... She had made up her mind as she played the concluding chords of the Concert Study: If I am given an encore, I will do all those things I omitted to do before: I will polish my hands, adjust the stool, push back the music-rest, have the sound-board lifted, run up with arpeggios on the tonic.... But she was not given an encore. In the artists’ room behind the scenes nobody took much notice of her. Fred Hitchcock, a local tenor with baritone leanings, was giving final frenzied directions to his accompanist, a large-featured female with an excessively low and powdered neck. “Go slow over that twiddly bit,” he whispered, catching hold of her to lead her on to the platform. “And don’t forget to give me the leading note in the adagio.” His hoarse voice merged into the buzz of sound that came down the corridor leading to the platform. She overheard a conversation. “What was that thing that girl played?” “What girl?” “The girl with the red hair.” “Oh, I don’t know--some Liszt thing, I think.” “Classical?” “S’pose so ... of course, nobody listens to pianoforte solos nowadays....” “They’re too common, that’s what it is. Everybody strums on the piano, more or less.” “I suppose you went to hear Razounov?” “No, I couldn’t get a seat. The Hippodrome was full of people who went to see him do something eccentric.” “Did he?” “No, as it happened. A friend told me he just came on the platform, played like an angel for two hours, and went off again. Of course everybody was greatly disappointed.” “Naturally....” “Bockley isn’t a musical suburb. It doesn’t even think it is. Whereas Upton Rising thinks it is and isn’t.... I wish that pianoforte player of ours wouldn’t show so much of her red hair and try to look like a female Beethoven....” “Oh, shut up--she’s probably somewhere about, she’ll hear you....”