In the Trant household the musical evening was an institution. Rarely a month passed by unhonoured by one of these functions. Commencing at seven or thereabouts on a Saturday evening, they lasted till past midnight. They possessed a regular clientele of attenders, as well as a floating population of outsiders who had never been before and who (from more reasons, perhaps, than one) might never come again. The drawing-room at “Highfield” was large, but it never comfortably held the miscellaneous crowd that assembled in it on the occasion of these musical evenings. In winter you were either unbearably hot (near the fire) or unbearably cold (near the window), and in summer, without exception, you were always unbearably hot. Moreover, you were so close to your neighbour on the overcrowded settee that you could see the perspiration draining into her eyebrows. From a dim vista obscured by cigarette smoke there came the sound of something or other, indescribably vague and futile, a drawing-room ballad sung by a squeaky contralto, a violin solo by Dvořák, or a pompous Beethovian hum on the piano. However beautiful and forceful might be the music, it was always vague and futile to you, because you were watching your neighbour’s eyebrows act as a sponge to the down-trickling perspiration.... Always in these musical evenings there was banality. Always beauty was obscured by bathos. And could you ever forget the gymnastic evolutions of a settleful of musical enthusiasts balancing cups of steaming hot coffee on their knees? ... The day before Christmas Day was a Saturday. For Christmas Eve a musical evening had been arranged--a musical evening that, out of deference to the season, was to surpass all previous undertakings of the kind. Catherine was invited, and would, of course, be one of the principal performers. In virtue of her intimate relation to George she had come early in the afternoon and stayed to tea. Her usual weekly lesson from Verreker was cancelled for this particular week, probably owing to Christmas. So she would be able to spend the entire evening at “Highfield.” She was in buoyant spirits, chiefly owing to her rapidly advancing fame as a pianist. She had the feeling that her presence at the Trants’ musical evening was an act almost of condescension on her part, and it pleased her that the Trants treated her as if this were so. She would undoubtedly be, in music-hall parlance, the star turn of the evening. People, unknown aspirants after musical fame, would point her out as one who had already arrived at the sacred portals. She knew also that Mrs. Trant had been sending round messages to friends that ran more or less after this style: “You simply _must_ come to our musical evening on Christmas Eve! It is going to be an awfully big affair, and we have got Cathie Weston coming down to play--you know, the girl who----” The whole business tickled Catherine’s vanity.