In Brunnhilde and Elizabeth all the humanity she represented--and she thought she was a fairly human person--was on the stage. But Elsa? That was the one part she was dissatisfied with. There were people who liked her Elsa. Oh, her Elsa had been greatly praised. Perhaps she was mistaken, but at the bottom of her heart she could not but feel that her Elsa was a failure. The truth was that she had never understood the story. It began beautifully, the beginning was wonderful--the maiden whom everyone was persecuting, who would be put to death if some knight did not come to her aid. She could sing the dream--that she understood. Then the silver-clad knight who comes from afar, down the winding river, past thorpe and town, to release her from those who were plotting against her. But afterwards? This knight who wanted to marry her, and who would not tell his name. What did it mean? And the celebrated duet in the nuptial chamber--what did it mean? It was beautiful music--but what did it mean? Could anyone tell her? She had often asked, but no one had ever been able to tell her. She knew very well the meaning of the duet, when Siegfried adventures through the fire-surrounded mountain and wakes Brunnhilde with a kiss. That duet meant the joy of life, the rapture of awakening to the adventure of life, the delight of the swirling current of ephemeral things. And the duet that she was going to sing; she knew what that meant too. It meant the desire to possess. Desire finding a barrier to complete possession in the flesh would break off the fleshly lease, and enter the great darkness where alone was union and rest. But she could not discover the idea in the "Lohengrin" duet? Senta she understood, and she thought she understood Kundry. She had not yet begun to study the part. But Elsa? Suddenly the thought that, if she was going to Dulwich, she must get up, struck her like a spur, and she sprang out of bed, and laying her finger on the electric bell she kept the button pressed till Merat arrived breathless. "Merat, I shall get up at once; prepare my bath, and tell the coachman I shall be ready to start in twenty minutes." "Twenty minutes? Mademoiselle is joking." "No, I am not ... in twenty minutes--half-an-hour at the most." "It would be impossible for me to dress you in less than three-quarters of an hour." "I shall be dressed in half-an-hour. Go and tell the coachman at once; I shall have had my bath when you return." Her dressing was accomplished amid curt phrases. "It doesn't matter, that will do.... I can't afford to waste time.... Come, Merat, try to get on with my hair." And while Merat buttoned her boots, she buttoned her gloves. She wore a grey, tailor-made dress and a blue veil tied round a black hat with ostrich feathers. Escaping from her maid's hands, she ran downstairs. But the dining-room door opened, and Lady Duckle intervened. "My dear girl, you really cannot go out before you have had something to eat."