“Don’t speak to me, anybody,” she said, “because there is nothing whatever to say. That is Martin. I knew it all along. Yes, a shoe, so tiresome, I don’t know how it happens. Thank you, Monsieur Rusoff. Stella dear, we start from Victoria to-morrow morning, not Charing Cross. What did I tell you when we talked last? Do you not see? That is Martin. If any one speaks to me, I shall slap him in the face and burst into floods of tears. I should like to see that darling for one moment, just to tell him that he has not been altogether a failure. Which is the way? I suppose he is drinking porter now, is he not? or is it only singers who do that? Eight o’clock, Stella. Quarter to eight, Frank, because you are always late. Dearest Helen, how is the Bear? Yet Martin has only got eight fingers and two thumbs like the rest of us. And was it not too thrilling at the beginning? I knew exactly how he felt. It was pure toss-up for just one moment whether he would be able to play at all or send us empty away like the “Magnificat.” Through this door, isn’t it?” Karl Rusoff showed her the way through the short passage into the room where two hours ago he had sat with Martin on the verge of hysterics. But now a great shout of boyish laughter hailed them, and Martin went up to Karl, both hands outstretched. “Ah, it was you who pulled me through,” he said. “I couldn’t have begun otherwise. But it hurt you so dreadfully. I--I felt it hurt you. And shall I ever play like that again? I never played like it before!” Karl looked at him a moment without speaking. Then he raised the boy’s hands to his lips and kissed them. “I mean that,” he said. “Ah, Martin, how I mean that!” Martin stood quite still. Had such a thing ever suggested itself as possible to him he would have felt ready to sink into the earth with sheer embarrassment. But now, when the unimagined, the impossible had happened, he felt no embarrassment at all. “You did it all,” he said, simply. “Thank you a hundred thousand times.” Then the pendulum swung back again, and he was a boy himself, and boyishly delighted with success. “Oh, I enjoyed it all so,” he said. “After that first terrible minute, I just revelled in it. Can’t I give another concert this evening?” Here Lady Sunningdale broke in,-- “You not only can, but you must, after dinner,” she said. “Martin, you played really nicely to-day. I am going to begin to practise to-morrow morning. Scales. No, not to-morrow morning, because I shall be otherwise engaged on the English Channel. Why can’t they run a large steam-roller over the sea between Dover and Calais? Nobody can tell me. However, I’m told it is rather healthy than otherwise. My dear, red velvet sofas, tin basins, Stella, and I. Also Suez Canal. Sahara is not yet in a fit state. It is too terrible. Eight o’clock to-night, Martin. And I shall never forgive you for this afternoon. You gave me the worst five minutes I ever had.” “I tried to make up for it,” said he.