“It must be managed,” she said. “I will write to father to-morrow, telling him all that has happened. You must write, too; Lady Sunningdale must write. Poor father! We must give him no peace till he lets Martin study. What are we to do?” “You must think it over, and tell me if I can be of any use,” said he. “I am entirely at your disposition. Anyhow, there is a fortnight for him in London. And you? You came up to-day, did you not? Ah, before I forget. Lady Sunningdale is coming to my box at the opera to-morrow night. Please come, too. She, Martin, you, I. Just we four.” Those last three words gave him extraordinary pleasure. “But are you sure you have room for me?” asked Helen. “Lady Sunningdale is so kind: she is dumping me at all her friends’ houses, upsetting their dinner-tables right and left, and there is no earthly reason to suppose they want me.” “I want you,” said Frank, simply, and again the words pleased him. “Thank you, very much. Where is she, by the way? Will you take me to her? She probably wants to go home. I see people are leaving.” “It is conceivable she is having supper,” said Frank, gravely. “Let us go and see.” Karl Rusoff attended to Lady Sunningdale’s wants, which were rather extensive, but lingered after she had left, and when the rooms were growing empty he came up to Martin. “My dear Mr. Challoner,” he said, “I am sure you have had enough compliments paid you by this time. So allow a very rude old Russian, who has no manners at all, to take you into a corner and talk to you for a little.” Martin turned a brilliant glance, vivid, and full of huge, youthful enjoyment on him. He knew, he could not help knowing, how complete had been his success, and coming straight from the country and from that home where he was officially an idler, almost a black sheep, into this cultured, critical world, the knowledge had somewhat intoxicated him. It was like coming out of some dark, dripping tunnel into the light of a noonday and flying along through a kingdom that was his. For he, he had been the central figure; round him had crowds collected, for him ears had been alert and applause had burst. Artist as he was by nature, and caring, therefore, infinitely more for his art then for any adventitious success that he might achieve by it, he would not have been human, and certainly not young, if this evening had not been honey and wine to his boyish heart. For, except to the sour, success is sweet, and it is only the cynic and the unsuccessful who affect to find applause hollow. And Martin was emphatically neither cynic nor sour: the world seemed to him the most excellent habitation. But he detached himself at once from the group which was round him; he was still sufficiently master of himself to know that it was probably better worth his while to listen to Karl Rusoff talking sense than to any one else who might have pleasant things to say, and they passed out of the supper-room into the now deserted room where he had played.