All these mingled sentiments had led him to the course of conduct which he had pursued for some time before Janet’s appearance, but into which her sudden appearance had imported a little difference. It will be seen that these vague and mingled sentiments were entirely unlike that for which he had credit in the mind of Augusta Harwood--the steady and serious love by which she supposed him to be moved. The foregone conclusion of a happy marriage, a household equally respectable, and still more bright than that in which the preliminaries took place had no existence. It was always on the cards, of course, that Gussy Harwood and he might marry and settle down together. It would not be a very romantic conclusion, still Meredith was aware that he himself was not at all a romantic personage, and it would not in any way be a bad arrangement. But where was the need of going so far as that? He liked to know where he could spend an evening pleasantly when he pleased; he liked to hear the sound of his own voice, and even to feel that the voice of the other performer was not likely to beguile the applauses of their audience away from himself--when they had an audience; he liked to have those excellent dinners from time to time, with the other man who could not help perceiving how entirely the entertainment was for Meredith’s gratification. All these things were very pleasant, and Mrs. Harwood was quite able, no doubt, to take care of her own daughter and all the _convenances_, and it was none of his business to watch over Gussy in case his continual visits should be misunderstood. But the concert had certainly made a little crisis in this easy intercourse--the concert and Janet’s appearance on the scene, and the little excitement she had produced, and the additional signs of regard it had been necessary to lavish upon Gussy, to make her feel herself always the first person, notwithstanding any interest that another might call forth. He had felt that a great step had been taken in that concert. To be sure it could not, strictly speaking, be asserted to mean anything at all. A duet between a soprano and a tenor--what more innocent? Their voices suited; what had their persons or their lives to do with it? Charles Meredith knew, however, that though this might be true enough in the case of most tenors and sopranos, it would not be true as between Gussy Harwood and himself. The audience was not an audience drawn from the larger public, which might have known nothing further, but a St. John’s Wood audience, which knew everything about him, and that he visited the Harwoods “every day of his life.” This was not exactly true, but it was how he heard it stated in the dark, outside the concert-room, by one of the departing hearers. All those present knew them, and knew all about them, and naturally made their remarks: “Of course it will be a match; he is there every day of his life.”