Every note she played was a mistake. She altered pace, she ignored rhythm. She tried for expression when the notes escaped her. She wallowed desperately on through the thickening disapproval of Miss Strickland’s portentous silence. Miss Strickland considered that she was giving Elsie a chance. Elsie knew exactly what the Sonata sounded like to Miss Strickland—she had the vision of the disciple into the mind of the master. She knew she was inflicting torture upon her ideal human being—but still she inflicted it, having grasped that obedience is better than sacrifice, even the sacrifice of the feelings of the one you are bound to obey. Blandina before the maddened cow in the Coliseum could not have shown a more desperate courage. At the end Miss Strickland said with deceptive calm, “You cannot like music, it is impossible! What on earth persuaded you to suggest that I should teach you?” For a long while Elsie said nothing; she seemed engrossed in folding up the Sonata. Then she lifted her rather weak eyes to Miss Strickland’s face; she had no colour at all, her very lips were white—“Because I liked you—” she stammered. “I wanted you to speak to me—even if you were angry——” Miss Strickland was not an expert in Biblical language—but there was a quotation which attacked her mind at that moment, and which stuck in her memory for years afterwards: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” She was the first to look away. If there was one thing Miss Strickland had always set her face against, it was school-girl devotions. If she had any reason for supposing that any particular girl was guilty of such a sentiment towards herself, she crushed it ruthlessly within the hour of its conception. But there was something in Elsie’s eyes which was different from anything she had seen in the eyes of other girls. It would not be an easy act for a strong swimmer to deprive a drowning man of his straw. As far as life was concerned Miss Strickland was a strong swimmer, and Elsie was a drowning man, her hopeless, helpless eyes said it. She had this one desire, this one strange, pitiful claim upon the Universe, and having made it, she was prepared to drown. She said no more. She did not cry, she sat and trembled on her music stool, looking dumbly at Miss Strickland’s face. Miss Strickland hesitated. She had always worked on principle before—girls below a certain standard were Miss Saunders’ pupils, girls above it were hers. It is not easy to break a principle at one’s own expense. Then she said with conscious dryness, “Well—we must see what we can do with you.” She had not taken away the straw. The small figure beside her gave a long sigh of relief.