But she could not sing. It was the worst kind of English singing, all volume and emphasis and pressure. Was there that in her goodness too ... deliberate kindness to everybody. Was that a method--just a social method? She was one of those people about whom it would be said that she never spoke ill of anyone. But was not indiscriminate deliberate conscious goodness to everybody an insult to humanity? People who were like that never knew the difference between one person and another. 'Philanthropic' people were never sympathetic. They pitied. Pity was not sympathy. It was a denial of something. It assumed that life was pitiful. Yet her clear eyes would see through anything, any evil thing to the human being behind. But she knew it, and practised it like a doctor. She had never been amazed by the fact that there were any human beings at all ... and with all her goodness she had plans and ambitions. She wanted to be a singer--and she was thinking about somebody. Men were dazzled by the worldly little secretary and they reverenced the singer and her kind. Irreligious men would respect religion for her sake--and would wish, thinking of her, to live in a particular kind of way; but she would never lead a man to religion because she had no thoughts and no ideas. The surprise of finding these two women here and the pain of observing them was a just reward for having come to Miss Szigmondy's At Home without a real impulse--just to see the musicians and to be in the same room with them. All that remained was to write to someone about them by name. There was nothing to do but mention their names. There was no wonder about them. They were all _fat_. Not one of them was an artist and they all hated each other. It was like a ballad concert. They all sang in the English way. They were not in the least like the instrumentalists; or St. James's Hall Saturday afternoon audiences, not that kind of "queer soft lot"; not shadowy grey or dead white or with that curious transparent look; they all looked ruddy or pink, and sleek; they had the same sort of kindly commonsense as Harriett's Lord and Lady Bollingdon ... perhaps to keep a voice going it was necessary to be fat. CHAPTER XIV 1