“But you said only the other day, dear” (it was the pained yet patient mother’s voice speaking) “that Miss Findlay was a splendid teacher and thought so highly of you. Besides, poor thing, you know her circumstances and what the loss of a pupil means to her, quite apart from the hurt to her feelings.”

From the window now Joanna was watching two pigeons, burnished on their high perch by the hidden sunset. They sat on the ledge of a house opposite, one motionless as a carved bird, the other making his toilet. With gentle yet precise movements the male arranged his breast and back feathers, unfolded, folded, and refolded his wings; and when at length all was to his liking, he sidled caressingly up to his mate.

“Of course,” shouted Georgie, “if you are going to sacrifice my career to charity!”

At that word, as at a signal, both pigeons took flight, Joanna followed their swift passage across the clear cube of sky, then sighing turned to face the dark interior.

III

Georgie had her way and went to Dresden. The photographs of Joachim and Neruda vanished from the bedroom mantelpiece. The motto, “Genius consists in an infinite capacity for taking pains,” which had been pinned up also, went along with them in Georgie’s trunk. And at first the family felt a strange blank in the mornings, no longer being awakened by the thin scrape of exercises in the third position.

Though Georgie did not realize it, her victory was due, not so much to her own forcefulness as to her mother’s desire that she should be provided with the means of earning her own livelihood. Secretly Juley disbelieved in Georgie’s dreams of the conceit platform. But if the girl really loved music she would be the better equipped for having studied abroad. Matrimony in Juley’s eyes was not a thing to be sought for its own sake, and if her daughters neither married nor felt the call to be missionaries, they would have to do something for themselves. Sholto’s estate when divested of his legacies to charity, had not amounted to more than £7,000; and when this should come at Juley’s death to be divided, equally between the four children, the portions would not be large.

With the same practical end in view, Joanna was allowed to forsake her High School for the School of Art when she was barely seventeen, and not yet in the sixth form. For some time it had been understood at home that Joanna should become an artist. She was neat fingered. Her mother always counted on her to print the invitations and decorate the collection card for the monthly Jewish meeting held in the drawing-room: and at school she generally carried off a second prize for drawing. What sort of an artist she wanted to become she did not yet know, but that could be decided later.