n, will you forgive me if I ask Evelyn to sing
for us? You'd like to hear her sing--wouldn't you?"

Owen sprang to his feet.

"Of course, of course. Come, Miss Innes, you will sing for us. I have
been boring you long enough, haven't I? And you'll be glad to get to
the piano. Who will accompany you?"

"You, Sir Owen, if you will be kind enough."

The card-players were glad to lay down their cards and the women to
cease talking of their friends' love affairs. All the world over it
is the same, a soprano voice subjugating all other interests;
soprano or tenor, baritone much less, contralto still less. Many
came forward to thank her, and, a little intoxicated with her
success, she began to talk to some of her women friends, thinking it
unwise to go back into a shadowy corner with Owen, making herself
the subject of remark; for though her love story with Owen Asher had
long ceased to be talked about, a new interest in it had suddenly
sprung up, owing to the fact that she had sent Owen away, and was
thinking of becoming a nun--even to such an extent her visit to the
convent had been exaggerated; and as the women lagging round her had
begun to try to draw from her an account of the motives which had
induced her to leave the stage, and the moment not seeming opportune,
even if it were not ridiculous at any moment to discuss spiritual
endeavour with these women, she determined to draw a red herring
across the trail. She told them that the public were wearying of
Wagner's operas, taste was changing, light opera was coming into
fashion.

"And in light opera I should have no success whatever, so I was
obliged to turn from the stage to the concert-room."

"We thought it was the religious element in Wagner."

A card party had come from a distant drawing-room and joined in the
discussion regarding the decline of art, and it was agreed that
motor-cars had done a great deal to contribute--perhaps they had
nothing to do with the decline of Wagner--but they had contributed
to the decline of i

William Babington Maxwell (18661938) was a British novelist. He was a son of novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Though nearly 50 years old at the outbreak of the First World War, he was accepted as a lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers and served in France until 1917.

Cyrus Townsend Brady (December 20, 1861 January 24, 1920) was a journalist, historian and adventure writer. His most well-known work is Indian Fights and Fighters. He was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. He was also a deacon in the Episcopal church. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. His second wife was Mary Barrett.

Rebecca Sophia Clarke (1833-1906), also known as Sophie May, was an American author of childrens fiction. Using her nieces and nephews as inspiration, she wrote realistic stories about children. She wrote 45 books between 1860 and 1903. The most popular being the Little Prudy books. She lived most of her life in her native town of Norridgewock, Maine, where she lived out her life with her sister, who was also a successful author.