CHAPTER XX.
THE CAGE DOOR For the first few days succeeding Lord St.John's departure from Trenby Hall, matters progressed comparatively smoothly.

Then, as his influence waned with absence, the usual difficulties reappeared, the old hostilities--hostilities of outlook and generation--arising once more betwixt Nan and Lady Gertrude.

Mutual understanding is impossible between two people whose sense of values is fundamentally opposed, and music, the one thing that had counted all through Nan's life, was a matter of supreme unimportance to the older woman.

She regarded it--or, indeed, any other form of art, for that matter--as amongst the immaterial fripperies of life, something to be put aside at any moment in favour of social or domestic duties.

It signified even less to her than it did to Eliza McBain, to whom it at least represented one of the lures of Satan--and for this reason could not be entirely discounted.
Since Sandy's stimulating visit Nan had devoted considerable time to the composition of her concerto, working at it with a recrudescence of her old enthusiasm, and the work had been good for her.