she meant I suppose was consecutive fifths; you can’t invert a fifth. So I said (I really meant it as a joke), ‘Of course there is that, but you must forgive Debussy that for the sake of that wonderful passage of submerged tenths!’ And she took it quite gravely and shook her head, and said she was afraid she was a purist. What happened next? That’s all I know.”
“Directly afterwards,” said Georgie, “she brought the music to me, and asked me to show her where the passage of tenths came. I didn’t know, but I found some tenths, and she brightened up and said ‘Yes, it is true; those submerged tenths are very impressive.’ Then I suggested that the submerged tenth was not a musical expression, but referred to a section of the population. On which she said no more, but when she went away she asked me to send her some book on ‘Harmony.’ I daresay she is looking for the submerged tenth still.”
Olga lit a cigarette and became grave again.
“Well, it can’t go on,” she said. “We can’t have the poor thing feeling angry and out of it. Then there was Mrs Quantock absolutely refusing to let her see the Princess.”
“That was her own fault,” said Georgie. “It was because she was so greedy about the Guru.”
“That makes it all the bitterer. And I can’t do anything, because she blames me for it all. I would ask her and her Peppino here every night, and listen to her dreary tunes every evening, and let her have it all her own way, if it would do any good. But things have gone too far; she wouldn’t come. It has all happened without my noticing it.
