The Primadonna Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  The position of a successful lyric primadonna with regard to otherartists and the rest of the world is altogether exceptional, andis not easy to explain. Her value for purposes of advertisementapparently exceeds that of any other popular favourite, not to mentionthe majority of royal personages. A respectable publisher has beenknown to bring out a book in which he did not believe, solely becausea leading lyric soprano promised him to say in an interview that itwas the book of the year. Countless brands of cigars, cigarettes,wines and liquors, have been the fashion with the flash crowd thatfrequents public billiard-rooms and consumes unlimited tobacco anddrink, merely because some famous 'Juliet' or 'Marguerite' has'consented' to lend her name to the articles in question; and halfthe grog-shops on both sides of the Atlantic display to the admiringstreet the most alarming pink and white caricatures, or monstrouslyenlarged photographs, of the three or four celebrated lyric sopranoswho happen to be before the public at any one time. In the popularmind those artists represent something which they themselves do notalways understand. There is a legend about each; she is either anangel of purity and light, or a beautiful monster of iniquity; shehas turned the heads of kings--'kings' in a vaguely royalplural--completely round on their shoulders, or she has built out ofher earnings a hospital for crippled children; the watery-sentimentaleye of the flash crowd in its cups sees in her a Phryne, a Mrs. Fry,or a Saint Cecilia. Goethe said that every man must be either thehammer or the anvil; the billiard-room public is sure that everyprimadonna is a siren or a martyred wife, or else a publicbenefactress, unless she is all three by turns, which is even moreinteresting.

  In any case, the reporters are sure that every one wants to know justwhat she thinks about everything. In the United States, for instance,her opinion on political matters is often asked, and is advertisedwith 'scare-heads' that would stop a funeral or arrest the attentionof a man on his way to the gallows.

  Then, too, she has her 'following' of 'girls,' thousands of whom haveher photograph, or her autograph, or both, and believe in her, and areready to scratch out the eyes of any older person who suggests thatshe is not perfection in every way, or that to be a primadonna likeher ought not to be every girl's highest ambition. They not onlyworship her, but many of them make real sacrifices to hear her sing;for most of them are anything but well off, and to hear an opera meansliving without little luxuries, and sometimes without necessaries, fordays together. Their devotion to their idol is touching and true; andshe knows it and is good-natured in the matter of autographs for them,and talks about 'my matinee girls' to the reporters, as if thoseeleven thousand virgins and more were all her younger sisters andnieces. An actress, even the most gifted, has no such 'following.' Thegreatest dramatic sopranos that ever sing Brunhilde and Kundryenjoy no such popularity. It belongs exclusively to the nightingaleprimadonnas, whose voices enchant the ear if they do not alwaysstir the blood. It may be explicable, but no explanation is at allnecessary, since the fact cannot be disputed.

  To this amazing popularity Margaret Donne had now attained; and shewas known to the matinee girls' respectful admiration as MadameCordova, to the public generally and to her comrades as Cordova, tosentimental paragraph-writers as Fair Margaret, and to her friends asMiss Donne, or merely as Margaret. Indeed, from the name each persongave her in speaking of her, it was easy to know the class to whicheach belonged.

  She had bought a house in London, because in her heart she stillthought England the finest country in the world, and had never feltthe least desire to live anywhere else. She had few relations left andnone whom she saw; for her father, the Oxford scholar, had not hadmoney, and they all looked with disapproval on the career she hadchosen. Besides, she had been very little in England since herparents' death. Her mother's American friend, the excellent Mrs.Rushmore, who had taken her under her wing, was now in Versailles,where she had a house, and Margaret actually had the audacity to livealone, rather than burden herself with a tiresome companion.

  Her courage in doing so was perhaps mistaken, considering what theworld is and what it generally thinks of the musical and theatricalprofessions; and Mrs. Rushmore, who was quite powerless to influenceMargaret's conduct, did not at all approve of it. The girl's will hadalways been strong, and her immense success had so little weakenedher belief in herself, or softened her character, that she had grownalmost too independent. The spirit of independence is not a fault inwomen, but it is a defect in the eyes of men. Darwin has proved thatthe dominant characteristic of male animals is vanity; and what isto become of that if women show that they can do without us? If theemancipation of woman had gone on as it began when we were boys, weshould by this time be importing wives for our sons from Timbuctoo orthe Friendly Islands. Happily, women are practical beings who rarelystray far from the narrow path along which usefulness and pleasure maystill go hand in hand; for considering how much most women do thatis useful, the amount of pleasure they get out of life is perfectlyamazing; and when we try to keep up with them in the chase afteramusement we are surprised at the number of useful things theyaccomplish without effort in twenty-four hours.

  But, indeed, women are to us very like the moon, which has shown theearth only one side of herself since the beginning, though she haswatched and studied our world from all its sides through uncountedages. We men are alternately delighted, humiliated, and terrified whenwomen anticipate our wishes, perceive our weaknesses, and detect ourshortcomings, whether we be frisky young colts in the field or soberstagers plodding along between the matrimonial shafts in harness andblinkers. We pride ourselves on having the strength to smash theshafts, shake off the harness, and kick the cart to pieces if wechoose, and there are men who can and do. But the man does not livewho knows what the dickens women are up to when he is going quietlyalong the road, as a good horse should. Sometimes they are driving us,and then there is no mistake about it; and sometimes they are justsitting in the cart and dozing, and we can tell that they are behindus by their weight; but very often we are neither driven by them norare we dragging them, and we really have not the faintest idea wherethey are, so that we are reduced to telling ourselves, with a littlenervousness which we do not care to acknowledge, that it is noble andbeautiful to trust what we love.

  A part of the great feminine secret is the concealment of thatindependence about which there has been so much talk in our time. Asfor suffrage, wherever there is such a thing, the woman who does notvote always controls far more men's votes than the woman who goes tothe polls, and has only her own vote to give.

  Margaret, the primadonna, did not want to vote for or againstanything; but she was a little too ready to assert that she could andwould lead her own life as she pleased, without danger to her goodname, because she had never done anything to be ashamed of. Thenatural consequence was that she was gradually losing somethingwhich is really much more worth having than commonplace, technicalindependence. Her friend Lushington realised the change as soon as shelanded, and it hurt him to see it, because it seemed to him a greatpity that what he had thought an ideal, and therefore a naturalmanifestation of art, should be losing the fine outlines that hadmade it perfect to his devoted gaze. But this was not all. His ratherover-strung moral sense was offended as well as his artistic taste.He felt that Margaret was blunting the sensibilities of her femininenature and wronging a part of herself, and that the delicate bloomof girlhood was opening to a blossom that was somewhat too evidentlystrong, a shade too vivid and more brilliant than beautiful.

  There were times when she reminded him of his mother, and those weresome of the most painful moments of his present life. It is true thatcompared with Madame Bonanni in her prime, as he remembered her,Margaret was as a lily of the valley to a giant dahlia; yet when herecalled the sweet and healthy English girl he had known and loved inVersailles three years ago, the vision was delicate and fairy-likebeside the strong reality of the successful primadonna. She was sovery sure of herself now, and so fully persuaded that she was notaccountable to any one for her
doings, her tastes, or the choice ofher friends! If not actually like Madame Bonanni, she was undoubtedlybeginning to resemble two or three of her famous rivals in theprofession who were nearer to her own age. Her taste did not run inthe direction of white fox cloaks, named diamonds, and imperial jadeplates; she did not use a solid gold toothbrush with emeralds set inthe handle, like Ismail Pacha; bridge did not amuse her at all, norcould she derive pleasure from playing at Monte Carlo; she did noteven keep an eighty-horse-power motor-car worth five thousand pounds.Paul Griggs, who was old-fashioned, called motor-cars 'sudden-deathcarts,' and Margaret was inclined to agree with him. She cared fornone of these things.

  Nevertheless there was a quiet thoroughgoing luxury in her existence,an unseen private extravagance, such as Rufus Van Torp, themillionaire, had never dreamt of. She had first determined to be asinger in order to support herself, because she had been cheated ofa fortune by old Alvah Moon; but before she had actually made her_debut_ a handsome sum had been recovered for her, and though she wasnot exactly what is now called rich, she was at least extremely welloff, apart from her professional earnings, which were very largeindeed. In the certainty that if her voice failed she would alwayshave a more than sufficient income for the rest of her life, andconsidering that she was not under the obligation of supporting anumber of poor relations, it was not surprising that she should spenda great deal of money on herself.

  It is not every one who can be lavish without going a little beyondthe finely-drawn boundary which divides luxury from extravagance; foruseless profusion is by nature as contrary to what is aesthetic as fatin the wrong place, and is quite as sure to be seen. To spend wellwhat rich people are justified in expending over and above an ampleprovision for the necessities and reasonable comforts of a largeexistence is an art in itself, and the modest muse of good taste lovesnot the rich man for his riches, nor the successful primadonna for thethousands she has a right to throw away if she likes.

  Mr. Van Torp vaguely understood this, without at all guessing how thegreat artist spent her money. He had understood at least enough tohinder him from trying to dazzle her in the beginning of the New Yorkseason, when he had brought siege against her.

  A week after her arrival in London, Margaret was alone at her pianoand Lushington was announced. Unlike the majority of musicians in realfiction she had not been allowing her fingers to 'wander over thekeys,' a relaxation that not seldom leads to outer darkness, where theconsecutive fifth plays hide-and-seek with the falling sub-tonic tosuperinduce gnashing of teeth in them that hear. Margaret was learningher part in the _Elisir d'Amore_, and instead of using her voice shewas whistling from the score and playing the accompaniment. The oldopera was to be revived during the coming season with her and thegreat Pompeo Stromboli, and she was obliged to work hard to have itready.

  The music-room had a polished wooden floor, and the furnitureconsisted chiefly of a grand piano and a dozen chairs. The walls weretinted a pale green; there were no curtains at the windows, becausethey would have deadened sound, and a very small wood fire was burningin an almost miniature fireplace quite at the other end of the room.The sun had not quite set yet, and as the blinds were still open,a lurid glare came in from the western sky, over the houses on theopposite side of the wide square. There had been a heavy shower, butthe streets were already drying. One shaded electric lamp stood on thedesk of the piano, and the rest of the room was illuminated by theyellowish daylight.

  Margaret was very much absorbed in her work, and did not hear the dooropen; but the servant came slowly towards her, purposely making hissteps heard on the wooden floor in order to attract her attention.When she stopped playing and whistling, and looked round, the man saidthat Mr. Lushington was downstairs.

  'Ask him to come up,' she answered, without hesitation.

  She rose from the piano, went to the window and looked out at thesmoky sunset.

  Lushington entered the room in a few moments and saw only the outlineof her graceful figure, as if she were cut out in black against theglare from the big window. She turned, and a little of the shadedlight from the piano fell upon her face, just enough to show him herexpression, and though her glad smile welcomed him, there was anxietyin her brown eyes. He came forward, fair and supernaturally neat, asever, and much more self-possessed than in former days. It was nottheir first meeting since she had landed, for he had been to see herlate in the afternoon on the day of her arrival, and she had expectedhim; but she had felt a sort of constraint in his manner then, whichwas new to her, and they had talked for half an hour about indifferentthings. Moreover, he had refused a second cup of tea, which was a suresign that something was wrong. So she had asked him to come again aweek later, naming the day, and she had been secretly disappointedbecause he did not protest against being put off so long. She wonderedwhat had happened, for his letters, his cable to her when she had leftAmerica, and the flowers he had managed to send on board the steamer,had made her believe that he had not changed since they had partedbefore Christmas.

  As she was near the piano she sat down on the stool, while he took asmall chair and established himself near the corner of the instrument,at the upper end of the keyboard. The shaded lamp cast a little lighton both their faces, as the two looked at each other, and Margaretrealised that she was not only very fond of him, but that his wholeexistence represented something she had lost and wished to get back,but feared that she could never have again. For many months she hadnot felt like her old self till a week ago, when he had come to seeher after she had landed.

  They had been in love with each other before she had begun her career,and she would have married him then, but a sort of quixotism, whichwas highly honourable if nothing else, had withheld him. He had feltthat his mother's son had no right to marry Margaret Donne, though shehad told him as plainly as a modest girl could that she was not of thesame opinion. Then had come Logotheti's mad attempt to carry her offout of the theatre, after the dress rehearsal before her debut, andMadame Bonanni and Lushington between them had spirited her away justin time. After that it had been impossible for him to keep up thepretence of avoiding her, and a sort of intimacy had continued, whichneither of them quite admitted to be love, while neither would havecalled it mere friendship.

  The most amazing part of the whole situation was that Margaret hadcontinued to see Logotheti as if he had not actually tried to carryher off in his motor-car, very much against her will. And in spite offormer jealousies and a serious quarrel Logotheti and Lushington spoketo each other when they met. Possibly Lushington consented to treathim civilly because the plot for carrying off Margaret had socompletely failed that its author had got himself locked up onsuspicion of being a fugitive criminal. Lushington, feeling that hehad completely routed his rival on that occasion, could afford to begenerous. Yet the man of letters, who was a born English gentleman onhis father's side, and who was one altogether by his bringing up, wasconstantly surprised at himself for being willing to shake hands witha Greek financier who had tried to run away with an English girl; andpossibly, in the complicated workings of his mind and conflictingsensibilities, half Anglo-Saxon and half Southern French, his presentconduct was due to the fact that Margaret Donne had somehow ceased tobe a 'nice English girl' when she joined the cosmopolitan legion thatmanoeuvres on the international stage of 'Grand Opera.' How could a'nice English girl' remain herself if she associated daily withsuch people as Pompeo Stromboli, Schreiermeyer, Herr Tiefenbach andSignorina Baci-Roventi, the Italian contralto who could pass for a manso well that she was said to have fought a real duel with sabres andwounded her adversary before he discovered that she was the very ladyhe had lately left for another--a regular Mademoiselle de Maupin! Hadnot Lushington once seen her kiss Margaret on both cheeks in a momentof enthusiastic admiration? He was not the average young man who fallsin love with a singer, either; he knew the stage and its depths onlytoo well, for he had his own mother's life always before him, aperpetual reproach.

  Though Margaret had at first revolted in
wardly against the details ofher professional surroundings, she had grown used to them by sure andfatal degrees, and things that would once have disgusted her wereindifferent to her now. Men who have been educated in conditions ofordinary refinement and who have volunteered in the ranks or gone tosea before the mast have experienced something very like what befellMargaret; but men are not delicately nurtured beings whose bloom isdamaged by the rough air of reality, and the camp and the forecastleare not the stage. Perhaps nothing that is necessary shocks reallysensible people; it is when disagreeable things are perfectly uselessand quite avoidable--in theory--that they are most repugnant to menlike Edmund Lushington. He had warned Margaret of what was in storefor her, before she had taken the final step; but he had not warnedhimself that in spite of her bringing-up she might get used to itall and end by not resenting it any more than the rest of theprofessionals with whom she associated. It was this that chilled him.

  'I hope I'm not interrupting your work,' he said as he sat down.

  'My work?'

  'I heard you studying when they let me in.'

  'Oh!'

  His voice sounded very indifferent, and a pause followed Margaret'smild ejaculation.

  'It's rather a thankless opera for the soprano, I always think,' heobserved. 'The tenor has it all his own way.'

  '_The Elisir d'Amore_?'

  'Yes.'

  'I've not rehearsed it yet,' said Margaret rather drearily. 'I don'tknow.'

  He evidently meant to talk of indifferent things again, as at theirlast meeting, and she felt that she was groping in the dark forsomething she had lost. There was no sympathy in his voice, nointerest, and she was inclined to ask him plainly what was the matter;but her pride hindered her still, and she only looked at him with anexpression of inquiry. He laid his hand on the corner of the piano,and his eyes rested on the shaded lamp as if it attracted him.Perhaps he wondered why he had nothing to say to her, and why she wasunwilling to help the conversation a little, since her new part mightbe supposed to furnish matter for a few commonplace phrases. The smokysunset was fading outside and the room was growing dark.

  'When do the rehearsals begin?' he asked after a long interval, and asif he was quite indifferent to the answer.

  'When Stromboli comes, I suppose.'

  Margaret turned on the piano stool, so as to face the desk, and shequietly closed the open score and laid it on the little table on herother side, as if not caring to talk of it any more, but she did notturn to him again.

  'You had a great success in New York,' he said, after some time.

  To this she answered nothing, but she shrugged her shoulders a little,and though he was not looking directly at her he saw the movement,and was offended by it. Such a little shrug was scarcely a breach ofmanners, but it was on the verge of vulgarity in his eyes, becausehe was persuaded that she had begun to change for the worse. He hadalready told himself that her way of speaking was not what it had beenlast year, and he felt that if the change went on she would sethis teeth on edge some day; and that he was growing more and moresensitive, while she was continually becoming less so.

  Margaret could not have understood that, and would have been hurt ifhe had tried to explain it. She was disappointed, because his lettershad made her think that she was going to find him just as she had lefthim, as indeed he had been till the moment when he saw her after herarrival; but then he had changed at once. He had been disappointedthen, as she was now, and chilled, as she was now; he had felt that hewas shrinking from her then, as she now shrank from him. He suffered agood deal in his quiet way, for he had never known any woman who hadmoved him as she once had; but she suffered too, and in a much moreresentful way. Two years of maddening success had made her very surethat she had a prime right to anything she wanted--within reason! Ifshe let him alone he would sit out his half-hour's visit, making anidle remark now and then, and he would go away; but she would not lethim do that. It was too absurd that after a long and affectionateintimacy they should sit there in the soft light and exchangeplatitudes.

  'Tom,' she said, suddenly resolving to break the ice, 'we havebeen much too good friends to behave in this way to each other. Ifsomething has come between us, I think you ought to tell me--don'tyou?'

  'I wish I could,' Lushington answered, after a moment's hesitation.

  'If you know, you can,' said Margaret, taking the upper hand andmeaning to keep it.

  'That does not quite follow.'

  'Oh yes, it does,' retorted Margaret energetically. 'I'll tell youwhy. If it's anything on your side, it's not fair and honest to keepit from me after writing to me as you have written all winter. But ifit's the other way, there's nothing you can possibly know about mewhich you cannot tell me, and if you think there is, then some one hasbeen telling you what is not true.'

  'It's nothing against you; I assure you it's not.'

  'Then there is a woman in the case. Why should you not say so frankly?We are not bound to each other in any way, I'm sure. I believe I onceasked you to marry me, and you refused!' She laughed rather sharply.'That does not constitute an engagement!'

  'You put the point rather brutally, I think,' said Lushington.

  'Perhaps, but isn't it quite true? It was not said in so many words,but you knew I meant it, and but for a quixotic scruple of yours weshould have been married. I remember asking you what we were makingourselves miserable about, since we both cared so much. It was atVersailles, the last time we walked together, and we had stopped, andI was digging little round holes in the road with my parasol. I'm notgoing to ask you again to marry me, so there is no reason in the worldwhy you should behave differently to me if you have fallen in lovewith some one else.'

  'I'm not in love with any one,' said Lushington sharply.

  'Then something you have heard about me has changed you in spite ofwhat you say, and I have a right to know what it is, because I've donenothing I'm ashamed of.'

  'I've not heard a word against you,' he answered, almost angrily. 'Whydo you imagine such things?'

  'Because I'm honest enough to own that your friendship has meant agreat deal to me, even at a distance; and as I see that it has brokenits neck at some fence or other, I'm natural enough to ask what thejump was like!'

  He would not answer. He only looked at her suddenly for an instant,with a slight pinching of the lids, and his blue eyes glittered alittle; then he turned away with a displeased air.

  'Am I just or not?' Margaret asked, almost sternly.

  'Yes, you are just,' he said, for it was impossible not to reply.

  'And do you think it is just to me to change your manner altogether,without giving me a reason? I don't!'

  'You will force me to say something I would rather not say.'

  'That is what I am trying to do,' Margaret retorted.

  'Since you insist on knowing the truth,' answered Lushington, yieldingto what was very like necessity, 'I think you are very much changedsince I saw you last. You do not seem to me the same person.'

  For a moment Margaret looked at him with something like wonder, andher lips parted, though she said nothing. Then they met again and shutvery tight, while her brown eyes darkened till they looked almostblack; she turned a shade paler, too, and there was something almosttragic in her face.

  'I'm sorry,' Lushington said, watching her, 'but you made me tellyou.'

  'Yes,' she answered slowly. 'I made you tell me, and I'm glad I did.So I have changed as much as that, have I? In two years!'

  She folded her hands on the little shelf of the empty music desk, bentfar forwards and looked down between the polished wooden bars at thestrings below, as if she were suddenly interested in the mechanism ofthe piano.

  Lushington turned his eyes to the darkening windows, and both sat thusin silence for some time.

  'Yes,' she repeated at last, 'I'm glad I made you tell me. It explainseverything very well.'

  Still Lushington said nothing, and she was still examining thestrings. Her right hand stole to the keys, and she
pressed down onenote so gently that it did not strike; she watched the little hammerthat rose till it touched the string and then fell back into itsplace.

  'You said I should change--I remember your words.' Her voice was quietand thoughtful, whatever she felt. 'I suppose there is something aboutme now that grates on your nerves.'

  There was no resentment in her tone, nor the least intonation ofsarcasm. But Lushington said nothing; he was thinking of the time whenhe had thought her an ideal of refined girlhood, and had believed inhis heart that she could never stand the life of the stage, and wouldsurely give it up in sheer disgust, no matter how successful she mightbe. Yet now, she did not even seem offended by what he had told her.So much the better, he thought; for he was far too truthful to takeback one word in order to make peace, even if she burst into tears.Possibly, of the two, his reflections were sadder than hers just then,but she interrupted them with a question.

  'Can you tell me of any one thing I do that jars on you?' she asked.'Or is it what I say, or my way of speaking? I should like to know.'

  'It's nothing, and it's everything,' answered Lushington, takingrefuge in a commonplace phrase, 'and I suppose no one else would evernotice it. But I'm so awfully sensitive about certain things. You knowwhy.'

  She knew why; yet it was with a sort of wonder that she asked herselfwhat there was in her tone or manner that could remind him of hismother; but though she had spoken quietly, and almost humbly, a coldand secret anger was slowly rising in her. The great artist, who heldthousands spellbound and breathless, could not submit easily to losingin such a way the only friendship that had ever meant much to her. Theman who had just told her that she had lost her charm for him meantthat she was sinking to the level of her surroundings, and he was theonly man she had ever believed that she loved. Two years ago, and evenless, she would have been generously angry with him, and would havespoken out, and perhaps all would have been over; but those two yearsof life on the stage had given her the self-control of an actress whenshe chose to exercise it, and she had acquired an artificial commandof her face and voice which had not belonged to her original frank andsimple self. Perhaps Lushington knew that too, as a part of the changethat offended his taste. At twenty-two, Margaret Donne would havecoloured, and would have given him a piece of her young mind veryplainly; Margarita da Cordova, aged twenty-four, turned a triflepaler, shut her lips, and was frigidly angry, as if some ignorantmusic-hall reporter had attacked her singing in print. She wasconvinced that Lushington was mistaken, and that he was merelyyielding to that love of finding fault with what he liked which afamiliar passage in Scripture attributes to the Divinity, but withwhich many of us are better acquainted in our friends; in her opinion,such fault-finding was personal criticism, and it irritated hervanity, over-fed with public adulation and the sincere praise ofmusical critics. 'If you don't like me as I am, there are so manypeople who do that you don't count!' That was the sub-conscious formof her mental retort, and it was in the manner of Cordova, and not ofMargaret.

  Once upon a time, when his exaggerated sense of honour was driving himaway, she had said rather foolishly that if he left her she would notanswer for herself. She had felt a little desperate, but he had toldher quietly that he, who knew her, would answer for her, and her moodhad changed, and she had been herself again. But it was different thistime. He meant much more than he said; he meant that she had loweredherself, and she was sure that he would not 'answer' for her now. Onthe contrary, it was his intention to let her know that he no longerbelieved in her, and perhaps no longer respected or trusted her. Yet,little by little, during their last separation, his belief in her, andhis respect for her, had grown in her estimation, because they alonestill connected her with the maidenliness and feminine refinement inwhich she had grown up. Lushington had broken a link that had beenstrong.

  She was at one of the cross-roads of her life; she was at a turningpoint in the labyrinth, after passing which it would be hard to comeback and find the right way. Perhaps old Griggs could help her if itoccurred to him; but that was unlikely, for he had reached the agewhen men who have seen much take people as they find them. Logothetiwould certainly not help her, though she knew instinctively that shewas still to him what she had always been, and that if he ever had theopportunity he sought, her chances of escape would be small indeed.

  Therefore she felt more lonely after Lushington had spoken than shehad ever felt since her parents had died, and much more desperate. Butnothing in the world would have induced her to let him know it, andher anger against him rose slowly, and it was cold and enduring, asthat sort of resentment is. She was so proud that it gave her thepower to smile carelessly after a minute's silence, and she asked himsome perfectly idle questions about the news of the day. He shouldnot know that he had hurt her very much; he should not suspect for amoment that she wished him to go away.

  She rose presently and turned up the lights, rang the bell, andwhen the window curtains were drawn, and tea was brought, she dideverything she could to make Lushington feel at his ease; she did itout of sheer pride, for she did not meditate any vengeance, but wasonly angry, and wished to get rid of him without a scene.

  At last he rose to go away, and when he held out his hand there was adramatic moment.

  'I hope you're not angry with me,' he said with a cheerful smile, forhe was quite sure that she bore him no lasting grudge.

  'I?'

  She laughed so frankly and musically after pronouncing the syllable,that he took it for a disclaimer.

  So he went away, shutting the door after him in a contented way,not sharply as if he were annoyed with her, nor very softly andconsiderately as if he were sorry for her, but with a moderate,businesslike snap of the latch as if everything were all right.

  She went back to the piano when she was alone, and sat down on themusic-stool, but her hands did not go to the keys till she was surethat Lushington was already far from the house.

  A few chords, and then she suddenly began to sing with the full powerof her voice, as if she were on the stage. She sang Rosina's song inthe _Barbiere di Siviglia_ as she had never sung it in her life, andfor the first time the words pleased her.

  '... una vipera saro!'

  What 'nice English girl' ever told herself or any one else that shewould be a 'viper'?