Madame Bonanni sat in the spring sunshine by the closed window of her

sitting-room in London; she was thankful that there was any sunshine at

all, and by keeping the window shut and wrapping herself in furs she

produced the illusion that it was warming her. The room was not very

large and a good deal of space was taken up by a grand piano, a good

deal more by the big table and the heavy furniture, and the rest by

Madame Bonanni herself. Her bulk was considerably increased by the

white furs, from which only her head emerged; and as her face was made

up for the day with rather more paint than she wore in Paris, on the

ground that London is a darker city, the effect of the whole was highly

artificial and disconcerting. One might have compared the huge bundle

of white to an enormous egg out of which a large and very animated

middle-aged fowl was just hatching.

Lushington was seated before the open piano, but had turned half away

from it on the stool and was looking quietly at his mother. His face

had an expression of listless weariness which was not natural to him.

Madame Bonanni moved just then and the outer fur slipped a little from

its place. Lushington rose at once and arranged it again.

'Will you have anything else over you, mother?' he asked.

'No, my child. I am warm at last. Your English sun is like stage

lime-light. It shines, and shines, and does no good! The man turns it

off, and London is pitch dark! Nothing warms one here but eating five

times a day and wearing a fur coat all the time. But I am growing old.

Why do you say I am not? It is foolish.' 'Your voice is as perfect as ever,' said Lushington.

'My voice, my voice! What did you expect? That it would crack, or that

I should sing false? Ungrateful boy! How can you say such things of

your mother? But I am growing old. Soon I shall make the effect on the

public of a grandmother in baby's clothes. Do you think I am blind?

They will say, "Poor old Bonanni, she remembers Thiers!" They might as

well say at once that I remember the Second Empire! It is infamous!

Have people no heart? But why do I go on singing, my dear? Tell me

that! Why do I go on?' 'Because you sing as well as ever,' suggested Lushington gently.

'It is no reason why I should work as hard as ever! Why should I go on

earning money, money, money? Yes, I know! They come to hear me, they

crowd the house, they pay, they clap their hands when I sing the mad

scene in Lucia, or Juliet's waltz song, or the crescendo trills in

the Huguenots! But I am old, my dear!' 'Nonsense!' interjected Lushington in an encouraging tone.




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