Margaret might have smiled, if she had not felt that the strange

creature was really and truly suffering, in her own way, to the borders

of distraction. Then, suddenly, the great frame was convulsed again and

quivered from head to foot.

'I'm going to cry,' she announced, in rather shaky tones.

And she cried. She slipped from the piano-stool to the floor, upon her

knees, and her heavy arms fell upon the keys with a crashing discord,

and her face buried itself in the large depths of one bent elbow, quite

regardless of damage to Paquin's masterpiece of a summer sleeve; and

with huge sobs the tears welled up and overflowed, taking everything

they found in their way, including paint, and washing all down between

the ivory keys of Margaret's piano.

Margaret saw that there was nothing to be done. At first she tried to

soothe her as best she could, standing over her, and laying a hand

gently on her shoulder; but Madame Bonanni shook it off with a sort of

convulsive shudder, as a big carthorse gets rid of a fly that has

settled on a part of his back inaccessible to his tail. Then Margaret

desisted, knowing that the fit must go on to its natural end, and that

it was hopeless to try and stop it sooner. Women are very practical

with each other in crying matters, but it is bad for us men if we treat

them in the same sensible way under the identical circumstances.

Margaret sat down again in her chair, and instead of taking up her

work, she leaned forward towards the weeping woman, to be ready with a

word of sympathy as soon as it could be of any use. She watched the

heavy head, the strong and coarse dark hair, the large animal

construction of the neck and shoulders, the massive hands, discoloured

now with straining upon themselves; nothing escaped her, as she quietly

waited for the sobbing to cease; and though she felt the peasant nature

there, close to her, in all its rugged strength, yet she felt, too,

that with certain differences of outward refinement, it was not unlike

her own. Her own hair, for instance, was much finer; but then, fair

hair is generally finer than dark. Her own hands were smaller than

Madame Bonanni's; but then, they had never been used to manual labour

when she had been a girl. And as for the rest of her, she knew that

Madame Bonanni had been reckoned a beauty in her day, such a beauty

that very great and even royal personages indeed had done extremely

foolish things to please her; and that very beauty had been in part the

cause of those very tears the poor woman was shedding now. Margaret was

quite sensible enough to admit that she herself, after a quarter of a

century of stage life, might turn into very much the same type of

woman. While waiting to be sympathetic at the right moment, therefore,

she studied Madame Bonanni's appearance with profound and melancholy

interest. She had never had such a good chance.




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