Margaret was not quite sure how she could find her way to Madame

Bonanni's dressing-room at the Opéra, but she had no intention of

missing the appointment. The most natural and easy way of managing

matters would be to ask her teacher to go with her, and she could then

spend the night at the latter's house. She accordingly stopped there

before she went to the station.

The elderly artist burst into tears on hearing the result of the

interview with Madame Bonanni, and fell upon Margaret's neck.

'I knew it,' she said. 'I was sure of it, but I did not dare to tell

you so!' Margaret was very happy, but she was a little nervous about her frock

and wondered whether tears stained, as sea water does. The old singer

was of a very different type from Madame Bonanni, and had never enjoyed

such supremacy as the latter, even for a few months. But she had been

admired for her perfect method, her good acting, and her agreeable

voice, and for having made the most of what nature had given her; and

when she had retired from the stage comparatively young, as the wife of

the excellent Monsieur Durand, she had already acquired a great

reputation as a model for young singers, and she soon consented to give

lessons.

Unfortunately, Monsieur Durand had made ducks and drakes of

her earnings in a few years, by carefully mis-investing every penny she

possessed; but as he had then lost no time in destroying himself by the

over-use of antidotes to despair, such as absinthe, his widow had soon

re-established the equilibrium of her finances by hard work and was at

the present time one of the most famous teachers of singers for the

stage. Madame Durand was a Neapolitan by birth and had been known to

modest fame on the stage as Signora De Rosa, that being her real name;

for Italian singers seem to be the only ones who do not care for

high-sounding pseudonyms. She was a voluble little person, over-flowing

with easy feeling which made her momentarily intensely happy,

miserable, or angry, as the case might be. Whichever it might be, she

generally shed abundant tears.

Margaret went back to Versailles feeling very happy, but determined to

say nothing of what had happened except to Mrs. Rushmore, who need only

know that Madame Bonanni had spoken in an encouraging way and wished to

see her at the theatre. For the girl herself found it hard to believe

half of what the prima donna had told her, and was far from believing

that she was on the eve of signing her first engagement.




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