'You seem to think it is too little,' observed Madame Bonanni.

'Little?' cried Margaret. 'It's a fortune!' 'You may talk of a fortune when you get three hundred pounds a night,'

said Lushington. 'But it is a good beginning. I wonder that

Schreiermeyer agreed to it so easily.' 'Easily!' Madame Bonanni laughed. 'I wish you had been there, my dear

boy! He kicked and screamed, and we called him bad names. The King told

him he was a dirty little Jew, which he is not, poor man, but it had a

very good effect.' 'Oh!' Lushington did not seem surprised at the royal personage's

reported language. 'Then it was the King who passed me in that smart

brougham? I thought so.' 'Yes,' answered Madame Bonanni rather brusquely, and she became very

busy with some little birds.

'It's funny,' Margaret said to Lushington. 'One always imagines a king

with a crown and a sort of ermine dressing-gown, and a sceptre like the

Lord Mayor's mace! Of course it s perfectly ridiculous, isn't it?' 'I believe His Majesty possesses those things,' answered Lushington, as

if he did not like the subject.

'He looked and talked much more like an old friend than anything else,'

Margaret went on, remembering that Madame Bonanni had used the same

expression before Schreiermeyer.

To her surprise and sudden discomfiture neither of the two paid the

least attention to her remark.

'What train shall you take, mother?' asked Lushington so abruptly upon

Margaret's speech that she understood her mistake.

Though she had guessed something, it had somehow not occurred to her to

connect the royal personage with Madame Bonanni's past; but now she

scarcely dared to glance at Lushington. When she did, he seemed to be

avoiding her eyes again, and she saw the old look of pain in his face,

though he was talking about the timetables and the turbine

channel-boat.

'You must come over to London and see me before your début, my dear,'

Madame Bonanni said, breaking off the discussion of trains and turning

to Margaret. 'That is, if Schreiermeyer will let you,' she added. 'You

will have to do exactly what he tells you, now, and he is always right.

He will be a father to you, now that he is going to make money out of

you.' 'Will he call me his "darling"?' inquired Margaret, with a shade of

anxiety.

'Of course he will! And when you sing well he will kiss you on both

cheeks.' 'Indeed he won't!' cried Margaret, turning red.




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