This was a little mistake on Mr. Ferguson's part; he did not calculate on his visitor's questioning his subordinate, who happened to be a young man with a taste for the violin.
"Did you know a Mr. Lalli who was once in the orchestra here?" said Flossy graciously.
"Oh, yes, ma'am! He was here for a very long time."
"Do you know where he used to live?"
"Yes, ma'am, No.—, Euston Road; it's a boarding-house, kept by a Mrs. Wadsley. He died there."
Quite astonished by her own success, Flossy slipped a coin into his hand and made him call her a hansom cab. She was beginning to think of speed more than of the probability of being recognised in the London streets.
To Mrs. Wadsley's then in all haste. The dingily respectable air of the house and of the proprietress herself at once impressed Mrs. Vane with the idea that Mr. Ferguson had been largely drawing on his own imagination with respect to Cynthia West. Nothing certainly could be more idyllic than the story of Lalli's devotion to the girl, whom he had brought home one night with an assurance to Mrs. Wadsley that she was the daughter of an old friend, and that he would be responsible for the payment of her board and lodging until she began to earn her own living.
"He was just like a father to her," said Mrs. Wadsley confidentially; "and teach her he would, and scold her sometimes by the hour together. I assure you, Mrs. Vane, it was wonderful to see the pains that he took with her. I see in the papers that she has been singing at concerts lately; and I said to my friend Mrs. Doldrum, 'How pleased poor dear old Mr. Lalli would have been if he had known!'"
"He was quite an old man, I suppose?" said Mrs. Vane. "There was no talk of marriage between them—of an attachment of any kind?"
Mrs. Wadsley drew herself up in rather an offended manner.