"My dear young lady—"
"Not another word; and I beg your pardon most heartily for having given you this moment's annoyance."
"There is one of the lessees there," said M. Le Gros, pointing back to the gentleman on the top of the steps, "who has been to hear you and to look at you this two times—this three times at 'The Embankment.' He do think you will become the grand singer of the age."
"Who is the judicious gentleman?" asked Rachel, whispering to M. Le Gros out of the carriage.
"He is Lord Castlewell. He is the eldest son of the Marquis of Beaulieu. He have—oh!—lots of money. He was saying—ah! I must not tell you what his lordship was saying of you because it will make you vain."
"Nothing that any lord can say of me will make me vain," said Rachel, chucking up her head. Then his lordship, thinking that he had been kept long enough standing on the top of the theatre steps, lifted his hat and came down to the carriage, the occupant of which he had recognised.
"May I have the extreme honour of introducing Mademoiselle O'Mahony to Lord Castlewell?" and M. Le Gros again pulled off his hat as he made the introduction. Miss O'Mahony found that she had become Mademoiselle as soon as she had drawn up her carriage at the front door of the genuine Italian Opera.
"This is a pleasure indeed," said Lord Castlewell. "I am delighted—more than delighted, to find that my friend Le Gros has engaged the services of Mademoiselle O'Mahony for our theatre."
"But our engagement does not commence quite yet, I am sorry to say," replied Rachel. Then she prepared herself to be driven away, not caring much for the combination of lord and lessee who stood in the street speaking to her. A lessee should be a lessee, she thought, and a lord a lord.
"May I do myself the honour of waiting upon you some day at 'The Embankment,'" said the lord, again pulling off his hat.