“Oh, yes, I know all about it. Flossy told me. She likes being at school much better than on the stage.”
“They were very kind to me. It was like a bit of a romance. She used to ask me questions about England. Why, they don’t make her teach, do they? What a shame!”
“Arthur, what nonsense!” cried his sister. “But Violante just bewitches people.”
“Well! she doesn’t look fit to light her way. By the by, Hugh, Jem told me that you and he saw her act. It was rather a failure, wasn’t it?”
As no one had expected Hugh to take any particular interest in this conversation his dead silence surprised no one. A great fern hid him from his mother, and no one else looked at or thought of him. He answered Arthur, mechanically:
“I believe it was considered so.”
“But was her voice so lovely?” said Freddie.
“They said so, I think.”
“Oh, Hugh!” said his mother, laughing, “what opportunities you throw away. We must ask Jem, Arthur?”
“Ay, I should think Jem would have been enraptured. I thought of him when I saw her in the golden sunshine piling up the grapes, and they gave me coffee because I was tired and thirsty. I can’t believe she could do anything so prosaic as teach.”